A Maya Community Museum in Belize: Planning and Development of the Museum

The Maya people of southern Belize are in the process of creating, with the Government of Belize, a large-scale Maya homeland controlled collectively by the Q’eqchi’ Maya people. The Penn Cultural Heritage Center of the Penn Museum has been approached to create a community museum in the village of Indian Creek, located within the proposed homeland. Indian Creek is the location of an ancient Maya site that attracts several thousand tourists each year – but this brings little benefit to the local community. A major question in the museum world is focused on the ways to create a de-colonial institution. This project will examine the importance of community museums as possibly the only type of museum that is not embedded within a colonialism structure. Community museums are focused upon ideas of self-identity and representation, the foundational frameworks for social justice in the 21st century. This project will examine the importance and primacy of various issues related to indigenous identity and representation, along with issues of sustainability and economic growth within the region.