The ICOM International Committee for Museology (ICOFOM) and the ICOFOM Regional Subcommittee for Latin America and the Caribbean (ICOFOM LAM) will jointly hold their Annual Conferences in the cities of Cordoba and Alta Gracia, Argentina, from October 5 to October 15, 2006. The National University of Cordoba has gently offered the Hall of Grades of its prestigious House of Study to attend the Opening Ceremony.

The main topic will deal with Museology and History and the working programme will explore the complex links of Museology, a science that studies the relationship between man and a specific reality -that of the musealized heritage- and History as a science, including the aesthetic and political representations in relation to the transmission of memory and social legitimation.

The agenda will include debates, conferences, thematic visits to the most important museums of Cordoba City, as well as a tour to the World Heritage Jesuit Estancias. The visits to these heritage sites include a series of lectures offered by outstanding specialists to widen and enrich the scope of the scientific debates, which will take place at the Alta Gracia Jesuit National Museum from October 8 to October 10. This museum is one of the most important Jesuit Estancias, declared by UNESCO World Heritage in recognition for its historical influence in the region.

During the ICOFOM Annual Conference held in Calgary (Canada) in June/July 2005, Cordoba, Argentina, was chosen the headquarters of the meeting, as it was considered an appropriate place to carry out the discussions on Museology and History. In this province, certain historical events took place which left a deep impression in the Argentine and South American social and cultural development. Its museums point out the rich aboriginal past, the Spanish influence, the foundings of one of the first American Universities, the establishment of the first industries and the resulting social and labor movements of the 20 century. Due to its university and to its industrial conditions, Cordoba is considered in Argentina and in Latin America a place of high intellectual level where, during the past century, important and revolutionary movements took place.

We understand that the topic Museology and History goes further than the simple relationship between museology and historical museums. Among the proposed subjects we consider it important to explore the relationship of museology with historiographical reasoning, present in museums of any typology.

We hope that the working documents will truly reflect the way in which museums have influenced the historical and social development of the different peoples, the way in which museology and museums have presented the events, the social history and the micro-history. Museums, whatever their typology, confront us with tangible and intangible signs of the past. It is well-known that they have given historical value to different types of sciences, according to the viewpoint of each age. It’s not by chance that we have seen at the end of the 20 and the beginning of the 21 centuries, the development of museums that centre their concerns on social history and in the use of the past as a forecast of the future.

Cordoba is a province not only rich in history, but also in beautiful landscapes. The soft and quiet mountains, plowed with lakes, rivers and streams, are ready to welcome the members of ICOFOM and ICOFOM LAM. An Organizing Committee, supervised by the ICOFOM LAM President, Prof. Nelly Decarolis, is adjusting all the details in order to receive important visitors from all over the world, planning the appropriate places to carry out the academic and social activities as well as the services of simultaneous translation and a series of guided visits to places of historical interest, accompanied by well-known specialists. The post-conference trip through the Quebrada de Humahuaca, panoramic corridor running by the Andes mountain range, will finally allow the participants to be connected with the very heart of the Latin American history.

We specially invite you to start thinking on the proposed subject in order to send your contributions without delay.

Cordoba awaits you in 2006!