Abstract

The dialogue presented here has its origins in an initiative promoted by Rome's Pigorini Museum in June 2008, entitled "Museo e diaspora. Maschere e identità plurali" (Museum and diaspora. Masks and plural identities). Filomeno Lopes' contribution goes over some of the classic arguments of postcolonial criticism on ethnographic museology, considered as a mirror and manifestation of the epistemological violence which western "disciplines" have turned on indigenous populations. The reply from the anthropologist Giusy Muzzopappa picks up these themes, collocating them in the larger frame of the history of ethnographic museology: she maintains that in the last few decades museum anthropology has undergone a decisively reflective turn, closely examining its own practices and seeking to incorporate into these postcolonial self-awareness and critique. Finally, Vito Lattanzi, also an anthropologist from Rome's Pigorini museum, comments on the dialogue presenting an articulated frame of the activities and ethical and epistemological dilemmas which characterise ethnographic museums in today's Europe.