Setting the nation straight : Malta's inquisitorial experience as an object of heritage

Abstract

In this dissertation I will explore the processes by which the state constructs, organises and draws upon elements of history and culture which are identifiably 'of' the nation. I will then proceed to discuss how tensions, inconsistencies, contradictions and ambiguities may develop within the nation-state's historical and cultural depth of field. Finally I will tum to an analysis of how such dissonances may be treated in ways which prevent them from threatening the integrity of the nation-state's historical and cultural depth of field- a primary source of the nation-state's legitimacy - as a whole. I will be attempting to articulate these points m the light of field work I conducted at Malta's National Museum of Ethnography. The latter is housed in a building which had come to be marked as a heritage site in its own right several decades earlier - the Inquisitor's Palace. It is by this name that the palace-museum is most widely known. In the following section I will provide a brief history of the Inquisitor's Palace and the National Museum of Ethnography.