Rupture and continuity: the future of tradition in museology

Recently in Museu do Indio, a national institution in Rio de Janeiro safeguarding an important part of Brazilian indigenous heritage, conservators discussed a new method for the preservation of ethnographic collections. Based on local knowledge, museum professionals considered using a chopped banana stem as a new technology for pest control in one of the museum’s most sensitive reserves. According to one of the museum’s conservators, this method helps to avoid the infestation of organic mater...