Local Culture, the Environment, and Place-Making

This chapter looks at museums in the “ecomuseum” mode that serve to forge a “sense of place” for local communities. The Lanyang Museum (蘭陽博物館‎), opened in 2010, is a natural history museum focused on the “mountains, plains, and ocean” of Yilan county where it is located. The linchpin in a network of museums in the county, it both offers Yilan people cultural outlets and forms of cultural identification and stimulates tourism and economic development. Gold Museum Park (黃金博物園區‎), or Gold Ecological Park, struggled initially to live up to the ecomuseum ideal, but it eventually developed a close working relationship with the local community of Jinguashi, where it is located. The idea of the ecomuseum goes well beyond matters of local identity; it also sits well with a particular image of Taiwan and Taiwan national identity. With community-oriented ecomuseums dotting the national map, Taiwan becomes a nation of identifiable communities that are simultaneously unique and part of a diverse whole.