Heimatfabrik Lokalmuseum

Heimatfabrik Lokalmuseum offers a fresh look at local history museums. On the basis of detailed case studies, supplemented by a quantitative study of some 350 museums in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the Belgian region of Wallonia, the author analyses the presentations of rural life museums, city museums, industrial museums, war museums and museums dealing with migration. What stories do they tell? Do they exclude some stories? How do they deal with linguistic, religious, cultural and social minorities? The book clarifies the concept of homeland in Luxembourg and in Wallonia, an interplay between the German-speaking-world’s classical concept of Heimat and the French human geographers’ valorization of the landscape, as it has been understood since the middle of the 19th century. These different approaches as to what is perceived as a close circle of social cohesion have led to different types of local history museums in the German- and French speaking areas, which the author presents in a historical perspective.