Back to the future. Squaring folk life and cultural diversity at the Alsace Ecomuseum

ABSTRACT Museums today are confronted by the demands of finding a path towards the future that will engage visitors of all ages and origins without sidestepping current debate or glossing over aspects of ‘hard history’ implicit in their local or national settings. This is especially true of rural life museums that often deal with village life and agriculture while now catering mainly to city-dwellers. With its ‘Theatre of Agriculture’ set in the programme of ‘Living in the 21st Century’, the Ecomuseum of Alsace is working out new ways to link its collections, its buildings and land, its many skills-holders, and its interpretation practices, to an over-arching strategy bridging Alsatian tradition and present-day diversity. This paper explores the strategies adopted by the museum in navigating these tensions.