Brazil has solid experience in the community‐based development of museums such as eco‐museums, community museums, street museums, indigenous museums, favela museums, route museums, neighbourhood museums, parade museums ‐ all of which demonstrate creativity and memory's desire, which are capable of attracting international attention. These experiences can be more or less identified with museological concepts, in which have facilitated the development of sites of memory, heritage education, Afro‐Brazilian clubs and participatory inventories, etc. This study presents an overview of Brazilian expertise in the utilization of heritage and collections as pretexts for the empowerment of the players involved in local development, with communities leading the creation of museums in their own way. Looking beyond the high concentration of institutions in a number of states and regions, the text presents other scenarios that demonstrate a situation that is in fact much more diverse.