ABSTRACT
Ethnographic cultural village museums that bring together tangible and intangible cultural heritage can now be found throughout many Asia-Pacific countries. Although influences in their development may be traced back to the open-air folk museum movements in Europe and North America, these cultural village museums often have differing underlying principles to their Western counterparts, with national politics playing a leading role. In South-east Asia, two significant examples of this form of museum are located in China and in Indonesia, respectively. The China Folk Culture Villages project was established in 1991 at Shenzhen in the Gaundong Province of China, within the Special Economic Zone created to stimulate development. In Indonesia, the Tamin Mini museum was initiated in the early 1970s by Mrs Tien Suharto, the wife of the second president. Common to both of these museums has been the recognition of cultural diversity within a unifying nationalist framework. However, if decisions about what is to be presented and how it is to be displayed are state-driven, who is in control of, and who is allowed to participate in, the process?
