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Abstract(s)
The Louvre Abu Dhabi has opened in November 2017 on Saadiyat Island. The cultural
cooperation between France and the UAE to build the first universal museum in the region
provides a variety of elements that this research intends to conciliate, contextualise and explore
under the scope of culture studies in order to address the museum institution not necessarily as
a repository for works of art and their conservation, but rather as an object through which power
dynamics operate. As constantly evolving and redefined place, this dissertation interrogates the
21st century’s museum institution and its missions through the case study of the Louvre Abu
Dhabi. Of all times, the museum institution has been, through cultural policies, bearing political
projections and the Louvre is no exception as it played a significant role within France’
changing landscape after the revolution. Today, museums such as the Louvre still are flagships
of national politics, but their recent development abroad assigned them other missions. Indeed,
in a global context of international relations and cultural diplomacy, they tend to become
accurate vehicles for a nation’s soft power and its representation outside its borders.
At the crossroads of museum studies, political sciences, and international relations, this
dissertation will attempt to bring a global understanding of how the Louvre Abu Dhabi, because
of the political nature of the process of its creation, acts as a receptacle where political
projections from both France and Abu Dhabi are intersecting. The universal character of the
museum will also be discussed in the light of the contextual debates that the notion suggests
Description
Keywords
Museum Soft power Cultural diplomacy Visibility France Abu Dhabi Louvre Politics