Anthropologist James Clifford published his influential essay "Museums as Contact Zones" in 1997. He explored the aspects and limits of museums as contact zones in the globalized world, and focused on the museum's role in cross-cultural dialogue in the twentieth century. In "A New Tradition: A Reflection on Collaboration and Contact Zones," the author reflects on whether museums as collaborative contact zones can be sustainable. The author uses her own experiences of a university's archives and museum collaborating with international community partners to question the meaning of contact zones in the twenty-first century.