Immigration Generates Negative Heritage: The Role of the Museum

Immigration museums will not conceal the fact that immigration entails cruel events for the migrants. But they fail to promote ethical norms to prevent cruelty from being reiterated today; they do not archive it. They archive the reconciliation. Thus, visiting such museums seems to be an appeasement ritual by which only the bright side of the migrants’ trajectories is taken into account. The negativity is confined to marginal texts and chronologies, testimonies and pieces of art, which, although they provide food for thought, do not lead to critical and historical knowledge. As a result, the political dimension of those museums dissipates.