Scandinavian Museums and Cultural Diversity 9781789204049

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Scandinavian museums and cultural diversity

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Museums and Diversity The "Museums and Diversity" series, published in association with the Museum of London, is devoted to exploring diversity, promoting intercultural dialogue in museum practice and supporting the educational mission of museums. Series Editors: Jack Lohman and Katherine Goodnow

Human remains and museum practice Edited by Jack Lohman and Katherine Goodnow Distributed for the Museum of London Challenge and transformation: museums in Cape Town and Sydney Katherine Goodnow, with Jack Lohman and Jatti Bredekamp Distributed for the Museum of London Museums, the media and refugees: stories of crisis, control and compassion Katherine Goodnow, Jack Lohman and Philip Marfleet Published in association with the Museum of London Scandinavian museums and cultural diversity Edited by Katharine Goodnow and Haci Akman With a Preface by Jack Lohman Published in association with the Museum of London

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Scandinavian museums and cultural diversity Edited by Katherine Goodnow and Haci Akman

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First published in 2008 Copyright © Museum of London and Berghahn Books The moral rights of the authors have been asserted. Designed and typeset by Baseline, Oxford ISBN 978-1-84545-577-4 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the copyright owner. This publication is published with the support of Cultural Diversity 2008, the Norwegian Research Council, Bergen National Academy of the Arts and the Humanities Faculty at the University of Bergen. Cover picture: First Generation by Esther Shalev-Gerz and the exterior of the Multicultural Centre, Botkyrka, Sweden. Photo: Andrzej Markiewicz.

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Contents

Foreword – Alissandra Cummins

vii

The construction of identities: introduction and overview – Katherine Goodnow

ix

Today’s museum: challenges for museums functioning in a mass culture – Jack Lohman xxix

SECTION I: Museums, national minorities and the indigenous CHAPTER 1.

Indigenous peoples and national minorities in Norway: categorisation and minority politics – Einar Niemi

1

CHAPTER 2.

Cultural diversity at the Nordiska Museet in Stockholm: outline of a story Eva Silvén 9

CHAPTER 3.

Sámi museums and cultural heritage – Vuokko Hirvonen

23

CHAPTER 4.

Return of the prodigal son – but is the seat taken? – Peter Pentz

30

CHAPTER 5.

An appetite whetted – Iben Mondrop Salto and Julie Edel Hardenberg

37

CHAPTER 6.

The Danish Jewish Museum: a new museum asserts its character Janne Laursen

42

Cultural minorities in Danish museums: the Danish Jewish Museum Søren Kjørup

54

Kven culture and history in museum terms – Lena Aarekol

68

CHAPTER 7.

CHAPTER 8.

SECTION II: Museums and “new migrants” CHAPTER 9.

The Museum of World Culture: a “glocal” museum of a new kind Cajsa Lagerkvist

CHAPTER 10. Seeking the multicultural in the arts in finland – Lily Díaz

89 101

CHAPTER 11. Norwegian Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow? A joint documentation project Liv Hilde Bøe 113

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CHAPTER 12. Embroidered history – Lise Poulsen and Mette Skougaard

124

CHAPTER 13. Norwegian Kurdish Virtual Museum: a presentation of stateless heritage Janne Rasmussen Mellingen 130 CHAPTER 14. As in a mirror – Bente Guro Møller and Hans Philip Einarsen

140

CHAPTER 15. The Multicultural Centre, Botkyrka, Sweden – Leif Magnusson

146

SECTION III: Nation and heritage CHAPTER 16. Cultural heritage, cultural diversity and museums in Sweden: some critical reflections – Barbro Klein

151

CHAPTER 17. Intangible cultural heritage and ethnographic museum practice in a global perspective – Inger Sjørslev

161

CHAPTER 18. Museums and collective identity: a new concept of “nation”? Knut Kjeldstadli

172

CHAPTER 19. Pluralism, cultural heritage and the museum – Haci Akman

187

CHAPTER 20. Representing community: national museums negotiating differences and community in the Nordic countries – Peter Aronsson

195

CHAPTER 21. Museums and related institutions on the Faroe Islands – Jóan Pauli Joensen

212

CHAPTER 22. Renegotiating identity in the National Museum of Iceland Katla Kjartansdóttir and Kristinn Schram

221

CHAPTER 23. Exhibition forms and influential circumstances – Katherine Goodnow

230

Notes on contributors

246

Index

251

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FOREWORD | VII

Foreword Historically Scandinavian museums were created to support notions of national identity, closely connected to the construction of new nations. As parts of cultural policy, museums played an important role as officially sanctioned arenas for the establishment of national unity through an authorized narrative. This was especially true of national museums that negotiated the unequal power relation between majority society and ethnic minorities, while at the same time sanctioning and performing romantic visions of identity, destiny and borders. Between the latter part of the twentieth century and at the beginning of the twenty first the world has been changing rapidly and Scandinavian communities have not been isolated from these changes. Increasing global population shifts have led to new challenges for museums to address. Within this context lies the multicultural challenge: the question of how museums can represent the diversity that globalization and migration have brought to societies all over the world. Scandinavian museums have, on the one hand, had to come to terms with the need to redress the marginalization of minority communities and their own indigenous population within their acquisition, interpretation and communication activities. On the other hand, new ethnic and cultural minorities (refugees from conflict-ridden areas or migrants required to service the workforce) recently establishing themselves within the Scandinavian region, have contributed to a rapidly changing cultural, social and religious landscape, and need to find their own space and face within the museum environment. Indeed, these societies’ evolving sense of their own pluralism has been a catalyst for change in how museums are redefining the diversity of cultural and ethnic heritages in this region. Scandinavian museums have been working towards the creation of a more inclusive institution an institution sensitive to and aware of the needs and aspirations of its community - which has led to new equations in the relationships between museums and indigenous peoples. The potential for museums to take the lead in interpreting our culturally diverse heritage is great. First, however, museums must find ways to overcome several challenges built into their infrastructure. Local communities need to have a sense of ‘ownership’ of their heritage; this reaffirms their worth as a community, their ways of going about things, the value of their ‘culture’. The involvement of indigenous communities in the curatorial process has helped to ensure the multiple perspectives that could help eradicate past and present inequalities in cultural representation of diverse peoples. UNESCO’s recently approved Medium-Term Strategy (2008-2013) renewed that organization’s commitment to the protection and promotion of cultural diversity by placing special emphasis on the museum’s triple role “as a foundation of identity, a vector for development and a tool for dialogue, reconciliation and social cohesion”. Within the context of the European Year

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of Intercultural Dialogue in 2008, this book offers a timely exploration of types of "difference" included in ethnicities, cultures, and the relationships between colonial settlers and indigenous peoples. In addition, it discusses the ways in which Scandinavian museums of all types present and represent difference, and the ways in which manifestations of and assumptions about human difference enable, undergird, and sometimes challenge the museums' own institutional practices. Museums afford unique opportunities to enhance knowledge and build understanding about their countries’ historical experience and contemporary reality. Scandinavian museums have in many ways been on the frontline of this process but still have much to learn from other parts of the world. Institutions and museums professionals within the region are actively engaged in the global network of cross-cultural dialogue, knowledge transfer and professional exchange engendered by ICOM’s mission and vision. Alissandra Cummins, GCM, F.M.A, M.A. ( Leics) President of International Council of Museums

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THE CONSTRUC TION OF IDENTITIES | ix

The construction of identities: introduction and overview Katherine Goodnow

This book looks at the several ways in which museums face the challenges that are part of representing cultural diversity, and at the circumstances that promote particular forms of representation and particular forms of change. Museums face several tasks: the tasks of representing both similarities and differences among several groups, both national identities and indigenous and minority voices, both material and intangible heritage, both current status and past history. Those tasks are not faced in isolation. They occur always within a complex set of interests that are not always easily compatible: their own, those of the groups that are represented or wish to be represented, and those of the groups that are their main audiences or sources of support and control.

1 Gilroy, P. (2006) “Colonial crimes and convivial cultures”. Video lecture given at the public hearing: Debating independence: Autonomy or voluntary colonialism? In Nuuk, Greenland, 21 April –14 May 2006. Available at: www.rethinking-nordiccolonialism.org

The series – Museums and Diversity – focuses on the challenges that museums face and the ways in which they represent diversity. It seeks also to build a conceptual picture of how representations come to take particular forms and to change. This book takes up the same issues and adds to them. “Scandinavia” is a term used by most of the world to cover the five nations that make up “Norden” or the “Nordic” countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Included also are large semi-autonomous territories linked to Denmark: the Faroe Islands and Greenland. Why Scandinavia? At first glance, Scandinavia may seem – especially to those outside the area – an unlikely site for analysing how museums represent cultural diversity. In fact, here there is a very active concern with how to consider several forms of cultural diversity and to ask how they are inter-related: indigenous people, minority groups and recent immigrants. We need, in Gilroy’s terms, to ask how the “discourse” on any of these groups is related to the ways in which we speak about or represent others, and to “unpack” the links and differences among those several ways.1 Scandinavia offers a particular opportunity to do so. Here also are countries grappling with some particular aspects of the way they are themselves represented by others. The Scandinavian countries are often thought of as united by harmony, but their history is one of many tensions between them. They are often thought of as prime examples of egalitarianism, inclusiveness, tolerance and justice but they are now coming to terms with a colonial and excluding past and a history of silence on the less positive aspects of that history.

The Scandinavian countries are often thought of as united by harmony, but their history is one of many tensions between them.

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Here as well are challenges to the way many of us think about cultural diversity and its forms. The pattern often expected, for example, is a pattern of one indigenous group per nation. Australia, for instance, has its Aboriginals, Canada its First Nations, New Zealand its Maoris. In Scandinavia, however, the Sámi appear as an indigenous group within several countries: Finland, Norway and Sweden. Moreover, the Sámi see themselves as coming from, or belonging to, a region that cuts across all of these and includes as well parts of Russia (a region they refer to as Sápmi).2 One last feature has particular relevance to the title phrase “The Construction of Identities”. Identities are not one-way inventions. Neither are they static. All countries use categorical terms to mark forms of diversity and status. An area is named, for example, as a province, a state, a territory, a duchy, a “Home County”, a “reservation”. A group is named as “indigenous”, as “immigrant”, or as having some double base to its identity (Latin-American, for example). These terms are seldom empty. They often carry with them simplifications of status, together with restrictions on opportunities and, on occasion, particular rights. Terms and categories, however, are not simply provided or imposed and passively accepted. They may also be resisted, Scandinavia offers a special base for negotiated, or on occasion chosen as the best option for oneself or one’s exploring how forms of diversity are group.

marked, how they come to carry particular implications, and how they come to be accepted or negotiated as representations.

Scandinavia offers a special base for exploring how forms of diversity are marked, how they come to carry particular implications, and how they come to be accepted or negotiated as representations. The term “national minorities” provides an example. The term “national minority groups” appears in the terms of a convention agreed upon by the large quartet – Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The term is both a comment on place within the nation and also an expression of policy. The 1995 Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities called for countries to promote conditions that enabled particular minority groups to “maintain and develop their culture, and to preserve the essential elements of their identity, namely their religion, language, traditions and cultural heritage”.3

2 Sámi Instituhtta: www.samistatistics.info 3 The Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (1995) Article 5. Available amongst other sites at: conventions.coe.it 4 See, for example, www.finland.fi and www.humanrights.coe.it 5 See, for example, Einar Niemi in this volume – Chapter 1.

To be defined as a “national minority”, a group needed to be recognised as having lengthy experience within the national borders and attachment to the country they lived in. Where the Scandinavian nations differed, however, was in the groups they recognised as “national minorities”. In Denmark, ratifying the convention in 1997, only one group was recognised. This was a German group living in southern Denmark, close to the border with Germany. Sweden, ratifying the convention in 2000, recognised the Sámi, Jews, Roma, Swedish Finns and Tornedalers (sometimes called the Torn Valley Finns). Finland recognised the Sámi, Swedish speakers, the Rom, Jews, the Old Russians and the Tartars.4 Norway, ratifying in 1999, did not include the Sámi as a national minority. The choice of the Sámi in Norway was to maintain their status as an indigenous group: a status seen as giving them stronger rights and more independent funding for the maintenance of cultural heritage.5 The recognised minorities then were the Kven (Finnish in origin), Forest Finns, Jews, Roma (Gypsies) and Romany (Travellers).

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Those several groups are in themselves an indication of the historical background to some forms of diversity recognised within Scandinavia. Some of that historical background will be mentioned in the course of several chapters. For the benefit especially of readers from outside Scandinavia, however, we offer in this chapter a minimal background, focusing on the links across countries and on aspects relevant to particular distinctions among forms of diversity and particular aspects of museum development. That quick walk through time is then followed by an outline of the division of chapters into three sections and summaries of what each chapter covers. Some historical events relevant to diversity and representation That history matters is not an issue: “To live as if our history has not marked our culture and our ways of thinking is illusionary, even if it is one of the strongest illusions today.”6 That the interpretation of history changes from time to time is also not at issue. The critical questions have to do with the way interpretations change or are challenged, and with how challenges are expressed. It is especially by way of an exhibition project organised by a group of artists, curators and academics in 2006, for example, that “rethinking” on the history of Nordic colonialism was expressed: rethinking seen as increasingly necessary in the face of there being little recognition within textbooks or permanent museum installations of a colonial past for countries such as Denmark, Norway and Sweden.7 The events selected below as landmark events will seem to Scandinavians a minimal and perhaps unnecessary account. Even a heavily reduced account, however, will provide a background to the categories used for the description of cultural diversity (e.g., for the several “national minorities”); the rise of movements towards affirming colonial and regional identities and establishing museums to make those affirmations concrete; the emphasis in several places on museums that underline ethnic differences and cultural heritage; and the several circumstances – local and international, economic and cultural – that influence distinctions and representations. The format chosen is one of interwoven history. Focusing on links among the Scandinavian states over time is a necessary counterpart to any perception of them as a simple unit with a single “Nordic” identity. The term “Nordic” also may make it seem as if there has always been an easy flow of people across agreed-upon borders and a common perspective. The historical reality is more complex. The interweaving highlighted is in the form of four loops. Loop 1 links Denmark, Norway and Sweden, with the Faroes, Greenland and Iceland also drawn in. Loop 2 primarily links Finland and Sweden, with Norway drawn in largely by virtue of its having been at one point ceded by Denmark to Sweden. Loop 3 has the Sámi as its main thread, indigenous to Finland, Norway and Sweden and the northern part of Russia. Loop 4 looks at all the countries and regions with a focus on migration post-1945.

6 Kemp, P. (2005) Världsmedborgaren: politisk och pedagogisk filosofi för det 21 århundradet, trans. J. Retzlaff. Göteborg: Daidalos, p. 19. Cited by Mikela Lundahl: “Nordic complicity? Some aspects of Nordic identity as ‘non-colonial’ and nonparticipatory in the European colonial event”. At www.rethinking-nordiccolonialism.org/files/index.htm 7 www.rethinking-nordiccolonialism.org

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8 Gilroy (2006) op. cit. 9 Smith, A. (1998) The ethnic origins of nations. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. 10 Jónsson, Í.(2006) “From colonialism to institutional dependency”. At: www.rethinking-nordiccolonialism.org/files/index.htm

The focus on Scandinavian loops may seem to minimise the influence of other countries. That influence was certainly not absent. Germany, for example, enters the frame at several points: in the form, for example, of tentacles that linked coastal towns further and further north in a trading network (the Hanseatic League), and movement into the north and into Russia during the war of 1939–1944 (a movement accompanied in the north of Norway by a widespread destruction of buildings that was one prompt toward the rebuilding of some tangible forms of cultural heritage in the area). Britain also entered the picture at several points, from the sale of Shetland and the Orkney Islands to Scotland in the 1400s to its involvement in the Napoleonic Wars (Denmark unfortunately on the losing side) and its military bases in the Faroes, Greenland and Iceland during Germany’s occupation of Denmark in the 1940s. And multiple countries, as we shall see later, were part of the labour recruitment drives in the 1960s and the intake of refugees. Those several players cannot be ignored, especially since they contributed to the nature of diversity, the rise of various kinds of national fervour, the concern with borders and the need to avoid any “nation within a nation”. As a core for this introduction, however, we keep the emphasis on loops across the Scandinavian states. The emphasis in these four loops is also on the background to diversity in the form of the categories labelled “indigenous people” and “national minorities”. We shall defer until the end the movement of “new immigrants”, predominantly into Denmark, Norway and Sweden. National minorities are essentially “old immigrants”. As Niemi (Chapter 1) makes especially clear, the language of “migration” is applied to both, even though their length of time in a country is vastly different. Both also raise questions about the time it may take to feel that one fully “belongs” or to be regarded as no longer an “immigrant”, and about the criteria that governments and others use to define terms such as “immigrant” or “foreign”. The discourse, Gilroy and others have argued, is in both cases one of exclusion rather than inclusion, of placement in a marginal position rather than at the core or equivalent places at points in any social hierarchy.8 Cutting across all four loops is the recognition that moves towards a union may be influenced or supported by at least two kinds of circumstances. One consists of the sense of a shared past, a common set of historical memories, a historic territory. In that sense, there is some sense of cultural collectivity or an “ethnie”, in Smith’s terms.9 Emphasising that heritage may then become a major feature to the presentation of oneself and of history. The other kind of circumstance consists of pragmatic interests: interests related, for example, to the distribution of resources and to economic needs. The two are not independent, Jónsson has argued.10 Both affect the sense of solidarity among people. That sense of solidarity is not static. It may be weakened or undone by the sense of economic dependence and the sense that resources or status are being unjustly distributed. Like the social categories used to mark diversity, the sense of solidarity on the basis of a shared heritage or reciprocal concerns is always being constructed and altered as circumstances change.

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Loop 1: Denmark, Norway, Sweden, together with the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Iceland To simplify this loop, 1397 is the chosen starting point. Denmark, Norway and Sweden formed a union, with the Danish king recognised as the reigning monarch (the Union of Kalmar). Into that union came several areas that were at the time Norwegian holdings: the 18 islands that make up the Faroes, Greenland, Iceland, Shetland and the Orkney Islands. For the union of 1397, the push was more economic than it was a sense of a shared past or a shared culture. The three countries needed to counter the control over shipping and trade exercised by the Hanseatic League (based in Lübeck). The League was increasingly a major player, marking its presence even by the construction of towns along the coastline.

11 See, for example, the description offered by The Royal Danish Foreign Ministry: www.um.dk/publikationer/um /english/denmark/kap6/6-4.asp 12 Shetland and the Orkney Islands had been sold to Scotland in 1468/1469 by the Danish King Christian I to provide a dowry for his daughter Margaret at the time of her engagement to the King of Scotland, James III.

The restive player was Sweden. After a series of skirmishes and battles, it formally withdrew from the Union in 1523. Wars, however, continued, with territory and control over shared areas of water usually at stake. A war ending in the late 1700s provides an example. The restive player was Sweden. After a Given an intriguing title – The Great Nordic War – it was aimed at Denmark’s regaining the southern part of Sweden. series of skirmishes and battles, it

formally withdrew from the Union in Norway and Denmark stayed in the Union, with Denmark as the 1523. dominant partner. Its dominance is especially signalled by a “Coronation Charter” in 1536. Under that charter, Denmark declared Norway to be a province of Denmark.11 The several areas that had been affiliated with Norway were declared as under Danish sovereignty (the Faroes, Greenland, Iceland).12 That linking of Denmark and Norway remained in place until after the Napoleonic Wars: Denmark had aligned itself with Napoleon, Britain’s navy had shelled Copenhagen, and the Peace of Kiel in 1814 forced Denmark to cede Norway to Sweden. It was allowed, however, to retain the several island areas. The formal union of Norway and Sweden remained in place until 1905. Over the 1800s, Norway had increasingly insisted on its own identity and independence. Sweden resisted but a plebiscite organised by the Swedish King was in favour. In a separate throw of the loop, Norway then offered its throne to a Danish prince (Christian). There has been a great deal written about the large players – Denmark, Norway and Sweden. They are also well represented within the chapters of this volume. We shall also come back to them in this chapter, picking up Norway and Sweden, for example, in the course of examining Loops 2 and 3. The situation is different for the Faroes, Greenland and Iceland. Each warrants, then, some further reference here. Briefly, they differ considerably. Each, however, regards itself as having its own history and its own cultural base, warranting political recognition as a separate identity and the concrete representation in museums of at least its unique heritage, its unique past. Each illustrates

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13 www.iceland.is/historyand-culture/History/

also how the ongoing construction of belonging and of identity (shared or separate) is influenced by both cultural and pragmatic circumstances.

14 www.natmus.is/english

Of the three, Iceland is in the best position to describe itself as a nation and to have its museum represent “the making of a nation” (see, for example, Chapter 22). The other two areas have not yet achieved full independence. Their museums focus on the uniqueness of their heritage, and their history more readily attracts the label of their having been “colonised”. Cutting across all three areas, however, is the significance of trading rights and trading control, with fish often at the centre of concerns. Iceland’s union with Norway starts with settlement by Norse Vikings, a treaty with Norway (1022), and war and then submission to Norway (1220–1262). Its separateness is marked by the Icelandic sagas (thirteenth century), and the presence of its own parliament (Althingi) with some executive powers.13 After Kalmar (1397), the Danes repeated Norway’s colonial pressure. Conversion to Lutheranism was insisted upon, despite resistance from Catholics (1550s). The powers of the Icelandic parliament were reduced (1662). Trade with the English and the Hanseatic League was replaced by a Danish monopoly (1602) and not opened to all Danish nations until the late 1700s. (The results of restrictions had been disastrous for the Icelandic economy.) Over the 1800s, separate status was increasingly argued for and recognised. The parliament was re-established and its powers increased (1845). Foreign trade was further liberalised (1855) and Iceland celebrated in 1874 both the Millennial Anniversary of original Norse settlement and control over its own finances. Home Rule was established in 1904 and independence increased further in 1918. The King of Denmark, however, was still recognised as a sovereign and Denmark remained in control of foreign policy. The next big shift came with the occupation of Denmark by Germany during the war of 1939– 1944. The island was occupied by British troops and, later, U.S. troops, at the invitation of the Icelandic government. The year 1944 then saw the declaration of independence and status as a republic, followed over the years by becoming a member of NATO and, in 2006, by reclaiming an area (Keflavik) that had been a major U.S. air base and declaring itself “demilitarised”, with the phasing out of U.S. military personnel. The current population is estimated as around 300 000 with more than half concentrated around the capital in the south (Reykjavik). People who identify themselves as Icelandic occupy the top positions in government and in education. The country has developed major expertise in the technology of fishing, with most of its experts being Icelandic (many of those have studied abroad and returned). All told, the country’s history provides a base that allows its major museum to highlight “the making of a nation”.14 Representations can highlight shared origins that are “truly Norse”, together with an

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early national identity, a struggle to maintain that identity in the face of restrictions and suppression, and both economic achievement and political progression: a narrative that can easily be felt to be worth presenting to oneself and to others. Greenland provides a contrast to Iceland. To start with, the majority of the population is Inuit. The early Norse settlements seem to have disappeared, replaced in the 1200s by Inuits moving in from the north-west. The population is smaller than that of Iceland (around 57 000 in 2006) and, in contrast to the concentration of Icelanders around Reykjavik, it is spread along the fjords of the south-west of the main island. Fish again remain a major resource. Greenland had at one time accepted the control of Norway (1261) but after the Union of Kalmar in 1397, Denmark claimed the territory, sent missionaries to put in place the conversion to Lutheranism (1721 and 1733), and developed trading colonies along the coast.15 Greenland has been described as “the best colony in the world”,16 well managed and progressing towards self-management. In 1953 Greenlanders received Danish citizenship. Home Rule was granted in 1979, and all the members of the Home Rule Government Greenland has been described as “the are Greenlanders. Danes, however, hold many of the top positions in the management of services and education (almost all the academic staff at best colony in the world”,16 well the University of Greenland, for example, are Danish and most of the managed and progressing towards selfcourses offered are in Danish). What has not occurred, Lynge argues, is management. “mental de-colonisation”. Moving into modern economic society and achieving equality in the labour market are at the cost of increasing adaptation to Danish cultural norms and institutions and of increasing distance from the language of the country and of the occupations – fishing and hunting – associated with being Inuit. The result has been described as one of continuing concerns with identity, self-confidence, dependency on Denmark, the position of people with mixed parentage (one Danish, the other Greenlandic), and the images of Greenland in both the Danish and the international mirror. At the museum level, we find then both an emphasis on the past – on cultural heritage and traditional ways – and moves towards the re-examination of Greenlandic identity and status. An exhibition held in 2006 at the Greenland National Museum as part of the project Rethinking Nordic Colonialism, for example, was aimed at addressing “questions of dependency and marginalisation … and ways out of subordination”.17 Related to that re-examination is also debate about the possibility that Greenlandic art might be an emerging form of distinctiveness, drawing on “cultural roots” and inspired by the “landscape or the mythology” but not simply reproducing traditional forms.18 Where, then, do the 18 islands that make up the Faroes fit in? The population is small (in 2006, about 48 000 within the Faroes, with another 12 000 in Denmark). Economically, there is marked dependence on Denmark, with oil and gas explorations so far not offering enough success to

15 For a short description of this history in English, see, for example: www.nuuktourism.gl/database 16 Lynge, A. E. (2006) “The best colony in the world”. At: www.rethinking-nordiccolonialism.org/files/index.htm 17 Act 2: “Contested territories: Representing postcolonial interests”. At: www.rethinkingnordic-colonialism.org/files/ index.htm 18 A description offered in Act 1: “Past colonies – How post is postcolonialism?” as part of the Rethinking Nordic Colonialism project.

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19 Joán Pauli Joensen (Chapter 21) offers a full description of the development of national identity and its relationship to language. 20 www.finland.fi. This is a website maintained by the Icelandic Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Finance.

overcome that dependency. Ethnically, the base is Norse, with little immigration. Linguistically, there is a local language (Faroese) and changes in its status have been marked.19 Politically, support for independence has been mixed. Full independence gained a majority in a public plebiscite in 1946 but not in the votes of the Løgting (the parliament of the time). Home Rule, however, followed (1948). A further referendum, planned for 2001, was shelved, prompted by the prospect of losing Danish grants and subsidies. One carried out in 2004 ended in equal support for both independence and non-independence: insufficient support for any further change. Interest remains strong, however, in the early history of the Faroes: a history likely to highlight a distinctive cultural heritage. The early history before 1035, when the islands became part of the Kingdom of Norway, seems especially unclear. In addition, the achievement of full recognition of the language – Faroese – has been a focus for efforts for change. In the course of bringing the Reformation to the Islands, the Danes had replaced Catholicism with Lutheranism, confiscated church property, and forbidden the use of Faroese in schools and churches. For the next 300 years, there was no written Faroese. By the late 1800s, however, Danish control began to relax. In addition to giving the Faroe Islanders the right to fish in Danish waters and restoring the parliament it had abolished, Denmark allowed Faroese to become an established official language. Marking increasing recognition was the replacement of Danish by Faroese as the official school language (1937 – Danish is now a required second language from grade 3 on), as a church language (1938), as a national language (1948, accompanying the Home Rule Act) and, over time, its common use in the media (1980s). In effect, the language seems to have become an identity that might have disappeared but was successfully maintained, is distinctive and is widely shared. Loop 2: Finland, Sweden and Norway Noted earlier was the recognition of some particular “national minorities” in these three countries. In Finland, these were the Sámi, the Swedish-speaking Finns, the Old Russians, the Tartars, Jews and the Romany. In Sweden, they were the Sámi, Torn Valley Finns, the Swedish Finns, the Jews and the Roma. In Norway, they included the Kven, the Forest Finns, the Roma and the Romany (the Sámi were recognised as a separate indigenous population). The presence and recognition of those groups reflects several political changes, border shifts and population movements. Landmark dates are in relation to Finland and Sweden are 1155 (Finland became in effect a province of Sweden and a number of Swedish crusades into the territory began) and 1293, when a dividing line was drawn between the Catholic West and Orthodox East.20 (Some small coastal towns remained predominantly German, at least in language). This provincial status remained in place for close to 700 years, supporting a common policy towards some forms of diversity (e.g., a largely closed door to the entry of non-Christians, Jews especially). It also prompted a recognition of two languages. Over the 700 years, Swedish became

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the dominant language for administration and education, with Finnish regarded as more the language of the peasantry. Swedish still remains one of two official languages in Finland (Finnish and Swedish) and Finnish is one of the four minority languages recognised in Sweden.21 Also prompted was movement across the two areas. Not surprisingly, Finns make up two of Sweden’s five minority groups (these are the Swedish Finns and the Torne Valley Finns). And Swedes make up one of Finland’s six (the Swedish Finns). After 1809, and Russia’s victory over Sweden, Finland became a semi-autonomous duchy within the Russian empire. That increased the representations of Russians within the area. Russian Jews, if they were a part of the Russian Army and discharged in the area, could stay. As in other countries, however, the 1800s saw the rise of interest in “nationhood”. The epic poem known as the Kalevala, based on Finnish and Karelian folklore, was published in 1835. By 1892, Finnish as a language had equal legal status with Russian. Independence, however, came only after the Communist Revolution in 1917. That did not lead to an easy peace. Within Finland, for example, the “Whites” (supported by Germany) and the “Reds” (supported by Bolshevik Russians) fought what was referred to as “a civil war”.22 Finnish/Russian borders were redrawn in 1920 (the Treaty of Tartu) and then redrawn at the end of the “Continuation War” in 1944. At that time, Finland had to cede a large area to Finland to the Soviet Union, with approximately 450 000 Finns then moving from the area into the rest of Finland.23 Its estimated population (5.27 million in 2006) was at that time about 3.4 million. Not surprisingly, the recognised Russian minority groups are named “Old Russians” and “Tartars”.

21 For an explanation in English of the history of the national minorities in Finland, including the Swedishspeaking Finns, see, for example: “National minorities in Finland, the Swedishspeaking Finns” at: www.finland.fi. 22 www.finland.fi 23 Ibid. 24 Supporting the movement of people in the North was the fact that there were no clear borders in the North until the border was drawn between Norway and Sweden in 1751and between Norway and Russia in 1826. For a further history of the Kven, see, for example, museumsnett.no/ vadsomuseet/kven.

Norway’s first entry into this Swedish–Finnish loop is by way of also Two of the five national minority groups being part of Sweden for some time (Norway-Sweden from 1814 to that Norway recognises are of Finnish 1905; Finland-Sweden from 1155 to the end of the 1800s). Not origin. surprisingly then, Norwegians make up no recognised minority group in Finland. The reverse holds, however. Two of the five national minority groups that Norway recognises are of Finnish origin. One is the Kven, the other is the Forest Finns, with one basis of differentiation being place or area: the Kven on the northern coastal regions, the Forest Finns further inland.24 The Kven are central to the chapter in this volume by Lene Aarekol (Chapter 8). They have attracted particular interest on several grounds. They began to arrive in what is now Norway in the 1500s, moving first into Sweden and then across to Norway, with the largest waves occurring between 1720 and 1800. They are, then, truly “old immigrants”, well placed to ask the question noted by Einar Niemi (Chapter 1): How long does it take before one ceases to be called “immigrant” or “foreign”? They are present in significant numbers. In some counties, they account for close to a quarter of the population. The language (Kvensk) also became increasingly different from Finnish (it is now taught as a language in its own right at the University of Tromsø). And they were the target of some suspicion by Norwegians in the south. As nationalism became more strongly felt in Finland, the southern concern was that there could develop a collaboration with Finnish groups,

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25 www.samediggi.no/ (the website of the Sami Parliament). 26 There is also a large population of Sámi in the capital – Oslo.

creating a “state within a state” that would run counter to Norway’s interest in retaining its territorial size, arguing for independence from Sweden and developing a sense of national rather than regional identity. The North was already marked by another sizeable group seen as “different” – the Sámi – and thought needed to be given as to how to keep them both within the nation but at the same time to hold to the image of a nationhood based on a common history and heritage. Loop 3: the Sámi The Sámi are present in several Nordic countries, in unequal numbers. The estimated numbers (these are affected by the extent to which people register themselves as Sámi for election purposes or declare themselves as Sámi at times of census-taking) were in 2006 around 40 000 in Norway, 20 000 in Sweden, 7 000 in Finland and 2 000 in Russia. The presence in these several countries is a first indication of origin. The Sámi stem from the northern areas of the Scandinavian peninsula, residing particularly in an area that covers the top layer of what are now four separate countries but which was not marked by a national border until the first border was drawn (between Norway and Sweden) in 1751.25 Within countries, the distribution is also uneven. In Norway, for example, the Sámi are most strongly represented in some northern counties (Finnmark and Northern Troms).26 In Finnmark they make up the majority of the population. This is where the Norwegian Sámi parliament (Sámediggi) is sited and this is where the Sámi now have particular land rights. What makes the Sámi especially significant when it comes to questions about diversity and representation? That question comes up in several chapters (see especially Chapter 1 by Einar Niemi, Chapter 2 by Eva Silvén, Chapter 3 by Vuokko Hirvonen as well as the final chapter).

One aspect of significance has to do with their variable status as a category. As noted earlier, the Sámi are categorised as an “indigenous” group in Norway, but as a “national minority” in Sweden and Finland. That variable status is one instance of the construction processes noted at the start of this chapter. The choice of that status in Norway was an initiative taken What are the criteria for any by the Sámi, opting for a status that offered a stronger marking of designation, whether officially written difference and of control over sources for funding heritage projects. It is down or used for self-identification? also an instance of the need to ask: What are the criteria for any designation, whether officially written down or used for self-identification? The question of criteria comes up in many parts of the world and in relation to many categories. (In this volume, for example, it is central to the chapter by Janne Laursen on the Jewish museum in Copenhagen – Chapter 6). It is central also to representations of the Sámi (see Vuokko Hirvonen, Chapter 3). A second aspect of significance has to do with the ways in which some particular representations can mask heterogeneity. The world image is one of the Sámi as reindeer herders, united by their occupation and by the name of “Lapps” or “Lapplanders”. That “reindeer” image may be worth

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protecting or even promoting. It can be used by the Sámi as a claim to distinctiveness and by a country as a way of encouraging them to remain in particular areas. For Sweden, for example, the “reindeer herders” were a way of marking Swedish presence in the far North, and there was little encouragement for them to move south and enter industrial occupations.27 Historically, however, the nomadic following of reindeer across the northern parts of the world no longer applies and many of the Sámi no longer raise reindeer or hunt except as recreation. Occupationally, there were at least three large groups, the Reindeer Sámi, the Forest Sámi and the Sea Sámi, with the latter groups turning mainly to fishing and small-scale farming particularly as borders made reindeer herding and winter pastures difficult to access. The interests of these different groups are not always identical. A third aspect has to do with language as a political marker of distinctiveness. Nine languages (or nine “variants”) have been identified, with “Northern Sámi” spoken by the largest number. Language as a representational feature, however, has had a checkered history. Norway provides an example. Over the course of the 1800s, there was a strong push towards making Norwegian language and culture “universal”. That push became all the stronger when interest strengthened in the development of the North. From 1902 to around 1940, for example, competence in Norwegian was a requirement for buying land.28 The supply of Marshall Aid after the war also required agreement that the children of Sámi families would be Norwegian and would not speak Sámi.29 That agreement was easier to enforce with the Sea Sámi who lived in areas with higher levels of ethnic Norwegians, creating divisions within the Sámi group and weakening the extent to which people readily identified themselves as Sámi or could use their language as a way of identifying their status as Sámi to themselves or others.30 A fourth indicator of significance and of diversity has to do with land rights: with who can buy land, and who has hunting, fishing or reindeer-raising rights. Norway, for example, has moved towards granting a number of exclusive rights within particular areas, notably Finnmark county. In contrast, the Sámis in Sweden brought the issue of land rights to court in 1966 and 1996 and lost both times, reinforcing a history of promoting general settlement in rural areas. Land, then, and a sense of territory, becomes a weak marker for distinctiveness, prompting the need to reinforce other signs. The last indicator has to do with signs not only of exclusion or of assignment to the margins of a society but of assignment to a lower level on some racial or evolutionary hierarchy. The category systems used in many countries are marked by motifs of exclusion on the basis of “foreign-ness”. Sweden, however, has been noted as having at one time singled out the Sámi as a group to include in their exploration of “racial biology”: a group to be anthropometrically measured, mapped and compared with other “racial” groups. The Institute of Racial Biology was established in 1922 and was active until 1935.31 Memories of those explorations, however, are still in place (Chapters 2 and 3) and they remain one further basis to the interpretation of categories as often extensions of a bias towards interpreting “difference” in negative rather than positive terms and of thinking more in terms of exclusion rather than acceptance: one further feature of the contexts in which museums operate.

27 For descriptions in English of the Sámi in Sweden see www.samer.se and www.sametinget.se 28 The legislation was not officially removed until 1962 but not practised to any great degree after the Second World War: www.samediggi.no 29 Ronald Sagatun, interviewed by Ebba Moi. At: www.rethinking-nordiccolonialism.org/files/index.htm 30 Sámi is an official language in six municipalities in Norway, four municipalities in Finland and one of five minority languages in Sweden.

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31 The Institute changed its name in 1958 as part of a merger with the Department of Genetics at Uppsala University. See, for example, the description of the Institute by Lennart Lundmark, “Sami policy in the shadow of racism”. Dubois University: scandinavian.wisc.edu/dubois/ Courses_folder/ Sami_ readings 32 Statistics Sweden: www.scb.se 33 Statistics Finland: www.finland

Loop 4: new migrants The national minorities have been deemed “old migrants”, a term that reflects movement across the present borders of Scandinavia for many centuries. The term “migrants” in most Nordic countries, however, is most often considered a reference to post-Second World War migration. As was the case with “old migrants”, the size of the “new” arrivals varied by country. Norway, Sweden and Denmark received the largest percentage of migrants, with Iceland and Finland (with the exception of receiving their “own” after ceding large areas to Russia) seeing more recent increases. The first wave of migration after the Second World War, as in many countries in the world, was made up of refugees. Finland, as mentioned above, received almost 450 000 Finns when parts of its lands were ceded to the Soviet Union. Denmark, Norway and Sweden all received Hungarian refugees in the 1950s. The 1950s and early 1960s were also a period of post-war rebuilding for some of the countries (Sweden had remained neutral during the war and had enjoyed a period of growth during the war). A general upturn in economic markets led to large industries in the Nordic countries turning to countries such as Morocco, Pakistan and Turkey in active recruitment drives to fill factories. At the same time, the Nordic countries became an open labour market between themselves, leading to another wave of Finnish migration to Sweden. The economic boom, however, did not last. From the early 1970s, the need for unskilled labour decreased at the same time as concerns regarding the permanence of the new migrants increased. (In Germany they were guest workers; in the Nordic countries they remained foreign workers – “fremmedarbeidere”). Denmark introduced stricter immigration laws in 1970, Sweden followed soon after – 1972 – and Norway in 1975. After the early 1970s most non-Western migration (the common term used in the Nordic countries in statistics and government policy for people outside countries such as the U.S.A., Canada, Australia and Europe) was made up of refugees. Asian-Ugandans and Vietnamese arrived, for example, in the 1970s. The Balkan War also led to large increases. Sweden alone took 84 000 from ex-Yugoslavia in 1992.32 Somalians and Iraqis are the most recent large waves of refugees. Historically, and at present, however, most immigrants in the Scandinavian countries come from other Nordic or European Union countries as a result of open labour markets. Denmark, Finland and Sweden are all members of the European Union; Norway and Iceland are members of the European Economic Union and are therefore open to other EEU and EU citizens. Finland has also seen an increase in migration in recent years (it now has 121 700 foreign citizens – or immigrants of a total population of 5.14 million). Finland, unlike the other Nordic countries, however, still presents its statistics with levels of emigration lined up against levels of immigration.33 Finland is also marked by a high level of Russian and Estonian migrants.

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Iceland has historically seen few immigrants (if one does not include U.S. marines stationed at Keflavik) but has also seen recent increases through marriage and the opening of markets to the EEU. It now has approximately 23 000 immigrants of a population of 311 000.34 In 2006 alone over 7 000 foreigners applied for resident permits of which over 5 000 were from Poland (many of these are working on a major dam project – the Karahnjukar Dam). Norway describes itself as having 8.9% of its population of 4.6 million as “immigrants”. “Immigrants”, in these statistics, are people who were born overseas or have both parents foreign born. Of these, the largest group is from Pakistan as part of the recruitment drives and later family reunions. Of these, 16 000 are described as first generation and 12 000 as second generation.35 This high level of second-generation migrants stands in contrast to the next largest group – the Swedes – of whom approximately 24 000 are first generation and only 1 000 second generation. This balance reflects the fact that many of the Nordic citizens are more temporary than the “nonWestern” groups. Iraqis follow Swedes (21 000), then Somalians (19 000), followed by Danes and Poles and Vietnamese (all approximately 18 000 in 2006).36 Denmark has 452 095 “first and second generation migrants” who make up 8.4% of the total population of just over 5.2 million.37 Denmark also held recruitment drives and received a large percentage of refugees post-1970. Denmark has received a high level of attention recently, however, for its changes in immigration legislation. In response to Swedish criticism of Denmark’s changes in immigration legislation in 2005, for example, the leader of the Danish People’s Party, Pia Kjaersgaard, responded: “If they want to turn Stockholm, Gothenburg or Malmoe into a Scandinavian Beirut, with clan wars, honour killings and gang rapes, let them do it. We can always put a barrier on the Øresund Bridge.”38 Amongst recent legislative changes are requirements that Danish citizens, to be allowed to marry and bring in a foreign spouse, must be over 24 years of age, have not received social security in 12 months, and lodge a sizeable bond of 53 000 kroner. The shift led to many mixed couples moving across the Øresund Bridge to the more liberal Sweden but retaining their jobs in Copenhagen. Approval of asylum applications have also dropped from 3 893 in 2001 to only 680 in 2005.39 The Faroe Islands and Greenland, if one does not include Danes and U.S. marines, have had little immigration, largely because of restrictive legislation. There has been a certain level of seasonal work in the fishing industries and shipyards, which has resulted in some more permanent residents.

34 Statistics Iceland: www.statice.is 35 Statistics Norway: www.ssb.no 36 Ibid. 37 Ministry of Refugee, Immigration and Integration Affairs: www.Denmark.dk 38 Cited, amongst others, at: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4 276963.stm on 19 February 2005. 39 Statistics Denmark. 40 Statistiskrapport 2007 “Uppdatering av aktuelle siffror, relevanta nyckeltal och indikatorer om integration”: SSB statistics. 41 Kunnskapsdepartmentet: regjeringen.no.

The Faroe Islands and Greenland, if one does not include Danes and U.S. marines, have had little immigration, largely because of restrictive legislation.

Sweden has the largest numbers of immigrants amongst the Nordic countries.40 Again, it depends on how “immigrants” are defined but approximately 1.8 million of a population of just over 9 million are considered as having an immigrant or partly immigrant background (one or more foreign-born parent).41 The largest non-Nordic groups come from ex-Yugoslavia (125 000), Iran (70 000), Iraq (50 000) and Chile (28 000).

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42 Ibid. 43 St.meld. no. 17, p. 5.

Integration of these “non-Western” immigrants is a concern for all the Nordic countries as they are highly under-represented in the civil service and professional private sector.42 A variety of “minority policies” have therefore been formulated to increase representation in general – including equal opportunity clauses in employment. The challenge is often seen as similar to that of previous waves of inequality – of the working class, of women and now new migrants. Cultural policies and state funding are often tied to social policies (see Chapter 9) and the representation of new migrants within the established arts institutions is a strong concern.43 Museums are expected to work also towards achieving a country’s social and cultural goals. The question then raised in this book is how they perceive this challenge and rise to it. Chapter outline Each chapter in this volume highlights one or more of the following concerns: particular features of museums and their histories; particular forms of cultural diversity; particular circumstances that promote or sustain the various forms and shifts; and particular conceptual concerns. The book is divided into three sections. The first section has a focus on national minorities and the region’s indigenous communities (the Sámi and the Inuit). The second section focuses on newer immigrants and the variety of inclusion practices that have emerged within museums. The third section takes a step back and looks more closely at some particular conceptual concerns regarding cultural heritage and nation. It offers also a set of historical reviews of the formation of national museums and emerging and contested perceptions of national identity. Section I: museums, national minorities and the indigenous In this section the primary concern is with the ways in which historical political changes have affected the treatment and representation of the indigenous peoples of the region (the Inuit and the Sámi) and the national minorities. The regions in the North – Northern Finland, Sweden and Norway – as well as Greenland – have undergone major political changes due to the Second World War, the Cold War, the development of regional identity and the mobilisation of minorities. These political changes have had an effect on funding and cultural policy with, in general, an increase in decentralisation and autonomy. This section therefore looks at how these political changes have affected exhibitions in the national and regional museums and the creation of new, dedicated minority museums. Einar Niemi opens this first section with an historical overview of how the three groups (indigenous, national minorities and new immigrants) have been categorised. His focus is on Norway but the terms and the international agreements that have helped define the categories are relevant for all the Nordic countries. While Niemi does not focus primarily on museums, he highlights how the representation and categorisation of these groups shift over time depending on wider political circumstances such as contest over the northern regions as well as ratification of Pan-European agreements. Change, he argues, has come about particularly through the increased

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mobilisation of some of the community groups themselves: firstly, in the form of demands for increased representation by the Sámi and, later, in part through the Sámi example, by national minorities such as the Kven. This background of political and representational change opens the way to asking how museums have related or responded to these categorisations and changing expectations. Eva Silvén furthers this historical background with a focus on two Swedish museums in the nineteenth century – a national museum (Nordiska Museet) and a folk heritage museum (Skansen) that were influential in the creation of similar museums in the other Nordic countries. Silvén outlines the changes that have occurred in the way that the Sámi Sweden has only recently recognised have been represented: from their presentation as exotica with live performances at the Folk Museum and at World Expos to their gradual itself as a colonial nation and is involvement in the creation of the representations. In a new exhibition at currently dealing with the “postthe Nordiska Museum, curated by Silvén, the museum acknowledges its colonial debate” own role in creating limited and biased representations of the indigenous population. While these are changes within the museum they have not, as Silvén notes, come independently of a wider museum- and discipline-based debate, political activity by the community, and government initiatives including declaring 2006 a Year of Diversity. As Silvén notes, Sweden has only recently recognised itself as a colonial nation and is currently dealing with the “postcolonial debate”. Vuokko Hirvonen also begins with early Swedish – and Finnish – representations of the Sámi. Her concern is with the removal of Sámi artefacts and human remains and their only partial repatriation to Sámi communities. Hirvonen traces the development of Sámi museums in the northern regions of Finland, Norway, Russia and Sweden and notes how this development comes in parallel to Sámi political mobilisation in the 1970s. As she notes, museums, along with other forms of art and media, had an important role in writing and showing “the history of the Sámi people from their own point of view: the museums were seen as symbols of self-representation”. The museums that she describes are managed and curated by Sámi representatives themselves, often under the various Sámi parliaments. Peter Pentz continues the concern with relations between governments, museums and indigenous people but the focus shifts from the Sámi to the Inuit. Pentz offers an historical account of the relationship between Denmark and Greenland and notes how changes to the relationship over time have taken place also within museums, in parallel with political changes and increased demands for self-representation. Pentz gives a description of the main themes and representations of Inuit Greenlanders in museums in Denmark and Copenhagen and recent demands for repatriation. Julie Edel Hardenberg and Iben Mondrop Salto offer a description of current debates on national identity and the arts in Greenland. Their concern is what they see as a narrow understanding of identity politics that has limited representation. Artworks within the new national gallery in

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Greenland, they argue, are not representative of the work being produced in Greenland. The selection represents instead some particular interests of a variety of stakeholders. A concentration on landscape painting, they suggest, is part of government interest in easy and safe forms of marking difference, as well as in line with particular collectors – again because landscape art is in general not provocative. They argue for the need for further debate on identity politics, not least the picking up of issues of transnationalism and hybrid identities. Janne Laursen and Søren Kjørup both deal with the Danish Jewish minority and the Danish Jewish museum in Copenhagen. Janne Laursen’s focus is on the decisions made by the museum curators and designers in the search for a balance between difference and similarity – between Jews globally and between Danish Jews and Danes in general. This balance between separation and inclusion, similarity and difference, is a concern that is faced by all museums, governments and individual communities dealing with diversity and as such the chapter speaks beyond the individual case. Søren Kjørup places the Danish Museum within the background of general Danish politics towards minorities. He notes the lack of museums dealing with diversity in Denmark – whether it be the indigenous, the national minorities or new immigrants. Kjørup offers an in-depth analysis of the museum’s architecture, content design and use of voice and narrative. Lena Aarekol closes this section by following up the relationship between changing politics, national minorities and museum representations. Her focus is on the Kven – the group that migrated from Finland and Finnish-speaking Northern Sweden to Norway in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Aarekol offers an historical account of policies in the northern region – policies that affected all migrants as well as the indigenous Sámi – and changing government acceptance and treatment of the Kven minority. In part inspired by Sámi mobilisation, descendents of the Kven pushed for representation within dedicated museums in the North. As Aarekol explains, however, this community push also came at the time of general moves towards a strengthened regional identity. Section II: museums and “new migrants” Section Two maintains the previous concern with the forms of exhibitions as well as the circumstances that bring about change. Now, however, the focus shifts from the representation of indigenous peoples and national minorities to those of new migrants. Within this section a variety of approaches to including minorities and new migrants in the creation of exhibitions are explored. Changes in representations of new migrants have come about through museum reform, through the creation of new cultural centres combining research, social activities and exhibition, and through the practices of new migrants themselves as they enter artistic and exhibition spaces as artists and co-curators themselves. Cajsa Lagerkvist opens this section with a presentation of the recent changes that have occurred in the organisation of museums in Sweden. Within this reorganisation, the major ethnographic museum was renamed “The Museum of World Culture”, signalling a move away from its colonial foundation. Lagerkvist explains how this push for change came from three sources. One consisted

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of government sources who desired a better reflection of contemporary diversity in Sweden. A second came from within the museum as a response to general museum debates, particularly debates about the practices of ethnographic museums and the representation of “others”. A third consisted of new migrant communities who expected greater participation and representation. Lagerkvist offers two exhibition case studies to outline the themes of participation and the search for ways of representing multiculturalism and transnationalism – including the inclusion of difficult contemporary issues such as migrant access to the labour market. Finally, she notes the challenges and inherent conflicts in museum planning with regard to “professionalism” and community “expertise”. In the chapter that follows, the debate regarding multiculturalism, nation ... the tendency to ghettoise “ethnic” and museums is moved to Finland. Here again, as Lily Diaz notes, pushes culture into separate spaces while for greater representation came from all three sources: government initiatives, innovative majority practitioners are a few select museums and galleries, and individual artists and communities. represented in national galleries. Diaz comments on the tendency to ghettoise “ethnic” culture into separate spaces while innovative majority practitioners are represented in national galleries. Within new practices, she is particularly concerned with artistic expressions and examples in which the definitions of “minority” and “culture” are debated as well as moving away from seeing multiculturalism and cultural democracy as a “pie chart”. Instead, Diaz argues, we need to seek out new forms of participation and shift the focus to hybridity and transnationalism. She offers in this chapter examples of such practice. Liv Hilde Bøe offers an historical account of the creation of Norsk Folkemuseum (the National Folk Museum in Norway), created at a time of national sentiment and demands for independence. More broadly, Bøe links the 1894 founding principles – the museum was to reflect Norwegian regional diversity – to recent moves within the museum to expand diversity to include new immigrants. These initiatives include attempts to address contemporary issues and involve communities in the creation of exhibitions. As a result of the gathering of migrant oral histories, Bøe notes the need to rethink concepts of identity and the particular position of second- and thirdgeneration migrants and how this might be reflected in the museum in the future. Lise Poulsen and Mette Skougaard also describe a major cultural history museum – in this case a traditional cultural heritage site – the Kronborg Castle in Denmark. They argue that large cultural museums such as theirs need to become involved with stories and issues related to new migrants. This is not always an easy task for defined heritage museums and sites such as theirs, contributing to the general lack of projects and initiatives in Denmark. This challenge was met at Kronborg through a major tapestry project with refugees and local artists involved as well as the museum curators. This project offers a new perspective on the debate regarding preferred forms of participation and highlights the ways in which such projects are often tied to issues of integration – in this case skill development with the aim of inclusion in the labour market. In the next chapter, Janne Mellingen continues the focus on refugees through a description of the development of the Kurdish Virtual Museum in Norway. Mellingen’s focus is on the needs of the

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diaspora communities to create a site of cultural heritage that binds them. New technologies, such as virtual museums, are seen as a possible way forward, creating a site for remembrance and expressions of difference through cultural heritage. Beyond simple participation in a project initiated elsewhere, this example highlights community control and voice in the face of a lack of involvement by national or regional museums. Hans Philip Einarsen and Bente Møller from the International Cultural Centre and Museum (IKM) in Oslo follow up the concerns opened in the chapter by Niemi with categorisation – in this case categories such as “immigrant”, “us” and “others”. They are also concerned with museums as sites that allow immigrants voice and some control over their representations and offer a set of examples outlining collaborative projects. The International Cultural Centre and Botkyrka Multicultural Centre in Sweden, described by Leif Magnusson in the following chapter, have both been created in areas with a high level of immigrants. Neither of these are solely exhibition spaces or museums in their strict sense but combine these activities with social events and research. They have been supported by government interest in aiding integration in these areas. Their content and goals, however, have developed in conjunction with changing museum and community interests to also include expressions of mobility and transnationalism. Common spaces and issues of identity are thus the defining elements of these newer institutions in moves away from multiculturalism as a “pie chart”. Section III: nation and heritage The third section in this book further develops the conceptual concerns of cultural heritage and diversity and looks at the ways in which definitions of “nation” have affected the forms and contents of national and regional museums. The first half of the section has a focus on heritage – material and intangible – and the effect of international agreements and changes in discourse (from ethnography to folklore studies to heritage studies). Heritage is then linked back to concepts of nation and how museums must reconsider their understandings of heritage and nation in order to become more inclusive. The section ends with a return to the creation of Nordic nations and ensuing museums with a particular focus on new or emerging nations and regions – Iceland and the Faroes. Barbro Klein opens this section with a broad look at the concept of “heritage”. Heritage, she argues, is now considered a “right” that all should have access to and be represented within. Heritage as diverse (beyond regional diversity) was also a central part of debates during Sweden’s Year of Diversity in 2006. As Klein notes, diverse heritage is not limited to national minorities or the indigenous but has come to cover a variety of groups including gender diversity, sexual preferences, the handicapped etc. For museums in Sweden, multicultural heritage has been perhaps the most difficult “diversity” to deal with as they have been caught between fears of creating an exotic other or being too assimilative. Klein suggests ways forward and calls for the need for exhibitions that look at the ways in which people adapt to a new setting – an adaptation that is creative and dynamic.

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Inger Sjørslev continues the concern with cultural heritage but shifts from material heritage to immaterial heritage and the ratification and implications of the UNESCO 2003 convention for the safeguarding of intangible cultural property. Sjørslev, drawing on the anthropologist Sue Wright, raises the question as to whether the convention may lead to further appropriation of minority cultures “in a simultaneous folklorization and legitimization of state hegemonic power”. Sjørslev offers an overview of the differences among Nordic countries in their attitudes and processes of ratification of the convention, and of how the debates surrounding the ratification may offer new insight into discourses surrounding multiculturalism. The challenge for ethnographic museums in particular, Sjørslev argues, is the general breaking down of dichotomies between the global and the local, things and people, and material and immaterial heritage. Knut Kjeldstadli also picks up also broader debates regarding the term “multiculturalism” and places them in relation to concepts and understanding of “nation”. Governments, he argues, must work from the idea of a collective and develop policies accordingly. Traditional conceptions of nation, however, Kjeldstadli argues, are not sufficient in our transnational societies. There is a need to get past concepts of nation as political or ethnic entities. National museums in many of the Nordic countries, however, as noted also in other chapters, were developed as part of the nation-building process with ethnicity as a founding principle. Kjeldstadli argues for the need for more open notions of nation. He considers especially “process-oriented” interpretations of nation where the creation of nationhood itself is revealed, thereby breaking down the presumed bond between a current “us” and an ancient past and encouraging the contemporary majority to be more open to seeing their similarities to newer arrivals rather than to a Viking or Norse past. Haci Akman ties together concerns with multiculturalism and nation to recent debates regarding memory and diaspora communities. He argues for the need to see nations and nation-states as dynamic and temporary structures. National identity therefore must be seen in the light of change and renewal rather than stasis. To be avoided are further attempts to create static histories that serve to justify and immobilise present boundaries and identities. With this background, Akman furthers the discussion surrounding the representation of the Kurdish Diaspora and Norwegian exhibitions on minorities. The development of nationalism, its effect on minorities, and the creation and further development of museums in the Nordic countries are the focus of Peter Aronsson’s chapter. Aronsson outlines similarities and differences in the development of the Nordic nations and their museums and the variety of integrative strategies. Regional differences, Aronsson argues, have been dealt with “as a national cultural orchestration” with cultural heritage and personal sentiment at the forefront rather than power and divisive identities. Cultural institutions have played an important role in this form of depoliticising difference. Aronsson suggests that the integration of new migrant groups will follow a similar path with a focus on heritage and personal sentiment rather than on political differences, identity, and power issues.

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Jóan Pauli Joensen picks up the concern with the development of regional identity and the development of museums but shifts the focus to the Faroe Islands – a region less well documented than the large Nordic nations and their capitals. As described earlier in this introduction, moves towards independence and the creation of a separate national identity were made during the second half of the nineteenth century, in large part based on language and cultural difference. These moves included the gradual creation of museums and Joensen describes the focus of these museums, their political base, and gradual changes in representations. The chapter that follows by Katla Kjartansdóttir and Kristinn Schram adds to the history of national development and museums, with a focus on Iceland. Their primary case is the newly reopened exhibition “The Becoming of a Nation” at the National Museum of Iceland. The reworking of the exhibition, they argue, has led to a more “dynamic” representation of Icelandic history and national identity – one that sees the movement of people as an historical continuum rather than as a new phenomenon. In the final chapter of this volume Katherine Goodnow looks at some of the main forms that diversity exhibitions take and the circumstances and interests that supported them – state, museum and community interests, policies and responses. By bringing together debates and discussions of diversity in its various forms across nations with a similar and intertwined history, we hope that this volume in the Museums and Diversity series offers insight into these regions and their diverse peoples, furthers the general debate on representations of diversity and museums, and offers museum curators and other producers of images and stories of diversity possible ways forward.

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Today’s museum: challenges for museums functioning in a mass culture Jack Lohman

In the 2006 Hollywood hit film Night at the Museum, Larry, played by Ben Stiller, discovers something strange in New York’s Museum of Natural History.1 He’s hired as a nightwatchman; it’s all looking pretty sleepy and straightforward … until suddenly there’s a mighty crash – the mammoths, the Tyrannosaurus rex, the lions and zebras come alive at night, and it’s up to Larry to keep them in order until the museum reopens the next morning. Even the tiny dioramas – once so beloved of museums – come to life: miniature Mayans build a temple in one corner, Romans do battle, the Wild West is tamed by the great railway that united America from coast to coast.

1 Night at the Museum, dir. Shawn Levy (2006). The film’s fictional museum is based on the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan.

The movie’s appeal is wide-ranging – I particularly like the scene where visitor numbers suddenly pick up! And it goes to the heart of something we are all drawn to in museums: the wonder of exhibits. The fantasy of museum objects coming alive is an extension of the imaginative process that actual museums so powerfully provoke. To understand the past, to be moved by it, you have to engage your imagination to animate the swords and sceptres, the crosses and cradles that are shown to you. Museums are places of enchantment – provided we can get people inside.

... museums can modernise, though at Enchantment is not a bad word to keep in mind as we examine the challenges facing Scandinavian museums today. It can sometimes seem as some risk of turning themselves into if museums are given two choices. On the one hand, they can adopt a theme parks ... traditionalist position: they can ignore what’s happening around them and get on with doing what they’ve always done, regardless of visitor figures or adverse criticism. On the other hand, museums can modernise, though at some risk of turning themselves into theme parks, with bells and whistles, light shows and lots of buttons to keep the children occupied so they don’t have to look at any boring old maps or dusty flint-axes. Faced with an ever-hurrying popular culture, especially in cities, it can sometimes seem as if there is no successful middle ground for museums – either you stop and become old-fashioned, or you rush ahead and become over-technologised. But we need to examine more closely the relationship we have to this mass culture that museums are so often rushing towards or reacting to. To understand it is to pinpoint the quality of its influence – and our possible response to it. Perhaps the most immediate threat posed by mass culture (if it is a threat – and I shall return to this later) is that it sets a new challenge for museums as attractions. One of the great qualities of popular culture is its appeal, and if museums are to win the struggle for audiences, they need to understand that appeal, and know when – and when not – to compete with it.

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2 Sebald, W. G. (2003) On the natural history of destruction, trans. Anthea Bell. New York: Random House, p. 46. 3 Quoted by Stuart Hall (2005) “Negotiating architecture”, in Peter Allison (ed.), David Adjaye houses: Recycling, reconfiguring, rebuilding. London: Thames & Hudson, p. 11. 4 Hall (2005), op. cit., p. 11.

Traditional cultural institutions will suffer from this question if they see themselves at the losing end of change, as if the museum were something fixed and solid being slowly eroded by modern shifts of behaviour and interest, as if museums themselves were incapable of change. If our concept of a museum is lodged at some point in the eighteenth century, or, even worse, in the nineteenth century, when that air of the mausoleum begins to hang about the place, we will not stand a chance when faced with the rapid changes in society. As cultural leaders, all of us can see what needs to be done: we have to shift the elephant. It’s not that we can’t see the need for change, or even the direction it might take. It’s finding a way of shifting the mammoth beast from what it was – and that includes how it was built, what it holds, how we work inside it – to what it might be for today’s and tomorrow’s audiences. So how do we ensure that we stay relevant? How do we operate as attractions? What methods can we use to shift the beast and improve the quality of the visitor experience today? Let me suggest a few. Fundamental to the way museums present themselves is the architecture of their buildings. Exciting architecture can generate a sense of importance to visitors. A compelling building can become a draw in itself. Consider Sverre Fenn’s Glacier Museum, the Vasa Museum in Stockholm or the Ordrupgaard Museum extension by Zaha Hadid. We may be suspicious of such a competing pull, but it is not a diversion. Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao has created a new level of economic prosperity for the Spanish city. And when such architecture is outstanding, it supports the meanings of the collection it houses. Gehry’s building makes reference to the industrial forms of Bilbao’s past, its factories and wharves. China’s new Capital Museum in Beijing has created a gateway to its collection using a temple structure immediately identifiable to local Chinese, while in no way detracting from the building’s avant-garde modernity. Indeed, one can go further and argue that a museum building does not merely support, but can create a powerful cultural argument. One thinks of Libeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin, where one’s very passage through narrowing corridors and darkened towers encapsulates the experience of both the collection that’s there and (perhaps more tellingly) the collection that’s not, the lost artefacts which can never be retrieved and displayed. It is a building that needs to, and does, communicate what W. G. Sebald has called “the ambience of total destruction”.2 One of Britain’s best and brightest young architects argues strongly for the representational importance of new architecture. David Adjaye was born in Tanzania, but grew up in multicultural modern Britain. As he describes it, “I’ve had to negotiate culture being a Christian boy in a Muslim country, then an African boy in north London … I was born negotiating.”3 His critics are quick to praise the polymorphous influence of his buildings. They are, writes one, “informed by an eye that has looked hard and seriously at dwellings, building styles, forms, materials and traditions in north and east Africa, the Middle East and Japan, absorbing and assimilating ideas without ever falling into a studied vernacular”.4

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When we are examining the possibilities of our museum buildings – and we must be attentive to the varied international contexts in which we now work – it is the contemporary mix of an architect such as Adjaye that may best speak to our increasingly diverse and world-drawn audiences.5 One of our own central negotiations must be between the specifics of our own cultural study (the very reason for our particular museums) and the widest possible communication of those meanings. And smart buildings help. The building, of course, is not enough, and the luxury of a new structure is not always possible. Indeed there may be a compelling argument for preserving the cultural history enshrined in a period building, not least for the sense of national pride and value such a building can project.6 But inside, the design opportunities are wide-ranging and exciting. I haven’t the space here to take us through the great sweep of advances in museum design in recent decades, but many will be familiar. As expectations have grown, so have attitudes towards what we permit in the museum space. Technological advances have enabled a spectrum of new ways of engaging the visitor, from soundscapes of oral history (the voices of the past quite literally coming to life) to personally engaging interactive displays. But let us look briefly at a few instances of good practice that suggest certain principles we can draw on to shape whatever design elements we choose.

5 Adjaye’s work includes the design of cultural institutions and museums. In October 2007, his luminous new building for the Museum of Contemporary Art opened in Denver, Colorado. His recent highly topical buildings in London include the Stephen Lawrence Centre in Deptford. This is architecture at the centre of representation and cultural debate. The building commemorates the brutal murder of a black teenager, and has already been attacked by racist vandals. 6 Buildings such as the elegantly restored Józef Mehoffer House of the National Museum in Cracow are a case in point, as is the domestic history preserved in London’s Geffrye Museum, housed in a row of eighteenthcentury almshouses.

Te Papa in New Zealand is one of the world’s great museums. It is beautifully designed and draws on indigenous ways of thinking about public space. Passing through the traditional gateway into the marae, the customary Maori meeting place, visitors to Te Papa both witness indigenous culture and are welcomed into it. Design has been used to create a museum experience that speaks both to those whose history is being staged and to those who are new to it. The design of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American ... it is no small thing to have your own Indian mixes various “native sensibilities” (as it terms them) in its attempt culture at last represented in a state to represent the sheer multitude of American Indian voices, from the building of international importance. palette of colours to the choice of materials. The Welcome Wall is impressed with words of greeting in hundreds of native languages from across the Americas. As at Te Papa, both scale and symbol have been considered, for however lost amid the larger cacophony of languages (which is part of the point of the Welcome Wall), it is no small thing to have your own culture at last represented in a state building of international importance. The result is a design as expressive as the displays it introduces. Such issues are particular to each museum. But the larger point holds: that museum design, both inside and out, can create a quality visitor experience by considering the politics and protocols of its audience. Regardless of the appeal of consumer culture and cyberspace, people will come to museums if we frame our collections well. And if we do so, we have a double advantage. All the tricks and tools of modernity can be ours, and we still have our real objects, in all their historical potency and mystery, their enchantment. In a recent article entitled “A Museum is not an iPod”, a writer reminds us:

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7 Hughes, Kathryn (2007) “A museum is not an iPod”, The Guardian, 20 January 2007. 8 Campbell, Peter (2007) “At the British Museum”, London Review of Books, 20 September 2007, p. 27.

“There is something irreplaceable and unique about visiting a bricks-and-mortar museum in real time, rather than gutting its content electronically from home.”7 What is irreplaceable is the collective experience a museum can offer, where one’s response is enhanced and expanded by those of others, and the sheer joy of material things. There was a wonderful description of this experience in a review of some Indian miniature paintings displayed at the British Museum in 2007: Of course, we sit for many hours in front of screens scanning images. But those images are not also things. One butts eagerly against the glass cases in which this exhibition is housed partly because one’s pleasure in the density of the pigments, the delicacy of the brush-marks – everything that makes them things as well as pictures – tells of an element missing from our own visual diet.8 The great strength of museums has always been that they looked inward: gathering, studying, preserving the past. Today they need to use the wealth of that material to reach out to audiences and grab hold of them. Design and technology, public events and learning programmes – all create new approaches to our traditional collections. Audiences will always be hungry for real treasures. Museums come alive provided the experience of them is not a historical impediment, blocked by unhelpful descriptions and dull presentation, but instead makes sense to modern viewers. To view museums as attractions is important. Yet to do so succumbs in large part to the paradigm of competition that mass culture poses. But the role of museums is much wider than vying with shopping malls and swimming pools to provide leisure for the family on a Sunday afternoon. And it is in these larger considerations that the balance begins to shift towards understanding the absolute importance of museums in times of rapid social change. One key area where museums are growing is in terms of leadership. Some may baulk at the professionalisation of museums, but improved skills are exactly what the cultural sector requires if it is to succeed on the larger platform of the modern world. The issue is partly an internal one: we are not producing the right sort of leaders to carry our organisations forward. The need for leadership training is becoming clearer. The development of Museum Studies courses reflects this, as do more recently focused programmes such as the U.K.’s Clore Leadership Programme (now broadening its intake internationally) or the Getty’s Museums Leadership Institute. As the Getty Foundation states, there is a pressing need to provide “a strategic perspective to the increasingly complex issues facing today’s museums”. And the issues are complex: national identity, economic influence, social improvement. Museums have often turned their backs on contemporary society, while paradoxically trying to explain the importance of past societies. It is a misplaced luxury, and one we no longer have or want. If mass culture is drawing audiences away, we need to show that we are relevant to them now.

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One way of doing so is by making the most of our collections. Enchantment is one thing, but it doesn’t deal with the logistical issues of getting people and objects to connect. This is one area where good direction comes in. In London, there is now a museums hub to co-ordinate work across institutions. It is not surprising that museums often feel beleaguered when they are so often working in isolation. The hub was set up to create a “Renaissance in the regions”. My own museum, the Museum of London, now acts as a leader to share collections, knowledge and programming among a group of local museums, so that each has a greater impact than it might standing alone. In Scandinavia, the prospects for such co-ordination are tantalising. We can see in Norway, Denmark and Sweden a real rise in the importance of museum culture. Sámi history, Sámi collectors, Sámi monuments, a Sámi museum – these are being rightly brought forward and celebrated. But imagine the prospect of a transnational collection that could move and be seen by millions of people. I’m not referring to ownership here, in a literal sense, but of a shared resource that culturally belongs to everyone. Mass culture poses a threat when we ourselves behave narrowly. But we too are broad, and our mass together as cultural experts is the complete heritage of humankind. If we can shake off the mindset that wants to lock things up safely for posterity, that thinks in terms of the storeroom and the safe, then curators and museum staff can become facilitators of collections and the knowledge that surrounds them. By distributing our collections more widely, and by encouraging and supporting different communities to interpret collections in ways that are meaningful to them, museums can jointly create a cultural space that is both personalised and universal. And once museums are so richly, so multiply meaningful, they are far from being at risk. They show, Mass culture poses a threat when we in fact, that culture is essential to lead the way for social development and a better world. ourselves behave narrowly. But we too

are broad, and our mass together as Such is the leadership we must lay claim to. There is no point in London cultural experts is the complete heritage in trying to narrow down some particular definition of the city and of humankind. locking it up in a museum. The whole point is that London, like so much of our globalised society, indeed like all of our countries, is constantly changing – and my museum, the Museum of London, has a responsibility to come up with ways of capturing that change and responding to it. Take immigration. The “Eurozone” has created new patterns of migration one can hardly keep up with from day to day. Globally the patterns of power and development are shifting enormously and the traditional prominence of certain cultures is altering. IBM has identified the BRICK countries, as it calls them – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Korea – as the five most important emerging economies, with population growth and economic development predicted to proceed at twice the rate of Europe’s. Goldman Sachs has identified the N11 countries, the Next 11, that

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9 A report commissioned from AEA Consulting for the National Museum of Australia identifies the importance of the global contexts in which museums work today. “World-class museums have also generated visibility by adapting to the global marketplace – often simply by operating internationally. Competitive strategies to secure corporate sponsorships, acquisitions for their collections, high-caliber volunteers, and cultural tourists are now conducted in an international arena, and the world’s great museums benchmark themselves internationally and are proactive in generating visibility and buzz among a global audience and a global constituency of opinionformers. From developing satellite facilities abroad (Guggenheim Bilbao, Berlin, Venice), to brokering exclusive exhibition partnerships (the V&A and the Museum of Fine Arts San Francisco) to crafting innovative, deeper international strategic alliances (the Louvre and the High Museum, Atlanta), world-class museums are conscious of the need to be visible internationally and to undertake high-profile, carefully crafted initiatives that will garner and sustain institutional visibility.” (para 2.16). 10 The argument is not so straightforward, of course, for such special objects themselves are often representative of mass culture (our museums are as full of “typical” objects as rarities). Grand works of high art are also fascinated by and connected to the larger cultures out of which they emerge: an urban genre painting of a crowd in a railway station by W. P. Frith, uniquely impressive as it may be, may tell us more about nineteenthcentury life in London than a surviving piece of Victorian ironwork.

show the most promising outlooks for investment and future growth based on macroeconomic stability, political maturity, openness of trade and investment policies, and quality of education. Those countries are Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Turkey and Vietnam. I mention these not to offer personal advice on financial investment, but to shake up our categories of engagement. Relevance is about anticipating the world’s impact not just internationally but locally, since these social revolutions affect all of us. If we as museums are specialists in cultural understanding, then leading the debate on social change is where we need to position ourselves.9 Earlier I made the point that museums can be isolated. Discussions about the fate and function of museums often make it seem as if they inevitably existed apart from everything else in society. One can see how this thought arises: the rare suit of armour, the Old Master madonna and child, the 4 000-year-old Chinese jade – such objects are special, and justly displayed in all their solitary beauty. As preservers of such masterpieces, museums seek to inhabit a similar identity as unique places.10 But in an age of mass culture, where none of us is unencumbered by a small pile of electronic gadgets and children spend increasing amounts of their time online, that specialness of museums can seem outmoded. But does that mean that museums are therefore irrelevant? I recently gave a tour of the Museum of London in Polish. There is a large Polish community in London and I hoped that 20 or 30 might show up – a good size for a weekend talk. When 450 people crowded into the museum foyer, I not only had a logistical problem but a thrilling proof of the hunger for culture that exists not just in London, but in every city. And indeed it is here, in this desire, this hunger, that I find the opposition between mass culture and museums untenable. In a globalised society, mass culture is not a threat, for we are all part of a mass culture now. Our mistake is in failing to recognise the fact. Museums are, par excellence, mass culture: they have their rich collections, the international weight of their scholarship and research, their libraries and archives. They have diversity and comprehensiveness. What popular culture offers is not a threat to museums, but an exciting opportunity to rethink our selfpresentation. Instead of bemoaning virtual games or consumer mentalities, we should be asking ourselves: What is the museum equivalent of a music video? What is the emailable museum? The textible museum? How do we take our strengths and connect once more with new audiences? It may sound silly, but our embarrassment at such ideas shows that these divisions are being drawn by the old guard, not by the watchers of YouTube and MTV. Young audiences especially are open to everything they can get their hands on. They want to upload, download, video-clip the world. They want to carry it round in their pockets. And it’s not just them. In countries like the U.K., televised history programmes are among the most highly watched. When the eminent historian Simon Schama leaps across a Roman rampart near Avignon on the television, is it so different from watching a Janet Jackson video?

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I’m teasing, of course. But the serious point is that these cultures overlap, and within ever-changing technological forms the same desires and needs are at play: to understand our pasts, to know more about the world, to see things that are new to us.

11 Said, Edward (1999) Out of place: A memoir. New York: Vintage Books, p. 119.

It is here that our attitudes are crucial. We need to be accessible. We need enlightened direction. It is an idea that the great Polish museum director Stanislaw Lorentz himself would have understood. As he once said, “Collections are stores that only become museums when they are enlightened by scholars and cultural leaders.” In effect, museums need, as in the film I began with, animation. Otherwise they are inert – “stores”, as Lorentz says. When a mainstream film like Night at the Museum celebrates a large, lovable, traditional museum, it is a sign that museums are not so far off the radar of public interest. They are not ready just yet for the dust heap and it would be a mistake to see them as such. Museums are places of leadership, where the very forces that shape social change can be discussed and polemicised. Edward Said once wrote that he first experienced Palestine as history and cause – by talking to his aunt.11 This is exactly what museums do: raise awareness of the world by telling individual stories of the past. By doing so, and by ensuring an awareness of the relevance of the work we do, we can set the tone for a cultural argument that encompasses Edward Said once wrote that he first all the communities of the world. Our challenge, perhaps our only threat, experienced Palestine as history and is to keep our thinking larger than the walls by which we are surrounded.

cause – by talking to his aunt.

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CHAPTER 1

Indigenous peoples and national minorities in Norway: categorisation and minority politics Einar Niemi

“National minorities” is a new category of people in Norway in the sense that the term now prevails in politics and administration, having been formalised at the end of the 1990s.

At the same time, the category refers to the existence of ethnic groups that have lived here for a long time. The sudden rise of the category reflects a form of “discovery” of ethnicity, in that these ethnic groups have been re-categorised or newly categorised and given a common name for the first time. The groups referred to here are the Jews, the Kvens, the Romany (also called Travellers and Taters), the Gypsies and the Forest Finns. In addition, the authorities wanted the Sámi to be included in this categorisation. The Sámi parliament, however, declined – “indigenous people” was the only category acceptable to them. 1 “Indigenous people” and “aboriginals” were well-established terms in both international law and minority policies. A third prevalent category was “immigrants”, though this has not always existed. So in 2007 we have three separate minority-political categories (discounting other types of categories related to gender, physical handicaps etc.): national minorities, indigenous people and immigrants. The theme of my contribution is the rise of the national minorities and indigenous people categories, with a side-glance at the immigrant category, and the relevance of categories in the creation of hierarchies prevalent in Norwegian minority politics. The starting point is that categories of ethnic groups are obviously not neutral terms, not simply objective scientific and political tools, as categories come and go in history and they can be decisive for the motivations and legitimisation of political action. Historical background The term “national minorities” is not new. Nationale Minderheiten (national minorities) was, for example, the term used by the League of Nations in its politics in the aftermath of the First World War regarding European states that wrestled with minority and border delimitation problems. The common denominator for these minorities was that they had a historic legitimacy in the individual countries or the border areas: they had lived there for so long that they had become “national”. The five folk groups that have recently been given status as national minorities in Norway can point to a historical presence in the country over many hundreds of years, though the extents and longevity of that presence vary as patterns of settlement – and indeed levels of minority-political

LEFT:

"The Lapp Camp" at Skansen, Stockholm, 1896. Photo: Bengt Orling, Nordiska Museet.

1 St.prp nr. 80 (1997–98) Om samtykke til ratifikasjon av Europarådets rammekonvensjon av 1. februar 1995 om beskyttelse av nasjonale minoriteter, p. 13.

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awareness – tend to. The five ethnic groups, however, have a number of common historical features. The first is that they migrated to this country, although the origins of one group, the Romany, are still under academic discussion. The second is that they have been marginalised in number, social status and settlement patterns. The third is that they have been exposed to discrimination, partly because of cultural and societal features that have differed from those of the majority society and the dominant culture. Allow me to outline the historical background.2 The Norwegian 1814 Constitution ascertained that Jews did not have right of access to Norway. Legal provisions during the time of Danish rule before 1814 did the same, even though groups of Jews had settled in the country. The “Jewish paragraph” of the Constitution was abolished in 1851, after almost 20 years of debate and dispute. Jews immigrated to Norway in relatively large numbers, particularly from Eastern Europe and the Baltic countries. At the outbreak of the Second World War, around 2 000–2 500 Jews lived in Norway: the war and the Holocaust were catastrophic for Norwegian Jews as they were for so many others. Amongst the national minorities, Jews stand out in that their religion – the Mosaic religion – is the dominant connecting factor within the group. To the extent that the Jews themselves have expressed an ethno-political position, it is dualistic: on the one hand, economic and social integration into Norwegian society, and on the other, resistance to full cultural and religious assimilation. Today there are presumed to be between 1 500 and 2 000 Jews in Norway, of whom about 1 200 are members of the two Mosaic communities in Oslo and Trondheim.3 There have probably been Gypsies in Norway since the late Middle Ages, even though it is unclear to what extent the contemporary sources The Romany are probably the ethnic differentiate between the Romany and the Gypsies – or the Rom as they group in this country that has been themselves wish to be called in Norway. In the second half of the 1800s most exposed to regular persecution. and up to the inter-war period, limited immigration of Gypsies to Norway took place, particularly from Romania and Hungary where they had been persecuted. By orders of the Norwegian authorities in the 1930s, a group that had had residence in Norway were stopped in Denmark on their return to Norway and sent back to Germany, where many of them were 2 See Kjeldstadli, Knut (ed.) interned in concentration camps during the war. After the war, the “Gypsy problem” was addressed (2003) Norsk innvandringshistorie, vols 1–3. with reports and various social measures including the housing initiatives of the 1970s, but without Oslo: Pax forlag; Niemi, Einar any particular success. Seen from the Gypsies’ perspective, the greatest problems have been practical (2006) “National minorities and minority policy in Norway”, in questions concerning parking and camping permissions and lack of respect for their mobile lifestyle. Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark Today there are about 350 Norwegian citizens who consider themselves Gypsies. 4 (ed.) International obligations and national debates: Minorities around the Baltic Sea. Mariehamn: The Åland Peace Institute, pp. 397–452. 3 Kjeldstadli (2003) op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 247–249; vol. 2, pp. 98– 105, 278–284, 403–414; vol. 3, pp. 23–39. 4 Ibid., vol. 2, pp, 151–153, 418–420; vol. 3, pp. 72–78, 125–127.

The Romany are probably the ethnic group in this country that has been most exposed to regular persecution: in former times, “Romany hunts” were practised in some villages. On the other hand, the Romany were seen as an integrated populace in some local communities due to their trade and occupational specialities. The Romany have had many names. Today, not surprisingly, there are divided opinions amongst the Romany themselves as to the “correct” term. “The Travellers” and “the Romany people” are perhaps the most accepted names but many want to restore the title “Tater”. By the middle of the 1800s the “Tater problem” (fanteproblemet), also called the “Tater evil” (fanteondet), was raised as a minority-political concern, not least due to the pastor and social scientist Eilert Sundt,

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whose interest in the Romany began as early as the 1840s. In 1850, the Norwegian parliament created a separate fund, “the Tater fund” (fantefondet), which was to ensure that necessary resources were available to “civilise” the Romany; in other words, to ensure that they left their “Tater ways” (fantestien) and became permanent settled residents fully integrated into society. Towards the end of century, the project was supported by the Organisation for the Fight Against Vagabonds (Foreningen til bekjempelse av omstreifervesenet). Renamed the Norwegian Mission for the Homeless in the inter-war years, it was active until the 1980s. Romany numbers have not been officially registered since the Second World War, and the history of the Romany gives an indication as to why they refuse to be registered. Their own estimations of number vary from “many hundred” to “a few thousand”. 5 The final two national minorities, the Kven in Northern Norway and the Forest Finns in Southern Norway, are related in the sense that they both have origins in Finland and that they both – like minorities in Norway – are a result of extensive Nordic migration patterns in Early Modern and Modern times. The Forest Finns’ settlement in the Norwegian Finn Forests in the south-eastern parts of Norway took place for the most part in the 1600s. There were some small additions later from Värmland in Sweden, where the Forest Finns first settled after the immigration from Finland to Scandinavia. Difficult times, in addition to the “mission” that the Finnish student and folklore researcher Carl Axel Gottlund ran amongst them, galvanised the Forest Finns to make demands of the central state authorities in the 1820s. They asked for their own Finnish-speaking priests and schoolteachers, chapels and churches and their own administrative county (herred) in the border area. The authorities, fearing the formation of a state within a state, refused all demands. Even though Finnish was spoken in the Finn Forests and many other cultural features continued well into the 1900s, there was a clear decline in the Forest Finn culture after this first known ethnic “rebellion” in Norwegian history. The culture was increasingly considered a relic culture. In the North, individual Kvens had found their way to the Arctic Coast as early as the Late Middle Ages. Major immigration started early in the eighteenth century, primarily as a result of the northern Finnish farming expansion. From about 1830, a new wave of Finnish immigrants – still called Kvens – arrived in Northern Norway, migration now stimulated by labour market mechanisms. According to the 1875 census, almost a quarter of the population in Norway’s northernmost county, Finnmark, were Kvens. In the neighbouring county of Troms, they made up about 8 per cent. Since the Second World War there has been no systematic registration of Kvens, but recent regional studies have shown that a considerable number of people still consider themselves “more or less” Kven: in Finnmark up to a quarter of the adult population. 6 By the middle of the 1800s the authorities decided that the official minority policy should be assimilatory; in other words, that integration should take place on the majority society’s terms, the goal being the loss of the minority culture and full transition to Norwegian culture and language. The policy was especially aimed at the northern minorities in the border areas between Russia and Finland, but included also the Romany and the Forest Finns. A fund parallel to the “Tater fund”, the “Finnish fund” (finnefondet), was established by parliament to “Norwegianise” the Kvens and the Sámi. This sharp shift in minority policy was designed partly to support the idea of a

5 Ibid., vol. 1, pp, 156–371; vol. 2, pp. 147–176, 414–419, 449– 459; vol. 3, pp. 36–39, 72–78, 124–126. 6 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 337–44; vol. 2, pp. 196–246, 285–294, 398– 402; vol. 3, pp. 89–94.

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nation-state in its most stringent definition, and partly for foreign and security policy considerations regarding “the vulnerable border districts in the North” where perceptions of both the “Russian danger” and the “Finnish danger” lived out their xenophobic lives. While the policies towards the northern minorities had been accommodating in the 1700s and the beginning of the 1800s, in the spirit of the Enlightenment and physiocracy, it was now aggressively assimilatory; this was, moreover, a common tendency in a number of European countries.7 The changes in categorisation reflected this development. The ways in which the term “nation” had previously been applied to people reflected recognition of their rights and claims to their own culture. The perception in the Age of Enlightenment of the Sámi as an indigenous people – “the aboriginals” (de innfødte), “the oldest people of the land” (de ældste der i landet) – had a similar effect. During the 1800s,“nation” was increasingly reserved for “the Norwegian people” – “The People” – and decreasingly used in relation to the minorities – “the peoples”. If “nation” was now used in relation to them, it was usually in comments about “the foreign nations” (de fremmede nationer), which signalled that the Kvens and the Sámi, together with the other national minorities of today, did not really belong in Norway: they were immigrants or original immigrants. The perception that the Sámi were an indigenous people with inherited rights survived to a certain degree, particularly amongst academics, but did not have any practical meaning under the new and strict minority policy. 8 Kvens and Sámi were lumped together.

7 Eriksen, Knut Einar and Niemi, Einar (1981) Den finske fare. Sikkerhetsproblemer og minoritetspolitikk i nord 18601940. Oslo-Bergen-Tromsø: Universitetsforlaget; Niemi, Einar (1995) “The Finns in Northern Scandinavia and minority policy”, in Sven Tägil (ed), Ethnicity and nation building in the Nordic world. London: Hurst & Company, pp. 145–178. 8 Niemi, Einar (2005) “Vitenskap og politick: Lappologen Jens Andreas Friis og de etniske minoritetene, 1860–1890”, in Tom Gullberg and Kaj Sandberg (eds), Medströms och motströms: Individ och struktur i historien. Helsinki: Söderströms/Atlantis, Helsinki, pp. 15–36. 9 Jernsletten, Regner (2002) “The development of a Saami elite in Norden”, in K. Karppi and J. Eriksson (eds), Conflict and cooperation in the North. Umeå: Umeå University, pp. 147–166.

Let me then follow the policies and the categorisations further: a particular focus on the Sámi and the Kvens may be useful in illustrating the policy and the role of the categories. Indigenous people and immigrants After the Second World War, in clear contrast to the pre-war period, there was almost complete silence regarding minority policy towards the Kvens. A similar official position was taken towards the other ethnic groups that now have the status of national minorities – although there were some social initiatives geared towards the Gypsies and Romany. By contrast there was, as early as the 1940s and 1950s, an emerging acceptance by authorities that the Sámi were an “indigenous” people whose culture should be protected and allowed to develop on its own terms. The background to this included international trends and the resumption of older domestic indigenous ideas; a modern Sámi ethno-political organisation also began to take shape. It seemed as if the central authorities were inclined to abandon previous assimilation policies.9 They did not, however, because of local of resistance in the North, not least from local and regional government, but also from among the Sámi themselves. The effects of generations of residual theories concerning race ideology and development in addition to assimilation policies were now seen. Authorities as well as individuals had more or less been convinced that the road to the future went through total adaptation to Norwegian culture. From about 1970 the Sámi Movement was radicalised. Impulses from the growing international indigenous peoples’ movement together with new research results, not least on traditional territorial

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rights, fuelled this radicalisation.10 The conflict around 1980 over the damming of the Alta-Kautokeino River for hydroelectric purposes had enormous symbolic significance for the “Sámi case”. It became a lever in demands for a new Sámi policy based on ideas of specific indigenous people’s rights. The government appointed two large committees to consider Sámi conditions – the Sámi Rights Commission (Samerettsutvalget) and the Sámi Cultural Commission (Samekulturutvalget). Both delivered extensive reports within their fields, which formed the basis of a new Sámi policy from the second half of the 1980s. This was based on a pluralistic approach and an acknowledgement that the Sámi were a defined people with indigenous rights. Norway’s ratification in 1990 of the ILO Convention No. 169 from 1989 was a definitive expression that the category “indigenous people” had received important legal status – and that the category was usable as a legitimisation of minority demands. Around 1990 the contours of a simple minority policy hierarchy emerged, with the Sámi as an indigenous people at the top, followed by the rest of the minorities, who had an unclear status but were referred to generally as “immigrants”. It appears that the authorities wished to avoid a more detailed categorisation – the new Sámi policy was already enough: minority-policy demands from other groups would introduce “sand in the machinery”, to borrow the title of a book by Grete Brochmann, Tordis Borchgrevink and Jon Rogstad. 11 This two-part minority policy hierarchy was hardly an expression of a well-thought-through and principle-based comprehensive minority policy, but rather an expression of a situation in which the new Sámi policy was finally agreed, while policies towards the other minorities were kept on ice. An increasing ethno-political awareness emerged amongst the Kven in the ... how long could an ethnic group be early 1980s. Without question this was inspired by the Sámi political categorised as immigrants? uprising in addition to the mobilisation of the Torne Valley Finns in Sweden, a regional minority group with many historical parallels to the Kvens. In 1987 the Norwegian Kven Association (Norske kveners forbund) was founded. But even at the beginning of the 1990s, the Kvens’ 10 Minde, Henry (2002) “The demands for a new minority policy and an assurance of minority status not linked to the term struggle for Sami land rights “immigrant” were refused. The two-part hierarchy still had only these two categories: indigenous people and self-government in Norway, 1960–1990”, in Karppi and immigrants. At a seminar at the University of Tromsø in 1994, the question arose about this and Eriksson (2002), op. cit., clearly and openly: how long could an ethnic group be categorised as immigrants? The question was pp. 75–106. aimed at a government representative at the seminar, a political adviser in the Ministry for Local 11 Brochmann, Grete, Government and Employment. The answer was illuminating for both the “tyranny of categories” and Borchgrevink, Tordis and Rogstad, Jon (2002) Sand i the government policies of the time: he told the audience that he did not care whether the Kvens had maskinerie: Makt og demokrati i immigrated in the 1800s or the 1600s; they were immigrants because that is what the government had det flerkulturelle Norge. Oslo: Gyldendal akademisk forlag. decided! At the same seminar, he confirmed that the new and positive minority policies towards the Sámi were based on the Sámi’s status as an indigenous people and the obligations that Norway had 12 Ingebrigtsen, Roger (1994) “Statens rolle i forhold til thus taken on both nationally and internationally.12 kvenene”, in Anne T. Strøm At this time ethnic mobilisation had increased also amongst the other minorities who were to receive status as national minorities. A number of Forest Finns joined the Kven Association, and the National Romany Peoples Association (Romanifolkets landsforening) was founded in 1995, for example. All of this led to the two-part hierarchical structure becoming more problematic, and questions were raised about the catch-all category “immigrants”.

(ed.), Kvenene – en glemt minoritet? Tromsø: Universitetet i Tromsø, p. 46; Megard, Bjørn Olav (1999) “Kvener og finskætta”, Masters thesis in social anthropology, Oslo: University of Oslo, p. 83; Niemi (2006), op. cit., pp. 423– 424.

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The final breakthrough for more differentiated thinking about the categories, however, had its base in impulses from outside, namely the European Council’s invitation to sign and ratify the Council’s framework convention for the protection of national minorities. The European Council’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities The convention, adopted by the European Council in 1995, was the first international agreement for national minorities with clear implications regarding international law and a clear outcome of the then prevailing multiculturalism. It came into effect on 1 February 1998 after sufficient states had ratified it. Norway’s ratification came the year after in 1999.13 Through discussions and seminars, group awareness and mobilisation strengthened at the same time as considerations from the minorities affected the decision processes in Norway, and thereby the profile of the new minority policies. In this way, the groups in question were drawn out of the shadows – almost rediscovered – as a category in themselves.14 The statements made by the ethnic minorities during the official discussions and following the ratification are interesting expressions of historical experiences and of the organisations’ differing degree of strength and consolidation, and of the implication and political meaning of categories. The Sámi parliament’s statement is a particular example of the last point: the parliament did not want the convention to embrace the Sámi, who could accept only the minority-political category of indigenous people. The Sámi wished to continue to “defend the status they had as an indigenous people and the strengthened legal position which has been attained as an indigenous people”. Otherwise, most of the statements were positive, even though ambivalence and concern were also expressed. The statement from the National Romany Peoples Association is illustrative. The association was concerned with the historical injustice that was suffered by the Romany people and felt that there should be a public settlement with regards to this injustice; it was also concerned that the categorisation of Romany as a national minority could lead to renewed stigmatisation, and their being once again “locked out” of society.15 The ethno-political hierarchy

13 St.prp nr 80 (1997–98). 14 Niemi (2006), op. cit., pp. 429–440. 15 St.prp nr 80 (1997–98). 16 Niemi (2006), op. cit., pp. 435–440.

I cannot go into the processes of implementation of the convention here.16 Let me note, however, that the convention requires that the states report regularly and that the European Council has an expert committee to monitor the convention. So far, Norway has delivered two reports and the expert committee has given three “Opinions on Norway”. A number of initiatives have been carried out, particularly within the cultural sector but also concerning economic settlements towards the Sámi and the Kven for loss of schooling (though these have not yet had any concrete results), and the Jews for loss of property and suffering during the war. The expert committee has commended Norwegian Sámi policies (even though the Sámi are not included by the convention), but has

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demanded that obligations towards national minorities, particularly those concerning language, media and education, be met more swiftly. In conclusion, I would like to return to the categories and their implications for Norwegian minority policies. The convention and the categories’ new entry into politics have already led to palpable results. One example is a reorganisation of the field’s administration. In the Ministry for Local and Regional Government (formerly Ministry for Local Government and Employment), work concerning these issues was organised in one office, the office of “Sámi, minority and immigration questions” (Avdeling for same-, minoritets- og innvandringssaker), led by the state secretary for Sámi issues. Minorities, disgruntled that the Sámi dossier was lumped together with the dossier that dealt with the national minorities, noted that the Sámi parliament had turned down the convention. Minorities were also concerned that Sámi issues would dominate to the detriment of national minority issues, since there was a far greater government obligation towards the Sámi, and a far greater proportion of funding was directed at the Sámi. Administratively there was also now a definitive divide, with the Sámi and minority issues on the one side, and (new) immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers on the other. The changes in administration show that the convention had lifted the five minorities from the immigration category to the new category and a new group status. As a result of the change in government in 2005 and changes to the organisation of the ministries, these cases were handed to the newly created Ministry for Labour and Integration, which established two separate offices for these matters: the office for “Sámi and Minority Questions” and the office for immigration questions. Still the state secretary for Sámi issues, always a Sámi in person, is the political leader of the office for Sámi and minority matters. In fact the minister, Bjarne Håkon Hansen in 2007, is often referred to – and refers to himself as – the “Sámi Minister”. A second example follows from this reorganisation: minority policies have become hierarchical far more comprehensively in Norway than in most comparable countries, with the exception of Canada, perhaps. While ideas, as early as the 1800s and far into the 1900s, allowed for differentiation between the groups, the policies were basically uniform: all groups were to be assimilated, all represented in one or another form “the other”, “the foreign”, “the real or original immigrants”. After the Second World War, the Sámi emerged as a special category with the term “indigenous people” as an ethno-political lever and legitimisation of a new policy. The status of all the other minority groups was unclear and was often placed under the label of immigrants. After about 1990, a three-tiered hierarchy took shape with the indigenous people on the top. The national minorities were “discovered” practically overnight as they took the step up from the immigrant category to place themselves between the “new immigrants” and the indigenous people, the Sámi. This can be expressed in Orwellian terms: “All … are equal but some … are more equal than others.”

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The Sámi Sigga and Mattias Kuoljok, on each side of the reindeer, assist Ernst Manker to arrange the 1947 Sámi permanent exhibition. Photo: Lennart Nenkler, Nordiska Museet.

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CHAPTER 2

Cultural diversity at the Nordiska Museet in Stockholm: outline of a story Eva Silvén

Today, partway into the twenty-first century, the post-colonial debate seems to have reached the Swedish museum world in earnest. Questions that relate to representation, repatriation, human remains, indigenous peoples and minorities have brought the surrounding world into the museums, and the museums out into the world in a new way. The issues have been addressed in the contexts of Swedish Diversity Year 2006, of an inventory of human remains from aboriginals in museums and universities, and in a critical review of race biology’s historical role during the first half of the 1900s – all at the request of the Ministry of Culture.1 Furthermore, the Minister for Culture has made a principal statement in favour of a return of Sámi human remains in national collections, but the form and terms of this have yet to be worked out.2

These subjects have been raised in the media and in scientific publications, at seminars and in conferences. Concepts such as “diversity” and “inclusion” have come to represent more than issues related to recent immigrants. They also recognise the colonial legacy on the home front, in relation to Sweden’s own historical minorities and indigenous people. I will reflect on these questions from the view of the Nordiska Museet, the Swedish National Museum of Cultural History. The Nordiska Museet and Skansen The Museum was created in 1873 under the name Skandinavisk-Etnografiska samlingen (The Scandinavian-Ethnographic Collection), which was changed in 1880 to the Nordiska Museet. It moved in 1907 to its present building at Djurgården in central Stockholm.3 The founder, Artur Hazelius (1833–1901) has a prominent role in the museum’s history. He was a well-known person in his time and his ambitions have been interpreted in a number of ways in different contexts, most recently in a doctoral thesis by historian Magdalena Hillström.4 Hazelius also founded the open-air museum Skansen in 1891 with the aim to form and express a national Swedish identity.5 Until 1965, the two museums were part of the same organisation. Originally in private hands, the museum was transformed at an early stage into a foundation and could therefore take its place among the other public institutions, which, at the end of the 1800s, helped create the nation Sweden by forming a Swedish natural and cultural history. In the Nordiska Museet this was materialised through the acquisition of artefacts and the staging of

1 Pripp, O. (ed.) (2004) Mångfald i kulturlivet. Tumba: Mångkulturellt centrum; Pripp, O., Plisch, E. and Printz Werner, S. (2004/05) Tid för mångfald. En studie av de statligt finansierade kulturinstitutionernas arbete med etnisk och kulturell mångfald. Tumba: Mångkulturellt centrum; Agenda för mångkultur. Statens offentliga utredningar, SOU 2005: 91; Lundmark, L. (2007) Allt som kan mätas är inte vetenskap. En populärhistorisk skrift om Rasbiologiska institutet. Stockholm: Forum för levande historia; Mångfald är framtiden. Statens offentliga utredningar, SOU 2007:.50. 2 Press release 3 April 2007: www.regeringen.se/sb/d/8147 /a/79986;jsessionid=auxG_K29 dm66 3 For non-Nordic readers: the name Nordiska Museet translates literally as “The Nordic Museum” but has the status of the Swedish national museum of cultural history. The early names of the museum reflect the Nordic and Scandinavian current of ideas of the late 1800s. 4 Hillström, M. (2006) Ansvaret för kulturarvet. Studier i det kulturhistoriska museiväsendets formering med särskild inriktning på Nordiska museets etablering 1872–1919. Linköping: Linköpings universitet.

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5 For the Nordiska Museet’s and Skansen’s early history, see Biörnstad, A. (ed.) (1991) Skansen under hundra år. Höganäs: Wiken; Hammarlund-Larsson, C. (1998) “Samlingarna och samlandet”, in H. Medelius, B. Nyström and E. StavenowHidemark (eds), Nordiska museet under 125 år. Stockholm: Nordiska Museet; Hammarlund-Larsson, C. (2004) “‘I denna tid af slapp nationalkänsla.’ Om Artur Hazelius, vetenskapen och nationen”, in C. HammarlundLarsson, B. G. Nilsson and E. Silvén, Samhällsideal och framtidsbilder. Perspektiv på Nordiska museets dokumentation och forskning. Stockholm: Carlssons; Nyström, B. (1998) “Att göra det förflutna levande”, in Medelius, Nyström and Stavenow-Hidemark (1998), op. cit.; Sörlin, S. (1998) “Artur Hazelius och det nationella arvet”, in Medelius, Nyström and Stavenow-Hidemark (1998), op. cit.; Jönses, L. (2005) “Den patriotiska promenaden. Skansen och Svenska turistföreningen i konstruktionen av det svenska territoriet”, in P. Aronsson and M. Hillström (eds), Kulturarvens dynamik. Det institutionaliserade kulturarvets förändringar. Norrköping: Linköpings universitet; Hillström (2006), op. cit. 6 Could also be spelt Saami or Sami in English. In the various Scandinavian and Sámi languages, the spelling also differs. Up to the 1960s the common name used by outsiders was “Lapps” or “Laplanders”.

exhibitions, in Skansen through the transfer of buildings to its site and the arrangement of various natural environments. In the idea of the nation and the new national consciousness, space and place played important roles as different landscapes formed the nation’s territory as a part of a whole. Geographic provenance was a central classification category in the museum’s collections and exhibition arrangements, as it was for Skansen’s houses and farms. An extensive collection of objects, documents, photographs and buildings were quickly brought together via specific field trips. Despite the name, the museum had no particular Nordic or Scandinavian profile in its collections and activities, rather a national Swedish parallel to a more undefined northern European profile. Until 1905, Sweden still formed a union with Norway, which led to extensive Norwegian acquisitions. The Finnish inheritance had dwindled (until 1809 Finland was part of Sweden) except for an interest in older Finnish settlements in western central Sweden and in the Finnish-speaking areas far in the north (Tornedalen). Among the Baltic countries, mainly Estonia was featured, due to the historic migration patterns. After the first decades, however, the museum gradually became more nationally oriented with a focus on Sweden and Swedish conditions. In recent years there has been a “transfer” of Norwegian and Icelandic objects to their original countries – not, however, as a “repatriation”, in today’s indigenous-political meaning. Artur Hazelius and the Sámi Initially the ethnic category that was given special attention was the Sámi.6 The history of the Nordiska Museet, Skansen and the Sámi is still being researched but it is clear that Artur Hazelius was interested in the Sámi as a cultural historical phenomenon similar to other Europeans at the end of the 1800s. The exotic people of the North fascinated many, and both Sámi families and reindeer were exhibited at World Expositions and in Zoological Parks.7 For the World Exposition in Paris in 1878, for example, Hazelius contributed various ethnic tableaux including a Sámi motif8 and from 1874 the Höstflyttning i Lule Lappmark (Autumn Migration in Lule Lappmark) was on display in his own museum. When Skansen opened, there were several tents and sod huts with Sámi families as live installations. They looked after the reindeer and were said to live as they would at home to give the visitors a true picture of their conditions.9 Hazelius’ interest in collecting has been described as manic and his exhortations to his “gatherers” on collecting trips to Lapland certainly seem to support that interpretation. In a letter to forest officer Hugo Samzelius on 23 February 1891 he wrote: “Don’t be afraid of unusual sleighs, with beautiful bone fittings, harnesses or large bulky things, if they are of interest. They will have a wonderful effect in a museum like ours. Djurgården is large enough to house them. This is important. Please, bring a load!” On 27 April Samzelius telegraphed back from Haparanda: “Arctic Lapland Expedition completed! After 53 days covered 207 mil mostly by reindeer! 1,039 ethnographic pieces collected. Total cost 2,252 kronor.”10 The Nordiska Museet’s Sámi collection today includes about 6 000 registered items (about 7 500 individual objects) of which approximately half were received by the museum before 1910.

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Researchers have characterised this somewhat romantic interest in the Sámi as a result of a colonial perspective – which also influenced ethnographic museums’ collections and the World Exposition’s non-European sections. In this perspective the Sámi were given the role of “The Other”, living their lives in a timeless, ethnographic present in contrast to developing, civilised Western industrial societies.11 This point of view was reinforced by the anatomical research which, under the auspices of physical anthropology during the 1800s and race biology in the 1900s, attempted to categorise people into lower and higher ranked races, mainly on the basis of the form of their crania.12 Among others the Sámi were considered suitable objects of study. Practitioners of these sciences, which were well established in their time, were in close contact with Artur Hazelius during his lifetime. They mixed in the same circles in Stockholm and donated limited amounts of research material to the Nordiska Museet. If this cultural and scientific interest in the Sámi can be seen as part of the hierarchical organisation of modern society, it is also possible to apply a geopolitical slant to the Sámi representation in museums and exhibitions. The reindeer-herding Sámi had since time immemorial moved over territories that were not definitively divided between the four nation-states – Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia – until the beginning of the 1900s. Even by the 1500s, the historian Lars Elenius noted that in a number of cultural-historical works the Sámi had been included in the Swedish nation-state’s mythology.13 But to retain control over an area, a state had to show that it was in use, and in this way the nomadic Sámi were excellent “territory-markers”, following the argument of historian Lars Jönses.14 Thus it was good for the Swedish state to keep a large group of active reindeer herders. To a certain extent this explains the strict distinction policy, which, at the beginning of the 1900s, went under the name “Lapps should be Lapps” and which barred the reindeer-herding Sámi entry into the growing industrial and welfare society.15 At the same time it was important to strengthen the Sámi’s attachment to Sweden, for example through the educational system, so as to prevent its becoming a nation within a nation. Including the Sámi into the Swedish cultural history can thus be interpreted as a part of defending the national territory in the northern regions.16

7 See, for example, Broberg, G. (1981–1982) “Lappkaravaner på villovägar. Antropologin och synen på samerna fram mot sekelskiftet 1900”, Lychnos; Ekström, A. (1994) Den utställda världen. Stockholmsutställningen 1897 och 1800talets världsutställningar. Stockholm: Nordiska Museet; Mathisen, S. R. (2000) “Travels and narratives. Itinerant constructions of a homogenous Sami heritage”, in P. Anttonen et al. (eds) (2000) Folklore, Heritage Politics and Ethnic Diversity: A Festschrift for Barbro Klein. Tumba: Mångkulturellt centrum; Baglo, C. (2006) “Samer på ville veger? Om ‘levende utstillinger’, antropologi og vitenskapelige praksiser”, Nordisk Museologi 1. 8 Ekström (1994), op. cit., pp. 44 and 136. 9 Upmark, G. (1916) “Skansen 25 år”, p. 151, Fataburen. 10 A Swedish “mil” is 10 kilometres so the whole trip would have been 2 070 km. From the Nordiska Museet’s archive: the Hazelius Archive. Thanks to Cecilia HammarlundLarsson for the findings. 11 Fabian, J. (1983) Time and the other: How anthropology makes its object. New York: Columbia University Press.

Brokering Sámi culture During the first decades of the 1900s Sámi objects were shown in the new museum building in Lapska avdelningen (The Lapp Department). Through fieldwork in the northern regions, traditional Sámi life was documented with and without the acquisition of objects. A definitive change took place in 1939, however, when the Nordiska Museet appointed a special curator for Sámi culture and the Sámi collections, the ethnographer Ernst Manker (1893–1972).17 Manker initiated a period of extensive fieldwork and collection of objects, taking various settlements and lifestyles as his starting points. Spiritual sites, burial rituals and even the images on the Sámi shaman drums were among the topics that interested him. In connection with work on the Stora Lule River before the construction of the power station in Porjus, various scientific explorations were made of the Sámi areas that were to be submerged from 1919. In 1939 and 1940 Manker carried out a larger study that was concluded with the documentation of “what the Lapps’ adaptation looked like now that the water had reached its highpoint”.18 His writing about the place

12 Lundborg, H. (1927) Svensk raskunskap. Folkupplaga med text, kartor, diagram och planscher. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell; Broberg, G. (1995) Statlig rasforskning. En historik över Rasbiologiska institutet. Lund: Lunds universitet; Lundmark, L. (2002) “Lappen är ombytlig, ostadig och obekväm …” Svenska statens samepolitik i rasismens tidevarv. Umeå: Norrlands universitetsförlag; Lundmark (2007), op. cit.; Ljungström, O. (2004) Oscariansk antropologi. Etnografi, förhistoria och rasforskning under sent 1800-tal. Hedemora/Uppsala: Gidlunds.

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The Nordiska Museet of today, almost the same since the opening in 1907. Photo: Mats Landin, Nordiska Museet.

13 Elenius, L. (2006) Nationalstat och minoritetspolitik. Samer och finskspråkiga minoriteter i ett jämförande nordiskt perspektiv. Lund: Studentlitteratur, p. 54. 14 Jönses (2005), op. cit., p. 70. 15 Vitalis Karnell, vicar and school inspector in Karesuando, 1906: “When the Lapps start building organisations and have their own journal, when they go to folk high schools, then they are totally finished as Lapps, and they will become the most miserable people you can imagine. […] Favour the Lapps in every possible way in their occupation, make them moral, sober people with just as much education as they need, but don’t let them taste civilisation in other respects […] it has never brought and will never bring a blessing. Lapps should be Lapps.” Lundmark (2002), op. cit., p. 70.

and the fieldwork became a lament for the flooded cultural area and a previously protected national park, though it simultaneously expressed an enthusiastic belief in the project’s necessity in the interests of modern society’s need for electric energy – for mining, railroads and not least to supply the northern towns and farms.19 The Sámi, Manker said, took it all in their stride, as they were supposedly used to hard and sometimes violent events in nature. They were granted financial compensation for the loss of their settlements and reindeer pastures, and destroyed fishing areas. Manker published his research widely in popular as well as scientific form. He often wrote for Samernas Egen Tidning (The Sámi’s Own Journal), even about political and cultural-political matters. Under the auspices of the Nordiska Museet he created the scholarly series Acta Lapponica to which he contributed many titles. Manker also separated all Sámi materials from the museum’s general archives and gathered it in Lapska arkivet (The Lapp Archive). That eventually included notes from the field, answers to questionnaires, manuscripts, newspaper cuttings, photographs as well as original drawings by Sámi artists.20 Manker also directed the installation of a new permanent exhibition, Lapparna (The Lapps), which opened in 1947 and remained in place for 30 years. In the exhibition the visitor could learn about reindeer herding, the work and handicraft of men and women, and spiritual culture.21 Parts of the work were undertaken in collaboration with representatives from the Sámi community. This was not the only time Manker functioned as a “culture broker”, the term the anthropologist Richard Kurin gives to his similar role at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington:

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“Professionals in the cultural fields who engage in the public representation of culture through museum exhibits, performance programs, documentary films and recordings, the creation of Web sites, public lectures, and the writing of ethnographies (for an audience beyond specialized technical experts) are brokering culture.”22 This can be described more specifically as attempting to negotiate various meanings related to objects, various interpretations of historical processes as well as “how to adequately represent and engage minority cultures in the museum world”.23 An example of Manker’s role as culture broker is his collaboration with the Sámi artist Nils Nilsson Skum (1872–1951).24 Skum grew up in a reindeer-owning family and began to draw as a child. In the 1930s he developed his talents as an artist, mainly by painting and drawing, but also through traditional Sámi handicraft. He came into contact with Manker, who edited a couple of books in which Skum drew from his memories of keeping reindeer.25 Skum’s pictures became popular and were distributed through the art markets and in the press. He became famous and his art was shown in numerous exhibitions not only in Sweden but also in Paris and New York. In this way the museum and the market became structures that formed a narrative about the Sámi during a period when the atmosphere between them and the mainstream society was not particularly friendly. With the growth of industrial society, pressure to exploit the natural resources in northern Sweden grew, at the same time as the view of Sámis – formed by perspectives of race biology and the “Lapps should be Lapps” policy – persisted in many people’s minds.26 The demand for assimilation and homogenisation was strong in the post-war Swedish welfare state when the Sámi began to mobilise at a new level. There had been a number of waves of ethno-political movements since the turn of the century (1900), but the first national organisation was constituted in 1950: Svenska Samernas Riksförbund (The National Association of Swedish Sámi). What role did the Nordiska Museet’s and Ernst Manker’s activities play in this, at the time? There are still no answers; no in-depth analysis has been made of Manker’s work in its contemporary context.27 Similar questions can also be asked about another culture broker at the Nordiska Museet at about the same time but in relation to another of Sweden’s historical minorities: the Roma.

16 At the same time it should be noted that the constitutional meeting of Lapparnas Centralförbund (The Lapps’ Central Association), the first attempt at creating a Sámi national organisation, took place in a Sámi sod hut at Skansen on 10 August 1904: Lantto, P. (2000) Tiden börjar på nytt. En analys av samernas etnopolitiska mobilisering i Sverige 1900–1950. Umeå: Umeå universitet, p. ii and the cover picture. 17 Kjellström, R. (1998) “Nordiska museets sameforskning”, in Medelius, Nyström and StavenowHidemark (1998), op. cit. Manker’s position was financed by a special grant from the government after a debate concerning whether or not the Sámi curator should belong to the Museum of Ethnography or to the Nordiska Museet. 18 Manker, E. (1941a) “Lapparna kring Suorvasjöarna. Forskningar i övre Lule älvdal”, p. 28, Ymer. 19 Ibid.; Manker, E. (1941b) Det nya fjällvattnet. Forskningar och upplevelser bland lapparna kring Akkajaure. Stockholm: Medéns. 20 This separating out of Sámi research and Sámi material also took place at other museums and archives at the same time, actions that are still to be analysed in their contemporary contexts.

Romani issues Carl-Herman Tillhagen (1906–2002) was a folklorist at the Nordiska Museet. In 1943 he ascertained that no scientific study had been made of the Roma in Sweden. There were about 750 such individuals at that time.28 He started a seven-year collaboration with Johan Demitri Taikon (about 1880–1950), a former copper worker, also known as “Milosch”.29 It began when Tillhagen, at Milosch’s request, undertook to document Milosch’s vocabulary, in return for which Milosch told Tillhagen about Romani customs and lifestyles. The dictionary material eventually included almost 8 000 entries and was published later by a linguist.

21 Medelius, H. (1998) “Utställningarna”, p. 295, in Medelius, Nyström and Stavenow-Hidemark (1998), op. cit. The exhibition Lapparna (The Lapps) was followed by the comprehensive Samerna (The Sámi) 1981–2004. The exhibition Sápmi opened in late 2007.

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22 Kurin, R. (1997) Reflections of a culture broker: A view from the Smithsonian. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, p. 18. 23 Ibid., p. 25. 24 Manker, E. (1956) Boken om Skum. Stockholm: LT. 25 Skum, N. N. (1938) Same sita – Lappbyn. Stockholm: Thule; Skum, N. N. (1955) Valla renar. Olika sätt att sköta renar i ord och bilder. Stockholm: Gebers. 26 Sámis were also measured, registered and photographed in the name of race biology. Data from the studies were published as late as 1941 in The race biology of the Swedish Lapps, Part 2, Anthropometrical survey. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell. Cf. note 15. 27 The ethnographer Rolf Kjellström at the Nordiska Museet has, however, noted flaws in his inventory as well raised objections to some of his interpretations, suggesting that they generalised too much from too little material. Kjellström, R. (1974a) “Intensivinventeringar avseende fysiska lämningar från samisk verksamhet”, p. 14, in R. Kjellström (ed.) (1974b) Sameforskning i dag och i morgon. Rapport från symposium rörande den samiska kulturen 19–20 november 1973 i Nordiska museet. Stockholm: Nordiska Museet.

In the beginning, Milosch was less interested in describing his own conditions than in sharing the Romani storytelling traditions. Tillhagen transcribed Milosch’s stories and went through the written material with him until he was happy with it. Tillhagen said he had never known a storyteller with such a wide repertoire; he wrote down over 250 folktales in addition to numerous legends, proverbs, songs and riddles. The tales were told not just verbally but also through performance with gestures, accents and dramatic pauses, pantomime and solemn lectures. This “biology of the tale”, Tillhagen argued, had been overlooked by other folklorists when they searched for empirical evidence for mapping rather than artworks.30 Later on, however, it was not only folktales that Milosch told Tillhagen. Thousands of pages of notes were gathered in the Nordiska Museet’s archive that attempted to give a broad description of the Romani lifestyles. They covered travels, work, settlements, food and cooking styles, clothing, rituals and customs during annual and lifetime ceremonies, religious beliefs, sickness, child-rearing, games, entertainment and music. The Roma’s relations with the authorities and with Swedish society were also often noted. Tillhagen published his work in international scientific journals but also travelled around Sweden and lectured in the hope of creating better living conditions and education for the Roma. As a result of this Tillhagen was commissioned during the 1950s and 1960s to work for several social investigations on the “Gypsy Issue”. The task led him into contact with all the Roma in Sweden and his large collection of source material, in the form of descriptions, interviews, photographs and family trees, is now in the Nordiska Museet’s archive.31 That which is not confidential is used today by Roma themselves to reconstruct their family histories, which also helps the museum to complete the information about people in the photographs. Nonetheless, one can ask what function this activity had at the time.32 The Roma were seen as a social problem in the 1950s’ growing welfare society, perhaps even a threat to the national identity that was now being created on new terms. The order of the day was adaptation and assimilation. What, then, was Tillhagen’s role – and how did it matter that he was an established researcher working at the Nordiska Museet? There are several examples of researchers working during the first half of the 1900s who were studying controversial contemporary questions such as the “Lapp Issue” and the “Gypsy Issue” while they carried out their own cultural history research.33 They were considered “experts” at a time when the groups in question were not seen as being able to speak for themselves, though this does not diminish the fact that they were often driven by a desire to engage with poor and marginalised sections of the Swedish population. Contemporary studies In 1973, a number of symposia were held in connection with the Nordiska Museet’s centenary. Some of them led to the creation of Samdok, the Swedish cultural history museums’ organisation and network for contemporary studies and collecting. The participants were divided into workgroups – “pools” – initially ten concerned with production, public and commercial environments, and one with domestic issues. A central secretariat was established at the Nordiska Museet.34

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The intention was to broaden the museums’ research and collecting activities in terms of time periods and socially. Through Samdok the museums actively researched, documented and preserved objects from people’s daily lives in contemporary Sweden. But during the first decades Samdok also promoted dichotomies such as work–leisure, Swedish–foreign, production–consumption, women–men. In that respect, the museums can be seen to have participated in confirming the Swedish self-image and perceptions about homogeneity and normality – and thereby contributed to marginalising those who were different. This was most clearly reflected in Hempoolen (The Home Pool), the group that documented homes and family life. It was decided that every year some of the pool’s members should carry out a “full home study” of a “complete” family consisting of mother, father and (preferably) two children. It was argued that this would allow documentation of the optimal number of functions and objects. In addition to these large studies, the museums were to carry out biannual investigations of other sorts of households such as students, pensioners, and single parents with children. People with an ethnic background other than Swedish were initially outside the museums’ sphere of interest, even though some attempts were made to equate the ethnic perspective with the social. The ethnologist Göran Rosander at the Nordiska Museet stated as long ago as 1972 that in former times Sámi, Finnish immigrants, Jews, Estonian-Swedes, Wallons, Germans and Scots to some extent were represented in the museums, but he noted: “Missing, or almost missing, are objects from Gypsies and large postwar migrant groups from Finland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey etc. … In my view they belong to what the museum’s statutes call ‘the Swedish people’ and should therefore be documented.”35 So in 1974–1976 the Nordiska Museet took part in the crossdisciplinary research project Migrationen Finland–Sverige efter andra världskriget (The Finland– Sweden Migration after the Second World War).

Johan Demitri Taikon, also called Milosch, recounts Roma tales to Carl-Herman Tillhagen, sitting in his office at the Nordiska Museet in 1947. Photo: Märta Claréus, Nordiska Museet.

28 The Swedish term was then zigenare (Gypsies); today they are called romer (Roma). Resande (Travellers) is another group, more or less distinct from the Roma. Strictly speaking, only Roma is a national minority in Sweden, but usually the two categories are addressed under the common name romer och resande (Roma and Travellers). In Norway they are separated into two national minorities: tatere (Travellers) and sigøyner (Gypsies). The Swedish word tattare is used less frequently today; historically it has been used mainly in a pejorative sense to categorise poor itinerant people who do not conform to the norm.

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29 Tillhagen, C.-H. (1946) Taikon berättar. Zigenarsagor. Stockholm: Norstedts; Tillhagen, C.-H. (1995) “Högtidsstunder med en stor berättare”, in E. Schön (ed.) I glädje och sorg. Stockholm: Nordiska Museet. (Fataburen). 30 Tillhagen, (1995) op. cit., p. 266. 31 See also Tillhagen, C.-H. (1965) Zigenarna i Sverige. Stockholm: Natur och Kultur. 32 In her thesis, the researcher Norma Montesino Parra touches upon Tillhagen’s role in a discussion about post-war social investigations. Montesino Parra, N. (2002) Zigenarfrågan. Intervention och romantik. Lund: Lunds universitet. 33 Linguist Karl Bernhard Wiklund is one example concerning the Sámi. 34 Concerning Samdok, see Silvén, E. (2004) “I samtiden eller för framtiden. Ett kunskapsbygge i det senmoderna”, in HammarlundLarsson, Nilsson and Silvén (2004), op. cit.; Silvén, E. and Björklund, A. (eds) (2006) Svåra saker, Ting och berättelser som upprör och berör. Stockholm: Nordiska Museet. (Difficult matters. Objects and narratives that disturb and affect. With an extensive introduction in English); Silvén, E. and Gudmundsson, M. (eds) (2006) Samtiden som kulturarv. Svenska museers samtidsdokumentation 1975– 2000. Stockholm: Nordiska Museet. (The present day as cultural heritage. Contemporary documentation by Swedish museums 1975–2000. Also with an extensive introduction summary in English); www.nordiskamuseet.se/ samdok.

The question of “immigrant documentation” was raised mainly in connection with Samdok. In 1979, the theme of a conference at the Nordiska Museet was “How shall immigrant cultures be documented?”. During the 1980s, individual museums began to carry out various studies and in 1993 a “handbook on immigrant documentation” appeared.36 Around 1990 a three-year development project was carried out called Invandrar-Sverige (Immigrant Sweden) with a number of studies of new inhabitants – both economic migrants and refugees. As a follow-up, a new workgroup was formed within Samdok: Kulturmötesgruppen (The Cultural Encounters Group). Unlike the “pools”, this group had a particular task, namely to get the Samdok museums to integrate an ethnic aspect into all their projects in the form of a dynamic and mutual cultural encounter perspective.37 Museums had included ethnic perspectives – at least as far as “immigrant documentation” was concerned – to a far greater degree than they had included comparable gender perspectives. One explanation for this could be that the Swedish museum world was heterogeneous in terms of gender but homogeneous in terms of ethnicity. The question of ethnicity came therefore to deal with the ethnic “other”, a classic museum view that re-emerged and was connected with a desire to “give voice” to the underprivileged in society. Ensuing questions about power and change could thereby be kept at a distance and be placed outside of one’s own activity – something that would have been impossible with a self-reflective gendered perspective. Awareness of post-war immigration issues caused not only the gender issue to retreat, but also the earlier interest in Swedish minorities to be toned down. Among the symposia held at the Nordiska Museet in 1973 was one with the theme Sameforskning i dag och i morgon (Sámi research today and tomorrow), an initiative which however was not followed up in Samdok. A report said that the symposium was prompted by the changes that had taken place as northern regional museums had been granted resources for active fieldwork, thus coordination of the upcoming work was important. A number of examples of planned and ongoing studies at museums and research institutions were presented: on settlement patterns, landscape and archaeology, religion, language, costumes, handicraft, reindeer husbandry, cultural systems and minority cultures, forced dislocation as well as political organisation. “Gaps” and “omissions” in the research on the Sámi were noted both historically and at that time. The importance of increased knowledge was raised partly with reference to the great demand for presentations of Sámi culture in the form of publications and exhibitions.38 It was remarked, however, that the suggested projects should be carried out with the direct involvement of Sámi. It is clear that it was no longer acceptable for researchers to go out in the field to bring back knowledge and materials in the classically ethnographic manner. The ethnologist Katarina Ågren at Västerbottens Museum in Umeå opened her contribution on textile research by reviewing the contents of an article in a Norwegian-Sámi journal. There was a young student, Johan Klemet Kalstad, who criticised the research that was carried out in the Sámi areas without benefit to the Sámi society: “This creates a master–servant relationship, where the researcher is the master who comes and defines the research question and the Sámi are then to give the data that suits the researcher’s hypothesis … When the researcher is gone, the report also disappears … Of

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course new sources of income can be generated by researchers paying to be brought along on migrations and for the privilege of carrying out their observations, but the result is,” Kalstad argues, “that the researchers interpret the activity patterns according to their own values.” A new form of interactive research could, conversely, transform researchers to the local population’s servants by letting people decide for themselves what sort of projects are to be carried out: “At a minimum it should take place on our own terms,” Kalstad concluded.39 The symposium did not, as mentioned, have any immediate effect within Samdok. It was not until 1990 that the Sámi questions were included in the organisation, through the creation of Samiska poolen (The Sámi Pool). This is so far the only working group to be formed on the basis of ethnicity and that only happened after pressure by the National Association of Swedish Sámi.40 The group functions as a network for the members and carries out seminars, study trips and field studies. The aim is, through documentation and collection, to create an understanding of how Sámi culture changes and develops in the traditional settlement areas, in the urban environments and in the wider world. In 1989, just before the Sámi Pool was formed, a new museum was created in Jokkmokk: Ájtte, Svenskt fjäll- och samemuseum (The Swedish Mountain and Sámi Museum). Today Ájtte is the main Swedish museum for Sámi culture, a special museum for mountain nature and culture as well as an information centre for mountain tourism. At Ájtte there are cultural as well as natural history collections, archives (with documents and photographs), a library and exhibitions.41 Ájtte is a national institution that aspires to be a Sámi voice and present Sámi perspectives. Two conclusions can be drawn concerning the period around 1970–2000. First, when the Swedish cultural history museums, under the direction of the Nordiska Museet, expressly wanted to include contemporary life in their documentation and collections, it was the Swedish modern mainstream society, with a focus on industrial production, that was given the definition “contemporary”. Both new and old ethnic minorities’ conditions and lifestyles came in second place. International migration moved more quickly to the contemporary agenda than the national domestic minorities.

35 Rosander, G. (1972) “Nordiska museets föremålsinsamling i går – i dag – i morgon”, p. 165f., Fataburen. 36 Kjellström, R. and Hallman, C. (eds) (1979) Dokumentation av invandrarnas kulturer. Rapport från konferens den 16 januari 1979. Stockholm: Nordiska Museet/Statens kulturråd; Svanberg, I. and Szabó, M. (1993) Etniskt liv och kulturell mångfald. En handbok i invandrardokumentation. Stockholm: Nordiska Museet. 37 Regarding immigration and the Cultural Encounters Group, see Magnusson, L. (2006) “Invandring, kulturmöten, etnicitet”, in Silvén and Gudmundsson (2006), op. cit. 38 Kjellström (1974b), op. cit. 39 Kalstad cited by Ågren, K. (1974) “Dräktforskning”, p. 8f., in Kjellström (1974b), op cit. 40 The first members were the Nordiska Museet, the regional museums in Umeå and Luleå as well as Ájtte, the Swedish Mountain and Sámi Museum in Jokkmokk and the National Association of Swedish Sámi. Later the Department of Dialectology, Onomastics and Folklore Research in Umeå joined, together with the Multicultural Centre in Botkyrka as well as the Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm.

Second, during that period the study of Sámi issues was shifted northwards, through increased 41 www.ajtte.com resources to the regional museums, the creation of Ájtte as well as the establishment of Sámi research at the University of Umeå. At the newly started Nordisk Samisk Institutt (Nordic Sámi Institute) in Kautokeino, Norway, Sámi-dedicated research activity was taken up. This formed radically new conditions for the national museums to address Sámi questions, at first in relation to the material cultural heritage. At the Nordiska Museet, the accession ... the study of Sámi issues was shifted of Sámi objects slowed dramatically while the Museum of Ethnography northwards, through increased chose to deposit its Sámi collections at Ájtte. In many ways the basis for resources to the regional museums ... today’s post-colonial heritage situation was founded during these decades.

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42 Regarding minority policies over time, particularly in relation to Sámi and the Finnish-speaking minorities, see Elenius (2006), op. cit. 43 Nationella minoriteter i Sverige. Regeringens proposition 1998/99:143. 44 Finland, Norway, Russia and Sweden. 45 Nationella minoriteter i Sverige, op. cit., p. 142. 46 For a further discussion of these questions, see Silvén, E. (2006) “Museer och minoritetspolitik – inlåsning eller gränsöverskridande?”, in P. Aronsson and A. Alzén (eds), Demokratiskt kulturarv? Nationella institutioner, universella värden, lokala praktiker. Norrköping: Linköpings universitet. 47 Nationella minoriteter i Sverige, op. cit., p. 142f.

Minority politics As I noted at the start, during the first years of this century, awareness of ethnic and cultural diversity within museums and other cultural heritage institutions in Sweden has sharply increased. Both the general and the specific missions of public cultural heritage institutions force them to think in ways that are more inclusive. This is expressed through the documentation projects, exhibitions, publications and collaborative forms that are now being created from various intercultural points of view. The new European minority policy has led to the inclusion also of the national minorities, resulting in their being more powerful. This has in turn made the concepts of “Sweden” and “being Swedish” more problematic.42 During spring 2000, Sweden’s new national minority policy came into effect after Sweden ratified the European Council’s “Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities” and the “European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages”. The Swedish national minorities are: Sámi (who are also considered an indigenous people), Swedish-Finns, Tornedalians, Roma and Jews. Corresponding minority languages are: Sámi, Finnish, Tornedalian Finnish/Meänkieli, Romani chib, and Yiddish. The goal of the minority policy is, in Sweden as in other countries, to protect national minorities, strengthen their influence and support their language, culture, religion and identity.43 The new minority policy has, however, raised a number of questions. For the Sámi, for example, a role as one of the five Swedish national minorities stands in contrast to their status as an indigenous people, or alternatively, “one people in four countries”.44 Other questions relate to the way minority policies promote ethnic distinction through criteria such as “groups with articulated affinity”, “religious, linguistic, traditional and/or cultural distinctiveness” and “self-identification: where the individual as well as the group have a will and an ambition to maintain their identity”.45 Many have criticised the increasing influence of ethnic-based identity politics for a number of reasons. Not only does it create a base for a positive self-identification but it can also lock people into unwanted and static forms of belonging where essentialism replaces cultural hybridism and flexibility. Many researchers and critics have also discussed the problem, since cultural recognition from a diversity perspective tends to replace social and economic rights and democracy. In these discourses, cultural heritage and museums are powerful tools for the majority as well as the minority, who both use them to contribute to the creation of representations of themselves as well as others.46 A further complication relates to the focus on groups with “historical and long-term ties with Sweden” where the various minorities’ culture, language and history have become “a part of our common cultural heritage and society of today”.47 This criterion is certainly positive inasmuch as it clearly states that the national minorities are an integrated part of Swedish society and Swedish history, but it tends to work against later immigrants, using cultural heritage and history. Thereby it may work as an exclusionary way to define “Swedishness” – though in a “multicultural” way – and consequently more adapted to the current discourse.

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In 2003 Nordiska Museet responded to the new policy by reallocating resources to a curator for minority and diversity issues – a position I hold. One of my tasks has been to work out the concept for a new Sámi permanent exhibition, which was produced by the museum’s Department for Exhibitions and Education and opened in late 2007 under the name Sápmi.48 A Sámi focus group from a number of organisations has been attached to this project. Even Skansen has, during recent years and with the collaboration of a Sámi focus group, updated its Sámi camp with two new dwellings and an information area.49 In spring 2007 a collaborative network was formed to exchange experiences and information between Sámi organisations and the museums whose activities have some Sámi connection. As a general starting point for my position I took up a pressing and difficult question: do museum representations add to frozen identities, locked into expectations of tradition and authenticity, or can they embrace the dynamic and border-crossing realities that minorities are a part of, both historically and in our times? These reflections have also driven the ideas behind the Sápmi exhibition, which aims to contribute to today’s debate about indigenous and minority rights, representation and identity. By placing a historical perspective on our contemporary questions, we hoped to show how the Sámi and the “Swedish” have been formed in relation to each other, not least in a power and conflict perspective in which even the Nordiska Museet has played a role. At the base of the exhibition is a multi-perspective and process-oriented point of view: How has knowledge been created, how has identity been constructed? The idea was to allow the visitor to encounter various aspects related to objects and images – as both beautiful and useful, unique and ethically problematic. Even though the exhibition’s main theme is the Sámi, the idea was also to include mainstream society in the representation, for example by bringing the Nordiska Museet into the narrative. To some extent that decision goes back to the commission for the exhibition, namely to deal with identity issues in general and at the same time display the museum’s old and extensive Sámi collections. The underlying idea is therefore built on five themes of general scope relevant not only to the Sámi but also to other ethnic groups in Sweden and internationally. That means that they can include equivalent relations between other majorities, minorities and indigenous peoples and can be used both for the visitors’ own reflections and in the education activities of the museum: How do these questions look for you, for us? What similarities and differences are there? The five themes, referring to both historical and contemporary conditions, were formulated as: Ursprung (Origin) on history, kinship, perceptions of identity and ethnicity; Rätt och orätt ( Justice and injustice) on land rights, legal processes and political movements; Hemfört, bortfört, återfört (Brought home, taken away, brought back) focusing on the Nordiska Museet’s material collections; Vems blick, vems röst, vems berättelse (Whose view, whose voice, whose story) with documents and images from the museum’s archive; Det tredje rummet (The third space) on cultural encounters and hybrid identities from a post-colonial perspective. Gradually the themes have been reordered and renamed, but the main topics remain the same.

48 Sápmi is the Sámi term for the traditional Sámi areas in Finland, Norway, Russia and Sweden, but it also denotes the Sámi society as a whole, including the people per se. 49 www.skansen.se: http://skansen.se/pages/ ?ID=614; http://skansen.se/pages/ ?ID=132

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50 Broberg, G. (1990) “Bakom och framför kameran”, Västerbotten 2. 51 Tomasson, T. (1919) “Ett minne från samefolkets forna religion. Träbelätet på Marsfjället och litet om ‘Tsieggu’”, Samefolkets Egen Tidning 4. 52 Schanche, A. (2002) “Knoklenes verdi. Om forskning på og forvaltning av skjelettmateriale fra samiske graver”, in Samisk forskning og forskningsetikk. Oslo: De nasjonale forskningsetiske komitéer; Glass, A. (2004) “Return to sender: On the politics of cultural property and the proper address of art”, Journal of Material Culture 2. The Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm has in recent years carried out some notable repatriations: skeleton parts from Australian aboriginals, a totem pole from the Canadian Haisla Indians as well as a Sámi seite (sieidi, a sacred object).

Throughout the process one reflection has been particularly pertinent. In various attempts to come to terms with colonial inheritance, the Sámi have sometimes been in danger of being presented as victims when contemporary understanding is applied to historical events: victims without their own will, in the face of the mainstream society’s economic and cultural exploitation. But the Sámi who today look at us in the photographs from the late 1800s and early 1900s also looked back at the researchers and the photographers of that time. Some were forced to co-operate, some were paid, while others were actually employed by the foreign expeditions.50 Many artefacts have come to the Nordiska Museet through the mediation of Sámi, among them even sacred objects.51 This does not diminish the injustices that took place but shows that even Sámi were conscious actors in the cultural encounter in which the research and the museums’ collecting were involved. Conclusion As my subtitle indicates, this text is just an outline of a story, a rough sketch of a work in progress. As is also clear, this chapter has an ideological and theoretical post-colonial foundation. Postcolonialism has not only, however, asked critical questions about the power of representation but also more generally promoted a critical view of museum practices, from a nation-building and identity-creating perspective. Material as well as performative and imaginary aspects have been reworked with concepts such as belonging and interpretation, place and identification, gaze and representation, ethics and sensibilities. Often, however, it is the material collections that have come into focus.

53 www.samicollection.org 54 Clifford, J. (1999) “Museums as contact zones”, in D. Boswell and J. Evans (eds), Representing a nation: A Reader. Histories, heritage and museums. London: Routledge; Smith, L. T. (1999/2004) Decolonizing methodologies. Research and indigenous peoples. London: Zed; Peers, L. and Brown, A. K. (eds) (2003) Source communities. A Routledge Reader. London: Routledge.

Previously, scholarly interest in the cultural history museums’ collections has given museums a role as providers of source material for knowledge about real life, material conditions, aesthetic preferences and worlds of thought. But today’s research has also posited other questions relating to the collections, about how they were created and what they say about social and political relations in society: Who is represented? Why? In what position? Who is missing? Through alternative perspectives, the museum material can be understood differently and give new slants on the power of memory. In this way, a basis for broader and more analytical history writing is created. The concept of “collecting objects” has also become more problematic. The museums’ acquisition of objects has always been a communicative process, a social relation which at its extreme is a question of who gave themselves the right to describe someone else and take over, remove, buy and even steal other people’s things – but at the same time also preserve them. Ethical aspects of museums’ collecting and collections have come into sharp focus recently, particularly concerning objects originating from aboriginals and minorities and more specifically the human material that was gathered for research within physical anthropology and race biology. Demands are often made for the repatriation of objects to their original countries and peoples and even for the reburial of human remains.52 This is under way in relation to Sámi cultural heritage material too. After a number of introductory inventories, a partly EU-financed inter-regional project is now finished: Recalling Ancestral Voices: Repatriation of Sámi Cultural Heritage is a collaboration between Siida Sámi Museum in Finland, Ájtte in Sweden as well as Varanger Samiske Museum in Norway.53

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These questions have led to a somewhat different dialogue with the outside world for the museums. There is increasing scope today for collaborative exchanges between museums and their users, especially in cases where the objects come from indigenous people and ethnic minorities.54 Academic knowledge is challenged by alternative interpretations when marginalised ethnic groups are given the right to speak with their own voice. There are researchers who argue that there is a potential epistemological paradigm shift here that is greater than the question about the treatment of human remains and material cultural heritage.

The Sámi focus group visiting the Nordiska Museet in May 2006 during the preparation of a new permanent exhibition. In the picture are, from left to right: Ingwar Åhrén, Sonia Larsson, Sunna Kuoljok and Helge Sunna. Photo: Eva Silvén.

As the practice in many museums shows, repatriation is not the only way to create better relations with indigenous people and minorities. There are also other roads to try, such as “shared custody”, creating a different and more inclusive history and allowing more people to make an impression in the collective memory. Despite this, the demand for repatriation should not be treated lightly. Where the objects are physically kept has great symbolic significance, just as it had when once they were removed. Real things in real places play a role in a social and cultural system. When they

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were taken away, they became markers of power and influence, centre and periphery. A return can therefore mean an acknowledgement of an alternative order of power, significant for creating new identities for all those involved. In this way the museums’ collections can be reused to start a process of reconciliation and revision of previous asymmetrical power relations between countries and within countries. Here the national museums have a particular opportunity responsibility. It is a matter of perspective. If museums and university researchers more explicitly include national minorities in Swedish history, something would happen to the image of the nation and “Swedish” cultural heritage. All national minorities lead us to contexts that are problematic, contemporary and of international breadth, perspectives that are being approached within many cultural heritage institutions. The mainstream story of Sweden should correctly comprise our domestic colonial relations between Sámi and Swedes, the post-war welfare state’s marginalisation of Roma and Travellers as well as anti-Semitism and Nazism in both old and new forms. With a focus on minority issues the Swedish territory would be destabilised in relation to the former region of Finland, the border area Tornedalen and the multinational Sápmi. An integration of Jewish history and culture would embrace religious beliefs other than the previously dominating state During the last 15 years, church, while bringing us straight into modern questions of genocide and politically politics conducted by disputed areas of conflict. The Sámi in turn make up the link to the world’s indigenous international indigenous peoples and significantly break up the centre–periphery dichotomy by simultaneously people has led to a representing the local natural environment and the UN and other global political bodies. paradigm shift ... During the last 15 years, politics conducted by international indigenous people has led to a paradigm shift, while Sápmi has turned from being an outpost in the North to part of a growing, global indigenous network. This process can be compared to the one that occurred 100 years ago, according to the historian of ideas Gunnar Broberg:

55 Broberg, G. (1981–1982), op. cit., p. 71.

Towards the turn of the century [1900] there must have been a great change in the concept of Sweden in people’s minds, at the same time as communications narrowed distances. There are many indications that Lapland was viewed previously as a separate nation, which had now been incorporated. The population up there was not of the same religion and race as the rest of the Nordic inhabitants, they had their own language and their means of livelihood.55 Consequently Skansen from the start had a “Lapp Camp”, when the new Swedish nation was put on display. The Swedish territory has been the same since 1905 but the projection has changed, the frame is altered and the content is pervaded by other ideas. That gives a new set of challenges and a new position to the Nordiska Museet and other national museums – if anything at all could be said to be “new”.

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CHAPTER 3

Sámi museums and cultural heritage Vuokko Hirvonen

In 1673, Johannes Schefferus published Lapponia, the first ethnographic book about the Sámi people in Sweden–Finland, under the then government of Swedish King Gustav II Adolf.

The information in the book was obtained mostly from clergymen working in the local Sámi region. Schefferus presented fairly accurate ethnographical observations about the people, their culture, habits and artefacts; but the book also engendered a romantic view of a primitive people that endured in the minds of Europeans for centuries. Lapponia instigated an enormous interest in the Sámi people. The book was perhaps one reason why Sámi cultural material (especially Sámi drums – the instrument of the Sámi noaidi or shaman) began to be taken out of Sámiland at the end of the seventeenth century. Another and more important reason related to the intense missionary activity amongst the Sámi people that began in Sweden–Finland in the seventeenth century and in Denmark–Norway at the beginning of the eighteenth. Drums were visible symbols of the Sámi indigenous religion and religious customs, so the missionaries and clergy, as a form of punishment, removed them along with other sacred objects (sieidies). Many of these objects were burned, but others were collected and transported to Copenhagen and Stockholm.1 During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, large quantities of Sámi artefacts left Sámiland and went to private collections, national museums and universities. The same was happening with indigenous artefacts in other parts of the world. Some of the artefacts were acquired ethically while others were taken without permission, by force or through unscientific digs. In the nineteenth century, physical anthropologists were measuring the heads of Sámi people in Nordic countries. Human remains were collected and information gathered and analysed in many Nordic universities and museums. Some of these national institutions still maintain collections of skeletal remains. In the 1990s some human remains, including teeth, skulls and other bones removed from the Sápmi, were repatriated to relevant communities for reburial. But other remains have not been returned and the Sámi people have no control over or even a voice in the management of this part of their heritage. The issue of repatriation is common to all indigenous peoples and the politics of representation and cultural empowerment are central concerns in contemporary museology. The national museums in Finland, Sweden and Norway are repositories of the first collections of Sámi spiritual and material cultural heritage. Some of this material is also in museums and research institutions outside the Nordic countries. In other words, most of the Sámi cultural heritage is in archives and collections outside the Sámi region and is therefore not readily accessible to the Sámi

1 Rydving, Håkan (1995) The end of drum-time: Religious change among the Lule Saami, 1670–1740s. Second edition. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Historia Religionum. pp. 62–63.

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The recently opened Vuovjjus exhibition in Hetta (Siida Museum).

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themselves. Instead of describing these collections, I will concentrate on the recently established Sámi museums that are in the Sámi area of Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia.

Photo: Arja Hartikainen. Siida Museum, Inari.

2 Jomppanen, Tarmo (2003) “The Sámi Museum – past and present. Siiddastallan. From Lapp communities to modern Sámi life”, in Jukka Pennanen and Näkkäläjärvi, Klemetti (eds), Publication of the Sámi Museum No. 5. Oulu: Pohjoinen p. 213; http://www.siida.fi/ 3 Lehtola, Veli-Pekka (2004) “Oikeus omaan historian”. Saamelainen kulttuuriperintö ja historiatietoisuus. Sámiid rievttit gillii ja historjái. Saamelaisten oikeudet kieleen ja historian. Publications of the Giellagas Institute, Vol. 3. Tuomas Magga and Veli-Pekka Lehtola (eds) Oulu: University of Oulu, pp. 52–65, p. 59.

Sámi museums in the Nordic countries FINLAND The history of Sámi museums starts in 1959 when the first one was founded in Inari, Finland. A Sámi association, Sámii Litto, established it and its first task was to gather Sámi buildings and artefacts before they were destroyed. The first buildings were moved to the museum grounds in 1960. The new museum was not an “ordinary” museum where the artefacts were put under glass, but an open-air museum presenting typical dwellings of Sámi anglers, nomads and hunters.2 A path shaped like lasso (suohpan) leads the visitor through the area.3 The museum was renamed in 1989 when the new Sámi museum, Siida, was founded. Siida is the home of the museum as well as the Northern Lapland Nature Centre. It has National Specialist Museum status, which means that the Finnish state funds 40 per cent of its budget. Further funds come from the Inari municipality and the rest is financed by the museum’s own income. The museum is governed by a foundation and has a board of eight members: according to museum guidelines, the chair and half the members must be Sámi. The Sámi representatives are not appointed by the Sámi parliament but elected by the Sámi group.

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The Siida museum’s mission is to preserve and exhibit the spiritual and material cultural heritage of the Sámi people in Finland. One of its main tasks is to spread and expand its activities to include the whole Sámi area. For example in Enontekiö, Hetta, a new exhibition in collaboration with a local Sámi association, was recently opened. The main exhibition in Siida introduces the special characteristics of northern life following the rhythm of the seasons, but there are also between six and eight temporary exhibitions every year dealing with Sámi culture, nature and other indigenous peoples. Siida also functions as a meeting place.4 NORWAY Although the first Sámi museum was constructed in Finland, the greatest advances have been made in Norway where many new local and regional Sámi museums have been founded in the past 30 years. The first Sámi museum in Norway, Sámiid Vuorká Dávvirat, was founded 1972 in Karasjok in the North Sámi area. The South Sámi founded its museum, Saemien Sijte, in 1980 in Snåsa. Árran, Lule Sámi Centre for the Lule Sámi Culture, was officially opened in 1994 in Drag, Tysfjord. Sámiid Vuorká Dávvirat – The Sámi Collections – was raised to National Museum status in 1996. It boasts the largest collection of Sámi items in Norway: more than 4 500. These originate from Sámi areas in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, and relate to reindeer herding, agriculture,

4 Jomppanen (2000), op. cit., p. 213; http://www.siida.fi

Duodji exhibition at Inari 2005. In the picture the informants are duodji artisans from four Sámi cultural areas in Finland. From left to right: Matleena Fofonoff, Petteri Laiti, Ella Sarre and SunnaMaaret Sara. Photo: Jukka Suvilehto. Siida Museum, Inari.

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fishing, handicraft and religion. The museum has three special sections: cultural history, art and an open-air exhibition, as well as one of the largest collections of traditional Sámi clothing in Europe. The art section curates over 600 items of contemporary Sámi art and duodji (applied art and craft), and art from other indigenous people from Arctic areas is also represented. The collection is steadily growing thanks to contributions from the Norwegian Sámi parliament and the Norwegian Arts Council. The open-air section consists of traditional buildings from various Sámi settlements and includes the remains of a system of hunting-pits for wild reindeer.5 Árran, the national Lule Sámi Centre, is devoted to promoting and disseminating knowledge that will help to ensure the development of Sámi culture and society in the Lule Sámi language area. The centre includes a museum with exhibitions on the Sámi way of life in the district, including clothes and handicrafts. The museum illustrates Sámi history and contemporary life, living conditions and culture, with emphasis on the Lule Sámi areas in Norway and Sweden. It was given semi-official status in 1980.6

A number of well-made objects made of bone, horn and stone are exhibited at the Várjjat Sámi Museum. Among these are two human figures, one of them called “The Man of the Varanger Fjord”, found in the midden of a grassy site in Karlebotn (2000 B.C.) Photo: Thorbjørn Bjørkli. Várjjat Sámi Museum, Norway.

5 http://www.desamiskesamlinger.no 6 http://www.arran.no 7 http://www.saemiensijte.no 8 Solbakk, John Trygve (2006) The Sámi People – A Handbook. Karasjok: Davvi Girji, p. 103. 9 http://www.varjjat.org 10 http://www.varjjat.org 11 http://www.statsbygg.no/ Aktuelt/Nyheter/Grunnsteinlegges-ned-for-Ostsamiskmuseum

The South Sámi Collection, Saemien Sijte, has responsibility for Southern Sámi activities. The museum was founded in 1963, when Anna Dærga, a South Sámi woman, bequeathed some of the reindeer herders’ domestic articles to the Saemien Sijte association; it was granted semi-official status in 1985. The museum and cultural centre was officially opened in 1980 and has a collection of South Sámi artefacts, art and buildings.7 Várjjat Sámi Musea (Varanger Sámi Museum) was established in 1993 when it took over the collection that formerly belonged to the County Governor’s Turf Hut Museum.8 The museum is located on the inner shore of the Varanger Fjord in eastern Finnmark and consists of a main building and an information hall in Ceavccageađge/ Mortensnes, which is a heritage site. Ceavccageađge is one of Scandinavia’s richest and most distinctive areas for ancient monuments.9 The main exhibition recounts the history and pre-history of the coastal Sámi. It shows settlement structure, religion, fishing, hunting and crafts, and some of the sensational Stone Age findings from the area. The information hall in the Ceavccageađge/ Mortensnes exhibits finds and pictures from this area that bear witness to 10 000 years of uninterrupted settlement. A path from the information hall leads to Sámi sacrificial sites and a reconstructed Coastal Sámi turf hut.10 In 1999 the Sámi parliament started a project to realise an idea that had emerged as early as the 1970s: the establishment of a special museum for the Eastern Sámi culture in Neiden. In 2004, a temporary board started to determine the needs of the new museum and the museum worked on documentation and gathering material. The foundation stone was laid in August 2007; the museum building will be ready in 2008 and will open in autumn 2009.11 The new museum is called Nuõrttsaa´mi mu´zei (East Sámi Museum). The Sámi parliament chose the museum as the Sámi millennium site, which means that this museum building had first priority for the parliament. One of its most important tasks is to

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revitalise, empower and raise awareness of the Eastern Sámi identity and culture. Eastern Sámi descendants live in Russia, Finland and Norway and the new museum aims to increase communication and contact between these people. It will be a centre of Eastern Sámi cultural knowledge and heritage and will establish an Eastern Sámi archive. It aims to work with and promote Eastern Sámi cultural history and traditional knowledge,12 presenting it through language, handicrafts, music, art, theatre, food, history and religion. There will be a focus on the Neiden area, which has been regarded as a cultural crossroads for centuries.13 There are 11 Sámi museums in the Sámi area in Norway: Árran - Lule Sámi Center; Sámiid Vuorká Dávvirat; Sámien Sijte; Deanu Musea (Tana Museum); Guovdageainnu Gilišillju (Kautokeino Hamlet and Museum); Porsánggu musea (Porsanger Museum); Gállogiedde (Sámi open-air museum) in Evenes; Jáhkovuona mearrasámi musea (Sea Sámi Museum) in Kokelv; Várjját Sámi Museum; Nuõrttsaa’mi mu’zei (East Sámi Museum); and Savio Museum.

12 Havas, Honna (2007), email with author 26 September 2007. 13 http:/www.sametinget.no 14 http://www.samediggi.no 15 Sámediggi (2004) Sametingsrådets melding om samiske museer 2004. 16 http:/www.ajtte.com

In 2002, the Norwegian Sámi parliament took over the administration of all of them. All are financed by the state but the Sámi parliament controls and manages the distribution of funding. The museums employ Sámi staff and have Sámi representatives on their boards. Sámi museums in Norway are being reorganised and in the first phase of the reform in 2006 a new museum was established: Davveoarjesámi museasiida (Siida for the Northwest Sámi Museums). Four museums in the north-west region form the new museum: Sámiid Vuorká Dávvirat; Guovdageainnu Gilišillju (Kautokeino Hamlet and Museum); Porsánggu musea (Porsanger Museum); and Jáhkovuona mearrasámi musea (Sámi Sea Museum) in Kokelv.14 According to the aims of the Sámi parliament in Norway, Sámi museums have to serve Sámi society by preserving and disseminating Sámi cultural history. They must take care of and continue the work that many Sámi associations and organisations have begun in gathering, conserving and disseminating Sámi cultural heritage, which includes religion, traditional knowledge and skills.15 SWEDEN The exhibition shows how people have Ájtte – Swedish Mountain and Sámi Museum – is Sweden’s principal adapted to life in a land without roads museum of Sámi culture. Located in Jokkmokk, it is a special museum ... and shows how the landscape has for the mountain region and an information centre for mountain influenced people, animals and various tourism and has exhibitions covering costume and silver, life of settlers natural habitats. and nomadic life. The exhibition shows how people have adapted to life in a land without roads; illustrates the migration of animals; and shows how the landscape has influenced people, animals and various natural habitats. Beside the exhibitions, the museum’s main tasks are research, documentation and education.16 There are some local and district museums in the Sámi area, in Sweden as in Finland, that have minor Sámi collections and exhibitions on Sámi culture, but they are not defined as Sámi museums.

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The Sámi Drum (goavddis) in Ájtte Museum. The drum is on loan from Trinity College, Cambridge University, where it has been since the 1700’s. The drum comes from Pite Lappmark in Sweden. Photo: Gunvor Guttorm.

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RUSSIA In Russia, there is one museum is devoted to the Sámi culture: The Sámi Museum of History and Every Day Life in Lovezero in the Murmansk region. There are over 1 000 objects including rockcarvings (petroglyphs) that are over 3 000 years old, found in 1973 near the Sámi settlement in Chalmny-Varre, Lovozero district. The museum illustrates the traditional, nomadic Sámi way of life, the variety of their dwellings and households and especially the history of the development of reindeer-husbandry.17 Conclusion The Sámi collections in these museums comprise ethnographic artefacts, archaeological items, photographs, some archival documents, film and sound recordings, and contemporary Sámi art. Many of the museums (such as Ájtte, Siida, Árran, Varanger Sámi Museum) also function as cultural centres and have concentrated attention on Sámi knowledge, identity, culture and history.

17 www.russianmuseums.info

The foundation of Sámi museums is part of the national “awakening” of Sámi self-esteem and political activism that started after the Second World War. One of the main purposes of establishing them was to write and show the history of the Sámi people from their own point of view: the museums were seen as symbols of self-representation. Such issues as forced assimilation

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or the Alta-Kautokeino issue18 have not yet gained the central focus, but the museums try to raise awareness of Sámi ethnicity and identity through their exhibitions and cultural activities. The focus of Sámi museums is still primarily on heritage and landscape rather than on social issues. Newly established Sámi museums can be agents of social and political Museums today have a social role change. As the museums are founded on their home ground they can because they represent the culture of a “give primarily one culture’s view of itself to itself, only secondarily particular society, and by acquiring conveying a message to the outside world”, as Svensson describes the tasks items of national, local or community of native and tribal museums.19 Many Sámi museums are looking at ways significance they act as a collective of developing programmes so that they can function as cultural centres memory. for the local communities: “Museums today have a social role because they represent the culture of a particular society, and by acquiring items of national, local or community significance they act as a collective memory”.20 At the same time, they are teaching institutions, according to Erikson.21 That is why many indigenous peoples like the Sámi have started to establish their own museums and want to repatriate their cultural heritage. The recent cross-Nordic project Recalling Ancestral Voices, for example, was dedicated to recording the material cultural heritage of the Sámi, aiming to repatriate knowledge of the material culture heritage to the Sámi in the form of a database. The database will contain existing and reviewed information on the collections of Sámi artefacts in Nordic countries. The project was launched in April 2006 and ran to the end of November 2007. In Finland, the Sámi museum Siida participated in the project, as did the Ájtte museum in Sweden and Varanger Sámi Museum in Norway. The project is part of Interreg III, a community initiative which aims to stimulate inter-regional cooperation in the EU, funded by the European Union.22

18 The project to dam the Alta-Kautokeino River in 1979– 1981 was one of the turning points of Sámi politicalcultural history, especially regarding the Norwegian government’s Sámi policy. After the Second World War, the Nordic national states started to expand their use of natural resources such as water in the Sámi area. This endangered the Sámi way of life and culture. The conflict between the Sámi people and the state heightened in Norway when the Norwegian

parliament voted to start regulating the waters of the Alta-Kautokeino in 1978. In the same year a movement led by educated young Sámi started to demonstrate in Stilla, where the power plant was planned. The demonstrations culminated in a hunger strike by five young Sámi outside parliament in Oslo, and in Stilla in 1981 after 600 police officers arrested 1 100 peaceful demonstrators from the construction area. The dam was finally built between 1982 and 1986. This conflict

galvanised Sámi culture and led to important changes in Sámi politics and state policies in Norway, where the Sámi people got their own parliament in 1989 and new laws concerning Sámi issues came into effect. These gave rise to new forms of participation in Sámi politics, media and art. See Lehtola, Veli-Pekka (2002) “The Sámi people –traditions in transition”, in The Encyclopaedia of Saami Culture; http://www-db.helsinki.fi

19 Svensson, Tom (2003) “Knowledge and artefacts, people and objects: On cultural traditions and researchedbased collecting”. Paper presented at the conference Cultural Traditions in Danger of Disappearing in Contemporary Society, A Challenge for Museums. Sibiu, Romania, 26– 30 September. biblioteknett.no/ alias/HJEMMESIDE/icme/icme2 003/svensson.html. 20 Casey, Dawn (2006) “Indigenous collections – Indigenous museums?”

Lecture in Macleay Museum Series 25 August 2006. http: www.usyd.edu.au/museums/ whatson/webcasts/lecture_bei ngcollected.shtml 21 Erikson, Patricia Pierce and Bowechop, Janine (foreword) (2002) Voices of a thousand people: The Makah Cultural and Research Center (with Helma Ward and Kirk Wachendorf). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 22 http://www.siida.fi/heritage

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3 0 | PETER PENTZ

CHAPTER 4

Return of the prodigal son – but is the seat taken? Peter Penz

The National Museum of Denmark: a “Universal Museum” In 2007 the National Museum of Denmark, situated in the capital Copenhagen, celebrated its 200th anniversary. The museum’s collections are a conglomerate, a melting pot of evidence of human interest in the past, the present, the environment and much more, representing a far longer period than just those two centuries. As such, the National Museum is arguably the only Scandinavian museum that could claim the (rather contested)1 title “Universal Museum”.

1 Abungu, G. (2004) “The declaration: A contested issue”, ICOM News, Vol. 57, “Universal Museums” No. 1, 2004, p. 5. 2 “Declaration on the importance and value of universal museums”, cited in ICOM News, op. cit., p. 4. 3 For instance by the Chairman of the ICOM Committee of Ethics: “The real purpose of the Declaration was, however, to establish a higher degree of immunity from claims for the repatriation of objects from the collections of these museums … The Declaration is a statement of self-interest, made by a group representing some of the world’s richest museums; they do not, as they imply, speak for the ‘international museum community’.” Lewis, G. (2004) “The universal museum: A special case?”, ICOM News, op. cit., p. 3.

The museum’s beginnings were in the eighteenth-century European Enlightenment. However, by the time it was founded times had changed and a strong nationalistic movement overshadowed the previous encyclopaedic approach. The result was a museum that prioritised national antiquities, antiquities of the Danish state in a wider sense (that is including Schleswig-Holstein and the colonies), the classical world and ethnography. In this sense the National Museum is probably unique. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, other “universal museums” developed alongside their “national” counterparts. The National Museum of Denmark embodies both: on the one hand, it is a museum of world cultures and, on the other, a European local museum representing a population less than half the size of that represented by the Museum of London. Being a guardian of world culture treasures carries with it many responsibilities. In December 2002, representatives from 19 major North American and European museums signed a “Declaration on the Importance and Value of Universal Museums”.2 The purpose of this statement was essentially to stress the importance and role of world culture museums in promoting common understanding and tolerance between peoples. However, whatever the intentions were behind the declaration, some read it as an ill-concealed attempt to avoid discussions about repatriation.3 The National Museum of Denmark was never asked to sign the document. The National Museum occasionally receives claims for repatriation or restitution of cultural property from its collections, claimants coming from Denmark and from abroad. Each claim is examined according to its individual circumstances. The National Museum was probably one of the first museums to be involved directly in a debate about restitution. As early as 1929, significant parts of the museum’s Icelandic collections were returned to Iceland. Iceland had gained independence in 1918: a subsequent discussion on the appropriate location for Icelandic antiquities was one political consequence. The selection of

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antiquities and the negotiations were kept at a professional rather than a political level, however. The same procedure was followed later when artefacts from Greenland and the Faroe Islands were returned. In these instances, the museum followed ICOM’s (International Council of Museums) current recommendations: “ICOM encourages the development of partnerships with museums where a significant part of the cultural heritage has been lost … It particularly encourages activity at a professional rather than a political level.”4 The model set up for the return of artefacts to Greenland was simple. A commission of six members was formed in 1983/84 and a secretariat established. The chair of the commission was the director of the young National Museum of Greenland, the vice chair the director of (at first) the ethnographical collections at the National Museum of Denmark, later of the international collections. The task was to divide the comprehensive collections from Greenland that were in the museum in Copenhagen. The commission’s evaluations and recommendations were to be confirmed by the Minister of Culture. In each case, the commission’s recommendations were unanimous and the Minister of Culture accepted them. Before the return, thorough conservation work was completed. All inventories and information were returned with the artefacts, and an electronic database created a valuable tool for providing an overview of the collections and the individual items. The first

The acculturation of the Greenlandic Inuit culture happened over centuries. The Christianization of Greenland played a major role in this process. West Greenland women and children outside the church of Upernavik, 2nd of July 1909. Photo: Th. Krabbe. Copyright: The National Museum, Denmark.

4 Lewis (2004), op. cit., p. 3.

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5 The process is described in more detail in Rosing, E. and Pentz, P. (2004) “The museum collaboration of Denmark and Greenland”, in Peter Pentz (ed), Utimut – Return: The return of over 35,000 cultural objects to Greenland. Nationalmuseet/Nunatta Katersugaasivia Allagaateqarfialu/Unesco, pp. 23–29. 6 Sandahl, J. (2004) “Utimut – Return”, in Pentz (ed), op. ci.t, pp. 21–22. 7 Rosing, E. (2004) “Museum authorities in Greenland”, in Pentz (ed.), op. cit., p. 31.

objects were returned in 1982, and the last in 2001. The result of this Danish–Greenlandic museum collaboration was the return of more than 35 000 artefacts, which left a considerable number – about 100 000 – in Copenhagen.5 Utimut – return The 17-year process of returning the items to Greenland was a resource-demanding project, but worthwhile and essentially a success. To celebrate its completion, an exhibition was created in 2001. The name chosen for this exhibition was the Greenlandic word Utimut. In the Museum’s context, it has taken on different meanings, such as “to send back”, “returning home”, or simply “return”, but it also acquired the meaning “to make better”.6 Is this what the Utimut achieved? To answer this question the different phases before, during and after the return have to be considered. Reclaiming history: a question of ownership Centuries of dominance by the Danes had cut off the Inuit people of Greenland from their cultural heritage and rendered many archaeological sites vulnerable to destruction and even looting. The first critical voices claiming that Denmark’s colonisation had led to unsupervised collection and export of cultural valuables were raised as long ago as 1916. At the same time an Act was passed concerning the Danish National Museum’s role in protecting Greenlandic cultural heritage.7 Subsequently there was a call in Greenland for the country to have its own museum, but the idea was premature.

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Collecting for such a museum was initiated in the 1950s. In 1967 a regional museum in Greenland was awarded Danish state funding. In 1979 the so-called Home Rule Government was established in Greenland, and naturally the issue of national identity was high on the agenda. The desire to curate Greenland’s own history was also growing fast. Two years later a new Greenlandic Act set up the framework for the protection of cultural heritage, authorised the museum’s structure, and confirmed the Museum in Nuuk’s status as a national museum for Greenland. Collections were, however, still poor. Museum professionals from Greenland and Denmark had exchanged ideas about returning some of the artefacts from Copenhagen to Nuuk. Politicians in Greenland requested such returns in the late 1970s. This appeal was welcomed in Denmark by politicians as well as by professionals in the National Museum. The return of the first items in 1982 coincided with Greenland’s growing independence, which in turn culminated in the establishment of the commission in 1983/84, only four years after the institution of the Home Rule Government and two after the installation of a Museums Act. Key words in this process, no matter how friendly negotiations were kept, were “ownership” and “right to administrate and preside over one’s own history”.

BELOW:

Eye-shade from East Greenland, Ammassalik district (Tasiilak), aquired 1886, returned 1986. Photo: Greenland National Museum & Archives, Nuuk.

FAR LEFT:

Female figurine of walrus tusk, the Thule culture from North-Eastern Greenland. Returned to Nuuk, Greenland. Photo: Greenland National Museum & Archives, Nuuk.

LEFT:

A shaman´s purse from the so-called Gustav Holm collection, aquired 18841885 in the Amassali district. The collection is now divided into two parts, one for The Greenland National Museum and Archives in Nuuk, and one remaining in The National Museum in Denmark. Photo: The National Museum, Denmark.

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3 4 | PETER PENTZ

8 In this period the National Museum of Denmark also received demands from Alaska (concerning finds from Chugach) and Canada (finds from Repulse Bay) for repatriation of human remains and the accompanying grave goods that had been excavated by Danish archaeologists. The request resulted in a partial return of the material in question from both sites. The claims were raised in 1993 and 1990–1991. 9 Rosing (2004), op. cit., p. 31.

Controlling culture – cultural healing The gradual return of artefacts ensured a continuous co-operation between the museum authorities of Greenland and Denmark. This was the period when other – non-Greenlandic – Inuit and other native people in North America fought their governments, archaeologists and museums to achieve access to and direct ownership of their cultural heritage. The struggle was occasionally fierce and aggressive, and the dialogue elsewhere much more hard-line than was ever seen in the Greenland–Denmark debate. In the U.S.A., the authorities met the claims for cultural rights with legal instruments, thereby digging trenches that put archaeologists and museums on one side and the native people on the other. Canada tried to avoid legislative responses, but did not altogether succeed. This polarised situation was partly due to the nature of the artefacts being claimed by the native people: they were objects the people related to very emotionally: human remains and grave goods.8 The Greenland–Denmark case began in a different way. Cooperation was based on a mutual wish to present the full history of Greenland in Nuuk as well as in Greenland. A “full history” included the history of the Inuit, the history of the Europeans in Greenland and the interaction between the two. This might be a slightly romanticised presentation of how the situation was in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but it describes the background of actual steps taken. Underlying the return was, of course, a simple question of who could and who had the right to exercise control, but control never became an issue in the commission’s work. During the commission’s 17-year existence, things changed – not so much concerning the work of the commission itself (the goals defined at its inception were realised), but Greenlandic society itself changed, and independence grew. And with increased self-government, the wish for control and power in relation to the country’s cultural heritage became less apparent. Any aggressive demands were silenced; the agenda had altered and other important issues were now pushed to the front.

... with increased self-government, the wish for control and power in relation to the country’s cultural heritage became less apparent.

If one were to characterise this period, concepts such as “cultural healing” and “cultural redemption” would probably be appropriate. There was nothing to suggest that the process of returning the artefacts was unsuccessful in any respect. History Returned: So What? When in 1913 the first voices had called for improved protection of Greenland’s rich archaeological past, it was stated that, “Greenlanders have no other history than what was found in the graves, and it was important that the population had the opportunity to see the weapons and tools their ancestors had used”.9 No matter how rigid we might find this statement today, considering

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Greenland’s rich oral and artistic heritage, it still exposes how fragile links with the past can be for a people without literary traditions. In February 2007 a conference was held in Nuuk to celebrate International Polar Year. The conference was hosted by the Greenland National Museum and Archive, and the theme was repatriation of cultural heritage. The aim was to create understanding and mutual respect between parties involved in repatriation, and if possible to work out some basic guidelines. Naturally, the return of the 35 000 artefacts from Denmark to Greenland was frequently referred to. The most provocative reactions to this were those of the youngest generation present at the meeting, who demonstrated a distinctly unemotional – even uninterested – attitude towards the returned artefacts and to their presence in the Greenland National Museum and Archives in Nuuk. The records that accompanied the artefacts when they were returned to Greenland are now kept with them in the capital’s museum. The pieces are guaranteed a “museum-like” existence, with registers, preservation surveys and so on detailing the circumstances under which they were collected, how they were used, and their preservation record. The reactions of the young generation expressed at the February conference suggest that memories are not about facts alone, however, but about interpretations, about meanings, about how individuals define who they are. The returned artefacts were obviously not acting as “cultural catalysts”. The challenge: connecting to the riches of the past Once artefacts are returned, the recipient faces several challenges. Return of cultural material is unconditional – and subsequently the responsibility for this material in its widest sense is in the hands of the recipient. Even though the artefacts were returned with their records, many questions remain. The records might have important information on context and motives, but, as can be deduced from the meeting in February, they cannot in themselves reconnect present generations to those of the past. Greenland covers a vast area, and the returned items originated from all inhabited parts of the island. Modern times have increased possibilities of mobility, and many of the people born in small local communities now live elsewhere. As people have become increasingly separated from their origins, dislocated from their birthplaces, they have lost contact with their legacies. Whether some of the artefacts should be further repatriated to those areas of origin or remain sealed in a museum is a challenge facing the new stewards. The return of the Greenlandic material also included the commitment of both parties to uphold and enforce research and co-operation. This has resulted, among other things, in increased activity in the archaeological field. But new archaeological findings are often reported only in academic journals, leaving communities ignorant of the significance of what is around them.

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It is a well-established fact that repatriation is not the end, but only the beginning. The recipient faces the task of redressing a situation, of reconnecting people with artefacts and historical sites, both economically and psychologically. The sender of the artefacts can do little. One contribution could be to help the recipient gain expertise regarding management of cultural heritage. For decades, Greenlandic and Danish professionals shared knowledge in the field of cultural heritage – legally, in museums, in research and in planning. This has left Greenland with modern legislation and an antique system. The advantages of this are obvious, but it should not be forgotten that these instruments and systems are European in concept and, as such, they can appear an unwelcome encroachment on the local culture. When many of the artefacts now returned were collected and sent to Copenhagen, it was partly in an attempt to document a supposedly vanishing culture. It was to some extent, however, also complicit in the destruction of the culture. No matter how successfully the repatriation exercise between Denmark and Greenland was, it and other co-operative ventures will always include an element of ambivalence. Even though it helped to provide clues for extending lines through history, the National Museum of Denmark is still in one sense part of the problem, being part of the system that broke those lines in the first place. Denmark and Greenland could probably not have done better than the Utimut model, but still the situation illustrates two basic facts of repatriation. The first is that what is done can never be undone. Objects returned are never quite the same objects as those that were taken. The second is that the return of cultural material is a beginning. Becoming new stewards and beneficiaries of the archaeological and historical past was the easy step. Now comes the difficult step: in which direction should it be? Or should no steps be taken, allowing the collections to remain as in Copenhagen: ethnographical collections, remnants from another culture, a culture that once was.

... that what is done can never be undone. Objects returned are never quite the same objects as those that were taken.

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AN APPETITE WHETTED | 3 7

CHAPTER 5

An appetite whetted Iben Mondrop Salto and Julie Edel Hardenberg

I am spending a quiet afternoon with Julie Edel Hardenberg at her large work and dining table. The children are at school and the crèche; the sun is shining coldly on the cliffs outside the little yellow wooden house in which Julie and her husband live. “Do you want coffee or tea?” Julie asks, and I answer that I would like tea. “Black, green or white?” she enquires.

We are in Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, and it is October 2007. I am on a brief visit with my family to the country, where I plan to talk to Julie and others involved in a subject that interests me deeply: art and culture in Greenland. This is one of the reasons I am at Julie’s now. As on so many previous occasions, we end up talking about the representation of Greenland in the art world. “Have you been to see the Nuuk Art Museum?” Julie asks with a sly look. I have not, I answer; I have seen it only from the outside. “You don’t need to either,” she retorts, “it is a waste of your time.” Julie is an artist. She is interested both personally and in her work in the stereotyping of cultural images, in particular those that relate to Greenland. She writes herself into the post-colonial discourse and makes questions about ethnic identity a theme of her artistic explorations. As an artist she is more or less alone in taking that position. Most of her colleagues in Greenland engage themselves in a romantic pursuit of cultural origins in Greenland art. The same goes for the art experts who interpret the art, Greenland’s curators and politicians. I should add that art very often – and almost automatically – is written into the political sphere. It is expected to take part in the creation and upholding of the Greenlandic image. In this context, there is no place for Julie’s kind of doubt or criticism. “Nuuk Art Museum is a private art collection that one of Greenland’s largest Danish entrepreneurs, Svend Junge, has made. It is made up primarily of landscape paintings of the safe kind and crafts made of tooth and soapstone. Traditional stuff … there is not one contemporary artwork amongst them with something to say,” Julie remarks, irritably. She continues, “The worst is that they have chosen to call it an art museum instead of a collection. So people think wrongly that what they see there is representative of Greenland art.”

Nonstereotypes. Photo: Julie Edel Hardenberg. Reproduced with permission from “The Quiet Diversity” Milik Publishing.

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“But isn’t the collection representative?” I can’t stop myself asking. Julie sighs. “Yes it is, unfortunately. But it represents first of all the entrepreneur’s own interests and taste because it is his collection. They should have called it ‘Junge’s Collection’, that would have been more accurate.” The reason that many Greenland artists stick with what one could call decorative art –where the main inspiration is, for example, our spectacular scenery – is historic. The population of Greenland (as with many other ethnic minorities) needs to draw attention to itself. Its culture, being small, is in danger of becoming absorbed by Hollywood films, McDonalds, Nintendo and so on. The people must signal their difference and in this way legitimate their culture’s “authenticity”. It is the only way in which their rights of existence can be assured in a world driven by market forces that bypass only those places and forms of life that are seen as worthy of protection because they are primordial. In Greenland there are many concerns about the influence of globalisation on the country’s cultural development. In 2005 Greenland’s Home Rule legislators presented a cultural policy report that suggests that Greenlandic identity should start from Greenland’s cultural heritage, namely the culture of hunting and everything associated with it, such as kayak sailing, drum dances, traditional clothing, folklore traditions, myths and legends. Globalisation and the cultural challenge are met with this authentic, common and solid basis, and this is where art comes into the picture. Because of its appeal, it can be exposed and distributed widely. It is an obvious political tool because it is experienced and seen by many different people domestically and internationally: in museums, in galleries, at conferences, on postcards, in newspapers, magazines, in embassies, in shopping malls, libraries and so on. Artists in Greenland are therefore committed to showing and representing Greenland culture as something particular and different. That is one of their major responsibilities. And Greenlandic artists are good at it. They have an endless source in the landscape and in mythology. And they speak to an attentive audience. Both the nature and the mythology are favoured themes for the more “civilised” cultures that look back with nostalgia at their own lost origins.

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AN APPETITE WHETTED | 3 9

Unfortunately, it is almost as if many of Greenland’s artists are blind to the fact that art can be so much more. This is what Julie scoffs at: “I am tired of nothing being shown in our exhibition halls that asks questions. Very few artists have anything original to say. This means that people here simply don’t know how to react when they finally meet an artwork that questions their understanding of the world. They don’t know how to criticise it. It is annoying because that is what contemporary art is so good at. And there is no lack of themes; there is more than enough to work with here in this country,” Julie adds with annoyance in her voice. “Wasn’t there an exhibition on postcolonial Greenlandic identity recently, and wasn’t that different from much of what one sees otherwise in art exhibitions here?” I ask, referring to an exhibition that was first shown at Nordatlantens Brygge (North Atlantic Wharf) in Copenhagen and then later in Katuaq, the cultural centre in Nuuk.1 “Yes. And I was a part of it. But that was mounted by some art history students from Denmark who were interested in postcolonial tendencies in contemporary art. It was met with silence here. Not one person questioned or reacted to the very provocative work I produced: a tunic made of two flags – the Greenlandic and the Danish. The work represented the tense identity sphere that we find ourselves in, the postcolonial relationship between Greenland and Denmark. I called the work Rigsfællesskabspause (A National Pause). We all need a break or pause sometimes, when we don’t need to relate to whether we belong to the one culture or the other, or if we are third …” Julie sighs. “What is paradoxical is that the tunic attracted a great deal of attention in other countries. People have asked and talked and written about it; it really caused debate – just not at home.” Post-colonial theory – or the post-colonial condition – has in recent years been one of the themes of contemporary art. Interest has focused particularly on studies of cultural meetings and the representation of indigenous people in literature and film. The international art biennale Documenta 11 (2002) explicitly made the post-colonial field a central theme and showed works

1 The exhibition was called Den Røde Snescooter (The Red Snow Scooter). More information can be found at www.denroedesnescooter.dk

Portraits from Greenland. Photos: Julie Edel Hardenberg

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about and by artists from earlier colonies. In other words, awareness has been raised concerning previously colonised peoples’ narratives about themselves and history. But interest has obviously not yet reached Greenland. Nuuk Art Museum has just built an annex for temporary exhibitions. The museum’s original founder has passed away, and the building with its collection has been given to Nuuk Council. A museum director has been employed who, in his capacity as archaeologist, looks after the changing exhibitions. “Just now there is an exhibition of Greenlandic precious stones,” Julie says, “and afterwards they will show a travelling exhibition where Nordic artists explore ‘nature’ in their work. The exhibition is taking place after the initiative of The Nordic House (a Nordic cultural centre in the Faroe Islands) so there will be no new Greenlandic thinking there.”

Tunic made from the Greenlandic and Danish flags. Tunic and Photos by Julie Edel Hardenberg.

“But is it the artist’s job to educate people in more critical thinking?” I ask. “We have at least as much responsibility as others,” Julie replies. “And we have some abilities and a tradition for turning world perceptions on their head. The problem is that we in Greenland lack visionary people in the whole art field, people who dare to think beyond the banal and the clichéd. We lack someone who can understand that art can be so much more than pretty or beautiful and comment on the relationship between nature and people. Someone for whom art can be an analytical tool that can simultaneously challenge philosophy and politics and romanticism – and that can in the end say so much more about Greenlandic identity and ideas. But it is not only the artists that are the problem. We lack inquisitive writers who dare write about art, and visionary curators who dare put something together.” “But can’t one be provocative and claim that the dialogical element in art is a tradition that has very little to do with Greenlandic traditions, and that therefore it is not strange that Greenlandic artists don’t want to work with something that perhaps is not representative for them?” I ask, to probe Julie’s position and attitudes. Her reaction is quick. “We live here and now in a society that is constantly being revised according to our needs and desires. And we must therefore question it.

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I have a responsibility to participate in that process. As artists we have visual tools that speak to ideas and feelings in a completely unique way. It is a shame not to use it. And furthermore, one can argue that the Greenlandic stereotype in pictorial art is a colonial perspective; namely a continuation of the exotic difference.” “But won’t that all change when Greenland gets its own National Gallery in Nuuk?” I ask.3 “Hopefully. But the pressure to show Greenland as a picture postcard is immense. Remember, we are far too dependent on goodwill here. We are a tiny population on a very big continent; we need positive attention, at least for the moment. The Home Rule parliament needs us as artists to help it, and the funds art is given depend upon it. Unfortunately the inevitable results are wellmeaning but toothless art.” I lift the teapot. Our white tea has been drunk. Julie lives on the top of a mountain with a view far into the fjord. Out of the window, we watch a couple of boats on their way out. It is reindeerhunting season. I think I will still visit the Nuuk Art Museum just to get a sense of it. At the same time, I consider trying to curate an exhibition in the town’s large, beautiful cultural centre. My appetite has been whetted. This interview represents both authors’ reflections and perspectives.

2 Greenland and Denmark are part of the Kingdom of Denmark. This means that the countries formally (and economically) remain bound together in a variety of areas. 3 Plans for a National Gallery are being drawn up. The location has been chosen and financial planning is under way.

Hong Kong Café. From: “The Quiet Diversity” Julie Edel Hardenberg, Milik Publishing

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4 2 | JANNE LAURSEN

CHAPTER 6

The Danish Jewish Museum: a new museum asserts its character Janne Laursen

In a thought-provoking manner, the Danish Jewish Museum queries both the concept of “Jewishness” and the concept of “Danishness” – and in doing so goes beyond the usual approaches of Jewish Museums.

The particular and the common New museums are opened continuously. But the word “museum” does not imply any fixed content for an agenda, for what the museum’s role and raison d’etre should be, nor any reason why this particular museum is important or what its form should be – and no strict guidelines as to what should be collected there, preserved, researched into and disseminated. When a new museum approaches its completion, it often becomes apparent that there are widely different perceptions of its objectives and field. The differences in opinion can stem from the fact that there are different motivations behind the museum initiative – or that there are different models and ideas about what a “proper” museum is. The necessary museological analyses that precede any establishment of a new museum have their own character What should a Jewish museum in when it comes to Jewish museums.

Denmark strive to explicate, that other Jewish museums cannot? For this reason, the question that Daniel Libeskind asked himself, as part of the preparations of his draft for the museum’s architecture, is an important one: What should a Jewish museum in Denmark strive to explicate, that other Jewish museums cannot? Answering this question is necessary to ensure that the Danish Jewish Museum does not become just like all other Jewish museums and that it includes what is special about Danish Jewish cultural history. But some things are also shared by Jewish museums and transcend national boundaries.

RIGHT:

View through The Danish Jewish Museum. Photo: Bitter + Bredt, 2004.

Danish law and subsidiary arrangements for museums focus on a national context. But museums continuously transgress the national borders in their subject areas; not even Danish history fits neatly within current national borders. Neither can Danish Jewish cultural history. Therefore it has been important for the museum to consider the categories “Jewishness” and “Danishness” in relation to national administrative traditions regarding museums.

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Jewish museums: traditions and innovation Many exhibitions about Jewish culture and many Jewish museums were founded in Europe before the Second World War. After the emancipation of Europe’s Jews, old traditions and customs were highly valued, and particularly objects connected to the religious sphere became collector’s items. For collectors, these objects could provide a way back to the old Jewish universe that was lost and a new way to create a Jewish sense of belonging. Collections such as these can now be found at the base of contemporary Jewish museum collections, even though they – alongside the collections of the Jewish communities in Europe – were not intact after the Second World War. Objects relating to the religious sphere are called judaica and for many they represent what is shared in Judaism and, like the religious sphere in itself, cross national boundaries. Judaica collections in Jewish museums often include objects from other countries. If a collection is to represent a shared Jewish heritage, the field of relevant objects cannot be limited by national boundaries of a particular country. If, however, a museum is understood within a national context, the individual country’s contribution must be central in the collection and the museum’s narrative. After the Second World War a new category of Jewish museums appeared: the Holocaust museums. Both the old judaica-oriented Jewish museums and the Holocaust museums play an important role in the museum landscape. Thus, religion and the memory The majority of the Danish Jews of the Nazi genocide of the European Jews are two dominant points of escaped to Sweden in October 1943 and orientation in the creation of Jewish museums.

thus there has been no obvious need to Jewish museums have their own museological discourse, their own create a Holocaust museum in complex history of development as well as particular motives for their Denmark.

existence. In Denmark it is possible to tell a more positive story about the country’s Jewish minority than in many other European countries. The majority of the Danish Jews escaped to Sweden in October 1943 and thus there has been no obvious need to create a Holocaust museum in Denmark. Daniel libeskind’s concept for the Danish Jewish Museum Throughout the museum world, there are many general discussions about the relations between museums and architecture. With his conceptual design for the Danish Jewish Museum, Daniel Libeskind has emphasised what, in his view, is the unique element in Danish Jewish history – namely the rescue of the Danish Jews in October 1943. This is a world-renowned and quite exceptional event in Jewish history. For Libeskind, this was a good deed – a “mitzvah”. Furthermore, Libeskind noted that Danish Jews share the common Jewish cultural heritage. Judaism’s religious and symbolic spheres create the foundation for the whole diaspora culture; a shared historical frame of reference, whether one is orthodox or not religious at all. Libeskind referred to this shared Judaism with central themes from the mythical narrative about the departure from Egypt: “Exodus”, “Wilderness”, “The Giving of the Law” and “The Promised Land”.

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Throughout the museum’s architecture, Libeskind reflects these themes in many ways. The architecture has a strong narrative, and in its own way it is the museum’s greatest object. The four Hebrew letters in the word “mitzvah” are tied together and make up the hallway areas. The walls are made of light birch plywood as the museum has a positive or bright story to tell. Moreover, the light birch is a reference to Scandinavia and to Sweden, which received the Jews from Denmark. The slanting floor can be seen as a ship’s deck, referring to the boats that sailed the Danish Jews to Sweden. The five levels of the floors both point to the shared underlying Jewish cultural heritage and to a purely emotive sensation of insecurity, stemming both from being Jewish and a refugee on the way across the Sound (Øresund). “Come in and sail at the Danish Jewish Museum”, it has humorously been written – and the museum does not leave its visitors unmoved: the floor’s different levels produce a rocking sensation of sea travel. The physical experience is not uncommon in Libeskind’s other museums; it can also be experienced in the Garden of Exile in the Jewish museum in Berlin. Daniel Libeskind’s design for the Danish Jewish Museum does not simply include architectonic considerations. Reflections of a more fundamental character are necessary when planning a new museum. When discussing the work of an architect such as Libeskind it is not sufficient to talk about architecture as an isolated issue relating only to design. The architecture also tells a story about an important chapter in Danish Jewish history. Danish Jewish Museum – profile and limitations In line with Daniel Libeskind’s thoughts, it was clear early on for the museum’s board that the Danish Jewish Museum should not be a Holocaust museum. In Denmark there is, as previously mentioned, a more positive story to tell. It was also important for the museum’s board that the primary audience to reach should be non-Jewish Danes: the museum should open up to the surrounding society rather than be a more reclusive Jewish cultural centre. Accordingly, the museum got the role of balancing between the Jewish community in Denmark, which is the museum’s theme, and the surrounding society, which is the museum’s primary audience. At the European Jewish Museums’ annual meeting in Brussels in 2005, themes of openness and appeal to the surrounding society were seen as general challenges for many Jewish museums – for economic reasons, if not for other reasons, since the fight for public funding is sharpened. It is an advantage to be clear about this from the start, but that does not make the challenge to appeal to these audiences any easier. In Denmark there is little widespread knowledge about Danish Jewish cultural history and Jewish culture beyond the rescue of the Danish Jews in October 1943. The museum had to take into consideration what the audience could be expected to know before its visit. That the rescue of the Danish Jews is a unique story for a Jewish museum in Denmark is without doubt. It is this part of Danish Jewish history that Denmark is best known for, and it has meant a great deal for Denmark’s image after the Second World War, during which the country for years had a collaborative relationship with the German occupying power.

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But that the museum beyond this should only deal with the Danish Jewish part of the shared Jewish cultural heritage – understood as Danish-produced judaica – was definitely not in line with the hopes of the museum and the proclamations about why this museum was so important. To establish a contemporary role as a museum about minority culture is an important goal. In Denmark there are 400 years of experience of including the Jewish minority, which today is a wellintegrated group that cultivates its Jewish relationship in a variety of ways. The wish of the museum board was that the museum should tell this story and put emphasis on the aspects of integration in Danish Jewish cultural history and the story of the life and customs of the Danish Jews. Therefore, it was decided that the museum’s exhibition should interpret Libeskind’s references regarding the shared Jewish cultural heritage within a Danish context:  Exodus: The Jewish immigration to Denmark  Wilderness: Identity and perspectives amongst Jews in Denmark  Mitzvah: October 1943 – flight and deportation  The Giving of the Law: Traditions  Promised Land: Promised lands

Diversity as common ground Through working with the museum’s exhibition it became clear that diversity is a very central concept when striving to understand what it means to be Jewish. There is in fact no single Jewish identity, only numerous variations – just as there are numerous standpoints in the praxis of religion, kosher, strategies for education and marriage, and in the individual’s relation to Israel. This diversity makes it impossible to talk about a homogenous group – similarly, Danish Jewish history is not at all common for Danish Jews. Factors that create diversity in the Jewish community are, amongst others, the time of arrival, where one came from, and how one came to Denmark. This background creates large differences amongst Jews, and Jews do not necessarily invite other Jews for coffee just because they are Jews. A marriage between a descendant of an old Danish Jewish family and a descendant of later East European Jewish migrants may be spoken of in jest as a “mixed marriage”. Diversity makes it difficult to talk about a shared Danish Jewish history. There is a common history but it might not be experienced as such by the individual. The chapters in Danish Jewish history that deal with “the others” do not catch on as well as the chapters that deal with oneself and one’s own group. Time and again the museum emphasises this diversity as key to understanding the Jewish minority in Denmark, and, in relation to the museum’s primary audience – the non-Jewish Danes – this is a most important point. Prejudices are usually built from stereotypes.

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In relation to the Jewish audience the museum can offer a different identification to Jewish commonality than the religious sphere, as all Jews can recognise and identify themselves with the fact that diversity has played an important part in Jewish identity and colours the Jewish community to a great extent. Diversity can be an expression for stages in an integration and assimilation process, but it can certainly also be an expression of differences in values and political affiliations, just as it can when it comes to the rest of the Danish population. Working with the collection at the Danish Jewish Museum The museum does not limit its understanding of Jewish cultural heritage to only judaica. Because of this it is possible to tell a different and much more diverse story than what is possible with an exclusively judaic collection. This has meant a choice of otherwise unusual objects in a Jewish museum – for example a pair of tailor’s scissors that was given to the museum by the descendants of the East European Jewish migrants who arrived in Denmark in the beginning of the 1900s. They amounted to about 3 000 people, who primarily lived in Copenhagen and worked with textiles and as tailors. It is the first time in Denmark that material from this immigrant group is shown in a museum context. These tailor’s scissors are similar to all tailor’s scissors – except for their provenance. But does this make them Jewish? This question was raised by a well-known judaica dealer in Denmark who felt that if these scissors had had Hebrew inscriptions, they would be more … Jewish. At the museum we know exactly which Jewish hands cut with them and from which Jewish family the scissors came, how they were used, who had acquired them and what place they had in the family before they came to the museum. Because they illustrate Danish Jewish life, the scissors are meaningful to collect. The desire to collect and show unconditionally and clearly Jewish things such as objects with Hebrew inscriptions and judaica leads to the danger that one can block the access of objects of a different character from entering the museum’s collections. This type of policy risks freezing what a Jewish museum is and what the audience can expect to experience – and thereby invites audiences to see Jewish museums as all the same. If one wants to portray the actual life of human beings and tell what it has meant to be Jewish at different times, and at the same time highlight the differences between different countries, one has to use alternative collection criteria. In this manner, the objects’ expressive value and their provenance has to be included in our considerations and the objects must be documented, along with interviews, films and other forms of contemporary documentation.

Are these Jewish things? Tailor’s scissors from Jewish families who came to Copenhagen from Eastern Europe in the beginning of the twentieth century. The Danish Jewish Museum’s collection. Photo: Nikolai Perjesi, 2004.

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Work on the museum collection began in 1985, at the same time as the formal and legal framework around the Danish Jewish Museum was established. Collection was carried out at several addresses and with a variety of criteria. The judaica criteria were maintained alongside a cultural history criterion, and this enabled the museum to collect objects such as photographs, testimonies, family records, organisation archives etc. In connection with the museum board’s wish for a state approval (Statsanerkendelse) of the Danish Jewish Museum it was clear that the museum should equip itself to fulfil the relevant museum requirements in order to receive state subsidies. This affected not only the ... it was clear that the museum should museum’s financial basis, but also the museum’s work with its collections equip itself to fulfil the relevant museum and research.

requirements in order to receive state subsidies.

Therefore it was decided that the museum should work in accordance with the standards that apply to state-approved museums from the outset before the museum opened, even if the museum had not yet been approved by the state. This meant, amongst other things, that the registration of the museum’s objects were included in the shared Danish museum registration system called “Regin”. A clearly formulated collection policy was created, along with a policy about storage conditions, formulated research methods and goals which the collection work should strive to follow and attain. The museum’s desire for state approval (and thus public funding) has meant that the legislation surrounding the Danish state museum has been decisive for the ways in which the museum has worked during the last five years. The legislation aims to conserve Danish cultural heritage. The methods for doing so are collection, conservation, registration, research and dissemination. The Danish Jewish Museum is defined as a state-approved, cultural heritage speciality museum whose aim is collection, registration, research, preservation and dissemination to ensure that Jewish cultural heritage, as an expression of diversity in Danish society, should be elucidated. States and changes within this cultural heritage were to be expressed in all their aspects – cultural, historical and artistic. The Jewish as an ambiguous category Who is a Jew? The question is surprisingly difficult. Following the definition of the Jewish Community in Denmark, one’s mother needs to be Jewish or one must be converted to Judaism. This is the so-called halakhistic definition of who is a Jew. There are a little over 2 000 members of the Jewish Community in Denmark. Approximately 75% of Jewish marriages are mixed marriages, and children of marriages where only the father is Jewish are not considered Jewish in the definition outlined above. However, Jewish heritage often plays a part in these families. The children still have the opportunity to attend the Jewish school in Copenhagen – Carolineskolen (The Caroline School) – whose aim is to strengthen the children’s Jewish identity through education. On the other hand, people in Danish society can be Jews according to the halakhistic definition, but belong to a family that has been Christian for many generations.

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Add to this the fact that a new Jewish congregation was recently established in Denmark. Here the definition of who is a Jew is different from the Jewish Community in Denmark. Within this group, blood relations are less important than the connections to Jewish life and Jewish cultural competence. The museum has chosen not to involve itself in the definition of who is Jewish and who is not. If the individual considers him- or herself to have a Jewish identity, that is sufficient for the museum. People who do not have a Jewish identity themselves but who might be married to a person from a Jewish family can also have material that is relevant to the museum. The Collection for Modern Danish History (Samlingen for Nyere Tid) at the National Museum has a donation index that is the key to the collection. If one knows the Jewish family names in Denmark one can thereby start a search to see what the National Museum has in its collections that might highlight Danish Jewish relations. But, on the other hand, it is not so simple: even at the level of names, Jews are not easily recognisable and donations of relevance to Danish Jewish relations can even be found under the typical Danish name Olsen. Where do the museum’s objects come from? One thing is certain: with an open approach to the question of who is Jewish and who is not, it has been possible for the museum to gather material whose provenance illuminates integration and assimilation processes, bicultural identity and the diversity that to a great extent is characteristic of the Jewish minority in Denmark. Without this approach the museum would not be able to include material from people who maintain a Jewish identity but who are not members of any Jewish religious community nor perhaps are even members of the Danish State Church. To highlight the interaction and relations between the Jewish minority and the non-Jewish majority over time is only possible with an open cultural historical approach to the question about who is Jewish. In other words, it is important for the Danish Jewish Museum not to get involved in the discussions about the correct way of being Jewish, but to note that such discussions take place. The museum must document this and collect materials that illuminate these important identity processes – processes that it will be increasingly relevant to gain insight into and work with, especially when considering that other minority groups have made their entrée to Denmark and could have the benefit of knowing how others have dealt with Danish life before them. The European future seems in general to contain this challenge. Danishness as an ambiguous category The museum has received many inquiries from Danish Jews regarding materials of relevance for the museum. This could be, for example, a video filmed during a recent tourist visit to the

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concentration camp at Auschwitz. Similarly to judaica being considered an expression of a common Jewish cultural heritage, and Jewish museums therefore have objects from different countries in their collections, the Holocaust is also seen by many as a common Jewish concern of relevance for all Jewish museums. But in Denmark by far the majority of Jews were successful in fleeing to safety; only 470 were deported to the concentration camp Theresienstadt and almost all the deported survived the war. This is the background for the decision that the Danish Jewish Museum should not be a Holocaust museum, even though many of the Polish Jewish refugees who came to Denmark in 1968–1970 have Holocaust experiences. Luckily, in Denmark it is possible to work with a living Jewish minority and a continually preserved Jewish cultural heritage. It was not suddenly decimated or destroyed with the Holocaust as it so tragically was in many other parts of Europe. At the Danish Jewish Museum we consider that material from other countries can be relevant for the museum’s collection. We are talking about immigrants to Denmark, and if Danish Jewish families possess material from the countries where they came from, which they have kept as treasures and found worthwhile to bring to Denmark, this material could be most relevant for the museum’s collection. It can be photographs from the home country, formal papers or objects of great meaning and sentimental value. In its collection the museum also has material from Sweden that returned to Denmark with the Danish Jews in the summer of 1945: Swedish ration cards, a Swedish schoolbag, and a catalogue with clothes put together especially for those who had departed with only what they were wearing at the time of flight. The museum has also made voice recordings of Danish Jews who learnt to speak perfect Swedish while they were in Sweden, and these recordings are now kept in the museum’s collection. The collection also contains objects from the concentration camp Theresienstadt, objects that were brought back to Denmark in April 1945 when Folke Bernadotte’s Hvide Busser (white buses) brought the Danish Jews back to Scandinavia, and objects that reflect post-war memories of the stay in the camp. Finally, there are also objects donated by Danish Jews who immigrated to Israel. In other words, all material that reflects Danish Jewish relations is seen as relevant to the museum. Like the category “Jewish”, the category “Danish” is also not simple. But the museum is based in a Danish context and has the Danish Museums Regulations as its overriding framework. If one wants to represent the life of the Jewish minority in Denmark one must understand that the national border is not the same as a cultural border. Danish Jewish life is connected with Jewish life outside of Denmark’s borders just as immigration to Denmark opens a window out to European history.

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Provenance Disciplines can become entangled when it comes to museums’ collections. This relates to the question of what is important to collect and preserve in the future. Art historians, who work with judaica, have the point of view that it is only truly artistic work that should be kept in a museum’s collection. A collection established from this perspective would not include the tailor’s scissors that are found in the Danish Jewish Museum. Pluralistic cultural heritage requires a cross-disciplinary museum staff. This is the key to a dynamic museum and essential in order to avoid fruitless discussions about which discipline can serve the Danish Jewish museum better than others. Different disciplines weight the provenance differently. Therefore, it is important to ensure the basic information and define what details should be included. The usefulness of cross-disciplinary approaches can be illustrated by the object Pagtens Ark (the Ark of the Covenant). An exciting art history analysis can produce a symbolic analysis and take the reader to the temple in Jerusalem where the real Ark of the Covenant stood. But what sort of object is this Ark? A cultural history approach with weight given to the object’s provenance offers new information. The Ark was a collegial gift from the employees of the Landsmandsbank (the Farmer’s Bank) to the bank’s Jewish director Emil Glückstadt. The Ark is a box lined with cedar and it is presumably a cigar box. It would seem obvious that it is a Jewish object, but is this really the case when it has come from a non-Jewish context that one must ... the Torah is an object which must be treated with the greatest respect but presume the bank’s employees represented? Why have non-Jews thought otherwise I have not met the ethnic of a gift that is so clearly Jewish, but at the same time something utterly profane as a box for cigars? Was it a joke? nervousness in the Jewish community in

Denmark that can be found amongst The box still smells of cigars. It came to the museum through the Jewish Christians ... community where for many years it continued to be used as a cigar box. Is this a desecration? One has to be clear about one thing in the work with religious objects in the Jewish community: the Torah is an object which must be treated with the greatest respect but otherwise I have not met the ethnic nervousness in the Jewish community in Denmark that can be found amongst Christians in relation to the objects of the church and religious symbols. No matter how much this Ark symbolises something very holy it is not the Ark from the old temple in Jerusalem. It is a gift to a Danish Jew from predominantly non-Jewish personnel. So what kind of object is this Ark of the Covenant? Considered from a religious-historical perspective, it is an example of a quite different treatment of religious objects. Perhaps most of all, it speaks of the image of “the Jewish” amongst non-Jews. It is hard to know for sure, as the provenance is too uncertain. We do not know whose idea it was to give Glückstadt such an Ark

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and if it was a wish of the director himself. It is clearly an object that can create debate; it excellently exemplifies the blurriness of the category “Jewish”, while illustrating how important crossdisciplinary approaches are as well as highlighting the need to ensure a good description of the provenance at the moment of collection. Conclusion One can say that the perception of judaica as the expression of a shared Jewish cultural heritage easily leads to the presumption that the Jewish religious sphere represents a homogenous whole – something uniform. It is the same equipment that is used in synagogues and homes even though there are many variations of it. This impression arises when focus rests solely on the object’s aesthetic provenance. The moment one focuses on the object’s meaning for the individual and the use of the object, a new dimension comes into view. The meat knives from a kosher household do not only speak of kosher rules and religion, but can also reflect a Jewish family’s change from kosher to vegetarian, or the meat knives’ changing role from a kosher table to a Jewish memory in the family – until the knives leave the family and end up in the museum. Objects tell a story if they are allowed to. In the desire to speak about the shared Jewish cultural heritage and by focusing only on the common – judaica – an important point can be lost. What is held in common is perhaps not the similarities but the differences. If anything marks the Jewish community from the earliest times to today it is its diversity. A swarm of perspectives and identities thrive side by side, abolishing any idea that Jewishness is something uniform. What creates diversity is the differing starting points: the arrival time in a given land, the reasons for immigration, the relationships to the already established Jewish families, differences in language and culture, differences in understandings of being Jewish, differences in religious interpretation and values, differences in relation to integration and the question of assimilation. It is incredible to what extent diversity marks the Jewish community – and not only in Denmark. The uncommon – diversity – is closely tied to the idea of a common and correct way to be Jewish within the Jewish community. From the outside, the diversity is not easily seen; here the expectation is of the homogenous. That expectation may be very important to be rid of; it will remain fertile ground for many stereotypes and prejudices about the Jews, prejudices that can quickly provide the basis for anti-Semitism. It is not unproblematic to talk about diaspora cultures and pluralistic culture. It can lead to expectations about a homogenous cultural heritage – not understood as the national cultural heritage but understood as something common – just of a different type – from outside that shall find its place in the national culture.

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The Danish Jewish Museum has called its exhibition “Rum og Rummelighed” (“Space and Spaciousness”). The title signals that the Jewish minority may be included in the surrounding society as it also may include each other’s difference. There has been much focus on spaciousness between societies and minorities. But the minorities’ part in creating space within themselves for each other is also important to take into account, when the point is to give to the surrounding world an idea about what it means to be Jewish and live with a Jewish identity today as well as in the past.

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CHAPTER 7

Cultural minorities in Danish museums: the Danish Jewish Museum Søren Kjørup

If you visit a Danish museum of history or culture, you are likely to get the impression that the inhabitants of the Danish isles are a very homogeneous people. Ethnic, cultural and religious minorities are – like immigrants to Denmark – in an extreme minority in the Denmark that museums tell us about. “Danish Museums Online”1 may not even be able to find a museum for you if you ask (in Danish or in English) for “minority”. There is just one concerning “religious minorities” (Fredericia Museum), and the two words “immigrant” and “refugee” both refer you to “The Women’s Museum” in Århus, but nowhere else.

Danish blindness towards diversity Even the relatively new permanent exhibition at Copenhagen’s Danish National Museum about the making of modern Denmark 1660–2000, intelligently called “Stories of Denmark” (and not, for example, more generally “Danish History”), has found no room for stories about Danish minorities. The idea that the Danish population comprises more than the descendants of the Vikings and their Stone- and Bronze Age ancestors is mentioned only in connection with the most recent and still current wave of immigration from Islamic countries. Minorities such as the indigenous Germans in southern Jutland, the immigrant Greenlanders in Copenhagen, or the 500 or so members of Roma families have no place in Danish museums (the Roma have actually lived in Denmark since around 1500, even though illegally most of the time).

1 English version: http://www.dmol.dk/engelsk/s tart.asp. A section of a small regional museum – Furesø Museum – is developing a database on immigration, including life histories. See: www.furesoe museer.dk/immigrantmuseet

Even the City Museum of Copenhagen manages to overlook the huge German minority, which, in the eighteenth century, necessitated two German Lutheran churches and one German-French Calvinist church within its city walls. It also ignores the fact that most of the eighteenth-century nobility that built the palaces in the newly planned northern part of town were German families, mostly from Schleswig-Holstein (Bernsdorff, Rewentlow, Schimmelmann, and so on). The museum has recently published booklets for teaching Danish language and history to immigrants, one of them with the obvious theme “Copenhagen’s New Copenhageners”, which tells a little about the Dutch, German, Jewish, Swedish, Turkish, Pakistani and Yugoslav immigrants, refugees, guest workers and so on, but this is not reflected in the exhibition. The only roles given to the Germans of southern Jutland in Danish museums are unflattering ones – as the enemy in the Schleswig Wars of 1848–1849 and 1864, and collaborators with the German occupation forces during the Second World War. The museums of cultural history of

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the binational Schleswig (the most prominent one being the museum at Sønderborg Castle) do not describe the culture of the German minority (now 15 000 people, about 6 per cent of the population in the Danish part of Schleswig). However, the German minority has two tiny museums of its own: the Deutsches Museum Nordschleswig in Sønderborg and the Deutsches Schulmuseum in Haderslev (the latter just a couple of rooms in the German school building). Greenlanders are of course present in the ethnographic collections of the National Museum, but obviously not as a minority in Denmark, and they have no museums of their own here. A fairly new cultural centre in Copenhagen, Nordatlantens Brygge (North Atlantic House, 2003), presents the contemporary cultural life of the former Danish colonies Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands through exhibitions, concerts and so on. Roma are represented only occasionally in temporary exhibitions. From small empire to national state One may indeed wonder why minorities and immigrants are so conspicuous by their absence in Danish museums of history and culture. One possible explanation may be the way the modern Danish nation was created during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: that is, not by achieving independence from some larger state (as, for example, Norway, Finland and Iceland), and not by assembling formerly independent states (as, for example, Germany and Italy), but by losing parts of a former (small!) empire, a kind of “Great Denmark” (more or less in the “Great Britain” sense). Norway was lost to Sweden in 1814, Schleswig-Holstein to a Germany-in-the-making (actually to Prussia and Austria) in 1864, Iceland declared independence in 1944 – and all this after the loss of what is now Southern Sweden in 1658. There was a partly successful attempt in the 1848–1851 war to keep the mostly German-speaking Schleswig-Holstein as part of a Danish nation as opposed to the former bicultural state, bound together by the Danish king as King of Denmark and Duke of Schleswig-Holstein. This heavily contributed to the establishment of a tradition for looking upon cultural diversity within the Danish borders as illegitimate. And the loss of the Duchies in 1864, an event that was considered a huge national disaster, plus German occupation during the Second Word War, maintained this tradition of blindness towards foreign, and especially German, contributions to Danish culture. As a result, Germans are either not mentioned, or they are presented as Danes. The City Museum of Copenhagen, for example, mentions the composer C. F. Weyse as one of the important figures of the Danish “Golden Age” of the midnineteenth century (which he certainly was) – without mentioning that he was a German from Altona, which was just inside the border of the Danish empire until 1864. This does not mean, however, that Danish museums of cultural history are still simply repeating the nineteenth-century romantic and chauvinist narratives. To a certain extent they have modernised their messages after “the cultural revolution”, often called “1968”, even though museums, partly for good reasons, have been much slower than history books to catch up. But their modernisation has mostly consisted in supplementing the former male upper-class perspective by including workers, women and children in their exhibitions, not by opening up for the non-Danish minorities.

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2 The entrance is on the same side of the building as the original main entrance to the library, facing the town. In 1999 the library was given a modern – deconstructivist – addition, the so-called “Black Diamond” (by the architects Smith, Hammer & Lassen) at the back, facing the harbour. This is where the main entrance is today. So you do not necessarily pass the entrance to the Danish Jewish Museum on your way to the Royal Library. 3 See Janne Laursen, Chapter 6 in this volume on the collection process.

The Jewish Museum The same blindness towards cultural diversity affects Danish Jews, even though Jews have immigrated to Denmark for at least the last 400 years. In the beginning there were few; then increasing numbers arrived until the middle of the twentieth century. These immigrants and their descendants have been assimilated and have taken all kinds of positions in Danish society, many without giving up their Mosaic faith and Jewish customs. The experiences of the Second World War, the Holocaust, and the rescue of the Danish Jews (about which more below) is no doubt the reason why this group – but only this group – has small niches in Danish museums. (“Danish Museums Online” points to four different museums if you try the Danish word “jøde”.) But they are hard to find – and even the “Stories of Denmark” in the National Museum do not mention the Jewish minority. The City Museum of Copenhagen mentions only the rescue of the Jews in 1943 (and not, for example, the synagogues or the waves of immigration around 1900, or the ghetto-like ways of life of the Jews who arrived then). In fact even Denmark’s first official minority or immigrant museum, the Danish Jewish Museum of 2004, is also pretty hard to find. There are no big signposts, no fluttering banners, no showy gates. The entrance to the museum is marked only by a small security door opening on to a glass door on the most northerly corner of an imposing building with quite another function: the Royal Danish Library. This is at the Slotsholmen (Palace Islet) at the very centre of old Copenhagen, a building in a kind of Romanesque Revival style from about 1900.2 Once you have found the north wing of the library, you step onto the museum site almost before you notice: a small front area to the museum has been constructed, a rectangular surface in concrete covered by rectangular, dark grey slate (interspersed with some irregular lighter stripes), surprising the visitor by being tilted and divided by some short, sturdy low walls. This distortion seems very odd: it is almost enough to make the visitor seasick. That is exactly the intention. There is no straight route to contemporary Danish Jews and Danish Jewish culture. Jews have travelled to these regions, often crossing rough waters, and nearly always through trouble and deviations in many directions. The idea that Jewish fate should be expressed architecturally probably reminds many of the spectacular Jewish museum in Berlin. In fact the architect is the same: the Polish-born American Daniel Libeskind (born 1946). The building for the Berlin museum was finished in 1999 (although the museum opened in 2001), and the comparatively tiny Danish Jewish Museum opened in 2004 as an independent but national institution with the bulk of its collections on loan from the Jewish Community in Copenhagen.3 No visitor to the Jewish museum in Berlin can forget the impressive way in which the story of the Holocaust (and of the possibility of exile) is told in the basement and at ground level simply through Libeskind’s architectural masterstroke. Many will have found the unusual architectural frame that Libeskind has created for the permanent exhibition in the two upper stories rather disturbing, with cramped, V-shaped areas, oblique, narrow windows and so on. In Copenhagen, however, there is no distinction between an architectural message in one area and an exhibited

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message in another. Through his general architectural concept, Libeskind has not only created an external framework for the museum’s exhibits, but he has also established a kind of three-part basic concept for the content – a concept, however, that may turn out to be constricting for the future development of the museum. One might argue that the concept has already shown itself to be rather constricting for the initial exhibition, Space and Spaciousness (created by Arne Kvorning of the Danish firm Kvorning Design & Kommunikation). One part of Libeskind’s overall concept is, as already suggested, that entering the museum you should feel on shaky ground. The second one is that the point of departure for the composition of the exhibits is five general Jewish themes, named and briefly explained by Libeskind as “Exodus”, “Wilderness” (the desert wandering), “The Giving of the Law”, “Promised Land” and “Mitzvah” (the good deed). The third, and maybe for Libeskind the most important, part of the concept here is that the story about Jews in Denmark is different from the story about Jews virtually anywhere else in Europe because almost all Danish Jews escaped the Holocaust thanks to the efforts of their Danish fellow citizens. The deconstructivist space The old library building that houses the Danish Jewish Museum is just over a century old. The corner dates back much further than the library. The library’s architect, Hans J. Holm, incorporated a building from about 1600 into his newer one; it is the so-called “Galley House”, facing the old navy basin (which was filled in 1867–1868 and now is a garden in front of the library). When the library was built, the upper floors of the then 300-year-old building were torn down, but five robust brick arches were left as a bottom storey under the reading room. Clad in modern industrial brick, this old northern wing contributed, with the similar new south wing, to the general symmetry of the western façade, except that the lower floor of the old Galley House did not become fully integrated into the new building, so a small part on the left projects some metres outward. Under two of these old arches, the new museum has rented about 700 square metres, of which about 450 constitute the net area for visitors, while the actual exhibition space is only about 300 square metres. The rest of the visitor area is used for the ticket office, cloakroom, auditorium, reading room and bookstore, all in miniature. About two-thirds of the museum is actually in the remains of the Galley House that protrude from the main body of the library building. Because of the limited space, only 70 visitors can be allowed in at any one time. Looking up, one can still see the old arches, but the walls are covered by a new set of wooden walls that Libeskind has used to create a row of irregular spaces within the nearly square room. The visitors’ main experience is moving through narrow corridors between slanting walls of light birch veneer, walls that are punctuated with a total of 18 small showcases for the exhibits, like windows for the various narratives. These are like the showcases in the walls in the underground “axes” in the Berlin Jewish museum. The walls also display a few posters with short texts (in both Danish and English) and some interactive television screens.

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But not only the walls slant. The same goes for the electric fixtures put up as irregular stripes on the walls (again reminiscent of the windows in Berlin) and the floors. To a visitor in an ironic mood the whole interior may resemble the so-called “Mysterious House” in neighbouring Tivoli, but the thought behind it is much more serious. The slight dizziness that the deconstructed spaces are intended to evoke is supposed to recall the hazardous journeys of Jews crossing the sea, originally from abroad to Denmark, but in October 1943 from a Denmark occupied by Hitler’s Germany towards the Swedish coast. And once again you may think of the basement of the Berlin museum where the so-called “axis of emigration” (the corridor towards the “Garden of Exile”) has slanting walls and a slanting floor to suggest the way in which Jews were expelled from the German lands. Arrivals As an introduction to the exhibition, an eight-minute film about the Jewish immigration of various groups to Denmark from different places is shown continuously in the small auditorium at the entrance. Here we learn that the first 300 years – from the beginning of the seventeenth century – brought mostly Sephardic Jews from Spain, Portugal and Western Europe in general. The very first groups were invited by the Danish Renaissance King Christian IV to settle in the newly founded city of Glücksburg at the river Elbe in Holstein. The idea behind the city was that it should contribute to the Danish economic and military build-up, which included the navy basin and therefore even the Galley House in Copenhagen. In the early period many Jews sought exemption from religious repression in another new town, Fredericia, founded by Christian’s successor Frederik III in 1650 and made a religious free town in 1674. Another religious and cultural minority, the Calvinist Huguenots, came in considerable numbers to Fredericia, giving rise to a group of French family names in the Danish population. Until the end of the nineteenth century, the Jewish immigrants in Denmark were mostly industrial merchant families who spread all over the country. Synagogues were erected in many provincial towns. Before 1788, Jews could not join guilds or own land, so had to operate in new professions not backed by old organisations. We therefore find Jews in finance, but also in tobacco manufacture, production and selling of clothes, and commerce in coffee, tea and chocolate, for example. Danish citizenship was given to Jews in 1814, making it possible for them not only to take up all kinds of occupations, but also to move freely in the country. Many then left the smaller towns and settled in the capital. During the first half of the twentieth century, many synagogues in provincial towns had to close because their congregations had dwindled dramatically. By around 1900, many of the well-to-do old Jewish families had converted to Christianity and had been assimilated into the Danish bourgeoisie. They were then joined by an extensive immigration of East European Jews, many of whom had been stranded in Copenhagen on their way towards America. In contrast to the old families, these Ashkenazi Jews were often not only rather poor, but also religiously orthodox and politically Zionists or socialists.

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Standpoints, traditions, promised lands The narrative about the various steps in Jewish immigration to Denmark is, however, not only the theme of the introductory video, but also part of the museum’s own reinterpretation of Libeskind’s “Exodus”, rendered in the museum as “Arrivals”. This is followed by an interpretation of the “Wilderness” as “Standpoints”. This part of the exhibition shows the many different religious and cultural orientations represented in Denmark’s (and especially Copenhagen’s) Jewish population – and partly also their internal conflicts. The exhibition points to the difference between believers and those who consider themselves only “cultural Jews”, but also to the disputes between different religious convictions and views on Jewish life from the eighteenth century to the present. The few square metres dedicated to this theme also accommodate posters, screens and showcases that tell about Jewish schools and cultural societies of different kinds. Libeskind’s “The Giving of the Law” is then interpreted as “Traditions”: Jewish holidays and rituals, the Sabbath and life in the synagogue, and significant objects such as Torah scrolls and Torah streamers. “The Promised Land” is interpreted as “Promised Lands”: the master narrative about the longing for a safe haven, in this case perhaps Denmark, perhaps Israel – or perhaps somewhere completely different, possibly even inside oneself. Mitzvah The most important part of Libeskind’s main concept, however, is the Danes’ “good deed”, their observation of the “obligation to do the right thing”, their mitzvah – when they helped their Jewish fellow citizens to safety on the other side of the Øresund strait in 1943. So important is this concept to Libeskind that it not only functions as the overall theme of the exhibition and one of its five sub-themes, but is also inscribed in the museum’s architecture and logo. The logo is a kind of square mark in which the four Hebrew letters of the word “mitzvah” are inscribed. As his point of departure Libeskind used the angular pattern of these letters crammed into the logo when he designed the museum’s labyrinthine spaces. To tell the truth, the design is not obvious to visitors inside the museum, but well-informed visitors may notice a certain similarity between the design of the logo and the design that the map of the exhibition area indicates. When moving around in the museum it is not evident that one is caught up in the word mitzvah. On the other hand, one may recognise that the showcases and so on that deal with the flight to Sweden are in the centre of the whole layout, since they are at the main intersection of the short corridors. The history of the salvation of the Danish Jews is known worldwide – and one of the few places in Copenhagen museums where Jews are mentioned is in the Museum of Danish Resistance 1940– 1945 (the Danish name of this branch of the Danish National Museum is actually Frihedsmuseet, “The Museum of Freedom”). The incident has become almost mythic, and it is often told with details that have only a tenuous connection to reality. One of them is that the Danish king sported the Jewish yellow star on his breast in solidarity with the Danish Jews. This is pure fabrication –

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and quite misleading, since Danish Jews were not obliged to wear Jewish stars during the occupation. But the German occupation of Denmark was quite peculiar, since the running of the country for more than two years after the arrival of the Germans on 9 April 1940 was left to the Danish government and the Danish parliament; Danish police still enforced the law, and the (rather weak) Danish military still functioned. There was even a normal election in March 1943. German influence was exerted through increasing pressure on the government. It was not until 29 August 1943 that the Danish government was ousted by the occupying power because it did not want to comply with a series of German demands, including the introduction of the death penalty. As a consequence Hitler wanted the Danish Jews to have the same fate as all other European Jews: they were to be arrested during the night between 1 and 2 October and sent to concentration camps in Germany. However, the plan was leaked to Danish politicians and through them to the resistance movement, as a result of which almost all Danish Jews, about 7 000, were first hidden, and then shipped to Sweden. There were 481 who were arrested and sent to Theresienstadt, where they lived to the end of the war. They did not know about an agreement between the Danish authorities and Adolf Eichmann that they should not be sent on to extermination camps such as Auschwitz, unlike the many fellow Jews from other countries that the Danes saw arriving and disappearing month by month. Most of these Danes survived and came home in 1945. Space and spaciousness “The primary target group of the museum is non-Jewish visitors”, writes the director, Janne Laursen, in her introduction in the booklet about the museum that was published at its opening.4 As a non-Jewish visitor, it seems pretty clear that one is a guest on slightly alien ground, but also that one is received in a friendly manner by a group of people who are anxious to tell their story. A sign of the openness towards the non-Jewish target group is that the museum is open on Saturdays (and closed on Mondays like most other museums), even though many of the staff in the ticket office, the cloakroom and the library are volunteers from the Jewish community, who would be expected to celebrate the Sabbath.

4 Møller, Henrik Sten (ed) (2004) Dansk Jødisk Museum. Dansk Jødisk Museum: København, p. 16. Quotations from this book and other texts originally in Danish are translated by the author. Texts from the exhibition are rendered from the presentation (with identical wording) of the exhibition on the internet: http://www.jewmus.dk/ udstilling.asp (7 July 2007).

But what does the museum tell us about the Jews in Denmark through the five “chapters” of the narrative and under the common title Space and Spaciousness: An Exhibition about Jews in Denmark? In one of the leaflets in English handed out at the entrance, a small text interprets the title of the exhibition. It says, amongst other things: The Danish and Jewish cultures are two separate spaces which both opened up to allow cohabitation and integration. Jewish life in Denmark also needed to be spacious in itself, because although Jews are a small minority in Denmark, they comprise a wide variety of adherences and ways of life.

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Surprisingly, the latter statement about differences within the Jewish milieu seems more clearly expressed in the exhibition than the first, concerning the room that Danish culture should have made to accommodate Jewish culture. Or at any rate, the expression “made room” has quite different meanings from respective Jewish and Danish viewpoints. The exhibition notes more formal means by which Denmark gradually “made room”, if not for Jewish culture, at least for Jews. This could include the invitation to reside in the country, freedom of religion, freedom of trade, citizenship. But it mentions barely any examples of influences on Danish culture by Jewish culture. The only instance seems to be the information that the Danish word birkes, used for poppy seeds and for white bread with roasted poppy seeds on the crust, stems from the Hebrew word berkes, meaning “blessing”, used for the plaited white bread with poppy seeds that is traditionally baked for the Sabbath. The exhibition does not mention any of the numerous people from Danish cultural life, politics, business and so on who have had a Jewish background (more often than not assimilated Jews, of course). There is no “See how much we have contributed to Danish culture!” theme or anything similar. The exhibition seems extraordinarily modest, or at least extremely anxious to avoid bragging. It also scrupulously avoids accusation. As already mentioned, for centuries the guild system and to a certain extent the state, precluded Jews from taking part freely in the business community. Such restrictions were gradually abolished – and the museum narrative stresses this good deed, not suggesting the slightest accusation against Denmark, but instead reinterpreting the former limitations as an encouragement to commercial ingenuity. Denmark has not completely avoided anti-Semitism, and Jews have not always been unequivocally welcome, and obviously the exhibition cannot quite pass over such facts. The topic is touched upon under the title “Prejudice and Xenophobia” on a screen in connection with “Promised Lands”. Even the title here is smoothing away any controversy: “Prejudice” is no good thing, but prejudice is not the same as evil, and xenophobia does not necessarily mean “hatred” of strangers, but can equally mean “fear”. The Danish word in the title is actually fremmedfrygt (fear of strangers), not fremmedhad (hatred of strangers). The very first slide also makes it clear that prejudice and the like is much less serious in Denmark than in most other places. Anti-Semitic riots (the so-called “Fight against the Jews”, Jødefejden) started in Copenhagen and lasted there and elsewhere for several weeks in September 1819. That is mentioned, but more is made of the fact that the authorities defended the Jews, and the following slides mostly show fairly good-natured caricatures of Jews from the satirical press. Even when the stories told in connection with specific exhibits are quite appalling, the exhibition sticks to its matter-of-fact, non-accusatory tone. In one showcase, for example, there is a letter from Danish authorities to a Danish Jewish family with the following restrained explanation:

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In the years leading to the Second World War, Denmark maintained a restrictive immigration policy to hinder German Jews from taking permanent residence here. In 1938, the Danish family of a German woman received this refusal of family unification. She died in the Holocaust. Good will – even among the enemy The most surprising expression of the even-handedness (or at least reserve) marking the whole presentation is the account of the main event, the rescue of the Danish Jews in 1943. It is hard to imagine that Germans would be anything other than the villains, the only doubtful point being whether the Danes would be shown as heroes without exception, or whether there would be reminders of the few informers, of the Danes who were not forthcoming when hiding places were needed, and of those who overcharged for the use of their boats to sail the Jews to Sweden. In fact no Danes are criticised, which may not be very surprising in this context. The conclusion, however, describes an incident that will surprise many readers: ... our understanding of the events will never be complete unless we understand the importance of the Danish, Swedish and – perhaps especially – German authorities’ actions and positions. With time, the story has attained mythical proportions. However many factors, amongst these German duplicity, contributed to the high degree of success of the rescue operation. Even the Germans (or some of them) are heroes in this story. The “spaciousness” of the title of the exhibition really goes very far. Different forms of Judaism While conflicts with Danish society are subdued, conflicts within the Jewish minority are treated surprisingly openly – as mentioned in the quotation above. But in accordance with the general friendly and “spacious” tone of the exhibition, the conflicts are never dramatised. They are described either in a matter-of-fact way as events to be expected and without deeper importance, or as slightly comic but deeply human occurrences – if they are not reinterpreted as expressions of some kind of positive qualities of the Jewish community. At least, this is how it looks to an outsider. The internal conflicts within the Jewish community in Denmark are shown in two places: in connection with “Arrivals” and with “Standpoints”. In “Arrivals”, the major crisis is in the years just after 1900. Here the objective rendering of inevitable differences dominates. In the general introduction we read: From 1905 to 1920, approximately 3 000 Eastern European Jews immigrated to Denmark. They were poor and spoke Yiddish, and were received without enthusiasm by the established Danish Jews. The newcomers moved into the Adelgade-Borgergade

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neighbourhood, where they acted in plays, read and talked politics. The most recent wave of Jewish immigration was the approximately 3 000 Polish Jews who came to Denmark in the 1970s. Today, few people speak Yiddish in Copenhagen, but cultural differences still exist within Denmark’s Jewish community. What is characteristic in texts such as this one is that it is impossible to place the author in one group or the other. To avoid positioning her- or himself in the internal cultural wrangling, the voice of the narrator must take a position outside of and above the Jewish community and its potential conflicts,5 even though the whole point of the museum is that the Jewish community should tell about Jewish life in Denmark to non-Jewish visitors. When it comes to “Standpoints”, the introductory text adopts a different tone: There is great diversity among Danish Jews, and consensus is a rare phenomenon. Differences exist on the cultural level, for example between the old Danish Jewish families and those of immigrants from Eastern Europe. There are varying opinions on questions of religion, schooling and marriage in the Danish Jewish community. These can be important clues to the cultural identity of a new Jewish acquaintance and establishing his or her standpoint in relation to oneself. In many cases, these attitudes are stages on the road to integration and assimilation. Here diversity is seen as a general, gently ironical merit. In showcases in the “Standpoints” part, a slightly comic gloss is given to the strife towards the end of the eighteenth century concerning the use of various kinds of wigs during the reading of the Torah in the synagogue, culminating when the “moderns” reported the “ancients” to the Danish authorities. More serious is the description of real divisions in the Jewish community in Copenhagen that resulted in the erection of an alternative synagogue to the large, official one of 1833 (by the non-Jewish architect G. F. Hetsch). This is still in use, but also still has a competitor in a small synagogue for an orthodox group, Machsike Hadas (“The Defenders of the Faith”). When it comes to cultural organisations – perhaps unintentionally – only modern Jewish societies for artisans, gymnastics, theatre playing, singing and so on are mentioned. On the one hand, the museum is surprisingly courageous in its insistence on the internal differences and even conflicts within the Danish Jewish community but, on the other, these conflicts are rendered in a good-humoured tone as an expression of a “spaciousness” or tolerance conceived as characteristic of this community – with no question of taking of sides. The most critical phrases in the whole exhibition are probably the ones concerning the attitudes and actions of the Polish Communist Party around 1960: “The Jews were made responsible for the problems of Poland and for the failures of the Communist Party.” During those years 16 000 Jews were exiled, of whom 3 000 came to Denmark.

5 This, at least, is the way it looks to an outsider like myself. For a descendant of “poor Jews” coming to Denmark from Poland in 1910, it may seem that this text has been written by a member of one of the old families – or the reverse: a visitor with a background in such a family may interpret the remark about the reception “without enthusiasm” as a clear sign that the author belongs to a recently arrived East European family.

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6 Laursen, Janne (2004) “Dansk Jødisk Museum og Daniel Libeskind”, in Møller (2004), op. cit., pp. 8–17.

A sidelong glance The picture of Denmark that the exhibition paints is one of a nation that has been obliging to immigrants with foreign cultures and religions. Certain exceptions may be recorded, but without bitterness or rancour. The picture sketched of Jewish culture shows considerable internal diversity despite a fundamental religious and partly also cultural community. One may ask what lies behind these pictures. This question is not addressed in the material I have encountered about the museum, but the answer should be rather obvious. Perhaps it is implied through remarks like these by the director of the museum: “With Libeskind’s concept of the Mitzvah, the rescue of the Danish Jews in October 1943 has achieved a manifestation that is not only retrospective, but also points forward as an ethical reminder.”6 Nowadays Denmark’s immigration policy, particularly as regards people with a foreign religion and culture (first and foremost people with a Muslim background), is one of the most controversial themes in Danish political debate and even partly a theme abroad. The Danish Jewish Museum has not wished to take part openly in that debate, but on the other hand it has not been able to ignore it. Three important messages have been formulated for the non-Jewish, predominantly Danish target group: 

Denmark has a strong tradition for being open to immigrants, even those with a religious and cultural background that may be different from the Danish one – even though history also knows some shameful breaks with this tradition.  In spite of a common religious and maybe even cultural background, immigrants are heterogeneous.  Immigrants with a religious and cultural background different from the Danish one can still be integrated and, as time goes by, assimilated into Danish society as Danish citizens. The museum’s own inner conflicts Space and Spaciousness: An Exhibition about Jews in Denmark does not introduce itself as a traditional permanent exhibition, but as the first in a series of temporary ones. This seems to be a necessity because of the limited amount of square metres at the museum’s disposal for exhibitions. Limited space means that it will never be possible to show even a fairly representative amount of the content of the storerooms, and the original idea of having changing exhibitions as supplements to a permanent one is utopian. But even though it is possible to replace the content of the showcases and change the texts and the pictures on the screens, Libeskind’s architecture is unlikely to lend itself to exhibitions with foci other than the one of the opening show. Libeskind’s museum space is emphatically not a neutral or flexible space for exhibitions that the management team may want to create. It doesn’t just house the exhibitions; it also dictates at least part of their message. And even though the management team may be enthusiastic about having a prominent international architect create their institution, his rooms will inevitably create

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problems. Actually, this can be seen even in the opening show with its attempt to reinterpret and at certain points almost contradict Libeskind’s concept. As a matter of fact this concept is contradictory in itself. As already described, apart from the rescue of the Danish Jews in 1943, Libeskind has taken as his points of departure the Jewish Bible and cultural heritage and defined four main themes for the exhibitions of the museum as: “Exodus”, “Wilderness”, “The Giving of the Law”, and “The Promised Land”. To make a relevant exhibition, the Danish Jewish Museum has (in the words of the director) “interpreted” these themes as immigration, cultural diversity, traditions and the wish to settle down. This has made a fine and sensible exhibition, but how the four Danish themes, and especially the way they are presented in the various showcases, are related to Libeskind’s biblical ones, is unclear. The connections are not always easy to grasp between the flight from Egypt and the immigration to Denmark; between the Jews in the desert and the cultural differences between Jews in Denmark (and their establishment of sports clubs); between the Ten Commandments and the way Jews in Denmark celebrate the Sabbath; or between the dream of the Promised Land and the Jewish membership of Danish bourgeois shooting societies. And to maintain Libeskind’s concept will inevitably become even more difficult when the museum starts to realise ambitions for its messages other than the ones shown in the opening exhibition; for example, ways in which Danish Jewish culture has become part of the Danish cultural heritage. Obviously, the management team is quite conscious of this, even though they do not make this insight explicit anywhere. The director, however, cannot quite avoid giving a hint. In direct continuation of the quotation above about the ethical reminder, she writes: This must be balanced by the museum in the future in relation to the general wish to cultivate aspects and knowledge that more widely consolidate the role of the museum as a centre of knowledge. Libeskind’s ability to put things into perspective and to raise questions is important when developing a museum project. With this architect the Danish Jewish Museum has been given a challenge that few small museums ever meet around their creation. This should not be regretted. Daniel Libeskind and his staff have shown a unique responsiveness and generosity in a positive and inspiring cooperation.7 A self-contradictory concept The concept that Libeskind has developed for the Danish Jewish Museum contradicts itself at least at three points. The very first sentences in Libeskind’s early manifesto for the museum, “Mitzvah – The Danish Jewish Museum, Copenhagen” (dated 9 January 2001), explain:

7 Ibid., p. 17.

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8 Libeskind, Daniel (2001) “Mitzvah – The Danish Jewish Museum, Copenhagen” (9 January 2001) – pdf document from www.jewmus.dk/ arkitektur.asp

The Danish Jewish Museum differs from all other European Jewish museums because Danish Jews were, by and large, saved through the effort of their compatriots and neighbors during the tragic years of the Shoa. It is this deeply human response that differentiates the Danish Jewish community and is manifested in the form, structure and light of the new museum.8 But even though the form, structure and light of the museum does indeed differ radically from, for example, the Jewish museum in Paris – the Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme – it is quite obviously a variation on the architectural concept that Libeskind used for the Jewish museum with a message diametrically opposed to the Danish one – that is, the one in Berlin. Further, Libeskind wants to emphasise the generally successful integration of Jews in Denmark, but the architectural concept tends to express upheavals and difficulties. One may claim that immigrants’ journeys to Denmark, at least during the last century, were turbulent, but even the first “chapter” of the exhibition does not deal with that, but with “Arrivals”, getting safe ground under your feet after the voyage. And the rest of the exhibition deals with ways of settling down, contrary to what walls and floors and fixtures are suggesting. And finally, the main purpose of the museum is said to be to tell non-Jews about Jews in Denmark, but Libeskind’s concept has been constructed of layer upon layer of almost esoteric Jewish thought and tradition, undetectable and unintelligible to the target group (and probably even to many Jews, especially since it is not pointed out and explained in the exhibition itself ). A model for the future? It is no surprise that the Jewish community (organised as the “Mosaisk Troessamfund” or in English: “the Jewish Community”) in Denmark in the beginning of the 1990s enthusiastically accepted the possibility of having Daniel Libeskind create the Danish Jewish Museum, a project that had been on the Community’s wish list since its 300th anniversary in 1984. By then Libeskind had actually not yet seen any of his building projects realised, but he had just won the competition for the Jewish museum in Berlin. Undeniably, Libeskind has been able to exploit the tricky space made available for the museum in the Galley House in a fundamentally brilliant way. The tiny museum will certainly attract many more Danish and foreign visitors than would have been imaginable without the spectacular interior design. The museum team will simply have to make the best efforts they can to use the limited possibilities for varying exhibitions – and they seem to be prepared for that. A more general question may be whether Libeskind – and the museum team and the designer of the exhibition, Arne Kvorning – have achieved more than just the creation of a surprising setting for a minority museum and have managed to renew this very genre of museums. Can the museum be a model for the future in more ways than just the one, like for example the Gehry art museum in Bilbao? Here the answer seems to be negative.

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In her chapter “Traditional Methods and New Moves: Migrant and Refugee Exhibitions in Australia and New Zealand”, Katherine Goodnow reminds us of some of the main characteristics of museums now that they are increasingly expected to reflect cultural diversity: 

They tend to do “migration history”, for example by focusing on population changes and population movement over long periods of time.  They tend to concentrate on metaphors like “barriers” and “journeys”, thereby giving a picture of immigrants as more like travellers than settlers.  They tend to stress the way in which immigrants may “enrich” the culture of their new country. And she sees four new tendencies:  Some exhibitions stay with the standard metaphor (for example “the journey”) but add to it by also explaining about the background for the migration, about the departure, about those who had to stay at home, and so on.  Some exhibitions remind us of “the darker side” to migrant and refugee narratives, the difficulties, the prejudices, and so on.  Some exhibitions break away from representations of separate identities and spaces, trying to cross ethnic and cultural borders in the narratives, thus not concentrating on special groups but rather on themes (like childhood, sport, and so on).  Some exhibitions try to go beyond “frozen” identities, to combine past and present, and to cross generations.9 In this light the opening exhibition of the Danish Jewish Museum seems quite conventional. We meet a (problematic) renewal of the architectural language, but we recognise the three standard traits (even though the exhibition downplays the Jewish enrichment of Danish culture), and we do not find much evidence of the new tendencies. The only way in which the exhibition breaks with the optimistic standard version of the narrative is by stressing the diversity within the 400-yearold Jewish community in Denmark. And again: in a Danish context it is indeed remarkable that there is a museum that focuses on a minority group in Denmark.

9 Goodnow, Katherine (2008) “Traditional Methods and New Moves: Migrant and Refugee Exhibitions in Australia and New Zealand”, in Katherine Goodnow, Museums, the Media and Refugees: Stories of Crisis, Control and Compassion. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books.

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1 Olsen, B. (2001) “ ‘ … at ikke Fremmede skulle raade over en Jorbund, som gjemmer vore Fædres Been og hvortil vore helligste og ærværdigste Minde ere knyttede.’ Problemer knyttet til bruken av fortid og kulturminner i diskursen om opphav, rettigheter og identitet.” Kulturstudier 18, Norway, p. 82. 2 Ryymin, T. (2003) “De Nordligste Finner”. Fremstillingen av kvenen i den finske litterære offentlighet 1800–1939. Tromsø: Institutt for historie, p. 3; Megård, B. O. (1999) “Kvener og finskætta: En undersøkelse av betegnelsene ‘kvener’ og ‘etterkommere etter finske innvandrere’ i politisk diskurs og i utforming av identitetstilknytning”. Oslo: unpublished thesis; Niemi, E. (1991) “Kven et omdiskutert begrep”. Varanger årbok, Alta: Vadsø Historielag og SørVaranger historielag, p. 126; Niemi, E. (2002) “Kvenene – fra innvandrere til utvandrere”, in R. Mellem, (ed.) (2002), Innsyn i kvensk historie, språk og kultur. Tromsø: Norske Kveners Forbund/Ruijan Kveeniliitto, p. 45. 3 The name of the museum Vadsø museum/Ruija museum has both the name of the town Vadsø and the name Ruija. Ruija is the traditional Finnish name for the area of Norway between Malangen-fjorden to the west and Sør-Varanger to the east. The name is also used in a more general sense to denote the land or area adjoining the Arctic Ocean. 4 Amundsen, A. B. and Brenna, B. (2001) “Museer og museumskunnskap. Et innledende essay”, in A. B. Amundsen, B. Rogan and M. C. Stang (eds), Museer i fortid og nåtid. Oslo: Novus forlag, p. 16. 5 Amundsen and Brenna (2001), op. cit., p. 9; Hudson, K. (1999) “Attempts to define ‘Museum’”, in David Boswell and Jessica Evans, Representing the nation: A reader. London: Routledge.

CHAPTER 8

Kven culture and history in museum terms Lena Aarekol

Nations and ethnic groups prove their existence and gain respect through the conservation and preservation of their cultural heritage. This is followed by museum construction …1

Gaining a place in a museum has considerable significance for both the self-awareness of minorities and the perceptions of this group by society at large. But how do ethnic groups and minority cultures gain access to the museum arena? More specifically, how has Kven culture become “museumised”? The expression “Kven” is primarily used of the Finnish-speaking immigrants, and their descendants, who came to northern Norway (Nordland, Troms and Finnmark) during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.2 The vast majority of these immigrants settled down and took up residence in northern Norwegian parts of the country. In Norway there are two particular museums that include the Kven as an important part of their sphere of action, respectively Vadsø museum/Ruija kvenmuseum in Finnmark and the NordTroms Museum in Troms.3 Both museums were initiated and established during the 1970s. As in the case of national museums established during the nineteenth century, the growth of minorities’ museums cannot be seen as an isolated phenomenon, but rather in relation to other historical and contemporaneous processes.4 The development of Norwegian society, international trends, regional growth and an increasing interest in local history during this period had considerable significance for the foundation of museums of Kven culture. In this article I look more closely at how Kven culture and history gained their place in museums and what processes led to the foundation of these museums. In addition, I shall attempt to identify how Kven culture and history have been portrayed and which accounts of the Kven have been presented by these museums. In this context it is instructive to look more closely at why these museums may be understood to be upholders of tradition, places of remembrance and narrators. Museums as upholders of tradition, places of remembrance and narrators Museums can be so much and exist in so many different forms with different objectives. The internationally recognised definition of museums is that they are “permanent, non-commercial institutions that collect, preserve, research and impart”.5 One of the functions of museums is to be producers of exhibitions of historical frames of reference and these mostly consist of physical spaces that, together with textual, visual and material effects, depict various histories.6

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Museum liaison between exhibitions and activities is strongly linked to the expression tradition and to the paradox of this expression. This paradox is linked to an understanding of tradition as something conservative, representing that which is durable but at the same time open to change and innovation.7 Museums’ anchoring in tradition may thus be perceived as an attempt to represent what is permanent but also what is undergoing change. A constructivist view of tradition implies that this represents practices that can be invented anew.8 Museums promote various activities for the public – at the same time as maintaining traditions. Nor is it unusual to adopt new strategies in order to uphold traditions. Barbro Klein has investigated the traditions of Swedish-American immigrants and their descendants. Her analysis indicates that when the command of language worsens or disappears, it tends to be other, more physically based customs that are brought to the fore to represent culture and identity.9 Culture and tradition are relived through taste and other sensory activities. The character and position of museums is also connected to the fact that they have changed considerably over the past few years. Since the 1970s, these institutions have gradually taken up the position of cultural centres in their local communities.10 They occupy essential roles as local actors and are important meeting places in the local community, but they are also arenas for activities other than those relating purely to museums. A physical presence in the local community is important for a museum’s contact with the outside world. Establishing museums may be viewed as a specific strategy concerning how the memory of one’s own or another’s culture should continue and be preserved – as both an individual and a collective memory. French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs has observed that memory is a social phenomenon and that the collective memory contributes to holding a group together.11 His theoretical stance has been of great significance for a more recent understanding of collective memory. The protection and preservation of inherited items, knowledge and memories can be achieved by museum strategies. Museums are concerned with both collective and individual memory, but also oblivion, in that when one thing is brought forth other events remain in the shadows. Establishing new museums may also be interpreted as establishing what Pierre Nora calls memory places.12 In museums traditions gain their place in the present. The past is mobilised in museum exhibitions for the public so that these once again become part of the individual and collective consciousness. Keeping this memory fresh is what is essential, as Jan Assmann maintains, with memory rituals.13 Museums are institutions whose ambition is to narrate and the expression narrative is central to museum analysis. This expression is important because we not only think but also communicate and interpret by means of narratives.14 The historian Hayden White has observed that narratives, in an attempt to reform the fragmentary past into a narrative, consist of a beginning, middle and ending. He calls this a plot and characterises these elements as a kind of basis structure in all narratives. With the help of narratives there is also a focus on what constitutes a culture’s past, present and future. White clarifies plot in narratives as a juxtaposition of different relationships, in which the selection of events that will be omitted is central.15 Each narrative will thus be constructed from a series of events that could have been included but have been omitted. White believes this is because it is continuity that controls the depiction of reality, not discontinuity.16 What the constitution of narration and memory has in common is that certain events have to

6 Amundsen and Brenna (2001), op. cit., p. 18. 7 Jackson, P. and Redin, J. (2004) “Förord”, in A. Assmann (2004) Tid och tradition. Varaktighetens kulturella strategier. Sweden: Bokförlaget Nya Doxa, pp. 14– 17. 8 E.g. Hobsbawn, E. and Ranger, T. (1992) The invention of tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Anderson, B. (1983) Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso; Assmann, A. (2004) Tid och tradition. Varaktighetens kulturella strategier. Sweden: Bokförlaget Nya Doxa. 9 Klein, B. (1997) “‘Skatter från hemlandet?’ – Om föremål, seder och svensk-amerikanska resor”, Tradisjon, Tidskrift for folkeminnevitenskap Nr. 2, pp. 27–41. 10 Hudson, K. (1999).“Attempts to define `Museum´”, In Boswell, David and Jessica Evans: Representing the Nation: A Reader. London, p. 371. 11 Halbwachs, M. (1992) On collective memory. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 12 Nora, P. (1996) “From lieux de mémorie to realms of memory”, in P. Nora (ed.), (1996) Rethinking the French past of memory. Vol I: Conflicts and Division. Paris: Gallimard. 13 Assmann, J. (2006) Religion and cultural memory. Stanford: Stanford University Press, p. 10. 14 Berkaak, O. A. and Frønes, I. (2005) Tegn, tekst og samfunn. Oslo: Abstrakt forlag, p. 125. 15 White, H. (2003) Historie og fortelling. Oslo: Pax Forlag, p. 64. 16 Ibid., p. 66.

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17 White, see Norland (2003) “Utvalg og innledning”, in H. White (ed.) (2003), op. cit., p. 33. 18 Ibid., p. 11. 19 Niemi, E. (2003) Norsk Innvandringshistorie, Bind 2, pp. 130; Nielsen, J. P. (1990) Altas historie, Bind 1. De glemte århundrene (1520–1826). Alta: Alta kommune, pp. 201–204. 20 Niemi, E. (1977) Oppbrudd og tilpassing. Den finske flyttingen til Vadsø 1845–1855. Vadsø: Vadsø kommune, p. 162; cf. Ryymin (2003), op. cit., p. 4.

remain in the shadows in order for others to be brought into the light. In this context it is important to look at which memories and narratives are depicted in the Kven museums. White has also characterised narrative structure as tragic, comic, romantic or ironic – categories that he in turn has borrowed from the literary critic Northrop Frye.17 Do the representations of the Kven fit into these categories? Aesthetic and literary effects are also decisive to the content and meaning of presentations.18 My concern in this chapter, however, is not to analyse the individual accounts in the museum exhibitions but to attempt to provide an overall view of what is being said about Kven culture by the museums. Is it possible to trace one or more meta-account of Kven culture and history in these museums? Over the past ten years, new centres have been established, apart from the traditional museums. What accounts can be identified here and do they differ from the accounts provided by museums? Before I look more closely at the foundation of the Kven museums I offer a short introduction to Kven history. Introduction to Kven history The present-day Kven are descendants of immigrants who came from Finland and Finnishspeaking northern Sweden to northern Norway in search of new opportunities. This immigration was the result of several circumstances in Finland and Sweden, such as the Great Northern War; limited opportunities for clearing new areas of agricultural land; an increase in population; a lot of shared usage; and periods of need and famine. Opportunities in Norway were attractive for many farmers and others with dismal prospects for supporting themselves. In northern Norway at this time it was still possible to clear new land, take part in seasonal fishing and obtain work in the thriving mining industry.19 For some it was one section of a phase in their migration to America. For various reasons, such as improved economic conditions in Finland and Sweden and new opportunities for emigration to America, this immigration nonetheless dried up towards the end of the nineteenth century.20 Up until that time, the Kven had settled throughout Ruija and were involved for the most part with combined use, primarily agriculture and fishing. Minority policy The Norwegian state’s minority policy and attitude towards the Kven changed considerably during the period from the eighteenth century up to the Second World War. Broadly speaking, this may be summarised as a positive relationship during the eighteenth century, until a growing negative relationship developed from the 1860s onwards. After 1880, positive relations had disappeared and the Kven were regarded as a threat to Norwegian society. Ethnic nationalism (“Fennomani”) flourished in Finland during the same period. After Finland gained independence in December 1917, the Finnish authorities pursued an expansive foreign policy that aroused disquiet in Norway. This led to the Norwegian authorities fearing that the Kven might collaborate with Finland by

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integrating northern parts of Norway into a greater Finnish empire.21 At the same time, the Norwegian authorities were worried that the Kven in many places were living in so-called “Kven colonies” and made up the majority of the population in certain areas. The expression “den finske fare” (“the Finnish threat”) has been used to characterise the Norwegian authorities’ fear.22 In order to reduce this threat a minority policy was gradually introduced which was intended to “Norwegianise” both the Kven and the Sami. The Norwegianisation policy was based on a combination of security policy-based, nationalistic and educational ideological motives.

21 Ryymin (2003), op. cit., pp. 203–212.

The post-war period

24 Tjelmeland, H. (2003) “I globaliseringens tid. Del I. 1940–1975”, in Knut Kjeldstadli (ed), Norsk innvandringshistorie, vol. 3. Oslo: Pax forlag, pp. 89–91; Bergh and Eriksen (1998), op. cit.

The Norwegianisation policy softened for the first time after the Second World War but the Kven were still perceived for a while as a threat to the security policy.23 The Norwegian authorities’ view of the northern Norwegian region was now influenced by concerns relating to the Cold War, the region’s common border with the Soviet Union and the dangers of espionage over the border. During the 1950s, Finnish immigrants and their descendants were perceived as a potential ethno-economic threat, which also implies a fear of cultural infection.24 This attitude was a result of the fact that sections of the Finnish population sympathised with the communist movement and was also due to Finland’s particular position regarding the Soviet Union after the war. The security service felt that the Kven, together with recent Finnish immigrants to Finnmark and Troms, might constitute a threat because of their sympathies for communism and the Soviet Union.25 Because of this, a so-called Finn register was set up by the Norwegian security service in 1955.26 Perceptions of “the Finnish threat” and fear of the Russians was of great significance regarding the way in which the Kven population and Finnish citizens in northern Norway were viewed. In 1957, specific passport regulations were introduced for Nordic citizens wishing to travel to Troms and Finnmark, whilst all the other Nordic regions had enjoyed passport freedom since the early 1950s.27 It was only with the abolition of these specific passport regulations in 1975 that “the Finnish threat” was really dispelled. The 1970s Since the 1970s, Norwegian society has developed in a more open fashion with regards to ethnicity and the minority question.28 During this period, the Sami struggle for identity has taken place, with discussions concerning the question of indigenous people, the development of and encroachment upon nature in Sami areas, and consciousness-raising with regard to cultural issues.29 During this period the Kven people too were the target of new and positive awareness from many sides – among them the Norwegian authorities. In the autumn of 1970, NRK (Norsk Rikskringkasting [The Norwegian Broadcasting Authority]) inaugurated Finsksendinga, radio transmissions of the news in Finnish; although the transmissions were of less than ten minutes’ duration a week, it was at any rate something.30 Some years later, in 1976, Norwegian–Finnish cultural relations began to be subsidised by Norsk Kulturråd (Arts Council Norway).31 Within the field of Norwegian research Kven culture was also starting to become a new topic of research during the 1960s and 1970s.32 The state minority policy was nevertheless mostly characterised by silence and an almost non-policy attitude towards the Kven until the 1990s.33

22 Eriksen, K. E. and Niemi, E. (1981) Den finske fare. Norway: Universitetsforlaget. 23 Ibid., p. 350; ; Bergh, T. and Eriksen, K. E. (1998) Den Hemmelige krigen. Oslo: Cappelen Akademiske forlag.

25 Tjelmeland (2003), op. cit., p. 91. 26 Bergh and Eriksen (1998), op. cit. 27 Tjelmeland (2003), op. cit., pp. 89–95. 28 Niemi (1991), op. cit. p. 135. 29 Bjørklund, I. (2003) Sápmi – en nasjon blir til. Tromsø: Tromsø museum universitetsmuseet, p. 28. 30 Mellem, R. (1998) Kvenane – minoritet i motbakke. Tromsdalen. Norske Kveners Forbund/Ruijan Kveeniliitto. 31 Eriksen and Niemi (1981), op. cit., p. 350; Norsk kulturråd (1976) Innstilling om norskfinske kulturforhold, Oslo. 32 Niemi, E. (2000) “Kvenforskningen: Et forskningshistorisk perspektiv”, in T. Ryymin and E. Karikoski (eds), Kvensk forskning, rapport fra kvenseminaret ved Universitetet i Tromsø, mai 2000, p. 17. 33 Eriksen and Niemi (1981), op. cit., p. 350 and Niemi (2000), op. cit., p. 17.

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34 SSBs ukestatistikk Nr 35 (1996): 8, cf. Nilsen, G. (2004) “Nord-Troms Museum 25 år”, in G. Nilsen and R. Sundelin (eds), Kulturmøter i Nord-Troms. Jubileumsbok for Nord-Troms museum 1978–2003, p. 215. 35 This was partly the result of the county authorities gaining responsibility for establishing the framework for the economic subsidies. Gjestrum, J. (2001) “Fra folkemuseum til Økomuseum. Økomuseumsbegrepet – en fornyelse av museumsinstitusjonen og et viktig instrument for lokalsamfunnet”, in Nordisk Museologi 1–2, Umeå, p. 43. 36 Niemi, E. (2004) “Region, fortidsforestillinger, etnisitet”, in B. A. Berg and E. Niemi (eds), Fortidsforestillinger. Bruk og misbruk av nordnorsk historie. Rapport fra det 27. nordnorske historieseminar, Hamarøy 27– 29 September 2002. Speculum Boreale Nr. 4, Tromsø, p. 175. 37 Tjelmeland, H. (forthcoming) “The making of a sub-Artic region: Northern Norway, 1900–2000”, p. 12. 38 Niemi (2004), op. cit., p. 190. 39 Niemi, E. (1987) “Nordnorsk lokalhistorie – kulturaktivitet, vitenskap og politisk redskap”, Heimen Nr 24, pp. 58,–72; Niemi, E. (1989) “Norsk lokalhistorie på 1970og 1980-tallet – paradigmeskifte eller kontinuitet?”, Heimen Nr 26, pp. 195–204. 40 Niemi (2004), op. cit., p. 181.

Changes in society – new museums During the period prior to the 1970s, Kven culture and history was more or less absent from museums in Norway. Nevertheless change, when it came, occurred in many places throughout the 1970s: amongst other things, the number of newly established museums increased considerably after 1975.34 One reason for this was change in Norwegian cultural policy, with a particular emphasis on decentralisation, self-generated activities and cultural democracy. Among other things, better financial conditions, with a strong increase on subsidy, took place at museums.35 The foundation of the museums for Kven culture and history coincides with area development in the northern Norwegian regions, a process that was both based on and gained significance for northern Norwegian identity and self-comprehension. Prior to the 1970s, regional development had been particularly concerned with the Norwegian authorities’ attempts to integrate northern Norway within the nation, with the help of modernisation and industrialisation (regionalisation). By accentuating the significance of this area on development at a national level, it was reckoned that the worth of the regions would be evident. The interest in local history in its own right only really commenced during the 1970s, and was the result of a process where each region strove to develop its own identity (regionalism) through the mobilisation of its own forces.36 This led to a new interest in northern Norway, where the focus was on what was unique to the region, at the same time as questions were asked about the project of modernisation.37 Nor, during the period prior to about 1970, had any notice been taken of the fact that this was a region of multiple ethnicities: both the Kven and the Sami were practically excluded from this process.38 Throughout the 1970s, this ethnic aspect of the region gained its place in historical writings about the region of northern Norway. This decade has also been characterised as a pioneering era for local history in northern Norway and interest in ethnicity and minorities also increased through local history writing.39 The period from 1970 to 1990 is considered to be the identity phase in northern Norwegian regional development. Whereas the period before this had been distinguished by a focus on growth and modernisation (for example, the reconstruction of northern Norway after the Second World War), local commitment and the struggle against centralisation now became stronger.40 This resulted in various outcomes, including the foundation of the local history association, the teaching of local history at school and the founding of Hålogaland teater (Hålogaland Theatre) in 1971. The new and increasing interest in all things local to a particular region was influential in the awareness and interest in ethnicity in the region of northern Norway. It also influenced the foundation of new museums, which may be viewed in turn as links in the regional development. The effect of local history and culture on these museums thus contributed to identity development in the region and local community.

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Alf Tuomainen and his horse, 1973. Photo: Håvard Dahl Bratrein. Tromsø University Museum.

Foundation of Vadsø museum/Ruija kvenmuseum In the county of Finnmark, local museum work achieved a breakthrough for the first time during the 1970s, and this included work relating to the Kven.41 The Museumslaget (Museum Association) in Vadsø was founded in 1971, also considered as the year that the museum was founded. In 1975, a semi-public museum was established in Vadsø, but the museum itself did not open until 1980. Behind this establishment there were several local actors who were heavily engaged in Vadsø acquiring its own museum. The municipality of Vadsø, Norsk-finsk forening (the Norwegian–Finnish Association, NFF) and several central figures of Kven origin in the local community were involved in discussions and preparatory work. In Vadsø municipality at that time there were two properties that were regarded as especially important with regard to the preservation of the town’s history and culture. From several quarters the desire was expressed that these properties should become part of a local museum. Vadsø municipality bought one of the properties, Esbensgården, a Norwegian business house dating from c.1850, from its previous owners. The other property, Tuomainengården, was a Kven farm from the same era. There are several reasons why that particular farm became a Kven museum. The farm owners, Ida and Alf Tuomainen, who were brother and sister and lived in the house until their deaths in the 1980s, had had a strong desire for their childhood home to become a Kven museum. They bequeathed the farm as a gift to Vadsø museum in the 1970s with the intention that it should become a memorial to Finnish immigration.42 Tuomainengården was regarded as an exceptional farm. In the year of architectural preservation, 1975, there was an article about the farm in the local newspaper, Finnmarken, where it was

41 Niemi, E. (1979) “Museumsarbeid i Finnmark”, Museumsnytt Nr 3, Oslo, p. 99. 42 Finnmarken 29.10.1975; Finnmarken 26.4.1976.

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described as follows: “Today, Tuomainengården is an attraction in Vadsø. It is the only one of the old Finnish farms that remains intact. Very little has been changed here over the years. All the surroundings here radiate tradition and authenticity.”43 Tuomainengården was situated in the area of Vadsø where the first Finnish immigrants settled. Geographically, the town of Vadsø is central within an area along Varangerfjorden, traditionally consisting of three districts: Indre kvenby (Inner Kven Town), Midtbyen (Nordmannsbyen) (Middle Town, Norwegian Today, Tuomainengården is an Town) and Ytre kvenby (Outer Kven Town). Tuomainengården was in attraction in Vadsø. It is the only one of Ytre kvenby – an area that has also been described as a kind of “Kven the old Finnish farms that remains ghetto”, where the Kven language and culture were dominant.44

intact. Very little has been changed here over the years.

Tuomainengården was also central to an expression of the Finnishspeaking immigrants’ significance for Vadsø and the county of Finnmark when the Innvandringsmonumentet/ Kvenmonumentet (Immigration Monument/Kven Monument) was built in 1977. The unveiling of the monument bestowed honour upon Tuomainengården and its owners. The Finnish President, Uhro Kekkonen, who was visiting Vadsø in connection with the unveiling festivities during the summer of 1977, visited the farm, apparently on his own initiative, with Ida and her brother Alf Tuomainen as host and hostess.45

43 Finnmarken 9.7.1975, by Einar Niemi. 44 Niemi (2003), op. cit., p. 140. 45 Aarekol, L. (forthcoming) “Monument og minne”. 46 The four symbols are: fishing tackle (Norwegian), a samovar (Russian), badstulim (birch twigs used in a steam sauna; Kven) and a bone carving (Sámi). 47 www.museumsnett.no/ vadsomuseet 48 Nilsen (2004), op. cit., p. 8. 49 Munch, J. S. (1978) “Et moderne museum”, Menneske og miljø i Nord-Troms, Årbok, p. 106.

The foundation of the museum in Vadsø was the outcome of the objective of preserving the town and region’s history. The museum was to assume particular responsibility for collecting and documenting Kven culture in the Vadsø area but also to focus on the multicultural history and culture of Varanger. This was expressed in the museum logo, in which four different symbols represented four cultures in the local community: Sami, Norwegian, Kven and Russian.46 In 1995, Vadsø museum’s area of responsibility was expanded when the museum attained the status of a regional museum with responsibility for Kven culture and changed its name to Vadsø museum/Ruija kvenmuseum. The year 2005 marked another important milestone for the museum, when the Kulturdepartementet (Ministry of Culture) awarded 30 million kroner for the construction of a new museum.47 In March 2007, an architectural competition was launched for the new building and work has begun on the new exhibition for the museum, which is scheduled to open during the autumn of 2009. The founding of Nord-Troms Museum Like the museum in Vadsø, the founding of Nord-Troms Museum is an example of how community commitment and interest in local history and culture during the 1970s precipitated a chain of consequences. During a seminar given by Nord-Troms historielag (the Nord-Troms History Association) in Kvænangen in 1978, the idea of a museum in Nord-Troms was taken up.48 The history association was particularly interested in the museum’s potential function in local communities. The idea of a museum was also supported by the county curator in Troms, Jens Storm Munch, who felt that this could become a “modern museum”.49 He was of the opinion that there was a great need for such a museum, since so little of the material culture in the area had been preserved following the withdrawal of the Germans from the region at the end of the Second World War and the “scorched earth policy” they employed during their retreat.

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In 1979, Nord-Troms Museum was founded and, as its name suggests, it was intended to serve as a museum for the northern part of the county of Troms. Its foundation has also been described as the result of “the desire to be part of the remoulding of society that resulted from the opposition to the EEC at the beginning of the 1970s”.50 Since its inauguration, Nord-Troms Museum’s sphere of action has been based in six municipalities (which also come under the authority of the regional council): Storfjord, Lyngen, Kåfjord, Nordreisa, Skjervøy and Kvænangen. In each of these six municipalities cultural-historical sites have been established, all of which are designated as being of a special character, and which together offer a cross-section of the region’s cultural history.51 The Nord-Troms region has also been described as a museum in its own right, and as the museum’s fundamental exhibit. Today, the museum continues to focus on the region, with particular emphasis on the Sea Sami and Kven cultures, at the same time as working with “cultural changes in the present and meetings/refraction between the old and new cultures in Nord-Troms”. 52 Kven culture and history at the eco-museum Like other museums, the Kven museums represent specific values and practices, formed by different political relationships and development characteristics in society. For these museums, the so-called eco-museum came to be of great significance. The foundation procedures for Nord-Troms Museum and Vadsø museum/Ruija kvenmuseum have several factors in common and both were a child of their time. In a period of significant change in the museum sector, at both national and international levels, the eco-museum movement established a good foothold in the region of northern Norway. This model has also been labelled “a principal characteristic of regional-local museum collaboration in the whole of northern Norway”.53 Whereas Nord-Troms Museum was established according to this model, Vadsø museum/Ruija kvenmuseum may be said to be a museum that operates according to such a principle, even though there was no such specific strategy at the outset. The eco-museum model was an argument for the foundation of the Kven museums and was strongly influenced by the ideas that this model represented. This model may be said to be characteristic of its time. I shall look more closely at the development of the eco-museum model because this was of great significance regarding the way in which the museums’ narratives concerning Kven culture and history were put together and imparted. The development of eco-museums during the 1970s and 1980s has been regarded as a critique of the traditional museums, but also as an expansion of their role.54 The critique was closely affiliated to societal developments and political trends at that time. Towards the end of the 1960s many people considered that the traditional museums were in a state of crisis and efforts were made to redefine the role and character of museum institutions.55 In both Latin America and the U.S.A., the social role of museums and their principle of equality were significant in the foundation of, respectively, “integrated museums” and “neighbourhood museums”.56 However, it was the ecomuseum movement in France that was of special significance for museum development in Norway. The expression “eco-museum” was launched during the International Council of Museums’ (ICOM) general conference in France in 1971 by Hugues de Varine – one of many who noted the need for museum renewal. The definition and criteria for eco-museums was structured and

50 “den vilje til å være med i samfunnsomforminga som motstanden mot EEC resulterte i, i begynnelsen av 1970-åra”, Hauglid, A. O. (1988) “Nord-Troms”, in J. A. Gjestrum and M. Maure (eds), Økomuseumsboka – identitet, økologi og deltagelse. Gjøvik, p. 167. 51 http://ntrm.no/forsiden/ museet/museets_historie (accessed 19.3.2007). 52 “kulturelle endringer i samtiden og møter/brytninger mellom de gamle og nye kulturer i Nord-Troms”, http://ntrm.no/forsiden/muse et/formaal_og_visjon (accessed 19.3.2007). 53 “et hovedkarakteristikum ved det regionale-lokale museumssamarbeidet i hele Nord-Norge.” Gjestrum (2001) op. cit., p. 44. 54 Ibid., p. 33. 55 Ibid., p. 39. 56 Ibid., pp. 40–41.

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57 This occurred as part of an international symposium coordinated by ICOM in collaboration with the French Department of the Environment in 1972, at which meeting the first three ecomuseums in France were also founded. See Varine, H. (1988) “Om økomuseet”, in John Aage Gjestrum and Marc Maure (eds), Økomuseumsboka – identitet, økologi og deltagelse. Gjøvik: Norsk ICOM Tromsø museum, p. 107. 58 Varine (1988), op. cit., p. 107. 59 Gjestrum (2001) , op. cit., p. 42. 60 Ibid., p. 35. 61 “Kjernen i kvenmuseet”, Skarstein, S. (2000) Vadsø museum – Ruija kvenmuseum. Et museum blir til. Vadsø: Vadsø museum/Ruija kvenmuseum. 62 Bratrein, H. D. (1980) “Varangerhuset. En foreløpig presentasjon av nordnorsk hustype med konsentrerte gårdsfunksjoner”, Norveg Nr 23; Niemi (2003), op. cit., p. 146. 63 Skarstein (s.l.); Tuomainengården, Vadsø museum/Ruija kvenmuseum (2004). 64 Niemi (2003), op. cit., p. 146. 65 Tuomainengården, Vadsø museum/Ruija kvenmuseum (2004).

presented at an international ICOM symposium the following year.57 The main criteria were that this type of museum should tackle the environment question and that they should specifically have the local community as their field of work. This implied that the museums were to focus on a series of initiatives: an interdisciplinary approach, embracing both cultural and natural relationships; establishing collections about and documenting the local environment; ensuring a collections policy that was representative of the local environment; documentation to be made available and accessible; those living in the local environment to be encouraged to play an active part; and contact to be initiated both within and outside the museum.58 To a great extent, these criteria are split between the need for a foundation in the local community and the need for an interdisciplinary focus. In 1984, the Norwegian experts involved in the eco-museum idea presented their findings at an ICOM seminar, “Økologi og identitet; nye veier i museumsverdenen” (“Ecology and identity: new ways in the museum world”).59 The eco-museum model was of significance to the practical, local and physical creation of the Kven museums. One of the main principles in this model was that the buildings included should not be moved or centred in specific locations, as many folk museums and open-air museums had done in the past. One reason for this was that the collective positioning and reconstruction of old buildings at traditional folk museums was deemed to be the result of specific interpretation, and thus worthless as primary source material.60 By not moving the buildings from their original sites but preserving them in situ the museum’s building stock and environment were perceived as more authentic. This principle has been followed by both Vadsø museum/Ruija kvenmuseum and by Nord-Troms Museum. The construction and exhibits of Vadsø museum/Ruija kvenmuseum Today, Vadsø museum/Ruija kvenmuseum consists of seven different sites all around the municipality of Vadsø. Two of the sites, Bietilæanlegget and Tuomainengården, which are both listed buildings, are used for the purpose of narrating Kven history and culture at the museum. Bietilæanlegget is being restored and will have a particular focus on Kven maritime culture, while Tuomainengården is described as the most central part and the very “heart of the Kven museum”.61 As we have seen, Tuomainengården was unique in its relationship with most of the surrounding buildings in Ytre kvenby but at the same time it is reckoned to be a traditional Kven urban farm. The farm is an example of what is termed a “Varangerhus” (“Varanger house”), with combined functions and an internal link between the living quarters and the barn.62 The farm was built in about 1850 by Finnish-speaking immigrants and in all it comprises a bakery, forge, sauna, barn and living quarters.63 The entire farm site is built on approximately half a mål (roughly corresponding to an eighth of an acre) of land in the town, and is therefore a compact site. The interpretation of the Varanger houses is that they are Kven, as the result of the immigrant culture, with an emphasis on both Finnish and Russian building styles.64 Tuomainengården has undergone several reconstructions, and by all accounts is a testimony to the previous owners’ lives, but it also depicts the environment and life in Ytre kvenby at the end of the nineteenth century.65

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The living quarters, stable, sauna and workshop are central to the farm’s history.66 The importance of the stable is emphasised because it symbolises that the Kven introduced the keeping of horses to a greater extent than had been the custom in Varanger. Through the horse, the Kven are presented as innovative farmers.67 There are no horses at the museum, but the stable building and the harness equipment that remains represent the horse’s significance. The sauna on the farm was originally a røykbadstu (a steam sauna heated using a wood-burning stove). Until 1932 it was used as a public sauna in Ytre kvenby, where neighbours would meet in the sauna once a week.68 During the 1930s the sauna was rebuilt as a workshop and forge, and today it accommodates old tools and other items. The lack of sauna was probably a loss to the farm, for in 1968 the barn was rebuilt as a new sauna and this is still used by the townspeople. A large wood-fired oven, which is not to be found on all farms, has also been reconstructed on the farm. Over a 20-year period, from the 1930s to the 1950s, the oven was hired out to a baker, which is how the building became known as the bakery. In the main, however, the oven was used by the occupants and neighbours from Ytre kvenby who came regularly to bake their bread there. Everyone would bring a little something in payment and happily leave a loaf as a form of thanks. 69 There were probably several reasons for this practice, including the fact that ovens with facilities for baking were not commonly found in most homes until well into the twentieth century. Besides, providing wood for the sauna stove and the baking oven used up a lot of resources in an area where wood was scarce. At the same time, both the sauna and the bread baking served a strong social function as a meeting place in the local community.

66 Skarstein (s.l.); Tuomainengården, Vadsø museum/Ruija kvenmuseum (2004). 67 Malliniemi, H. (2007) “Kvensk påvirkning av den materielle hestekulturen i Varanger”, Håløygminne Nr 2. 68 Tuomainengården, Vadsø museum/Ruija kvenmuseum (2004). 69 Skarstein (s.l.); Tuomainengården, Vadsø museum/Ruija kvenmuseum (2004). 70 Tuomainengården, Vadsø museum/Ruija kvenmuseum (2004), p. 2.

The baking oven is fired up in Today, the wood-fired baking oven and sauna still serve an important function as equipment forming part of the museum’s effects. The baking conjunction with events at the museum oven is fired up in conjunction with events at the museum and used for and used for cooking bread, pastries, cooking bread, pastries, salmon and meat. Vadsø museum/Ruija salmon and meat. kvenmuseum is an important actor in the local community and arranges activities that are intended for the local population in general, not for any particular ethnic group. These events provide the means for new cultural expressions, such as photo exhibitions, Christmas coffee mornings and cookery. During the annual cultural week in 2006, for example, the baking oven was used to make pirog (a Russian pie), pizza and a Somalian chicken dish.[/t] In a small side room A small side room in Tuomainengården houses the museum’s exhibition Kven i går – kven i dag? (Kven yesterday – Kven today?), which is the sole permanent core exhibition in Norway that focuses on Kven history and culture. The exhibition is, as its location implies, extremely small. Nevertheless, the aim of the exhibition is to supply Kven history documented by Tuomainengården.70 The exhibition is in a traditional idiom and shows ”the lives and history of the Kven through pictures, objects and written documents”.71 The exhibition uses a lot of space, especially in the form of text, to explain about the background to the Kven, the origins and use of the expression “Kven”, who the Kven are, and about the immigration and the emigration to America. Here, too, is a description of Læstadianism, which gradually gained a firm foothold among the Kven.72 The exhibition focuses on both negative and positive aspects of the history and the lives

71 “Kvenenes liv og historier gjennom bilder, gjenstander og skriftlige dokumenter”, Tuomainengården, Vadsø museum/Ruija kvenmuseum (2004), p. 2. 72 A conservative Christian revival movement, prominent in northern Scandinavia and North America, founded by Lars Levi Læstadius in Sweden during the mid-nineteenth century.

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of the Kven in this area. Here they are depicted as hard-working farmers, adept at handicrafts and industrious workers. The exhibition is also concerned with the Norwegianisation policy adopted towards the Kven and the fear of “the Finnish threat”. The modernisation of northern Norway as a region after the Second World War is portrayed as being all the more effective because significant components of the Kven culture, such as primary industries and the language, partially disappeared. The title of the exhibition indicates that it has a dual focus on the past and the present. In terms of the contents of both the exhibition catalogue and the exhibition itself, however, it is the past that is particularly emphasised.73 The present is described by means of present-day challenges and issues linked to identity and focuses on contemporary immigration from Finland. The site of Nord-Troms Museum Nord-Troms has several large and small sites scattered around the six municipalities served by the museum but only two of them are specifically concerned with Kven history. At the old marketplace in Skibotn (Storfjord municipality), the old market booths bear witness to trade and encounters between ethnic groups. Markets have been organised here since the sixteenth century, with the participation of the Sami, Norwegians and the Kven.

Tørrfoss in Nordreisa, 2004. Photo: Ola Solvang. NordTroms Museum.

It is principally at Tørfoss Farm in Reisadalen (in Nordreisa municipality) that Kven culture is evident. The farm is singled out as being both special and a typical Kven farm in an area where the first Kven population settled during the eighteenth century. The farm site was cleared during the 1750s and consists of a farmhouse that was built in 1931, outbuildings dating from 1936, servants’ quarters, røykbadstu, plus three sheds: a tool shed, a cold store for meat and another one for cheese and clothes.74 There is a focus on the fact that “the Finnish influence is reflected in traditions such as tar-burning and the steam sauna culture, and in their tools and building methods”.75 The building practice of using tar kilns shows how the Kven made use of woodland and its resources. Woodland provided both tar and timber, which in turn provided a financial income. The røykbadstu was built in the Finnish style, using notched logs, and represents the sauna culture which it is assumed the Kven brought with them; it is one of the few saunas of this type that has been preserved in northern Norway. In this area it was usual to build the sauna first and then live in it until the main house was ready.76 In addition, the building methods used for the farmhouse and the bread-baking oven are presented as a representation of Kven culture. The bread-baking oven is still used by the museum and is the only one in the area that has been preserved. The oven is built of granite and clay from Reisaelva, and there is room to bake around twenty loaves of bread at once. Bread has thus acquired a central position and on the museum’s internet site there is a recipe for bread called “tjærebrennerbrød”.77

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Like Tuomainengården, the buildings at Tørfoss have acquired a primary focus. The farmhouse burned down and was built anew during the 1930s, as it now remains. The design of this house is unique and is influenced by several different building styles. The two balconies up on the first floor and the veranda along the ground floor form the most eye-catching feature, probably the result of the carpenter having been to the U.S.A. As an indication that this is nonetheless a Kven house, the design of the windowsills inside the house is brought up. The windowsills slope downwards, with a runnel underneath to catch the water from the condensation on the plain glass windows, but because of this there was no room for any flowerpots (this type of window sill is also found in the bakery at Tuomainengården).78 The existence of the Tørfoss site has been traced a long way back in time by the fact that the farmstead was probably cleared by the first immigrants who came to the area. Nevertheless, it is as though time has stood still as far as this presentation is concerned. There are few indications of any activity, other than that the various sheds were built during the period between when the farm was cleared and when the new farmhouse and workplace building were constructed. The history of what happened in the meantime or how life on the farm has progressed is absent, other than that we are told that the people on the farm have chopped wood, burned tar and baked bread. Tørfoss is mainly open for the duration of a short and hectic summer season, and is occupied with various arrangements and activities. Traditional food is served here; there is bread baking and various courses in handicrafts such as weaving bindings for komager (soft boots made of reindeer hide) and making vegetable dyes.79 Kven culture and history at other museums In addition to Vadsø museum/Ruija kvenmuseum and Nord-Troms Museum, several other museums exist that may be characterised as local or regional museums, which also have the preservation and narration of Kven culture as a main aim. Porsanger Museum is a local museum for the municipality of Porsanger and has a tricultural approach to the area’s history. The municipality also has a trilingual profile and the museum therefore has a different name in each of the three languages: Norwegian, Sami and Kven.80 The museum has small exhibitions around the municipality; in particular, these give an account of the Sami shaman Johan Kaaven, the tradition of tar burning in the area and local living conditions during the Second World War.81 Sør-Varanger Museum also focuses on the multicultural history of its geographical area, and the main contribution was made during the 1970s in terms of building conservation.82 Today, the museum is presented as follows: “we present the unique natural and cultural history of the borderland between East and West”.83 One of the sites has Kven culture as its theme. This site comprises a farm, consisting of a detached house, Labahågården in Øvre Neiden, which was cleared by someone who had emigrated from Finland in 1871.

73 For example, pp. 1–19 of the exhibition catalogue are concerned with the period before the Second World War, whereas pp. 20–27 are concerned with the post-war period. 74 http://ntrm.no/forsiden/ museet/hovedanlegg/toerfoss (accessed 16.3.2007); Grepstad, O. Torheim, K. M. and Dahl, G. (2003) Fotefar mot nord. En kulturhistorisk reise i Nord-Norge og Namdalen. Oslo: Forlaget Press, p. 630; Nilsen (2004), op. cit., p. 13. 75 “en finske påvirkningen gjenspeiles i tradisjoner som tjærebrenning og badstukultur, og i redskaper og byggemåter.” Grepstad and Torheim (2003), op. cit., p. 630. 76 Haga, I. (1997) ”Rester etter kvenene sin byggeskikk i Troms.”, Fortidsvern Nr 3. 77 http://www.ntrm.no/ 78 http://ntrm.no/forsiden/ museet/hovedanlegg/toerfoss (accessed 16.3.2007). Grepstad and Torheim (2003), op. cit., pp. 630–631. 79 Nilsen (2004), op. cit., p. 13. 80 Respectively, Porsanger Museum, Porsáŋggu Musea and Porsangin Myseymmin. 81 http://www.karport.no/ porsangermuseum/ (accessed 26.3.2007). 82 Niemi (1979), op. cit., p. 103. 83 “i forteller om den unike natur- og kulturhistorien til grenselandet mellom øst og vest”, http://www.sorvaranger.museum.no (accessed 20.6.2007).

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84 Interview with Professor Emeritus Håvard Dahl Bratrein who was the project leader for both these fieldwork studies, 20.12.2005. 85 “redde mest mulig av viten om det særpregede området”, A magasinet Nr 21. (1974), by Asbjørn Klepp. 86 Bjørklund (2003), op cit. 87 The Sami were not integrated in the ratification of this convention because the Sami parliament wanted to preserve their status as an indigenous people through the ILO Convention (No. 169) concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries; Niemi, E. (2006) “National minorities and minority policy in Norway”, in Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark (ed.), International obligation and national debates: Minorities around the Baltic Sea. Åland, p. 430. 88 Niemi, E. (2006), op. cit., pp. 429-430. 89 The Council of Europe’s framework convention for the protection of national minorities (1995) Article 5, http://conventions.coe.int/trea ty/en/Treaties/Html/157.htm 90 The Council of Europe framework convention for the protection of national minorities (1995), Article 5. 91 St. meld. Nr 22 (1999–2000) Kjelder til kunnskap og oppleving Chapter 3.4 and St. meld. Nr 15 (2000–2001) Nasjonale minoritetar i Norge, Chapter 6.6.1.

Tromsø Museum is a university museum, established in 1872, and has worked with Kven culture primarily in the form of assembling documentation. At the beginning of the 1970s, comprehensive fieldwork was initiated, Varangerprosjekt 1973–1974, in the area around the Varangerfjorden, with a particular emphasis on documenting daily life, language and culture. The starting point, however, was not primarily to document Kven aspects in particular, but sprang from an interest in local history in Varanger.84 This was an area in Finnmark that had not been burnt by the Germans at the end of the Second World War and it was regarded by researchers as a piece of “pre-war Finnmark”. In an attempt to “save as much as possible of the evidence of this distinctive area”, ethnological studies were initiated.85 This fieldwork was gradually extended to a new project, Kvenprosjektet 1984–1985, primarily in the same geographical region. The material from both projects was later incorporated into the museum’s construction of a Kven archive, but it did not result in any significant museum effect. Further analysis of these museums may contribute to an expanded analysis of Kven history and culture in museums but I have chosen not to present these or their exhibitions in any more extended form for reasons of space. New minority policies – new voices? At the turn of the new millennium remarkable changes to the state minority policy took place. Now the framework of reference for the handling of minority questions within national borders was becoming characterised by international trends from the global community.86 In 1999, the Norwegian state ratified the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, which entailed the Kven, Forest Finns, Jews, Roma (Gypsies) and the Romany people (Travellers) being recognised as national minorities in Norway.87 The recognition of these national minorities in 1999 was a turning point in relation to thinking and practice regarding these groups. The process leading up to the ratification had taken several years and led, amongst other things, to an increased awareness of Kven culture.88 Now, minorities with lengthy experience within the national borders were raised up from local and local history levels to national and international levels. The ratification of the framework convention placed an obligation on the Norwegian state to make arrangements for the national minorities to preserve and develop their culture (see Article 5).89 This obliged the Norwegian authorities to promote the conditions necessary for the Kven to be able “to maintain and develop their culture, and to preserve the essential elements of their identity, namely their religion, language, traditions and cultural heritage”.90 The national minorities have, traditionally, had a minor role in the Norwegian museum world. In reports to the Norwegian parliament dated 1999–2001 it was ascertained that the multicultural element had been poorly represented in Norwegian museums and that cultural multiplicity was rendered visible to only a limited and poor extent, especially with regard to the national minorities.91 “It is also worth noting that when Norsk museumsutvikling published its Norsk museumsformidling og den flerkulturelle utfordringen report , this did not cover museum arrangements linked to indigenous people

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or minorities.”92 In 2003, the Directorate for Cultural Heritage in ... in 2005, the Kven language was Norway took the initiative to increase the focus on the national recognised in its own right and was no minorities, recognising that these groups were heavily under-represented longer categorised as a Finnish dialect. in terms of conservation work.93 Two years later, in 2005, the Kven language was recognised in its own right and was no longer categorised as a Finnish dialect. In January 2006 it also became possible, for the first time, to study the Kven language at the University of Tromsø. After the Council of Europe’s framework convention was ratified, other institutions outside museums have become involved in documentation and activities relating to Kven culture. Kvensk institutt/Kainun institutti (the Kven Institute) in Porsanger and Halti business centre in the municipality of Nordreisa are under construction and may contribute new or extended studies on Kven history and culture. These centres are far from complete but in the past few years much has happened en route to their realisation. Kvensk institutt/Kainun institutti in Porsanger On the day that Crown Prince Haakon celebrated his 31st birthday in 2004, the first, symbolic spadeful of earth was dug from the site where the administration building will be located in Børselv in Porsanger. Because it was the Crown Prince’s birthday, flags were flying all over Norway, and both the Mayor of Porsanger and Terje Aronsen, the driving force in Børselv, felt this was an appropriate setting for the start of the building work.94 The construction and operation have been principally financed by the state but the initiative and background work on the centre have been carried forward by local forces who want the village of Børselv to have a national centre for Kven language and culture. The original plan was to build a centre that would consist of two courtyards, in addition to an administrative building, which would house offices, course and conference rooms, and an exhibition space. A friendship area was planned, with a main house, an old dwelling relocated from Tornedalen in northern Sweden, a sauna, a stabbur (storehouse on pillars), barn, privy and summer cowshed. It was planned to build up this local area using local materials and building traditions that were lost during the Second World War. To date, only the main house from Tornedalen and the administration building are complete. The general running of the centre has commenced to a limited extent. In December 2005, the Kvensk institutt/Kainun institutti at the centre was established and organised as an institution, and in June 2007 the building that houses the institute was officially opened.95 At the turn of 2006/2007, several new appointments were made and the institute staff now totals six individuals.96 Talks have been held with Vadsø museum/Ruija kvenmuseum to establish that the museum will take on the responsibility for Kven culture in purely museum terms, while Kvensk institutt/Kainun institutti activity will be primarily linked to the documentation, preservation and development of the Kven language.97 Preliminary discussions have also been arranged with Høgskolen i Finnmark

92 Rekdal, P. B. (1999) “Norsk Museumsutvikling og den flerkulturelle utfordringen”, Norsk museumsutvikling Nr 7. 93 Lampe, F. and Stranden, T. (2005) “Fra nasjonal enhetskultur til flerkultur”, Fortidvern Nr 1, p. 4. 94 www.finnmarkdagblad.no/ nyheter/article1187976.ece (accessed 28.6.2007). 95 www.finnmarkdagblad.no/ nyheter/article1867748.ece (accessed 14.12.2006); http://statsbygg.no/Aktuelt/N yheter/Statsbygg-overlevererKvensk-institutt/ (accessed 28.6.2007). 96 These posts are Institute Director, Information Assistant, Culture and Language Coordinator, Director of Administration, Director of Education and Project Coordinator, Ruijan Kaiku 18.12.2006. 97 Innst.S.Nr 46 (2000–2001) http://www.stortinget.no/inns /2000/200001-046-005.html

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98 www.hifm.no/index.php? ID=1032&lang=nor&displayite m=206&module=news&view= printer (accessed 14.12.2006). 99 www.porsanger.kommune. no/index.php?id=164344 (accessed 28.6.2007). 100 “natur og kultur i regionene generelt og Reisa nasjonalpark og kvenkultur spesielt”, http://halti.no/nh/ (accessed 14.12.2006) and www.suonttavaara.se/dokume nt/Kvenkulturcenter.html (accessed 16.1.2006). 101 See Nordlys 17.8.2006 and 25.8.2006. 102 Nordlys 31.10.2006. 103 “de unge har rett til å kalle seg kvener, selv om de ikke behersker språket, og selv om tjæremile og vedfyrt badstu er fremmed for dem”, Nordlys 5.6.2007. 104 Hauglid (1988), op. cit., pp. 169–170.

(Finnmark University College), which are aimed to regulate a collaboration between these two parties.98 The original visions were ambitious, aiming to commercialise Kven language and cultural activities, become a catalyst for business development, become a local beacon in tourism development terms and be a source of power in the village of Børselv.99 For the time being, the institute’s particular focus is on a revitalisation of the Kven language through teaching materials for schools, a total immersion language programme for kindergartens, a website and post-education opportunities for adults. Halti in Nordreisa The county of Nord-Troms borders parts of Finland’s largest area of wilderness, incorporating Halti, Finland’s highest mountain, which has been a source of inspiration for the naming of the Halti Business Park in Nordreisa. Halti will accommodate a business park, nature centre and Kven cultural centre. The first stage of building was completed and opened in 2004; it accommodates various companies, a library, tourist information and a publicly endorsed national park centre for Reisa National Park. The second stage of building is still at the planning stage; this will be a centre for Kven culture and language, with a research environment in nature and culture, and an information and attractions centre. The plans are to focus on “nature and culture in the regions generally and Reisa National Park and Kven culture in particular”.100 Even though this is still at the planning stage, it has been criticised by several Kvens because it does not comprise any academic content.101 An initial step in the realisation of the centre was the appointment of a project director who, over the course of six months, was to make Kven culture in Nordreisa a financially viable business reality.102 The main aim of this position was, amongst other things, to develop opportunities for the use of Kven culture in future business development and cultural life. So far this has been concretised in the form of an annual Kven festival in Nordreisa. The first festival, Baaskifestivalen, took place from 1 to 3 June 2007 and one of the festival volunteers felt that the festival showed that “young people have the right to call themselves Kvens, even if they don’t speak the language, and even though tar kilns and wood-fired saunas are foreign to them”.103 Kven traditions: memorial places and narratives? How should exhibitions and representations at museums and institutions presenting Kven history and culture be interpreted? These museums have never had expansive budgets or locations in which to produce large-scale exhibitions. They are used for other activities instead of traditional, core exhibitions. Because of the eco-museum model, it has not been desirable to incorporate these large-scale types of exhibitions. This has defined the framework of Kven culture and history to a great extent but it has also opened up new understandings and types of exhibition. The entire Nord-Troms region, for example, with its six municipalities, was regarded as the exhibition basis for Nord-Troms Museum during the 1980s. The museum was thus viewed as a complete museum, covering both nature and culture in the region, where human activities ensured a continual updating of the exhibition basis.104 Such a perspective of the whole region as a museum activity also rendered unnecessary comprehensive and permanent indoor exhibitions. This view has

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nevertheless changed over time and no longer prevails with regard to Nord-Troms Museum. Today, activities are concentrated on the existing main installations, but efforts are also being made to develop the exhibition areas in sections of the museum.105

105 www.ntrm.no/forsiden/ museet/formaal_og_visjon/ra mmer/viktige_tiltak (accessed 25.6.2007). 106 Palmsköld, A. (2003) “Om

Activity at the museums still, even today, mostly takes place with the help of farm installations and a tingens betydelse”, Rig Nr 2, p. 80. small permanent exhibition in the small side room at Tuomainengården. The farm installations focus particularly on material objects. With the help of material items, for example, it is possible to see how 107 Larsen, P. (2002) “Tingenes tale. Meditationer over en greater or lesser events in society have been expressed, and how macro society is reflected at a micro brødmaskine”, Bergen level.106 Material remains have exemplified the practice of communal saunas and bread baking at museums skrifter Nr 12. Tuomainengården, but they also represent the re-establishing of traditions. In this way, buildings, 108 See for example Ruijan material practices and traditions have forged a link with a fragmentary past. Material things also have Kaiku 10/2006. several functions, in addition to their practical use. The physical world may function as a frame of 109 Sundelin, R. (2005) reflection; we can both recollect and think about things.107 Material things do not simply constitute “Kvenenes arv”, Fortidvern Nr 1, pp. 20–21. physical surroundings, but are also symbols of culture, such as, for example, the stylised drawing of a badelim (birch twigs used in a steam sauna) in the Vadsø museum/Ruija kvenmuseum logo. As a 110 Berkaak (2005), op. cit., p. 146. symbol, this is intended to create a recognisable sign of Kven culture. The drawing of the badelim is a picture of an object with a concrete function and represents handicraft knowledge of how this should be made in the correct fashion.108 At the same time, however, this is also a symbol of how the Finnishspeaking immigrants introduced the sauna tradition to northern Norway and how, as a result of this, they were regarded as being more hygienic than Material things do not simply constitute physical surroundings, but are also other ethnic groups in this part of the country. Former director of NordTroms Museum, Rune Sundelin, has observed that, “Når kvener og kvensk symbols of culture ... samfunn har søkt i fortiden etter symboler og utrykk for egen kultur, har en ofte tatt til skogen, jordbruket og badstua” (“when Kvens and Kven society have sought symbols and expressions of their own culture in the past, they have often adopted the woodlands, farming and the sauna”).109 These expressions of culture have become almost icons in museum representations, at the same time as they help to strengthen stereotypical concepts of culture and tradition. When activity at the Kven museums is particularly based on material culture, especially in the form of buildings, what is narrated – not unexpectedly – is the past. Through the buildings, the visitor gains entry to the past. The buildings selected express a specific distinction from both Norwegian and Sami culture but also from the present day. Tuomainengården, for example, was already recognised as distinguished and exotic long before it formally became a museum. It already had a museum-type usage and served almost a museum-type function while the owners were still living on and working the farm. Even today, the last owners have left their mark on the farm activity. There are no biographical details concerning the Tuomainen siblings’ life on the farm but, with the help of photographs, possessions, texts and physical traces of their lifelong work on the farm, the visitor gets the impression that they are still there. The narrative is also concerned with a life lived on the farm and the Finnish-speaking immigrants’ adaptation to the area they had reached. The form of the buildings also has a tendency to signal to the outside world the category to which they belong.110 The wooden buildings at the Kven museums signal that these are special places, and

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111 Gjestrum (2001) , op. cit., pp. 40–41. 112 Nilsen (2004), op. cit., p. 13, http://www.ntrm.no; http://museumsnett.no/vadso museet/ 113 Kven bread is generally a round sourdough bread, baked using rye flour, similar to Finnish rye bread. 114 Ruijan Kaiku 10/2006, 18.12.2006. 115 Assmann (2006), op. cit., p. 10.

this is further strengthened by the fact that so few pre-war wooden buildings have been preserved in these areas. They are mostly of an old-fashioned character and serve many functions in addition to housing administration offices and shops. The houses both set the scene and contain exhibitions and are utilised when the public takes part in various arrangements. The narration of the buildings’ histories testifies to the changes and alterations to a building’s function, outlook and reconstruction. However, the buildings also limit the museum narration of Kven culture because this focuses particularly on the past and contains little about how material matters have changed over time. Ideology concerning activity based on the eco-museum model has influenced how Kven culture and history have been narrated, especially with regard to consideration of the public. The main aim has been to activate the public and one particular target group has been the population in the local community. This has been in stark contrast to the general message imparted by the old, traditional museums. At the eco-museums local people were to be actors in their own present within a specific geographical area, and this would contribute to strengthening the collective and individual memory.111 In the case of both Vadsø museum/Ruija kvenmuseum and Nord-Troms Museum, the local population has been an important target group and both museums have their own programme of school activity.112 The museums may thus be viewed as places that contribute to establishing and maintaining both individual and collective memories in the local community. When traditions are activated at the museums, this also influences knowledge and memories of the place and of people’s past. Local museums such as Vadsø museum/Ruija kvenmuseum and Nord-Troms Museum have, as Kenneth Hudson has also observed, gained a function in their immediate area as cultural centres that particularly engage participation on the part of the local population. These activities appeal, like the results of Barbro Klein’s studies, to other senses than just language and sight. Both physical practices and handicrafts knowledge are used at the museums when, for example, tar is burned or the sauna is fired up. Another example is the so-called Kven bread.113 The bread and the baker’s oven have gained a special position both within and outside the museums. Both museums bake rye bread according to an old recipe and tradition in wood-fired ovens, where the public are invited to participate in the baking or watch the process as spectators. In the first Kven film, entitled Det tause folkets stille død? (The Silent People’s Quiet Death?), the producer searches for traces of the Kven in Vadsø and finishes up at Hildonen the baker’s shop buying Kven bread. During Barentsdagene (Barents Days) in 2006, in Tromsø, Norske Kveners Forbund (the Norwegian Kven Association) took part, with an information stall where, amongst other things, they handed out samples and sold Kven bread.114 Baaskifestivalen also relied on well-known forms of presentation when, amongst other things, people were invited to bread-baking sessions using wood-fired ovens and butter churning at Tørfoss in June 2007. These different activities at the museums, which are repeated on an annual basis, are of a more temporary nature and may be viewed as what Assmann has termed memory rituals, which are held to keep the museums and traditions fresh in the memory – both individual and collective.115 The museums’ selection of which stories and traditions are to be highlighted contributes to other

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traditions becoming obscured and this is in line with Assmann’s presentation of the way in which memories are formed. Such events generally have both a social and a local context, and need to be repeated often, such as, for example, the school week and cultural week at Vadsø museum/Ruija kvenmuseum. By viewing the Kven museums as memory places, in the spirit of Pierre Nora, they may also be perceived as a contribution to an identity-shaping process, both local and regional. In this way, as Pierre Nora has observed, the museums’ function becomes both a physical place that can be visited and a symbolic place accommodating a selection of memories.116

116 Nora (1996), op. cit.

A metanarrative? A multiplicity of narratives is unfolding at the museums and new institutions for Kven culture and history. One of my aims has been to examine whether there exists what might be termed a Kven metanarrative at the museums. I have chosen to keep to narratives that contain what Hayden White terms a plot and some kind of basic structure. It is obviously problematic to group together the narratives from the various museums and institutions in a plot. One reason for this is that the narratives have not been constructed with the primary aim of creating a common narrative of the Kven or as links in forming the basis of such a narrative. The reason why I nonetheless consider this to be appropriate is because such a grouping together may offer a picture of what is aroused in the narrative in terms of Kven culture and what constitutes this culture’s past, present and future. I maintain that the plot in the Kven metanarrative – based on the various museum exhibitions – may be identifiable, in spite of the fact that it will become a greatly simplified and generalised narrative. My interpretation is that the plot’s beginning is concerned with the The Kven metanarrative may be immigration itself and the various reasons why this migration took place. perceived to be a narrative about The immigration itself occupies little space in the narrative, despite being immigration, adaptation, a phenomenon that occurred over a long period. The course of the plot establishment, Norwegianisation, involves the Finnish-speaking immigrants’ lives and work in the new land. modernisation, and finally Here, the expectations they brought with them are described as well as museumisation. how they adapted themselves to a new landscape, climate, livelihood, language and culture. Its progress is then concerned with how life turned out for the immigrants, with particular emphasis on how they upheld their traditions. The Kven are depicted as industrious workers who did well for themselves despite being poor. The course of the plot also mentions the policy of Norwegianisation and modernisation, to a limited extent, to explain why this culture is in the process of disappearing. The plot ends on the day that the farmsteads became museums. The narrative concerning a living Kven culture is then refashioned to a museum account of the Kven. The Kven metanarrative may be perceived to be a narrative about immigration, adaptation, establishment, Norwegianisation, modernisation, and finally museumisation. The metanarrative is portrayed in two farmsteads and an exhibition in a small side room.

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117 Olsen, B. (2000) “Sápmi – en nasjon blir til?”, Museumsnytt Nr 5/6, p. 22. 118 Molund, M. and Pedersen, S. (1982) “Kvenene i litteraturen”. Tromsø: unpublished thesis, pp. 152, 155.

Nonetheless, it is even more difficult to fit this metanarrative into one of White’s narrative categories – tragic, comic, romantic or ironic. I believe that several categories need to be used to characterise this narrative. The initial link may be characterised as a tragic narrative, which has also dominated museum presentations of the Sami, where poverty, war and want are prominent reasons for emigration.117 The ensuing and final sections, on the other hand, may be characterised as both tragic and romantic narratives: tragic, because Norwegianisation and modernisation led to a language and cultural loss; romantic, because their adaptation to the land they reached was a successful, almost harmonising narrative. In addition, the adaptation of the Kven to their livelihood and landscape is also depicted in almost heroic terms. They brought knowledge and traditions that were passed on and further developed in the land that they reached. Although this narrative does not fit within White’s four categories, it nevertheless tallies well with the positive and heroising picture of the Kven arrived at in fictional literature during the 1970s, at the same time as the museums were being established.118 Conclusion The principal aim of this article has been twofold: to show how Kven museums were founded and how Kven culture and history are exhibited and depicted by these museums. Foundation Norwegian society and the Finnish-speaking immigrants’ situation have both changed considerably since the immigration. During the period following the Second World War, the Norwegian authorities’ view of the Kven underwent major changes, with a change in perception from a negative awareness (cf. the Finnish threat) to their recognition as one of Norway’s five national minorities. During this long-lasting process, two milestones were of particular significance, during the 1970s and at the turn of the millennium. A time-shift within the museum sector, at a national and international level, was very significant in terms of Kven culture and access to the museum arena. New ideological trends, linked to new financial arrangements, led to a growth in the number of museums in the region of northern Norway. The museumisation of Kven culture occurred as a combination of many factors: international trends, new museum ideology, regionalisation, local history interest in ethnicity as a subject in its own right and national objectives in the museum sector were all important. Both Vadsø museum/Ruija kvenmuseum and Nord-Troms Museum have had important roles to play in their respective local communities and in the region of northern Norway as a whole. The portrayal of Kven history and culture in the museums has been clearly significant in terms of both self-awareness and understanding on the part of the majority society. The year 1999 may be viewed as a second milestone in this context. The ratification of the framework convention underlines the shift in awareness of the Kven, from little to local and regional, and now to national interest. Recognition of the Kven as a national minority was of consequence in several respects, including the fact that more money was approved for new initiatives such as buildings, language and culture. These new measures have been accompanied by new objectives on the part of the museums, with

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increased grants, including the new museum building in Vadsø and new centres in Børselv and Nordreisa, which will also portray Kven culture and history. Exhibitions and narratives Museums that portray Kven culture and history have come about as the result of long-term processes in the region of northern Norway. These museums have been, and still are, local museums that primarily portray Kven culture and history through farmstead sites. The eco-museum movement and its ideology were influential in the creation and activities of these museums, and at the same time this ideology was also well suited to the sites that gradually came under the jurisdiction of the museums. Both Tuomainengården and Tørfoss were farm sites that were practically fully-fledged museums from the very instant they became museumised. These sites have undergone restoration and a reclamation of their aesthetic worth but for the most part they have not undergone significant changes since becoming museums. Here is the narrative of the farm and the material cultural history, which is depicted via the individual farm and the families who ran the farmsteads. None of these farms were average Kven farms, however, while they were in operation: each was a special case in its own locality. Nonetheless, they represent Kven culture and history. With the help of building design features, such as Tuomainengården being a Varangerhus and Tørfoss with its sloping windowsills, the farms have become an I believe it is possible to say (in a very expression of Kven culture and history. Work tools tell of livelihood adaptations in the form of fishing, agriculture, livestock farming and generalised and simplified fashion) that forestry. Individual aspects of these livelihood adaptations, such as tar the Kven metanarrative may be burning and the keeping of horses, are also illustrated as being particularly characterised as both tragic and Kven in origin. In addition, other cultural expressions – most particularly romantic. those of the sauna and of bread baking – have become symbols of characteristic practice. However, these have also gained a position in the museumised narrative as traditions sustained by the museums’ activities for the public. To use Hayden White’s understanding of narrative, I believe it is possible to say (in a very generalised and simplified fashion) that the Kven metanarrative may be characterised as both tragic and romantic. White’s terms have not been applicable to every aspect of this narration because I believe it may also be understood as a heroic narrative. This metanarrative is not consciously produced by the museums themselves but it may be interpreted and inferred from the exhibitions already in existence. The new centres that will deal with Kven language and culture are still in an early phase of their work and it is therefore too early to say whether their activities will be distinct from those of the existing museums. In time, however, these establishments are likely to lead to an expansion of the Kven metanarrative. At Vadsø museum/Ruija kvenmuseum a new and comprehensive core exhibition has opened in a new and modern museum building. In this way, the framework for the portrayal of Kven culture and history will most likely be considerably changed; perhaps, too, the metanarrative of the Kven? Translated from the original Norwegian by Mary Katherine Jones.

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Section II . Museums and “new migrants”

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CHAPTER 9

The Museum of World Culture: a “glocal” museum of a new kind Cajsa Lagerkvist

In the mid-1990s the Swedish government took the decision to rearrange the museum landscape by grouping together four museums with international and, to a large extent, non-European collections under one umbrella organisation. The Museum of Ethnography, the Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities, the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities – all in Stockholm – and the former Göteborg Ethnographical Museum came to form the National Museum of World Culture, and share direction from the Swedish Ministry of Culture and Education.1 One of the reasons for establishing a common organisation was that these museums were thought to be able to play a specific role in multicultural Sweden through their international collections and networks and their built-in focus on diversity.

Sweden can be described as a fairly new multicultural society with a relatively small number of established and recognised national minorities (the Sámi, Swedish Finns, Tornedaler Finns, Roma and Jews) and larger groups of new immigrants who have come in different waves of immigration from the 1950s onwards. Today, around 20 per centof Sweden’s citizens have a foreign background, making multiculturalism one of the country’s great social and cultural challenges.2 The government commission outlined the four museums’ new objectives: The National Museum of World Culture will create something new in the world of museums, something that does not already exist. It will mirror similarities and differences in ways of thinking, lifestyles and living conditions, as well as cultural change in Sweden and in the world. Visitors will be given the opportunity to reflect on their own cultural identity and on those of others.3 The museum was also required to change and diversify visitor profiles significantly through innovative forms of communication and close co-operation with external partners and stakeholders.4 One of these four museums was to go through a more thorough transformation than the others: the small municipal Göteborg Ethnographical Museum, which was under threat of closure due to lack of proper funding and low visitor numbers before it became part of the National Museum of World Culture. New organisation and management alongside a brand-new museum building made the transformation possible.5 In late December 2004, the Museum of World Culture opened its doors to the public. This chapter presents the history of the museum and, more importantly,

LEFT:

Karl Johansgate, Oslo. Photo: Oslo Museum/Anders Bettum. From the Sikh Vaisakhi celebrations in Karl Johansgate in 2007.

1 The government bill in 1996 was followed by a commission emphasising the establishment of the new museum (Official Government Report SOU 1998, p. 125). The National Museum of World Culture was formally instigated on 1 January 1999. 2 Statistics Sweden, Population statistics 2006 (www.scb.se). “Persons with foreign background” as a statistical category includes individuals born abroad and individuals born in Sweden whose parents were both born abroad. 3 Official Government Report, SOU 1998:125, p. 28, (translation by author). 4 Ibid., pp. 26–29. 5 The new organisation and mission statement were established by founding director Jette Sandahl.

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6 See for example Karp, I. and Kratz, C. (2000); Durrans, B. (1988) pp. 144–148; Lidchi, H. (1997) pp.184–191. 7 Simpson, M. G. (1996) Making representations: Museums in the post-colonial era. Routledge: London and New York. 8 Shelton, A. A. (2001) “Museums in an age of cultural hybridity”, Folk: Journal of the Danish Ethnographic Society 43, p. 222.

its transformation, focusing on the way the museum formed its new content base and how it deals with issues of cultural diversity, representation and inclusion. From ethnography to “World Culture” The Museum of World Culture traces its origins to the various ethnographic collections that have been part of the local museum landscape since the nineteenth century. Many researchers and travellers laid the foundation of the current ethnographic and archaeological collections, as well as a rich library and archive. In the beginning, sea captains, army officers, missionaries, tradespeople and other travellers collected and donated “exotic objects”. From 1913, collecting became more systematic and the collection grew to meet international standards. Most of the collection comes from Latin America, but the museum also keeps important collections from Africa and Asia. These objects used to be displayed and studied in the context of ethnography. European colonialism has also left its mark on the museum’s method of grouping and classifying people and cultures in the use of terms such as “civilised” as opposed to “primitive”, and “advanced” as opposed to “backward”. The echo of colonialism in words, images and objects pervades the museum’s collections and archives, constituting one of many conflict-ridden areas that still need new approaches.

In the last two decades, research in the fields of multiculturalism, globalisation and post-colonial theory have steadily grown, making ethnographic museums objects of criticism. These museums, it has been argued, have assigned to Western anthropologists the role of experts on the culture of “others”. The way this knowledge is presented in exhibitions, often in line with evolutionary ideas, has contributed to “exoticising” people from the non-Western parts of the world. 6 External groups have also increasingly demanded the right to interpret their own culture Globalisation, the increasing global and heritage: such demands have perhaps been even more important interdependence and the movement of triggers for museum change than the intellectual discourse.7

people and cultural influences across the globe, has changed society and the Globalisation, the increasing global interdependence and the movement of people and cultural influences across the globe, has changed society and the world enormously. world enormously. The local environment and potential audiences of any museum are very different today from the way they were when modern museums were instigated. Present-day migration flows, as well as new recognition of old minorities, make multiculturalism and equal representation a major challenge for museums as well as society. Anthropologist Anthony Shelton notes that: “Ethnographic museums and those with important non-western collections must, more than any others, chart their way through the political complexities and ethical compromises that globalisation is unleashing before they can truly understand and answer audiences that are increasingly made up of people they once considered part of their object.”8 These factors have caused museums with ethnographic collections to face major crises and many ethnographic museums are currently changing. Some move towards interpreting and displaying their collections as universal “World Art”, while others move towards a more cultural-historical context or an interdisciplinary approach.9

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These points heavily influenced the Göteborg Ethnographical Museum’s transformation into a museum of “World Culture”. The term “World Culture” (Världskultur in Swedish) was a political construct, following the same tradition as the concepts of “World Music” and “World Art”.10 Research on globalisation and cultural diversity has helped form the museum’s concept of World Culture in a dynamic and open-ended manner: “On the one hand, various cultures are incorporating impulses from each other and becoming more alike. On the other hand, local, national, ethnic and gender differences are shaping much of that process. ‘World Culture’ is thus not only about communication, reciprocity, and interdependence, but the specificity and uniqueness of each and every individual.”11 The knowledge that a museum acquires is vital to its credibility as a cultural institution. The museum’s traditional knowledge, ethnography and archaeology only partly covers the new content base. The complexity of contemporary issues calls for interdisciplinary approaches. The museum has to sustain credibility both in relation to its ethnographic collections and to any new topic or theme within the concept of World Culture. Its research activities focus on the material culture of Latin America, the broad museological spectrum, contemporary studies and globalisation theory. No permanent staff, however outstanding, could do justice to such a wide range of issues. Therefore it has been a major task during the transformation process to build and take part in research networks with universities and other museums. Much of the research is done in close collaboration with Museion, an interdisciplinary centre within Göteborg University that has connections with all university faculties and is located in the museum building. The ideological foundation of a museum, especially one that has gone through a process of renewal, needs to be thoroughly discussed and carefully considered. However, the concept of World Culture cannot be given meaning through ideas and discussions alone. The mission formulation and, in particular, the activities the museum carried out during its development and initial phases have been more important in helping audiences understand what the museum is about. Renewing the museum concept required a new type of mission statement, formulated early in the transformation process: In dialogue with the surrounding world and through emotional and intellectual experiences the Museum of World Culture aims to be a meeting place that will make people feel at home across borders, build trust and take responsibility together for a shared global future in a world of constant change.12 The purpose of the Museum of World Culture is to work with issues relating to the consequences of increased globalisation and internationalisation for the cultures of the world and for the individual. The museum aims to be a place for dialogue where multiple voices can be heard and controversial topics can be raised. While it seeks to have a global outlook in all its activities, finding a place and playing an active role locally is a precondition for its success and survival. The now classical “think global, act local” could indeed be its motto and “glocality” could be its position.

9 Benkirane, R. and DeuberZiegler, E. (eds) (2006) Culture et cultures. Les chantiers de l’Ethno. Musée d’Ethnographie, Geneve coll tabou 3. Gollion: Infolio éditions. 10 The word Världskultur has existed in the Swedish language since the early twentieth century but was reintroduced in cultural politics in the 1990s. 11 Museum of World Culture (2004) “Backgrounder”. See also the museum website: www.worldculture.se. 12 Mission statement, Museum of World Culture (2001).

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13 Magnusson, L. (2006) “Invandring, kulturmöten, etnicitet” (“Immigration, cultural encounters, ethnicity”), in E. Silvén and M. Gudmundsson (eds), Samtiden som kulturarv. Svenska museers samtidsdokumentation 1975– 2000 (The present as cultural heritage. Contemporary collecting and research in Swedish Museums 1975–2000). Nordiska Museet: Stockholm. 14 (1996) Our creative diversity: Report of the World Commission on Culture and Development. 15 UNESCO Universal declaration on cultural diversity (2001). 16 Taylor, C. (1992) Multiculturalism and the politics of recognition. Princeton University Press: Princeton. 17 Ibid.; Lagerkvist, C. (2005) “How do we give voices to minorities? Strategies for diversity”, in P. B. Rekdal (ed), Kompetenseuppbygging for et multikulturelt normalsamfunn (Competence-building for a multicultural society), ABMskrift No. 13, 72–77, ABMutvikling: Oslo.

Examples of the museum’s activities are presented below, after a discussion about how it has interpreted and integrated discourses of diversity and representation throughout its development phase and after its opening Museums, diversity and representation As previously mentioned, the challenges of multicultural Sweden were the political motivation behind transforming the National Museums of World Culture. There was therefore an expectation that the new museum in Göteborg should focus on ethnic diversity. Instead, it uses the broadest definition of diversity: a combination of individual and collective identities and preconditions including age, gender, generation, ethnic background, social background (class), religion, sexual orientation, disability, subcultural identification and so on. Cultural identities are regarded as fluid and changeable. The broader definition of diversity is important to avoid the division between a supposed “Swedish culture and heritage” and supposed “ethnic” or “immigrant culture and heritage”, which is clearly a false division, but one that has been present in the Swedish discourse on multiculturalism and museums for a long time.13 The Museum of World Culture has focused on cultural diversity throughout its development phase. It has influenced most parts of the visions and practices: its ideological base, the choice of exhibition themes and public programmes, modes of interpretation and display, recruitment policies, user group and audience analyses and the variety of external local or global partnerships and collaborations. The ideological base of the museum has been influenced by UNESCO policies and reports on diversity.14 The UNESCO Declaration of Cultural Diversity states that it is “as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature”.15 Cultural diversity may thus be described as an incontestable condition of society, but equality and equal representation for all groups in a multicultural society is a challenging process that requires constant negotiation. Two major strands of multicultural policy making, identified by Charles Taylor, can shed light on this process: the politics of universalism (equal dignity) and the politics of difference (identity).16 The politics of universalism are based on the idea that whatever is established is meant to be universally the same for all citizens, the objective being that all citizens and all perspectives should be mainstreamed into society and its institutions – including museums. The politics of difference, as an alternative, recognises the unique identity of any individual or group and their distinctness from everyone else. It is argued that the distinctness is automatically ignored or assimilated to a dominant majority identity unless there are strong policies to support particularity and alternative identities. The politics of difference can be identified in special museums for subgroups, such as Jewish museums, women’s museums, museums for the visually impaired, or in special efforts made to increase representation of a certain group or perspective. Although these notions are quite different, both of them are based on recognition and equal respect for groups and individuals in society.17 The Museum of World Culture uses a combination of these two strategies. Single exhibitions or programmes may indeed focus on a certain group or perspective, for example disabled, gay and

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lesbians, young women or people with a certain ethnic background. But on the whole, the museum also mainstreams diversity into its activities by actively “thinking broadly” in its planning of displays, arts programmes and public debates. Diversity as a function of display, as Jack Lohman suggests, will make museums aware of their role in identity (trans)formation. Different modes of presentation pose different questions about race, gender, age or religion, or fail to pose questions relevant to the diversity of a given theme.18 The Museum of World Culture has adopted a multiplevoiced approach in many of the exhibitions. Individual voices and interpretations are presented alongside a more general museum voice. These voices range from various researchers’ voices, to content specialists with an expertise founded in their personal experience in a given field, to artistic interpretations of visual art, photography, music or poetry. As regards the role the museum wishes to play locally, diversity is linked to representation, participation and audience profiling. Whose cultures, histories or experiences are represented? Who can see themselves in the museum activities and displays? Whose voices can be heard? Who has the right to interpretation? Again, a multiplevoiced approach has been used to avoid the risk of one or a few individuals becoming the spokes(wo)men for a whole group and having the authority to define one group identity regardless of the internal diversity and dynamics of the group in question. It is also a way to avoid “tokenism” – the risk that people become only representatives of a certain identity or perspective, such as “immigrant”, “woman” or “young”. Many individual voices and stories form part of the museum’s exhibition narrative. Arts programmes and educational activities are equally influenced by these ideas. Diversity among the museum staff is also vital to gain a broad representation and thereby be interesting to a diverse audience. Or, as the museum puts it: “If we are all old, can we then expect a young audience? If we are all white, can we then attract a black audience? If we all like classical music, can we then expect to see a rock audience? Will a gay audience feel welcome if we are all heterosexuals?”19 A presentation of the museum activities will exemplify how these ideas have been put into practice.

18 Lohman, J. (2006) “Design and diversity: Future world museums”, in K. J. Goodnow (ed), Challenge and transformation: Museums in Cape Town and Sydney. Editions Unesco, p. 15. 19 Museum of World Culture (2003) “Resultatredovisning” (“Annual Report”), p. 8.

Exhibitions, programmes and public dialogue The Museum of World Culture presents a number of exhibitions, all of which are considered temporary although their lifetime can span several years. The temporary nature of the exhibitions was one of the museum’s most important decisions in its quest for a content base that would do justice to the world’s cultures and to cultural diversity as such. It was also necessary in order to mirror, over time, “World Culture” – the world and its changeable and The Museum of World Culture has dynamic nature – as accurately as possible. The goal of the museum’s exhibitions is to promote dialogue with people of all ages, classes, genders, adopted a multiple-voiced approach in many of the exhibitions. sexual orientations, educational levels and ethnic backgrounds. Considering the vast variety of potential topics the museum could cover, as well as the wish to focus on the present, only parts of the museum’s collections can be used in the exhibition programme. The ethnographic collections are thus displayed in some of the exhibitions, while others show newly collected objects or objects on loan. In the quest to find new exhibition materials, partnerships and collaborations with museums or other international institutions have played a major role. Most of the exhibitions produced in-house have an

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No Name Fever reached more than 230 000 people, many of whom were teenagers and young adults. Photo: Åke Fredriksson/ The Museum of World Culture.

interdisciplinary foundation – either because they are based on and interpreted through a number of academic disciplines, or because they combine different types of displays associated with museums of a certain kind (cultural history displays, ethnographical displays, displays of traditional and contemporary art and so on), thereby forming something new. The exhibitions also include a variety of other media: photography, film, sound, multimedia stations or hands-on displays. Efforts are made to ensure that specific groups and interested parties help devise and implement the exhibitions. As a means to reach all targeted groups, systematic audience research is made throughout the formation process using both quantitative and qualitative methods.

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During the first years, two major exhibitions focused on pressing contemporary global issues. No Name Fever: Aids in the Age of Globalisation was one of the opening exhibitions. Through art, personal stories, film, music, photographs, examples of political activism and campaign materials from different parts of the world, the exhibition reached a large audience, especially teenagers and young adults. The goal was to raise awareness of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and give visitors a broad understanding of the disease. After it closed in the summer of 2006, No Name Fever was adapted to go on tour internationally. To begin with, a smaller version will be shown in the new Red Location museum in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, with which the Museum of World Culture has a long-term partnership. No Name Fever was followed by Trafficking – a journey into the harsh and painful reality of the global human trafficking industry. The exhibition was organised around 14 different places in the world that are part of the trafficking network. Each part of the exhibition includes quotes from human traffickers, their victims, people who pay for the victims’ services, police and others who try to combat the industry. The exhibition has been the result of a larger national and European partnership initiative to combat human trafficking and is partly funded through the European Social Fund. The partnership includes a network of anti-trafficking organisations that have contributed to the collection of objects, artworks and individual stories for the exhibition. Both these exhibitions are examples of the Museum of World Culture’s aim to mirror social injustice and global conflicts, as well as to contribute to social change. This work will be explored later in the chapter. Showing its collections is central to the museum, and it has endeavoured Showing its collections is central to the to give its ethnographical collections new frames of references. The museum, and it has endeavoured to American artist Fred Wilson, whose installations of museum objects are give its ethnographical collections new known for throwing light on hidden agendas and buried meaning in frames of references. museum traditions, was invited to interpret the collections. In his exhibition Site Unseen: Dwellings of the Demons, Wilson comments on the collections, the collectors and the research traditions of the museum by juxtaposing objects and archival materials and adding new labels. Through Wilson’s artistic and personal interpretation, the museum was able to comment on its own conflict-ridden history and provide an alternative way for the audiences to access its collections. Beside the exhibitions, the museum also has a comprehensive programme of experimental music, dance and theatre, as well as seminars, lectures and public debates. The themes explored generally take their cue from the exhibitions or are informed by current events. The main target audience for the public programme is people who have little experience in museums, especially young people. In principle, programmes are developed in dialogue with various target groups. During the first two years more than 60 per cent of the artists and lecturers that the museum engaged were of a nonEuropean background and around 50 per cent of them have been international guests. Whenever possible the programmes take place inside exhibitions, especially in the largest exhibition gallery which has an integral professional stage. Linking arts programmes to exhibitions like this

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is another way to present many voices when interpreting an exhibition theme. It also highlights different aspects of an intangible heritage as well as living memories of a historical event or period. For example, there have been many performances related to African diaspora experiences in the gallery that shows the exhibition Horizons: Voices from a Global Africa. The exhibition presents, among other things, the history and meaning of voodoo religion and culture and the many cultural and historical links between Africa and the Caribbean. To mirror the theme of Haitian voodoo, the museum has worked closely with the voodoo priest, musician and politician Theodore “Lolo” Beaubrun, who guides museum visitors into the meanings of voodoo in Haiti through a film documentary produced for the museum in 2003. With Beaubrun’s band Boukman Eksperyans and the local band Simbi from Göteborg, museum audiences have also been given first-class concerts of contemporary Haitian music.

“I am Out of Place, but not Out of Time”, “Time has Changed my Beauty”, “Don’t Hide Me Away”. Fred Wilson gives voice to the burial urns that were excavated by the Swedish archaeologist Stig Rydén in La Candelaria, Argentina, in 1932, and thereafter partly broken in order to be transported to Sweden. Photo: The Museum of World Culture.

Looking at gender identities and using queer theory has been as important as the focus on ethnicity and cultural encounters. The museum has, for example, had a long collaboration with local lesbian performers The Boy Kings. In 2005 the Jamaican-American poet and slam artist Stacyann Chin, who is openly lesbian and writes about sex, race and exclusion, was invited to perform in the museum. A transgender festival was organised in the museum in the summer of 2007, accompanied by an exhibition that extends the notion of transgender worldwide. These various arts programmes are a way to attain a broad representation of cultural identities and experiences in the museum. But perhaps more importantly, they are the key to reaching a new and diverse audience, to changing people’s perceptions about museums and to renew the museum concept as such. As an example, the Ethiopian reggae star Teddy Afro performed a concert in the Museum of World Culture in 2006, which was then full of Göteborg citizens from Ethiopia. The museum surveyed the audience, asking people about their views of the event. These are two of the responses: I think it is very important. It is immensely difficult to find this kind of programme. It is very rare to be able to see this kind of thing in the public sphere, only in private associations. This feels as if it is a public space. Wonderful that these things get a place here.

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For me it is of great importance. My daughter listens to his music. She has gotten to know Ethiopia through Teddy Afro’s music. A conclusion to be drawn from these responses is that it is essential for people to be able to relate to the museum. Finding things that are for and about you and “seeing yourself ” in exhibitions and programmes are prerequisites for people’s sense of ownership of this institution. A representation and inclusiveness agenda has been a part of the museum’s audience development strategy. The museum has also encouraged the public to participate in the public programme through its “Community Nights”, in which groups and organisations are free to use the museum as an arena for their own events. Various community groups introduce themselves and the activities in which they are engaged. The groups range from different local arts organisations, nongovernmental organisations and immigrant associations to special-interest groups. The types of organisations and messages featured are varied, but in order to prevent racist or anti-democratic opinions having a space in the museum, groups are required to respect the law and the Declaration of Human Rights. The museum has never had to turn down an event, although some have been controversial. Providing space for conflicting perspectives and being open to controversy are, however, important standpoints since the museum wishes to play a more active role in society. Contributing to social justice, tolerance and inclusion Museums in many countries are increasingly playing new roles. Very often political initiatives have pushed museums in this direction, as has been the case with the Museum of World Culture and the museum authority to which it belongs.20 The museum has interpreted the task in two ways. First, and as discussed before, the choice of topics and themes is influenced by the aim to play an active societal role. By choosing exhibition topics about pressing contemporary global issues, the museum inevitably becomes an agent for raising awareness and in forming public opinion. Second, the Museum of World Culture has stepped into areas of work that do not normally take place in museums by linking with agents in other sectors. Since the development process, the Museum of World Culture aimed to change its role in society by participating actively to promote social justice, tolerance and inclusion. One step in this direction was taken when the museum liaised with major local and regional actors in the project Advantage Göteborg, which was co-financed through the European Social Fund.21 The aim of the project was to break down barriers to accessing the labour market for one particularly excluded community in Sweden – citizens from the Horn of Africa;

“Some People with Names”. Wilson’s exhibition label subtly criticises the lack of personal information given about the people studied by museum anthropologists in the early twentieth century. The archival card says: “Nordenskiöld and two Indian Women.” Photo: Åke Fredriksson/The Museum of World Culture.

20 Examples are the social inclusion agenda in the U.K. and the reconciliation processes in South Africa and Australia. See Sandell, R. (2002) Museums, society, inequality. London and New York: Routledge; and Goodnow (2006), op. cit. 21 The partners in Advantage Göteborg: World cultures in focus were the Diversity Unit of the City Council of Göteborg; the Integration and Gender Equality Section of the Regional Administration; the Trade and Industry Group of Göteborg & Co – an association of the largest companies in the region; the Swedish Association of Ethnic Entrepreneurs; The Public Employment Service in Göteborg; and the Swedish Integration Board.

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22 Swedish Integration Board (2005) Rapport Integration. 23 Newman, A. and McLean, F. (2002) “Architectures of inclusion: museums, galleries and inclusive communities”, in Richard Sandell (ed), Museums, society, inequality. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 56– 68. 24 The challenges of this project have been described in Lagerkvist, C. (2006) “Empowerment and anger: Learning how to share ownership of the museum”, Museum and Society 4(2), July 2006, pp. 52–68. A part of the text in this article comes from the above-mentioned article in a modified form.

25 See www.ahtnet.org or www.samverkanmottrafficking.se

Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia. The Swedish labour market has shown remarkably little inclination to include Swedish citizens from non-European countries. Research and statistics show that Swedes with an African background are particularly exposed to this discrimination.22 The project aimed to achieve individual empowerment. Each participating individual was put in focus and the whole structure of barriers that hinder employment opportunities for the person in question was observed. The aims of Advantage Göteborg were to strengthen and enhance the qualifications, identity and self-esteem of members of this excluded community; to identify hidden barriers and processes of exclusion for the group in question at an institutional level and in relation to accessing the labour market; and finally, to use the collections and the exhibition process at the Museum of World Culture as a tool for empowerment. Research on inclusion and exclusion mechanisms has shown that a sense of identity in an individual is one of the main precursors to inclusion.23 The role of the museum was to act as arena for strengthening the participants’ sense of worth and cultural identity through personally defined projects about the experience of being in the diaspora in Sweden. This was combined with reminiscence work and documentation of the collections from the participants’ countries of origin. The prevalence of two-dimensional images from this region in the media – war, poverty and famine – alongside stereotypical images of immigrants in general and their lack of representation in the cultural sector, also called for more valid and more diverse images of the communities from the Horn of Africa. Therefore, the participants were given the opportunity for self-representation in the museum’s opening exhibition, Horizons: Voices from a Global Africa. The project was successful in many ways, but it was also characterised by negotiations about representation and rights of interpretation. The museum was found to be insufficiently welcoming and inclusive. As an example, some project participants soon questioned why the museum staff took all the major decisions regarding the exhibition in which their voices were going to be presented. Why, they asked, did a representative from the group not have a place in the steering group for the exhibition? The fact that the participants were never considered as potential steering group candidates – although they worked with the museum for over a year – is worthy of reflection. The museum’s limits for inclusion in professional areas were actually quite tight. Including non-specialists in an intense specialist process of a major exhibition seemed both difficult and hazardous considering the time pressures we were working under. Including a representative could have raised further difficult issues of representation since the group was in itself very diverse in terms of age, gender, background and experiences. There was a risk that a spokesperson who might not in reality represent the many voices of the group would filter ideas. However, the symbolic value of representation in arenas where major decisions are being made (or imagined to be made) was clearly underestimated by the project staff and exhibition team. The museum dealt with the crisis by having regular group discussions. As a result, the individuals who contributed to the exhibition with their own stories were consulted more intensely and given greater control of their own representations. The Advantage Göteborg project truly put the museum to the test regarding its ability to be an inclusive institution that lived up to its ideals of diversity and multiple voices, but it also worked as a trigger for changing the museum’s self-image.24

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The Trafficking exhibition was partly a result of a national and international anti-trafficking project co-funded by the European Union. In this case, the museum’s work was limited to raising awareness through exhibitions and public programmes. Institutions that are experts in the field, for example non-governmental organisations, churches, social workers and the police, dealt with the social aspect of the anti-trafficking work. This made the project much easier for the museum since it played a role it fully controlled.25 While participation in projects of this kind is both timeconsuming and challenging, it also pushes the museum towards the new role it wants to establish within society and is important for future development.

Göteborg citizens from the Horn of Africa present their own stories beside the museum collections from the region. Photo: The Museum of World Culture.

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26 Pes, J. (2005) “Brave New World: Review of the Museum of World Culture”, Museum Practice Magazine, summer 2005, Museums Association, London. Reviews in the international museum press have generally been positive. 27 Audience surveys 2005– 2006, Museum of World Culture. 28 The new “Alliance” government that came into power in September 2006 cancelled the free entrance reform introduced in all national museums in 2003– 2004.

Future challenges: changeability, “glocality” and innovation As previously mentioned, one of the main challenges for the Museum of World Culture has been finding a new balance in the shift from ethnography to the new concept of World Culture, and this discourse will continue. Working in partnership with experts from the collections’ countries of origin is paramount for sustained credibility in relation to new representation and shared authorship agendas. It is also important for the museum to work with local people who have a background in the collections’ countries of origin, for example the Latin American communities in Göteborg. The focus on both local and global connections will thus continue to permeate the museum’s activities but will also put new demands on staff and management alike. Engaging in dialogue is time-consuming and can be stressful, but the process is bound to happen when museums involve other voices and external stakeholders and is a prerequisite for a museum’s ability to become a more inclusive institution. It is therefore highly worthwhile. Judging from the museum’s audience research and international museum critique, the Museum of World Culture has succeeded with many of its efforts to renew the museum concept. It has been highly commended on its exhibitions, especially those with contemporary themes. The museum’s aim to reinvent what was an ethnographic museum has been praised as “a bold and radical experiment that works remarkably well”.26 The museum’s audiences have been observed to be younger and more diversified than those of many other cultural institutions.27 A shift of government in 2006 has, however, resulted in the reintroduction of entrance fees for adults in all national museums, which has caused a drop in visitor numbers and raises an economic barrier to some visitor groups.28 One challenge therefore is to be able to offer new exhibitions and public programmes that encourage visits from those who generally do not come to museums. Success indicators aside, museum traditions are rigid and disciplinary boundaries not as easily blurred as one might wish. Therefore the quests for transformation and innovation in museum narratives and communication need to continue and more access barriers need to be broken down. A museum that wishes to play an active role in society and respond to global change will never be finished and should never rest on its laurels. Instead, the transformation process itself should be regarded as an objective. The work to become a meaningful resource for all members of society and a truly “glocal” museum has therefore only just started.

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CHAPTER 10

Seeking the multicultural in the arts in Finland Lily Díaz

During the early summer of 2007, Helsinki was scattered with a series of advertising images that showed multicultural figures – primarily women – waving blue-and-white flags that read: Nakemiin Suomi, Tilaa tiistaitarjous ja haihdu (Goodbye Finland, book a place on Tuesday and disappear).

Many locals found the images used in this travel campaign surprising. After all, even though Iraqiborn artist Adel Abidin had recently been chosen as one of Finland’s representatives at the Venice Biennial’s Nordic Pavilion in 2007, the nation is still considered one of Europe’s most homogeneous. Like other nations that have joined the European Union, Finland is experiencing rising immigration, but it would be naïve to conclude from recent developments that multiculturalism is thriving here. Recognition that there is a need to address the growing diversity is relatively new, and initiatives and programmes are being developed. For example, a national committee headed by the Minister of Culture has recently been organised as a response to the European Committee for the theme year of Intercultural Dialogue 2008. In this chapter I seek to present an introductory foray into the emerging landscape of multiculturalism in Finland. My focus is on cultural production, with a bias towards the arts and museum contexts. “How” rather than “what” is multiculturalism? The questions of what multiculturalism is and what benefits it can bring to society are difficult and cannot be answered in a straightforward manner. In the contemporary art scene Adrian Piper, for example, has noted the ever-present existence of a hypothetical vantage point that frequently emerges from an auto-referential point of view.1 In such cases, the multicultural perspective is comprised of narratives emerging as part of a process of examination of “other” cultures from the point of view of a dominant culture. This has been extensively analysed by the American art historian Lucy Lippard who, in turn, proposes that the interplay of notions such as “high” versus “low” art, “quality” and “good taste” are often deployed to iron out difference, or to tone down alterity, in both the artworks shown and in the audiences.2 The opposite strategy, in which difference is a construct in creating spectacle, can also occur. The ways in which indigenous people and culture have been (mis)used by museum institutions are many and varied. Fusco, for example, offers a neat three-page summary of ways in which native people were the subject of display, beginning in 1493 with the show of an Arawak brought back from the Caribbean by Columbus, right up to 1992 with “Tiny Teesha, the Island Princess”, who

1 Adrian Piper is a contemporary AfricanAmerican artist and philosopher. http://www.adrianpiper.com/ (accessed 14 October 2007). 2 Lippard, L. (1990) Mixed blessings: New art in a multicultural America. New York: The New Press.

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was “exhibited” at the Minnesota State Fair.3 Any record of such events in Finland (or in the Scandinavian countries for that matter), and/or the ways in which xenophobic attitudes might have been expressed, should prompt serious study and discussion followed by intervention. In a similar vein, Rasheed Araeen, who is an artist and founding editor of the multicultural journal The Third Text, has highlighted the aspects of multiculturalism that allow it to be deployed as a tool for oppression. In his opinion, multiculturalism limits the potential of non-Western artists and their art to represent themselves and create a meaningful discourse from their practices.4 According to Araeen, the multicultural ontology forces the practices and products of non-Western artists into anthropological and archaeological categories. From this perspective, significant contemporary artistic currents such as modernism and postmodernism are not seen as relevant or applicable to these artists. When evaluating the works and their makers, the emphasis is always on origin as a mark of authenticity. Used as a standard, the category of origin is indicative of an exotic geography and cultural provenance. Terms such as “North” and “South”, “First World” and “Third World”, “fine art” and “folk art” are organised according to the logic of development, with the Third World occupying a less cultivated (or less sophisticated) position. An advertising board for AREA travel agency. Photo: Lily Díaz. 3 Fusco, C. (1995) English is broken here: Notes on cultural fusion in the Americas. New York: The New Press, pp. 41–43. 4 Araeen, R. (2002) “What is wrong with multiculturalism?”, in Marita Muukkonen (ed), Under (de)construction: Perspectives on cultural diversity in visual and performing arts. Helsinki: The Nordic Institute for Performing Arts, pp. 15–30. 5 Löytty, O. (2007) “Connecting the cultures”, Framework: Nationality in Context, Special Nordic issue, No. 7, pp. 18–20. 6 Lippard, L. (1992) “Mapping”, in Frascina Francis and Harris Jonathan (eds), Art in modern culture: An anthology of critical texts. Phaidon Press, p. 168.

Hastily deployed multicultural policies will not constitute a panacea for issues of diversity or equal access, as concerned researchers suggest: When I think of multiculturalism I see a pie chart before my eyes. The pie is divided into slices; there is one bigger sector representing the majority and thinner slices signifying the minorities. The slices have all different colours, and the lines separating them are straight and sharp. In other words, I see a society following an apartheid logic. We are all different but not equally represented.5 The critique on multiculturalism itself seems to focus on issues pertaining to the contextualisation and lack of agency that this type of strategy affords its subjects (for example multiculturalism as a method of effecting inclusiveness and equality). But by the early 1990s Lippard had already warned us of the pitfalls inherent in “thinking binary”, that is, focusing on differences such as the “familiar” versus the “unfamiliar”, the “neutral” versus the “exotic”, rather than reflecting on the area in between, “where common experiences in different contexts can provoke new bonds.”6 In the end, she has suggested a practical working definition in which the term “multiculturalism” can be used to describe the situation of “how” rather than the “what”: that is, multiculturalism as a situation (or a condition) in which mixed or cross-cultural groups, including white people, from different participating communities benefit from working together.7

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A Finnish experience Following this spirit of participation, as part of the research for this chapter, I decided that rather than construe my own hypotheses about the topic I would ask the Finns themselves what they thought about multiculturalism and its role in Finnish culture. My intention has been to create a multi-voiced text that would capture the changing nature of a phenomenon such as the one of national identity in contemporary Europe. The chapter is thus an ethnographic description of multiculturalism in contemporary Finland in which I aspire to present what Homi K. Bhaba labelled as the double-time of the nation’s people; that is, the people as both historical “objects” of a given nationalist pedagogy constructed in the past, and the people as the “subjects” of processes occurring in the present and through which the national culture is reiterated and re-emerges as a generative entity.8 With this objective, between January and April 2007, I created a sample that includes the opinions of seven individuals. Their ages range between 30 and 50 years. All have advanced degrees in education – two of them the highest in their field – and are active within the cultural system in Finland. Three are directly involved in work within museums where they hold key positions: curator, director and head of special programmes. The remaining four are cultural workers involved in areas related to artistic and humanistic knowledge production. The respondents included three women and four men, six of whom are Finnish citizens by birth, and one a naturalised citizen. The bias towards Finnish nationals was intentional since at the time of the meetings I wanted to achieve a view of the phenomenon of multiculturalism from the Finnish perspective. The fieldwork was carried out in the form of a structured interview lasting anywhere from a half to a full hour, and at a location chosen by the subject. The interview was organised according to a questionnaire containing 17 questions (see Figure 2). The first four questions concern demographic aspects such as age, nationality, occupation, and education; the fifth is both provocative and seeks to deal with the ontological status of the entity being researched through the essay. The interviews were conducted in English and the subjects were handed the questionnaire to study before the meeting. About “Finnishness” To the question of whether there is such a thing as Finnish culture, all seven interviewees responded unequivocally: “Yes”. Their responses were varied, yet at the same time coalesced within a series of issues. They seemed to confirm the notion that culture is not a given but rather a dynamic force constantly asserting itself and transmuting everything in its path. The potential existence of a multicultural society in the future was appreciated within the context of what has been there, at least ideologically, namely a singular and supposedly highly homogeneous culture. Still, the doubts and apprehension of how and when this would come about were resonant. The question regarding what is “Finnishness” or what constitutes Finnish identity has historically been the subject of intense debate. The topic has been discussed from a national, including judicial, ethnic as well as a linguistic perspective. During the nineteenth century, for example, when there

7 Ibid., p. 164. 8 Bhabha, H. K. (1994) “Time, narrative, and the margins of the modern nation”, in Homi Bhaba, The location of culture. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 139–70.

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QUESTIONNAIRE: What does multiculturalism mean in the Finnish context? 1. Age 2. Nationality (If not Finnish go to 2a, b, and c) a. Country of origin b. Number of years residing in Finland c. Reason for coming 3. Occupation 4. Education 5. Is there such as thing as Finnish culture? 6. Can you give three terms that would describe this? 7. Please elaborate: what do you think constitutes Finnish culture? 8. Are you aware of the cultural scene in Finland? 9. Do you participate in cultural events? 10. What types of events do you participate in? 11. How often do you participate? (Frequently, Moderately, Not at all.) 12. What is your idea of multiculturalism? 13. Can you give three terms that would describe multiculturalism? 14. Please elaborate on your answers to the previous question. 15. Do you think that there is multiculturalism in Finnish culture? 16. Can you provide three examples? 17. Would you like to see a) more instances of multiculturalism, b) fewer instances, or c) do you not mind? FIGURE 10.2 Questionnaire used for structuring the interviews during the fieldwork.

9 Fewster, D. (2002) “Visions of national greatness: Medieval images, ethnicity and nationalism in Finland, 1905– 1945”, in Andrew Gillet (ed.), On barbarian identity, critical approaches to ethnicity in the Early Middle Ages: Studies in the Early Middle Ages IV. Melbourne: Brepols Publishers and Melbourne University Press, pp. 123–146. 10 Jutikkala, E. and Pirinen, K. (2003) A history of Finland. Helsinki: Werner Söderström osakeyhtiö.

was an active Russification project, national history became an important component of resistance. Thus, when the archetypes for the nation were being created, the emphasis was placed on describing the traditions, oral folklore and material culture of an ancient Finnish people pre-dating Swedish or Russian influences. Compilation of the Kalevala, or national epos, by Elias Lönnrot, occurred during this period. As the archetypes were being reified through a viable nation-state during the early twentieth century and after the civil war of 1918, the need for a homogeneous vision of a people became even more pressing. Fewster has proposed that it became important to demonstrate that Finland had its own historical narrative and that it was part of Western Europe.9 As we shall see in some of the responses, the relevance of this historical narrative might be open to question.

The claim that certain features related to Finnish identity and culture have existed from early times is still strong. However, it has not been possible to establish a common ancestral root. And though genetically Finns are predominantly European, the Finnish language differs in its Eastern origins from other Indo-European languages.

Nowadays the general consensus is that the population of Finland, like that of most European countries, was augmented by waves of migrants coming from different directions and at different points in time. Still, the theory that some language related to Finnish has been spoken in the territory for a considerable period is supported. Also a consensus seems to exist that there is a connection between the material culture and the language.10 The importance of language It was not surprising then that, when asked to give three terms that describe Finnish culture, five of the seven respondents named language as their first answer. Among the responses were: [Language as a differential factor]: “Finland’s peculiarity is that it has a language that differs from that of its neighbours.” [Language in a bilingual context]: “Even though there are several ‘official’ languages in Finland: Finnish, Swedish, Finnish sign language … identity and culture follow the mother tongue – language is the common understanding of meanings.” [Language as part of the project of building

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a nation]: “Language was a unifying factor at a time when people were sort of disagreeing about many other things such as how to eat bread, what kind of church to go to and what’s important … It is only recently that the idea of having Finnish as the language of education was accepted …” [Language use as indicator of social change]: “… the younger generation is more fluent in English and less hesitant to speak in a different language or interact with people who speak a different language.” Cultural research indeed seems to support the importance of language as a differentiating factor. In an essay on ethnicity and gender in television advertising in Finland, cultural historian LeenaMaija Rossi reviews a series of commercials in which the key indicator to the presence of “Otherness” is precisely the use of a language other than Finnish.11 A national project Another response which, like language, seemed to recur in the context of Finnish identity and culture throughout the interviews was one of a national project as driving force. [About the national project]: “There has been a nationalistic project and it was very successful when it needed to be … but if we look back 300 years I think that people in the east and people in the west would not necessarily have understood each other too well … There are several Finnish cultures now and in history.” [Nationalism in education]: “Maybe it’s different nowadays but in my time back in the 1970s and 1980s Finnish schoolbooks talked about what Sweden/Finland would have been like as country before it became part of Russia … but that kind of a country never existed.” [On what constitutes Finnish culture]: “The belief that it is Finnish. The upholding of inherent values engendered by a far-reaching ‘national enlightenment’ during the past 150 years, as well as a subculture of modernity, that arose to counter such a nationalist cause.” [National identity and change]: “There is a package or blueprint that all Finns consider constitutes the Finnish identity apart from the fact that it is (a) not true, or (b) not true anymore, or (c) very rigid and leaves a lot of things out. And the blueprint was devised by a certain group of course so it reflects that group’s ideology or needs …” A difference Yet another interesting set of responses to this question of identity and culture included the “sense of difference”. In this, geography, history, and again language were cited as the important factors: [Isolation]: “Another important factor is that we have lived in the forest … Isolated, possibly because of the language and history … Our villages have been quite small … We are kind of an island between Russia and Sweden.” [Sparse population]: “Then there is the idea of being sparsely populated and having no lengthy history of cities. All the phenomena in Finnish history are somehow ripples of a bigger story going on nearby …”

11 Rossi, L. M. (2004) “Syötävän hyvät ‘toiset’ etnisyys ja sukupuoli suomalaisessa mainonnassa”, in L. M. Rossi, Heterotehdas, Televisiomainonta sukupuolituotantona. Helsinki: Gaudeamus, pp. 180–224.

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What does multiculturalism mean to the Finns? What emerged in response to the question regarding the concept of multiculturalism is the sense of urgency and desire to deal with the issues, whether from the point of view of cultural production, policy making or everyday life. Among the reasons for this enthusiasm are: the mobility resulting from the accession of Finland to the European Union in 1994; the much-cited need for an expanding workforce to help sustain the existing infrastructure of society; and the more recent lack of success in integrating new immigrant groups during the early 1990s. Still, the atmosphere regarding these developments is generally positive: [Multiculturalism and the construction of culture]: “Nowadays you read the papers and there is something that is defined as multicultural and it is something that happens in Finland but somehow it contains elements of some other traditions. And very often it means essentially that someone who was born elsewhere is participating. So, do we need a new culture that is somehow made of two or several cultures? I don’t really think so. I think that it is a kind of interaction. … I would not describe anything as multicultural. I would say that it is something like a combination or a group working together from different perspectives …” [The multicultural as exotic]: “The fact that money has been given to places … reminds you of how in France they used to have these things like ‘this group is dark-skinned come and see them’: it is still an exhibition of exotic. So there is art in the museum. But the other cultures that do not belong to the west, they are in the Museum of Cultures. If someone creative is from the west, his or her work is in Kiasma [a museum of contemporary art in Helsinki]. If you are non-Western, you belong to the marginalised or ghetto area. That says exotic, different … So the money goes to traditional museum things.” There is in this comment an indication of how art itself can be used as a category for exclusion. From this point of view, Svasek has highlighted, for example, how historically this exclusion or separation between the so-called “high arts” and “low arts” emerged with the development of the fine arts into income-producing professions12 (see also Layten and Damen for a review of the topic in the context of Dutch cultural institutions).13

12 Svasek, M. (1997) “Visual art, myth, and power: Introduction”, in Focal: European Journal of Anthropology, Oxford: Berghahn Journals, pp. 7–25. 13 Leyten, H. and Damen, B. (1992) Art, anthropology and modes of re-presentation: Museums and contemporary non-Western art. Amsterdam: The Royal Tropical Institute.

[Three terms to describe multiculturalism]: “Non-nationalism, non-chauvinism, non-racism”. [Multiculturalism in everyday life]: “I think it’s a kind of network of relationships. When you think it is multicultural you start to think about groups and how you have to assimilate one group with another. So it is a contradictory term but it is very important. It goes back to human rights. When you are making fences you must have gates in the fences and you must have people who open the gates and who check where those fences are not needed. It is very important for kids because there is a need for groups where they can grow up knowing what they are and after that they can collaborate with other groups. But if they do not know where they belong there are problems. So maybe that is something that we need in Finland: groups of people that can help people to assimilate but also keep their traditions. Not push Finnish culture on them but give them the possibility of growing in Finnish culture. Something like that is multiculturalism for me.”

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[About multicultural policy]: “Multiculturalism in Finland consists of there being the majority culture and then the different sub-cultures like the Sámi, the Roma, a little bit of Tatar culture, Jewish culture, Orthodox church, official minority language Swedish, then the immigrant cultures, which is the increasing part of the multiculturalism. And the idea that is actually the Finnish multicultural policy that, okay we can have minority cultures, our intention is to integrate people … so that they would be bilingual. They would speak Finnish, be able to work in Finnish society, and participate in economic and political life. But then there is also a positive possibility of upholding their own culture and language. That is still the official policy and it is written in the government immigration policy that came out last year: the double strategy of integration to the majority language and culture and the possibility of upholding their identity. It is very easy in Finland still because there are relatively few immigrants … it is a small question.” In other words, there is a possibility for planning and implementing novel policies as the size of the immigrant population is still relatively small. Examples of some multicultural projects in the arts in Finland There are more than 1 000 museums in Finland and most are sustained either through state funding or through the support of the local municipalities.14 The attempt to build a multicultural society itself has also received some support from the state through diverse sources including the Ministry of Education. In this context, the work is not done through museums or cultural institutions but rather is co-ordinated through the Department for Culture, Sports and Youth Policy (Kultturi-, liikunta- ja nuorisopolitiikan osasto). Through this There are more than 1 000 museums in agency, there have been some interesting measures aimed at promoting Finland and most are sustained either accessibility to culture for the physically challenged (vammaiset), ethnic through state funding or through the minorities and immigrants (etniset vähemmistöt, maahanmuuttajat) and support of the local municipalities. from the elderly (ikääntyneet). Since 2003, when the currently funded projects were begun, the objectives have been to develop cultural services and offer expertise that promotes increased accessibility to culture and the arts and to provide guideline materials that enable cultural workers to chart their efforts. Most recently, the efforts have also focused on the education and development of professionals at the national level; participation and interaction with international networks; deepening of knowledge from the multicultural point of view; and development of better practices in the field.15 The significance of fusing together the multicultural agenda with that of the physically challenged deserves further research, not only from the point of view of the bureaucratic system of the Finnish welfare state, but also from the general point of view of what constitutes a culture. Cultural Diversity, the EU MAN project, the International Cultural Centre Caisa in Helsinki, the “Design for All” initiative (see below for descriptions of each), are some of the more significant efforts in the area of cultural diversity in Finland. This list is not meant to be exhaustive and to a certain extent reflects the professional activities and personal experience of this author. A more lengthy study including an in-depth survey of activities within the particular museum settings as

14 The Finnish Museum Association web pages: http://www.museums.fi/englis h/pages/organization/museu ms.html (accessed on 14 October 2006). 15 Taiteen ja kulttuurin saavutettavuus, Opetusministeriön toimenpideohjelma 2006–2010. Opetusministeriön julkaisuja 2006: 6.

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well as a comparison with other Scandinavian countries and in Europe in general would be necessary if we are to attempt to draw conclusions about the significance and potential impact of the efforts. At the Finnish National Gallery, the Cultural Diversity project (part of the Culture for All programme) seeks to create “a setting for considering possible definitions of ‘minority’ and ‘culture’ – and above all for considering who creates the definitions and from what motives”.16 Cultural diversity itself is seen as an important factor in the relationship of the institution towards its audiences. According to the project’s information materials, the people who visit the exhibitions and engage in the programmed activities should be seen from a dynamic perspective. They are not to be thought of as passive recipients but rather as active citizens whose contribution and participation are formed precisely through these interactions with the society’s institutions. The project describes itself as critically engaged with examining notions such as: What is culture? What is a minority? How are these two defined? Who defines them and why? It purports to be driven by values such as equality, democracy and citizenship. With the Cultural diversity itself is seen as an objective of creating openings and broadening the scope of the discussions, important factor in the relationship of the project has hired the services of a professional for two years to observe, the institution towards its audiences. participate and enlarge the scope of the gallery’s activities towards a more multicultural environment. The EU MAN project (the acronym stands for European Union Migrant Artists Network) is a network for professional migrant artists living and working in the European Union area. The network has members in ten European countries: Denmark, Holland, Austria, Sweden, the U.K., Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Finland. The programme that was originally established and is still centred in Finland celebrated its tenth anniversary in January 2007. The idea for this network was to promote and support communication between migrant artists in the EU region. The objectives, according to the website, were to promote a multicultural Europe, combine ideas from the different members and put them into reality and to introduce migrant art and artists to the EU natives.17 The project has produced a successful exhibition, The Third Culture, which includes the work of 23 artists of diverse ethnic and national backgrounds. It also hosts an online Gallery and Universal Colours, a quarterly magazine on art-related topics.

16 Cultural Diversity Project, KEHYS Art Museum Development Department, Finnish National Art Gallery: http://www.fng.fi/fng/rootnew /fi/kehys/kulttuuri/en/default. htm (accessed 26 July 2007). 17 EU MAN web pages: http://www.eu-man.org/ (26 accessed July 2007).

One of the project’s principal organisers, Amir Khatib, proposes that the goals of the organisation are to assert the existence of migrant artists and highlight the need for serious study and research of the works produced through multicultural practices. Khatib uses the term “third culture” to refer to the hybrid work and practices resulting from displacement and reinsertion into a new cultural landscape: Art is the reflection of emotions, of social, economic, and political effects, and as migrant artists who have changed their country of residence, and are now engaged in creating their own hybrid culture, an interest in the third culture is not a luxury but a duty to focus on. We

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From The Third Culture exhibition, Sasha Huber Shooting Back; portrait of Peter Stuyvesant (Last Dutch Colonial governor of New Amsterdam/New York 1647–64, appointed by the Dutch West India Company. He owned 50 enslaved people for his private use and badly

mistreated the freedom of native Indians). 2006, Metal staples on an abandoned table top, 87 x 120 cm. RIGHT:

Flyer for the Our Vision song contest organised by the International Cultural Centre, Caisa.

could define the word culture as turning information into behaviour, and as we receive different sets of information as a consequence of changing place of residence, we transform this information into an output, which is translated into artworks.18 Established in 1996 as a service provider to the immigrant communities, the International Cultural Centre Caisa is the largest and best-known multicultural institution in Finland.19 According to its internet information service pages, the aim of Caisa is “to support the multicultural development of the city by promoting the interaction of people from different countries, and by providing information about various cultures and about Finnish society”. 20 Though it is not a museum, Caisa does offer gallery and performance space facilities in the central Helsinki area. It sponsors a programme of activities featuring works created by artists from the diverse cultural groups residing in Finland. Events includes multicultural theatre productions,

18 The Third Culture, Catalogue for the tenth anniversary exhibition, EU MAN, Helsinki, Finland. 19 Compendium, Cultural policies and trends in Europe, Finland section: http://www.culturalpolicies.ne t/web/finland.php?aid=423 (14 accessed October 2007). 20 International Cultural Centre, Caisa: http://www.kulttuuri.hel.fi/cais a/index_en.html (14 accessed October 2007).

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21 Our Vision 2008 Singing Contest, International Cultural Centre Caisa web pages, http://www.ourvision.fi/index. (accessed October 2007). 22 Universal design is considered a new paradigm in which barrier-free design and assistive technology is used to provide accessibility from a broader perspective that is inclusive of all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Universal_design (accessed 14 October 2007). 23 Sainio, Tapani (2006) “From project to practice: Towards a design for all strategy for the National Board of Antiquities of Finland”, International Design for All Conference 2006, Rovaniemi, Finland: http://dfasuomi.stakes.fi/ NR/rdonlyres/594DB4EA-841448C7-9F43 98878D4F11B9/0/ Sainio_FromAProject.pdf (accessed 29 September 2007). 24 Access to cultural heritage: Policies of presentation and use (ACCU): http://accessculture.org/ safia0.1.1/FW_container.php?c _doc=res_main.php (accessed 21 July 2007). 25 Open doors: Making cultural heritage sites and exhibitions accessible, Finnish National Gallery/Art Museum Development Department, National Board of Antiquities, EU Culture 2000.

exhibitions and film festivals created locally as well as with materials brought from abroad. A recent example of one of the popular performance activities programmed by the centre was the “Our Vision” song contest. The contest played on the interest generated by the celebration of the Eurovision contest in Finland in 2007. The difference is that the contest is aimed at anyone with an immigrant background. The first edition was so successful that a 2008 edition was organised.21 “Design for All” is a research, training and application development network created as a joint effort by the Finnish National Gallery and the Media Lab at the University of Art and Design. It has focused on researching and producing applications that make use of “universal design” practices for presenting visual arts and museum services to as wide a range of audiences as possible.22 At the international level, the network has participated in the Access to Cultural Heritage: Policies of Presentation and Use 2004–2007 (ACCU) project funded by the European Union. This has enabled them to create pilot applications dealing with accessibility to cultural heritage in each of the countries involved. In Finland the project worked with the Louhisaari Manor, a protected site: The principles of Design for All have been followed from the very first in action taken by the ACCU project, instead of measures being tailored to individual special groups. An example is the DVD produced on Louhisaari Manor; it was conceived as a vehicle for presenting the exhibition rooms on the upper floors to mobility-impaired people who cannot gain access to those upper floors because there is no lift in the building. However, the film was designed to cater to all user groups. As a result, nearly all visitors to the museum now watch the DVD either before or after their tour.23 They have also created the Open Doors – Making Cultural Heritage Sites and Exhibitions Accessible DVD. This illustrative tool or guide can be used to improve the accessibility and user-friendliness of cultural heritage sites.24 The DVD does not limit itself to issues pertaining to physical accessibility but also deals with so-called cultural accessibility. The section on “Content Meets Diversity”, for example, touches on issues such as the importance of collecting and interpreting the history of groups that have traditionally been excluded. Among its recommendations, it proposes staff training to develop awareness of how choice and interpretation influence the curatorial practices in exhibition design.25 Some concluding thoughts Though significant investment – not only with respect to capital but also from a spiritual and intellectual viewpoint – is needed to create a more inclusive and multicultural society, cultural diversity initiatives seem to be gathering momentum. Responses to the survey ranged from the perception that there is a total lack multiculturalism in Finland to the positive entertaining of possibilities: [On the absence of multiculturalism]: “There is no multiculturalism in Finland. Finland is 100 years backward in the ideological sense …” to a more positive yet guarded outlook: [On the brighter side of multiculturalism in Finland]: “I think that the sort of optimistic, good side, is about understanding what one’s own cultural background bias is and trying to make a bridge to

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the fact that not everybody else has the same bias or perspective, or has the same starting point for looking at [cultural issues] … and then paying special attention to not prejudicing things from one’s own point of view and that would be a sort of positive multicultural effort. But I was talking about multiculturalism in the culture … what would that be? Would it be a joint construction of a new entity? Or would it be like a place where different points of view have an equal opportunity to be presented? … Or are we talking, for instance, about museum pedagogy? This would mean that whatever we present is done in such a way that it is not expected that we all know the same about Western culture and Finnish history … So there are many layers.” Metaphorically, it is the diversity of colours and textures and the multiple shades of grey that create the rich patterns in the fabric of a society. In a nation that values art and design as one of its strategic areas, the inclusion of one Iraqi artist as representative of its cultural production, as well as of a foreign curator for its show at the Biennial, might indicate an important beginning. It remains to be seen whether this remains an isolated incident or becomes part of a Metaphorically, it is the diversity of significant trend.

colours and textures and the multiple shades of grey that create the rich patterns in the fabric of a society.

I began this chapter by commenting on the visual representations in a media campaign. This advertising campaign, deployed by a major travel agency, playfully made use of images of women from diverse cultures and of diverse ages, standing in what could be regarded as the traditional Finnish landscape. The element of inclusiveness presumably indicates that the notion of what constitutes contemporary Finnish society might be changing. As one of the participants in the fieldwork remarked when speaking about the mission of the museum: “The policy of the museum is that it exists to promote Finnish art and design. But in today’s global, and even multicultural, Finnish society, what does this mean?” If the notion of the nation’s people is one where both the object and subject of national culture narratives conflate, then I might conclude that this is something that is being created in the present by all the sectors of Finnish society with all the possibilities, challenges and responsibilities that those in earlier generations faced.

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CHAPTER 11

Norwegian Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow? A joint documentation project Liv Hilde Bøe

From exclusion to inclusion Public authorities and the Norwegian parliament require museums to incorporate cultural diversity in their daily tasks.1 In answer to these expectations, Norsk Folkemuseum (The Norwegian Folk Museum) and Internasjonalt Kultursenter og Museum (International Cultural Centre and Museum or IKM) launched a documentation project in 2002 called Norwegian Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow?. The project’s main objective was to start building an archive or bank of knowledge reflecting cultural diversity that would be accessible to researchers of today and tomorrow. Another objective was to focus on what might be considered “Norwegian” today.

LEFT:

From the rural section of the open-air museum. Reproduced with permission from Norsk Folkemuseum.

The two museums are very different in terms of history, age, size, collections, and their original objectives. IKM was established in the 1990s as a result of recent immigration to Norway and aimed to contribute to a better understanding and respect for cultural diversity in the country. In the few years of its existence, it has helped to redefine what “Norwegian” is, and to create a sense of cohesion among the people living here. Norsk Folkemuseum was established in 1894 in the midst of the national struggle for independence from Sweden. It aimed to create an “us”, in contrast to “them”. The building of nations and strengthening of patriotism was common in Europe at that time. Nations and their identities had to be created: our borders were confirmed by their borders. Building up patriotism was an important national goal in Norway, and creating and defining distinctive features of what could be considered “Norwegian culture” was one of the new museum’s strategies. Hans Aall (1869–1947) was only 25 years old when he established the museum. Through over 50 years of his dynamic leadership, it developed into the leading museum institution in Norway and a monument to Norwegian culture. He described the vision he had as a young curator travelling in the eastern valleys to collect objects for the Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum (The National Exhibition of Decorative Arts).2 In this narrative, there are several central themes concerning culture and science. Domestic Norwegian culture was seen as special and valuable in relation to foreign culture. The concept of culture extended to include everyday culture and objects that were about to disappear as modernisation transformed the country. Other themes include the experiences of culture beyond art and applied art. The last and maybe most important theme was national self-assertion as a countermove against Nordiska Museet in Stockholm, which was

1 St melding 22 (1999–2000) Kjelder til kunnskap og oppleving (Sources of Knowledge and Experience); and St melding 48 (2002– 2003) Kulturpolitikk fram mot 2014 (Cultural Policies Towards 2014). 2 Aall wrote about how he got the idea of creating what became the Norsk Folkemuseum in the museum’s 25th annual report.

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established by Arthur Hazelius in 1873 and extended with an open-air museum, Skansen, in 1880. Nordiska Museet collected objects extensively in Norway during these years. Norsk Folkemuseum was established when society was in rapid change, in a period with strong cultural and political lines of conflict between the farmer class, the class of higher officials, and the growing class of industrial workers. The challenge, and an important national political question, was which national heritage should be built upon? Creating national feelings and a common understanding of history is a political aim, but requires a cultural-political construction. In 1902, the museum opened at Bygdø, a few kilometres from the centre of Oslo, with exhibition buildings and a “theme park” in which buildings from different valleys were exhibited. This enabled people to walk around in their “own” culture. The open-air museum, a European invention, eventually characterised folk museums. Nordiska Museet and Norsk Folkemuseum, however, included the cultures of towns and the elite in the same broad historical and cultural perspective as the folk culture. Within a few years, Norsk Folkemuseum became a symbol of Norwegian cultural inheritance, and has been an important contributor in the creation and dissemination of “Norwegian” culture for more than 100 years. Hans Aall set his distinctive footprint on the museum’s history and development, transforming it from the romantic eighteenth-century concept to a nineteenth-century scientific institution by developing museological practices and points of view. In this way, Aall had an important influence on the development of museums in Norway. Could an old vision be renewed? For several decades, the Norsk Folkemuseum’s focus was the creation of stories based on the material and other culture of Norwegian freeholders and the educated urban population. It was not until the 1950s and 1960s that people such as the working class and national minorities were included in the collections and exhibitions. The new migration – the working migrants, refugees and their families who moved to Western European countries during the last 30 to 40 years – has resulted in new challenges for European countries as well as European museums.3 European countries that had been relatively homogeneous societies and often strongly nationalist for centuries were unprepared to receive the newcomers. Different skin colours, different religions and cultural objectives exacerbated the challenge. This new immigration shifted the conflict between “us” and “them” from its traditional basis between countries to an internal challenge. After a few decades, the need to establish a new “us” was evident, in Norway as well as in the rest of Europe. This also applied to museums – and particularly national heritage museums such as Norsk Folkemuseum.4 The challenge was how it should be done. Norsk Folkemuseum had as its ideological charter a pamphlet written as an invitation to membership in April 1895, a few months after the museum was established. The writer was the folklorist Moltke Moe, son of the great collector of Norwegian folktales, Jørgen Moe. Moltke Moe, who acted as the main intellectual adviser and tutor for the young director, wrote:

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The life of the past has its own ability to capture our minds … how people have lived and struggled, how they cultivated their soil, their fishing, their commerce, their craft, how they dressed, raised their children, how they lived their cultural life during changing times, what they thought, believed. All this engages us, children and grown-ups, educated and uneducated. We understand how nature has influenced life and history … How it has become what it is – with its virtues and defects. The more we understand, the more our national feeling will grow and strengthen.5 Moltke Moe’s main point, the importance of knowledge and understanding of the “virtues and defects” of people in Norway, is probably of even greater importance for the museum today, even if the argument regarding strengthening of national feeling and identity is now less relevant. One defined national political objective in Norway is that people visiting museums should be able to recognise that they are a part of Norwegian society. Another is that museums should function as arenas in which people can find points of association as well as messages that are meaningful to them.6 Museums used to be places of public education. Today, public education helps people play an active part in the development and transformation of society into a living democracy. In many ways, museums take care of our roots and represent collective identity. The challenges are how to realise the political objectives. When planning the documentation project, Moe’s pamphlet was an inspiration, and can in many ways be seen as the ideological charter for the project Norwegian Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow?. What could be more important when shaping the politics of today’s and tomorrow’s society than knowledge of what it is like to live in Norway as an immigrant or a descendant of immigrants? In order to be inclusive and to create an “us”, knowledge of people’s “virtues and defects” is still essential. Museums can obtain this kind of insight, since one of their main objectives and responsibilities is building and creating collections that reflect people’s lives. The project Norwegian Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow? can be seen in this light. It was an umbrella project and included several documentation projects as well as exhibitions. Later in this chapter I present the idea behind the projects as well as some of the results.7 Histories can lead to understanding and change Museums have a responsibility to build up collections that reflect contemporary cultural diversity. The collections are considered public property. Like archives, museums have a responsibility to ensure that collections are accessible and relevant to the broad public now as well as in the future. This in turn involves understanding the “virtues and defects” of “ethnic Norwegians” as well as the “new Norwegians”. The exhibition’s aim was to illustrate the older generation of immigrants and their descendants as well as ethnic Norwegians, and the actual problems and possibilities of cultural diversity, considering also issues of identity and culture. The project was built on the premise that identity

3 Internal European migration, particularly through trade, was relatively common. Bergen, for example, the second largest city in Norway, was a Hanseatic city with many Hanseatic (German) fish traders. 4 The role of museums in a multicultural society – to be inclusive and function as institutions of dialogue – was described and defined as an objective for Norwegian museums for the first time in the government report NOU (1996) Mangfald, minne, møtestad (Diversity, memory and meeting place). 5 The pamphlet was entitled Opprop for Norsk Folkemuseum. It was reprinted in the museum’s 25th annual report. This is the author’s translation. 6 St melding 22. (1999–2000) Kjelder til kunnskap og oppleving. 7 Most of the material gathered in this project is now available for researchers at the Centre of Documentation at the Norsk Folkemuseum. The rest of the gathered material will become available once registered. Some of the material and some of the exhibitions are also available through the website: www.nyenordmenn.no

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Each year thousands of schoolchildren visit the Norsk Folkemuseum to learn about Norwegian culture. The project Norwegian Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow? aimed to give a broader representation of “Norwegian culture”. Reproduced with permission from Norsk Folkemuseum.

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is not static but constantly developing. To understand personal identity, it is important – especially for younger generations – to be acquainted with complex history. Their parents had the opportunity to choose, but second and third generations are largely defined by their circumstances. Many of them relate to Norwegian society as the “homeland”, but do not always feel accepted by ethnic Norwegians: For me it is very important that Norwegian society accepts me, and the generations after me, as an important part of society. My parents worked hard to give us better opportunities than they had. I want my children to have the same opportunities and be valued in the same way, even if they don’t want to be entirely Norwegian in the same way that you are. (27-year-old woman of Turkish origin) I wonder how long it will be before people understand that you can have coloured skin and be Norwegian. I was born in Oslo and my parents have Norwegian citizenship. The other day a woman asked me if I felt Norwegian. I answered that I had no homeland other than Norway and that I had no intention of moving to Pakistan. I often get questions like that. If I’m not Norwegian – then where do I belong? (25-year-old man, born in Norway)8

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These quotes, collected in the documentation project, illustrate the feeling of not being accepted as “real Norwegians”. Perhaps thoughtlessness prompts ethnic Norwegians to make such remarks, but it may also be the result of ignorance about the situation of immigrants and their children. One of the aims of the project was to collect and present to the public material that would show what it is like to be born and bred in Norway and still not be seen as a Norwegian. We considered this important for immigrants as well as ethnic Norwegians. Many immigrants have pointed out that they feel pride in having “their” history in Norway as a part of the museum’s collection and as a part of Norway’s history. And they see it as important that people will have the opportunity to become “acquainted” with them. The documentation projects Plans for Norwegian Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow? were drawn up in a request for financial support to the Norwegian Arts Council (Norsk Kulturråd) in 2000. Having received a financial guarantee, the project started up in 2002. It was completed in 2007. It developed into an umbrella project for several larger and smaller concepts that all dealt with different perspectives on new immigration to Norway. As a pilot project, it lent itself to experiment: we tried different methods to get varied material covering as many aspects as possible. Neither Norsk Folkemuseum nor IKM had the economic resources to carry out the project alone. Several institutions contributed financially but the Norwegian Arts Council and the museums themselves were the main contributors. Since no similar documentation project had been carried out in Norway, we investigated how museums in other countries had documented cultural diversity. English oral history projects and Swedish documentation projects gave valuable pointers. “The Bull Project”, which was based on collecting “life stories” and conducted in the 1950s and 1960s at the Norsk Folkemuseum by external researchers, was also a source of inspiration. In this project, more than 2 500 “life stories”, interviews with workers and smallholders, were Collecting people’s life stories through collected. Through the years, these collections have been used by interviews was combined with numerous researchers and can be seen as the start of a rich Norwegian collecting their family photographs. trend in social history research. Our project’s ambitious objectives had to be converted into practical work, such as finding people who were willing to share their story with us and people who could conduct interviews, collecting material, registering and transcribing the interviews and so on. It is often underestimated how time-consuming such work is, especially when the material is to be in a public archive. Collecting people’s life stories through interviews was combined with collecting their family photographs. In in-depth interviews people told their stories – of childhood in another country, emigration, experiences of finding their way in a new country, language, bringing up their children and their relationships (emotional and cultural) with the two countries. Private photos that illustrate the history were collected and scanned before being returned. The interviews and photos were the most central as well as time-consuming part of the project.

8 The feeling of not being accepted and being between two cultures is expressed in many of the interviews in the project as well as in the book Mellom to kulturer (Between two cultures), edited by Sharam Alghasi, Katrine Fangen and Ivar Frønes (2006), Oslo: Gyldendal. The book is based on the reflections and experiences of several academics.

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9 http://www.refugee-action. The project, called Every Tree Has Its Roots, was a Vietnamese oral history project, based on more than 100 interviews with people of different ages and backgrounds who came to England from Vietnam. The histories have been captured to help the younger generation to understand their heritage. The stories are held in the British Library’s archives. 10 Damielsen, K. (2006) Neste Stopp Nordpolen. Oslo: Orkana forlag.

We concentrated initially on the life stories of the first migrant groups that came to work in Norway: people of Pakistani and Turkish origin. Later we included a group of refugees from Bosnia. To conduct the interviews with people of Pakistani and Turkish origin we hired people with an academic background and experience of interviewing; later we tried out a model we had first met in England that involved the use of non-academics.9 People of Turkish and Bosnian origin were trained to conduct life-story interviews. This was seen as advantageous because they spoke the language and knew people whom they might interview. It was also naturally easier for them to be accepted by those they were interviewing. The disadvantages were that some of these interviewers did not fully understand the project’s intentions. In order to get a better understanding of the places, traditions and the daily life and feelings of the family the immigrants had left behind, we also visited the countries and places of origin to carry out interviews with extended families. We documented the surroundings by video and with photographs taken by professional photographers. We consider this material very valuable. Interviews for collecting information and material for exhibitions were also part of the project. We conducted specific interviews, for instance, about racism, giving birth in Norway, and the use of the hijab.

Photographic and video documentation and interviews in the area of Tøyen-Grønland, which has Since no similar documentation project the greatest concentration of immigrants in Oslo and is probably the most had been carried out in Norway, we multicultural area in Norway, is a large, ongoing project. Its main task is to discover how people live, work and use the town, the buildings and the investigated how museums in other surroundings. The project is run in co-operation with the Directorate for countries had documented cultural Cultural Heritage.

diversity.

To get an impression of children’s daily life in a multicultural society, a project called My Daily Life – My World was run in co-operation with 14 schools scattered around Oslo. Some were in west Oslo, but most were from north, east and south Oslo where most immigrants live. Cameras were distributed to 500 schoolchildren, who were told that their photos would become an important part of Norwegian cultural heritage. The resulting 12 000 photographs, and the children’s comments on them, give a fascinating insight into their daily lives. Inviting people to write their autobiographies was another method of getting people’s life stories. This project was carried out with the research institute NOVA. The invitation, which was translated into 11 different languages, asked people to write their own histories – in their own language if they wished, as most did. Some of the stories were published in a book, Neste Stopp Nordpolen (Next Stop: the North Pole), which was the title of one of the autobiographies, reflecting the author’s impression of Norway.10 The museums had to apply to the national Data Inspectorate to carry out the project and allow access to the resulting material for research, and the museum’s documentation centre has to abide by the inspectorate’s rules. The close co-operation between the two museums on the different projects can be seen as recognition of their responsibilities as public institutions in today’s society.

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In order to share the experiences we gained through the project the scientific members of the project wrote a book in 2005 called My Voice – Our History: Documentation of Multicultural Norway.11

“A Pakistani Apartment at Norsk Folkemuseum”. Reproduced with permission from Norsk Folkemuseum.

Presentation of cultural diversity: the exhibitions Although the creation of exhibitions was not the project’s primary objective, it resulted in several. This was partly due to decisions made before the project started, such as an exhibition plan at IKM, and partly because we felt that it was important to present the material gathered in the project. It gradually became obvious that there were benefits to be gained from combining documentation and research with the creation of exhibitions. Some were shown at IKM and some at Norsk

11 Edited and distributed by ABM-utvikling (The Norwegian Archive, Library and Museum Authority).

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12 Several of the exhibitions have been developed as internet exhibitions. These can be seen at www.nyenordmenn.no

Folkemuseum. Some were also created as travelling exhibitions.12 I will focus below on three exhibitions made at Norsk Folkemuseum, since IKM is presented in a further chapter in this publication (Chapter 14).

13 Kjeldstadli, Knut (ed) (2003) Norsk innvandringshistorie. Oslo: Pax forlag.

Norway. Land of Possibilities? Immigration to Norway, 1500–2002 This exhibition marked a starting point for the Norwegian Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow? project. It covered 800 square metres, was shown at Norsk Folkemuseum in 2002 and 2003, and was made in co-operation with researchers who were writing the history of immigration to Norway.13 As the exhibition dealt with a long period and a complex theme, it required a focused approach concerning content and form. This intention is summed up in its title: Norway. Land of Possibilities?. We wanted to remind and inform visitors that Norway through the centuries has had immigrants from many countries. Thanks to new research, we were able to convey how these people have seen possibilities in Norway, how they have been received, and how their coming to Norway has transformed and enriched the country in many ways. Producing an exhibition is a very different process from writing a book: an exhibition uses a broader brush, and presents its arguments and controversies differently. One of the main intentions of the exhibition was to remind visitors that immigration always concerns individuals who for different reasons have left their homeland. It presented the history of selected people, ranging from James Collett, who came as a timber merchant from London in the end of the sixteenth century, to Zekuye Algunerhan, who came with her children at the end of the 1970s from a small village in Anatolia, Turkey, to be reunited with her husband. Through their fates, their reception in Norway, and their general reception by neighbours and ordinary people – the “person in the street” – we were able to tell the more general history of the national immigration policy. This history has many dark patches for certain groups. Using actual examples allowed us to illustrate how this affected different groups at different times. At the end of the exhibition, visitors walked thorough the photo exhibition by Haci Ackman of today’s Norwegian faces. The photos hung down from the ceiling at head height. When looking into the faces of young and old, dark- and fair-skinned, people were reminded that everyone has their own story. The exhibition was extended to the open-air museum. We wanted to draw attention to the fact that the buildings at the Norsk Folkemuseum, often considered characteristic of Norwegian culture, may not be as “Norwegian” as generally thought. At ten of the houses, visitors saw posters that told the history of the owners or dwellers who were immigrants from England, Scotland, Finland, Sweden and Denmark. In this way, people were reminded that Norway has always been a country of immigration. Immigrants from Scotland, Germany, Netherlands, Finland, Denmark and Sweden have played important roles in bringing cultural impulses and expertise and thus creating what is now considered “Norwegian culture”.

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Norway: A Country for Me? Immigration from Pakistan to Norway About 30 000 people in Norway are of Pakistani origin. Only three countries in Europe have a greater number of immigrants from Pakistan. Direct flights several times a week between Norway and Pakistan indicate the close ties between the countries. The first immigrants arrived in the late 1960s. This is largely due to one person, Neik Alam, often called the “inventor of Norway”. He persuaded people to go to Norway. He also helped people with practical things such as passports and travel information. His intention was that people should return with money and expertise. Telling this exciting story in the form of an exhibition was one of the first results of the life-history interviews, photographs and objects collected in the Norwegian Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow? project. The exhibition was mounted with the help of people who had been interviewed as well as representatives of the Norwegian Pakistani community in Oslo. The title indicates that it is from the immigrants’ point of view. It was a great relief when we decided to use quotations and so were

Collett-gården was built by James Collett at the end of the sixteenth century. The building was previously viewed as “typically Norwegian” as were other houses in the permanent exhibition – many of which were actually built by early immigrants. This rewriting of history was part of the exhibition Norway. Land of Possibilities? Reproduced with permission from Norsk Folkemuseum.

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able to use first-person narrative and connect official history directly to the people’s experiences. Using their names and their own photographs in the texts required in-depth discussions with the people involved. As we had no curator with an ethnic background, we engaged a young woman with a Pakistani background to take part in our discussions and decisions. See Me as I Am! Travelling exhibition 2004 This small exhibition dealt with the use of the hijab (scarf ). The exhibition was mounted in the midst of heated media and political discussion of whether Muslim women should be allowed to wear the hijab at work. The debate was sparked when a young woman was not allowed to wear the hijab at work in a shop. She refused to accept the decision, and the resulting debate ended in a victory for the woman who had the courage to make the conflict public. But Muslim women’s own voices were more or less absent in this debate. Our intention was to mount an exhibition showing why some women wear the hijab and some don’t. Based on interviews, six women told why they chose to use the hijab or not. A picture from a Norwegian factory in the 1880s – in which all the female workers wore scarves on their heads – opened the exhibition. We wanted to remind people that covering the hair in public has been common through centuries in Norway too. Participants in the project agreed on the importance of telling the histories from the points of view of immigrants and their descendants. Many of those who have been able to present their history and experiences through exhibitions and the resulting internet site have expressed gratitude.14 They feel that their point of view should be available and want people to become acquainted with their stories. Many of them are distressed that immigrants are often seen as stereotypes who represent mostly problems for society. Concluding words

14 www.nyenordmenn.no opened in November 2006. There are plans to use the website for presenting more of the material from the project. 15 The history of immigration to Norway documents how people have been received in Norway. See, for example, Kjeldstadli (2003), op..cit.

The Norwegian-Americans, as Norwegian emigrants to America and their descendants are called, are highly protective of their Norwegian inheritance. Third- and fourth-generation NorwegianAmericans are proud of their ability to speak the language and maintain Norwegian traditions. Immigration to Norway has given us many examples of people, some of whom are defined as national minorities, who have kept their language and traditions for centuries.15 This desire to retain cultural heritage will probably also be important for immigrants who arrived during recent decades and will continue to be so for generations. The experiences of the Norwegian-Americans may inspire understanding that pride in one’s culture and roots is not an obstacle to being American and taking pride in America and American culture. Similarly, when Pakistani students told their parents, “We are proud of our culture” (a quote from a young woman in the Pakistani Student Union in reply to parents’ concern about an exhibition of poverty), it was an indication that the next generation will probably take pride in

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their cultural inheritance – as well as in being Norwegian – and want to keep it alive for generations. The impact of globalisation and the possibility of keeping close contact despite long distances may indicate that Norway and Norwegians will have connections with many countries in the world in the future.

16 The national Norwegian broadcasting company approached Norsk Folkemuseum about making a television series on immigration. The museum has decided to make a series of six to eight programmes that will be based on this project.

Museums can play an important role as guardians of the history of newer immigration to Norway and in sharing these experiences with the public in different ways.16 If Norsk Folkemuseum and IKM can help immigrants in Norway to recognise and take pride in their culture as well as in ethnic Norwegian culture, this will be an important Museums can play an important role as contribution to promoting integration. It will be equally important that guardians of the history of newer the ethnic Norwegian population gets an insight into the new immigration to Norway Norwegians’ “virtues and defects”, since this might be an important premise for immigrants and their descendants to feel Norwegian and feel proud to be so.

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CHAPTER 12

Embroidered history Lise Poulsen and Mette Skougaard

1 Helsingør is translated to Elsinore in English, but in this chapter we have kept the original Danish name.

In the second half of 2003 the last stitch was completed on the Helsingør tapestry,1 and with it a group of refugee and migrant women from Helsingør stitched themselves into Denmark’s history.

Work on the Helsingør tapestry began in 2001. In all, 37 women took part, and they came from 12 countries: Bosnia, Palestine/Lebanon, Iraq, Serbia, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Kosovo, Somalia, Pakistan, Brazil and Denmark. Inspired by the famous Bayeux tapestry in Normandy and the Pilgrims’ tapestry in Vârmland, Sweden, these women embroidered a tapestry using the same materials and techniques. The result was a 31-metre artwork in which the poetic and colourful pictures tell the women’s stories from their childhood in their villages to their daily lives in Denmark.

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The artwork was based on an integration project for refugee and immigrant women in Helsingør. The project director wanted the women to work with something meaningful and beautiful in which they could integrate their life histories and resources while learning the skill of embroidery. A crafts teacher and a visual artist also took part in the project. At the beginning the participants were all from Palestine and the former Yugoslavia, so the project focused on their stories. Even though these were the starting point for the chosen motifs, women from other nationalities who joined the project later felt a connection to them. Leaving one’s homeland was a painful process for them all, and arriving in the new country was strange and overwhelming. Their life stories too were filled with partings and adaptation to a new and foreign country in the North. In the first half of the project the women told of their lives and the two artists translated their stories into pictures on paper to be worked into the tapestry. The project started with positive recollections. Mouna, a Palestinian refugee from Lebanon, recalled her grandparents’ life in Palestine, which she had been told about when she was a child. Her grandfather grew tobacco in the fields and when the leaves were harvested they were hung up to dry on the houses. Later they were carried to town on

BELOW LEFT:

Motifs from the tapestry. Photo: Aline Talatinian. Permission granted by the Kronborg Castle Museum.

BELOW:

From the sewing room. Photo: Torben Sørensen. Permission granted by the Kronborg Castle Museum.

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donkeys, packed into saddlebags. Mouna’s grandmother told her about the women who washed their clothes by the common well in the village square. The young men of the town passed by “by chance” to get water for the animals, so that was where many first meetings took place. Later Mouna and the other Palestinian women spoke about their own lives: in the refugee camps in Lebanon, war, departure and flight to Denmark. The project director wanted the women to recount positive memories from their lives but Mouna had to go all the way back to her grandparents’ stories to find any bright, calm and peaceful images. Her own life had been marked by insecurity, war and flight. The women from the former Yugoslavia, on the other hand, could tell stories from their own peaceful childhoods, when their parents worked with the harvest and the animals on the farm. One of the Kosovo-Albanian women came one day with a drawing of her childhood home that she and her husband had drawn from memory in the minutest detail. The drawing was copied straight onto the textile and embroidered into the tapestry. Later, women from the former Yugoslavia added more negative images with stories of war and flight from a country that broke apart after Tito’s death. When the first motifs and tableaux had been copied onto the fabric, the women began to embroider the tapestry borders – having first practised the craft to ensure that the tapestry would be of the highest quality. No compromise could be made. Some of the women could embroider from the start: many from the former Yugoslavia had learnt to embroider from their mothers when they worked on their bridal clothes. Some had managed to take some of their Some of the Palestinian women had bridal cloth with them during their flight and showed the most beautiful learnt to embroider in various projects embroideries. Some of the Palestinian women had learnt to embroider in various projects in refugee camps in Lebanon. Most, however, had not tried in refugee camps in Lebanon. it before but were quickly engaged. Enisse from Bosnia told how, before the project, she couldn’t even sew a button on her husband’s shirt but towards the end of the work on the tapestry she had become one of the most expert tailors. During the two and a half years that it took to embroider the Helsingør Tapestry, the women came to the workshop to embroider three times a week. On other days they went to Danish language classes. There was an average of eight women at any one time active in the workshop. They sat and embroidered on their own section of the tapestry while the two artists continually found inspiration for the motifs by looking at history books and art books, photos, newspapers and objects that the women had brought with them. Throughout the process, the artists kept up a dialogue with the women regarding the motifs – a dialogue that developed into a fruitful collaboration. If the artists were in danger of running out of ideas, they asked the women for advice, and the women would provide fresh input. Or the artists would call out in the workshop: “How many potatoes would a goose ‘cost’?” and a lively discussion

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would break out amongst the women. The artists were then able to draw a tableau showing a day in the village market. Other more important motifs for the women included the Cliff Mosque in Jerusalem that many of them spent long hours embroidering. Some details – such as the images from a concentration camp – were difficult to work on. Slavica, who was a Gypsy from Serbia, began to embroider the motif but couldn’t finish it. She explained that it was difficult for her to embroider it because it constantly reminded her of the stories her grandmother had told her Some details – such as the images about relatives who had died in the camps.

from a concentration camp – were The artists asked the women what they had managed to bring with them difficult to work on. when they fled to Denmark. They told of things that had special meaning for them and that they treasured still. They were asked to bring the things along so that they could be photographed for the tapestry. One of the Bosnian women brought a doll that her daughter had been clutching when they escaped through a tunnel out of Sarajevo. Another had a photo album and a third had a small coffee set with a coffee grinder that everyone became excited about. The women – whether they were from Palestine or former Yugoslavia – discovered that they had all used the same kind of grinder. For the last part of the tapestry, which was meant to deal with the women’s arrival in their new country, the artists held a mass discussion. They asked the women what it was that had made the greatest impression on them when they first arrived. Many images emerged: from the asylum centre to kissing couples in the street; from dog toilets to female postal workers; and from half-naked bathers on the beach to beer-drinking Danes in the streets in Helsingør. Kronborg Castle was copied into the centre and became the symbol of their new place in Denmark – Helsingør.2 The tapestry was created following the same principles as the Bayeux piece. It has a wide middle section, and an upper and a lower band. The middle section is made up of the motifs and tableaux of the women’s lives all the way back to their grandparents’ time in the 1930s and 1940s. From right to left is the Palestinian story and from left to right is the story of the women from the former Yugoslavia. These are followed by the historical events that turned these women and their families into refugees. The story ends with their meeting in Helsingør and the start of their new life in Denmark. In the lower band are motifs that supplement the main story but that are inspired by folklore, clothing, traditions and handicrafts. This shows the culture that they brought with them as glimpses of memory from a past life. There are motifs of objects, food and other things that were significant for them such as a wedding march in the village, tools from the field, the coffee set they had managed to bring, or the key of their abandoned house in the village in Palestine. In the centre are the embroiderers’ silhouettes as a form of signature, and in the very centre Queen Margrethe is embroidered. The participants wanted the Queen to be in the tapestry – as one of the women expressed it: “She has a heart for all people”.

2 Similarly to Helsingør we have kept the original name of the castle – Kronborg Castle.

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In the upper band of the tapestry, the women embroidered short sentences that supplement the stories told by the images – just as Bayeux women did. For many of the women, making the tapestry has meant a great deal to their new lives in Denmark. The company associated with it was very important. The women made friends and enjoyed themselves. With their hands employed, concentrating on the embroidery helped to chase away many of their dark thoughts. They told each other stories and their Danish developed throughout the project. Their skills were honed and after two and a half years most of the women had become very capable embroiderers. The unveiling of the Helsingør tapestry took place in the Knights Hall (Riddersalen) at Kronborg Castle with great ceremony. The women handed the tapestry to the town mayor. Their pride was obvious and the great notice and interest the tapestry attracted has been very gratifying for them. Since the unveiling, the tapestry has been displayed in many museums in Denmark. In a special event at Fredriksborgmuseet (Museum of National History Frederiksborg Castle) in Hillerød, the women sat and embroidered in a workshop where visitors could see the whole process from the images and objects to the motifs in the tapestry. The women feel now that they have given something positive to Danish society and have a visible place in its history. Background and context This was a council-run project designed to involve and integrate refugees. It was aimed at creating meaningful, enabling activities for a mixed group of women with diverse backgrounds. The project interested the museum because its leader had previously been in contact with this chapter’s authors who, two years earlier, had started a large documentation project based on gathering the life histories of refugees and immigrants in Denmark (part of the National Museums’ Ethnographic Research – Nationalmuseets Etnologiske Undersøgelser – NEU). In this This was a council-run project designed project, individuals were asked to describe their life histories.

to involve and integrate refugees … In this project, individuals were asked to This research resulted in over 100 personal stories as well as an exhibition at the Helsingør City Museum (Helsingør Bys Museum) that took as its describe their life histories. starting point a number of the Palestinian women’s lives and traditions. It was through this project that contact was made with the project leaders; this in turn led to continued collaboration through the tapestry. We have been able to follow the work on the tapestry throughout one year and it is clear to us that the Danish teacher’s and artist’s engagement and insistence on high standards have been decisive factors. Without them, the work would never have been realised. It is difficult to motivate and

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lead such a mixed group who have so few resources, and there are significant obstacles to completing such a project. The result shows, however, that it is possible. We have also had to acknowledge that these projects have not immediately inspired others. There are quite natural reasons why Danish cultural history museums are less involved. They are obviously aimed at the national cultural heritage and are faced with new and important questions when confronted with the “new Danes”. Should Danes tell the history and stories of the “new Danes”, or should the “new Danes” tell it themselves? Should this be done through the framework of the existing cultural history museums or in special museums for each group of immigrants? What are the consequences in relation to integration and/or the maintenance of ethnic identities? And, finally, to what extent do national museums dealing with Danish history have an obligation to explain Danish history and lifestyles to immigrants so that they gain an understanding of their new country?

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CHAPTER 13

Norwegian Kurdish Virtual Museum: a presentation of stateless heritage Janne Rasmussen Mellingen

Introduction Diaspora opens up a discursive or semiotic space for discussion of many ideas: identification and affiliation, homing desire and homeland nostalgia, exile and displacement, reinvention of cultural traditions, the construction of hybrid identities, cultural memory, the politics of return, and the possibilities of nation-state formation. The focus of this chapter is the formation of a Kurdish diaspora narrative and the interpretation of everyday life presented in the Norwegian and Kurdish Virtual Museum (NKVM). I will first briefly describe the museum project’s background; then continue with a theoretical discussion of Kurdish diaspora narratives and methodological challenges in the documentation of the culture. The intention is to contribute to a broader understanding of the production and reproduction of cultures in exile, and the opportunities that virtual presentation of such culture offers. Establishment of the museum was based on an exploratory research project called the Norwegian and Kurdish Heritage Documentation Project. It started in 2004 as an initiative developed by Associate Professor Haci Akman (Institute for Art History and Cultural Science) and cultural theorist Janne Rasmussen Mellingen, both from the University of Bergen. The Norwegian Cultural Council supported the project, principally because there is no systematic documentation or research concerning Kurdish diaspora heritage in Europe. 1 Schweibenz, Werner (1998) “Virtual museum: New perspectives for museums to present objects and information using the Internet as a knowledge base and communication system”, in Knowledge Management and Systems of Communication? Workflow Management, Multimedia, Knowledge Transfer. Proceedings des 6. Internationalen Symposiums für Informationswissenschaft (ISI ’98) Prague, 3–7 November 1998. Edited by H. H. Zimmermann and V. Schramm (Schriften zur Informationswissenschaft 34). Konstanz: UKV, pp. 185–200.

Virtual museum The collection presented in this chapter consists of paintings, photographs, diagrams, audio recordings, newspaper articles and transcriptions of interviews. Its purpose is to explore aspects of the migration of museum artefacts to the digital domain. The increasing interest in interactive applications and multimedia in museums, archives and libraries was first debated at the International Conference of Hypermedia and Interactivity in Museums in 1991.1 In discussing virtual museums, it is important to distinguish between the artefacts as real physical artefacts represented in a traditional museum context, and artefacts defined as digital. This is also the case with the NKVM, its most important characteristic being its lack of physical connection to a place or geographical territory. In order to locate and document Kurdish heritage in the diaspora it was important to get an overview of Kurdish culture in general, and to generate more knowledge about it in places where Kurds are exiled. The next step for the museum was to document cultural meeting processes between Norwegians and Kurds from a historical perspective. Maurice

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Halbwach has researched the meaning of memories. In his book On Collective Memory, Halbwach argues that a group’s collective memory is an important aspect of identity and belonging.2 In other words, it is important to establish a common identity among those in exile that transcends geographical boundaries. Stateless diaspora communities have achieved this. Kurdish stateless diaspora The stateless diasporas are those dispersed segments of nations that have been unable to establish their own independent state.3 Michael Rodman claims that a community occurs and is expressed through the experience of place.4 Desire for a home and a homeland represent central aspects of diaspora narrative, and the combination of the local and the global. Home, according to Avtar Brah, is defined as a mythical place of desire in the imagination of those in exile.5 Home is also a lived experience of locality. Those who permanently reside in host countries away from their homeland maintain their distinctive identities and connections with their homeland and other dispersed people from the same nation. Diaspora cultures exist as a result of the diffusion of communities throughout the world, often through forced dispersion. They represent and maintain a culture different from those of the countries in which they live, often retaining strong ties to their homeland and their original culture. Some diaspora cultures such as the Jewish, Armenian and Irish are well documented, but there is little documentation on Kurdish diaspora societies. The Norwegian and Kurdish Heritage Documentation Project represents the first systematic documentation of such culture in Europe. The Kurdish identities involved may adapt to changing circumstances, yet they do not lose their core existence.6 It is important to define the condition of “stateless” diaspora.7 Kurdistan is not regarded as a national state by the international community and is therefore regarded to be stateless. The notion of a state without a geographical territory is clearly related to what Benedict Anderson defines as an “imagined community”, a term closely related to the Kurdish diaspora experience.8 In a museum context, one might say that a stateless culture challenges how these cultures are usually presented in institutions. Why a Norwegian and Kurdish Virtual Museum? The use of modern technology to spread knowledge on the Kurds is an important aspect of the virtual presentation. The NKVM emphasised this element by connecting Kurds all over the world, while making Kurdish heritage available through the web. From a theoretical viewpoint, NKVM has important implications for the construction of new and varied “imagined communities” and an expanded understanding of diaspora cultures.9 The virtual museum also provides an opportunity to explore new forms of cultural communication strategies. It has no borders. It does not isolate or separate diaspora communities. It is hoped that the flow of information and exchange of knowledge will create self-respect and a sense of dignity to a people who experience exclusion and cultural and political marginalisation. In the longer term, it might also help the Kurdish identity to survive.

2 Halbwach, Maurice and Coser, Lewis (1992) On collective memory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 3 Sheffer, Gabriel (2003) Diaspora politics: At home and abroad. New York: University of Cambridge Press. 4 Rodman, Margaret (1992) “Empowering place: Multilocality and multivocality”, American Anthropologist 94 (s), pp. 640– 656. 5 Brah, Avtar (1996) Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting identities. Racism, Gender and Ethnicity series. London: Routledge. 6 Mellingen, Janne (2006) Norsk Kurdisk kulturarv dokumentasjonsprosjekt. Fase 2, Bergen: University of Bergen. 7 Sheffer (2003), op. cit. 8 Anderson, Benedict (2006) Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso. 9 Brah (1996), op. cit.

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10 Webb, Jennifer and Schirato, Tony (2004) Understanding visual culture. London: Sage Publications, pp. 13–16. 11 Smith, Anthony D. (1999) Myths and memories of a nation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 12 McDowall, David (2004) A modern history of the Kurds. London: Tauris. 13 Alinia, Minoo (2003) Spaces of diasporas: Kurdish identities Experiences of otherness and the politics of belonging. Gøteborg: Gøteborg Studies in Sociology, No. 22. 14 Westrheim, Kariane (2005) “Cultural identity and oppression through the Kurdish liberation struggle”, in Haci Akman and Ove Stoknes (eds), The cultural heritage of the Kurds. BRIC: Centre of Development Studies, University of Bergen, p. 108. 15 Ibid., p. 114.

Virtual presentations create a shared space that in physical or practical terms is impossible. Central to the question is how space and objects are arranged in the virtual format. Technology is irreducibly social, because people and technological objects together produce everyday life in our century.10 The need for further in-depth studies of diaspora is emphasised in the simultaneous process of globalisation, localisation, nationalism and the weakening of the nation-state and increasing international migration. These developments present new challenges to the survival and revival of ethnic diasporas.11 The NKVM presents Kurdish cultural material documented at museums, archives and libraries in Scandinavian and European countries. Insight into different aspects of diversity, displacement and migration is based on the existence of Kurdish heritage in Kurdistan and in places of exile, but also on the cultural meeting between Kurds and Norwegians in the past and present. The virtual museum enabled the creation of a database that makes Kurdish heritage available independent of geographical limitations. The cataloguing database is intended to be a repository of information. The socio-historical and cultural context What characterises the Kurdish diaspora? Deportation, involuntary migration and forced resettlement of Kurds can be traced back many centuries. Kurdistan is a strategically located region comprising important parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. It lies where the fertile plains meet the Zagros mountains and is crossed by the Sirwan River and the Tigris and its tributaries, the Great Zab and the Little Zab.12 Since the early thirteenth century a large part of the region has been called Kurdistan. But it was not until the sixteenth century that the term “Kurdistan” began to be used.13 Kurdish refugees’ migration to the West began mainly during the 1980s as a consequence of the political situation in Iran, Iraq, Syria and the military coup in Turkey. The political changes in these countries led to an increased aggression towards Kurdish movements and Kurdish identity. As a result, much of the original heritage has today been lost or destroyed or has disappeared. Violent conflicts, deportation and political persecution have been the main causes of Kurdish diaspora. Westrheim argues that in the process of defining Kurdish cultural identity, we have to take these political conditions and historical events into consideration. Another important aspect in the construction of Kurdish identity is the interpretation of place and the collective and individual experience of distance.14 While the connection to place is crucial in understanding the creation of Kurdish diaspora identity, religion has had the same function in the survival and construction of a Jewish identity. This comparison shows differences in the historical experiences of diaspora. According to Westrheim, the Kurdish diaspora identity is expressed through the recreation of what Kurdish migrants consider to be their lost territories. Many Kurds have never been to Kurdistan. Their experiences of “home” are therefore based on their own imagination. An emotional connection to a homeland has enabled Kurds to preserve their identity under difficult circumstances.15 Another aspect of the preservation process is the strong family tie based on tribal society.

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The dispersion of the Kurdish people and the lack of a territory make it difficult to create a continuous dialogue about cultural heritage, monuments and conservation. The lack of cultural consciousness has resulted in a cultural expression that mixes elements from different cultures. It has also been difficult to find professional curating expertise. This has to do with the limited knowledge and lack of tradition in preserving culture under proper conditions. Lack of an institutional framework for preserving and presenting Kurdish heritage has prompted the establishment of this virtual museum.

16 Mellingen (2006), op. cit. 17 Van Bruinessen, Martin (2001) Kurds and identity politics. Library of Modern Middle East Studies 31. London: I. B. Tauris.

Kurdish political and cultural organisations play a vital role in the presentation and preservation of Kurdish heritage. The selection of cultural elements effectively promotes views of different Kurdish interest groups or political parties – the Kurdish Cultural Centre in London, U.K. illustrates this. The founders regard Kurdish language and literature as The founders regard Kurdish language tools in their people’s struggle against the colonialists and occupiers of and literature as tools in their people’s Kurdistan. The centre has also managed to increase awareness and knowledge of Kurdish history, culture and politics in a broader struggle against the colonialists and perspective. But Kurds also need an institutional framework to present occupiers of Kurdistan. their culture from a more objective point of view. In creating a virtual museum it is important to represent all Kurdish organisations so that Kurds from the different states – Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey – can relate to it irrespective of their individual political standpoints. It is also important to embrace the complexity of diaspora in general. The influence of forced migration or deportation from the country of origin and assimilation and integration into the country of settlement makes Kurdish heritage especially vulnerable. My own research on Kurdish identity has shown that even when Kurds have a strong awareness of their identity, some have problems deciding exactly what that identity is. Kurdish migrants’ confusion has resulted in the incorporation of elements from related cultures, or the adoption of those from the Middle East as a whole.16 On the other hand, anthropologist Martin Van Bruinessen notes that Kurdish diaspora has played a significant role in the development of Kurdish consciousness and especially Kurdish nationalism in recent decades. Immigrants who are born or grow up in European communities show an increasing interest in their cultural identity that requires a structured and accurate presentation of their heritage.17 Methodological experiences Documentation on Kurdish heritage has been collected in Scandinavian and European countries where exiles are found. The Norwegian and Kurdish Heritage Documentation Project started in 2004; the second phase in 2007. It includes artefacts, ethnographic films, photographs and audiovisual material reflecting material and non-material aspects of Kurdish heritage. Eight museum curators and 12 private collectors in the U.K., Sweden, Denmark and Norway were contacted via e-mail and later visited. Interviews were also conducted. The research guide contained mainly open-ended questions. The themes were: background information about the curator’s expertise and specialist interest; historical knowledge of Kurdish culture and history; and how the

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18 Kvale, Ståle (2007) Inter Views: An introduction to qualitative research interviewing. London: Sage Publications. 19 Mellingen (2006), op. cit. 20 MacCannel, Dean (1992) Empty meeting grounds: The tourist papers. London: Routledge.

artefacts were organised and preserved. The interviews provided historical information about the collections, the artefacts in particular and the curator’s/collector’s personal views.18 It was important to understand how the artefacts were presented in museums as well as private exhibitions, at the libraries and in archives, and how they were preserved and stored. This is principally because Kurds have no formally established archives, museums or libraries that can store and systemise the artefacts properly. Because of this, they have had no opportunity to develop strategies for preserving and presenting their cultural heritage to the public, although of course the private archives do their best to take care of the artefacts. When documenting diaspora, it is important to establish the authenticity of the artefacts and whether they are representative or not. Most are interwoven with the culture as whole, and carry systems of meaning and values. To fully recognise an object, the observer needs some kind of cultural insight or expertise. Whether an artefact is representative or not is linked to the fact that Kurdistan has been divided into four nation-states. When representing Kurdish culture it is important to consider this. The cultural heritage presented in the NKVM contains artefacts found in countries of exile. The political conditions in Kurdistan make it difficult for immigrants to bring or export material to their host communities. But the availability of artefacts also depends on the cultural consciousness of the Kurds themselves. What cultural knowledge do they have? And how do they define their Kurdish identity?

Research on Kurdish heritage shows that it is primarily Kurdish intellectuals who express concern about preserving Kurdish cultural identity. This might be partly explained by the political and social background the intellectuals have in the Kurdish community. Kurdish intellectuals have characteristically been forced into exile because of their struggle for their Kurdish intellectuals have cultural heritage. In Europe, the dominating Kurdish intellectual elite characteristically been forced into exile consists of Kurds from the northern part of Kurdistan (Turkey). In the because of their struggle for their process of documentation it was therefore easier to collect information from this part of Kurdistan. But then the question of representation must cultural heritage. be discussed. The paradox is that Kurdish culture is best preserved and experienced in countries of exile among Kurdish immigrants representing the middle class and farmers.19 When cultural items are presented in a virtual framework, they become what Dean MacCannel refers to as “frozen images”.20 These can be linked to phenomena such as materialisation and objectification with different connotations, and imaginations of the content of the cultural heritage. In presenting only some aspects of Kurdish culture, there might be a tendency to stereotype others. Existing stereotypes often refer to differences within an ethnic group. To avoid Kurdish diaspora culture being understood in only one specific sense in the NKVM, Kurds themselves were involved in developing the virtual museum.

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Documenting Kurdish diaspora culture The process of documenting Kurdish identity started with the Kurdish television channel MEDTV, located in Brussels. MED-TV had a huge number of historical documentary movies representing Kurdish cultural productions in countries of exile as well as in Kurdistan. These include the history of Kurdish legends, artists, dance, folklore, music, costumes and food traditions. Films showing Kurdish nature and cultural landscapes were also documented. Sections of some of these films will be published at the NKVM.

21 Hassanpour, Amir (1998) “Satellite footprints as national borders: MED-TV and the extraterritoriality of state sovereignty”, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 18(1), pp. 53– 73. 22 Alinia (2003), op. cit. 23 Mellingen (2006), op. cit. 24 Brah (1996), op. cit.

Solidarity and group cohesion are founded on the primordial and cultural elements of collective identities. To ensure the survival, continuity and prosperity of Kurdish diaspora communities, common values and a sense of unity must overcome generational, educational, social and ideological differences and gaps that always exist within communities in exile. Otherwise, the Kurdish diaspora communities will disintegrate and eventually disappear. The communication and media researcher Amir Hassanpour argues that Kurdish media, and especially satellite TV, have played an important role in the creation of a Kurdish cultural identity.21 Through Kurdish media, the idea of a Kurdish imagined community has developed. It has also established a relationship with the audience as members of a Kurdish state. Hassanpour argues that Kurdish diaspora activities and Kurdish satellite TV challenge the boundaries of the politics of the sovereign state governing the Kurds.22 Kurdish literature from the 1970s to the present has also been documented. Sweden has several well-known Kurdish writers and intellectuals. Publications of writers such as Mehmed Uzun, Rohat Alakom, Mehmed Emin Borzarslan and Mehmed Lewendi are well documented in this project. Kurdish publishing houses such as Sara Distribution and Publishing and Apec-Forlag have also published major works by these writers. They also translate well-known Scandinavian books into the two Kurdish dialects, Kurmanji and Sorani. In addition, Kurdish literature has been documented at the Norwegian Deichmanske Library in Oslo. The NKVM collection provides information about Kurdish textiles, ceramics, photos and documentary movies dated as far back as the fourteenth century. The textile collections were mainly from the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Horniman Museum, both in London, which have large collections of Kurdish textiles in the form of costumes, carpets, shoes, jewellery, wall hangings and bags. But they are mostly from the southern part of Kurdistan (northern Iraq). The other parts of Kurdistan are barely represented and there is limited background information on the material that is there.23 The second phase of the project documents the artefacts, costumes, books and photos of the first Kurdish immigrants who came to Norway as refugees in the early 1970s. It is within the confluence of narratives that diaspora communities are differently imagined in different historical circumstances.24 Diaspora identity is far from fixed: it constantly changes. It is important to remember that Kurdish culture is within the materiality of everyday life. In creating a NKVM it has therefore been important to connect Kurdish diaspora experiences with cultural meeting processes – in this case the interaction between Norwegians and Kurds in the past and the present.

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25 Barth, Fredrik (1969) Ethnic group and boundaries: The social organisation of cultural difference. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget i Bergen. 26 Nansen, Fridtjof (1927), op. cit. p. 223. 27 Malmin, Rasmus, Norlie, Olaf M. and Tingelstad, O. A. (1928) Who’s who among pastors in all the Norwegian Lutheran Synods of America, 1843–1927. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House. 28 McDowall (2004), op. cit.

The aim of the project is to create a better understanding of the historical relations between Scandinavian countries and Kurdistan. One of the first documented examples of interaction can be traced back to the Viking age, when the Kurds had commercial relations with Scandinavia. Kurdish Marwandish coins resulting from this activity have been located in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. The NKVM also provides information about the fieldwork of the internationally recognised social anthropologist Fredrik Barth in southern Kurdistan (1953),25 Fridtjof Nansen’s Kurdistan travelogue (1962)26, and the work of the Norwegian missionary, Ludvig Fossum (1879–1920).27 Background information and historical knowledge The first phase was to locate the artefacts. The next was to visit the curators who were responsible for their preservation and presentation. The curators provided information regarding the number of artefacts, but had little to say about their historical background. The curators’ lack of historical knowledge makes systematising the material under the correct categories more problematic. The way the artefacts are organised in the museum catalogues is a problem, because it does not offer sufficient information on what actually exists.

The result seems to be that Kurdish artefacts are categorised under regional, national or religious sections that Kurds are unable or unwilling to identify with. For example, the British Museum categorises Kurdish artefacts under the states within which the Kurdish people are divided: Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, or under the more general category, Mesopotamia. The only Kurdish artefact that appears on a search of COMPASS digital collection is a steel pelican. The text informs us that the pelican comes from Iran, and was made in the nineteenth century ante The Yezidi Kurds are an ancient Christum.The artefact is related to the Yezidi Kurds, but it is also a symbol sect whose unusual traditions have of beauty and pleasure in the Islamic world. The Yezidi Kurds are an unfairly led to their being labelled ancient sect whose unusual traditions have unfairly led to their being devil worshippers. labelled devil worshippers. They worship the “Peacock god” Melek Taus, known more commonly as Lucifer, a fallen angel.28 Because of the reference to the Islamic world, the pelican is categorised as an Islamic and not a Kurdish artefact. The lack of knowledge, structure and suitable surroundings for preserving Kurdish artefacts impedes proper documentation. Another aspect to note here is how some interviewees described the origin of the artefacts from a personal and political point of view. The process of locating the first Kurdish history book, Serefname, by the Kurdish writer Şeref ad-Din Han al-Bitlisi (1543– 1599), printed in the 16th century (1597), illustrates this point. Historical sources claim that the original manuscript was located at the Bodleian Library in the University of Oxford. Later, the manuscript was transferred to the British Museum, and finally to the British Library. But the informant and curator at the British Library Muhammad, Muhammad Isa Waley, stated that the original manuscript had never been kept at these intuitions: “It is doubtful whether the original manuscript of Sharaf Khan’s Sharafnamah also called the ‘Şeref ad-Din Han al-Bitlisi’s Serefname’ exists anywhere. The library has four copies, none of which date from any time close to the author’s lifetime, which is undated but probably early 19th century.”

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He rejected the idea that Serefname also called Sharafnamah has anything to do with Kurdish history. The researcher was told that the manuscripts describe Persian history and the history of the population of the Middle East, and not the Kurds in particular. The example illustrates the strong connection between cultural heritage and politics, and that states legitimise ownership of culture from outside their geographic borders.29 It has been a huge challenge to collect information and get an overview of private Kurdish archives and collections. From 1980 to the present, many Kurdish intellectuals have migrated to European countries. Many have been forced into exile because their works have been regarded as a threat to the authorities. Despite the difficult situation in their homeland, they have continued to develop and preserve Kurdish heritage in their countries of exile by establishing their personal archives. Some of them have even documented the history of their escape and migration to a host community. Because of the vulnerable condition of the Kurdish identity in their homeland, and the fear many of them have faced, it has also been difficult to get access to the material they have collected, principally because their work with and for Kurdish heritage is the main reason that they are in exile in the first place. One major method has therefore been to establish a foundation of trust, and to convince the owners of the relevant material that it will be handled in a proper way, in close co-operation with them.30 Knuts and Ulrika describe ethical problems related to working with personal anecdotes.31 Problems can occur when collecting, archiving and publishing memories if personal anecdotes are involved. In the future, it will therefore be important to work out ethical guidelines regarding the documentation of personal narratives related to exiled Kurds. This study might be regarded as a start to this process. Kurdish diaspora narratives The virtual boundaries that define intra-state and trans-state social, cultural and political spaces are important aspects of the survival of Kurdish identity. Geography Professor Doreen Massey claims that communities can exist without being in the same place. The emotional connection to place is, according to Massey, more important than the physical territorial connection.32 Cohen, on the other hand, notes that diaspora to some degree can be held together or recreated through the mind, through artefacts and shared imagination.33 Visual culture explains broader issues of society and culture. Anthropologists such as Claude Lévi-Strauss make sense of the life, values and organisation of traditional cultures by analysing the sorts of clothes they wear, the shape of the dwellings they build, and the colours, lines and textures of their art.34 Stuart Hall takes a similar approach in analysing contemporary cultures.35 He argues that what counts as beautiful and valuable tells us much about a society’s values. Paul Virilio has turned his attention to digital communication technology, and ways of understanding reality and virtuality.36 The virtual presentation of Kurdish heritage demands a definition of diaspora narratives. The term “narrative” is often understood as “story”, but the more precise translation of narrative is the Latin meaning of the word narrare, which means to relate.37 This understanding connects the term to the meaning of cultural belonging and identification. The story always operates within a social and cultural context; the way we organise the content of a narrative, how we read it and how it is read, is determined by a cultural context.

29 Krabbe, Bobo C (2005) “World heritage”, in Akman and Stoknes, op. cit., p. 88. 30 Mellingen (2006), op. cit. 31 Knuts, Wolf and Ulrika Marander-Eklund, Lena (1995) “Etiska synspunkter i samband med användingen av personanekdoter”, Nord Nytt 60, pp. 39–49. 32 Massey, Doreen (1994) “A global sense of place”, in Doreen Massey Space, Place and Gender. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press. 33 Cohen, Robin (1997) Global diasporas: An introduction. London: UCL Press. 34 Webb and Schirato (2004), op. cit. 35 Hall, Stuart (1997) Representation: Cultural representation and signifying practices. Culture, Identity and Media. London: Sage Publications in Association with the Open University. 36 Virilio, Paul (1994) The vision of machine. London: British Film Institute. 37 Toolan, Michael J. (2001) Narrative: A critical linguistic introduction. London: Routledge.

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The photos documented illustrate this point. A photograph has a narrative potential and a number of narrative features. It implies an event, a tradition and a specific culture identity. If you go deeper into the material, you can relate to other aspects of the picture such as history, location and territorial attachment among other contexts. At the same time, it is important to note that this does not constitute a genuine narrative because the story does not make itself through just existing in a photo. It has to be connected to historical sources. In the case of the NKVM, photographs, illustrations, and in some cases documentary films are followed by texts explaining their context to the virtual audience. Conclusion and future challenges The strong relation exiled Kurds have to their homeland identity is reflected in the artefacts we have documented in the Norwegian and Kurdish Heritage Documentation Project. Symbolic references such as the Kurdish flag, Kurdish national folk costumes, and pictures of Kurdish landscapes, literature and music are important in this regard. Artefacts such as ceramic vases and textiles that can be connected to specific areas in Kurdistan are also representative of Kurdish heritage. The dual relationship with the homeland identity and the host communities gives the migrant an opportunity to choose between different identities in different contexts and not be dependent on geographical borders. The purpose of the NKVM is to be a neutral political and religious museum that is not dependent on a physical institutional framework. It provides an opportunity to reach Kurds without the limits of space and time. A virtual The strong sense of solidarity to the museum also functions as a base for academics to locate Kurdish heritage. Kurds as an ethnic group, based on The strong sense of solidarity to the Kurds as an ethnic group, based on common roots and the idea of a nation, common roots and the idea of a nation, characterises the Kurdish diaspora characterises the Kurdish diaspora identity. Mobilising ethnic identity through the establishment of cultural identity. and political institutions in places of exile is an example of this. Despite this, Kurdish cultural and political organisations cannot be solely responsible for preserving and presenting Kurdish heritage, because they lack the necessary expertise. Another challenge is that different Kurdish political groupings and parties have different views on Kurdish heritage and often see it as a tool to promote their political cultural positions. Cultural heritage plays an important role in exiled communities and can bring the members closer together, even when it is presented in a virtual museum. For the future, it is important to generate knowledge on Kurdish cultural heritage in general, and in particular on how to categorise Kurdish artefacts in museums, libraries and archives. It is vital to support and educate owners of private collections and archives in the process of documentation, conservation and storage. Closer links should also be established between collectors and public museums. This, however, presupposes that a foundation of trust is established between the parties. The museum’s challenges are many, but the most important is related to the limited access Kurds have to Kurdish artefacts in places of exile, and to the general lack of knowledge about Kurdish

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cultural heritage. The material presented in the NKVM mostly consists of Kurdish clothing, objects such as shoes, hats and knives, textiles, publications, documentary films describing aspects of Kurdish culture, and historical sources confirming relations between Kurds and Norwegians in a historical perspective. In the future it will be important to develop educational tools that illustrate different aspects of the Kurdish culture.

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CHAPTER 14

As in a mirror Bente Guro Møller and Hans Philip Einarsen

Can the mirror talk? Can the mirror talk? The mirror can talk! The mirror will look at you every morning, searching, Look at you with a deep, wise eye, – Your own! Greet you with a warm, dark blue eye: Are you pure? Are you true?1 In the Norwegian government report Museum, Diversity, Memory, Meeting Place (Museum, mangfald, mine, møtestad – NOU 1996), museums were called upon to become reflective agents for society, mirrors in which modern society’s diversity is reflected. As knowledgeable and symbolic institutions, museums have an obligation to engage with cultural diversity and to conserve whatever is representative of contemporary times. But in this role it is important to be aware of who is holding the mirror, and at which angle. Even when the aim is to reflect cultural diversity, perhaps our own eyes are the ones that stare back at us. International and national forums have long discussed the new role of museums. At the European Forum Workshop (Committee of Culture and Education) it was defined as follows: “Museums are important as reflectors of cultural diversity. They offer possibilities for emotional experience, cultural understanding and lifelong learning.” Katherine Goodnow has expressed similar ideas, citing curator Margo Neale: 1 Obstfelder, Sigbjørn (1996) Collected poems. Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag. Translated by Bente Møller. 2 Neale, M. (2001) “Future shots in museums of the future”, Humanities Research 8(1), 2001. Canberra: The Journal of the Humanities Research Centre and Centre for Cross-Cultural Research at the Australian National University. Goodnow, K. (2008) Museums, the media and refugees: Stories of crisis, control and compassion. New York and Oxford: Berghahn.

Museums should be sites of negotiation. Places where multiple histories are told by diverse voices, where contradictions are allowed to exist, hard questions are posed, answers are debated and conclusions are forever rubbery … Encounters and people will hopefully remain the keystones of future museums.”2 How is it then in Norwegian museums? Are their new roles being realised? So far, few if any have worked continuously with multicultural dissemination in Norway. But some things have happened in the last ten to 12 years: all Norwegian museums have been asked to include multicultural society in their activities. This has led to the production of exhibitions and projects that reflect the diversity around us, but most of the activities are, unfortunately, temporary. The one exception is the International Cultural Centre and Museum (IKM).

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The idea of establishing IKM was formed and developed at the end of the 1980s by Bente Guro Møller. At that time, virtually no Norwegian cultural institution visibly acknowledged the fact that Norway’s population was changing. Møller’s vision was to establish a museum and a cultural centre that could attend to Norway’s newer multicultural history and be an arena for art, traditions and other cultural expressions that arrived in the country with the various groups of people. The goal was (and is) to promote respect and understanding of cultural diversity, and the idea became a reality. IKM documents, researches and disseminates material that highlights immigration history and cultural change in Norwegian society by producing exhibitions and carrying out activities and seminars on various perspectives of immigration history. Both the staff and the board of IKM reflect the population’s diversity. In 2006, IKM was voted the Museum of the Year. The prize was awarded by Member of Parliament Ågot Valle. The jury was impressed by the emphasis IKM put on making and maintaining contact between the museum and minority groups as well as its ability to take up complicated and taboo themes. Furthermore, the jury argued that:

The façade of IKM. Photo: IKM.

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The museum has been a pioneer and an agent that has opened Norwegian art and cultural spheres for many, by including often less-well-known contributions by artists from other countries and artists from minorities that live here, and thereby contributed to a freer movement of expression across national borders. This is incredibly important at the moment. Invisible cultural heritage IKM did not begin, like most museums, with a collection of objects, but with a collection of ideas. It saw the part of the population that came to Norway with little material baggage as its primary responsibility in terms of museological activity. But these people did bring an important ballast of memories and non-material cultural heritage, and this was the starting point for the IKM’s work. Cultural heritage can be defined as something that creates meaning; a stability between the past and the now, and between the individual and the collective. Cultural heritage ties people together. By emphasising these social sides of the term we understand that the immigrant population brings with it a very meaningful non-material cultural heritage that participates in creating new cultural patterns in Norway. For many within the minority population, their only ties to the past are memories, knowledge, some pictures and a commonality with those who share their memories. Sound, music, dance, language, ceremonies, traditions, history are therefore an important part of cultural heritage. For some new arrivals, acoustic memories and dance steps are amongst the few cultural memories they have with them. Museum reform and the role of museums As a result of the recent Norwegian museum reform, IKM fused with Oslo City Museum and the Theatre Museum and created Oslo Museum (OM). The amalgamation took place in 2006. In the same year, IKM was asked by the Norwegian Archive, Library and Museum Authority to establish and lead the National Museums Network for minorities and cultural diversity. There are approximately 20 museums from all over Norway in the network, and we are working to strengthen documentation, research and dissemination of cultural diversity in the Norwegian museum landscape in general and in museums within this network in particular. There have been discussions about the extent to which IKM should remain a small, special museum with a focus on pluralism and thereby stay out of the reform and amalgamations. Some felt that it was time to integrate multicultural perspectives into a larger museum with a broader area of impact. IKM chose to become part of a large community and participate in the creation of a museum with increased focus in reflecting cultural diversity. Time will tell whether this was the right choice, but so far results look promising. We will, however, need specialist institutions that work to promote minority cultures in Norway for a long time to come.

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Cultural institutions should by now be well aware that the Norwegian population is in constant change, and that they should include minorities as a self-evident part of their activities. Multiculturalism is a normal condition in a modern society, not an exception. Just as museums 100 years ago participated in defining the nation, museums today must redefine it. In the end, multiculturalism is about relations between people, about “us” and “the others”, about majority and minority, and whom we choose to include and whom we exclude. How are we holding the mirror? Fighting for a more nuanced representation of multicultural society is at the core of the IKM’s work. In school programmes, dialogues with the students are the focus. Almost all the themes discussed in the exhibitions deal with coexistence and cultural diversity and relate directly to the schoolchildren’s everyday lives. It is therefore not difficult to prompt students to discuss the exhibitions. We often call the tours reality checks. What is an immigrant? What are our perceptions of immigrants? Who creates these perceptions? It is about categorisation, our need for system and regulation and to place people amongst “us” or “the others”. When we work towards changing attitudes, it is important to talk to the whole person, not just their rationality. The concepts of “art” (kunst) and “knowledge” (kunnskap) both have their origins in the verb “to be” (å kunne). Art opens cognitive rooms in us other than those opened by theoretical knowledge. That is why we always have art exhibitions in addition to cultural history exhibitions. Have we managed to give a nuanced presentation of a complex theme? One of our earliest exhibitions, Similarities in the Differences (1994), focused on “rites of passage”. The production was a collaboration between Oslo City Museum, the Cultural History Museum, the University of Oslo and IKM. The intention behind the exhibition was to get to know minority youth in Norway and their transitional rituals from child to adult. Female circumcision was excluded because it would draw the focus away from the intention of the exhibition. Was it right to The goal of this exhibition was not only do that?

to focus on rituals but also to highlight Ten years later, in 2004, we mounted the latest exhibition about rites of the various conditions under which new passage: The Beginning of Life, Personal Stories from Multicultural Norway. lives in contemporary Norway are Female circumcision was mentioned in the exhibition labels, and the begun. catalogue carried an article about the practice. Other themes were also raised, such as infertility and Pakistani-Norwegian mothers with disabled children. The goal of this exhibition was not only to focus on rituals but also to highlight the various conditions under which new lives in contemporary Norway are begun. The Right to an Adequate Life in 2001 was a project run in co-operation with members of the Somali community group in Oslo. Girls and boys, women and men participated in theatre workshops. They wanted to address a tradition that they felt was inhuman. The point was to engage members of their own and the larger Norwegian community in the debate about female

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circumcision. The result was a video based on interviews and other documentation. It was included in an education programme about circumcision and we received a lot of positive feedback. During the project several journalists wanted to write about the workshops in the media. Many of the participants, however, were hesitant to speak out publicly and we decided to say no to the press. As a result there was no press coverage, but we gained the Somali community’s trust.

From World Children’s Day at IKM. Zhazad Ghufor photographs young Bollywood princesses in the exhibition Bollywood Posters.

In 2002 a Turkish psychologist, an Eritrean photographer and a former psychiatric patient cooperated with IKM in producing an exhibition focusing on the experience of refugees and immigrants within the mental health care system. The name of the exhibition was The Hidden Pain. Evrim was a former political refugee from Turkey. By using her own name in the exhibition she wanted to show that she was not ashamed of her story. IKM was professionally responsible for the exhibition and advised her to retain her anonymity to protect her privacy. But Evrim insisted, and her therapist supported her and explained that this was an important part of her recovery process. Even though we still have doubts about this decision, The Hidden Pain was a very beautiful and touching exhibition. This is only an illustration of the many ethical dilemmas we have to deal with.

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Who holds the mirror? An unexpected problem in working with multiculturalism is how many voices one minority has. How do we decide which voice to present? And how do we decide what sort of items to collect? Norwegian visual artist Tone Hansen commented in 2006, “Ethnic white people rule the culture”.3 Usually it is the Norwegian majority that holds up the mirror while presenting the minority story. Even though people with minority backgrounds were involved not only as participants but also as employees, there were no guarantees that we would be able to express the nuances of the story. Norwegian staff members have their political, religious and cultural prejudices and so do refugees and immigrants. This is a typical human condition. Different groups have opposing interests and thus different stories to tell. It is worth passing the mirror around and repeatedly returning to the same themes. The museum can thus be an arena where people gather to investigate common issues. Dialogue, research and the ability to be self-critical are key in museums’ approaches to multiculturalism. One way of describing dialogue was formulated by the religious scientist Ann Hege Grung, who has long worked with Muslims and Christians in Oslo. Grung says: Dialogue should be a meeting of partners as equal as possible. You do not take part in order to change the other, but in order to participate in a possible mutual change. To be in a dialogue means to expose yourself, to tell who you are. If you stay at too much of a distance, you avoid vulnerability. Then it may almost turn into a demonstration of power. To discover our own vulnerability can be threatening, but at the same time it gives us a new strength based on humble understanding of possibilities and limits. In order to participate in a dialogue as described by Ms Grung, there are many conditions that have yet to be met, politically, economically and culturally in society – and in museums. Museums could provide a space for that type of dialogue, but we still have a long way to go. Museums have power to define what is important to expose from the past, and what is important to save for the future. Museums hold up mirrors. If we fail to include cultural diversity, we are not faithful to reality, and we will reflect a false image in our mirror. .

3 In Aftenposten, April 2006

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CHAPTER 15

The Multicultural Centre, Botkyrka, Sweden Leif Magnusson

The Multicultural Centre was founded in 1987 by the municipality of Botkyrka in response to immigration and changing demographics. The activities of the centre revolve around the cultural processes of interaction and change. The mission statement reads:

The Multicultural Centre is a forum for research and for exchanging knowledge and experiences on migration as well as social and cultural diversity. We are writing contemporary history not only for future reference but also to better understand the present. The Multicultural Centre strives to incorporate phenomena related to migration into the national heritage. Our guiding principles are that no one should feel forced to deny, suppress or deprecate his or her own culture or identity to participate in society. The Multicultural Centre is situated in Botkyrka, in the greater Stockholm region. This formerly prosperous, semi-industrial, semi-agricultural community experienced a major demographic change in the early 1970s as a result of housing units for 35 000 people being built within only a few years. As well as experiencing a rise in population figures, Botkyrka has also become the Swedish municipality with the highest percentage of immigrants. The centre is symbolically situated. It is housed in Fittja gård, an early nineteenth-century mansion with a highway cutting across the courtyard that once constituted the link between the Swedish capital and the outer world. None of the original buildings, however, was suited to the centre’s contemporary mission of becoming a public arena, an open institution for exchange and interaction. In 2003 a new building was inaugurated, containing an exhibition hall, a gallery, a library, an auditorium and a restaurant. This new base for interacting with the general public meant a leap forward for the outreach activities of the centre. Exhibitions that investigate contemporary society The Multicultural Centre regularly uses cultural activities to achieve its purpose. The focus of the exhibition programme started in 2003 is on broad cultural themes, art and contemporary issues. Let me give some examples. “Blood”, “Hair”, “Death” and “Taste” – these four keywords have all been the points of departure for exhibitions. Blood and Other Ties, for instance, explored the conditions of our lives as humans. Starting from John Donne’s concept that “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the whole”, we explored the body, our interdependence in everyday life

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“around the kitchen table,” as well as our understanding of concepts like “people” and “nations”. The other major exhibitions, Feeling(s) for Hair, Then What? An Exhibition on Death, and Taste (on what one “should” think about taste, what is good or bad taste etc.), have all been built on the same fundamental concept. They all start with shared, and in this sense trivial, topics or issues. From there we have been able to explore the depth of each topic within dimensions of continuity and change, unity and variation. We have also been able to expand on the possible subdivisions that arise when one adds the dimensions of time, culture and tradition. Independently of the concrete topics, all exhibits aim at discussing humans as social and cultural beings. Throughout the different activities that the centre has engaged in, there has been an overarching ambition to break away from all kinds of simple divisions, between “us” and “them” or between the “normal” and the “exemption”. We feel an urgent need to merge traditional studies of the majority population, on the one hand, and different minorities, on the other, studies on “mainstream” and “exceptional” issues as isolated from one another. We try to address and help change the current trend of focus on immigrants and their children only, overlooking or downplaying the role of the majority population in the processes of interaction and integration. The risk of demonising “the

From the exhibition about death, Än sen då? En utställning om döden (“Then what? An exhibition on death”) at the Multicultural Centre. Photo: Andrzej Markiewicz.

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other” is evident when such a perspective is allowed to prevail. There is an increasing need to examine and test the cornerstones and interpretations of different cultural systems at the everyday level, and the centre contributes to this through exhibitions and texts that enable reflection in greater depth. The different themes highlight social and cultural limits, the crossing of those limits and changes in contemporary Sweden. Co-operation with Riksutställningar (Swedish Travelling Exhibitions) made it possible to take the exhibition Blood on tour to several places around the country. The Taste project was carried out with Malmö Museums. Both exhibitions have also been shown at other museums in Sweden. First Generation by Esther Shalev-Gerz In 2002, the centre started co-operating with Esther Shalev-Gerz, a Lithuanian-born artist living in Paris. Shalev-Gerz invited foreigners and Swedes who moved to Botkyrka to reflect about their identity within multiple cultural references. Thirty-four local people agreed to contribute to the project and were filmed responding to a series of questions posed by the artist in relation to the process of migration, and their arrival in Botkyrka: What did you lose? What did you find? What did you gain? What did you contribute? First Generation is now a permanent artwork at the Multicultural Centre. It is visible both inside the building and from the outside – projected on the glass façade that attracts visitors during the dark winter months (see cover of this volume). It has contributed greatly to the centre’s mission to spread awareness that facilitates self-comprehension and insight; this in turn can help us understand other people’s frames of reference. The video installation highlights how the world is becoming increasingly interwoven through migration and how people of all ethnic backgrounds have become part of a historic new social pattern. During the Swedish Year of Cultural Diversity in 2006, the installation went on an international tour to Kazan (Russia), Dublin, Paris and Brussels. An art book has been produced for the tour that analyses and discusses the video installation, putting it into a local and an international context. In the book, the participants’ voices are translated into Russian, English, French and German. The gallery In addition to exhibitions, the centre runs a gallery that focuses on contemporary issues. Since 2003, 25 exhibitions have been produced in the fields of art, cultural-historical reflection and children’s comments on the broad themes that are communicated within the exhibition programme.

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The art gallery has caught the attention of many different kinds of people, from regional artists interested in aspects of migration and contemporary debate on culture, to international artists moving in a similar direction. The centre aims to be a part of the art scene whenever possible by producing works that can further the discussion around a subject or awaken interest and involvement in the furthering of knowledge. The cultural-historical reflection has dealt with ageing, racism, the history of migration, cricket, graffiti, and how and why different holidays and special occasions are celebrated in Sweden. Several of the exhibitions have received considerable attention. At the end of the gallery is an artistic installation by the artist Petter Hellsing. The work invites get-togethers around a sofa that is embroidered with motifs from the local area and a collage that stimulates speculation regarding its provenance. The centre attempts to enter the continuing discussion about Botkyrka and Sweden as multicultural societies, but is primarily a site for exhibitions and for research and documentation. The centre and its staff have been involved in a number of government investigations and evaluations, such as those concerning the Metropolitan development programme and multiculturalism and integration policies. The research carried out at the centre has been broadly concerned with asking how society is influenced by migration. It is based on the idea that a “multicultural society” is something more than just “people from different cultures”. Immigration affects us all, directly or indirectly. How should Sweden change, given the needs and opportunities created by social and cultural diversity?

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Section III . Nation and heritage

Gol Stave church, situated at the border of Norsk Folkemuseum, was originally a part of King Oscar’s collections, a small open-air museum created in the 1880s. After Norway’s separation from Sweden, the royal collection was incorporated in Norsk Folkemuseum. Photo: Norsk Folkemuseum

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CHAPTER 16

Cultural heritage, cultural diversity and museums in Sweden: some critical reflections Barbro Klein

We are in the midst of a global “cult of heritage”, asserts English geographer, historian and professor of Heritage Studies, David Lowenthal.1 It is easy to agree. Cultural heritage (or simply, heritage) and its many equivalents or near equivalents, such as kulturarv (Swedish, Danish, Norwegian), menningararfur (Icelandic), kultuurinperintö (Finnish), erbgut (German), patrimoine and héritage culturel (French), turath (Arabic), and the recent Chinese coinage wenhua yichan, are becoming increasingly important in cultural politics the world over. We can, furthermore, observe that this cult is increasing at the same time as people and ideas circulate around the world at an unprecedented pace, as many countries are receiving more refugees and migrants than ever before, as more and more minorities and indigenous peoples are vying for self-determination, and as tourism has become a worldleading industry.

Why is a cult of heritage taking place now and why did it not happen earlier in history in a similar manner? What meanings and ideological charges are embedded in, or surround, the concept of cultural heritage? What is the relationship between cultural heritage and other ideas, phenomena and conceptualisations pertaining to diversity in museums? By posing questions in this manner, I am signalling that, to some extent, this article is influenced by conceptual history in the spirit of Reinhart Koselleck.2 But ultimately, of course, it concerns cultural politics and museums. Let me mention three points of departure. The first is the expression “cultural heritage” itself. I use it about phenomena that are actively and consciously selected in a given now, phenomena that are regarded as so important that they must be preserved and protected in order to be exhibited and used as pedagogical examples to contemporaries and future generations.3 It can be said that phenomena selected as cultural heritage are or become new modes of “cultural production in the present”, modes that have “recourse to the past”.4 The second point is that, to a great extent (if not exclusively), my text is concerned with Sweden, a country whose inhabitants, half a century ago, regarded themselves as extraordinarily homogeneous, culturally, linguistically and religiously but who cannot maintain such a self-image today (if they ever could), when almost one-quarter of the nine million inhabitants are either born abroad or are sons and daughters of people who were born outside Sweden. The third point is that I give some (but not exclusive) priority to certain kinds of cultural heritage, namely phenomena that are more or less clearly linked to that which can be called “the folklife sphere”.5 Included in this sphere are, for example, folklife museums, various “folk” disciplines, such

1 Lowenthal, D. (1998) The heritage crusade and the spoils of history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parts of this article were presented as a lecture to the Nordic seminar on “Pluralistisk kulturarv og museum” in Bergen, Norway, 4–5 December 2006. Also, in this article I develop further some of the ideas I take up in “Cultural heritage, the Swedish folklife sphere, and the others” (2006), which appeared in Cultural Analysis 5 and is available at: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/c aforum/preview/volume5/vol5 _article3.html. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from Swedish are by the author. 2 Koselleck, R. (2002) The practice of conceptual history: Timing history, spacing concepts, translated by T. S. Presner et al. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 3 Klein, B. (1997) ”Tillhörighet och utanförskap: Om kulturarvspolitik och folklivsforskning i en multietnisk värld”, Rig (1–2), pp. 15–32. 4 Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, B. (1998) Destination culture: Tourism, museums, and heritage. Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 149. 5 Klein, B. (2000) “Foreigners, foreignness, and the Swedish folklife sphere”, Ethnologia Scandinavica 30, pp. 5–23.

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6 It should be emphasised that, contrary to a commonly held belief, the Nordic Museum did not initially strive to show that Sweden was extremely homogeneous culturally. On the contrary, the ambition was to point to the cultural variations inside Sweden and to demonstrate that Swedes were one people despite regional and local differences. However, during the first half of the twentieth century, the museum contributed to establishing an increasing sense of cultural homogeneity in Sweden. By the 1950s, this sense was particularly well entrenched. 7 However, Richard Pettersson notes that art historian and leading antiquarian Sigurd Curman (1879–1966) occasionally used kulturarv in a way that resembles today’s usage. See Pettersson, R. (2001) Fädernesland och framtidsland: Sigurd Curman och kulturminnesvårdens etablering. Umeå: Umeå universitet. 8 Statens offentliga utredningar SOU: 51 (1994) Minne och bildning: Museernas uppdrag och organisation. Stockholm: Norstedts. The title of this document can be translated as: “Memory and education: the mandate and organisation of museums”. 9 Ibid., pp. 97–99. See also, Bohman, S. (1997) Historia, museer och nationalism. Stockholm: Carlssons, p. 40.

as folkloristics, folklife research, ethnology and ethnomusicology, as well as a number of other activities and phenomena, such as the homecraft, folk dance and folk music movements. Since the late nineteenth century, scholars and laypersons involved in these movements and disciplines have taken a special interest in the lives of the “folk” (variously interpreted as peasants, workers or “most people”). They have exhibited and presented the cultural artefacts and other cultural productions of the “folk” in a bourgeois public sphere, where these artefacts and productions have been evaluated, studied and changed to suit urban or cosmopolitan audiences and consumers. It is well known that the folklife sphere has played a particularly important role in the Nordic countries not least in forming the notion that each one of these nations is utterly homogeneous culturally. In this respect, the Nordic Museum played a particularly important role ever since its founding in the 1870s.6 Heritage ascendant Let me now turn to the history of the word kulturarv, i.e. the Swedish equivalent of cultural heritage, especially as it related to the Swedish folklife sphere. The first thing to note is that scholars and curators involved in this sphere hardly ever used the word at all, neither during the nineteenth century nor during the greater part of the twentieth century – and this in spite of the fact that the word as such can be traced to the 1870s. If, on occasion, kulturarv was used it was not at all marked; it was more or less synonymous with “tradition” or “reminiscence” or “inheritance”.7 Even as late as the 1970s and the 1980s, kulturarv was used only occasionally and, if so, primarily about antiquities. For example, kulturarv is not included in the first edition of the new Swedish comprehensive national encyclopaedia (Nationalencyklopedin) launched in 1993, although the word kulturmiljö (cultural environment) is. Then, all of sudden, during the middle of the 1990s, kulturarv seemed to be everywhere, inside and outside the folklife sphere, in rural communities as well as in the government and the parliament. What had happened? What is the explanation? Of course, one impulse was the English-language usage of “(cultural) heritage”, a usage which began with UNESCO’s heritage initiatives after the Second World War and which increased in English-speaking countries during the 1970s and 1980s, not least in conjunction with the creation of World Heritage Sites. Other contributing factors were most likely the “National Heritage Act” which came about in 1983 under Margaret Thatcher’s leadership, as well as the “Heritage Foundation” during Ronald Reagan’s presidential period. But these suggestions do not explain the speedy dissemination and acceptance of kulturarv in Sweden. Rather, of major importance to making the word known among Swedish museum employees was its appearance as a (fuzzily defined) key term in the final report of the official governmental museum inquiry from 1994.8 Here we can read that the most important role of museums is to “undertake a national rescue action on behalf of the cultural heritage” and to prevent “moths and mice” from shaping “our memories”.9 Soon thereafter, the Swedish “heritage sphere” grew with record speed. The word kulturarv was everywhere and it was used about all kinds of phenomena regarded worthy of preservation and protection: great literature, Bronze Age finds,

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royal castles, natural landscapes, the historic book collections in the libraries, children’s rhymes, twentieth-century industrial landscapes, suburbs built in the 1970s, the folklore archives, Swedish jazz. Many unexpected phenomena were now declared cultural heritage. At this time, museum employees also began taking for granted that the word kulturarv describes what they had been doing all along. Indeed, many took it for granted that the word had “always” been a part of their vocabulary. Conceptual debates did not materialise. Not least employees at cultural historical or folklife museums seem to have seen it as self-evident that they work to discover, select, protect, preserve and exhibit the Swedish kulturarv and that they do so in order to serve democracy. By the middle of the 1990s, kulturarv was also readily appropriated by members of the government and the parliament to describe some of the most positive and morally praiseworthy forms of social action in a democratic society.10 In Sweden, as well as elsewhere, many officials now spoke about kulturarv in terms of human rights and sustainable development. Swedes began taking it for granted that all human beings have a right to their own cultural heritage. But no critical debate emerged. Also other things happened in the late 1990s. In 1998, the Riksantikvarieämbetet (which was founded in the 1600s) changed the official translation into English of its designation from the Central Board of National Antiquities to the National Heritage Board. Somewhat later, a professorship in the new discipline of kulturarvsvetenskap (Heritage Studies) was instituted at Linköping University, in some respects following a British model. In addition, a number of more or less formalised institutes and programmes in Heritage Studies were being planned.11 Lately, some of the planning seems to have slowed down. But regardless of the details in the history of the Swedish appropriation of the term kulturarv, the question remains: why did the word (and its equivalents in other languages) and the phenomena it covers became so attractive around the globe at the end of the 1900s and why have they continued being attractive? Why not earlier in history? The explanations are legion;12 some of them have already been touched upon. Allow me, however, to further elaborate upon some of them. One oft-mentioned factor is the intensified interest in history, collective memories and “roots”, an interest that has different ideological parameters in different parts of the world.13 But referring to an interest in history and “roots” is of course not really an explanation and can, in its turn, be linked to other factors, such as the catalogue of ills of late modernity. In an era of seemingly incessant destruction of past ways of life, an era of increasingly speedy mobility of human beings and ideas across the earth, an era of global greed in which nature and culture are targets of endless exploitation, efforts to preserve the natural and cultural heritage are seen as moral imperatives. To be engaged in the preservation of nature and culture is a form of political action necessary to protect life in the future. In that sense, cultural heritage and heritage making stand for something normative and binding. Such qualities can also be detected in UNESCO’s understanding of heritage, in both its tangible and intangible forms. But the normative aspects are difficult to handle and must be reflected upon and debated – and that has not always been the case. Is the preservation and

10 According to a frequently repeated rumour, kulturarv was the word politicians used most often when, at the end of the 1990s, they wished to point to truly positive and uncontroversial forms of action. Many seem to have found it self-evident that all parties could agree on the need to preserve kulturarv. 11 See various contributions to Bolin, H (ed) (2001) Kulturarvsvetenskap – utbildningar och sektorsbehov. Stockholm: Riksantikvarieämbetet. 12 See, for example, Lowenthal (1998), op. cit. See also, Bendix, R. (2000) “Heredity, hybridity, and heritage from one fin de siècle to the next”, in P. Anttonen et al. (eds), Folklore, heritage politics and ethnic diversity: A festschrift for Barbro Klein. Botkyrka: Multicultural Centre, pp. 37–56. 13 For discussions of these issues in the context of the contemporary folklife sphere in the Nordic countries, see different articles printed in Eriksen, A., Garnert, J. and Selberg, T. (eds) (2002) Historien inpå livet: diskussioner om kulturarv och minnespolitik. Lund: Nordic Academic Press.

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14 Even if these issues have not yet really been discussed in Swedish museum circles, there is now a broad international debate concerning them. See, in particular, Hafstein, V. (2004) “The making of intangible cultural heritage: Tradition and authenticity, community and humanity”, Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley. See also, Brown, M. (2004) “Heritage as property”, in K. Verdery and C. Humphrey (eds) (2004) Property in question: Value transformation in the global economy. Oxford: Berg, pp. 49–68. Recently, some of the difficult issues have been touched upon in Turtinen, J. (2006) Världsarvets villkor: Intressen, förhandlingar och bruk i internationell politik. Stockholm: Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis. 15 Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (1998), op. cit., pp. 145–149. 16 I wish to thank sinologist Marina Svensson for sharing with me her knowledge of heritage issues in China and for letting me read her unpublished manuscript, “Cultural heritage politics in China: Cultural, legal, and political contestations and representations of the past”. 17 This issue is touched upon several times in Hafstein (2004), op. cit. 18 Statens offentliga utredningar SOU: 51 (1994), op. cit., p. 97. 19 Högdahl, E. (2004) Kritisk kulturarvsforskning – diskussionsunderlag. Stockholm: Riksantikvarieämbetet. See also, Högdahl, E. and Svensson, T. (2004) “Kritisk kulturarvsforskning, utmaningar och möjligheter” (unpublished letter).

protection of a cultural heritage always morally good and valuable? Could it also be a liability? Is it a human right to “have” or “possess” a cultural heritage and, if so, how and in what contexts?14 Other explanations for the attractiveness of cultural heritage (both as concept and as phenomenon) are economic. And a central economic factor is, of course, tourism. Many of the forms and practices of cultural heritage that are regarded as the most valuable would not survive without tourism, which is now one of the world’s most profitable industries. Heritage preservation and tourism are intimately dependent upon each other, not least through the creation of that which Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett calls “high density” heritage geographies in the form of museum rows, echo museums, world heritage sites, and nature and culture reserves.15 These are growing with explosive speed in some parts of the world. In the liberal market economies of our time a symbiosis has developed between heritage preservation, the search for cultural roots, entertainment, and profit. Such a symbiosis was beginning to take shape among such early museum enthusiasts as Artur Hazelius who founded the Nordic Museum. But today, it has assumed proportions that he and his contemporaries could not have imagined. China, for example, is now involved in formulating broadly encompassing laws for cultural heritage tourism on a gigantic scale.16 Both here and elsewhere in the world cultural heritage and heritage tourism are now highlighted as major ways to improve the economic development of various regions. Indeed, heritage discussions are often soaked in a marketing language that to a great extent also is used in the marketing of museums. To select cultural heritage is a way to use the past to create income and profit for the present and future. At the same time, cultural heritage becomes something valuable that can be placed in a compartment of its own where it does not disturb contemporary daily life as a whole.17 Heritage and the new ethnic diversity in Sweden There are thus many attempts to explain the reasons for the current global “cult of heritage”. But (and now I return to Sweden), what about cultural heritage and the cult of it in relationship to that which in Sweden is often referred to as “the new ethnic diversity”? In this context, it is noteworthy that nothing is said in the above-mentioned official museum report from 199418 with regards to how the rescue of cultural heritage is to be understood in relationship to the complex multi-ethnicity in Sweden during the mid-1990s. Most likely, the authors of the report had little to say. Neither museums nor scholars had devoted much energy to this issue: up to this time, most of the research concerning immigration and diversity had (perhaps understandably) been devoted to schools, housing, employment and health care, and not to traditions and cultural heritage, which were sometimes called “culture’s Sunday varnish” (kulturens söndagsfernissa). The 1994 report was soon criticised for its many omissions, and issues pertaining to heritage in relationship to cultural diversity were introduced in many contexts. In 1995, all museums, as well as all other public institutions, were given an official “diversity mandate” (mångfaldsuppdrag) according to which they were obliged to take into consideration in all their activities that Sweden had now become multicultural.19 Thus both “cultural heritage” and “diversity mandate” made their first appearance in official and state publications during the very same period: the middle of the 1990s. And this is of course

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entirely logical. Given the discussions about cultural heritage in terms of human rights and sustainable development, and given the emphasis on the idea that all human beings have a right to their own cultural heritage, it had to be acknowledged that cultural heritage and diversity are linked together. It became necessary to admit that cultural heritages exist in the plural and that many heritages can and must coexist within one and the same social order.20 But how were the museums to do this practically? How were they to act, considering the idea of a basic national cultural homogeneity with which they had lived for so long and considering the fact that, like the Nordic Museum, many museums had so actively participated in creating a national repertoire of symbols (in the form of such phenomena as Lucia celebrations and dalahorses), a repertoire which had become emotionally important to many Swedes and also become marketable to tourists and other visitors? How were the museums to act, considering the lack of research concerning the cultural expressions of the new multicultural Sweden? The complex questions that had arisen in connection with the “diversity mandate” were debated in a number of conferences and seminars, not least in conjunction with the planning of a new museum of world culture in Göteborg. In the debates many commentators raised the idea that museums must help to counteract xenophobia and racism.21 The debates led to the initiation of research programmes. Thus, for a few years, the National Heritage Board, in co-operation with interested parties within Swedish industry, directed a state-supported programme entitled Agenda kulturarv.22 A main idea of the (now concluded) programme was to inspire Swedish museums to take an interest in different kinds of cultural heritage and heritage making in a new, pluralistic Sweden. Folklife scholars or ethnologists played an important role within Agenda kulturarv; one of the main architects of the programme was the ethnologist Karin Lindvall. However, one thing that occurred within Agenda kulturarv at an early stage was that the idea of “cultural diversity” expanded. It soon came to encompass not only ethnic diversity but also diversity in terms of gender, sexual orientation, age, social class, physical handicap, regional belonging, and so on. “Cultural heritage is diversity!” became a slogan for Agenda kulturarv and for activities in the wake of the programme.23 In other words, a very broad and indistinct idea of “cultural diversity” and an equally broad and indistinct conceptualisation of “cultural heritage” speedily and at one and the same time came to influence the shaping of the official Swedish “diversity mandate”. “The great societal responsibility with regards to history and cultural heritage is to guarantee diversity and richness, knowledge and depth, holism and broadmindedness,” writes Karin Lindvall.24 This is but one of many examples of muddy formulations of the current political goals with respect to cultural heritage and cultural diversity. Cultural diversity and Swedish museums at the onset of the twenty-first century Nevertheless, the programme Agenda kulturarv was rather successful, not least because it helped dispel the unease with the new diversities that many people working in museums and related institutions experienced before the late 1990s. Now museum employees often emphasise that their

20 The issues involved are extremely complicated, of course. For example, one consequence is that, theoretically, each individual can select his or her own cultural heritage. 21 Lundström, I. and Pilvesmaa, M. (1996) Kunskap som kraft. Handlingsprogram för hur museerna med sitt arbete kan motverka främlingsfientlighet och rasism. Stockholm: Statens historiska museum. See also, Rogestam, C. (1999) “Det nya världskulturmuseet”, in A. Alzén, and M. Hillström, Kulturarvet, museerna och forskningen. Stockholm: Gidlunds, pp. 238–246. 22 Lindvall, K. and Johansen, B. (eds) (2003) Agenda kulturarv – inspiration, diskussion. Stockholm: Riksantikvarieämbetet. 23 For example, in 2004, Riksantikvarieämbetet (the National Heritage Board) distributed the following text: “Kulturarv är mångfald! Fördjupad omvärldsanalys för kulturmiljöområdet”. 24 Lindvall, K. (2003) “Mot en ny kulturarvsideologi”, in Lindvall and Johansen (2003), op. cit., p. 16.

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25 During a seminar in Bergen in 2006, it became clear that topics similar to those suggested here have been taken up more often in Norwegian museums than in Swedish ones, primarily by Bente Guro Møller and her colleagues at Internasjonalt Museum og Kultursenter in Oslo. 26 Klein, B. (2001) “More Swedish than in Sweden, more Iranian than in Iran: Folklore and world migrations”, in B. Sundin (ed), Upholders of culture past and present. Stockholm: The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA), pp. 73–78.

task is to help ensure diversity and integration. At the same time, the new heritage ideology has been sharply criticised. Several archaeologists, for example, think that it is opportunistic and shortsighted, not least because classical archaeological projects have been forced to premature conclusion in order to make funds and space available for new diversity projects. Another criticism (which has not been expressed quite as clearly) is that the new ideology has made ethnic diversity disappear into a broad spectrum of diversities. Indeed, sometimes it seems to be simpler for the heritage sector to work with all kinds of other diversity issues than those linked to ethnic differences. Perhaps this indicates that in contemporary Sweden questions of ethnicity are far more controversial than those linked to gender, sexuality, age and class. Indeed, despite the changes that have occurred, relatively little has happened in Swedish museums when it comes to presenting ethnic diversity. And especially little has happened in the cultural-historical museums or other institutions within the folklife sphere. I cannot refrain from mentioning a few phenomena that ought to be self-evident topics of exhibitions in folklife museums but have not turned into exhibitions so far.25

27 Connerton, P. (1989) How societies remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

First, I think it is important for museums to highlight the many traditional expressive forms, such as celebrations, music, narration and special foods with roots in other countries, forms which in the new country may assume a new importance when families and friends get together. These forms often change considerably in the new country, but people still experience them as profoundly linked to an important past or several important pasts. Indeed, it could be claimed – as folklorists in North America have done for a long time – that special celebrations, songs, dances and dishes are so flexible and adjustable that they can play particularly important roles in situations of migration and resettlement.26 These forms are embodied and sensory: they live in gestures and colour combinations, when people move together to the sound of familiar music, or when the aroma of special dishes wafts through the air. Through repeated expressions and performances, images of the past are “stored” in bodily memories and transported across Through repeated expressions and oceans.27 As North American folklorists have repeatedly observed, performances, images of the past are immigrants from far away (sometimes even more than people who have “stored” in bodily memories and lived in one environment for generations) use traditional expressive forms as special resources to debate, understand or joke about their lives. They transported across oceans. use them to enter into dialogues with their history and their senses of themselves. And this process is no less engaging because people almost always change their traditional expressions, when the cultural and social organisation of the homeland no longer is applicable. Indeed, the resulting changes and amalgamations offer a great many topics for museum exhibitions. Other (related) phenomena that could become topics for exciting exhibitions are the many personal museums that migrants who have settled in a new country create in order to memorialise their history and cultural heritage. Sometimes such more-or-less private museums concern wrongdoings and tragedies, such as massacres and other tragic experiences which have forced them and their families to flee. Creating museums and exhibitions become ways for people to grasp the seemingly ungraspable and perhaps to call for redress. Other activities can have similar functions. For example,

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many young Swedish-born Assyrians whose parents once fled from south-eastern Turkey create symbols of a new Assyrian homeland and invent dances, costumes and musical forms appropriate for a future, reborn nation. They do so both concretely and virtually on the internet; this is only one of many groups devoting efforts to creating and maintaining cultural heritage via the internet. Some debates on the internet even suggest that it is sometimes more Some debates on the internet even important to produce heritage forms than to actually realise a new nation. suggest that it is sometimes more Some of these activities ought to offer topics for exhibitions in Swedish important to produce heritage forms museums, and this in spite of the many political difficulties involved.

than to actually realise a new nation. Other seemingly obvious topics for major exhibitions are new and old celebratory patterns. The celebration of nowruz or New Year at the spring equinox among different groups from the Near East is one such example. Among Iranian refugees in big cities in Europe and North America these celebrations have assumed patterns that are very different from those that have developed in Iran or Turkey.28 The celebration at the end of ramadan is another obvious example. During the last few years, the end of ramadan has been given a great deal of notice in Swedish mass media. One reason for this is that the big food chains have begun to realise that there is money in the celebrations. However, Swedish museums have rarely taken note of all the developments and processes linked to the great celebrations. In spite of such programmes as Agenda kulturarv, and in spite of all the praise of diversity, little serious research has been conducted (within or outside the folklife sphere) on the traditions of immigrants and their transformations in the new land. Such research is essential for the realisation of exhibitions with rich and challenging contents. The year 2006 was “a year dedicated to multi culture” (mångkulturår) in Sweden. Many museums and other institutions did take note of this and some interesting exhibitions and other museum events were created, demonstrating that some changes have actually taken place since 1995. The results were particularly interesting when historical materials were highlighted in a more or less clearly marked post-colonial spirit. In the castle of Skokloster (built in the 1600s), for example, a fascinating exhibition highlighted artefacts brought to Sweden during the 17th and 18th centuries, often as war booty. On exhibit were, for example, unique Native American objects that have been kept at Skokloster ever since they were taken to Sweden from its short-lived seventeenth-century colony in Delaware. No comparable objects survive in the United States.29 Other exhibitions were less successful. For example, employees at the open-air museum of Skansen in Stockholm had the idea to create at the museum gardening plots that were to replicate plots near Stockholm gardened by Chinese-speaking refugees from Vietnam and by a family from south-eastern Turkey. I was pleased, because the idea was based on research in which I have been engaged since 1988, in part together with mass media scholar Karin Becker.30 But, in my opinion, the exhibition at Skansen was catastrophic. The museum did not show what the gardeners actually grow, nor did they highlight the many inventive forms of folk art that can be found on these gardening plots. Instead, Skansen constructed ideal plots showing what the gardeners could have cultivated, had they been in their home countries. An expert was called in, teaching museum visitors how people garden in China, but no attention was paid to the adjustments and new creations on the gardening plots in Sweden.

28 Klein (2001), op. cit., pp. 73– 78. 29 Berg, E. W. (2006) Utsikt mot världen: Utomeuropa på Skoklosters slott. Skoklosterstudier Nr 37. Linköping: Hedéns, pp. 50–62. 30 Klein, B. (2007) “S’enraciner dans le Nord: Une histoire d’alterisation et de coexistence dans une zone de jardins en Suède”, in Entre autres: Rencontres et conflits en Europe et en Méditerranée. 8 conférence de SIEF, Marseille, 26–30 April 2004. Marseilles: Musée des Civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée.

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31 Kurkiala, M. (2002) “Business as usual? Critical remarks on the trivialization of difference and diversity”, LBC Newsletter (No. 2, January), pp. 22–25. 32 Bendix (2000), op. cit., pp. 50–51. 33 Rekdal, P. (1999) “No longer newly arrived: Museum presentations of immigrant cultures in nations with dominant ‘indigenous’ cultures”, Nordisk Museologi No. 1, p. 116.

This and many other examples show that a great deal of knowledge and sensitivity is necessary, if the fantastic new multicultural situations of Sweden and other countries are to be well represented in museums. There must be an awareness of the great difficulties involved when the practices and traditions of recent immigrants are to be documented and exhibited as cultural heritage in the old folklife museums as well as on the cultural-historical and ethnographic museums. Political conflicts between and within groups are merely some of the difficulties that might occur. Unfortunately, it might be said that in many of the exhibitions and museum activities attempted so far “diversity is celebrated” while “real difference is shunned” and a sort of “feel-good” diversity is established.31 And even more unfortunately, it seems to me that something to this effect is about to become an established pattern within the heritage sector in Sweden. Given the broad understanding of cultural diversity that has been guiding Agenda kulturarv as well as other research programmes, there is a risk that ethnic differences disappear or are made invisible among the multitude of diversities and identities. The reason for the reluctance to single out ethnic differences can be laudable; scholars or curators may wish to avoid stereotyping, essentialising or exoticising the Others. Yet, the upshot can also be that other cultures, religions and languages stand out as something disagreeable that must be avoided. In this context, we can find many examples of the observation that heritage processes can trivialise, debase, ignore or simplify difficult issues.32 The label “cultural heritage” can hide important and difficult differences in order to celebrate a happy, wholesome and uncontroversial pluralism. In a provocative article to which I have often returned, Per Rekdal asks why it is so important for the government in a country such as Norway that museums include immigrant cultures. After all, he says, the desire to be included in a cultural-historical or ethnographic museum seldom comes from the immigrants themselves but from “the political establishment” or the “intelligentsia”. He suggests that a partial answer to the question could be that “by including the immigrant cultures in the museums, the majority culture could also include them in … their own value hierarchies, thus making the display of cultural difference an expression of overarching equality”.33 There is a great deal to this observation and to the critique it expresses. Rekdal’s observations certainly apply to many of the processes of heritage making in Norway, Sweden and other countries. But, as he himself seems to recognise, the question is: what alternatives are there? If people settle in a new country and become citizens of it, should they not also be included in its public institutions? It seems to me that inclusions and invitations into the public sphere must take priority over exclusions and silences. This does not mean that museums and other institutions should impose upon immigrants (or anyone else) forms of representation that they do not want. Rather, it means that immigrants, just like other citizens, are to be given an opportunity to be included in the cultural-political efforts of their new country – if that is their wish. The questions involved here are fraught with difficulties and balance between exclusion, on the one hand, and forced inclusion, on the other. Perhaps some of the difficulties will be resolved when immigrants and their descendants (whether in Norway, Sweden or elsewhere) themselves become involved in the heritage sector, something that is likely to happen when they have accumulated a history of a few decades in the new country. Many will then be likely to come forward, wishing to study and display to others their cultural

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heritage as it has been shaped both in the homeland and in the new country. This is a process that can be observed in “older” immigrant nations, such as Australia, Canada and the United States. In Sweden this process has already taken place among such established historical minorities as Sámi, Jews and Roma. Perhaps these processes will be hastened among more recent immigrants, as they and the business world begin to understand the market value of “possessing” a distinct, marketable and exhibitable cultural heritage. But, as a whole, it is probably true that a certain measure of history and integration is necessary, if people with roots far away are to feel ready to exhibit their cultural heritage, not least in the forms it has taken due to migration, exile and diaspora. Concluding remarks The speed with which the words “cultural heritage” and their equivalents have become entrenched into different languages and cultures indicates that these words express something that is important to many people. The concept of cultural heritage is useful in many ways. For example, in its implications it differs a great deal from those pertaining to “tradition”, which was for long a key concept within the folklife sphere. Many phenomena can be included under the rubric “cultural heritage” but not under “tradition”. Among these … as a whole, it is probably true that a certain measure of history and are concrete places, monuments and memory sites, in particular sites marking some of the most tragic events in the history of humankind, integration is necessary, if people with such as the concentration camps in Germany and Eastern Europe and roots far away are to feel ready to the prisons of South Africa during apartheid. Cultural heritage speaks to exhibit their cultural heritage … the moral issues of our era and, as such, it has become part of the official ideology in Sweden as well as many other countries. As indicated in this article, the concept has also become politically charged in ways that were perhaps not foreseeable a few years ago. But until very recently, a broader critical and ideological debate concerning cultural heritage has been missing in the Nordic countries.34 It is essential that such a debate not only takes place within museums and related institutions but also that it confronts difficult ideological, political and academic questions. Let me, by way of conclusion, mention a few such questions. First, a question that may seem to concern primarily universities and academies but which, in the long run, may have broader implications. I am referring to the very real possibility that the creation of such new disciplines as Heritage Studies and other ways to highlight cultural heritage will have considerable effects within the entire academic and cultural-political landscapes, at least within the humanities and social sciences. One could ask, for example, to what extent Heritage Studies, or the like, is on its way to replace such fields as ethnology and folkloristics. There are many indications that this is about to take place in different parts of the world.35 If that is the case, we ought to reflect upon the effects of such a development in the Nordic countries where the folklife sphere has such a long and established history. Another issue concerns the extent to which we now live with a new reformist heritage ideology which is every bit as moralistic as the nationalistic ideologies that inspired the creators of the cultural-historical museums and folklife museums during the late nineteenth century, or every bit

34 In my view, the most important analytical and critical work on cultural heritage by a Nordic scholar is by the Icelandic folklorist Valdimar Hafstein. See Hafstein (2004), op. cit. 35 For example, a few years ago Hungarian scholars launched a yearbook entitled Hungarian Heritage (2001– ). The publication is devoted to topics, which, just a few years earlier, would have fallen within the label of folkloristics or ethnology.

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36 This is shown in an important essay by Bo G. Nilsson, formerly at the Nordic Museum. See Nilsson, B. G. (2004) “Framtidens salt. Om museernas och folklivsforskarnas bidrag till folkhemsbygget”, in C. Hammarlund-Larsson, B. G. Nilsson and E. Silvén, Samhällsideal och framtidsbilder: Perspektiv på Nordiska museets dokumentation och forskning. Stockholm: Carlssons, pp. 67– 139. 37 Finkelstein, N. G. (2000) The Holocaust industry: Reflections on the exploitation of Jewish suffering. London: Verso. 38 Bendix, R. and Welz, G. (1999) “Introduction”, Journal of Folklore Research 36(2/3), p. 123.

as moralistic as the ideologies that inspired the creators of the Swedish welfare state during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s; it was at the height of this welfare state during the 1950s that Swedes came to perceive themselves as exceptionally homogeneous, culturally, religiously and linguistically. Indeed, some folklife scholars were as deeply engaged in shaping the welfare state as their predecessors had been in creating national symbols.36 In many official circles, the protection of cultural heritage is now seen as an unquestionable moral good, as a democracy issue of high dignity, as an important part of civil society, as a human right. Furthermore, as has been noted in this chapter, questions of cultural heritage are deeply entangled with hopes for improved integration of refugees and immigrants. If this is so, then all the more reason for us all to debate the implications of today’s heritage ideology. For example, as has also been noted in this chapter, it is necessary to ask to what extent the inclusion of immigrant cultures in such public arenas as museums will serve to hide inequalities in order to celebrate a harmonious diversity or in order to single out some people as eternal victims. These are important issues to debate. Will people for ever be stereotyped by a naïve heritage sector? Will traumas and stigmatisations be trivialised and exploited in the way that has happened when some memory sites connected to the Holocaust have attracted millions of tourists?37 Will these millions of visitors forever view some fellow human beings as victims? And what happens to all those forms of cultural heritage that are offensive, frightening or incomprehensible? The problems and dangers are not cultural heritage as such, neither as phenomenon nor as concept. In all likelihood, it is here to stay for a long time. Rather, the problems lie in what is done in the name of the concept. Most of all, the dangers and problems lie in an uncritical, unhistorical and untheorised understanding of cultural heritage and its ideological parameters in an era, such as ours, when the boundaries “between culture and politics and between cultural production and the market” are becoming increasingly blurred.38 This seems to hold true whether we are dealing with a folklife sphere in one country, as I have done here, or we expand our concerns to cover a greater spectrum of heritage issues in the global arena. The word “heritage” is not innocent; we must ponder its role in the ongoing worldwide re-mapping of ideological, political, economic, disciplinary and conceptual landscapes.

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CHAPTER 17

Intangible cultural heritage and ethnographic museum practice in a global perspective Inger Sjørslev

In a pluralistic perspective, the issue of cultural heritage invites a closer look at the convention for the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage, which was adopted by UNESCO in 2003. Raising the issue of cultural heritage in a global perspective also creates new challenges to museum practices if museums, particularly ethnographic ones, chose to take into consideration such recent developments in international law as this Convention, as well as – from a different angle – new insights that have come about in anthropological theory. In the following, I shall deal with some challenges that seem to arise from these two areas, while confessing from the start that I can only point superficially to issues that merit much deeper thoughts and research. Also, creative minds are needed if they are to be transformed into concrete museum practices. In trying to deal with challenges to ethnographic museums in the future, I am also inspired by ideas about what is usually termed multicultural societies, ideas that I have borrowed from the British writer Paul Gilroy, and particularly his idea of conviviality and what he calls local memory and melancholia. But first, a few words on the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

The convention expands the concept of cultural heritage to encompass much more than the traditional concept of world cultural heritage, which is mainly aimed at the protection of material objects on a large scale, such as buildings and monuments. Encompassing oral traditions, performances, music and language, the 2003 Convention deals with phenomena, which in lived practices often transcend national borders. It points towards a globalized world characterized by migration, trans-nationalism, pluralism and multiculturalism, and rests upon the fact that living, moveable culture is not confined within the borders of a nation state, but stretches across historical and political borders, sometimes even across world seas and continents. As an anthropologist it is easy to be challenged by the thoughts behind the convention to safeguard intangible cultural heritage. It has from the start been met by critical voices, both from certain states who point to general problems concerning the culture concept employed in it, and from experts. In Finland, the decision has so far been to oppose the idea of the Convention as such. Along the same lines, the British anthropologist Sue Wright has taken part in the UNESCO debate on intangible cultural heritage by expressing fears that it may be used by states in relation to minority groups and indigenous peoples in hegemonic ways that may end up being contrary to the intentions of the convention, which is to support non western forms of cultural heritage.1 In Norway on the other hand, the process of ratifying the convention and establishing criteria for

1 Sue Wright: Report on meeting of European National Commissions to discuss UNESCO’s plans for a draft convention on intangible cultural heritage, at Paris, 9–10 July 2002.

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2 Immateriel kulturarv . Rapport fra Kulturministeriets forskningsudvalg, København 2005; Kildegaard, Bjarne (2006) Rapport om levende kulturarv. Dansk Folkemindesamling. 3 Braae, Christel et al (2001) “Exhibiting objects. Museum collections in policy and practice”. FOLK, Journal of the Danish Ethnographic Society, Special Issue, Vol. 43, Copenhagen; Karp, I and Lavine, S (eds) (1991) Exhibiting cultures. The poetics and politics of museum display. Washington: Smithsonian University Press. 4 Henare, Amiria et al (eds) (2006) Thinking through things. Theorising artefacts ethnographically. Abingdon: Routledge. 5 Miller, Daniel (ed) (2005) Materiality. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

incorporation onto the list of cultural phenomena that merit documentation, support and general safeguarding has begun some years back, and Norway has ratified the Convention. So has Iceland. Sweden has so far shown relatively little interest in the convention. In Denmark, the UNESCO National Commission is following the process intensively, and the Ministry of Culture has held seminars to discuss the concept of intangible cultural heritage and produced expert reports on the subject.2 The preparations for ratification have thus begun with a number of activities, but Denmark and Sweden are, as are other Western countries, still discussing their attitude to the convention internally. At the same time, the Convention has from the start been met by a clear and strong positive attitude by many Eastern European and developing countries. The Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (CSICH) came into force in 2003 and has been ratified by more than 80 countries. A number of expert meetings have been held, and in November 2006 the first meeting of the Convention Committee was held in Algiers, with both Norway and Denmark as observers. In September 2007 the second meeting of the committee was held in Japan. In the following, I want to take a deeper look at the concept of intangible cultural heritage. What does it contain, and why has it been considered necessary to create a special convention to safeguarding the kind of cultural heritage that is not physical? A convention for the protection of world cultural heritage already exists, and a convention on cultural diversity came into force in 2005. Why one more, and what is it, more specifically, that is to be protected or safeguarded as the wording chosen is. Such questions accentuate the problem of defining and identifying cultural heritage as such and increase the understanding of its significance in the global world. I shall come back to that, but since museum practices are also in focus, I shall briefly point to some issues that I think are important, particularly for ethnographic museums in the world of today, and which are related, at least indirectly to the questions concerning museum practices that are raised by the convention on intangible cultural heritage. New directions in theoretical anthropology challenge a traditional thinking that separates the material from the immaterial, or the tangible from the intangible. There is a general renewed interest in the role of things and the material aspects of people’s lives in anthropology. Museum objects fall under the category of materiality that is being dealt with, sometimes subsumed under the label “the materialist turn” in anthropology. They constitute a theme, which gives course for reflection and more theoretical thoughts on the symbolic value of the material as well as on property, rights, the creation of identity and other subjects that will already be know from discourses on museums and cultural heritage within the last decades.3 The present aim to develop new theories on how people “think through things”,4 and how the sharp dichotomy between the material and the immaterial can not be upheld in many concrete investigations of how people live with their surroundings,5 give course for asking whether new angles can be presented in approaching the relationship between objects and persons, and how this may influence concrete museum practices. One of the great sources of inspiration is the British anthropologist Alfred Gell, who theorizes relations between people and things by employing the concept “complex intentionalities”, by which he means the ideas and agencies that we attach to objects by seeing them in a perspective of relations, and which also is what makes us se some objects as art. In his efforts

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to develop an anthropological theory on art and agency, Gell in a wider perspective challenges the prevalent understanding of the distinction between object and person.6

6 Gell, Alfred (1998) Art and agency. An anthropological theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Such ideas of course merit much more attention and elaboration than I have space for here, and it is no simple thing to know precisely where such kinds of thoughts and theoretical new breaks may lead in terms of concrete museum practice. However, I am convinced that there are insights and ideas that are worth pursuing. As for the convention on intangible cultural heritage, there seems to be a connection between what is discussed within the materialist turn in anthropology with the kinds of theories I have briefly mentioned on the one hand, and the question of how to regard the relationship between the material and the immaterial, or intangible, on the other. So, let us take a closer look at the convention and its implications. The convention for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage The UNESCO convention for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage takes its point of departure in the globalization processes and the social transformations that are taking place in the world today. It calls for a new dialogue between society and local communities with the purpose of preventing the breaking down and disappearance of the intangible cultural heritage. Indigenous peoples’ societies and cultures are mentioned specifically in the preamble, which also emphasises the necessity of securing awareness of the intangible cultural heritage among the younger generation. Intangible cultural heritage is defined as practices, representations and expressions as well as the knowledge and skills – such as tools, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces connected to these – which are recognised as part of a given society or a given group’s cultural heritage (Article 2, paragraph 1). As a precondition for a discussion on the convention it is useful to remember that the wording is safeguarding, not protection. Safeguarding means securing the viability of the intangible cultural heritage. It means identification, documentation, research, conservation, protection, strengthening and transference through formal as well as informal education, as well as re-enlivening different aspects of the cultural heritage, in total, the objective is safeguarding Safeguarding means securing the viability rather than static preservation. Article 12 states that each state which is party to the convention, must sketch one or more inventories of viability of the intangible cultural the intangible cultural heritage in accordance with its own situation and heritage. the cultural heritage that is to be found within its territory. These inventories are to be regularly updated, and scientific, technical, and artistic studies, as well as research methodologies with the purpose of effectively securing particularly the threatened part of the cultural heritage, are to be established. The concept intangible cultural heritage may at first sight seem to imply several paradoxes. First of all, there is the odd relationship between intangibility, or the immaterial, on the one hand, and preservation in the conventional sense on the other. How can something intangible be preserved? But, as already noticed, the convention talks about safeguarding, not preservation or protection,

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7 Protection in the conventional sense, and implying the protection of rights falls within the juridical instruments which belong under WIPO and comprises the whole complex subject of intellectual property rights. 8 Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara (2004) “Le patrimoine immatériel et la production métaculturelle du patrimoine”. Museum, Vol. 56 no 1–2.

precisely for that reason.7 The goal is safeguarding of viability rather than securing heritage as property that is, making sure that something is kept alive to be shared, exchanged and used by groups and communities. Although the convention is, as all UN instruments are, founded in the sovereignty of the nation states, it is easy to interpret the intention to safeguard viability within communities in a global, trans-national perspective. Many of the phenomena that are already adopted on the list of “master pieces” are clearly trans-national in historical as well as current perspectives. The Brazilian Samba de Roda, for example, which is one of the recent ones, has maintained historical viability only by crossing borders and encompassing new cultural elements.

To talk about cultural heritage as living and viable is in many senses current with anthropological insights and new conceptions of culture as non-static and not founded in any kind of essence. A society’s or a group’s culture is created in a dynamic interplay with other groups, other traditions, languages and self-understandings. In social and cultural sciences’ ways of conceptualizing culture there is a critical attitude to essensialization, which implies … it is recognised that people need to misunderstandings of culture as founded in blood, genetics or territory. At create roots by separating certain the same time, it is recognised that people need to create roots by separating phenomena or areas of their culture certain phenomena or areas of their culture and society as holy, and society as holy, untouchable and untouchable and permanent. There is an ongoing essensialization in people’s common lives, in the sense that they create stability, permanence permanent. and special feelings around certain objects or phenomena, which thus become worthy of preservation and protection. Worthiness of protection and in a sense “musealisation” of heritage takes place in accordance with the maintenance of collective identity. The idea of intangible cultural heritage must be seen in such a light as well, although this also presents a paradox. The globalisation, which takes place in the world today, carries the risk of cultural homogenisation and a threat to cultural diversity. This fact is explicitly stated in the convention preamble as part of the background for the establishment of a politics to protect the intangible cultural heritage. Although it is not explicitly stated in the convention, its spirit may also be regarded in the light of the West’s continuous efforts of de-colonization. In these postcolonial times, the Western guilt towards the rest of the world is warded off in different ways, at the same time as the capitalist, neoliberal development continues to threaten cultural diversity. Any international juridical instrument of the kind represented by the convention, must in our time therefore be seen as a potential development towards a global justice system, with human rights and democracy as core values. The West seeks to ward off negative effects of its own hegemonic influence in the world, in a colonial as well as a present perspective and – although it is not explicitly formulated in the convention – such efforts must be seen as part of the background for the fact that the UN chose to develop such a convention.8 There is no doubt, however, that the convention has also been established after pressure from formerly colonized countries.

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Cultural continuity and the invention of tradition In anthropology, concepts like the indigenization of modernity9 or glocalization, or other more or less elegant terms are used to indicate the fact that there are forces in the world that go against the global homogenisation. People all over the world furnish global cultural streams with local expressions, from the transformation of used cans into decorative objects or toys to examples of far deeper structural continuities in spite of, or as a counterforce to, the impact of globalization.10 It takes place through cultural processes, which may at first sight seem to belong under modernity and syncretism, that is a cultural mix, but which may at the same time very well contain elements, which makes them worthy of being adopted into an inventory of cultural heritage, or become the object of safeguarding in some way. From my own work on the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé, I know of cultural phenomena that cross borders in many different ways. As a religion of the Diaspora with historical roots in West African voudhun or voodoo, the syncretistic Candomblé has moved from one continent to another, and as a religion founded in magical thinking, where things like fetishes have the power of agency and human beings are transformed to gods, it transcends any Western dichotomy thinking, which keeps material objects in one category and living people or phenomena in another. The Brazilian Candomblé would, like many other ritual and performative phenomena in the world, never be secured or preserved if the material were to be isolated from the immaterial. Ritual dances and acts are sustained by the materiality of clothes and objects. Among the tangible and the intangible, one is not without the other. In anthropology, it has for decades been discussed how such phenomena are to be understood in relation to the maintenance of tradition, and on the basis of the question of what can be counted as authentic. In the world of today, authenticity has in itself become a contested concept. What is authentic culture in a world where culture is precisely to be understood as a process and as something in continuous dynamic and interactive development? People invent traditions just as much as they continue traditions.11 The carnival in Rio, the Scandinavian Christmas tree or the Scotch kilt are only some of the phenomena which appear in a historical light to go back no more than a hundred years – although they may very well have roots of a different kind that go further back. All over the world, ethnic traditions are adopted and encompassed into the self-understanding of de-colonised nation states and national identity, such as for instance in the meaning of the ceremonial dances of the Andes Indians in the creation of the Bolivian national self understanding.12 All over the world, people seek the authentic in different ways and through processes, which are contemporary and parallel to those through which we are to an increasing degree inspired and affected by other cultures, which we adopt in our everyday aesthetics, taste, customs and languages. The whole basis for the convention on the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage is the recognition that not only the physically identifiable can be cultural heritage. Heritage is also values, ideas, customs, beliefs, symbols, practices, which is to say all those aspects of culture which are not things. Another of the paradoxes that may be detected in the intangible cultural heritage concept may derive from the juridical, formalised context in which it is founded. The intangible cultural heritage proves

9 Sahlins, Marshall (1994) “Goodbye to Tristes tropes: Ethnography in the context of modern world history”. In Robert Borofsky (ed) Assessing cultural anthropology. New York, McGraw-Hill, pp 377–394. 10 Kvaale, Katja (2004) “Tradition. Det oprindeliges modernisering”. In Kirsten Hastrup (ed) Viden om Verden. København: Reitzels Forlag, pp 303–326. 11 Otto, Ton and Poul Pedersen (eds) ( 2005) Tradition and agency: Tracing cultural continuity and invention. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press; Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Thomas (1984) The invention of tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 12 Abercrombie, Thomas (1991) “To be Indian, to be Bolivian: ‘Ethnic’ and ‘national discourses of identity”. In G Urban & J Sherzer (eds) Nationstates and Indians in Latin America, Austin: University of Texas Press, pp 95–130.

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13 The “Cultural Canon Project” was instigated by the Ministry of Culture. As a sort of destiny’s irony, the book was published at exactly the same time as a world wide crisis broke out caused by the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed, published in the newspaper Jyllands Posten. While Denmark strengthened its values internally, outside events forced us to understand that neither Denmark, nor any other country in the world can consider its cultural politics and its values in isolation from the rest of the world.

its value and justifies itself precisely by being viable, and if it is viable, why does it need protection in the form of juridical safeguarding? The recognition that it is still necessary to have such a convention must be on the basis of the fact that there is always cultural loss in the world. Even though the criteria of a living culture must, asI have just argued, be that it is non-static (a “musealized” culture is a fixation which may serve as a point of reference for the living, but which is not in itself living culture), there is a difference between change and disappearance, or loss. The proof of the value of the intangible cultural heritage is its viability, and all that lives is subject to change and ultimately disappearance, but continuity and changeability are not incompatible. Criteria for adoption into an inventory of intangible cultural heritage, or in other words what is to be pointed out as inalienable values, must therefore be that it has to do with areas of society that are carriers of continuity, areas which in themselves represent social continuity, and which may at the same time represent a sort of sustaining construction for the adoption of changes in and from the surrounding world.

The intangible cultural heritage cannot as such be confined to showcases and put on museum display. It cannot be subject to the professional skills of conservators and experts on preservation and the technical skills of the natural sciences to counteract the Intangible cultural heritage deterioration of the material. The intangible cultural heritage must be seen must be seen as something as something constantly on the move. The intangible cultural heritage is between people. It has to do with sociality and cultural processes. It may constantly on the move. consist of something invisible, but something which people for some reason at the same time want to set apart as sacred. This is a basic paradox, which must not be overlooked in the efforts to exploit the spirit of the convention in the best possible way. In Denmark, efforts were made a couple of years ago to identify a cultural canon. As a result of this, a book on 251 pages was published in 2006, containing a catalogue of a series of works within literature, architecture, music, film, painting and design, which had been identified by selected experts, and which were considered worth knowing by any school child, and which deserved to be preserved in the memory of coming generations.13 At first sight, it might seem that such a cultural canon is precisely what is sought after in the identification of an inventory for the intangible cultural heritage convention – at least those parts of the canon which are not buildings and other material objects. Denmark has only recently begun to seriously consider ratification, and it might be argued that considerations based on the usefulness of the Convention in a Danish context might be based upon the results of the creation of the cultural canon. However, in my opinion that would be wrong, even though there might be a certain concurrence. But there would also be problems. An eventual Danish inventory on intangible cultural heritage within the premises of the Convention is, as little as any other government list, to be regarded as state sanctioned culture. On the contrary, one might just as well consider the arguments that speak for an identification of intangible cultural heritage the same as those that speak against a cultural canon. It has to do with the culture concept applied. A canonisation of culture is founded in a static concept of culture, and a canon can therefore never be in accordance with the way the world looks today, nor with the latest development in cultural and societal research. Current anthropological theory works, as already discussed, with a culture concept that is flexible and dynamic, and which does not fixate and close

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and promote official recognition, but which opens up for dynamism, vitality, viability and continuous dialogical practice. The intangible cultural heritage may be summed up as processes rather than products, as continuity in creativity rather than as concrete results of creativity, and as something that is between people rather than individual property. Intangible cultural heritage is deeply tied up with the sociality of a community. Culture has, as anthropology has shown, just as much to do with common tacit knowledge, with something non-spoken and implicit, whose value and significance lies precisely in the fact that it is not explicated, but consists in a common consensus. At the same time, human values are to a large degree existing through the objectification in cultural forms. It is therefore necessary to pay continuous attention to the forms through which culture What must be safeguarded are the ways in which significant cultural is expressed. At the same time it must be recognised that culture is in many ways invisible, silent and inarticulate. So, the insight into the phenomena are practiced and meaning and significance of the continuous objectification of culture in sustained by a society or community, writing, speech, tones, colours, figures and forms in the widest sense, must which is never static. contribute to the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage in the sense that it aims to safeguard the processes through which the forms of culture are brought forward and maintained in practice. What must be safeguarded are the ways in which significant cultural phenomena are practiced and sustained by a society or community, which is never static. If inalienable values only exist in practice, it does not make any sense to identify intangible cultural heritage in the form of a sort of inventory of ideas or canon of values. It may be possible to identify areas of social life that must receive special attention because they are serving certain values. These may be areas where language thrives creatively or where it is learned systematically, or it may be areas where artistic skills and design traditions are transferred from one generation to the next. In this way, the convention is not used to support the static, but can in stead contribute to the creation of an ongoing consciousness about values, about the inalienable, about memory and history, about ancestor loyalty and respect, and it will be able to contribute to the strengthening of those processes through which such a consciousness is formed and communicated on to the next generation. The convention can become a political instrument for action on the background of the necessary reflection upon which roads the cultural development in the world should take. As such, it is in itself an expression of the kind of values and ideas that are to be regarded as inalienable, namely humanism and the will to democratic guidance, and it may become an instrument for action and reaction on the basis of a consciousness about the necessity of keeping certain values sacred on a political and secular ground. Local memory and melancholia As I said in the beginning, there is another challenge which the ethnographic museums have to face, namely the fact that we live in a postcolonial world, understood as a world which is still marked by the historical memory of colonial times and in a more concrete sense bythe consequences of colonialism. The very existence of ethnographic collections is a consequence of the West’s colonisation of the rest of the world in the nineteenth century, when these collections were also,

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14 Gilroy, Paul (2006) “Colonial crimes and convivial cultures” At: http://www.rethinkingnordic-colonialism.org/files/ index.htm.

as was the case in Denmark, included in national museums, partly with the purpose of being an evolutionist mirror to the development of national culture. In other senses as well, we live in times that challenge the existence and practice of ethnographic museums, characterised as it is by migration and multiethnic societies, as well as the changing role of nation states and globalisation in media and communication as well as work life and economy. Very concrete challenges arise from the discourses on property and rights, which are going on in connection with the question of repatriation, the creation of identity via cultural performance, heritage and the culture industry. In talking about local memory and melancholia, I follow the British cultural sociologist Paul Gilroy who talks about the challenges that face European countries today. He thinks that the Scandinavian countries are in a particularly challenging position, because they are role models for the rest of the world due to their well fare systems and their egalitarian ideals. Gilroy presented these thoughts in a lecture that was part of the project Rethinking Nordic Colonialism: A Postcolonial Exhibition Project in Five Acts.14 This was an extremely interesting project, which took place in 2006 in four Scandinavian cities, accompanied by an Internet exhibition as the fifth “act”. It was an example of how to perform a sort of alternative museum practice with a clear postcolonial perspective. The Western countries are in our time characterised by a combination of oblivion, ignorance, denial and guilt and shame, which creates a unique political field, within which we have to manoeuvre and organise, says Gilroy. He talks about a melancholia, which derives from the fact that the European nations have been incapable of overcoming the loss of a global superiority. The lack of ability to overcome the loss generates different pathological traits in the present confrontation with strangers, with migrants and others who are crossing the borders to Europe and entering our countries. There is something about the lost prestige and value in the former empires, which cannot be left behind or worked through, as Freud would have it, without going through a process of mourning, says Gilroy. Europe’s postcolonial states have never worked it through and come out on the other side, for they are in some way happier when they can suffer under the loss and dramatise and reproduce it in different ritual ways. These are quite provocative thoughts, or accusations, but in Denmark at least, we do have a colonial past and a continuous close relationship with the Greenland Home Rule to deal with. I do not think it is completely off the track what Gilroy here reveals in a Danish connection, although he is more influenced by the situation in the British post-empire to which he is closest himself, being a British citizen of Caribbean descent. This is particularly not the case when thinking about the amount of repression concerning the significance of the former – although not very far back in history – Danish colonisation of Greenland. And certainly not when thinking of the xenophobia that thrives all too well in Denmark these years, which reveals itself in the legislation concerning immigrants. Gilroy sees a connection between the experience of a painful loss and the widespread racism and xenophobia in western countries. The experience of loss works in a way that tells people that they are the victims of colonial history, rather than the victims being the people who suffer the racism that was a result of it. The role as victim becomes monopolised so that the immigrants, the strangers, who are considered inferior people, are denied any form of moral authority associated

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with the status of victim. The former colonisers keep the role of victim to themselves, says Gilroy, and he thinks that this is one reason why the European social democratic countries cannot find their way of giving a political response to racism and xenophobia. Instead, a fear of contagion of the national purity emerges, a fear of the intrusion from the outside represented by the immigrants. These are strong words, and Gilroy shows no mercy in his criticism of the current negative attitudes to immigration in Europe, but I do think that his thought carry a lot of truth, at least it is worthwhile thinking about for a member of the present Danish society.15 Gilroy also thinks that these circumstances give the artist a special role, in the sense that an anti-racist creativity is needed. It may also be a special kind of cultural policy, and it will work best across boundaries, he says.

15 For further reflections on xenophobia in Denmark see Sjørslev, Inger (2004) “Alterity as celebration, alterity as threat: A comparison of grammars between Brazil and Denmark”. In Gerd Baumann and André Gingrich (eds) Grammars of identity/alterity. A structuralist approach. Oxford: Berghahn Books.

This is where an optimistic faith in the role of the convention on … there is the risk that the convention intangible cultural property might come in, since the convention may in becomes yet another instrument for the itself be regarded as a post colonial instrument, which can become a interest of the states … constructive contribution to such a cultural policy. On the other hand, this may be too much to hope for. As the anthropologist Sue Wright says, there is also the risk that the convention becomes yet another instrument for the interest of the states, and rather than being of benefit to minority groups and trans-national movements and plurality, it ends up being the instrument for certain states in appropriating the culture of minorities in a simultaneous folklorization and legitimization of state hegemonic power. Gilroy does not include the convention in his talk, and he does not deal with the kind of role to be played by museums in the process of “working through”, in the acceptance and dealing with our colonial past. He suggests, however, that the widespread term multiculturalism is substituted by a greater attention to the melancholia, and that emphasis is put on what he terms conviviality, by which he means basically peaceful coexistence between people in mutual recognition. The theories on multiculturalism that have now been with us for a number of years, came out of discussions on rights and property, including rights to land for indigenous peoples in different parts of the world, especially Canada, and in more discrete forms in other parts of the world. A critical look on these kinds of discourses teaches us, he says, that it would be wise to find new concepts, which do not to the same degree emphasize cultural difference as a basis for thinking about rights. This whole question may lead to a long discussion for which this is neither the time nor place. The subject in the present context is rather, what these kinds of insights into the significance of colonial history on the present situation in the world, and the ensuing discussions, mean in relation to the questions of cultural heritage and the way museums work with it. Conclusion In the perspectives sketched above, I see the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage as a kind of emergency solution to the damages of colonialism and imperialism. It does not in itself represent a transcendence of global inequality and that historical reality, which

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has to do with exploitation and submission of a great part of the world’s population politically, economically and conceptually. It represents a kind of Wiedergutmachung as the Germans said in the context of the tragedies of the Nazi Regime, in a lighter and more peaceful way a necessary supplement to the 1972 World Heritage Convention in a concrete sense, because this convention in itself represents an imbalance, emphasizing as it does a Western ethnocentric idea of cultural heritage as exclusively material and physical in specific forms. As a consequence of the content of the convention and its global context, I would thus like to suggest that cultural heritage is defined as all that which in concrete contexts, locally (and not nationally) can be identified as cultural phenomena sustained by continuity and sustaining continuity, and which express a living cultural heritage, but which needs safeguarding of its continuity and viability through the practice of skills, the creation of space for exercising these, and through research into their background, tradition and meaning in terms of the creation and maintenance of a collective identity. Such a definition must inevitably transcend the dichotomy between material and immaterial, or intangible. In a most concrete sense, there is always both materiality and immateriality at play. Costumes without those who dance in them are only half cultural phenomena, just as the dance is not without its form, including the form created by the costume. There are many problems and questions to be solved before the CSICH becomes an ideal instrument. That, however, does not prevent a ratification of it, on the contrary, ratification opens up for better opportunities to work with it. We have to work with the instruments at hand, while recognising that it might be more ideal with one single convention, which encompassed the World Heritage Convention, the convention on cultural diversity and the CSICH. There are many problems and questions Such a common convention might very well be based on the idea of to be solved before the CSICH becomes conviviality or peaceful coexistence, understood as a basis for ongoing negotiations about values and practices between equal partners. It might an ideal instrument. have plurality as the common ideal, along with the recognition that culture is something dynamic and interactive, which reveals itself in practices and processes. Furthermore, it should recognise that nation states have a limited role as those, which sets the limits of cultural property, and it should be valuable as an instrument for internal negotiation between minority groups, as well as between Diaspora peoples, migrants and indigenous peoples, and of course between such groups and the states. However, I am very well aware that this is a utopian thought. We are left with the question as to how ethnographic museums can meet the challenges that present themselves in our times through the breaking down of current dichotomies, like the global and the local, thing and person, and most significantly between the tangible and the intangible, the material and the immaterial. How are the thoughts dealt with here to be expressed in concrete museum practices? I do not have a solution ready to this question, but I see opportunities in a new museology, both in terms of making more use of new media like the internet, such as was done by the project Rethinking Nordic Colonialism, and in a revitalization of old exhibition practices in new forms. There is plenty of space for new virtual museums, which would fit the situation of the present world finely, but there should also be rich opportunities in new positions.

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One can only encourage curatorial inventiveness and creativity in the communication of how things are connected in practice, how material objects connect to the intangible like knowledge, skills and performative practices, and how things shape persons and persons shape things. The basic attitude for museums must be that as institutions in themselves, they are part of a post colonial field, but created as a result of colonial history, and that they have a special obligation to contribute to the understanding of what this colonial history has meant and still means for people, both in the western part of the world and in the rest of it.

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CHAPTER 18

Museums and collective identity: a new concept of “nation”? Knut Kjeldstadli

My line of argument is as follows: collectives exist.1 Identity politics have been criticised harshly but justly, yet collective identities cannot generally be seen as exclusive and aggressive and should even be encouraged, given the alternative: a world of atomistic individuals. Nations have been among the most powerful collectives in the modern world, and are not simply the inventions of nineteenth-century elites. However, neither the classical “German” concept of the nation linked to culture and ethnicity, nor the “French” notion of the nation first and foremost as a political unit, is adequate in today’s transnational societies. Nor does a radical multiculturalist stance solve the problem of creating sufficient cohesion in a society. We need to work towards a renewed understanding of a nation as unity in diversity. Having made these general points, this article asks: what might this imply for museums?

Collectives – not chimeras Let me start with the elementary question: do collectives exist, be they religious, ethnic, cultural, national or class-based? Do they have a real existence beyond being a sum of individuals? To my mind they do. Language is an example of an entity into which children are or can be born. There are structures and patterns that were here before us and will remain after us. These patterns are not “above” or “outside” human beings; they exist through and in relations between people. If one does not recognise a cultural collective or avoids seeing that there are cultural differences, this does not mean that culture does not play its part. The majority culture takes the lead without having to argue, the silent weight of its structural power already lending it a huge advantage. Consider the messages implicit in traditional Norwegian museums: stability, soil, peasantry, ancestry.

1 Originally a contribution to the seminar Museerna och den Mångkulturella Kulturarvspedagogiken, Jämtli Museum, Östersund, Sweden, 25–26 May 2005.

In practical politics and planning, we have to assume that collectives exist, even if we do not agree philosophically that they do. This is because authorities have to make choices. They have to assume that a certain group of language-users exists beyond each individual. Provision of language education cannot be organised on a short-term basis. Nor can there be a kind of daily referendum on whether an ethnic group should have funding for its own museum. These things cannot be governed according to daily oscillations of opinion. Even if some people do not accept the existence of cultural collectives, other people do, and their view cannot simply be discounted. When adherents of a religion claim that their community, like the

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Muslim umma, is something more than the individuals, one has to accept that. If musicians within an ethnic group prefer to play what they see as “their” music, there will be a problem if the municipal cultural authorities prefer to support “cross-over” music because this is seen as integrated and integrating. The mere existence of phenomena such as nations does not imply that they are positive and desirable. The next questions are: do we want such collectives to exist or not? Should we promote or discourage them? And these must be asked, since this kind of identity politics has been severely criticised. Three critical points are usually made:  the claim that a continuous line can be traced back to a common ancestry may be false;  even if there is such a historical thread, those who live today do not have a trans-temporal inner

link to those who once lived. We are not them, we are different; there is no identity in the sense of being similar or having something in common with ancestors. To put it bluntly: modern Norwegians are not Vikings.  By creating an “us”, one simultaneously excludes a “them”, the others. The problematic – yes brutal – side of identity politics is well known in the Balkans, for example, and in India and Pakistan, and in Ireland. It is usually deemed anxiety-ridden and retrogressive. Some feel that historians ought to pursue the opposite of continuity and identity research, and try instead to demonstrate that there are no connections between the present and some battle fought 150 or 600 years ago, since this is irrelevant today. Personally, I think that the discussion of any kind of collective identity misses the point. I offer four counter-arguments. First, post-modern thinkers have criticised the so-called grand narratives: that history is about progress in the world, or a nation being built, or the road to a classless society. It has been claimed that only small, local or individual narratives are valid, since these do not construct any false collective entity. However, this point of view rests on a powerful underlying metanarrative, namely that the world essentially consists of individuals. I cannot see that the isolated single individual has a greater claim to real existence than a collective does, since people always exist in relation to others. Those who criticise any kind of collective formation are not more “scientific” than those who adhere to this notion. To disclaim the existence of collectives is just to promote another kind of anthropology, the liberal or liberalist view, the individual as an atom. Margaret Thatcher’s classic dictum, “there is no such thing as Those who criticise any kind of collective society, only individuals and their families”, sums it up neatly. Attacks on formation are not more “scientific” than all kinds of collective identity, on seeing man as culturally formed, may be those who adhere to this notion. characteristic of the ideology peculiar to the current capitalist market economy – consumerism – according to which individual consumption is the goal and people create themselves by consuming. Set against this ideology, nostalgia, the longing for an earlier, lost community, may in fact have a potential for critique and reform of today’s society. If different kinds of social organisation were possible in earlier periods, new and different ones could be realised in the future: change is thus possible. We should not see the present period as “the end of history”, but as a transitory phase, for better or worse.

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Secondly, we can live with several, or complex, identities. One identity does not exclude another. No facet of identity necessarily dominates the others; nor do we have to subscribe to the view that we are a bundle of changing identities that have no kind of internal connection. Identity does not mean an unambiguous belonging to one community. But it does not follow from this that we are without identity. Thirdly, I suggest that a minority, in the sense both of being numerically fewer and of being in an inferior position with respect to power, has a more legitimate right to uphold its collective identity than the majority. If we condemn a minority’s efforts to maintain a collective identity, it does not mean that all identities disappear. It is more likely to lead to the majority, those in power, winning through while they seemingly claim no special rights. They don’t have to, since their peculiarity is the norm. They represent “the universal”. Lastly, “cultural manifold” can be seen as strength, in the same way as biological diversity can. Even if there are many cultures we do not share, we may profit from their existence in the future. A culture tends to favour some ways of looking at the world. Hence, it also presents a limitation of man’s possibilities. Variety is a resource, a source of enrichment, correction and self-reflection, for seeing a matter from several angles. If a culture goes to waste, its potential is also destroyed, a potential we may not realise today. Do nations and national cultures exist? So far, I have argued that collectives do exist, and that there are reasons for thinking them legitimate. The next question is: should nations be seen as collectives? Can we speak of national cultures? A nation can be seen figuratively as a set of fields: territories, polities, languages, religions, consumption patterns and so on. A nation shares the content of many of these fields with most others on the globe. A modern example might be television. Some fields, such as family structure, a nation shares with all humankind. Some fields, such as religion, a nation may share with some nations. The fields may cover the same area or diverge dramatically. Some may be precisely defined, such as territorial borders, some may have indistinct or shifting borders, so individuals are sometimes outside them – colonies of expatriates, for example. Some fields, such as the use of English as a mother tongue, go far beyond one nation. Some fields relate to only parts of a nation, along distinctions of geography, class, ethnicity or gender. A nation, in other words, can be seen as a polythetic group, so all members of the group share some, but not all, characteristics; and some, but not all, members carry all traits of the group. Some individuals can be called “arch-Norwegian”, for example; others vary widely from this definition but still participate in the national culture. This reasoning accepts that there are differences between nations – there are more speakers of Mandarin in China than there are in Norway, for example – but it obviates either/or logic. It

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recognises the specifics of a national culture but it does not claim that the elements that constitute this culture are special or unique. A national culture’s specific character is created in three ways:  The statistical “density” of the elements will be peculiar to it. Some categories of thought, some

practices and customs, will appear more frequently in one geographical area than in others.  Most cultural elements are not unique, especially in small countries where many or most innovations come from abroad, by diffusion and import. However, such general cultural elements are adapted and given a certain national twist.  The elements enter specific combinations or constellations, a particular link between religion and the notion of nation, for example. Some claim that nations are modern phenomena, inventions or constructions of mid-nineteenthcentury European elites – politicians, authors and men of letters. But is this a satisfactory theory? One problem with it is that some notions about “Norwegians” being Some claim that nations are modern distinctive nationals can be traced a long way back. In around AD 800 a phenomena, inventions or chieftain called Ottar visited King Alfred of Wessex and told him about “Norwegians”, “Danes”, “Swedes”, “Finns” (in this context Sámi), “Kvens” constructions of mid-nineteenth(probably Finns) and “Bjarms” (probably a Russian people called the century European elites ... Vesps). So a kind of proto-nationality seems to have existed even then. One should add that being “Norwegian” at that time was radically different from the way it is understood now. In the Viking period it meant believing in Odin and Thor; later, being Norwegian meant that you were a Christian. The claim that the Norwegian elite strove consciously to build the nation is obviously true. But this constructivist point of view need not imply that such creation is artificial, even dishonest or manipulating. It is true that the elite underlined, stylised and polished cultural elements. But the construction could not have taken place in a vacuum; they needed real elements for their construction, such as Norway as a country of mountains and coasts, or the fact that peasants were free people. And the construction or polished picture of the nation made by the elite had to be accepted, find a resonance in the population. Due to these arguments, a radical constructivist elite theory about nations does not suffice to explain what a nation is. Concepts of nation What is a nation, or what can a nation be? Historically two main answers are given in Europe. The first is the direct opposite of constructivism; it rests on an essentialist conception. According to this view, a nation is built on a common core: a people who have some significant, distinguishing and stable qualities. One theory claims that circumstances in the early phases of a people’s history, such as natural conditions or relations to other people, formed these qualities, this Volksgeist. Once created, these qualities were built into the people through social institutions, culture and language. This concept sees culture as a primeval and everlasting entity that is externally clearly demarcated and internally homogenous, unique compared with other cultures, and governs the actions of those

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belonging to it. Such a concept of culture becomes a functional equivalent to a biological concept of race – in fact, the theory of an early cultural and social formation of a people was supplemented or even substituted with a biological theory of race. In 1910, the Norwegian Central Bureau of Statistics claimed that Swedes and Danes constituted separate and different races, both the cultural and the biological origins being decisive. Those who came to the territory later might almost be assimilated, yet something inferior clung to them. This ethnic concept of nation, the nation as Kulturnation, has been called a German concept, and has been linked to a view of citizenship called ius sanguinis, the right of blood and ancestry: you are German or Norwegian because you were born German or Norwegian. The other concept of nation has been dubbed French. The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire insisted on a centralist and universalistic view of the state. The decisive question became loyalty to the political common cause, not ethnic background. A numerically stagnating French population in the nineteenth century created a greater openness to the inclusion of newcomers. The nation was understood to consist of those individuals who were willing to join the state and abide by its laws. The nation was primarily a political nation. This French model opened the possibility of “becoming French”, and at the same time signalled a very strong expectation that newcomers would do so, would assimilate. Cultural background was not relevant, and had no validity in the public sphere. Citizenship rested on a ius solis, a territorial or domicile principle, citizenship following from the place where you lived. These two pure types do not exist today: France’s Front National now positions itself close to the ethnic model; people of Turkish descent can now become German citizens. The Norwegian concept of nation has been a mixed one. However, as a Norwegian independent state disappeared for centuries in the union with Denmark, historians and others came to see the people, not the state, as the carrier of continuity. In relation to immigrants the modern ethnic notion of the nation can lead to a demand for subordination: “You cannot become fully Norwegian so you cannot demand equal status.” Strangers are only temporarily present, so one cannot expect them to assimilate. But then they have to accept being less than full citizens, a status implied in concepts such as “foreign worker” or Gastarbeiter in German. The foreigner and the guest may be welcome, but are expected to leave, not to stay on permanently. The political concept of nation also has inherent problems, primarily because it is so heavily bent on assimilation. From a normative point of view, I cannot see that individual assimilation is problematic, if the strategy is chosen and not superimposed on the individual. Saying that someone “betrays” his ethnicity is to subscribe to the idea that there is an almost mystic or sacred quality in us, a way of thinking I cannot share. However, as a political project, the idea of assimilation and a homogenous nation is not viable. Four reasons speak against it:  In generations to follow, migration will continue. People on the globe will be on the move. This

will happen because of the huge welfare gaps in the world, and because of a need for labour in

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rich countries. When new groups keep coming, assimilation – all becoming similar – is not feasible. Assimilation is not a one-time operation; we will have to live with difference.  Demanding that other human beings “become like us”, is disrespecting their culture.  What do we expect newcomers to assimilate into? Which fields within the national culture do we find most important? There is not one single Norwegian culture shared by everybody. Norwegians have disagreed on Christian belief, the concept of nationality, drinking habits and even sexual morals. And culture changes.  Experience tells us that a pressure for assimilation can produce a counteraction. Instead of participating in society, newcomers under pressure can retreat and take a defensive, hedgehoglike position towards their surroundings. The German philosopher Jürgen Habermas has suggested that identity and identification may be linked to democracy as a political form, to the communicative community. He sees this as an alternative to identifying with the nation as a historical community. The political communicative community is not built on a densely knit bundle of values, but on metavalues concerning the procedures for handling disagreement: values in conflict. This view has been called Verfassungspatriotismus, a patriotism linked to the constitution and its democratic metavalues.2 This thought is attractive, We need a societal moral, a kind of if a little too “dry”, “superrational” or “cerebral”. Does it lack that element of emotional warmth that makes one inclined to give to, put an effort into, a solidarity with communities, which can community? A purely political nation that one joins only on a rational, be class-based or national, but in any almost calculative basis is problematic. Can we have an enduring society that case extends to more than the single has nothing but procedures in common, and has no one who feels for it or individual. is willing to contribute to it? To my mind, such a situation produces serious challenges. The world does not – or should not – consist of free-floating atoms, people who look out for their own interests only. We need a societal moral, a kind of solidarity with communities, which can be class-based or national, but in any case extends to more than the single individual. But how does one create such a community? The preconditions are having a real stake in that community, being included mentally in the category of those who belong, interacting with others, participating and sharing in the goods of the society. So our task is to grope our way towards a concept that can transcend both the ethnic nation and the purely political nation. Alternatives to what is seen either as outmoded and feeble nationalism, or as an aggressive and dangerous nationalism have been sought. I shall comment only briefly on these, since I do not think they solve the problem of how a community is possible. Some see regions, below or above the national level, as the solution for the future. This may include Swedish–Norwegian co-operation in the so-called Forest Finn areas,3 or efforts to co-operate within the Baltic region. They are excellent projects in themselves, but I cannot see how such regions can be democratic political units where power springs from below. A Europe of the regions will be an elite project, not a Europe of the peoples.

2 Habermas, Jürgen (1992) “Staatsbürgerschaft und nationale identität”, in Faktizität und Geltung. Frankfurt am Main: Habermas Suhrkamp Verlag GmbH und Co.

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3 The Forest Finns were slashand-burn farmers, mainly from Savolax in Finland, who migrated to Sweden, then into Norway in the seventeenth century. Their language is now extinct. In Norway, they were recognised in 1999 as one of five historical national minorities, a status leading to the funding of cultural activities such as museums.

Others say Europe, the European Union. One may be for or against membership, but to the 93% of the world’s population who are not members, a Fortress Europe with a Schengen system aimed at controlling the borders of Europe against unwanted aliens is just as excluding as any smug national state. Challenges connected to inclusion and multiculturalism remain. Some suggest world society is the alternative, and that we should all wish for a strong United Nations and a peaceful and just world. But the problem is that no such world society exists, judging by the usual criteria such as a relatively high degree of mutual relations between people and a set of shared norms and responsible authorities. Given the way the world actually is, phrases such as “world society cannot accept” or “world society has to intervene” are shorthand and ideological ways of stating the opinions of the strongest power bloc. A multicultural state? To me it seems that nation-states will continue to exist, for good or ill. So far, we have discussed two historical models, the ethnic nation and the political nation. Now, a third alternative has been presented: a multicultural state. It shares one premise with the ethnic nation concept: that cultural collectives exist. It differs by stressing diversity as opposed to homogeneity. It shares with the political nation concept the idea that newcomers can be included as citizens of equal worth. States such as Sweden, Australia and the U.S.A. have been called more or less multicultural. However, here I want to pursue the consequent and principled brand of multiculturalism. Does it solve the challenges connected with maintaining a society in which several groups live in the same area? As already stated, the starting point is the collective. The unit in this case is not one common nation, nor a majority rule camouflaged as a common nation. The units are the cultures or cultural collectives that exist within a territory, be it majority population, indigenous population, historical national minorities or new immigration minorities. These collectives are seen as unique; the thinking on how unique moves along a scale with sameness and difference at its extremes. At one end of the scale, one can stress radical difference so emphatically that it is unlikely that people with different cultural backgrounds will even understand one another. At the other end, cultures appear more as specific constellations of general elements, so are fairly transparent and intelligible to one another, understanding some, but not all, about the “others”. As a normative theory, multiculturalism claims that all cultures are equally legitimate. The state should not be obliged to promote one over another. Alternatively, one may think that the state should have an obligation to compensate, to shore up and support cultures that are not powerful. This can be done, for instance, by securing the right to language education or by allotting money to cultural projects such as museums. Norway in 1999 officially recognised five historical national minorities in addition to the indigenous Sámi population. There are new special museums or parts of museums dedicated to the Forest Finns, the Kvens, the Romany (Travellers, also called “Taters”) and the Jews. The numerically small group of Norwegian Rom (Gypsies) so far has no museum of its own. The state has recognised the rights of these historical minorities but new immigrant minorities are not given the same rights.

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This distinction is primarily politically and financially expedient. It is not philosophically clear why Pakistanis, who have lived for roughly 40 years in Norway, should have weaker rights than Rom or Jews, who have lived here for about 130 years. One argument may be that new immigrant minorities have chosen to move, that they knew what they were migrating into, and therefore are not entitled to the same rights. However, multiculturalists say that because culture runs deep in human beings, gives them a balance and orientation in life, because without the culture that has formed them they are not human beings, all should have the same rights to support for their cultural development. In the context of integration, multiculturalism implies that the units to be integrated are cultural collectives, not only or primarily individuals. Possible reasons for allowing for and accepting collectives were given earlier in the chapter. Ethnic communities imply that the members of a group live fairly close to one another, close enough for interaction and internal communication. Some see such communities as “ghetto-like”, and fear isolation and negative subcultures. However, such communities can also serve to integrate individuals. Belonging to a group can give an individual psychological and social stability, and the alternative in practice is not integrating people into a bigger society, but maybe not belonging, so that the individual has few contacts with any other human beings at all. Belonging to a group can give an The immigration history of many countries, especially the United States, suggest that such ethnic communities fulfil many necessary functions for individual psychological and social their members, such as the exchange of information and tips about jobs stability … and places to live, help for those in dire straits, social intercourse, religious services, an arena in which jokes can be shared without having to be explained. Some such communities have weakened over the years as such functions became equally well – or better – served elsewhere. Others have endured – or even strengthened. Politically, a multicultural position may lean towards the stance that all groups of people, cultures and maybe religions, ought to be represented as such. In other words, parties that express classes, secular ideologies and programmes are insufficient, and such minorities’ representation should be secured formally by quotas, earmarked seats and so on. Quotas could be used in connection with access to education, work and so on in a bid to overcome the collective asymmetry and unequal representation. If you consider the homogeneity of museum employees in a country like Norway, for example, it is tempting to think that quotas should somehow be employed. Arguments for allowing cultural collectives and for cultural variety have already been set out. A sympathetic, but somewhat vague and superficial multiculturalism is the usual discourse in the field of culture, or more specifically in Norway’s museum world, today. It is easy to welcome new musical forms or exotic dishes; easy to live with differences that bring enrichment. However, the real task is to live with differences that some see as negative, even repulsive – but are within the law. One has to discuss the possibility of multiculturalism as an alternative to the ethnic and the political national state on a deeper and more principled level. Multiculturalism also presents problems that need to be answered.

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4 Tore Lahn (2006): “Undervisningsopplegg om Romanifolket. Erfaring og ettertanke” in Brudd, Om det ubehagelige, tabubelagte, marginale, usynlige, kontroversielle. ABM-skrift 26, 2006, discusses the experiences of an educational programme intended for primary schools on the history of the Romani/Travellers. Parents with a Romani background protested, fearing a negative focus on their children, and one of the Romani organisations complained that there had been no consultation. Lahn sees a conflict between the competence of the museum professionals and the authority of personal experience. One may add that at the opening of the permanent exhibition on the Romani, their organisations disagreed on whether the portrayal of government and church policies should suppress the dark history, the Romani as victims, or whether it was wise to stress the more positive history, the cultural heritage and strength of the people, which raised questions about legitimate representation.

What fundamentally constitutes a collective? Which features ought to form the basis for recognition as a collective? Is it national ancestry? Or religion? Should people from the Philippines be considered as such, or as Catholics? Which attribute should be considered more important? Any feature that, at any time, anyone who considers him- or herself a group member finds important? If so, ought gay people who consider their sexual orientation the crucial feature to be recognised as a cultural group on a par with Sikhs or Sámi? Should there be a fixed system for financial support? Or is it possible to establish a distinction between what might be called a subcultural and a societal manifold? Regarding the relation between the collective and the outer world, does anyone have the right to speak out on behalf of a collective? Who are the legitimate spokespersons?4 Who has the right to define what a group stands for? Has anyone the formal right to claim that something is a more authentic component of the culture than other elements? Who is to say how a group is to be presented in a museum context? Can the idea of multiculturalism, particularly in connection with museums, contribute to the “freezing” of a certain culture? Can putting something into a museum contribute to the idea of an inherent, stable essence, whereas in reality the culture in question has changed quite radically? In the relationship between the collective and the member individuals, can a collective make any demand on, or does it have power over, a member? Across norms that are valid in society? Is an individual free to leave a group? This has to be asked, since several religions accept disbelievers more easily than they accept apostates. My own answer here is that the individual should have precedence at this point and have the option to leave. On the other hand, I cannot see how the state can instruct a collective, a family or a religious congregation to accept as a member an individual who is acting against the norms of the collective. The right to leave is followed by a right not to include, a right to exclude. In the relation between society and minorities, if I say that you are radically different from me, it can lead to a tolerant attitude: I choose this way; accordingly, you have the right to choose differently from me. But it may also lead to a radically different treatment. If I recognise nothing of myself in you, if there are no similarities, why should you be treated like me? In fact, are you really a human being and should you be treated as one? In ordinary peacetime situations, such questions do not arise, but contemporary history is filled with examples of grotesque practices springing from the idea of radical difference. In the relation between groups, can insistence on difference and in particular on cultural difference bring about a division between groups, setting group against group and hindering the growth of a greater, common “us”? More precisely, can concentration on cultural differences hinder recognition of social equality, social or class-based common interests? Some claim that ethno-politics – questions about ethnic identity, culture – are driven primarily by elites, intellectuals and middleclass people within an ethnic group, while problems affecting working men and women – unemployment, insecure working conditions, low wages, substandard dwellings, difficulties in making ends meet – are neglected.

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Last but not least, in the relation between the state and the various groups in a territory, can a society exist if it consists only of a number of different groups, each with their own identity and bent on their own projects, with nobody having a thought for the totality? Is it necessary to share some basic categories of thought and some meta-values – democracy, for instance? Is some kind of common narrative needed that somehow weaves together the stories of various groups of newcomers, for example, in relation to one another and to the majority? What kinds and what degrees of difference can exist within the same territory? This probably depends on the quality of participation and stakeholding in other areas. A socially exclusive society can probably live less peacefully with difference than a socially inclusive one. So, to sum up, to my mind a consequent and radical multiculturalism cannot answer the classical sociological and political question: How is society possible? That is: How does one develop sufficient participation, mutual relations and shared categories that make a society viable? Nation as unity in diversity? Let me recapitulate the argument so far. Humans do not live as isolated beings, but in relations with one another. They form collectives. Among these collectives, nation-states form the most likely frame for popular participation, more likely than regions, the EU or a chimerical world society. However, the traditional concepts of nation do not work in a world of migration, the ethnic nation does not include newcomers, the political nation is de facto assimilatory and too “cerebral”. Nor does a radical version of multiculturalism offer a basis for forming a new national collective. So, the task is to work towards a new understanding of a nation, one that We should not conceive society as can include the good elements of the older models, yet represents something that either exists or does not something new. One point of departure could be the view of humans not exist, something with sharp as atoms, but as existing through our relations with other humans. We geographical boundaries. have entered several chains of mutual dependence, chains that can vary in length and comprise various numbers of people. Some are limited to the immediate world, some stretch to a macro level, to national and transnational contacts. If there are relationships between people, there is society between them. We should not conceive society as something that either exists or does not exist, something with sharp geographical boundaries. Instead we say that something is more or less societal, depending on how dense or frequent relations are. Some densities make it sensible to speak of nations, as stated earlier. But societies are not identical to states; societies do not stop at the state borders. It follows from this that a human being can belong to several societies; it depends on which relations he or she enters into, with whom he or she interacts. An Iranian Kurd in Norway can be a member of East Kurdistan, of Iran, of Norway and of an international Kurdish community and diaspora. This means that society is not identical to a territorial unit with borders, a country or a state. In many questions, interaction can follow or be limited by borders, but territory is not what creates society.

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It follows from this that the individual has several societal belongings; he or she has responsibilities in several sets of connections, and must fulfil obligations in several chains of mutual interdependency. Thus it is in everyday life, thus it may be at the societal level – one may feel obligations towards the place of origin and people who are there, and obligations to the people where one lives. To ask a person to choose one single belonging and loyalty is to deny this basic condition.

A nation should be seen as a process in which some old elements disappear, some continue, some are added by impulses from abroad and by people who move into the area.

What kind of concept of a nation could this lead to? A nation should be seen as a process in which some old elements disappear, some continue, some are added by impulses from abroad and by people who move into the area. This is the way a country like Norway has been created and recreated throughout the centuries. Many of the cultural elements we see as Norwegian today, that are Norwegian, have come with immigrants – such as the Christian religion, urban and trade culture, new technology. In the same way, newcomers will add to and change features of the national make-up in the years to come. This will go beyond superficial elements, such as more varied music or food. The idea of a nation as a process does not imply that a concept such as “Norwegian” is fictitious or flickering; but that it is changeable and changing. Such a nation will contain greater differences of culture than it did during the years of homogeneity in the twentieth century, but in a way will be more like the period around 1900 when Kvens, Swedes and others put their stamp on the country. There will be greater diversity, but hopefully also the necessary elements of unity within that. Perhaps this is wishful thinking. However, this is close to the American understanding of nation at its best. Such a nation identifies itself as being composite. The prerequisites are:  political

membership for all, including an agreement on political unity – that is, to abide by democratic procedures;  social membership, equality and inclusion for all groups; and  cultural membership, acceptance of cultural differences as an ordinary part of the nation. I shall not go into the detailed programmes involved, but turn to museums as possible instruments in the realisation of cultural membership. Complex societies – complex museums? The way in which museums represent reality, and particularly past realities, is underexplored. Should they go for the subjective experience, to create a feeling that suggests “now we are in a past: this is how it was”? And if they do, should this be the full past or a selective, sanitised past – without the smells, the sweat, the pain? Alternatively, should they go for a more abstract representation, for instance by focusing on a few attractively presented artefacts? If they do, what does the culture of the authentic item represent? Are we drawn towards it because we feel that it guarantees a kind of truth? But are we in reality dazzled, because the context that this object belonged to is missing? Donald Horne writes:

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What can be most intellectually debilitating in a museum is the reverence given to objects merely because of their authenticity. This reaches its worst excesses in the “national museums”, ethnographic museums, military museums, technology museums and other museums that are history museums but with such a worship of the object-in-itself that they do not tell its history; we are confronted with objects without social processes.5 Stranger still is the cult of the rare or unique object. Why are replicas not the same? Do we confuse a genuine rapport with the past with market logic? Does the item become valuable because the supply is scarce, in the way a painting is more expensive than a graphic print, not because of its artistic merit or the work put into it, but because of its uniqueness? Many such philosophical questions present themselves when we think about museums. What should museums express in a complex society? The starting point may not seem very favourable. The dominant Nordic open-air museums, such as Skansen in Stockholm, Nationalmuseet in Copenhagen, Norsk Folkemuseum in Oslo and De Sandvigske SamlingerMaihaugen in Lillehammer in Norway, were part of the nation-building processes. True continuity in national history was in the peasantry, the “most national” part of the nation, although urban Norway was also documented.6 Underlying this was a predominantly cultural or ethnic nation concept. And there was an evolutionist and Eurocentric view. The ethnographic museum of the University of Oslo originally collected items from Borneo and Norwegian peasant culture alike. At its 50th anniversary in 1907, the director, commenting on the work of his predecessor, said that it was a mistake “to want to include collections illuminating the history of European civilization in museums, which should have as their primary, or more correctly only, objective the presentation of primitive kinds of people, people whose civilization rested on a basis wholly different from that of Europe”.7 These museums have functioned, in the words of Pierre Nora, as memory deposits, lieux de mémoire. Such places are usually physically located, but also can be placed in the mind, entities with symbolic and commemorative meanings.8 Donald Horne suggests that we can understand cultural tourism, visiting museums, houses or monuments, if we imagine “the modern sightseer as a ‘pilgrim’, and what is looked at as a relic”.9 The pilgrim is looking for a community, with God and with other believers. Horne includes three chapters on museums and monuments devoted to nationality and nationalism in most European countries. One of the countries subjected to his gentle irony is Norway, where museums show skiing 4 000 years ago and paintings with peasants and nature, where Viking ships are exhibited and stave churches cared for. His subtext is that this veneration for relics is an irrational, even illegitimate, use of the past to construct fictitious collectives today. So what is to be done? To those who share Horne’s scepticism and claim that any kind of national narrative is problematic, one option is to put a match to the stave churches, peasants’ houses and Viking ships. Well tarred as they are, they should burn swiftly. But even ardent anti-nationalists

5 Horne, Donald (1984) The great museum: The representation of history. London and Sydney: Pluto Press, p. 249. 6 Hegard, Tonte (1994) Hans Aall – mannen, visjonen og verket, Oslo, shows that Norsk Folkemuseum was planned from the start (in 1894) as a museum both for rural and urban Norway. 7 Quoted from Kjeldstadli, Knut (ed) (2003) Norsk innvandringshistorie. I nasjonalstatens tid 1814–1940, Vol. 2. Oslo, p. 317. 8 Nora, Pierre (ed) (1984, 1987, 1992) Les Lieux de Mémoire: La Republique, La Nation, La France. Paris: Gallimard. 9 Horne (1984), op. cit., p. 9.

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10 Einarsen, Hans Philip (2005) Mellom undringshjem og kamparenaer. Museer og den flerkulturelle virkeligheten. ABM-skrift No. 12, pp. 8, 9, 15, 36.

would hesitate, and tend to think that the houses should stand. But why – and how? It has been suggested that cultural museums carry a particular responsibility to participate in the rethinking of the concept of nation, since historically they were powerful symbol-producing institutions in the service of the older kinds of nation.10 But what kind of stories can they tell? Is it possible to align them with a more open, process-oriented notion of a nation?

A first thought is to see museums as a double representation: representing the period both from which houses and objects date, and from the time the museums were made; to see them as monuments to their own genesis. Such a metaperspective implies that one comments explicitly on the museum buildings and the organisation of the exhibitions. How this could be done technically in the exhibitions, I am not sure. An inherent orientation in the physical presence of museums defies reinterpretation in any direction. It is not easy to make the physical material tell the stories we want it to tell. Some decades ago, for example, a museum mounted an exhibition about beds. The “sitting beds” of peasants and the glittering “canopy beds” An inherent orientation in the physical of well-to-do landowners and bourgeoisie attracted attention. In a corner presence of museums defies there was some hay covered with sacking, and a modest note explained reinterpretation in any direction. It is that most of the lower, dependent classes in the countryside slept in not easy to make the physical material conditions like this. But the canopy beds were what made the impression. Perhaps the exhibition should have shown 50 such hay-and-sacking beds tell the stories we want it to tell. to counter the visual impact of the canopy beds. My point is that it is not easy to change implicit messages in physical structures. Yet some first steps can be made by starting to think about them, by being consciously self-reflective in texts and commentaries, by showing buildings and so on as products of their time. One can also keep some traditional exhibitions intact to remind us of the museum’s original context. Norsk Folkemuseum and De Sandvigske Samlinger (Maihaugen) and some other museums also have collections from urban society – houses, interiors, pharmacists’ laboratories, artisan shops and so on. These offer further possibilities for presenting a more complex version of the nation since substantial parts of Norwegian urban culture from early modern and modern times are historically the culture of immigrants. Those who became the Norwegian bourgeoisie were largely descendants of immigrants – primarily from Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Scotland and the Netherlands. And the urban collections can be interpreted in several ways, as a part of Norwegian history, but also as a part of the immigration history. (See also Chapter 11 on Norsk Folkemuseum). Another way to revitalise the collections and tell a more complex story is to show how more general elements have been adopted and adapted in the national culture, as we have mentioned. One peasant dress style may have borrowed from Renaissance patterns, another from the empire style. Rose painting, considered a most Norwegian popular decorative art, has as a central motif the acanthus, a plant that grows in ditches along Greek country roads, a motif imported to Norway by foreign professional artisans. The point is not that peasants and self-taught painters were plagiarists; on the contrary, rose painting was a creative adaptation of imported elements.

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So far, the suggestions have taken existing collections as a premise. But is it possible to rearrange the material in more radical ways? The history of migration and minorities is not a neat, unanimous story. It is a story also of conflicting voices. How does one convey these voices and conflicts? Can a museum become polyphonic – tell several narratives or conflicting versions of the same history? Courage and insight are needed. But how can it be achieved on a more practical level? Can the stories be told in sequence in the physical display: first the history of the policy of the Norwegian state in northern Norway as it appeared to the state officials, then through the eyes of the Kvens, Finnish-speaking immigrants? Or could there be an exhibition based on counterpoints and juxtapositions, one that debates with and contradicts itself?

11 See also Bøe, Liv Hilde, Gaukstad, Kristin and Sandrup, Therese (2005) Min stemme – vår historie. Dokumentasjon av det flerkulturelle Norge, ABMskrift No. 19, 2005. 12 Einarsen (2005), op. cit., p. 13.

There are also the challenges inherent in contemporary documentation, in gathering material for the future. The contributions by Liv Hilde Bøe and Bente Møller in this volume (Chapters 11 and 14) offer examples of the work that has been done in Norway.11 These represent some of the most serious efforts made by museums to include immigrants’ histories and narratives. Conscious efforts have also been made to recruit immigrants as employees and project workers. Yet almost all those who are permanently employed in these roles in Norwegian museums, particularly in management and scientific positions, come from the majority. In the Norwegian museum world there is a benevolent, if somewhat hesitant, attitude towards the inclusion of multicultural perspectives. One possible way forward involves piecemeal changes in the established institutions. The history of minorities will then become a part of the old museums built by the majority. Another possibility is a demand for The history of minorities will become separate institutions for the new immigrant minorities, planned and staffed by members of the group, underlining their autonomy. The a part of the old museums built by Romani museum in Norway shares premises with a regional museum in the majority. Elverum, whereas the Jewish museum in Oslo has chosen to remain outside such conglomerates. In interviews, Norwegian-Kurdish and Norwegian-Pakistani contributors expressed scepticism about separate ethnic museums, because they feared they might lead to increased segregation between the groups.12 Yet a Kurdish virtual internet museum has been opened in Bergen (see Chapter 13). An exhibition documenting Hindu life in Norway could claim support by pointing to the support given for a Jewish museum. The road ahead will be governed by such choices of cultural policy and other forces external to museums. To some extent, the authorities will set the course, primarily through the systems of financial support they choose to implement. Large investments by interested parties will of course lead to more separate institutions. And the general political climate will be decisive: in some situations, there will be little or no inclination to spend money on minority culture. Yet, although museums are not outside broader political and cultural currents, they also have goals and rules of their own. In my experience, most ideas about exhibitions are generated from the museum staff, not from external initiatives or pressure. So change has to come from within. There have to be qualified, educated personnel with minority backgrounds. This will take time: so far,

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13 Ibid., p. 20.

recruitment from the minorities to disciplines such as history, ethnology or the history of art is very limited. Until this situation changes, we shall have to grope our way towards complex museums for a complex society as best we can. The gist of the argument has been the need to develop a new, process-oriented complex concept of nation that includes both unity and variety. A critic might see this as a new project for nation building, a modernised version of the nineteenth-century project. Would this interfere with other collective projects? Take the case of the Kurds, for example, who are striving to build a nation although they still have no independent state. Would a project for an inclusive Norwegian nation compete with their initiative? One Kurdish commentator says that negative experiences of having been obliterated in Turkish museums have led to scepticism towards museums in general: “We are … afraid of the institutions, afraid that they will assimilate us once more.”13 Such fears should not be brushed away lightly. Yet, it is probable that Norway as a nation will persist, and it is likely that Kurds will form a part of this nation. If so, we should ensure that several voices join in the narratives about the nation’s past, present and future.

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CHAPTER 19

Pluralism, cultural heritage and the museum Haci Akman

Introduction The museum as guardian of cultural heritage and social meeting place actualises several cultural encounters – both physical and mental. These encounters take place in the public sphere between different individuals in a variety of situations. Encounters between cultures are in themselves not an unusual or new phenomenon. The processes of globalisation, together with an increased ethnic complexity or pluralism in the population, however, have intensified the encounters between people and forced us to repeatedly question and reconsider our understanding of cultures, cultural heritage and identity. Most museums are in fact already pluralist, since they possess objects or ideas that are not specifically tied to what we consider, in the context of this chapter, to be Norwegian culture. Ethnically pluralist societies have always existed, in Norway as elsewhere. The rights of the Sámi population are embedded in the Norwegian constitution. These rights also apply to the national minorities: Jews, kvener (people of Finnish heritage), Rom (Gypsies), the Romany people (Gypsies/Travellers) and skogfinner (Forest Finns), although minorities Ethnically pluralist societies have who arrived from the 1960s onwards do not have the same constitutional always existed, in Norway as elsewhere. rights. It is questionable whether the cultural heritage of the Sámi people, The rights of the Sámi population are the national minorities and other minorities in Norway are sufficiently embedded in the Norwegian represented in Norwegian museums. Even if attitudes to minorities’ constitution. cultural heritage have changed, most are still not part of the “grand Norwegian narrative”. Ethnic minorities in diaspora can, through their cultural expressions and cultural heritage, break this silence and contribute to the national narrative. Their participation in the creation of local history then becomes more visible. The histories of ethnic groups are written both individually and as groups, and in parallel with national histories. Many people, including those in Norway, who find themselves part of the diaspora have suffered traumatic events. If museums are to tell the stories of the broader population, it is important that, as institutions of cultural history locally, nationally and internationally, they do not shy away from international political events. The museum is an important meeting place for culture and cultural encounters. The processes of such cultural encounters are expressed through social interaction. Such meetings are characteristic of post-modern society and are marked by cultural mobility. The museum’s social role is challenged

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1 Rekdal, Per (1999) “No longer newly arrived – Museum presentations of immigrant cultures in nations with dominant ‘indigenous’ cultures”, Nordisk Museologi (1) 1999, p. 5.

when it comes to whose past and whose roots should be represented at any given time in the museum showcase. Political as well as cultural perspectives of cultural heritage are therefore necessary to understand the position of institutions in the past, present and future. As Per Rekdal notes: Museums take care of “our roots”, they represent “our” collective identity, our shared pride. In the current situation, one could ask whether the term “our” is as unproblematic and unambiguous as it used to be. As the saying goes, “everybody has the right to a past”, and museums should try to protect that right.1 Designations such as “ours” and “theirs” should be discussed in their changed and changing contexts and should perhaps be reconstructed as concepts. “Our” objects and “their” objects Museums present objects but they also distribute knowledge about them through their collections, exhibitions and archives. The object is a symbol of one thing for some people and of something else for others through the meaning it is assigned and the context it is placed in. “Ethnic” Norwegians will assign the object Norwegian symbolic value, while others may understand that it symbolises something else. In this way the object, as it is presented and understood in the museum, becomes a symbol that offers several meanings. Depending how it is understood, it can be part of individuals’, groups’ or a nation’s self-awareness through the collective memories associated with it over time. Museums create contexts for objects and interpretations of objects and can be arenas for dialogue and inclusion between different voices and opinions. But museums can also wield power, be exclusive, disciplining or assimilating. Some objects are prominently placed in the public light while others are given a more modest role in exhibitions and archives. There are many reasons why some are given more attention than others are, and in any case, the eye of the beholder – the visitor – is never neutral. The selection of objects is always made with an underlying intention. The question of which objects become the focus for the production and dissemination of knowledge and which objects remain silent also has a political dimension. Objects are presented in the museum – a public and social arena – with the intention of telling a story, one that others might have told in a completely different way. When an artefact becomes an object in a museum, it takes on a completely new meaning. It is no longer part of a living context but becomes the object of reflection and understanding. How it is regarded will of course vary according to the context in which it is placed and what other objects are presented with it. In this way museums contribute to writing the object into a narrative about the past, and possibly also about the present. When museums became part of identity construction and national self-reflection in the twentieth century, they also became the arena for dissemination of our distinctive character based on one

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national homogenous culture. This dissemination regime is still challenged by the increasing diversity and complexity of a society that no longer accepts the narrative of the unambiguously Norwegian – which perhaps never existed in the first place. In meeting external social parties involved in cultural heritage preservation, museums are confronted with issues and questions locally, nationally and internationally that highlight established policies on objects and collections. Cultural heritage, managed and disseminated through museums, has become part of the conflict of interests related to the ownership and understanding of objects. Such conflicts have a global import within the museum field, since museum policies, treatment of ethnicity, and lack of minority representation have all been widely criticised. So far, there seems to be limited openness around such issues. National or other museums or groups claim ownership of specific objects, but there is not yet an arena in which such questions can be discussed or resolved. Identity on the border The concept of identity has become an important category of legitimisation within museums.2 Objects are invested with meaning and they contain knowledge about a cultural heritage that is passed from one generation to the next. Such transmissions generate processes of socialisation and integration. In this way, museums and objects are not exclusively passive, but are invested with meaning and assigned an agenda.

2 Johansen, Anders, Losnedahl, Kari Gaarder and Ågotnes, Hans-Jakob (2002) “Et lite påaktet felt”, in A. Johansen et al. (eds), Tingenes tale. Innspill til museologi. Bergen Museums skrifter (12), p. 8.26. Bergen: Universitetet i Bergen /Bergen Museum. 3 Evenstvedt, Åse (2007) “Norsk oljemuseujm: skatten i berget under havet”, Museumsnytt. 5(4), p. 33–35. 4 Haas, Stefan (1996) “Historische kulturforschung in Deutschland 1880–1930: Geschichtswissenschaft zwischen synthese und pluralität”, Münstersche historische Forschungen 5. Köln: Böhlau Verlag. 5 Barth, Fredrik (1969) Ethnic groups and boundaries: The social organisation of culture difference. Bergen: Universitetsforlag. 6 Ibid. 7 Rekdal (1999), op. cit.

Exhibitions in ethnographic and national museums emphasise rather than reduce the differences between “us” and “them”, although this may be unintentional. While national museums normally deal only with the pure Norwegian, ethnographic museums often present a non-historical representation of different cultures.3 Such representations, which often have a pedagogical point of departure, may confirm prejudices and enforce dichotomies.4 It is on the border – social or territorial – between “us” and “them” that culture is created. This is where difference and what is communicated as similarity change according to who is considered to be on the border.5 The best of the society or group is often presented in a manner that turns the symbolic evaluation into a deeper dichotomy between “us” and “them”. In a museum context it is therefore interesting to study what kind of processes are set in motion by definitions and borders and which cultural elements are chosen to represent the group in the encounter with others; in other words, what kind of cultural features are selected to create differences.6 By considering the processes of social interaction that are expressed in a museum context as border encounters, we can gain an understanding of how visitors understand and experience the distinction between “us” who are similar and “them” who are different. A central issue in museum politics should, according to Rekdal, be integration.7 Museums’ stronger involvement in the presentation of cultural diversity is expected to contribute to the integration of new groups into Norwegian society. A distinction is commonly made between integration and assimilation – the latter meaning that the migrants should adapt themselves, eventually becoming

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8 Stortingsmelding Nr 17, 1996–97: Om innvandring og det flerkulturelle Norge. 9 Jenkins, Richard (2004) Social identity. Routledge: London. 10 Ibid. 11 Anderson, Benedict (1991) Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso. 12 Jenkins (2004), op. cit. 13 BBC News, Monday, 11 November 2002. 14 Johansen, Anders (2001) “Historie, identitet og tradisjon”, in A. Rygg, S. Fitje and H. Ommedal (eds), Årbok for Nordfjord 1 utgave (35). Sandane: Nordfjord Sogelag, Nordfjord Folkemuseum pp. 89–119. 15 Freire, Paulo (1974) Kulturaktion for friheden. København: Christian Ejlers’ Forlag. 16 Johansen, Lise (2002) Museum og dialog: En kulturvitenskapelig undersøkelse i et hermetikk og oljemuseum. Hovedoppgave i kulturvitenskap, Universitetet i Bergen.

Norwegians, although we like to claim that this is not the case. In Norwegian Parliament White Paper No. 17, 1996–97: Immigration and Multicultural Norway (Stortingsmeldning Nr. 17, 1996– 97: Om innvandring og det flerkulturelle Norge), integration is defined as allowing immigrants to keep part of their culture at the same time as they become Norwegians.8 People construct and ascribe their own identity through socially established networks; at the same time, other people’s identification of individuals – so-called assigned identity – is also important. When it comes to the development of identity in groups, Jenkins distinguishes between internal definitions within the group that are based on likeness, and external definitions one makes on meeting others where the differences from other groups are communicated. In this context, ethnographic museums can play a particular role since they, through exhibitions, contribute to creating and maintaining categorisations of “us” and “them”,9 and consequently borders. Belonging and identity is expressed through an emphasis on common symbolic forms, symbolic constructions, metaphors and metonymies that can generate a feeling of likeness.10 Symbols can appear as typical national symbols,11 and reinforce processes of inclusion. Within inclusion processes, however, processes of exclusion12 will always also take place, and in these, internal and external definitions do not always coincide. Discipline and dialogue … they must remain here if the museum is to continue to achieve its aim, which is to show the world to the world.13 This statement was made by Neil McGregor, director of the British Museum in London, when pointing out the importance of not returning the museum’s objects to their countries of origin. The reactions from different sources on the museums’ object policies provoked debate, both in foreign policy forums and within the cultural sphere. Over time, a certain logic has developed when it comes to the form and means used by the interested parties – those who wish to keep the objects and those who wish them to be returned. The built-in logic is then often tied to the different parties’ position in this conflict of interest and the power balance that exists between them. Museums often express their opinion with great authority in the debate, something that could be considered as the disciplining logic of the strongest. Consequently, dissenting voices are sometimes not easily heard. According to Anders Johansen,14 what all meeting places have in common is that they offer limitations and possibilities for dialogue. The conditions for dialogue, according to Paulo Freire,15 depend on various factors. Lise Johansen16 argues that the parties must have a common arena for conversation and a neutral meeting place. Furthermore, the power balance between the parties needs to be clarified. The parties should also realise their own shortcomings in the encounter with a different perspective, be humble, and want to learn more about the other’s arguments. A premise for this is an ability and willingness to learn and to acquire new knowledge. Possibilities for new

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thinking and syncretism are present only in conversations that take the form of a dialogue. The destiny of museum objects will probably depend upon the result of the conflict of interests. This in turn will rest on the abilities of the different parties to see new solutions and make compromises with each other, and their willingness to understand each other’s position. Dialogue about cultural heritage issues in the museum field may shed light on the power balances that exist at any given moment. Johansen refers to Freire when she claims that dialogue turns the meeting place into an open arena where situations in which knowledge is used to exercise power can be avoided. If such a balance is not achieved in the encounter between the parties, this is a sign of a distortion of the power balance, something Freire describes as “anti-dialogue”. Anti-dialogue does not serve as a door-opener but as a tool to obtain power over the conversation through your own argument, knowledge and understanding, for example in a conflict of interests. Museums present knowledge created by someone for someone. They The role of the museum in a disciplining present selected perspectives on a subject as well as people’s present and perspective can often appear as a former position in relation to it. In this way, education and enlightenment monological and not a dialogical go hand in hand with disciplining where the audience is often positioned expression. as the receiver of the knowledge about “us” and “them”. In other words, there is a disciplinary aspect incorporated in the museum’s epistemic order over time – for example through the selection of objects and the knowledge they represent. Eilean Hooper-Greenhill refers to Foucault when she comments on how the museum institution contributes to the imposition of order on society. The role of the museum in a disciplining perspective can often appear as a monological and not a dialogical expression.17 The epistemics of the institution often guide what we may call its inner logic, and can help explaining its attitudes and, at the next stage, its actions towards the opposite party in a conflict of interests. Power can be exercised through a particular use of arguments in an anti-dialogue and be a mirror of the disciplining role assumed by the interlocutor. The use of monologues or antidialogue in questions related to cultural heritage policy may reflect a wish to maintain a position of power through repeated attempts to appear as disciplinary through argument. Similarly, objects can be used instrumentally in cultural heritage policy, either at the museum or in other meeting places where cultural heritage origins are discussed. Documenting a pluralistic cultural heritage: two examples Cultural heritage was defined as follows by the National Heritage Conference in Great Britain in 1983: “… that which a past generation has preserved and handed on to the present and which a significant group of the population wishes to hand on to the future”.18

17 Hooper-Greenhill, Eilean (2000) “Museums and the interpretation of visual culture”, Museum Meanings (4). London: Routledge.

Issues of transfer, choice and selection are central. Furthermore, the notion of cultural heritage means that something should be protected and that someone sees the value in protecting it for posterity. Cultural heritage is therefore one of the building blocks in many groups’ and nationalities’

18 Hewison, Robert (1989) “Heritage: An interpretation”, in D. Uzzell (ed), Heritage interpretation, Vol. 1. London: Belhaven.

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19 Herbert, Christopher (1991) Culture and anomie: Ethnographic imagination in the nineteenth century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 20 Kristiansen, Kristian and Rowlands, Michael (1998) “Social transformations in archaeology: Global and local perspectives”, Material Cultures. London: Routledge. 21 http://www.nyenordmenn.no/ 22 http://www.aksis.uib.no/ projects/75

understanding of their culture; where the literary and oral delivery, in addition to the material cultural monuments, form a heritage from the past that ties generations together in time and space. In this context, the preservation of culture may be understood as a conscious protection of the part of cultural heritage, which, according to Herbert, a particular group in society deems particularly worthy of preservation. Protection of culture is therefore an issue of authority. Herbert refers to the fact that places with, for example, cultural monuments or cultural heritage sites that are considered particularly worthy of preservation were protected by, and for, people who had knowledge about the past. Any notion of cultural heritage must, however, be related to the diversity of objects deemed worthy of preservation that are created as a result of the encounter between migrants and the majority society.19 If museums are to disseminate this diversity they need to know about the cultural heritage that ethnic groups consider their own – both the material and the non-material heritage. Ethnic groups also need to strengthen their identity by making their own cultural heritage visible and passing it on from generation to generation. Kristiansen and Rowlands20 claim that identity in our time has also become a way to express our feelings of loss. Migrants often experience a loss of place, belonging and identity at the same time as a new cultural context demands a reorientation towards new places and a reconstruction of identity. Documentation of pluralistic cultural heritage is a question of migrants’ right to their own history and the possibilities for their recognition and confirmation in the society they have joined. Documentation of culture could, for example, take as a point of departure the migrant’s experiences of migrant life and documentation of the migrant’s material culture. Documentation could be obtained through various methodical approaches, such as longitudinal oral history interviews, thematic interviews, video documentation and documentation and collection of material objects. Concepts of cultural diversity guide cultural heritage policy nationally as well as internationally. In attempts to integrate the culture of ethnic minorities into museums, interesting initiatives are taking place. Two examples have been given in this volume: the International Culture Centre and Museum (Internasjonalt Kultursenter og Museum) (Chapter 14) and Norwegian Folk Museum and the project Norwegian Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow?,21 (Chapter 11), and the Norwegian Kurdish Cultural Heritage Documentation Project22 in collaboration with the Department for Culture, Language and Information Technology and the University of Bergen (Chapter 13). These projects are examples of initiatives that focus on documentation, collection and dissemination of the pluralistic cultural heritage. The projects’ common goal has been to expand collections and archives with objects, photographs, text, sound and film, which in different ways illustrate the cultural heritage of minorities. Although the intention behind the two projects is relatively similar, they have taken different approaches. Norwegian Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow? builds on the experiences from Wergeland’s Children, a documentation project of Norwegian Jews who were born before the Second World War. It was carried out by the Norwegian Folk Museum between 1999 and 2003. Oral history interviews, thematic interviews and video documentation were used as points of departure in the documentation work. The intention was to establish a documentation archive or a knowledge bank that could be used for research and dissemination of this subject.

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While the point of departure for Norwegian Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow? was the migrant’s experience of migrant life, the Norwegian Kurdish Cultural Heritage Documentation Project began with the mapping of historical references through the use of different types of source material. The documentation contains an overview of the non-material and material Kurdish culture in diaspora. The goal has been to find out about meeting points between Kurdish and Norwegian culture in a historical perspective. Shared memories give shared identity, and shared identity between Norwegians and Kurds draws parallels in time and space. This shared cultural heritage is exemplified in contact between Norwegians and Kurds through history. Illustrations of historical cultural encounters between Norwegians and Kurds – from the Viking Age until the present – have brought into focus new connections involving nature, trade, population, habitation patterns, migration and culture. Such documentation expands our knowledge about Mesopotamia and the cultural dynamics that existed in this area, which in turn affected Norwegian history. For people living in exile, most cultural preservation takes place within the ethnic network, and consequently the possibility of their being developed in the new place-bound multicultural context is limited. Representing the nation As pointed out earlier, we have a tendency to think of cultures as place-bound, but nations are not necessarily as strongly connected to place as we think. The task of the national culture, for instance in Norway, was to produce culture in the hope that its elements would gradually be united with a shared feeling of belonging among its citizens. This process has been only partially successful. In a diverse society, the role of national culture is not necessarily to express In a diverse society, the role of national a shared feeling of belonging but to represent the differences as a unity. culture is not necessarily to express a It is about producing a sense of community through an ongoing national shared feeling of belonging but to narrative, identification and experiences of belonging – a process that represent the differences as a unity. without constant attention cannot bind the nation together across class, race, gender, religion and imbalances in economic development. Culture is not a simple concept. It must always be considered as a composition of similarities and dissimilarities, continuity and new elements – marked by ruptures and differences. Global processes like migration intensify different encounters between people and continuously raise questions about our concept of culture. The museum as an institution faces a challenge when it comes to presenting cultural diversity and integrating new cultural expressions into existing ones. In other words, there is not a question of either/or – nor a division between the “traditional” Norwegian and the “new”. The issue is that the museum as representative of Norwegian culture should become an expression of Norwegian culture as it emerges in its complexity.

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23 Crane, Susan (2000) “Introduction”, in Museums and memory. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Memories in museums Although memory is an abstract concept, memories embody various forms in a museum context. The mental process of remembering takes a physical form in the brain that is invisible to the naked eye. Memory becomes rational and visible through imagined re-remembering and representation, as we seek to hold on to our fleeting experience of its meaning. Memory is not only a positive process; it awakes emotions and desires, both positive and negative. Memory is also driven by a wish to remember or forget. It is mortal, tied to the brain and the body of the carrier, and is unreliable and the object of reconsideration. If we want to hold on to memories, we have to find ways to preserve them. Memories are not static, but may appear so as constructed representational forms seek to strengthen their meaning. It is through these forms of preservation that memories interact with museums. To be collected means to be valued and remembered institutionally. To be exhibited means to be incorporated into the extra-institutional memory of the museum visitor. Remembrance is inspired by collections, even though what the visitors remember may be as coloured by what they are prepared to learn or comprehend as by what they already knew about the objects.23 Natural history and ethnologic museums have often chosen to present nature, primitive people and exotic cultures to a modern, Western audience. The exhibitions became objects of fascination and consumption and, at the same time, they contribute to the construction of national identity. A certain timelessness is assigned to primitive cultures, as if they represent a previous universal human past, a representation beyond the memories of advanced society. Modern museum exhibitions tend in a similar manner to “freeze” time, for example through the permanent exhibition of objects. Preservation practice in a museum organises the memories of entire cultures through representative objects and by choosing what is worthy of being kept and remembered. The organisation of memory thus establishes an apparent stability in the remembered, organised in static time and space. Memories of cultures, nature and nations initiate memories in and for a diverse collective. These memories then become components of identities – of individuals, including those who would not otherwise have felt any connection to these objects. In conclusion, it must be added that our experience of living in a unified culture has been enriched by the idea of national time (the history, present and past of the nation). Perhaps instead we should ask ourselves whether the nation itself is a temporary entity. We know that national traditions are created but so is our cultural present. If we consider cultures as naturally separate and place-bound, this also becomes an alibi for other forms of separation, through exclusion and discrimination.

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CHAPTER 20

Representing community: national museums negotiating differences and the community in the Nordic countries Peter Aronsson

Unity in diversity “Unity in diversity” is a formula used for theological, political and cultural purposes to find positive solutions to conflict and fragmentation. Re-presenting and narrating a culture and its history gives voice to and thereby creates a collective subject, claiming its past to promote futures in the present situation. No one has put it better than Aurelius Augustinus did in AD 397: But what now is manifest and clear is, that neither are there future nor past things. Nor is it fitly said, “There are three times, past, present and future;” but perchance it might be fitly said, “There are three times: a present of things past, a present of things present, and a present of things future.” For these three do somehow exist in the soul, and otherwise I see them not: present of things past, memory; present of things present, sight; present of things future, expectation.1 This means that all kinds of aspiring communities – from families, tribes, cities and parishes to countries, continents and indeed humanity in its entirety – present their respective versions in an ever-increasing choir of voices where both unity and diversity are indispensable. If we are a community, there has to be a border drawn; if we are a community, it is built of parts that need to be identified and named. These borders and units can and have been constructed in different ways, comprising ethical directions of very different kinds, and this is partly due to the way in which they are constructed, represented, disseminated and socialised by cultural institutions. One of the most powerful institutions in Western Europe is the centralised state, which evolved from c. 1500. The absolute State learned many techniques of law and administration from the older Church institution; and military skills through encounters with its neighbours and technical advancement. For several hundred years the state was mildly interested in the attitudes of its common citizens. In most countries the relationship was mediated through nobility in a feudal system. Orderly distribution of taxes was the main concern and point of contact. Museums such as the Uffizi, the Louvre and other royal collections were used from the late sixteenth century to impress other monarchs and aristocrats with the governor’s power and taste. Official history was used for similar reasons to legitimise the power, enhance the glory and promote the grandeur of the ruling regime.

1 Augustin, Aurelius (1886) The confessions of St Augustine. Translated and annotated by J. G. Pilkington. New York: Christian Literature Publishing Co. Chapter XX. “In what manner time may properly be designated”, Book XI.

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In the wake of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, it became necessary to mobilise soldiers on a scale that was not possible with mercenaries. That is when a national approach to community and representation began to emerge. This provoked a transformation of old royal treasures into national collections, which were duly complemented with new artefacts to represent the nation as a people of shared destiny rather than a dynasty. Conglomerate states and empires had to mould nations out of their earlier dynastic power claims. While this was being done, new problems arose where diverse histories, languages and cultures merged into nations that did not entirely coincide with either the existing states or expansionist visions of future boundaries. History is largely unwritten. The process by which the immense reservoir of past action becomes heritage is complex. Public museums are at the upper end of the chain of exchanges involved, since they have to be negotiated professionally and politically. Hence they reflect not only the past but also the political situation and aspirations of the society that wishes to produce the past as cultural heritage.

The process by which the immense reservoir of past action becomes heritage is complex.

Museum institutions were created all over the world to negotiate difference and change, to create order and unity. Various museums’ narratives (and corresponding silences) were, and are, used to deal with a changing set of challenges: aggressive neighbours, unwilling minorities, irresponsible citizens, class divisions, regional difference, mobility and ethnic diversity. The remit to integrate and legitimise the present political state is, however, a stable feature of national museums, while scholarly ideas of science and objects, the division of labour between different disciplines and different museums evolve. The precise way this happens varies according to the challenges facing society: traumatic change triggers memory politics, the anatomy of the relationship between the state and people varies and different nationalisms evolve to determine the role played by national museums. In the Nordic countries, there is a long-standing interplay between the idea of a shared Scandinavian culture and that of contemporary nation-states. These states are presented as necessary and natural outcomes of history. They bring a particular flavour to the integrative endeavours taken on by public history when creating community. 2 Olaus, Magnus (1909) Historia om de nordiska folken. Uppsala. 3 Paasi, Anssi (1986) “The institutionalisation of regions: A theoretical framework for understanding the emergence of regions and the constitution of regional identity”, Fennia 164; Paasi, Anssi (1996) Territories, boundaries and consciousness: The changing geographies of the Finnish– Russian border. Chichester: Wiley; Aronsson, Peter (1995) Regionernas roll i Sveriges historia. Stockholm: Fritze.

Scandinavian state making The question of community and state in the northern countries has been controversial in a political, ideological and scholarly context since the late medieval struggle under the Union of Kalmar (1389–1523).2 From a long-term perspective, there are fewer differences than one might think between Scandinavia and other European countries with regard to nation-making dilemmas. There were centuries of federal complexity, ethnic diversity, endless wars between the aspiring Baltic empires of Sweden and Denmark, and later national movements within the emerging states of Norway, Finland, Iceland and other border areas. Uncertain loyalties lingered on, and empires were created and dissolved right up to the twentieth century.3

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The nineteenth-century idea of natural nation-states adjured rather then described an ancient national unity, promoted by history writing and museum installations trying to persuade citizens and hide the fact of a very late making of the modern borders of the nation-states of Denmark (1814/1864/1920), Norway (1814/1905), Finland (1809/1917), Sweden (1809/1905) and Iceland (1944). Two Lutheran early modern conglomerate states, Denmark/Norway and Sweden (with Finland), both with several smaller provinces, were restructured through the Napoleonic Wars, with Russia and Germany transforming into new superpowers. Baltic and northern German provinces were lost to Russia and Germany in the 18th and 19th centuries. Russia took Finland from Sweden in 1809. As compensation, Norway was taken from Denmark and put into a loose union with Sweden in 1814. Finland kept its Swedish laws and was a separate legal province under Russian rule, although civil war in 1918 resulted in the development of a national movement to break loose at the end of the First World War. An immense cultural investment in politics, schools and heritage institutions, however, has established the present map as the natural and desirable shape of states in the region.4

4 Stråth, Bo and Sørensen, Øystein (eds) (1997) The cultural construction of Norden. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press; Østergård, Uffe (1992) Europas ansigter: Nationale stater og politiske kulturer i en ny, gammel verden. Copenhagen: Rosinante/Munksgaard. 5 Inglehart, Ronald and Welzel, Christian (2005) Modernisation, cultural change, and democracy: The human development sequence. New York: Cambridge University Press.

In Sweden the constitution of 1809 updated the political system, to a bourgeoisie monarchy with a division of power. The parliament still consisted of four estates, but uniquely a peasant estate was among them. In Norway a more modern national representation was introduced more radically as early as 1814, the vote being granted to all propertied men. In Denmark, similar changes were imposed in a more revolutionary manner by the fall of the absolute monarchy in 1848. In Finland the development was more gradual: the old Swedish law was kept by the former Swedish province after the Russian conquest in 1809, for internal governance, but the country remained under Russian autocratic rule till 1918. In Sweden the formal democratic breakthrough was late, after the First World War. In the twentieth century the Nordic countries – most unusually – enjoyed a stable democracy, and rapid industrial development. A Protestant culture of individualists was fostered and great trust put in collective institutions as a means of fulfilling ambition. The best example is Sweden, which has not actively participated in any war for nearly 200 years.5 To cut a long history short, Scandinavia’s regional/national complications reflect a fairly ordinary European experience. The three main types of nations are represented: Sweden and Denmark have had a continuous existence since medieval times; Norway is a historic nation that has experienced an interrupted state history; and Finland is a new nation with no preceding independent state. Iceland has been colonised since 874 but developed an independent society before it was incorporated with Norway/Denmark. Scandinavia’s regional/national Independence evolved during the First and Second World Wars. The complications reflect a fairly ordinary Faroes and Greenland, however, remain as remnants of the old Danish European experience. conglomerate state. There are plenty of opportunities for minorities and losers of war to long for revenge and justice using historical and national arguments, as in many other parts of Europe. The inclination to act varies greatly, however. The understanding of community and diversity is one important part of an explanation.

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Scandinavian culture, national history The idea of given nations and states has, in northern Europe, interacted with the idea of a common Scandinavian culture. In classical writing from the Roman emperor Tacitus’ Germania onwards, Nordic peoples have been recognised both as part of a shared culture and as divided into tribes/nations. This dynamic – between a Scandinavian cultural community and changing borders of national states – has been productive in politics, museums and academic disciplines. Images of “Norden” (“the North”) depict unspoiled nature, simplicity, social egalitarianism, Protestant ethics and a democratic culture with ancient roots. These images create space for a certain flexibility and integration within the Nordic sphere. They have, however, also been used for racist endeavours and might be less useful as an integrative tool in more global challenges. Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Iceland are often regarded as belonging to the few nation-states that lived up to the idea of one people, one country and one state, statements that were continually repeated from the nineteenth-century political programme of Scandinavianism to challenge the expanding powers of Russia and Germany. The path each nation-state took in the modernisation process, and the relationship between nation and state, are two of the major conditions framing the context for museum cultural policy. These are different in the Nordic countries, and were especially so in the early nineteenth, then the early twenty-first century. It has been suggested that the common Nordic culture, stressing uniformity and unity, is due to a common Protestant culture. Not even in Norway, where Protestantism was forcibly introduced from Denmark, did this fact create any hostility to this as a part of colonial heritage in need of counter-reformation. Protestantism has been written into every national narrative as part of a given destiny. It has been beneficial in the long run, producing values such as freedom of belief, democracy and equality. It has also stood as a bulwark against the East and Catholic Europe in Finland and Sweden and is closely related to the national mentality in Denmark, with major cultural heroes as the Dane, N. S. F. Grundtvig’s (1783–1872) connection of religion, Nordic history, reform and nationalism to a coherent ideology being remarkably influential over time. 6 Others have stressed the importance and prevalence of a Medieval and Early Modern heritage of more aggressive Gothicist, Nordic and Germanic ideas of ancient tribal and biblical descent in the creation of ideas of national belonging, then used to demand a higher ranking in a European context and for aggressive claims of northern supremacy.

6 Stenius in Stråth and Sørensen (1997), op. cit.

Furthermore, the differences in political culture, it has been argued, are due to different relations between civil society and the state. In Sweden a strong civil society pervades the state and creates a corporative unity. In Norway localised nationalism and countryside identification keeps a strong position in the understanding of community to be guarded by the state. In Finland, instead, a strong state unifies society and becomes an important locus of national identification; and in Denmark a dual norm system separates the state from the civil society of a complexity and independence not seen in the other Nordic countries.

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The differences in the relationship between state and society became decisive because they influenced how the idea of the people, Folk, as an embodiment of the nation, would and could develop. In all these variations they shared and were inspired by German thought (Hegel, Herder, Schelling). These in turn influenced progressive historical writing in the mid-nineteenth century as well as the foundation of new disciplines and museums for the documentation, preservation and display of the nation, the people. History book titles changed from addressing the state and realm (rike) to dealing with the people and the nation. For example, Svenska folkets historia (The Swedish People’s History), E. G. Geijer (1832–1836) and Det norske folks historie (The Norwegian People’s History), P. A. Munch, (1852–1863) show the nation and people, rather than a purely political state body, becoming the new object of history. Munch declares that he deliberately told the history of the people (this is a typical strategy for a nation with state ambitions):

7 Munch, Peter Andreas (1852) Det norske folks historie. [Hovedafd 1]. D 1 Bd 1 Christiania, iv, from Peter Aronsson, Narve Fulsås, Pertti Haapala and Bernard Eric Jensen (2008) “Scandinavia and Finland”, in Stefan Berger and Chris Lorenz (eds), Society and the nation: Ethnicity, class, religion and gender. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

It was my intention to deliver as far as possible a true and complete exposition not only of the country’s political or external history, but of the people’s inner history, of the people’s life in its development and progress; nor only of the monarchs’ but also of the people’s achievements.7 In the Swedish context, the concept of people, and for that matter the concept of society, is readily associated by Geijer with the history of the monarch. According to Geijer a nation-state is constituted by the oath and trust between the allmoge, the common people, and the monarch. Aristocrats are the villains here, threatening the nation’s unity and the ... a nation-state is constituted by the bonds between king and people. This myth has some foundation in oath and trust between the common reality. The Swedish state system (including Finland), unusually, allowed the peasantry, the dominant group of freeholders, to participate in the people, and the monarch. parliament, which was formalised in the seventeenth century. They were also allowed practical participation in judicial matters and direct proto-democratic participation in parish administration, including poor relief and schooling. This meant that the border between state and society was constructed differently. The “public sector” in Sweden could and can mean state, municipal and collective responsibility. Only in the late 1980s was the term “society” introduced in a more independent, common European manner, reinforced by the discourse of civil society, but without affecting the existing concept of community. New states through war: early nineteenth-century Sweden and Denmark Energy for changing national and historical understanding developed simultaneously in Denmark and Sweden. The losses of Finnish and Norwegian territory in war demanded a mustering of history in Denmark and Sweden in dealing with this trauma. In Scandinavia in the first half of the nineteenth century, the past needed to be reinterpreted and community created. Subjects of declining empires had to be mobilised into a citizenry created by enlightenment, social and economic modernisation and slowly brought to political formation, a nation.

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The Napoleonic Wars and the resulting peace treaties led to new borders all over Scandinavia. The need to negotiate the new situation immediately was understood by the cultural policy of the two dominating states, Sweden and Denmark. The response was closely linked to the emerging modern idea of national citizenship and a new mode of historical consciousness. The challenge of negotiating diversity in national museums was set. Antiquity as an emblem of universal value, an integral part of both academic and royal interest and collection, was complemented and subsequently overtaken by the idea of a shared national past. Earlier generations’ desire to reconcile the past with both biblical and classical chronology was felt less urgently. The etymological inventiveness so typical of Gothicism, in which classical events had been localised in the north, was abandoned towards the mid-century and the interest built on a (literally) more stable foundation: archaeological findings. National archaeology created a new foundation for the genesis of the national people.

... the collection of things became an important part of producing the nation.

Royal collections were reinterpreted as national treasures. Furthermore, the collection of things became an important part of producing the nation. National feeling was aroused, donations made and people symbolically compensated for their contributions, all of which created a bond between the people and the collection. Ordering the collection as a chronological narrative from heathen times through a Catholic past overturned by reformation to more contemporary epochs was designed to anchor the community in a common ancient beginning. A rudimentary road was laid and the past contrasted to the present. The role of art museums was somewhat different. They continued to spread splendour over the power and richness of the country, but also represented the national school of painters and, through paintings and sculptures, illuminated important personages and events in history.

8 Bligaard, Mette (2000) “The image of Denmark. Museums as sanctuaries of identity”. Papers presented at The Robert Gordon University Heritage Convention 1999, in J. M. Fladmark (ed), Heritage and museums: Shaping national identity. Donhead: Shaftesbury, p. 288.

In Denmark, the programme for a national museum was established immediately. In 1806 the Danish antiquarian Rasmus Nyerup (1759–1829) said that a national museum was needed as “an asylum for slowly disappearing ancient national monuments … a temple for the remains of the spirit, language, art and power of our past, where every patriot can study the successive advances of the nation’s culture and customs”.8 The Museum of Nordic Antiquity opened in 1819, offering its audience an opportunity to work through the trauma of the British bombardment of Copenhagen in 1801 and the cession of Norway to Sweden in 1814. The Nordic label indicates its openness to alternative political outcomes, by stating a cultural existence of similar origin in a communal pre-historic Nordic past. Naturally, it centres on findings from the Danish monarchy and includes Denmark, Norway and the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. The Faroe Islands and Iceland were also represented proportionately and following a chronological division. The intellectual and physical rights to the Icelandic manuscripts, the Saga literature – among which the poetry and prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson (1178–1241) are the most famous – have long been, and still are, disputed among the Nordic states and especially between Iceland and Denmark. They have the most central role for Iceland’s political and cultural identity, but the shift towards

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archaeology as the national discipline in the nineteenth century made it easier for Denmark to let go of the medieval manuscripts.9 In subsequent decades in Denmark, several branches of the royal collections of antiquity, armour and medals were opened and reinterpreted. Perhaps more importantly for the promotion of national feeling, so was the Museum of Fine Arts (1825). This was organised chronologically, and displayed national schools in the modern way. More innovatively, the first ethnographic museum in the world was opened in 1841, indicating persisting imperial ambitions. Similar ambitions for the natural sciences prompted the establishment of the Natural History Museum in 1824.10 Universalist and scientific inspiration came from the British Museum (1753), and new energy came from the victorious Napoleonic endeavour. Royal museums (such as the Louvre, in about 1800) were transformed to display national themes organised around narratives such as the one by Alexandre Lenoire (les musées des Monuments français, 1795–1816). These inspired other countries to repatriate loot if possible but also to emulate the format. All over Europe, proposals for new national museums were developed, such as one in Pest in 1807, Graz in 1811, Prague in 1818 and St Petersburg in 1817 and 1821. In Denmark, C. J. Thomsen (1788–1865) was not only the director of the Museum of Nordic Antiquities but also the inventor of the stage system of ordering pre-history that is still used, which categorises by the material character of the findings: Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age. His successor in 1865, J. J. A. Worsaae (1821–1885), explained the national ethos: The new museum idea immediately caught on in smaller countries, especially where people’s national independence was repressed or in danger, and where the hardships of the present were eclipsed by a past that in terms of nationality was seen as more pure and happy. Thus there is no doubt that strong national movements have primarily given museums a new and hitherto unknown cultural, historical, and popular importance. It is significant that the zeal to create national collections of antiquities and to preserve national monuments first appeared and was most ardently pursued in smaller countries where people’s nationality and independence appeared to be particularly threatened, for example in Denmark, Hungary, Bohemia, Ireland, Scotland and Holland.11 The classicist-oriented German-speaking cultural elite negotiated with a more ethnic Danish programme in the formation of the new institutions. Only in the second half of the century did the Danish programme get the upper hand in cultural policy, and similar shifts from an elitist to a broader participation can be observed all over Scandinavia.12 The name of the Danish museum changed in 1892 from Nordic Antiquities to the National Museum. The art historian Niels Høyen spoke in 1844 of the creation of Scandinavian National Art, but 20 years later, after Scandinavia’s disappointing military failure against Germany in 1864, he used “Danish” instead when talking about national art.13 In Denmark, the national energy is usually related

9 Ongoing research Anna Torgrimmsdottir. Conference proceedings, February 2007, The Making of National Museums, www.namu.se 10 Fladmark (2000), op. cit. 11 J. J. A. Worsaae in Nordisk Tidsskrift for Vetenskap, Konst och Industri, 1884, quoted by Mette Bligaard (2000), op. cit, p. 287. 12 Engberg, Jens (2005) Magten og kulturen dansk kulturpolitik 1750–1900. Copenhagen: Gads Forlag. 13 Bligaard (2000), op. cit., p. 290.

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14 Sandberg (2003), #1565. 15 Ibid., pp. 292–293. 16 Eriksson, Gunnar (2002) Rudbeck 1630–1702: liv, lärdom, dröm i barockens Sverige. Stockholm: Atlantis; Molin, Torkel (2003) Den rätta tidens mått. Göthiska förbundet, fornforskningen och det antikvariska landskapet. Umeå: Institutionen för historiska studier; Norway: see Hodne, Ørnulf (1994) Det nasjonale hos norske folklorister på 1800– tallet: Denmark: Christiansen; Palle Ove (2000) Kulturhistorie som opposition: traek af forskellige fagtraditioner. Copenhagen: Samleren.

to the 1864 debacle. Father and son, brewer Jacob Christian (1811–1887) and Carl Jacobsen (1842– 1914), played a central role, in noble competition, sponsoring research and art and founding the National Historical Museum in Frederiksborg (1878), having moved the royals out in an attempt to safeguard Danish national heritage. This is still a private museum in a state-owned castle, representing a Danish dual-value system. Jacobsen founded Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek for ancient and modern sculpture (1882–1897), sponsored provincial museums such as the Danish industrial museum in Maribu (1895) and the Danish People’s Museum in Copenhagen (1885). The latter opened in the same house and with the same owner – Bernhard Olsen – as a more commercial wax cabinet, to further underline the close link between popular and high culture.14 The Folk Museum opened in 1885 and the portrait gallery of famous Danes at Frederiksborg was founded as an overtly nationalist attempt to arouse historical awareness and pride in the Danish people. The Museum of Danish National History displayed art: portraits of famous Danes and decisive battles, not only from ancient history, but also from the recent past to connect the present with a continuous past. As in Sweden, this initiative by the industrialist J. C. Jacobsen was a private one and had no state support to start with. The Carlsberg brewery is now a multinational company, but it is also behind a major foundation that supports art and research and is still running the museum.15 A well-developed structure for state patriotism already existed in Sweden in the 17th century, but it was not felt to be adequate to deal with the challenge of romantic nationalism. It had, however, created the first laws in the world for protecting cultural heritage that brought glory to the nation. It also started a still unfinished battle over the Saga heritage and created institutional structures concerning state responsibility and limitations to private property rights over items of value to national history. The methods used, however, advocated violence and force and were directed against a small international aristocratic elite. What was needed was a more committed engagement by the people, and this was reflected in the collection of folklore representing the common people.16 The classical collection made by Gustavus III in the late eighteenth century, together with the Royal Armoury, formed the major part of the public gallery opened in 1794. The National Gallery was opened in 1866. It was located opposite the castle and designed by the creator of the Neues Museum in Berlin. The Swedish parliament dismissed the need for state action to secure national memory, while the Danes made progress by reinterpreting the royal collections. The structure of folkloristic collecting activities shows interesting Nordic differences. The earliest folksong collections are Swedish, inspired by Germany: E. G. Geijer and A. A. Afzelius (1785– 1871) laid the path in the 1810s by collecting, editing and printing this folklore heritage, thus defining it. A strong national structure for interpretation was developed by the Dane N. F. S. Grundtvig in the 1850–1860s, and it is still in use. Norway and Finland’s national awakening came a bit later with important forerunners in the early nineteenth century, but fewer institutions were established to harbour the intangible popular culture, the immaterial cultural heritage, in this early period.

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There were similar differences in approach to the establishment of national museums. Denmark’s Museum of Antiquity was an early attempt; Sweden’s developed much later. The need for a national awakening was felt strongly within the intelligentsia. Götiska förbundet as an early association gathering intellectuals for the protection of the national heritage felt inadequately safeguarded by the state, and pushed for renewed state action to secure national memory. Energy was channelled first through societies and academics collecting popular memories, fairytales, legends and songs, felt to be the best carrier of ancient national and pre-state culture. Just as in Denmark, a major commission argued strongly for state action, but it was dismissed by parliament in the 1820s. The irony is that Denmark, under formal absolute rule, set up a national policy for a comprehensive museum structure, while Sweden, with its more representative national parliament, was unable to reach consensus. Instead, the folksong collections were made early in Sweden and later in Denmark. Perhaps the preferences and skills of a small circle of intellectuals and the supporting state structure influenced the differences. The intellectual strength of people such as Geijer and Grundtvig might explain some differences in the chronology in instances where there is no need for state-supported building projects, but intellectual stimulation and inspiration are also needed.

17 Jensen, Jørgen (1992) Thomsens museum: Historien om Nationalmuseet. Copenhagen: Gyldendal, p. 90.

In liberal ideology, civic initiative and engagement might seem consistent with nationalism: the nation, its culture and dynamic are civil property and should not be tampered with by the state. In Sweden, the early nineteenth century was an era of distinct liberal influence. Associations flourished and a public sphere was, at least for Geijer, present more in Sweden than in Denmark, which was still under monarchical rule in the 1820s.17 The overall political culture was coloured by a traditional state bureaucracy and the need to take the peasantry into negotiating decisions. A mixture of these factors perhaps explains why modern museum structure had no complementary impetus from civil society in the second half of the nineteenth century. In Sweden, the early nineteenth The circles around Artur Hazelius (1833–1901), the founder of Nordiska museet and Skansen – the role model for open-air museums century was an era of distinct around the world – acted together with private collectors as well as the liberal influence. broader public who were aroused by national sentiment – not the small, disappointed elite of the early nineteenth century – and were able to institutionalise their ideas from the 1870s onwards. The function of the museum was now achieved as much by the public display of the people as by the facilitating of the collection by the “responsible” part of the people. The political classes and economic elite legitimised the museum’s power by a corresponding communal responsibility for national memory. The Swedish Royal Armoury was also subject to the mixture of coincidence, practicalities and politics of identity that influenced various museum histories. Initiated by the monarch, it was housed in the castle, royal garden and various locations in the capital from the seventeenth century. From 1865 to 1883 it lay in the newly opened National Museum together with the gallery and archaeological findings. Driven from there by lack of space, its new home from 1907 to 1977 was at the newly opened creation of Artur Hazelius, Nordiska Museet. Only in 1978 did it return to the royal castle. The way in which the royal collection travelled around national museum institutions, even spending most of the Social Democratic century, the tenth century, in a private

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18 Hillström, Magdalena (2006) Ansvaret för kulturarvet. Studier i det kulturhistoriska museiväsendets formering med särskild inriktning på Nordiska museets etablering 1872–1919. Linkjöping: Department of Culture Studies, Linköpings University. 19 Engberg (2005), op. cit. 20 Fewster, Derek (2006) Visions of past glory: Nationalism and the construction of early Finnish history. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society. 21 The national museum building stood ready in 1910, but the first parts opened to the public only in 1916. An open-air museum outside the capital was constructed on Seurasaari (Fölisön) from 1909 onwards by antiquarian Axel Olai Heikel., ibid,, pp. 304–08. Klinge, Matti and Kolbe, Laura (1999) Helsingfors, Östersjöns dotter: en kort biografi. Helsingfors: Otava. Ateneum has been part of what is formally called the National Gallery of Finland since 1990.

museum, illuminates the relationship between the popular monarchy surviving democratisation and the idea of Sweden as the Folkhem (People’s Home) for all classes. The Nordic museum, which originally collected a great variety of objects representing different countries and social milieux, gradually transformed to present essentially ordinary people and their lives in Sweden. It was originally a private initiative made into a foundation to defend its role as a communal and public endeavour. At the turn of the century it was “nationalised” and run by state support.18 This was not the only change. The museum’s Scandinavian profile became significantly more Swedish, since it was inaugurated two years after the dissolution of the union with Norway that had been effected with great animosity in 1905. Struggles between the capital and the provinces, between scientific rigour and reconstructions to bring history “alive”, were fought intensely in Denmark and Sweden. The central national and scientific museums got the upper hand around 1900 but with varying strength. State subsidies were given to regional museums in Denmark in 1887 – on condition that they acquiesced to central guidance from, and primary ownership of artefacts by, the National Museum.19 New nations creating ancient histories Finland’s political dependence on Russia meant that the thrust for cultural nationalism was more important in Finland than it was in the other countries, even if the tendency was similar all over Europe as well as in the Nordic countries. The invention of a distant heathen and medieval past took distinct form from the mid-century. The Kalevala epos, allegedly collected to represent the pure Finnish spirit, in reality edited and created to a narrative by Elias Lönnroth (1802–1884), then a provincial doctor, is essential to the understanding of Finnish national identity. Associated paintings by Akseli Gallen-Kallela, historiography and literature by Zacharias Topelius (1818– 1898) and Johan Ludvig Runeberg (1804–1877) were central explications to this construction. The idea of an independent ancient and medieval Finnish past was built bit by bit through literature, paintings, drama, research and public exhibition.20 The earliest public museums that had national ambition were the art schools and galleries housed in Ateneum, which opened to the public in 1888 and also housed a representation of Finnish mythical art. The national movement materialised in more explicit narrative forms as a national museum and an open-air museum in the decade before political independence around 1910. The radical Finnish ethnic understanding, the Fennoman version, centred around a simple smokecabin, a materialisation of Kalevala, and a reminder of a Swedish medieval Catholic past as part of the chronological narrative (as in other Scandinavian museums). Swedish-speaking citizens who regarded themselves as ethnic Swedes felt misrepresented from the start. Similarly, more dedicated Finnish nationalists (among them several “converted” ethnic Swedes) thought the initiative did little to foster the true identity of the new state that needed an ancient past at least as long as its period of Swedish “occupation”. The building itself is one of the panorama of institutions representing the nation in the state capital.21

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By giving objects or financial support and visiting exhibitions, the ordinary citizens and the national public sphere were included, which was a departure from earlier representations that were geared more towards the aristocracy and the display of royal power.22 This was a new kind of popular relationship with museums at the end of the nineteenth century: more elitist groups in all countries had previously founded and run such institutions.23 An Icelandic antiquarian collection was formed 1863 as a distinct part of the Danish realm, but institutionalised under the heading of the National Museum of Iceland in 1911. As in Finland, this was a forerunner of political independence. One of the early acts of the newly established sovereign government in 1944 was to erect a dedicated building, which was opened to the public in 1950. In Norway there were no royal institutions to support the establishment of museums. Instead a combination of wealthy merchants in Bergen, Stavanger and Tromsø made their private collections public. Learned societies, among them the University of Oslo, were also prime movers in establishing all-encompassing museums of natural and cultural history. Inspiration for science and prestige from the British Museum, which was seen as an icon, seems to have been more important before the mid-nineteenth century than representing an exclusively national perspective. In 1846, the leading Norwegian politician W. F. K. Christie (1778–1849) suggested a programme for collecting artefacts from the provinces to represent the nation’s cultural history. The university collections in Oslo became important parts of a national representation of civilisation in general. When excavations of the Viking burial ships from Oseberg were presented to the museum in 1904, a national and timely dimension was given to the scientific museum. The national dimension of the museum system as a whole as a source of pride and a “national archive” was further emphasised from the 1880s onwards. It had already expanded from displaying artefacts to collecting intangible cultural heritage: songs, tales, names and memories. A growing body of material was curated as part of a national heritage, and not primarily for the sake of a universal knowledge of evolution.24 The evolving national art museum followed a similar trajectory, first motivated by the need for technical and aesthetic artefacts for artistic training in the early nineteenth century. The actual representation of national landscapes became the overwhelming attraction, and Norwegian painters such as I. C. Dahl were leading and admired figures on a European scale. The Art Society, which had been homeless, got its prestigious national building in 1882. With the help of the Danish museum director and archaeologist C. J. Thomsen, it acquired a representative international collection as a “starting kit”.25 At the turn of the century the buildings themselves took on the task of monumental representation in the Nordic capitals. The old collections designed to honour the monarchs and aristocracy shifted to fulfil a similar function in the service of the nation. Public access and meticulous classification Outdoor museums opened in 1891 in Stockholm, 1897 in Copenhagen, 1902 in Oslo and 1909 in Helsinki. These explicitly represented a programme that later proved to be a useful way of dealing with questions of regional diversity and national unity in Scandinavia. The creator of

22 Bennett, Tony (1995) The birth of the museum: History, theory, politics. London and New York: Routledge. 23 Engberg (2005), op. cit. 24 Det Konglige Norske Vitenskabers Selskab was founded in 1760, but its study collection took the form of a science museum (Vitenskapsmuseet) only in 1870. In Bergen, the head of the parliament, W. F. K. Christie, founded and developed the Museum of Bergen as a universal museum from 1825 onwards. In the 1840s, the cultural-historical element innovatively showed interest in ordinary artefacts, not as relics from a purely national viewpoint, but as examples of the evolution of taste, craft, art and customs. Pedersen, Ragnar (2003) “Noen trekk av museenes historie i Norge frem til tidlig 1900-tall”, in Arne Bugge Amundsen, Bjarne Rogan and Margarethe C. Stang (eds), Museer i fortid og nåtid. Essays i museumskunnskap. Oslo: Novus forlag, pp. 27–32. 25 The first money for buying art was granted by parliament in 1836. The first public exhibition in the castle was in 1852. For museums of more industrial or educating purposes, such as the Konstindustrimuseet, the goal in 1876 was to collect artefacts “characteristic of the culture of our people” (“Industrigenstande af nordisk oprindelse, karaktersitiske for vort folks kultur”). Ibid., pp. 34–35. Schmedling, Olga (2003) “Nasjonalgalleriet og fremveksten av kunstforhold i Norge”, in Amundsen, Rogan and Stang, op. cit.; Dahl, Hans Fredrik and Helseth, Tore (2006) To knurrende løver. Kulturpolitikkens historie 1814– 2014. Oslo: Universitetsforlag.

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26 A comprehensive history of the open-air museum is available in Rentzhog, Sten (2007) Open-air museums: The history and future of a visionary idea. Stockholm: Jamtli förlag. 27 Smeds, Kerstin (1996) Helsingfors – Paris: Finlands utveckling till nation på världsutställningarna 1851– 1900. Helsingfors: Svenska litteratursällskap i Finland; Ekström, Anders (1994) Den utställda världen: Stockholmsutställningen 1897 och 1800-talets världsutställningar. Stockholm: Nordiska museet. 28 Hillström (2006), op. cit.; Abel, Ulf (ed) (1995) Nationalmuseum Stockholm. London: Scala.

Skansen, Artur Hazelius, was highly successful in selling the idea of a living museum not only to the contemporary Swedish public but also to the international public. This idea spread rapidly a century after the original national museum idea triumphantly responded to the Napoleonic turmoil.26 Now, the differences that needed to be negotiated concerned rapid industrialisation, urbanisation and class conflicts. A stable peasant society had anchored people’s minds in a unified past where differences were looked upon as predominantly cultural – not economical or political. Another main structuring idea for the coming century was evolutionism, the possibility of using collections to explain and illustrate historical development: objects, epochs and territorial differences could be presented as parts of an ordered whole. International exhibitions in the second half of the nineteenth century inspired representation not only of industrial products but also of national culture. The idea of moving not just smaller objects but buildings from various parts of the realm to represent those areas in another place seems to have grown widely. In 1882 in Oslo, Oscar I helped Christian Holst to open to the public the first genuine peasant building re-erected to represent national building tradition.27 One might think a fully fledged open-air museum in a Norwegian national community would be an even better way of reconciling regional difference with national unity than one in Sweden. While Norway was in union with Sweden the political message had to be moderated, but even after that the idea of nationalism was less state-oriented and had shifted towards the idea of local and regional community. The Oslo museum, however, was more scientific in its approach and the Swedish one more inclined to living history. This was reflected in the number of visitors, which was ten times higher in Stockholm than it was in Oslo. Nationalism is obviously not the only – perhaps not even the main – reason for visiting a national museum. Fun, entertainment, living animals and theatre contributed to Skansen’s success with the public – and raised questions as to whether it really was a (scientific) museum at the turn of the century.28 Norsk Folkemuseum opened in 1894 and became the main focus of the idea of scientific representation. It was later joined by the sacral museum of Viking burial ships, and later the national maritime museum that linked the Viking, peasant Norway and the great explorers with modern Norway, living by the sea on fishing and oil resources. The ensemble can be interpreted together rather than individually.

Tension between a scientific and popular appeal is one of the most long-standing and productive in museum history. The programme for diversified modern scientific museums became part of the development of the whole body of knowledge. Empirical science demanded factual archives and visual representations of the world. Ordering and putting things into coherent chains of evolution established knowledge. Hence the histories of geology, nature, culture, Tension between a scientific and societies, technology and art were represented in scientific museums. This popular appeal is one of the most long- principle of understanding change was a novelty and was juxtaposed with standing and productive in museum the older Linnaean idea of systematic taxonomy. Ordering axes by size was history. not enough: they had to be interpreted as part of a distinct culture, itself

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understood as a precursor to contemporary times. The national framing was naturalised as an institutional prerequisite in no need of justification – since the whole apparatus of evolution and the fact that the nation framed these activities proved that the nation was the purpose of it all. This was a form of hidden nationalism legitimising and working through its objective methodology. Against this programme were many museum entrepreneurs addressing the identity question by adjusting to market conditions and the need for entertainment. Only a few of the more successful managed to balance these demands to get the best out of both the market and state subsidies, embattled as they were by academics and professional museums that wanted to reserve the “museum” label for purposes of a higher order. The scene was already set for many of our contemporary struggles. Welfare states in and out of war Like those in most of Europe, Scandinavian countries – except for Sweden – are marked by war and occupation. A historic compromise in advancing democratic culture, based on working the land, made up a narrative that most political forces could use. Conservatives embraced the long tradition in itself, the state frame and continuity. The political centre and freeholding farmers could with their heart embrace a national narrative where peasant culture were the icons of national life. Liberals could strongly advocate the idea of a communal past where all (men) gathered freely to effect political and judicial matters. At the same time other differences, such as regional differences, were illustrated at Skansen, although they were culturalised and played down as politically insignificant. Traditional households were emphasised at a time when in fact single mothers headed half the households in Stockholm. Since the resistance to Swedish union, nationalism was predominantly Since the resistance to Swedish union, part of a leftist tradition in Norway and was firmly rooted in the radical nationalism was predominantly part of movement of small farmers in Denmark rather than exclusively in an a leftist tradition in Norway ... urban proletariat. When Marxist historians and labour politicians such as Halvdan Koht and Edvard Bull told their stories, the state was not the focus of history, society was – but it was Norwegian society. The year of independence, 1814, overruled all the economic and social landmarks of history. For Koht the integration of new classes, peasants and now workers, in the nation-state was a process of national enrichment. The story worked as an integrative narrative for the situation and the social forces prevalent in the early twentieth century.29 The integrative take on national history seems to have been more like that in Norway, and worked better than the more academic and state-oriented research culture that also dominated museum life in Sweden at the time. But the need to create cohesion in the different Nordic states differed, as did the strength between different political forces. The mobilisation of a people who voted unanimously for secession from the union with Sweden in 1905 and had a long tradition of a liberal and democratic constitution made the social interpretation of nation more likely than it would have been in Sweden, where defending old institutions created common ground. In Sweden and Finland,

29 Aronsson et al. (2008), op. cit.

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30 Ylikangas, Heikki (1995) Vägen till Tammerfors: striden mellan röda och vita i finska inbördeskriget 1918. Helsingfors: Söderström; Peltonen, Ulla-Maija (2003) Muistin paikat: vuoden 1918 sisällissodan muistamisesta ja unohtamisesta. Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura; Ahonen, Sirkka (2006) “Att ta ansvar för det förgångna. En jämförelse av historiekulturer i Estland och Finland”, in Annika Alzén and Peter Aronsson (eds), Ett demokratiskt kulturarv? Nationella institutioner, universella värden, lokala praktiker, Tema Q, Norrkjöping: Linköpings universitet. 31 Stråth and Sørensen (1997), op. cit.

class-based narratives never dominated academic or public culture before the 1960s, but for different reasons. In Sweden, a modernist progressive culture dominated and challenged conservative hegemony in the 1920s and 1930s while in Finland a civil war and the proximity to Russia long restricted the politics of memory in the twentieth century.30 Class conflicts were seen in a predominantly national form. Pre-state pre-historical democratic society could be praised by all parties and the history of absolute monarchies as well as the development of arts and crafts were seen as steps in the progressive development of a unified state and national culture, whether led by the Hegelian spirit, a step on a revolutionary ladder or the evolution of civilisation. A synthesis of this can be represented by the Danish historian Erik Arup who, in the mid-war period, presented a national history built on the labour of peasants as the backbone of unity, community and legitimacy. A similar vision can be seen in the inauguration of the new building and exhibition for the National Museum of Antiquity in Sweden in 1943, which was prompted by the threat of war. A major challenge to national consensus came from the labour movement and a Marxist ideology that stressed class conflict. In Denmark and Norway, these were also important in the academy and had an impact on versions of history told. But they were all developed within predominantly national and not internationalist contexts, so they never threatened the idea of national coherence. Museums of industry, work and workers did evolve into national institutions, first as repositories of crafts and later as museums of social history and work. Some, such as the Arbejdermuseum (Workers’ Museum) in Copenhagen (1983), were openly leftist and less universalist; others, such as the Museum of Work in Sweden (1991), were more universalist in their approach. Both these commemorated the social aspects of work. On a political level, history itself had become “the other”, a narrative suitable mainly for contrasting the story of success brought to the nation through negotiation between capital and labour, nationally oriented industrialists and organised labour movements. The Swedish model was one example of the Nordic model – an approach that the other Scandinavian countries also subscribed to, and it could be seen as a new version of nineteenth-century Scandinavianism.“The other” in this perspective became continental Europe. This narrative suppressed the stories of centuries of wars and stressed the long period of peace, negotiation and democratic traditions from 1814 and onwards.31 Modern and late-modern challenges The first major challenge to traditional national discourse came via a modernist creed that prompted the “death of ideology” as part of the emergence of a rational world of technology and reform. Technical and social engineering of the welfare state were to replace idealistic world views. A functionalist view of society at large, influences from Anglo-American social science as well as an ongoing specialisation could be found throughout academic history in the Nordic countries. This tendency was especially pronounced in Sweden, with its combination of modernistic ideology and collective welfare state solutions. The role of national museums became officially to spread democratic values and cultural knowledge evenly.

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The next major challenge to the hegemony of national ideology was not the wars – they rather strengthened national interpretation – but seems to have been in contemporary society. Globalised economy, migration, radical female emancipation, multicultural values and EU integration all challenged the idea of autonomous, powerful and sovereign states. The idea of a homogenous “Folk” as the centre of national narrative seems to have waned, and new publications no longer use this as the main catchword. But responses to challenges can differ. In Sweden, at least in the official rhetoric, the multicultural standpoint is overwhelmingly developed. The metaphors of roots, land and descent are rejected in favour of civil virtues and human rights and the community created by those embracing such ideals. All kinds of identities are fed by cultural heritage, according to the Swedish government – except national sentiment, which is perceived as a threat to all the good values. In Denmark, on the other hand, the post-modern card was already played in the 1990s, perhaps rather prematurely, when Søren Mørch published The Last History of Denmark.32 After that a right turn made demands on the dissemination of a national cultural policy in Denmark. New goals for national museums to fulfil have been established, emphasising the persistent national dimension of heritage.33

32 Mørch, Søren (1996) Den sidste Danmarkshistorie: 57 fortaellinger af faedrelandets historie. Copenhagen: Gyldendal. 33 Kulturministerium, Danmarks (2006) Kulturkanon. Köbenhavn.

The impact of late-modern movements can be seen on several levels and national museums are trying to find a way to deal with it through exhibiting and revised organisation. Criticism of contemporary themes like globalisation, migration and traditional national narratives are commonplace. But the response to similar challenges does vary and does not show the stability of interpretation that characterised the mid-twentieth century. The newly established (National) World Culture Museum in Gothenburg is a case in point. A solid “Bronze Age” granite slab with rock-art inscribed on it, traditionally demarcating ancient (Swedish) descent, lies homeless on a trailer outside the building. New Holocaust centres are making way for discussions on guilt and community in guilt relating to the dark sides of human history. Economies have always been connected to international markets and people have moved between countries. However radical recent changes in these areas are, the discourse on these matters has changed fundamentally, and political and identity challenges have emerged. An expanding economy opened for women in the workforce from the 1960s and in public life in An expanding economy opened for the following decades. There was also a new immigration to the workforce. It moved people within the North – Finns to Sweden, for women in the workforce from the 1960s example; and workers from southern Europe – Turkey, Greece and the and in public life in the following former Yugoslavia – came to the North. The emphasis on identity politics decades. was at this stage relatively light and integration relatively smooth. Perhaps the contemporary interest in emigration to the U.S.A. before the First World War was one way of negotiating and understanding these as parallel movements? National institutes and archives were inaugurated – but to house the Nordic memory of emigration, not to document contemporary changes. New groups demanded not only social rights but also cultural rights of representation, as had been achieved earlier by the working classes. Some dedicated museums such as those in Kongsvinger in

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34 Grahn, Wera (2006) “Känn dig själf”, in Genus, historiekonstruktion och kulturhistoriska museirepresentationer. Linkjöping: Institutt för Tema. 35 Eva Silvén in Alzén, Annika and Aronsson, Peter (2006) Demokratiskt kulturarv? Nationella institutioner, universella värden, lokala praktiker. Norrkjöping: Linköpings universitet. 36 Burch, Stuart (2006) “Negotiating the Norwegian canon: Rehanging Nasjonalgalleriet in Oslo”, unpublished manuscript. 37 Research on how museum institutions have met this challenge in the twentieth century is in fact scarcer than similar material concerning the nineteenth century.

Norway dealt with female representation – though of course women could not be treated as a minority.34 The main effort, however, was to expand and add new dimensions to the national narrative. Indigenous people such as the Sámi have been successful at least as regards cultural recognition, and museum and cultural centres have been established for several of the other acknowledged or unofficial ethnic minorities.35 The second step was taken more ambiguously and controversially from the 1990s onward. A fully fledged discourse of globalisation, migration, multiculturalism and, from 11 September 2001, a darker flavour of terror and religious fundamentalism brought new challenges to traditional national narratives. Art museums such as Kiasma in Helsinki and The Ark in Copenhagen have moved to the front of the queue for national investment, as happens all over the world in the struggle to have a good position for visiting businesses and cosmopolitan tourists. Major renovations and restructuring have been undertaken to meet international competition in the other Nordic countries, in line with an international trend. The tensions between national and universalist cosmopolitan ideas already detected in the nineteenth century are once again at the centre of debate, especially in Oslo.36 The higher value of the visitor industry, one of the fastest-growing trades in the world, provided an additional complication. The production of peace The scene for the use of history in dealing with three simultaneous needs for integration and power enhancement was thus set in the early nineteenth century. The overarching need was to secure and naturalise the idea of national existence. It was a demanding task in the face of rapid changes and secession of major parts of the old realms. Within this concept there were other tasks to deal with concerning integration and positive stimuli: making regional, class, gender and ethnic differences a positive part of heritage and not sources of conflict, fragmentation and contention. One good example is the representation of regional diversity as a matter of aesthetic values and skills as they appear in regional costumes (female emphasis) and building culture (male sphere). Much of this agenda is valid also through the twentieth century. The change of emphasis concerns the kinds of differences that ought to be the primary focus of integrationist efforts. Region and later class were the main concerns of nineteenth-century cultural policy; gender and ethnicity are moving to the centre as we move further into the twenty-first century.37 Integration was effected largely through religion in the early centuries and in later years through mass communication, which was negotiated by investment in a compulsory school system. A communal frame of values, knowledge and narratives is produced through these institutions, which are not usually thought of as part of the cultural heritage sector. The fact that a national narrative is replaced by something else in the school curriculum is enough to highlight the different ideas competing for hegemony. Is a historical territorial narrative of a political “us” a necessary prerequisite for national

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coherence and bringing up children, or should this narrative be exchanged for a multicultural and human-rights-based focus of synchronic integration rather than diachronic communality? One might wonder why this heritage of potential injustice for most of the provinces was not used for aggressive nationalist purposes in the age of nationalism, or later in the age of regionalism. There have been plenty of traumatic experiences between neighbours in Scandinavia’s past, but after the generations that experienced the actual trauma there seems to have been effective negotiation and integration to prohibit civil war. The capacity of the state to skilfully combine the use of force with the power of political negotiation is no doubt of vital social and political importance, but it is not enough to suppress possible discontent. It is my argument that a triple integrative strategy has been at work on the cultural level. The establishment of a Nordic cultural nation and historical culture is the first important factor in the process of building Nordic nation-states. The second is the successful investment in a national (historical) culture in many spheres of life: sports, language, politics, literature and welfare politics. However, the third integrative strategy has been less appreciated. The ability to deal with regional differences as a national cultural orchestration, and later as a purely administrative aspect of allocating equal opportunities, moved the question of diversity from a potential political arena of identity and power to that of cultural heritage and personal sentiment. 38

38 Some historians have dwelled especially on the Nordic dimension. Gustafsson, Harald (1991) “Statsbildning och territoriell integration. Linjer i nyare forskning, en nordisk ansats samt ett bidrag till 1500-talets svenska politiska geografi”, in Scandia 1991:2; Gidlund, Janerik and Sörlin, Sverker (1993) Det europeiska kalejdoskopet: regionerna, nationerna och den europeiska identiteten. Stockholm: SNS (Studieförb. Näringsliv och samhälle); Stråth and Sørensen (1997), op. cit. 39 Sennett, Richard (1998) The corrosion of character: The personal consequences of work in the New Capitalism. New York: W. W. Norton; Aronsson, Peter (2000) “Regionbegreppets funktion för skilda akademiska discipliner och samhällsutvecklingen”, in LarsErik Edlund and Anna Karolina Greggas (eds), Kontinuitet och förändring i regionala rum. Umeå.

There is no doubt that academia has played a decisive role in this integrative dynamic. To put it bluntly, the traditional division of labour between the disciplines has enhanced the integrative function. History forgets regions and naturalises nation-states, ethnology culturalises regional differences, and social science produces (allegedly) instrumental knowledge to deal with regional problems. History is the most politically charged of the humanities. It should deal with the state and political unity. Defining diversity as cultural leads to naturalisation of the political. Difference is thus not suppressed but instead interpreted as a cultural enrichment, later to be the object of rational regional policy where economic geographers become the History is the most politically charged producers of instrumental knowledge. The ensembles of national of the humanities. It should deal with museums are instrumental in performing and communicating this the state and political unity. integrative narrative. The net result is a massive naturalisation of the present order, as regards both the nation-states and the established museum institutions. The question is, do these images persist in the early twentyfirst century? Do globalisation, migration and climate change present a fundamental new context for negotiation of identity? My suggestion is that challenges are partly new, but the answer – integration into a national political system – is still the main vision and programme for cultural and political institutions. This is not surprising, but contrasts with the self-understanding of many museum professionals and reform-oriented politicians who agree on a discourse of the need for a radical new function of the institutions. In a similar way, I would argue that other aspects of the cultural production of identity are replicating new economic conditions, not contradicting them. The dominance of a constructivist approach is furthermore in step with present flexible capitalism in a late-modern world – teaching citizens reflexivity and the ability to change and adjust, which today is more valuable than the capacity to sacrifice the lives of soldiers at war.39

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CHAPTER 21

Museums and related institutions on the Faroe Islands Jóan Pauli Joensen

Nordic culture in a Nordic country Unlike the neighbouring Shetland Islands, the Faroe Islands were not inhabited before colonial times (landnam) – if we disregard early clerical Irish contacts. The earliest archaeological evidence found on the Faroe Islands is from the Viking Age. In the beginning, the colonisers (landnams) adapted their Norwegian farming methods to local conditions, for example by constructing mountain dairies called ærgi (a word of Celtic origin). This practice appears to have changed with the decree of 1298, the Seyðabrævið, and the resulting farming methods were used on home and outlying fields in the village community until the Second World War. The sheep-breeding methods described in the decree are still in use.1 From around the mid-nineteenth century, a new era of free trade and commercial fishing began on the Faroe Islands that has since become increasingly industrialised. Today the islands have a modern fishing fleet and industry that constitute the country’s main source of employment, though work has been created for an increasing population in other areas.2 At the beginning of the nineteenth century, there were around 5 000 inhabitants on the Faroe Islands; the number has increased slowly to today’s 49 000. Some islanders have emigrated over time, but very few, judging from the continuous natural increase in the population. Apart from a small number of Danish government officials, the population has virtually the same ethnic origin as it did in the Viking Age. Ethnic differences and multiculturalism have been unknown, but in recent years some seasonal workers have been hired to work in parts of the fishing industry and in shipyards. 1 Mahler, Ditlev L. (2007) Sæteren ved Argisbrekka. Økonomiske forandringer på Færøerne i vikingetid og tidlig middelalder. Tórshavn: Faroe University Press. 2 Joensen, Jóan Pauli (1980) Färöisk folklkultur. En översikt. Lund: Liber; Joensen, Jóan Pauli (2007) “Føroyar í 100 ár”, in Jørn Astrup Hansen and Jóan Pauli Joensen, Føroyar og bankarnir í 100 ár. Tórshavn: Føroya Banki.

Through Home Rule regulation, a bilateral agreement made between Denmark and the Faroe Islands in 1948, the islands are recognised as a self-governed part of the Kingdom of Denmark. They have their own parliament – Løgtingið – and their own government – Landstýrið. Some areas were immediately taken over and administrated by the Faroese government, while others have been taken over gradually. The national church was transferred to Home Rule in 2007. Today Denmark is solely responsible for only a few remaining areas. The Faroese parliament also has legislative power. Its laws are “løgting laws” (løgtingslóg). Those passed in the Danish parliament (Folketinget) are referred to only as “laws” and become operative on the islands by royal decree when they have been passed in the Faroese parliament.

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The farm in the small village Saksun in Nordstreymoy exemplifies Faroese building tradition. The farm belongs to the museum. Photo: Faroe Islands National Museum.

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3 Wylie, Jonathan (1989) “The Christmas meeting in context: The construction of Faroese identity and the structure of Scandinavian culture”, in North Atlantic Studies, The Faroe Islands Vol. 1, No. 1. Aarhus. 4 In the original: § 11. Føroyskt verður viðurkent sum høvuðsmál, men danskt skal lærast væl og virðiliga, og danskt kann eins væl og føroyskt nýtast í almennum viðurskiftum. 5 Dalsgarð, John (1983) “Ungmannafelagið Sólarmagn. Brot úr elstu søgu felagsins 1895–1924”, Brá 6, 3 árg. 6 Daniel Bruun carried out significant cultural-historical collection work on the Faroe Islands. It is documented in his 1929 book, Fra de færøske bygder: Samlede afhandlinger om gammeldags sæd og skik, Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel. 7 Celebrated in honour of the Norwegian king St Olav Haraldson (1016–1030). This is an important national festival in the Faroe Islands. 8 Joensen, Jóan Pauli (1994) “Museet: Et led i færøsk identitetsdannelse”, in Skandinavisk Museumsforbunds møde i Tórshavn i 1993, Tórshavn. The first Folk High School in Denmark was established in 1884, inspired by the poet N. F. S. Grundtvig’s ideas about education. The Folk High Schools are subject to the law of general education. A stay at a Folk High School is therefore not part of a formal education but rather an element of the individual’s personal development and general education. 9 This effort was successful in many cases and the islands now have a large collection of knives and tableware crafted by Faroese knife smiths as gifts to Danish government officials.

Cultural and national identity Although the Faroe Islands are much smaller in population and size than the other Nordic countries, their development towards national identity has been similar to that of their larger neighbours. Until now, however, unlike in Iceland and Norway, there has not been a sufficient majority of the population demanding independence. The work of the priest and linguist V. U. Hammershaimb played an important role in the movement for national awareness. In 1846, he gave the Faroese oral language a written form, which became an important tool for Faroese nationalism in the bid for independence. The nationalist movement culminated at the so-called Christmas meeting on 26 December 1888 with a proclamation stating that the Faroese language should be brought to glory – which meant official use in the islands – and that the islanders should unite on all fronts in order to become independent.3 The fight to make the Faroese language the official teaching, ecclesiastical and administrative language was won with the law of Home Rule in 1948, when Faroese was accepted as the first language, but Danish could also be used.4 Those who led the way in creating the Faroese identity were influenced by similar national-cultural currents in Denmark, in particular the free college movement (folkehøjskolebevægelsen), and in Norway and in Iceland, where national identity also bubbled to the surface and was expressed through literature and pictorial art. Faroe Islanders in Copenhagen founded a Faroe Islanders’ union – Føringafelag – as early as 1881. After the Christmas meeting in 1888, a similar association was founded on the islands themselves. A Faroese-language newspaper, Føringatíðindi, was published between 1890 and 1906. Folk culture including poetry was also important as a national symbol in the first stages of nationalism. The islands went through development similar to that of the other Nordic countries, where the museum concept was also growing. Other Nordic countries founded new museums and the wish for a Faroese museum became a natural part of the nation’s self-awareness. Brothers Sverri and Jóannes Patursson first brought up the idea of a museum in 1890 in the youth association Sólarmagn in the village Velbastaður.5 The North Atlantic researcher Daniel Bruun apparently encouraged their efforts.6 Because society was in transition as it readjusted to commercial ocean fishery, there was concern that all the old culturalhistorical objects would disappear before a collection could be started. At a meeting during the Ólavsøku festivities7 in 1898, the Faroe Islands Collection of Historic Objects (Føroya Forngripagoymsla) was founded. At a different meeting on the same day, a decision was made to establish a Faroese free college, folkehøjskole, following the special Danish concept of “folk high school”.8 The organisers were immediately handed a private collection that the country’s chief doctor, A. N. Kraft Boegh, had collected during his stay on the islands. Much of the islands’ folk art – especially cutlery and whale knives – had been taken abroad, often as made-to-order gifts. There was a strong desire to try to bring these objects back.9

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Calls for collection and return of artefacts came during the time of the Grand World Expos,10 which also inspired local exhibitions on a smaller scale. The Faroe Islands were influenced by contemporary trends. In 1895, at an exhibition organised in Tórshavn, exhibits included rhubarb wine, cattle, food, textiles, handicraft and cottage industry products.11 The islands were also represented at the colonial exhibition in Tivoli in Copenhagen in 1905 with a replica of a traditional Faroe Island house. 12 The Danes had documented Faroese folksongs and collected them in Corpus Carminum Færoensium as part of the Danish Collection of Local Traditions (Dansk Folkemindesamling).13 The linguist and folklorist Dr Jakob Jakobsen had also collected material on oral tradition and popular or folk poetry, which was published in his Faroese folk and fairy tales (Færøske folkesagn og æventyr) in 1898–1902. The conditions surrounding the foundation of the Faroe Islands’ collection of historic objects are somewhat uncertain. After its foundation in 1916, responsibility was transferred to the organisation itself. The priest A. C. Evensen, who was the prime mover in founding the museum, became the first director of the museum association. He was modern in his mindset and in his reflections on the reasons for establishing a museum. He considered the emotional, rational, informational and educational reasons, but for him national reasons were by far the most important. In his opinion, a museum should primarily be established to support the cultural and

The museum’s first attendant, Elspa Helena á Krákusteini, demonstrates a Faroese spinning wheel. Photo: Faroe Islands National Museum. Copyright: Evald Larsen.

10 Bjøl, Erling (1986) Vor tids kulturhistorie. Copenhagen: Politikens Forlag; Stoklund, Bjarne (1999) “Nationernes kulturelle arena. 1800-tallets verdensudstillinger”, in Bjarne Stoklund (ed), Kulturens nationalisering. Et etnologisk perspektiv på det nationale. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Forlag. 11 This is evident from Føringatíðindi 1895. 12 Stoklund, Bjarne (1962) “Færøhuse til Frilandsmuseet”, in Budstikken 1962. Årbog for Dansk Folkemuseum og Frilandsmuseet. Copenhagen.

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13 Later published as Føroya Kvæði. Corpus Carminum Færoensium. In S. V. Grundvig and J. Bloch comparatum (ed) N. Djurhuus and Chr Matras, Copenhagen, 1951–1968.

national identity of a people. He conceived the establishment of a museum with a broad remit that, apart from Faroese cultural history, should include natural history and ethnography, as well as a good library. Art would also doubtless have had its place in his museum.14 The museum after 1928

14 Evensen, A. C. (1902) “Goymslan í Havn”, in Búreisingur. Tórshavn: Endurprent, Emil Thomsen, Tórshavn. See also Joensen, Jóan Pauli (1983) “Um ikki at flyta annan fótin fyrr enn hin stendur tryggur. Ein stutt søgulig lýsing av Føroya Fróðskaparfelag og Fróðskaparsetri Føroya”, Fróðskaparrit 31. bók, Tórshavn: Føroya Fróðskaparfelag. 15 The Faroe Islands National Museum (2002) Søga og virksemi. Tórshavn: Føroya Fornminnissavn, Tórshavn.

The old national library was built in 1932. It housed a library on the ground floor and a museum and an archive on the first floor. Photo: Faroe Islands National Museum.

A. C. Evensen died in 1917. His death was a great loss for the museum idea and there was little activity during the following years. From 1928, however, the librarian M. A. Jacobsen and two other enthusiasts – the teacher Hans A. Djurhuus and his wife Petra Djurhuus – influenced the museum’s development. They arranged an exhibition in an old house in Tórshavn and in 1931 the collection moved into a newly constructed and relatively grand stone building that was intended to house a library, an archive and a museum. A great collection of folk culture objects belonging to the farmer and collector Andreas Weihes was donated to the museum foundation. The new building was usually referred to as the national library (Landsbókasavnið) and, until the 1980s, it housed both the library and the museum exhibitions. The national archive moved out in the 1970s.15 The Faroe Islands National Museum (Føroya Fornminnissavn) During the Second World War, the Faroe Islands were occupied by the English. There was no connection with Denmark until after the war. The English did not interfere with the way the Faroe Islands were governed; they accepted that the islands’ parliament retained legislative power and that they were governed by a commission consisting of the Danish regional commissioner (amtmand) and representatives from the Faroe Islands parliament. This arrangement lasted until Home Rule became law in 1948. Before that, a referendum had resulted in a small majority for independence,

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but when its supporters shrank to a minority in the following parliamentary election, nothing further happened. The English occupation lasted for five years, but it had no consequences for Faroese culture since the English were convinced that once the war was over, everything would return to the way it had been before the war.

16 The National Museum of the Faroe Islands www.natmus.fo 17 The Faroese National Archives www.lss.fo

The administration of cultural affairs was regulated locally following the establishment of Home Rule. The museum association collection was handed over to public administration in 1946, but the National Museum of the Faroe Islands (Føroya Fornminnissavn) was not established as a public institution until 1952. The collection was now part of the national museum and the archaeologist Sverri Dahl, who had directed the excavations of the Viking settlement in Kvívík during the war, became the first director and national antiquary. In 1952, Petra and Hans Andrias Djurhuus financed the construction of a temporary large building – locally named “the Boathouse” (Neystið), which was used in the 1952 national exhibition (Landsframsýning). The building also had room for an office for the national museum. For many years, the national museum had only one permanent employee. In 1970 an archaeologist, Arne Thorteinssson, was hired as museum inspector: he was the first employee to have a university degree. New positions were gradually created and the museum acquired new administrative premises. In 1983, it moved to premises that previously belonged to the For a many years, the national museum agricultural centre in Hoyvík. The exhibitions, however, were not moved had only one permanent employee. until the local government had bought a large commercial building in Hoyvík in 1996, part of which was used for storage and exhibitions. The permanent exhibition in this building was reorganised and updated in 2007. The antiquarian and the director of the national museum is now Dr Andras Mortensen. Today the Faroe Islands National Museum has cultural history and archaeological exhibitions, a smaller outdoor museum and a farm, Dúvugarðar, located in the village of Saksun. It has three professional departments: the buildings, archaeology and folk life or cultural history departments, each of which has its own scientific director. The museum is responsible for research on building history, ethnology and cultural history on the islands, antiquarian tasks, and registering historical landmarks.16 In 2007 the museum had 14 employees plus others working on projects on a part-time basis. It undertakes archaeological excavations and regular cultural history documentation, which is often organised around specific topics. The museum has skilled registrars, an archive with ethnological and folkloristic material and the largest collection of cultural-historical photographs on the Faroe Islands. It has good storage conditions and collaborates with the Faroese National Archive (Føroya Landsskjalasavn), which also occasionally produces exhibitions based on archive material.17 The permanent exhibitions have been reorganised to give the archaeology section more space in the general cultural history department, and they now provide further insight into the culturalhistorical development of the Faroe Islands. There are also two themed exhibitions. One gives a

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The chairs from the medieval church in Kirkjubø are among the museum’s treasures. Photo: Faroe Islands National Museum.

relatively detailed picture of the development of maritime culture and the Faroese fisheries to the present time. The central exhibit, a complete set of original traditional Faroese boats, occupies most of the floor space. The second exhibition presents the museum’s treasures: the medieval Kirkjubø chairs from the medieval ‘Bishop’s’ residence in Kirkjubø.18 The chairs had been stored and exhibited at the National Museum in Denmark since the parish church was renovated at the end of the nineteenth century. They were probably intended to stand in the new cathedral that had fallen into decay in the meantime and after that moved into the parish church. Following an agreement between the Danish and Faroese governments in 1999, the chairs were handed over to the Faroe Islands National Museum with many other objects and exhibited there. In addition to the national museum, there are 19 smaller local historical village museums or collections, only a few of which have a professional staff. The capital, Tórshavn, is about to establish its own cultural history city museum, which will focus on the capital’s culture and history. Other museums and related institutions on the Faroe Islands

18 Krog, Knud J. (1988) Kirkjubøstolene og Kirkjubøur. Et brudstykke af det færøske bispesædes historie. Tórshavn: Emil Thomsen. 19 The Natural Museum of the Faroe Islands: www.ngs.fo

In 1955, an exhibition of natural history was installed in the Boathouse. The geologist, later stategeologist, Jóannes Rasmussen became leader of the newly established Faroese Museum of Natural History (Føroya Náttúrugripasavn), which is still in the same building, showing an exhibition of Faroese nature: flora and fauna with a particular focus on whaling. The museum also has a small botanical garden with Faroese plants.19 The museum of natural history has two departments: one for animals, and one for plants. In 2007 the museum of natural history together with other institutions merged in Umhvørvisstovan – the

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Faroese Environmental Agency. Previously, the museum also had a department of geology, but this is now under the Faroese Earth and Energy Directorate (Jarðfeingi), which also handles the administration of oil drilling and the future exploitation of oil on the Faroe Islands.20 Ocean and fishery research takes place at the Faroese Fisheries Laboratories (Fiskirannsóknarstoven). One of the laboratory’s main tasks is to advise politicians on the controversial matter of how much fishing should be allowed in Faroese waters.21 In 1952 a scientific association with the Latin title Societas Scientiarum Færoensis, Føroya Fróðskaparfelag was established. It published the scientific journal Fróðskaparrit, but in 2005 all publishing was taken over by Faroe University Press (Fróðskapur). The people who established the scientific association were also behind the creation of a college with the Latin subtitle Academia Faroensis (Fróðskaparsetur Føroya) in 1965. After working out of the Boathouse for a couple of years, the academy moved into its own building in 1967. It was granted university status in 1987 and today has three departments with faculty status: The Department of Faroese Language and Literature, The Department of History and Social Sciences, and The Department of Natural Science and Technology.22

20 Faroese Earth and Energy Directorate: www.jarfeingi.fo 21 Faroese Fisheries Laboratory: www.frs.fo 22 The University of the Faroe Islands: www.setur.fo 23 The Faroese Art Museum: www.art.fo

A new administration law is under way and a political decision has been made to merge the Faroe Islands’ teachers’ school, nursing school and university into one institution. Later on, other institutions will also be organised under the same umbrella. From the beginning, there has been a close collaboration between the university A new administration law is under way and the islands’ other research institutions, and many researchers teach at and a political decision has been made the university in adjunct positions as assistant professors or professors. to merge the Faroe Islands’ teachers’

school, nursing school and university The Faroese Art Association (Listafelag Føroya) was founded by Faroe into one institution. Islanders in Denmark during the Second World War. After the war, the university relocated to the Faroe Islands and was responsible for the acquisition of original Faroese art. It took the initiative to construct an art gallery (Listaskálin), which was opened in 1970. The independent Faroese Art Museum (Føroya Listasavn) was founded in 1989 and further annexes were added to the gallery from 1970. As a result, in 1993 a completely new art museum was ready for use. A permanent exhibition shows Faroese art and there are temporary exhibitions – some by foreign artists. The Faroese Art Museum is beautifully situated in the plantation in Tórshavn.23 The post-war interest in museums, research institutions, the scientific association and the University of the Faroe Islands has its roots in a network established by Faroese students and young people who were stranded in Denmark during the Second World War. They were unable to return to the Faroe Islands until the war ended. From a modest start, these institutions have grown considerably. There are limits, however, to their potential growth in a population of no more than 49 000 people. Traditional enthusiasts are of course still important for the founding of institutions, but the Faroe Islands now has a fully developed ministerial administration that carries out political objectives. In other words, although the Faroe Islands is a small country, it behaves in the same way as its larger Nordic neighbours.

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CHAPTER 22

Renegotiating identity in the National Museum of Iceland Katla Kjartansdóttir and Kristinn Schram

Introduction In September 2004 the National Museum of Iceland reopened after a six-year restoration process and a new and long-awaited permanent exhibition was presented to the nation. Since the museum itself was first opened in its current location half a century ago, ideas on the social, national and cultural role of museums have changed dramatically and not least in relation to the formation or negotiation of national identity. In this chapter we examine how they are reflected in the identity negotiations of Icelanders and in the museum itself. We assess how the National Museum of Iceland has adapted to a new role in an increasingly culturally diverse nation and consider especially the marginalisation of both historic non-Norse settlers and more recent immigrants in the revisioned museum.

LEFT:

Statue of Leifur Eiríksson, discoverer of North America in front of Hallgrimskirkja, Reykjavik, Iceland.

Icelandic national identity and its cultural formation The Romantic and Nationalistic period preceding sovereignty in 1918 has had a major effect on the Icelandic national image and identity. Recent tourism and the development of the heritage industry have further strengthened the images and myths from the Romantic period. These images and myths revolve around nature, cultural purity and uniqueness and “masculinity-related” themes. They include what we may call the Viking myth and the widespread Icelandic image of a wild and exotic countryside along with a hardworking and strong people.1 The themes of purity, nature and uniqueness were prominent in arguments for independence. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century the Icelandic nation, with intellectuals and poets in the forefront, started to develop arguments to justify their demand for independence from the Kingdom of Denmark. The Icelandic language was presented as the mother tongue of other Nordic languages and the Icelandic Sagas were represented as the one of the main foundations for the whole European literary tradition. This emphasis on language and culture, according to Icelandic historian Hálfdánarson, was always well received by the Danes – they were at the time quite familiar with the German nationalistic ideologies of Herder, Fichte and Kant.2 On the other hand, they were rarely aware of the wonders of Icelandic nature. Additionally, in Hálfdánarson’s opinion, the Icelandic nation has always been rather divided in their views on nature. In the views reflected in the writings of the poets, intellectuals and politicians of the time there seem to be two quite opposite points of emphasis. On

1 Matthíasdóttir, Sigríður (2004) Hinn sanni Íslendingur: þjóðerni, kyngervi og vald á Íslandi 1900–1930. Reykjavík: University of Iceland Press; Sigurðsson, Gísli (1996) “Icelandic national identity: From romanticism to tourism”, in Pertti J. Anttonen (ed), Making Europe in Nordic contexts. NIF Publications; Hálfdánarson, Guðmundur (2001) Íslenska þjóðríkið – uppruni og endimörk. Reykjavík: Hið íslenska bókmenntafélag og Reykjavíkurakademían. 2 Hálfdánarson (2001), op. cit.

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one hand, there were those who wanted to preserve as much of Icelandic nature as possible and thus marvelled at all the natural wonders, phrased in highly romantic terms. On the other hand, there were those who wanted to make use of nature to build up the country’s economy. Often you could find these two, in a sense opposing, views reflected by the same man, and this selfcontradictory view is apparent even to this day. According to Hálfdánarson the main change, in relation to the nationalist discourse, is that the major contemporary emphasis is now on nature, both with regards to economy and preservation, with a lesser focus on language or cultural heritage. This development, he argues, can be explained by the fact that Icelandic nature can very easily be seen as a unifying symbol – a symbol that the whole nation should be able to relate to in one way or another; the task of preserving it serves well as a unifying element. Environmentalists frequently use nationalistic quotes from the Romantic period while their opponents often use similar statements to support their arguments. So although the general Icelandic view on nature, as elsewhere, has shifted towards preservation, it is quite unique, as Hálfdánarson points out, that the Icelandic environmental discourse is still in many ways affected by romantic nationalist ideas. The Icelandic historian Sigríður Matthíasdóttir has described how Icelandic nationalism was redefined and reshaped in the period 1900–1930, establishing two important aspects of the twentieth-century nationalist myth – homogeny and connections to the past. The Icelandic nationalist movement promoted, according to Matthíasdóttir:

3 Matthíasdóttir (2004), op. cit., p. 372.

First the cultural understanding that the nation, based on the national language, resembles a living organism, a national person with one identity, one will and the same interests applying to each and every Icelander. Second, an historical understanding where a national Golden-Age is constructed as the primary model for the modern nation-state.3 What can also be traced back to the myth of the Golden Age and the heritage of the Sagas is the Viking image, a well-known and much-used theme within Icelandic tourism and a prominent, albeit contested, part of official administrative policy. An ongoing debate between Icelandic scholars and the tourist industry has focused on the term “Viking” and its use in describing the Icelandic settlers, something many think both crass and erroneous. When the Icelandic National Museum was reopened in September 2004, for example, there was much debate about whether a giant replica of a Viking sword should be erected on a nearby square. Although this idea did not gain sufficient support, a so-called “Viking village” operated (notably without state support) for many years in Hafnarfjörður, a small town in the outskirts of the Reykjavík area, where people can experience “Viking” festivals and various other “Viking” events. Recently the Minister of Education has announced the establishment of a new “Viking village”, now with state funding, conveniently positioned near to Iceland’s sole international airport. The Icelandic president, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, has also recently emphasised the importance of the Viking heritage. In a speech that he held in a public meeting of historians on 10 January

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2006, the president attempted to explain why a group of Icelandic businessmen, sometimes called “new Icelandic Vikings”, have been so successful in their investments abroad.4 In his speech the president noted ten characteristics and qualities of the businessman as the primary reasons for their success. According to him, all these traits could be traced back to Icelandic cultural heritage, the foundations of Icelandic society or simply the “true” nature of Icelandic national identity. These were characteristics such as the trust and courage of “our forefathers” the Vikings, along with various other so-called “especially Icelandic” elements. He went on to say that “the Icelandic settlers were certainly a part of the whole Viking community that indeed had a similar spirit of looking outward for new opportunities”. Along similar lines, he emphasised that “it was not the least through the stories of these people that a shared sense of Icelandic national identity was created and thus during the struggles for national independence this particular period was given a somewhat idyllic glow.”

4 http://www.forseti.is/media/ files/06.01.10.Sagnfrfel.utras. enska.pdf 5 Examples of this can be drawn from various advertisements such as the Icelandic Thule beer advertisements parodying overblown Icelandic national pride or the 66º North advertisement campaign which accentuates humourous rural eccentricity.

Defining a whole generation of settlers by the raiding and pillaging from ... the reasons for the great success of a which the few actual Vikings took their name is, at best, contentious. few Icelandic businessmen abroad are Defining all of the settlers’ ancestors by this term and its connoted mainly to be found in the nature of the attributes is something else entirely. Here we are dealing with collective Icelandic past ... memory, or the creation of collective memory, as the president himself alluded to: “It is this collective experience that has created our thought and attitudes and that has given us a great advance to seize the various new opportunities of the global era.” We are therefore to understand, in a very Herderian sense, that the reasons for the great success of a few Icelandic businessmen abroad are mainly to be found in the nature of the Icelandic past and in the lifestyle of “our forefathers” the Vikings. The president rounded off by saying that “the key to this success is mainly to be found in the culture, in the collective heritage and in the nature of the society that has been formed by the struggles of preceding generations, their views and their traditions, which are at the core of Icelandic civilisation.” Relating this speech to the social and cultural formation of Icelandic identity in the public sphere, little seems to have changed since the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The same traditional themes and threads are repeatedly revived in order to fuse a collective sense of cultural continuity and cohesion. These themes can be traced back to the exclusive ideology of Herder and Fichte and their emphasis on nature, the language and cultural heritage as an inherent part of the national soul. Consequently this ideology inherently downplays the visibility and values of cultural diversity that ought to be taken into account when coming to grips with contemporary Iceland. There are, however, some small examples of change or at least self-irony. In the last five years the self-image has been increasingly criticised and even perceived as outdated. This is reflected, for example, in the increase in ironic presentations of the nation in the media.5 The Icelandic language, nature and culture, the holy trinity of the Icelandic identity, can no longer be presented as pure and unique as it perhaps once was believed to be. How then is it reflected in our national museum?

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The National Museum of Iceland With this brief background and outline of the debates surrounding national identity, we return to the reopened National Museum of Iceland. In the new permanent exhibition The Making of a Nation, a change in perspective on national identity is evident. The exhibition has been divided into fairly small sections that each span a century or two of Iceland’s history, represented by a key object, a number of relevant artefacts in dimly lit cupboards, alongside multimedia screens and other installations. Through this rather arbitrary division, where historical processes land only roughly within their designated period of time, the exhibition manages to move away from the more traditional vision of the nation’s past: the division of “national” history into three periods – the “Golden Age” of the old Commonwealth, the deprivation period of foreign rule, and the restoration period of the rising Republic. This departure from a familiar nationalist structure creates space for new perspectives on the various items, periods and characters so often set aside. The various foreign influences through the ages are portrayed in a more positive light. These include the mention of the more beneficial aspects of Norwegian and later Danish rule, such as allowances in law and education. Also highlighted are the diverse relations with English and German fishermen that made their mark in the country in the 15th and 16th centuries. To the visitor this subtly highlights how important such influences have been for the formation of Icelandic national identity. For visitors outside of Iceland this new focus may not be visible, but for Icelanders who have grown up with the more traditional division, the difference is stark and obvious. Foreign influences are emphasised even further in the museum’s new homepage on its website.6 Here it is clearly stated that one of the key ideas behind the exhibition is to show how the various foreign influences played a large role in creating Icelandic culture and society. The importance of mobility is also emphasised in relation to the growing number of immigrants in recent decades.7 Their presence, on the other hand, is far from evident in the permanent physical exhibition.

... one of the key ideas behind the exhibition is to show how the various foreign influences played a large role in creating Icelandic culture and society.

6 http://www.natmus.is/ syningar/grunnsyningar/ 7 http://www.thjodminjasafn.is/ syningar/grunnsyningar/ grunnhugmynd/

A further new aspect of the exhibition is the representation of the micro history of the nation through the inclusion of stories of individuals and the everyday life of Icelanders. In each section one can find fictional characters, or so-called residents representing the period: a female settler and her grandson; a chieftain and his daughter; a printer and his daughter; a sorcerer and his daughter; a first mate and his daughter; concluding with a “modern woman” and her grandson. Their stories are delivered through a “telephone conversation” in which the visitor can take part, seated on a comfortable bench. Introduced with text on an attached table, each resident, pre-recorded and played by a professional actor, tells an emotive and personal story over the phone, “answering” a selection of questions the museum visitor can choose by pressing buttons if, whenever, and in what order, he or she likes. While this one-directional presentation clashes somewhat ironically with the

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back-and-forth communication of an actual telephone conversation, it does place the agency of the museum visitor in the forefront. It also gives a more personal presentation of past lives. This focus on the individual in national history follows general developments within the social sciences that increasingly have moved away from “grand theories” and “grand histories” of men, institutions and nations. The more recent historical periods, however, could have benefited from actual micro-historical sources, for example diary entries, of which there are many, from a relatively literate early modern population. This would have supported a more balanced and descriptive representation of everyday lives, which was the apparent objective. As we “progress” through the ages and move closer to more accurate sources and diverse artefacts of everyday life, the personalised aspect of the nation’s history is regretfully rather under-represented. Dualistically, “commoners” are characterised through their difference from the ruling class and are symbolised by a well-known literary creation of Icelandic Nobel Laureate Halldór Laxness: the eccentric peasant and defiant prisoner Jón Hreggviðson.8 Consequently the role of the Icelandic intelligentsia in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century culture is somewhat overbearing. This emphasis can be considered emblematic of trends within nationalism studies that tend to stress the vertical delivery of national identity – a hegemonic distribution of nationalism from the ruling classes to the public.9 The reasoning behind the selection of themes seems to be either that the chosen theme is represented in material culture, particularly through an archaeological artefact, or that it has particular relevance to the exhibition’s main questions. As its title suggests, and as stated in the guidebook, the exhibition is “meant to make an important contribution as the Icelandic nation grapples with such questions as Where did we come from?, Who are we?, and What makes an Icelander?”10 If that is the goal then there are some clear gaps, such as the level of Gaelic influence in the settlement and the arrival and presence of new Icelanders of foreign origin. Whichever direction one chooses, upon entering the exhibition, the origin of the settlers is clearly highlighted. Whether within the themes of the Settlement or the Dawn of Icelandic Society, which feature the period 800–1000, it is made clear that the settlers came “mainly from Norway”. Buried underneath an extraordinarily long presentation on the particulars of DNA research, one can find a few mentions of evidence for the Gaelic origin of a large part of the first inhabitants of Iceland (namely that 62 per cent of females were from the British Isles as well as 20 per cent of men). This section then closes by posing the question of whether these conclusions will be confirmed by other research, a rather abrupt and devaluing qualification. In light of these many convincing results in both literary and genetic research,11 the few references to Celtic origin and culture seem rather underwhelming. The rich, albeit often acrimonious, Norse–Gaelic relations in the British Isles, ever present in the Sagas, is in one display limited to “a few settlers of Norse origin who stopped by in the British Isles before coming to Iceland”. The museum includes, however, the fascinating fact that Icelanders sometimes had two names, one Norse and one Gaelic, for example Ólafur feilan og Helgi bjóla. The Christianity of Gaelic inhabitants is also somewhat underplayed, as is the possible significance of this in the relatively peaceful Christianisation of Icelanders. On the

8 Laxness, Halldór (1943) Íslandsklukkan. Reykjavík: Helgafell. 9 See e.g. Anderson, Benedict (1983) Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso. 10 Róbertsdóttir, Hrefna (ed) (2005) Making of a nation, heritage and history in Iceland: Guidebook for the National Museum of Iceland’s permanent exhibition. Reykjavík: National Museum of Iceland, p. 8. 11 See e.g. Helgason, Agnar et al. (2000) “Estimating Scandinavian and Gaelic ancestry in the male settlers of Iceland”, American Journal of Human Genetics 67, pp. 697– 717; Helgason, Agnar et al. (2000) “Signals of recent population history”, American Journal of Human Genetics 66, pp. 999–1016; Helgason, Agnar (2000) “mDNA and the origin of the Icelanders: Deciphering signals of recent population history”, American Journal of Human Genetics 66, pp. 999–1016; Helgason, Agnar (2001) “mtDNA and the islands of the North Atlantic: Estimating the proportions of Norse and Gaelic ancestry”, American Journal of Human Genetics 68, pp. 723–737.

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contrary, the text puts most emphasis on the pressure put on the Norse world from a Christian Viking king. The significance of the fact that one of the three artefacts that represent this theme predates the year of Christianisation (AD 999–1000) is also overlooked, as is the opportunity to examine the more subtle negotiations of conversion within Icelandic culture. As the exhibition starts off with an emphasis on origin one would expect the theme to be present in its conclusion. Early on, the fact that Icelanders are “a nation of settlers” is made quite clear, as is its dominant Norse origin. At this point the exhibition seems to have fully demarcated the question of origin and concludes by overlooking the fact that Icelanders have also become a nation of immigrants. An increasing and significant part of Icelandic culture and society in the last decades, these new Icelanders are relatively absent from the exhibition’s representation of the twentieth century. (It must be granted, however, that the modern period of the permanent exhibition is not as sizeable compared to many others.) What little there is from recent decades is represented by various modern artefacts on a conveyer belt, and a series of screens showing still photography from the twentieth century as well as a televised broadcast. Furthermore, its rather tentative title “Into the Modern World” does not suggest a thorough examination of an age to which we belong. Nevertheless, it is disconcerting that within this theme only a few objects from one of the first Asian restaurants in Iceland, and one fleeting photo of a child with Asian features, are the sole representations of immigrants in Iceland.

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One can of course question whether it is a part of the social and cultural role of a national museum to shed light on contemporary times. It is, however, as we have argued, particularly important for national museums in contemporary “post-national” times to take on such a role and take part in the ever-continuing negotiation of national identities and their fluid meanings. We, of course, grant that guests may learn and experience much of value from the exhibition. Depending on their choices, cultural background and personal identities, they no doubt experience diverse and selective representations of the nation. When entering the exhibition one soon notes that a particular route that starts at one point and ends at another has not been marked beforehand for the visitor to follow. Early on, the visitor’s attention is directed to an outline on the floor, indicating the shape and size of the settlers’ ships. This experience not only offers the visitor a flavour of the spatial life of the settlers, but also enhances her sense of the museum space, prompting her to examine the spatial significance of her surroundings. This again positions the visitor “behind the wheel”, or on the “steer board”, to use an expression more akin to the Viking Age longboat. Throughout the exhibition he or she may choose between various routes depending on personal interests, whether that involves entering the cathedral-like space that introduces the role of the Church in medieval

Soon after entering the exhibition the visitor's attention is directed to an outline on the floor, indicating the shape and size of the settlers' ships. Photo: Ívar Brynjólfsson.

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Iceland; peering at delicate and often skilfully crafted artefacts in dimly lit displays of wood and glass; or lingering by the audio-visual presentations. In addition to the guidebooks available, each focusing on specialised themes such as art history, church history, women’s history and so on, a variety of guided tours have also been made available during the permanent exhibition’s first years. Often specialists outside the ranks of the museum staff conduct these tours and thereby offer diverse and nuanced opinions. In this way, once again, an emphasis has been placed on dialogue and visitor agency. Up to a point, they may perceive that the museum experience is in their own hands.

12 Björnsson, Árni and Róbertsdóttir, Hrefna (eds) (2004) Hlutavelta tímans: menningararfur á Þjóðminjasafni. Reykjavík: National Museum of Iceland.

The exhibition’s main question is reiterated and elaborated in the guidebook and in a special publication closely related to it. This publication is in many ways unprecedented in Iceland. With Hlutavelta tímans – menningararfur á Þjóðminjasafni,12 the research of over three dozen scholars, on artefacts and documents in the museum’s care, is for the first time pulled together in an appropriately broad scope and accessible manner. The book, originally intended as a brochure or guide to the main exhibition, is now meant to cast light on the National Museum of Iceland’s great wealth of artefacts, and not only its exhibited items, and put them in a cultural-historical context. Including drawings and photographs, it is written with the “general” reader and museum guest in mind and although it handles highly specialised research the text is highly accessible. Furthermore, it features fresh research on the settlers’ Gaelic and British origin with a great deal more clarity than the exhibition itself. Also commendable is the overall reversal of the impression that little change occurred from the end of the commonwealth to the beginning of a new nation-state. In fact, the opposite is made clear, for example in chapters on trade relations in the Middle Ages and various aspects of material culture such as housing, utilities of home and church, cookery and craftsmanship.

The central historical view of the main exhibition is most directly addressed in a chapter entitled “Museum and Society”. One of the chapter’s most interesting articles centres on the ephemeral temporality of material culture and its meaning through time. With this context in mind the author Pétur Gunnarsson accentuates how coincidental the preservation of ancient artefacts can be and his own impression of the function of national museums. A chapter such as this would have been opportune to address in depth the policies of collecting and exhibiting that One of the chapter’s most interesting have prevailed within the museum and examine them in a variety of articles centres on the ephemeral cultural contexts. Lacking, however, are elucidations on what makes temporality of material culture and its cultural artefacts “national” artefacts; culture into cultural property. Some words, or even a definition, would also have been appropriate to define meaning through time. such concepts as cultural and national identity, so often brandished but rarely clarified. Too often, these concepts seem superfluous and unclear in an increasingly culturally diverse society. The museum’s policy in these matters, which is indicated in the guidebook, is not examined here. In the book’s epilogue its important mission, however, is stated: to represent the intangible aspects of Icelandic heritage. This objective is to a great extent met not least in the exposition of ethnological research of festival and calendar customs, and a choice of specialist research into literature, music and games. The book’s best quality is therefore its wide scope and

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multi-disciplinary approach, linking well-referenced articles to each other and thus creating a dialogue. Publications such as these allow the active and interested visitor an informed and critical engagement with the exhibition and the questions it purports to address. Productions of smaller exhibitions of artefacts and photographs, as well as scholarly presentations and talks, are also an illuminating and prolific part of the museum’s contribution to society. This field of activity has in many ways been well provided by the National Museum of Iceland since its reopening. How the producers of the permanent exhibition hold up in the conversation initiated by a national museum is, on the other hand, debatable and certainly justifies critical analysis. The producers, in the end, are primarily spoken for by the “text” itself – the permanent exhibition – and while the exhibition can be most appreciated for its fluidity and dynamic qualities, some of its more rigged allusions and “permanent” deductions remain its weakness. As argued, we consider among these: the overemphasis on Norse origin at the expense of significant early Gaelic and various modern contributions of immigrants to the making of the nation; the simplistic intelligentsia–commoner dichotomy; and the theoretically flawed modernist emphasis on a development of nationality, rather than examining its constant negotiation, or indeed its dynamic practice. Conclusion According to the International Council of Museums (ICOM), “the key role of national museums is to strengthen cultural identity and consciousness in the face of rapid and world wide cultural change and to strengthen national identity within an internationalised system of states”.13 This is no longer an easy task, if it ever was. National identities can no longer be viewed as having one simple or fixed meaning but rather they are viewed as being fluid and dynamic in nature and thus constantly open to change. National museums still have a very important role in post-modern societies, however, and that is to offer a space where national identities can indeed be confronted, contested and challenged. Their meaning can thus be renegotiated through a dialogue between the producer, the visual text and the receiver. In other words, the museum’s function of “nation building” can no longer be seen as a simplistic topdown delivery to “the public” or a group of passive consumers that simply swallow “the messages” without chewing. Rather, the museum visitor should be anticipated as an active participant in the negotiating process. In relation to the National Museum of Iceland, it in many ways seems to have adapted to this new role and has also managed to shed some new light on the history of the nation and its collective identity. When it comes to the permanent exhibition’s inclusion of themes such as cultural diversity and the representation of ethnic minority groups, however, there is much space for improvement. This leads one to doubt whether such “permanence” is at all fitting to a twentyfirst-century post-modern museum.

13 Cited in McDonald, Sharon and Fyfe, Gordon (1996) Theorizing museums. Oxford: Blackwell, p. 22.

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CHAPTER 23

Exhibition forms and influential circumstances Katherine Goodnow

Museums at this point of time are often faced with the need to find ways forward. Many may find in the preceding chapters examples of steps that they might now consider, and of conditions they may need to take into account. In this last chapter, I wish to take a general view of choices and considerations. I shall consider five, asking in each case about the circumstances that promote them and about the effects they have on perceptions of diversity and identity processes. For examples, I shall draw mainly from the Nordic countries, with some additions from countries outside Scandinavia. 1 Goodnow, K. (2008) Museums, the media and refugees: Stories of crisis, control and compassion. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. See also McShane, Ian (2001) “Challenging or conventional? Migration history in Australian museums?”, in D. McIntyre and K. Wehner (2001) National museums: Negotiating histories. Conference Proceedings. Canberra: National Museum of Australia.

Of the five, the first is a familiar form. The stories told are “enhancement narratives”.1 Minorities are “different” but they add to the culture as a whole. The second takes the form of re-examining a racist or excluding past, questioning especially past steps that were regarded as “benign” or at least “legitimate”. The third starts from a broader contemporary concern with social inequalities and social rights, with both minority and majority groups forming part of the picture. The fourth moves towards exploring insiders’ views of being regarded as “other”: asking, for example, what it feels like to see oneself or to be regarded as an immigrant, a Jew, or a Sámi. The fifth considers moves towards breaking down differences by way of an emphasis on transnational and hybrid forms of identity. For each of these forms and in all countries, I suggest, three sets of circumstances are influential. These have to do with: (1) political or funding influences, (2) community influences, and (3) museum interests and concerns. Taken up first is the familiar form: enhancement narratives, with their inevitable focus on differences. This is also a form where state, community and museum interests may coincide. 1. Enhancement narratives For museums and governments, the easiest route to including or supporting diversity is through what can be termed a celebratory view of diversity or “enhancement narratives”. These are exhibitions or other cultural events that highlight what minorities add to a country, particularly in the form of new food, music and crafts. The “host” country is seen in this view as established and homogenous. “Norwegian culture”, for example, despite its pre-existing diversity as described in a number of chapters in this book, is essentialised and frozen and forms a contrast to the cultural expressions that minorities maintain and migrants supposedly bring with them.

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There are several reasons for this type of exhibition predominating. These include state, museum and community interests. A focus on difference is reflected in the variety of international agreements the Nordic countries have signed. International agreements on minorities often contain an emphasis on conservation and protection and tend to see minority cultures as separate and distinct: an emphasis that increases the likelihood of essentialising or folklorising minority cultures. States also often have a concern with “cultural democracy” – a perspective in which cultures are again often seen as separate; cultural expressions of minorities are seen as avenues for social development; and these cultural expressions are seen as leading to respect and tolerance for difference. The Nordic countries have ratified a number of European and international agreements that relate to indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities. Heritage aspects and the preservation of difference are paramount in many of these agreements. The Council of Europe’s 1995 Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, for example, requires countries to “maintain and develop” minority culture and to “preserve the essential elements of their identity, namely their religion, language, traditions and cultural heritage”.2 While “develop” is included in this formulation, preservation and maintenance are predominant. The European Agreement on Regional or Minority Languages also “protects” minority languages.3 In Norway, for example, the Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings (Riksantikvaren) “started a project in 2003 with the goal to identify, register and protect the cultural sites and environments of national minorities. The project must be seen as a first step on the way towards a formalised engagement from the central cultural heritage authority’s side to protect the national minorities’ cultural expression”.4 The Norwegian government, in its plans for a Year of Diversity in 2008, noted that the “European Council has worked purposefully to define a democratic cultural policy particularly in relation to maintaining cultural diversity … to meet the challenges that globalisation brings with it”.5 UNESCO’s 2001 universal declaration for cultural diversity also emphasises cultures as separate and differing, though inter-related, with cultural diversity seen as similar to biological diversity: “As a source of exchange, innovation and creativity, cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature. In this sense, it is the common heritage of humanity and should be recognized and affirmed for the benefit of present and future generations.”6 Considered for ratification at present is the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (CSICH) – adopted by UNESCO in 2003. As described by Inger Sjørslev in this book (Chapter 17), the ratification of this convention may lead to still further “folklorisation” of minority cultures: “As the anthropologist Sue Wright says, there is … the risk that the convention becomes yet another instrument for the interest of the states, and rather than being of benefit to

2 The Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (1995), Article 5. 3 St.meld., Nr.17, p. 5. My translation. 4 Ibid., p. 6. 5 Ibid., p. 3. 6 Article 1, UNESCO Universal Declaration of Cultural Diversity. Available at: unesdoc.unesco.org/images/ 0012/001271/127160m.pdf

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7 St.meld., Nr. 17, p. 3. 8 Ibid., p. 4. 9 Ibid., p. 6.

minority groups and transnational movements and plurality, it ends up being the instrument for certain states in appropriating the culture of minorities in a simultaneous folklorisation and legitimisation of state hegemonic power.” The second concern of states – culture as a path to integration – has been discussed in recent years at the Nordic level: “In 1999, on behalf of the Nordic Council, the collaborating ministers in the Nordic Council of Ministers put forward an inter-sector plan of action against racism and xenophobia. With this as background, the Nordic Ministers of Culture began collaborating … with the goal of integrating Nordic cultural diversity … and strengthening Nordic cultural identity as built on diversity and tolerance.”7 Clear links are made between the possible and expected role of state-supported cultural expressions and social goals: One of the main goals in … the new action plan for Nordic cultural collaboration for 2007–2009 is that cultural collaboration by the Nordic Ministry Council shall lead to the advancement and the protection of the diversity of cultural expressions in the North (Norden). The Nordic Council has, through themed conferences, public hearings and reports, focused on charting when and to what extent the Nordic countries can have a common front in the fight against racism and xenophobia. The Nordic Culture Fund (Nordisk Kulturfond) aims to support cultural collaboration between the Nordic countries by giving support to collaborative projects within art, culture, education and research and has also a particular focus on projects that aim at reducing xenophobia and racism.8 The link between social development and cultural difference is also outlined in the actions of individual governments. Norway, for example, sees as one of its main goals the promotion of respect through the protection of difference: “How to develop mutual knowledge and understanding for difference in a way that creates acceptance and respect for differences in cultural expressions”, and the link to policies is explicit: “How can one integrate cultural policy and minority policy principles?”9 In Sweden, as Lagerkvist has outlined in this volume (Chapter 9), the Swedish government made concrete moves to reorganise its museums to present diversity of cultural expressions in the promotion of tolerance: The Museum of Ethnography, the Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities, the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities – all in Stockholm – and the former Göteborg Ethnographical Museum came to form the National Museum of World Culture, and share direction from the Swedish Ministry of Culture and Education. One of the reasons for establishing a common organisation was that these museums were thought to be able to play a specific role in multicultural Sweden through their international collections and networks and the built-in focus on diversity.

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The government report notes change and similarities but echoes a view of identity as distinct: “The National Museum of World Culture shall create something new in the world of museums, something which does not already exist. It will mirror similarities and differences in ways of thinking, lifestyles and living conditions, as well as cultural change in Sweden and in the world. Visitors will be given the opportunity to reflect on their own cultural identity and on those of others.”10 In other words, cultural difference is seen as something that may be harnessed to reduce racism and increase tolerance. The question is then whether this leads to a lop-sided emphasis on certain aspects of heritage and folklorisation in the belief that the majority population will come to view new arrivals and existing minorities as exciting and as enhancing the cultural mix of society. We need to ask also whether this emphasis, if allowed to stand alone, leads to stereotyping of ethnic groups and how this emphasis on difference affects younger generations in their interactions with the majority society. It would be wrong to say that an interest in the representation of distinctiveness and difference has its base only in state concerns. For sections of minority communities, there is also often an interest in marking difference rather than similarity and curators clearly face pressures from community groups as well as state interests. Communities or community representatives may push to have their community, and its history, presented in a positive light. They might also wish to see omitted material that could be damaging to those left behind. Marking difference may also have political implications in the sense of ensuring forms of self-governance or the fight for independence (the Kurdish museum project described in Chapter 13 provides an example). For new arrivals, or first-generation migrants, presenting an enhancement narrative often relates to their perceptions of what the majority may want. To step outside of Scandinavia for a brief example, curator Natasha Jeremic sees the overwhelming amounts of positive stories from firstgeneration migrants in New Zealand as part of maintaining a particular public face: “My research showed … that the ethnic communities did not want to highlight their negative experience (or to talk about it in a public arena) for a variety of reasons such as fear of not being accepted, being seen as ungrateful for what New Zealand offers to migrants, and pressure to assimilate. That poses the question of how ‘real’ these exhibitions are when presented in traditional settings in which those groups feel the need to accommodate in order to ‘comply’ with the hosting culture.”11 The “reality” of the exhibitions – and even the oral histories that museums are increasingly gathering – is an issue that needs to be dealt with by all museums even, as in this case, when stories are gathered by community members themselves. This is not to say that migrants do not have positive stories to tell or that they do not have or can access a cultural heritage that can be of interest to a majority society; it is simply that these stories may hide a great deal. Established migrants, national minorities or indigenous peoples with clear and legal rights may feel more comfortable with complicating this story – an issue I take up later in the chapter – but those who fear xenophobia or political ramifications in the form of restrictions on family reunions may be more careful in what their “public face” reveals.

10 Official Government Report, SOU 1998:125, p. 28 (translation by Lagerkvist). 11 Unpublished paper, February 2007.

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12 McShane (2001), op. cit. p. 123. 13 Leif Pareli. Unpublished paper, June 2007.

Museum interests in telling stories of difference and enhancement may also reflect a variety of reasons. These may include previous success with colourful ethnic portrayals, community pressure, or a fear of moving into a political sphere. Particularly in places where “ethnic” or minority exhibitions are infrequent, celebratory exhibitions of culture may be seen as a first breaking of presumed silence between community members. They are often successful at the community level, with a Tivoli-style atmosphere enhanced by food, music and colourful costumes. For museums, they fulfil state cultural democracy goals and expectations. An emphasis on difference is also often a continuation of previous museum practice. The addition of a Pakistani-migrant apartment by the Norwegian Folk Museum, for example, followed previous practice that represented, in distilled form, the homes of a cross-section of the Norwegian population. Museum motivations may also stem from previous practice. Eva Silvén, in this volume (Chapter 2), uses Swedish museums as an example of “ethnic” exhibitions as “giving voice to the voiceless” in line with “classical museum perspectives”: Museums had included ethnic perspectives – at least as far as “immigrant documentation” was concerned – to a far greater degree than they had included comparable gender perspectives. One explanation for this could be that the Swedish museum world was heterogeneous in terms of gender but homogeneous in terms of ethnicity. The question of ethnicity came therefore to deal with the ethnic “other”, a classic museum view that reemerged and was connected with a desire to “give voice” to the underprivileged in society. Ensuing questions about power and change could thereby be kept at a distance and be placed outside of one’s own activity – something that would have been impossible with a self-reflective gendered perspective. Why go beyond this form? If a celebratory focus on difference is in line with state, community and museum interests, what are the problems with enhancement exhibitions focusing on difference? The problems are several. These exhibitions tend to be one-sided, with the migrant “folklorised” and essentialised. To quote Ian McShane, “migrants remain stubbornly migrants”.12 They are also methodologically problematic. Returning to the Pakistani home project, the stated goal was to mark difference rather than adaptation and cultural hybridity often found among migrants and “ethnic Norwegians” alike: “Unlike many other Pakistanis we got in contact with, who were often ‘entrepreneurs’ with political agendas which brought them in contact with Norwegians, this family had no such ambitions; consequently, they were probably more representative of the ‘average’ immigrant family than most of our other informants”.13

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The other apartments in the building were presented under the name of the particular family or person who had lived there. It is clearly methodologically difficult to present a home from the 1930s, 1940s or 1970s and claim that it is “representative” of the past or current Norwegian population. The same concerns need to be raised regarding minorities. Enhancement narratives, in other words, emphasise difference rather than integration and are likely to stereotype. The Danish Jewish Museum in Copenhagen, as described by curator Janne Laursen in this volume (Chapter 6), had to confront this kind of issue from the very start of their museum planning: “The museum emphasises this diversity as key to understanding the Jewish minority in Denmark, and in relation to the museum’s primary audience – the non-Jewish Danes – this is a most important point. Prejudices are usually built from stereotypes.” Silvén, in reference to minority policies as focusing on difference in general, also notes the dangers of a focus on difference as leading to stereotypes: … minority policies promote ethnic distinction through criteria such as “groups with articulated affinity”, “religious, linguistic, traditional and/or cultural distinctiveness” and “selfidentification”: “where the individual as well as the group have a will and an ambition to maintain their identity”. Many have criticised the increasing influence of this sort of ethnicbased identity politics for a number of reasons. Not only does it create a base for a positive self-identification but can also lock people into unwanted and static forms of belonging where essentialism replaces cultural hybridity and flexibility … cultural recognition from a diversity perspective tends to replace social and economic rights and democracy. While not moving the story beyond difference, one next step consists of extending a closer look at less positive aspects to the inter-relationship between groups seen as “us” and groups regarded as “other”. A particular example of this direction takes the form of re-examining the past and its several interpretations. 2. Examinations of a racist past Acknowledgement of negative aspects to the treatment of Sámi and national minorities has increased in Scandinavian museums, often by way of noting how government policies attempted to assimilate these groups into the majority society. (Acknowledgement of contemporary illtreatment or discrimination, however, is less common. It would be seen as not furthering “respect and tolerance” and possibly would be an affront to funders and primary audiences.) Stories of ill-treatment of national minorities and indigenous peoples may be accepted if they are seen as stories that are firmly in the past and not the responsibility of current governments and the majority society. Anchoring in the past, however, may not solve all the difficulties. Not all of these historical stories have been “defused”. They are still likely to cause some tension within audiences, funders and other stakeholders.

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14 Ronald Sagatun, interviewed by Ebba Moi at: www.rethinking-nordiccolonialism.org/files/ index.htm

Despite the difficulties they may present, exhibitions taking this form attract several bases of interests. State interests in having these stories told are likely to be tied to a desire for reconciliation with minorities – to deal with the past and to “move on”. This was the case, for example, in Sweden during the Swedish Diversity Year. As Silvén has noted in this volume: Questions that relate to representation, repatriation, human remains, indigenous peoples and minorities have brought the surrounding world into the museums, and the museums out into the world in a new way. The issues have been addressed in the contexts of the Swedish Diversity Year 2006, of an inventory of human remains from aboriginals in museums and universities, and in a critical review of race biology’s historical role during the first half of the 1900s – all at the request of the Ministry of Culture. Furthermore the Minister for Culture has made a principal statement in favour of a return of Sámi human remains in national collections, but the form and terms of this have yet to be worked out. Community interests are also present. The Sámi and the Inuit, as well as many of the national minorities, have clear legitimate interests in a rewriting of history and the inclusion of the negative sides of internal and foreign colonisation. Those relate, amongst others, to forced assimilation, eugenics and race biology, and linguistic repression. Cases of forced assimilation were described in a number of chapters in this volume. It is also the focus of arts projects included in the Rethinking Nordic Colonialism project. Ronald Sagatun, one of those artists, explains, for example, how assimilation and silence form the background to his work: There are two areas in Norwegian Lapland. One is the part that has visibility because of the Sámediggi (the Sámi parliament), reindeer herding, etc. However, the biggest Sámi population that was Norwegianized lived by the coast – namely the Sea Sámi, whom I represent. Much of the reason why my father does not speak Sámi is that the Germans burnt down the municipality during the Second World War, also destroying my grandparents’ farm. To receive Marshall Aid, which was offered to all the occupied countries after the war, they had to sign an agreement saying that their children would not learn to speak Sámi. Their children should be Norwegian.14 For Sagatun, recognition and restorative steps have been the case for parts of the Norwegian Sámi population – the inland or “Reindeer Sámi”. There remain, however, many stories of other groups that have been less well told – amongst others the stories of the Sea Sámi and the Sámi who became integrated/assimilated into Norwegian society: The indoctrination that was occurring at the time was vast. But the main problem regarding “the Norwegianization” in my family was that they became ashamed, something I can feel even today. I know my father felt shame when he had to say who he was. He is now 65 years old, and until he was 60 years old his background was a big problem for him … He does not deny it rationally, but emotionally he denies it. He was

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only a child when it happened … all those children were supposed to become something else … Because the state has not made a settlement in this matter, it is still a very heated and difficult case. I have come into conflict with people in my class at school because I now say that I am a Sámi and they deny it. Among the reasons for continuing difficulty are a lack of apology to the Sea Sámi directly and differentiations in the treatment of Sámi groups: “They have [apologized] to the Reindeer Sámi, but not to us Sea Sámi. Because the Sea Sámi speak Norwegian now and have lost their language and culture, it is as if we never existed. We have ended up in a position ‘in between’ something … I believe the state is still exerting oppression; however, it is very subtle and invisible. For example, the Sea Sámi youth is not a part of the quota system of e.g. universities, in which a fixed number of Sámi youth is accepted each year. Because they don’t speak Sámi, they are not qualified.” The Sámi, like the Inuit in Greenland, were the focus also of current disciplinary interests of the time – including physical anthropology or “racial biology”. This activity has been described, amongst others, by Silvén in this volume, and the images resulting from it formed the basis of many earlier (and some present) exhibitions. Some of the Nordic countries are coming to terms with the history of racial biology (see Silvén’s chapter) but few museum exhibitions have dealt directly with the practice. For many Sámi, however, the activities of race biologists, the complicity of museums, and the lack of acknowledgement of long-term effects has led to continued hurt and a difficult relation to non-community museums exhibiting their heritage: In the past, Sweden was a pioneering country regarding eugenics and racial biology. A fact, which has had reverberations into present time … Our close relatives were present when the white men entered our bedrooms with their measuring instruments and photography equipment. The domination is no further away than that. Just knowing that I can get facts about my relatives from sources about racial biology hurts. Knowing that my predecessors were stripped naked to be photographed and documented for the future hurts. To visit a museum and see my family heirlooms on display for the public hurts. Yes, they are robbed and dishonored.15 For Aviäja Egede Lynge in Greenland the process of re-examining the historical past is about reconciliation and final moves towards “decolonisation” – moves that also require acknowledging that the story is not simple, that there was a level of complicity amongst their “own” people, and that cherished stories of good ethnic relations between colonised and coloniser need to be readdressed: The step now must be to take responsibility for our own history, our own lives as a people. But first, we have to look into our colonial and postcolonial history and stop blaming not only other people, but to a high degree ourselves – and understand that there is a link between our past and our feelings today. And in that process, we should allow ourselves to be misunderstood and judged as nationalists or racists, because we finally want to talk about the dark taboos of history … It is about time that we define our own history, our

15 Katarina Pirak Sikku: www.rethinking-nordiccolonialism.org/files/index.htm Pirak Sikku participated in Act 4 of the Rethinking Nordic Colonialism project with an installation on eugenics and racial biology titled “Dollet”.

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16 Lynge, Aviäja Egede (2006) “The best colony in the world”. At: www.rethinking-nordiccolonialism.org/files/index.htm 17 Inuit Youth International in collaboration with Katrine Dirckinck-Holmfeld, Humphry Polepole and Ivaaq Poulsen: www.rethinking-nordiccolonialism.org

own feelings, and our own view of how we have been affected by 250 years of colonization – if we are to become mentally independent.16 Do museums also have an interest in representing a colonial past? Museums in the Nordic countries are certainly beginning to address both this history and their complicity. The new Sámi exhibition in Stockholm, for example, described by Silvén, includes themes that note previous injustice outside as well as by the museum itself: The five themes, referring to both historical and contemporary conditions, were formulated as: Ursprung (Origin) on history, kinship, perceptions of identity and ethnicity; Rätt och orätt (Justice and injustice) on land rights, legal processes and political movements; Hemfört, bortfört, återfört (Brought home, taken away, brought back) focusing on the Nordiska Museet’s material collections; Vems blick, vems röst, vems berättelse (Whose view, whose voice, whose story) with documents and images from the museum’s archive; Det tredje rummet (The third space) on cultural encounters and hybrid identities from a post-colonial perspective. Gradually the themes have been reordered and renamed, but the main topics remain the same. A focus on a colonial past allows museums to rethink their own practices. To take an example from Lägerkvist’s chapter, the Museum of World Culture developed art programmes that comment directly on previous museum practice: “Through Wilson’s artistic and personal interpretation, the museum was able to comment on its own conflict-ridden history and provide an alternative way for the audiences to access its collections.” Wilson, amongst others, “re-presented” historical photographs and material culture taken during historical periods of archaeological practice in which works were unquestioningly removed from their original sites and countries. The Rethinking Nordic Colonialism project itself was also a collaboration between artists and many Nordic museums. As part of this project in 2006, a temporary exhibition on “contemporary experiences with post-colonial societies and cultures” was organised at the Greenland National Museum and Archives in Nuuk: “The exhibition addressed questions of dependency and marginalization, and attempted to propose ways out of subordination”. It included artists from Brazil, Denmark, Sámi-Finland and the U.S.A. Danish/Greenland participation included a community project entitled “Youth Writes Back”, which involved “17 young activists, artists and educations”. The participants were encouraged to use new media to create counter-images of colonialism: “In order to produce other images and stories opposed to the ruling, the workshop participants went into the city of Nuuk and its surrounding and investigated themes of ‘My city’, ‘Language’, and ‘Dig-I-dentity’.” 17

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Once again, we need to ask whether this step is a sufficient ending. There are certainly still stories to be told. Randi Broberg tells one of these in a film called With The Best of Intentions about Greenland’s “Stolen Generation”. Laila Hansen tells another, in a film documenting the sad position of Inuit women in Copenhagen’s streets, addicted to alcohol (Inuit Woman City Blues).18 These are stories of contemporary injustice with a particular concern with social rights and inequalities. 3. Diversity with an emphasis on rights and democracy In exhibitions that focus on social inequalities and social rights, state, community and museum interests again play a part. Governments are in general interested in and support research on inequality. This research is seen as leading to better policies and thereby better integration of minorities. Issues that are not directly aimed at a criticism of policy, however, are the most likely form to be supported and encouraged – such as this example of funding for a networked exhibition at the Museum of World Culture in Göteborg described by Lagerkvist in this volume (Chapter 9): No Name Fever [an exhibition on AIDS] was followed by Trafficking – a journey into the harsh and painful reality of the global human trafficking industry. The exhibition has been organised around 14 different places in the world that are part of the trafficking network. Each part of the exhibition includes quotes from human traffickers, their victims, people who pay for the victims’ services, police and others who try to combat the industry. The exhibition has been the result of a larger national and European partnership initiative to combat human trafficking and is partly funded through the European Social Fund. The partnership includes a network of anti-trafficking organisations which have contributed to the collection of objects, artworks and individual stories for the exhibition. Trafficking narratives, however, inevitably bring up issues of cultural difference: differences, for example, between the cultures from which people are moved and those that are at the receiving end. The highlighting of differences is even more marked in a later exhibition focused on access to the labour market. The example is again from Lagerkvist, part of her description of the Swedish Museum of World Culture: Since the development process, the Museum of World Culture aimed to change its role in society by participating actively to promote social justice, tolerance and inclusion. One step in this direction was taken when the museum liaised with major local and regional actors in the project Advantage Göteborg, which was co-financed through the European Social Fund. The aim of the project was to break down barriers to accessing the labour market for one particularly excluded community in Sweden – citizens from the Horn of Africa; Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia. The Swedish labour market has shown remarkably little inclination to include Swedish citizens from non-European countries. Research and statistics show that Swedes with an African background are particularly exposed to this discrimination.

18 see www.vestfilm.dk

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19 Liv Hilde Bøe in an early version of her chapter in this volume – Chapter 11.

Again we may ask: Is there then any need to go beyond this form? Here there is no freezing or “folklorising” of a minority group. Here also is a closer look at the society into which new arrivals or marginalised minority groups are expected to move. That society now emerges as marked by discrimination and as complicit in the construction of inequality. What one needs to be alert to, however, are one-sided representations of migrants as passive victims – this would be a further form of essentialisation – and an absence of political contextualisation. A further addition is already beginning to emerge. This has to do with the increasing representation of views from within the group usually presented as “other” and a focus on change and similarities between groups. Those “steps beyond” are the ones covered by Forms 4 and 5. 4. Representations of diversity from within groups What is it like to be an immigrant or a member of some other minority group? Understanding that experience is relevant to the state. If policies are to be developed that aim at reconciliation, then the perspectives of “others” need to be understood. Communities again have an interest in presenting their view of events, and museums are attracted both by the necessity for taking this kind of step and by the vividness of the personal narratives that may be presented. Liv Hilde Bøe (Chapter 11) summarises some of the aims and the challenges: “What could be more important when shaping the politics of today’s and tomorrow’s society than knowledge of what it is like to live in Norway as an immigrant or a descendant of immigrants? In order to be inclusive and to create an ‘us’, knowledge of people’s ‘virtues and defects’ is still essential.” It is difficult for a museum to show the “defects” of a minority when none of their curators have an ethnic background, as is the case at the Norwegian Folk Museum. The solution for these museums is through community and individual collaboration, with migrants providing their stories and content. The museum, for example, took an issue that was current in the media debate. It developed “an exhibition on why some female Muslims wear hijab and some do not”. The base consisted of personal interviews: “six women told why they chose to use hijab or not”: “The women were presented in full length – three who were using hijab and three who chose not to. The text expressed their point of views. It followed the lines of their bodies as a reminder that their choice was an integrated part of their culture and personal opinions … We felt an obligation to tell the histories seen from the point of views of the immigrants and their descendants. Many people have expressed gratitude that their points of view have been told so that people might be acquainted with their stories.”19 It was not only the community that was pleased: “In a way we may say the exhibitions are ‘politically correct’ as they have taken into consideration the political intentions expressed in public statements for museums today – to encourage respect and tolerance.”

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Steps like these, however, may require some special care and some special attention. An exhibition at the International Cultural Centre and Museum, also in Oslo, provides an example: One of our earliest exhibitions focusing on “rituals of passages” was Similarities in the Differences … We decided not to talk about female circumcision … Was it right to do that? The last exhibition about rituals of passages, The Beginning of Life, Personal Stories from Multicultural Norway was produced in 2004. Female circumcision was mentioned in the exhibition labels, whereas the catalogue had articles about circumcision, infertility and Pakistani-Norwegian mothers with functionally disabled children.20 A second example from this museum highlights differences between what is documented and what is openly displayed, especially when the issue is related to what may be regarded as “defects” of minority lifestyles: The Right to an Adequate Life in 2001 was a project in co-operation with members from the Somali community group in Oslo. Girls and boys, women and men participated in theatre workshops. They wanted to address a tradition that they felt was inhuman. The point was to engage members of their own community and the larger Norwegian society in the debate on female circumcision. The result of their work was a video based on interviews and other documentation. It was included in an education programme about circumcision and we received lot of positive feedback. During the project several journalists wanted to write about the workshops in the media. Many of the participants, however, were very sensitive about this kind of exposure. We decided to say no to the press. The result of this was no press coverage for the museum but we gained trust from the Somali community. Those examples already bring out the ways in which gaining “insiders’ views” may bring out the presence of heterogeneity within a minority group, of diverging perspectives that may not be what all members of the group wish to see made public. An example of particular interest comes from within the Sámi. Here the comments come from Sámi women willing to write about write about male dominance within their own group and to note that the source of this tension comes in part from attempts at marking difference from the majority society: According to Sámi feminist scholar Jorunn Eikjok, notions of powerful Sámi women and traditional Sámi society as matriarchal are myths created by the Sámi ethnopolitical movement in the 1970s, which needed to distinguish the Sámi people from the surrounding Nordic peoples and cultures. Until the late 1980s, it was common in the Sámi movement to stress that Sámi women were not as oppressed as Nordic women and that in Sámi society, women were equal with men. Besides being a marker of distinctiveness, the notion of strong Sámi women also had to do with a desired ideal of Sámi society rather than the everyday reality of Sámi women. Today, this myth is often used against Sámi women who advocate women’s issues, particularly by Sámi men who have either internalized the myth or who

20 Bente Guro Møller and Hans Philip Einarsen, Chapter 14.

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21 Kuokkanen, Raina (2006) “Sámi women, autonomy, and decolonization in the age of globalization”, at: www.rethinking-nordiccolonialism.org 22 Chapter 6. 23 Liv Hilde Bøe, Chapter 11.

benefit from the patriarchal system that is the reality of contemporary Sámi society. A common way to disregard Sámi women’s concerns is to refer to the fact that Sámi women are already “better off” than Sámi men because they are stronger and because the loss of traditional livelihoods has not impacted them as radically as men.21 How are museums to respond to such heterogeneity and the contest of interests it points to? Janne Laursen, reporting on the Danish Jewish Museum, describes one step taken: “It is important for the Danish Jewish Museum not to get involved in the discussions about the correct way of being Jewish, but to note that such discussions take place. The museum must document this and collect materials that illuminate these important identity processes”.22 A further step consists of asking: What are the features of groups that are willing to express differences in perspective and perhaps to have them made public? One possibility is that such expressions are especially likely to come from groups that are well established. The Sámi may be regarded as having some of this status. Willingness to be open may also be more likely to occur among second and third generations. To draw one example from this volume, in response to an exhibition organised by the Norwegian Folk Museum, first-generation migrants and their children disagreed on what should be displayed: “One part of the exhibition was called ‘We are proud of our culture’. The quotation was from one of the students from the Pakistani Student Union who helped us. The students had made a small exhibition at Chateau Neuf for the parents, showing a small scene from Pakistani village life. When the parents saw this they said, ‘Why do you show the poverty?’ The students had answered, ‘We are proud of our culture’. In this section we showed Pakistani handicraft, food, furniture as well as video glimpses of daily life in a small village in Punjab.”23 The parents would have been happy to highlight handicrafts and food but clearly had problems with the link to what they perceived as a more negative side of their “heritage” – poverty. The younger generation, who did not see poverty as linked to their “culture” in their present lives, did not see this as problematic. The museum’s solution (described by Liv Hilde Bøe also in Chapter 11) was to make the representations more about people and less about the group as a whole: “It was a great relief when we decided to use quotations and so were able to use first-person narrative and connect official history directly to the people’s experiences. Using their names and their own photographs in the texts required in-depth discussions with the people involved.” From the same documentation project there emerge also second-generation comments on the extent to which it is the majority groups that are maintaining the notion of difference: “I wonder how long it will be before people understand that you can have coloured skin and be Norwegian. I was born in Oslo and my parents have Norwegian citizenship. The other day a woman asked me if I felt Norwegian. I answered that I had no homeland other than Norway and that I had no intention of moving to Pakistan. I often get questions like that. If I’m not Norwegian – then where do I belong? (25-year-old man, born in Norway).”

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Emerging also are comments on the possibility of being “different” in a new way: being Norwegian but in some blended fashion: “For me it is very important that Norwegian society accepts me, and the generations after me, as an important part of society. My parents worked hard to give us better opportunities than they had. I want my children to have the same opportunities and be valued in the same way, even if they don’t want to be entirely Norwegian in the same way that you are. (27year-old woman of Turkish origin).” 5. Highlighting hybridity, transnationalism and change The last comment in the previous section – “not entirely Norwegian in the same way as you” – brings us to the last singled-out form that museum representations might take. Of interest are emphases on forms of diversity that may bring together both similarities and differences and that also take account of change as a constant. A focus on change and adaptation can certainly be seen as positive by governments. The Norwegian government, for example, sees cultural diversity as bringing about creativity and renewal.24 The Swedish government report referred to in the first section of this chapter also noted issues of similarities “in thinking, lifestyles and living conditions” and cultural change “in Sweden and in the world”. The process of combining cultural input can then be seen as having creative, social (and hopefully economic) gains. Change and renewal are also part of the discourses surrounding art practices and arts funding if not museum funding. Knut Kjeldstadli in this volume (Chapter 18) in fact raised the concern that authorities were far more interested in funding hybrid and “world cultures” to the detriment of funding for more traditional cultural expressions. Community groups and their members may also have an interest in seeing identities as mixed and as constantly changing. One example is a comment from a young Greenlander: “In some ways we are very European or very American and in other ways we have kept our cultural heritage. I think we are diluted in many ways … It seems that more and more English phrases or words enter conversations among young people. Even my six-year-old nephew uses English phrases when he speaks. I guess this is a way of saying I’m also a part of the world outside of Greenland”.25 From Greenland comes also a particular reminder of the need to avoid sharp divisions into separate category boxes. In an exhibition held in Reykjavik, as part of the Rethinking Nordic Colonialism project, Julie Edel Hardenberg presented photographs that “bear witness to a globalized reality equally influenced by Inuit, Danish and American value systems”.26 She also questioned any division of people into simple ethnic categories. Hardenberg, like a sizeable number of Greenlanders, has parents with differing backgrounds. She has a Danish father and a Greenlandic mother. For her, then, simple ethnic categorisation is especially problematic. (See her interview in Chapter 5.) And museums? They have also picked up changes in identity discourses that are emerging from academic and artistic debates. The Norwegian Folk Museum project Norwegian Yesterday, Today,

24 St.meld., Nr.17, p. 6. 25 Janus Chemnitz Kleist in “Youth writes back TV: Performative notes from a workshop on youth experiences and postcolonial situations”: www.rethinkingnordic-colonialism.org 26 www.rethinking-nordiccolonialism.org

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27 Bøe, Chapter 11. 28 Cajsa Lagerkvist, Chapter 9. 29 Leif Magnusson, Chapter 15.

Tomorrow?, for example, was “built on the premise that identity is not static but in constant development. To be able to negotiate personal identity, it is important to have the opportunity to be acquainted with history as contested and multiple”.27 How does this become realised in practice? In this volume we have seen, for example, projects that focus on similarities, change and adaptation and not only difference. Janne Laursen, for example, was concerned with emphasising integration and change within Danish Jewish society over time: “The Jewish minority … today is a well-integrated group … The wish of the museum board was that the museum should tell this story and put emphasis on the aspects of integration in Danish Jewish cultural history and the story of the life and customs of the Danish Jews.” Identities as multiple with ethnicity as only a small part of identity processes are also the focus of concern within the Museum of World Culture: The challenges of multicultural Sweden were the political motivation behind transforming the National Museums of World Culture. There was therefore an expectation that the new museum in Göteborg should focus on ethnic diversity. Instead, it uses the broadest definition of diversity: a combination of individual and collective identities and preconditions including age, gender, generation, ethnic background, social background (class), religion, sexual orientation, disability, subcultural identification and so on. Cultural identities are regarded as fluid and changeable. The broader definition of diversity is important to avoid the division between a supposed “Swedish culture and heritage” and supposed “ethnic” or “immigrant culture and heritage”, which is clearly a false division, but one that has been present in the Swedish discourse on multiculturalism and museums for a long time.28 Movement as bringing about a variety of forms of change and adaptation not only for migrants was also the focus of some of the work at Botkyrka Multicultural Centre in Sweden: “The research carried out at the Centre has been broadly concerned with the question of how society has been influenced by migration. It is based on the idea that a “multicultural society” is something more than just “people from different cultures”. Immigration affects us all, directly or indirectly. How does Sweden change, given the needs and opportunities created by social and cultural diversity?”29 This has led to an exhibition practice that focuses on movement, loss and gain as a common theme for both migrants and ethnic Swedes: In 2002 the Centre started co-operation with Esther Shalev-Gerz, a Lithuanian-born artist living in Paris. Both foreigners and Swedes who moved to Botkyrka were invited by her to engage in a reflection about their identity within multiple cultural references. Thirty-four local people agreed to contribute to the project and were filmed while replying to a series of questions posed by the artist. On your coming to Botkyrka: What did you lose? What did you find? What did you get? What did you give? … The video installation highlights how

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the world is becoming increasingly interwoven through migration and how people of all ethnic backgrounds have become part of a historic new social pattern. Have we then exhausted the several ways in which change may alter the ways in which we describe diversity and come to think about the significance of contexts and the nature of identity processes? This seems unlikely. Forecasting future forms, their circumstances, and their implications is a risky undertaking. I take as a last thought-provoking example, however, one that has given me pause. It comes from an individual whom many would describe as a Chinese-New Zealander: “Modern jet travel, electronic banking transfers, the Internet and telecommunications have made the world a global village … The migration and settlement process is no longer linear or in one direction. Circular movements to the home country and to a third destination, as well as multiple residences, are becoming increasingly common. Transnationalism will become the norm of the educated and professional class, irrespective of their ethnicity.”30 The “educated and professional class” may not be unique in this respect. The flow of artisans and technicians back and forth across many European borders that once were hard to cross may change again our perspectives on immigrants and population movement. What we can expect, it is certain, is change in the forms that diversity takes and in the way museums rise to meet those changes.

30 Ip, Manying (2003) Unfolding history, evolving identity: The Chinese in New Zealand. Auckland: Auckland University Press.

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Notes on the contributors

Lena Aarekol is a doctoral student at Tromsø University Museum and the Department of History,

University of Tromsø. Her doctoral thesis deals mainly with minority group history, material culture and the revitalisation of Kven culture and identity. Aarekol has a master's degree in history from the University of Tromsø. Her thesis dealt with development aid, NGOs including the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), and missionary work in Ethiopia. She spent four years as a photo-archivist at Tromsø University Museum. Haci Akman is Associate Professor at the Department of Archaeology, History, Culture and Religious Science, University of Bergen. His research interests include migration, diaspora processes, ethnicity, cultural heritage, museums and diversity. Recent publications in these fields focus on Kurdish and Jewish diasporas in Britain and Norway. Akman is currently working on the development of the Norwegian Kurdish Virtual Museum. Peter Aronsson is Professor of Cultural Heritage and the Uses of History in a multi-disciplinary

Cultural Studies Department, Linköping University. His doctoral thesis dealt with the historical conditions needed to create a durable democratic culture. The role of historical narrative and consciousness in direct action has been the focus of his recent research in historiography and the uses of the past in popular history. Currently he is co-ordinating several international projects exploring the uses of the past in national museums. Liv Hilde Bøe was, for eleven years, first Deputy Director/Chief Curator and then Director at the

Norsk Folkemuseum. She has spent the last five years on the project Norwegian Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow? Other experiences include working as a registrar for national cultural registrations – an initiative by the Norwegian Arts Council and the Norwegian Council of Research – and the creation of a national organisation and system for curating photographs so as to create a national heritage collection of photographs. From 1983 she was Director of, and responsible for, the establishment of the county museum of Akershus. This was a new type of museum, an institution that functioned as a centre of competence for the nineteen museums in the county. Liv Hilde Bøe has been a board member of several national museums and of national official and voluntary institutions and organisations. Lily Díaz is an artist and researcher. She is Professor and Leader of the Systems of Representation research group in the University of Art and Design Helsinki, Media Lab. Her research focuses on digital cultural heritage with a special interest in visualisation, virtual cartography and ontology design. She is currently collaborating in a national task force on multiculturalism in the arts in Finland.

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Hans Philip Einarsen is the current Director of Interculturalt Museum (IKM – The Intercultural

Museum) which is part of Oslo Museum. Einarsen also directs the research and development section at the same museum. He trained as a sociologist at the University in Oslo and has produced numerous exhibitions and articles. Among other recent publications is “Museer og den flerkulturelle virkeligheten” (Museums and multicultural reality). Einarsen is currently involved with a research project titled “Lydarven” (The heritage of sound). Katherine Goodnow is Professor in the Department of Information Science and Media Studies,

University of Bergen. She has published widely on museums and cultural diversity. Her most recent books include Challenge and Transformation: Museums in Cape Town and Sydney and Museums, the Media and Refugees: Stories of Crisis, Control and Compassion. Goodnow combines research with filmmaking and has produced television series and documentaries for Norwegian national broadcasters. Julie Edel Hardenberg was born and grew up in Nuuk. She has a master's degree in art theory

and dissemination and is an active artist with a long list of exhibitions and publications behind her. Her work includes Den stille mangfoldighed (The Quiet Diversity) (2005) – a book about cultural diversity in post-colonial Greenland. The book was nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 2006. Vuokko Hirvonen is Professor at the Sámi University College in Guovdageaidnu. Her research

and teaching focus on Sámi literature and Sámi education, language planning and policy, and she has published numerous articles in national and international volumes. In 1999 she published her doctoral thesis on Sámi women’s literature: Saamenmaan ääniä – Saamelaisen naisen tie kirjailijaksi; SKS/ Sámeatnama jienat-Sápmelagˇ nissona bálggis girjecˇállin (The Voices of Sápmi – Sámi Women’s Way to Authorship) in both Finnish and Sámi. Jóan Pauli Joensen is Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Ethnology and Cultural History,

University of the Faroe Islands. Joensen worked for many years as the senior curator of Føroya Fornminnissavn (The National Museum of the Faroe Islands). From 1998 to 1999 he was Professor of Ethnology at the University of Bergen. Joensen has written several books and articles on ethnological and cultural history issues. His most important work is on the social organisation and structure on board Faroese fishing boats and the transition from a peasant society to a fishing society. He has also written several articles on folk culture as well as general overviews of Faroese history and cultural history. Among his most recent publications is the book Ye honnest bridal couple (Weddings in the Faroe Islands) (2003). Katla Kjartansdóttir is a doctoral student at the University of Edinburgh. Kjartansdóttir is

currently focusing on issues of representation, visual culture, national images and identities. In previous work she studied Icelandic national image and identity and how their meaning is negotiated within social spaces such as the National Museum of Iceland. In her ongoing doctoral research she has expanded that approach to look at other public and private spheres and spaces

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within Icelandic society and at the various national image and identity negotiations within them. Kjartansdóttir is also a participant in an international research project, Iceland and Images of the North. Knut Kjeldstadli is Professor of Modern History, University of Oslo. His main focus is on modern

social and cultural history, methods and theory, history of migration and the history of collective movements. He has been co-editor of the twelve-volume edition of the history of Norway and the co-ordinator of the project Norwegian Immigration History, published in three volumes. His books deal with industrial history, labour history, urban history, Norwegian history, the history of immigration and historical theory and method. His books on historical theory and method have been translated into Danish, Swedish and Serbo-Croat. Søren Kjørup has for many years been Professor of the History and Theory of the Humanities

at Roskilde University, where he works in the Department of Communication. Since 2001 he has also been a research adviser at the Bergen National Academy of the Arts, Norway. He has published extensively not only on the humanities but also on pictorial theory and the use of pictures in communication, from both an aesthetic and semiotic perspective. Museology is now his main field of research, concentrating on what he calls “the use of objects in communication”, the exhibition side of the museum institution. He is currently working on a collection of essays with the preliminary title Saying by Showing: A Philosophy of Museums and Monuments. Barbro Klein is Professor of Ethnology and Permanent Fellow at the Swedish Collegium for

Advanced Study (SCAS), Uppsala. She has worked extensively on oral narration, ritual, material culture and heritage politics in multi-ethnic settings, primarily in the USA and northern Europe, and has often addressed methodological and theoretical issues pertaining to ethnology, folklore and related fields. Among her books are: Legends and Folk Beliefs in a Swedish-American Community: A Study in Folklore and Acculturation (1980), Swedish Folk Art (with Mats Widbom, 1994), and Narrating, Doing, Experiencing (edited with Annikki Kaivola-Bregenhoj and Ulf Palmenfelt, 2006). Cajsa Lagerkvist is Curator at the Museum of World Culture in Gothenburg and Lecturer in

International Museum Studies, Gothenburg University. Her professional interests are the museum’s place in society, its relation to the public, community representation and cultural diversity. Previous publications include “How do we give voices to minorities? Strategies for diversity” in P. B. Rekdal (ed.) (2005) ABM-institusjonerne i Norden: Kompetenseoppbygging for et multikulturelt normalsamfunn and “Empowerment and anger: Learning how to share ownership of the museum” in Museum & Society 4(2) July 2006. Lagerkvist holds a master's degree in Museum Studies from Leicester University. Janne Laursen is Director of the Danish Jewish Museum (since 2001). Laursen graduated from

the University of Copenhagen in 1984 with the magister thesis “Med fortiden lever man dobbelt” (With the past, one lives twice). Janne Laursen has management experience within the Danish museum sector, and within museological studies as well as from different exhibition projects. She

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was the project manager at the secretariat of City of Culture ’96 with her own programme area, “The Historic City”. In 2000 she headed the “Great Harbour Day” project, which was supported by the Copenhagen Port Authority. From 2001 onwards, she has managed the construction of the Danish Jewish Museum, including Daniel Libeskind’s architectural project and the museum’s exhibition and dissemination programme. Leif Magnusson is Director of the Botkyrka Multicultural Centre (Mångkulturellt centrum I Botkyrka) in Sweden. He has participated as an expert consultant in a number of governmental reports and committees on integration, diversity and world culture. He was project leader and researcher in the Integration Policy Committee (Integrationspolitiska kommittén) from 2005 to 2006, and project leader in the Cultural Meeting Division (Kulturmötesgruppen) of the Swedish Museum network – Samdok – from 1993 to 2007. He is the author and editor of many books on these subjects. Janne Rasmussen Mellingen is a researcher at the Centre of Culture, Language and Inform-

ation Technology (AKSIS), a Department of Unifob AS at the University of Bergen. Her research includes diaspora issues, ethnicity, processes of integration, migration and strategies related to the preservation and presentation of cultural identity in diaspora. Her current work involves the establishment of the Norwegian Kurdish Virtual Museum. Bente Guro Møller is the National Co-ordinator for the Norwegian Year of Cultural Diversity

2008 (Mangfoldsår 2008). She was involved in the creation of and has been Director of the International Cultural Centre and Museum (Internasjonalt Kultursenter og Museum) since 1990. Møller holds a graduate degree in Nordic literature, folklore studies and history. She has also trained as a “Norwegian as a second language” teacher and worked as a teacher for children with minority language backgrounds. Einar Niemi graduated from the University of Oslo, Norway in 1972. Niemi has been a high school teacher, a county curator for museums and cultural heritage (fylkeskonservator), Associate Professor, Adjunct Professor and, since 1989, Professor of Modern History, University of Tromsø. He is a Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters. He received the Gad Rausing Prize for Outstanding and Lasting Achievement in the Fields of Humanities 2003, the Royal Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities, Stockholm. He is Honorary Doctor in the Humanities, University of Umeå. His most important fields of research and teaching have been within migration history, spatial history, the history of minorities and ethnic groups, and regional and local history. Niemi has published widely in scholarly journals and books as well as in the popular media. Peter Pentz is an archaeologist. He worked from 1992 to 1999 as a museums consultant in the

National Council of Museums (Ministry of Culture). From 1999 to 2002 he was Director of the International Collections in the National Museum of Denmark, and Vice-Chairman of the Committee of Returning Cultural Heritage from Denmark to Greenland (until 2001). Since 2002 he has been Curator at the National Museum, Danish Prehistory.

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Lise Poulsen holds a degree in dramaturgy but has worked in the fields of integration and cultural

negotiations for over twenty years, including work for the Danish Refugee Council and the National Museum. Iben Mondrop Salto grew up in Greenland. She has a master's degree in art theory and

dissemination and has recently written Den Autentiske Eskimo, Etnisk Identitet i Julie Edel Hardenbergs Kunst (The Authentic Eskimo, Ethnic Identity in Julie Edel Hardenberg’s Art). She is also the author of De Usynlige Grønlændere (The Invisible Greenlanders) – a book of interviews with young Greenlanders about language and culture. Kristinn Schram is an ethnologist, a doctoral student at the University of Edinburgh and a researcher at the Reykjavik Academy. He teaches folklore at the University of Iceland and directs documentary screenings and seminars. His field of research includes identity and representation within everyday culture, oral narrative, transcultural performances, film and media. He is a participant in various research projects such as Iceland and Images of the North where he looks at contemporary trends in the representation of Icelanders. Combining film with fieldwork, Schram’s most recent research has been on the re-appropriation of exotic images, centring on remoteness and ‘Northern’ eccentricity. Eva Silvén is an ethnologist and curator at the Nordiska Museet, Stockholm. She is currently

working with minority and multicultural issues. She was the former head of the Samdok Secretariat, the hub of the Swedish museum network for contemporary studies and collecting. Her research and publications focus on work and occupations, minority questions, ethnological methodology, material culture and contemporary museum studies. She is a member of the research council of the Museum of Work, Norrköping, the editorial committee of the journal Nordisk Museologi, and the boards of the Centre for Multi-Ethnic Research, Uppsala University, and Ájtte, the Swedish Mountain and Sámi Museum, Jokkmokk. Current projects include Sápmi, a permanent exhibition at the Nordiska Museet, and a multidisciplinary analysis of the Sámi material heritage at the Nordiska Museet. Inger Sjørslev is a senior lecturer in anthropology at Copenhagen University. She carried out fieldwork in Brazil, and is a former director of IWGIA, the international NGO, which works with indigenous peoples’ rights. She was a curator at the Ethnographic Department of the National Museum in Denmark in the 1980s and has since taught museology and acted as a consultant to Danish ethnographic museums. She is presently a member of the Cultural Committee of the UNESCO National Commission in Denmark. Mette Skougaard is a senior researcher and Director of the Museum of National History,

Frederiksborg. She holds a master's degree from the University of Copenhagen in history and ethnology. Skougaard was Curator at the Danish National Museum from 1979 to 1999. She was Curator at the Museum of National History, Frederiksborg, from 1999, until appointed Director in 2005.

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Index

Aall, Hans 113, 114 Aarekol, Lena 68–85, 247 Abercrombie, Thomas 165n12 Abidin, Adel 101 absolute states 195–6 Abungu, G. 30n1 Academia Faroensis 219 Access to Cultural heritage: Policies of Presentation and Use 2004-2007 (ACCU) 110 Ackman, Haci 120, 130 actual life, portrayal in Danish Jewish Museum 47–8 adaptation and change, focus of exhibitions 243, 244 Advantage Göteborg project 97–8 Afro, Teddy 96, 97 Afzelius, A.A. 202 Agenda kulturarv in Sweden 155, 158 Ågren, Katarina 16, 17n39 Ahonen, Sirkka 208n30 Åhrén, Ingwar 21 Ájtte Museum, Jokkmokk 17, 20, 27, 28, 29 Akman, Haci 187–92, 247 Alakom, Rohat 135 Alam, Neik 121 Alfred, King of Wessex 175 Alghasi, Sharam 117n8 Algunerhan, Zekuye 120 Alinia, Minoo 132n13, 135n22 Alzén, A. and Aronsson, P. 210n35 Amundsen, A.B. and Brenna, B. 68n4, 69n6 ancient histories, creation by new nations of 204–5 Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings Inspectorate, Norway 231 Anderson, Benedict 131, 190n11, 225n9 anthropology challenge of new directions in 162–3 materialism in 162–3 antiquity, value of 200 Anttonen, P. et al. 11n7, 153n12 Araeen, Rasheed 102 architectural concept of Danish Jewish Museum 56–7, 64–5 Areneum in Finland 204 Ark in Copenhagen collegial gift of Farmers' Bank 51 community representation in 210 Aronsen, Terje 81 Aronsson, P. et al. 199n7, 207n29 Aronsson, Peter 195–211, 247 art and culture in Greenland 37–41 Art Association (Listafelag Føroya) 219 art museums, role of 200

Art Society of Norway 205 artefacts authenticity in NKVM of 134 categorization in NKVM of 136 information in NKVM on 134–5 and objects, cultural heritage and meaning of 188 Sámi human remains and, removal of 23 artwork of Helsingor tapestry 125 Arup, Erik 208 assimilation assimilatory policies in Norway 3–4 collective identity and 177 Assmann, Jan 69, 84–5 Augustin, Aurelius 195 Auschwitz 50 autobiographies 118 Baglo, C. 11n7 Baltic migration 10 Barth, Fredrik 136, 189n5 Bayeux tapestry 127 BBC News 190n13 Beaubrun, Theodore "Lolo" 96 Becker, Karin 157 The Beginning of Life, Personal Stories from Multicultural Norway exhibition 241 Bendix, R. 153n12, 158n32 Bendix, R. and Welz, G. 160n38 Benius, L. 12n13, 18n42 Benkirane, R. and Deuber-Ziegler, E. 91n9 Bennett, Tony 205n22 Berg, E.W. 157n29 Bergh, T. and Eriksen, K.E. 71n23 Berkaak, O.A. 83n110 Berkaak, O.A. and Fønes, I. 69n14 Berlin, Jewish Museum in 56 Bernhard, Karl 16n33 Bhaba, Homi K. 103 Bietilaeanlegget 76 biological origins, nation and 176 Bjøl, Erling 215n10 Bjørklund, I. 71n29, 80n86 Björnsson, Arni 228n12 Björnstad, A. 10n5 Bligaard, Mette 200n8, 202n13 Bohman, S. 152n9 Bolin, H. 153n11 Borchgrevink, Tordis 5 Borzarslan, Mehmed Emin 135 Botkyra Multicultural Centre, Sweden 146–9, 244–5

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Braae, C. et al. 162n3 Brah, Avtar 131, 135n24 Bratrein, Håvard Dahl 76n62, 80n84 Broberg, G. 11n7, 11n12, 20n50, 22n55 Broberg, Randi 239 Brochmann, Grete 5 Brown, M. 154n14 Bruun, Daniel 214 Bull, Edvard 207 "Bull Project" on life histories 117 Burch, Stuart 210n36 Bøe, Liv Hilde 113–23, 185, 240, 242, 244n27, 247 Børselv 81, 82, 87 Casey, Dawn 29n20 categorization of national minorities in Norway 1, 4 Chin, Stacyann 96 Christian, Jacob 202 Christian IV of Denmark 58 Christie, W.F.K. 205 City Museum of Copenhagen 54 civil society and state, relationships between 198–199 Clifford, J. 20n54 Cohen, Robin 137n33 collections building up of 116 collecting objects, problem of 20–21 COMPASS digital collection 136 of information, challenge of 137 materials, radical rearrangements in museums 184–5 materials in Danish Jewish Museum 50 national collections, development of 196, 200 Norwegian Kurdish Virtual Museum (NKVM) 130–31 ownership of objects 189 Sámi collection in Nordiska Museet 10–11 source materials, Nordiska Museet, Stockholm 20 South Sámi Collection, Norway 24 unusual objects in Danish Jewish Museum 47 working with collection at Danish Jewish Museum 47–8 collective identity American understanding of nation 182 assimilation 177 attacks on 173 biological origins and nation 176 collectives and identity politics 172–4 complex identities 174 complex societies, complex museums? 182–6 concepts of nation 175–78 constructivist theories of 175 contemporary documentation, challenges of 185 cultural collectives 179 cultural collectives, existence of 172–3 cultural legitimacy and multiculturalism 178–9 "cultural manifold" 174 cultural origins and nation 176 De Dandvigske Samlinger-Maihaugen in Lillehammer 183, 184

democracy and identity 177 differences between nations 174–5 diversity, nation as unity in 181–2 ethnic communities 179 French concept of nation 176 identity politics 173 immigrants and nation 176 individuals, collective formations and 173, 180, 181–2 integration and multiculturalism 179 Kulturnation 176 language and cultural collectives 172 materials, radical rearrangements in museums 184–5 metaperspectives, museums as 184 multicultural perspectives, inclusion of 185 multicultural state? 178–81 museums and 172–86 museums as memory deposits 183 Muslim umma 173 "Nation," new concept of 172–86 nation as set of fields 174 nation building 175–6 national cultures, creation of 175 national cultures, existence of nations and 174–5 national narratives, problem of 183–4 nationalism and 177 Norsk Folkemuseum in Oslo 183, 184 political and cultural policies 185–6 political concept of nation 176–7 politics and multiculturalism 179 polythetic group, nation as 174, 182 power and collective identity 174 process-oriented complex concept of nation, development of 186 regions, supranational organisation and 177–8 "roots" and 153–4, 188 Skansen in Stockholm 183 society and minorities, relationship between 180–81 Verfassungspatriotismus 177 Volksgeist 175–6 world society and 178 On Collective Memory (Halbwach, M.) 131 Collett, James 120, 121 colonialism, damage through 169 Columbus, Christopher 101 common knowledge, intangible heritage and 167 community representation 195–211 absolute states 195–6 ancient histories, creation by new nations of 204–5 antiquity, value of 200 Areneum in Finland 204 The Ark in Copenhagen 210 art museums, role of 200 Art Society of Norway 205 civil society and state, relationships between 198–9 classification, meticulousness 205–7 community aspiration 195

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community influences on exhibition forms 230 cultural rights of representation 209–10 Danish Industrial Museum, Maribu 202 Danish People's Museum, Copenhagen 202 Denmark, nation-state and borders 197, 198 Denmark, national museum programme in 200–2001 Denmark in nineteenth century 199–202 diversity, unity in 195–6 Faroe Islands 200 Finland, nation-state and borders 197, 198 Finnish nationalism 204 Folk as embodiment of nation 199 Folk Museum of Denmark 202 Iceland 200 integration, remit of 196, 210–11 international markets, economies and 209 Kalevala epos 204 Kiasma in Helsinki 210 late-modern challenges 208–10 legitimation, remit of 196 modern challenges 208–10 Museum of Fine Arts, Copenhagen 201 Museum of Nordic Antiquity, Copenhagen 200, 201, 203 Museum of Work in Sweden 208 Napoleonic Wars 196, 197, 200, 201, 206 nation-making dilemmas 196–7 national collections, development of 196, 200 national exhibitions 206 National Historical Museum, Frederiksborg 202 National History Museum, Copenhagen 201, 202 national ideology, challenges to 208–9 National Museum, Copenhagen 201–2 National Museum of Iceland 205 naturalisation and identity 211 Nordic culture, commonality in 198 Norsk Folkemuseum 206 Norway, museum establishment in 205 Norway, nation-state and borders 197, 198 Oseberg Viking burial ships 205 outdoor museums 205–6 peace, production of 210–11 public access 205–7 Scandinavian culture, national history and 198–9 Scandinavian state making 196–7 scientific and popular appeals, tensions between 206–7 state patriotism in Sweden 202–3 Sweden, 1809 Constitution 197 Sweden, nation-state and borders 197, 198, 199 Sweden as Folkhem (People's Home) 204 Sweden in nineteenth century 199–4 Swedish Royal Armoury 202–3 territorial losses in war, national historical understanding and 199–204 universalist inspiration 201 welfare states in and out of war 207–8 Workers' Museum, Copenhagen 208

COMPASS digital collection 136 Connerton, P. 156n27 Constitution of Norway (1814) 2 constructivism construction of identity 190 theories of collective identity 175 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (CSICH, 2003) 161, 162, 163–4, 166, 167, 169, 170, 231 Council of Europe, Framework Convention for National Minorities (1995) 6, 18, 80–81, 231 A Country for Me? exhibition 121–2 Crane, Susan 194n23 "cult of heritage" in Sweden 151 cultural background bias in Finland 111 "Cultural Canon Project," Denmark 166n13 cultural collectives 172–3, 179 cultural continuity and invention of tradition 165–7 cultural difference 233–5 cultural diversity exhibitions of 119 initiatives in Finland 110–11 and museums in Sweden 155–9 in Nordiska Museet 9–22 promotion of respect for 141–2 reflection in Danish Jewish Museum 67 Cultural Encounters Group 16 cultural healing in Denmark 34 cultural heritage dialogue about cultural heritage issues 190–91 expansion of concept 161, 170 importance of 138 at International Cultural Centre Museum (IKM) 142 museum as guardian of 187 and museums in Sweden 151–60 protection in Sweden of 153–4 spread in Sweden of 151, 152–3, 159 viability and living nature of 163–4, 166 see also intangible cultural heritage cultural homogeneity, challenges to 155 cultural identities, representation of 96–7 cultural inheritance in Sweden 152 cultural legitimacy, multiculturalism and 178–9 "cultural manifold" 174 cultural origins and nation-states 176 cultural rights of representation 209–10 cultural services, development in Finland 107 culture diaspora cultures 52–3, 135–6 national cultures, existence of nations and 174–5 and politics, boundary between 160 Curman, Sigurd 152n7 Daerga, Anna 26 Dahl, H.F. and Helseth, T. 205n25 Dahl, I.C. 205

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Dahl, Sverri 217 Dalsgard, John 214n5 Danielsen, K. 118n10 Danish Industrial Museum, Maribu 202 Danish Jewish Museum 42–53, 54–67 actual life, portrayal of 47–8 architectural concept 56–7, 64–5 Ark, collegial gift of Farmers' Bank 51 boundaries, transcendence over national 42 character, special nature and 42 collection at, working with 47–8 collections, beginning of work on 48 cultural diversity, reflection of 67 Danish blindness towards diversity 54–5 Danish Jews, rescue of (1943) 62, 64 Danish Jews, wartime rescue of 45–6, 60, 62 Danish Museums Regulations, overriding framework 50 Danish openness to immigrants 64 Danishness as ambiguous category 49 deconstructivist space 57–8 Denmark, creation of modern nation 55 Denmark, museum's picture of 64 diaspora cultures 52–3 diversity as common ground 46–7, 52 exhibition forms 242 "Exodus" 46, 59, 65 future, museum as model for? 66–7 "Giving of the Law" 46, 59, 65 goodwill among enemy 62 Holocaust Museums 44, 50 immigrant heterogeneity 64 inner conflicts 64–5 integration of immigrants 64 introductory film 58, 59 Jewish as ambiguous category 48–9, 52 Jewish immigration to Denmark 56, 58, 59 Jewish museums, traditions and innovation 44 judaica, objects relating to 44, 52 Judaism, different forms of 62–3 Libeskind's concept for 44–5 limitations 45–6 location of 56 materials in collection 50 minorities, absence in Danish museums 55 "Mitzvah," Libeskind's concept of 46, 59, 64 modernisation of Danish museums 55 museums, main characteristics of 67 national context 42 objectives, motivations and 42 origins of objects 49 perspectives on Jewish life 59 pluralistic cultural heritage 51 pluralistic culture 52–3 profile 45–6 "Promised Lands" 46, 59, 65 provenance 51–2

self-contradictory concept 65–6 "Space and Spaciousness" exhibition 53, 57, 60–62, 64 state approval for 48 Swedish materials in collection 50 themes for exhibitions 65 traditions 59 unusual objects in collection 47 visits to, experience of 56–7, 58, 59 "Wilderness" 46, 59, 65 Danish Museums Online 54 Danish People's Museum, Copenhagen 202 De Dandvigske Samlinger-Maihaugen in Lillehammer 183, 184 de Roda, Samba 164 decorative art in Greenland 37–8 Denmark City Museum of Copenhagen 54 creation of modern nation 55 Danish Museums Online 54 Fredericia Museum 54 German occupation 55, 59, 62 identification of cultural canon in 166–7 Museum of Danish Resistance (1940-45) 59 nation-state and borders 197, 198 national museum programme in 200–201 in nineteenth century 199–204 Palace Islet (Slotsholmen) 56 Royal Danish Library 56 Schleswig-Holstein, German families from 54–5 Women's Museum, Århus 54 "Design for All" development network in Finland 110 diaspora diaspora cultures 52–3, 135–6 diaspora ideas 130 ethnic minorities in diaspora 187 Kurdish stateless diaspora 131 narratives of 137–8 diaspora identity creation of 132–3 preservation of 134 Diaz, Lily 101–11, 247 difference misuse in Finland of 101–2 between nations, collective identity and 174–5 sense in Finland of 105 Dirckinck-Holmfeld, Katrine 238n17 diversity as common ground in Danish Jewish Museum 46–7, 52 cultural heritage and museums in Sweden 151–60 diverse society, role of national culture in 193 ethnic diversity and heritage in Sweden 154–5 nation as unity in 181–2 and representation in Museum of World Culture 92–3 representations from within groups 240–43 rights and democracy 239 social development and 232–3

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unity in 195–6 Djurhuus, Hans A. and Petra 216, 217 Documentation Project, Norwegian Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow? 115, 117–19 Donne, John 146 Durrans, B. 90n6 Earth and Energy Directorate, Faroe Islands 219 East Sámi Museum, Norway 24, 27 economics and tourism in Sweden 154 education through art in Greenland 40 Eichmann, Adolf 60 Eikjok, Jorunn 241 Einarsen, Hans Philip 140–45, 184n10, 185n12, 186n13, 248 Eiriksson, Leifur 220, 221 Ekström, Anders 11n7, 11n8, 206n27 Elenius, Lars 11, 12n13 embroidered history 124–9 Engberg, Jens 202n12, 204n19, 205n23 enhancement narratives 230–5 Enontekiö, Hetta exhibition at 25 Environmental Agency of Faroe Islands 219 epistemics of institutions 191 Eriksen, A. et al. 153n13 Eriksen, K.E. and Niemi, E. 71n22, 71n31, 71n33 Eriksen, Knut Einar 4n7 Erikson, Patricia Pierce 29n21 Eriksson, Gunnar 202n16 establishment of International Cultural Centre Museum (IKM) 141 Museum of World Culture, Sweden 89 ethnic communities, collective identity and 179 ethnicity, openness towards 71 ethno-political hierarchy in Norway 6–7 ethnographic museum practice, global perspective 161–71 ethnographical museums, challenges for 170–71 ethnography, "World Culture" and 90–92 EU MAN project in Finland 107–8 EU Migrant Artists network in Finland 108 European Agreement on Regional or Minority Languages 231 European Forum Workshop 140 European Jewish Museums, Brussels (2005) 45 Evensen, A.C. 215, 216 and museum development in Faroe Islands 215–16 Evenstvedt, Åse 189n3 exhibition forms 230–45 adaptation and change, focus on 243, 244 Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings Inspectorate, Norway 231 The Beginning of Life, Personal Stories from Multicultural Norway exhibition 241 With the Best of Intentions (Randi Broberg film) 239 Botkyra Multicultural Centre, Sweden 244–5 community influences 230 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (CSICH, 2003) 231

Council of Europe, Framework Convention (1995) 231 cultural difference 233–5 Danish Jewish Museum 242 diversity, celebratory view of 230–35 diversity, representations from within groups 240–43 diversity, rights and democracy 239 diversity, social development and 232–3 enhancement narratives 230–35 European Agreement on Regional or Minority Languages 231 'folklorisation' 234 funding influences 230 future ways forward, choices and considerations 230 heterogeneity and 'insider views' 241 hybridity and change 243–5 identity, change and 243 International Cultural Centre and Museum, Oslo 241 Inuit Woman City Blues (Laila Hansen film) 239 migrants, assimilation of 233 movement, focus on 244–5 museum interests and concerns 230, 233–4 national exhibitions and community representation 206 national minorities 231, 235, 239 National Museum of World Culture 233, 238, 239, 244 No Name Fever exhibition 239 Nordic Council 232 Nordiska Museet 238 Norwegian Folk Museum 240, 242, 243–4 Norwegian Year of Diversity (2008) 231 Norwegian Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow? project 243–4 Norwegianness, difference and 242–3 openness 242 Pakistani home project 121–2, 234–5 political influences 230 poverty, links to 242 racist past, examinations of 235–9 'reality' of exhibitions 233 Rethinking Nordic Colonialism project 236–38, 243 social development, cultural difference and 232–3 Trafficking exhibition 239 transnationalism and change 243–5 UNESCO Universal Declaration for Cultural Diversity (2001) 231 "Youth Writes Back" community project 238 "Exodus," Danish Jewish Museum 46, 59, 65 Fabian, J. 11n11 Fangen, Katrine 117n8 Far Eastern Antiquities, Swedish Museum of 89 Faroe Islands Academia Faroensis 219 Art Association (Listafelag Føroya) 219 community representation 200 Earth and Energy Directorate 219 Environmental Agency 219 Evensen and museum development 215–16

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Faroe Islands National Museum (Føroya Fornminnissavn) 216–18 Faroese Art Museum (Føroya Listasavn) 219 Faroese Museum of Natural History (Føroya Náttúrugripasavn) 218–19 identity, cultural and national 214–16 museums and related institutions in 212–19 Nordic culture in Nordic country 212 post 1928 museum development 216 University of the Faroe Islands 219 Fewster, Derek 104n9, 204n20 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb 221, 223 Finkelstein, N.G. 160n37 Finland Access to Cultural heritage: Policies of Presentation and Use 2004-2007 (ACCU) 110 cultural background bias 111 cultural diversity initiatives 110–11 cultural services, development of 107 "Design for All" development network 110 difference, misuse of 101–2 difference, sense of 105 EU MAN project 107–8 EU Migrant Artists network 108 examples of multicultural projects in arts in 107–10 experience of multiculturalism in 103 Finnish inheritance, Nordiska Museet, Stockholm 10 Finnish nationalism 204 "Finnishness" 103–4 immigration, rise in 101 inclusiveness, cultural diversity and 110–11 International Cultural Centre Caisa 107, 109–10 language, importance of 104–5 meaning of multiculturalism for Finns 106–7 multicultural in arts in 101–11 multiculturalism 101–2 multiculturalism, critique of 102 multiculturalism in context of 103–4, 106–7 museums in 107 Nakemiin Suomi, visual representation in 101, 111 nation-state and borders 197, 198 National Gallery of 108 national project on identity and culture 105 non-Western art, categorization of 102 Open Doors - Making Cultural Heritage Sites and Exhibitions Accessible 110 patterns of society 111 Sámi museums in 24–5 The Third Culture exhibition 108 The Third Text 102 "Finland-Sweden Migration after World War II" research project 15 Finnmark 3 University College of 81–2 First Generation (Esther Shalev-Gerz artwork) 148 Fittjagård, symbolic situation 146

Fladmark, J.M. 200n8, 201n10 Fofonoff, Matleena 25 Folk as embodiment of nation 199 Folk Museum of Denmark 202 "folklife sphere" in Sweden 151–2 'folklorisation' 234 Forest Finns 1, 3, 5, 80, 178, 178n3 Fossum, Ludvig 136 Foucault, Michel 191 Fredericia Museum, Denmark 54 Frederik III of Denmark 58 Friere, Paulo 190, 191 Frønes, Ivar 117n8 Frye, Northrop 70 Fusco, C. 101, 102n3 future challenges for Museum of World Culture 100 challenges for NKVM 138–9 museum as model for? 66–7 ways forward, choices and considerations 230 Gallen-Kallela, Akseli 204 Gaukstad, Kristin 185n11 Geijer, E.G. 199, 202–3 Gell, Alfred 162–3 gender identities 96 German occupation of Denmark 55, 59, 62 Germania (Tacitus) 198 Ghufor, Zhazad 144 Gidlund, J. and Sörlin, S. 211n38 Gillet, Andrew 104n9 Gilroy, Paul 161, 168–9 "Giving of the Law" exhibition 46, 59, 65 Gjestrum, J.A. 72n35, 75n54, 76n59, 84n111 Glass, A. 20n52 globalisation and cultural development in Greenland 38 global processes and cultural heritage 193 intangible cultural heritage, global perspective 164 Museum of World Culture, Sweden 90 "glocality," challenge of 100 "glocalization" 165 Glückstadt, Emil 51 Goodnow, Katherine 67n9, 140, 230–45, 248 Göteborg Ethnographical Museum 89–91 transformation of 89, 90 Gottlund, Carl Axel 3 Grahn, Wera 210n34 Greenland 30–6, 37–41, 237–9, 243 art and culture in 37–41 cooperation between Museum authorities 33, 34 critical questioning through art 40 decorative art in 37–8 education through art 40 globalisation and cultural development 38 Greenland-Denmark cultural healing 34, 35–6

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Inuit cultural heritage 32 Nuuk Art Museum 40–1 postcolonialism and art 39 questioning identity in contemporary art 39, 40–1 representation of culture 38–9 romanticism in art 37–8 stereotyping of cultural images 37 utimut (return) of items to 31–2, 33, 34, 35–6 Grepstad, O. and Torheim, K.M. 79n75 Grepstad, O. et al. 79n74 Grímsson, Ólafur Ragnar 222–3 Grundtvig, N.S.F. 198, 202–3, 214n8 Grundvig, S.V. and Bloch, J. 216n13 Grung, Ann Hege 145 Gullberg, Tom 4n8 Gunnarsson, Pétur 228 Gustafsson, Harald 211n38 Gustav II Adolf of Sweden 23 Gustavus III of Sweden 202 Gypsies 1, 2, 4, 80, 178 Haakon, Crown Prince of Norway 81 Haas, Stefan 189n4 Habermas, Jürgen 177 Hafstein, Valdimar 154n14, 154n17, 159n34 Haga, I. 79n76 Halbwach, Maurice 69, 130–31 Hálfdánarson, Gudmundur 221, 222 Hall, Stuart 137 Halti in Nordreisa 82 Hammarlund-Larsson, Cecilia 10n5, 11n10, 160n36 Hammershaimb, V.U. 214 Han al-Bitlisi, Şeref ad-Din 136 Hansen, Bjarne Håkon 7 Hansen, Laila 239 Hansen, Tone 145 Haraldson, King St Olav of Norway 214n7 Hardenberg, Julie Edel 37–41, 243, 248 Hassanpour, Amir 135 Hauglid, A.O. 75n50, 82n104 Havas, Honna 37n12 Hazelius, Artur 9, 10–11, 114, 154, 203, 206 Hegard, Tonte 183n6 Hegel, Georg W.F. 199, 208 Heikel, Axel Olai 204n21 Helgason, Agnar 225n11 Helsingor tapestry artwork 125 background and context 128–9 Bayeux principles 127 beginnings of project 125–6 embroidered history 124–9 immigrant lives, descriptions of 125–7 integration, consequences in relation to 129 motifs 126–8 National Museums' Ethnographic Research 128

participants 124, 125–6 process 126–7 unveiling of 128 Henare, Aminia 162n4 Herbert, Christopher 192 Herder, Johann Gottfried von 199, 221, 223 Hetsch, G.F. 63 Hewison, Robert 191n18 Hidden Pain exhibition at IKM 144 Hillström, Magdalena 9, 204n18, 206n28 Hirvonen, Vuokko 23–9, 248 history, ownership and reclamation of 32–3 Hitler, Adolf 60 Hobsbawm, E. and Ranger, T. 69n8, 165n11 Hodne, Ørnulf 202n16 Högdahl, E. 154n19 Holm, Hans J. 57 Holocaust 2, 44, 50 Holst, Christian 206 Hooper-Greenhill, Eilean 191 Horizons: Voices from Global Africa, Museum of World Culture 96, 98 Horne, Donald 182–3 Horniman Museum, London 135 Høyen, Niels 201 Hreggvidson, Jón 225 Hudson, Kenneth 68n5, 69n10, 84 hybridity and change 243–5 Iceland 221–29 active participation of public in museum development 229 community representation 200 independence, arguments for 221 International Council of Museums (ICOM) 229 language and culture 221–2, 223 The Making of a Nation exhibition 224–9 micro history 224–5 'nation building' function of museums 229 national identity, strengthening of 222, 229 national identity and cultural formation 221–3 National Museum if Iceland 224–9 national museums, key role of 229 nationalist discourse 221–2 restoration and reopening of National Museum 221 Saga heritage 222 theme selection 224–5 Viking heritage 222–3 ICOM (International Council of Museums) 31, 75–6, 229 identity on the border 189 change and 243 construction of 188–9 cultural and national in Faroe Islands 214–16 democracy and 177 national project on identity and culture in Finland 105 nationalism and collective identity 177

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naturalisation and 211 politics, collective identity and 173 power and collective identity 174 questioning identity in contemporary art 39, 40–41 ILO Convention 169, ratification of (1990) 5 immigrants assimilation of migrants 233 Danish openness to 64 and descendants, illustration of lives of 116–17 Finland, rise in immigration in 101 immigrant cultures, importance of recognition of 158 and "immigrant documentation" 15–16 immigrant heterogeneity 64 immigrant lives, descriptions of 125–7 "Immigrant Sweden" project 16 immigrant traditions, documentation of 118 indigenous people in Norway and 4–6 integration of 64 migrant involvement in heritage sector in Sweden 158–9 migrant museums in Sweden 156–7 and nation, collective identity of 176 see also minorities Immigration and Multicultural Norway (Parliamentary White Paper) 190 imperialism, damage of 169 Inari Sámi Museum, Finland 24 Ingebrigtsen, Roger 5n12 Inglehart, R. and Welzel, C.. 197n5 intangible cultural heritage, global perspective 161–71 anthropology, challenge of new directions in 162–3 colonialism, damage of 169 common knowledge, intangible heritage and 167 cultural continuity and invention of tradition 165–7 cultural heritage, expansion of concept 161, 170 Denmark, identification of cultural canon in 166–7 ethnographical museums, challenges for 170–71 globalisation 164 "glocalization" 165 imperialism, damage of 169 intangible heritage, concept of 163–4 intentionalities, complexity in 162–3 inventory of intangible heritage, criteria for 166–7 local memory and melancholia 167–9 materialism in anthropology 162–3 modernity, indigenization of 165 opposition to UNESCO Convention 161–2 postcolonial considerations 168–9 ratification of UNESCO Convention 162, 170 Rethinking Nordic Colonialism project 168, 170–71 social and cultural processes in intangible heritage 166 tradition, cultural continuity and invention of 165–7 tradition, maintenance of 165 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (CSICH) 161, 162, 163–4, 166, 167, 169, 170, 231 viability and living nature of cultural heritage 163–4, 166

World Heritage Convention (1972) 170 integration central issue of 189 consequences in relation to Helsingor tapestry 129 and multiculturalism 179 remit of 196, 210–11 International Conference of Hypermedia and Interactivity in Museums 130 International Cultural Centre and Museum (IKM) Oslo 113, 117, 119, 123, 140–6, 241 attitudes, changing of 143 cultural diversity, promotion of respect for 141–2 cultural heritage 142 establishment of 141 Hidden Pain exhibition 144 invisible cultural heritage 142 multicultural society, representation of 143 multiple histories, diverse voices 140 museum as site of negotiation 140 Museum of the Year (2006) 141–2 museum reform 142–3 National Museums Network 142 Oslo City Museum 142 Personal Stories from Multicultural Norway exhibition 143 perspectives, problem of 145 prejudices, opposing interests and 145 Right to an Adequate Life exhibition 143–4 role of museums 142–3 self-criticism 145 Similarities in the Differences exhibition 143 Theatre Museum, Oslo 142 vulnerability, discovery of 145 International Cultural Centre Caisa, Finland 107, 109–10 international markets, economies and 209 Inuit 236, 237 Inuit Woman City Blues (Laila Hansen film) 239 Jackson, P. and Redin, J. 69n7 Jacobsen, Carl 202 Jacobsen, M.A. 216 Jakobsen, Dr Jakob 215 Jemsletten, Regner 4n9 Jenkins, Richard 190 Jensen, Jørgen 203n17 Jeremic, Natasha 233 Jews 1, 2, 44, 48–9, 52, 56, 58, 59, 80, 89, 178 Joensen, Jóan Pauli 212–19, 248 Johansen, Anders 189n2, 190n14 Johansen, Lise 190, 191 Jomppanen, Tarmo 24n2, 25n4 Jönses, Lars 10n5, 11, 12n14 judaica, objects relating to 44, 52 Judaism 62–3 Jutikkala, E. and Pirinen, K. 104n10 Jyllands Posten 166n13

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Kaaven, Johan 79 Kalevala epos 204 Kalstad, Johan Klemer 16–17 Kant, Immanuel 221 Karnell, Vitalis 12n15 Karp, I. and Kratz, C. 90n6 Karp, I. and Levine, S. 162n3 Kautokeino Hamlet and Museum, Norway 27 Kekkonen, Uhro 74 Khan, Sharaf 136 Khatib, Amir 108 Kiasma in Helsinki 210 Kildegaard, Bjarne 162n2 Kinge, M. and Kolbe, L. 204n21 Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara 151n4, 154, 164n8 Kjartansdóttir, Katja 221–9, 248–9 Kjeldstadli, Knut 2n2, 3n5, 120n13, 122n15, 172–86, 243, 249 Kjellström, R. and Hallman, C. 17n36 Kjellström, Rolf 13n17, 14n27 Kjørup, Søren 54–67, 249 Klein, Barbro 69, 84, 151–60, 249 Kleist, Janus Chemnitz 243n25 knowledge acquisition of 91 common knowledge, intangible heritage and 167 historical knowledge 136–7 presentation of 191 Knuts, Wolf and Ulrika 137n31 Koht, Halvdan 207 Koselleck, Reinhart 151 Krabbe, Bobo C. 137n29 Kraft Boegh, Dr A.N. 214 Krákusteini, Alspa Helena á 215 Kristiansen, K. and Rowlands, M. 192 Krog, Knud J. 218n18 kulturarv, appropriation of concept 153 Kulturnation 176 Kuokkanen, Raina 242n21 Kuoljok, Mattias 8 Kuoljok, Sunna 21 Kurin, Richard 12, 14n22 Kurkiala, M. 158n31 Kvaale, Katja 165n10 Kvale, Ståle 134n18 Kven 1, 3, 4, 178, 182 see also Kven culture and history Kven culture and history 68–87 activities at museums 83–4 Bietilaeanlegget 76 Børselv 81, 82, 87 buildings, form of 83–4 Council of Europe, Framework Convention for National Minorities 80–81 at the eco-museum 75–6 ethnicity, 1970s openness towards 71 ethno-political awareness among Kven 5

exhibitions in Kven museums 87 Finnmark University College 81–2 foundation of Kven museums 86–7 Halti in Nordreisa 82 ICOM (International Council of Museums) 75–6 ideology, influence of 84 introduction to Kven history 70 Kvenprosjektet (1984-85) 80 Kvensk Institutt/Kalnun Institutti in Porsanger 81–2 Laestadianism 77–8 local museums as cultural centres 84–5 metanarrative? 85–6 minorities, 1970s openness towards 71 minority policy in Norway 70–71 modernisation, immigration and 85 narratives in Kven museums 87 narrators, museums as 68–70, 82–5 national minorities in Norway, new policies on 80–81 Nord-Troms Museum in Troms 68, 74–5, 78–9, 82–3, 86–7 Nordreisa 75, 78, 81, 82, 87 Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage 81 Norwegian Kven Association 5, 84 place in museums 68 Porsanger Museum 79 post-war period in Norway 71 remembrance, museums as places of 68–70, 82–5 Ruija Kvenmuseum in Finnmark 68, 73–4, 75, 76–7, 77–8, 83, 84, 86–7 "The Silent People's Quiet Death?" (Kven film) 84 societal change, new museums and cultural policy in Norway 72 Sør-Varanger Museum 68n3, 74, 76–7, 79, 80 tradition, memorial places and narratives 82–5 tradition, museums as upholders of 68–70 Tromsø Museum 80 Tuomainengården 73, 74, 76, 77–8, 79, 83, 87 Vadsø Museum in Finnmark 68, 73–4, 75, 76–7, 77–8, 83, 84, 86–7 Varangerprosjekt (1973-74) 80 Kvorning, Arne 57, 66 Laestadianism 77–8 Laestadius, Lars Levi 77n72 Lagerkvist, Cajsa 89–100, 232, 239, 244n28, 249 Lahn, Tore 180n4 Laiti, Petteri 25 Lampe, F. and Stranden, T. 81n93 Land of Possibilities? exhibition 120 language and cultural collectives 172 and culture in Iceland 221–2, 223 importance in Finland of 104–5 Languages, European Charter for Regional or Minority 18 Lantto, P. 13n16 Lapp Department, Nordiska Museet 11–13 Lapponia (Schefferus, J.) 23

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Larsen, P. 83n107 Larsson, Sonia 21 The Last History of Denmark (Mørch, S.) 209 Laursen, Janne 42–53, 56n3, 60, 64n6, 65n7, 235, 244, 249 Laxness, Halldór 225 Layten, H. and Damen, B. 106 League of Nations 1 Lenoire, Alexandre 201 Lévi-Strauss, Claude 137 Lewendi, Mehmed 135 Lewis, G. 30n3, 31n4 Libeskind, Daniel 42, 44–5, 46, 56–7, 59, 64–5, 65–6, 66n8 Lidchi, H. 90n6 Lindvall, K. and Johansen, B. 155n22 Lindvall, Karin 155 Lippard, Lucy 101, 102, 103n7 local memory and melancholia 167–9 local museums as cultural centres 84–5 Lohman, Jack 93 Lönnroth, Elias 104, 204 Lowenthal, David 151, 153n12 Lule Sámi Centre 25, 26 Lundborg, H. 11n12 Lundmark, L. 11n12, 12n15 Lundström, I. and Pilvesmaa, M. 155n21 Lynge, Aviäja Egede 237, 238n16 MacCannel, Dean 134 McDonald, S. and Fyfe, G. 229n13 McDowall, David 132n12, 136n28 McGregor, Neil 190 McShane, Ian 230n1236 Magnusson, Leif 17n37, 92n13, 146–9, 244n29, 250 Mahler, Ditlev L. 212n1 The Making of a Nation exhibition 224–9 Malliniemi, H. 77n67 Malmin, Rasmus 136n27 Manker, Ernst 8, 11–13, 14n24 Manying, Ip 245n30 Marander-Eklund, Lena 137n31 Margrethe, Queen of Denmark 127 Massey, Doreen 137 materialism in anthropology 162–3 Mathisen, S.R. 11n7 Matthíasdóttir, Sigrídur 221n1, 222 MED-TV Brussels 135 Medelius, H. 13n21 Mediterranean and Near East Antiquities, Swedish Museum of 89 Megard, Bjørn Olav 5n12, 68n2 Mellem, R. 71n30 Mellingen, Janne Rasmussen 130–39, 250 Miller, Daniel 162n5 Milosch see Taikon, Johan Demitri Minde, Henry 5n10

minorities absence in Danish museums 55 minority and diversity issues at Nordiska Museet 19, 22 national minorities 231, 235, 239 Norway, minority policy in 70–71 openness towards Kvens 71 society and minorities, relationship between 180–1 Sweden, minority policy in 18 see also immigrants; national minorities in Norway "Mitzvah," Libeskind's concept of 46, 59, 64 Moe, Jørgen 114 Moe, Moltke 114, 115 Molin, Torkel 202n16 Molund, M. and Pedersen, S. 86n118 Mondrop, Iben 37–41, 251 Montesino Parra, Norma 16n32 Mortensen, Dr Andras 217 Multicultural Centre, Botkyra, Sweden 146–9 aims 147–8, 149 exhibitions 146–8 First Generation (Esther Shalev-Gerz artwork) 148 Fittjagård, symbolic situation in 146 focus 147–8, 148–9 foundation of 146 gallery focus on contemporary issues 148–9 investigation of contemporary society 146–8 research concerns 149 Swedish Travelling Exhibitions 148 Swedish Year of Cultural Diversity (2006) 148 multiculturalism in arts in Finland 101–11 in context of Finland 103–4, 106–7 critique in Finland of 102 experience in Finland of 103 Finland 101–2 meaning for Finns of 106–7 multicultural society in Sweden 89 multicultural state?, collective identity and 178–81 Museum of World Culture, Sweden 90 perspectives on, collective identity and inclusion of 185 politics and 179 sensitivity in Sweden to 158 society as multicultural, IKM representation of 143 Munch, Jens Storm 74 Munch, Peter Andreas 199 Museum of Danish Resistance (1940-45) 59 Museum of Ethnography of Sweden 89 Museum of Fine Arts, Copenhagen 201 Museum of Nordic Antiquity, Copenhagen 200, 201, 203 Museum of the Year (IKM, 2006) 141–2 Museum of Work in Sweden 208 Museum of World Culture, Sweden 89–100 Advantage Göteborg project 97–8 audience research 100 contemporary global issues 95 cultural identities, broad representation of 96–7

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diversity and representation 92–3 establishment of 89 ethnography, "World Culture" and 90–92 exhibitions 93–7 experimental music programme 95 future challenges 100 gender identities 96 globalisation 90 "glocality," challenge of 100 Göteborg Ethnographical Museum, transformation of 89, 90 Horizons: Voices from Global Africa 96, 98 ideological foundation 91 inclusion, contribution to 97–9 innovation, challenge of 100 interdisciplinary approach 94 knowledge acquisition 91 linking arts programmes to exhibitions 95–6 multicultural society in Sweden 89 multiculturalism 90 multiple voices, approach through 93 No Name Fever: AIDS in the Age of Globalisation 95 post-colonial theory 90 programmes 95–6 public dialogue 97 purpose, objectives and 91 queer ethnicity 96 relating to 97 representation, diversity and 92–3 research fields 90 Site Unseen: Dwellings of the Demons 95 social justice, contribution to 97–9 strategies, combination of 92–3 toleration, contribution to 97–9 traditions, problem of rigidity in 100 Trafficking 95, 99 UNESCO Declaration of Cultural Diversity 92 museums and collective identity 172–86 and cultural heritage 23–9 in Finland 107 as guardians of the past (and future) 123 interests and concerns of, in forms of exhibition 230, 233–4 main characteristics of 67 as meeting places 187–8 as memory deposits 183 as narrators 68–70, 82–5 National Museum of Denmark, "universal museum" 30–32 objects of, "ours" and "theirs" 188–9 personal museums 156–7 place in 68 practices of, critical perspective 20 reform of 142–3 and related institutions in Faroe Islands 212–19 remembrance, museums as places of 68–70, 82–5 role of 142–3 as sites of negotiation 140

Muslim umma 173 Møller, Bente Guro 140–45, 156n25, 185, 241n20, 250 Møller, Henrik Sten 60n4 Mørch, Søren 209 Nakemiin Suomi, visual representation in 101, 111 Nansen, Fridtjof 136 Napoleonic Wars 196, 197, 200, 201, 206 narrative enhancement narratives 230–35 museums as narrators 68–70, 82–5 n Kven museums 87 national narratives, problem of 183–4 "Nation," new concept of 172–86 National Association of Swedish Sámi 13, 17 National Exhibition of Decorative Arts, Norway 113 National Gallery of Finland 108 National Heritage Act (1983) in Sweden 152 National Heritage Board of Sweden 153, 155, 155n23 National Heritage Conference (1983) 191 National Historical Museum, Frederiksborg 202 National History Museum, Copenhagen 201, 202 national minorities in Norway 1–8 assimilatory policies 3–4 background history 1–4 categorization of 1, 4 Constitution of Norway (1814) 2 ethno-political hierarchy 6–7 Finnmark 3 Forest Finns 1, 3, 5 formal categorization 1 Gypsies 1, 2, 4 Holocaust 2 ILO Convention 169, ratification of (1990) 5 indigenous people and immigrants 4–6 Jews 1, 2 Kven, ethno-political awareness among 5 Kvens 1, 3, 4 League of Nations 1 National Romany People's Association 5, 6 Norwegian Kven Association 5 policy hierarchy, emergence of 5, 6–7 Protection of National Minorities, European Council Framework Convention 6 Romany (Travellers or Taters) 1, 2–3, 4, 5 Sámi 1, 3, 4–5, 6–7 Sámi Cultural Commission 5 Sámi Rights Commission 5 status of 1–2 National Museum of Denmark 30–36, 201–2 beginnings 30 connecting to the past, challenge of 35–6 control of culture 34 cultural healing 34 Greenland, cooperation between Museum authorities 33, 34

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Greenland, Inuit cultural heritage 32 Greenland, utimut (return) of items to 31–2, 33, 34, 35–6 Greenland-Denmark cultural healing 34, 35–6 guardian of world treasures 30 history, ownership and reclamation of 32–3 ICOM (International Council of Museums) 31 restitution, debate on repatriation and 30–31 return of artefacts, problems about 34–5 "universal museum" 30–32 National Museum of Iceland 205, 224–9 National Museum of World Culture 233, 238, 239, 244 National Museums' Ethnographic Research 128 National Museums Network 142 National Romany People's Association 5, 6 Neale, Margo 140 Newman, A. and McLean, F. 98n23 Next Stop: the North Pole 118 Niemi, Einar 1–7, 68n2, 70n19, 71n28, 71n32, 72n36, 72n39, 73n41, 74n44, 76n64, 79n82, 80n87, 250 Nilsen, G. 72n34, 74n48, 79n79, 84n112 Nilsson, Bo.G. 160n36 No Name Fever: AIDS in the Age of Globalisation 95, 239 Nora, Pierre 69, 85, 183 Nord-Troms Museum in Troms 68, 74–5, 78–9, 82–3, 86–7 Nordic Council 232 Nordic culture commonality in 198 in Faroe Islands 212 Nordic Sámi Institute 17 Nordiska Museet, Stockholm 238 Ájtte Museum, Jokkmokk 17, 20, 27, 28, 29 Artur Hazellus and the Sámi 10–11 Baltic migration 10 brokering Sámi culture 11–13 collaborative exchanges 21 collecting objects, problem of 20–21 contemporary studies 14–17 cultural diversity in 9–22 Cultural Encounters Group 16 "Finland-Sweden Migration after World War II" research project 15 Finnish inheritance 10 "Immigrant Sweden" project 16 immigrants and "immigrant documentation" 15–16 indigenous networking 22 Languages, European Charter for Regional or Minority 18 Lapp Department 11–13 minority and diversity issues 19, 22 minority policy in Sweden 18 museum practices, critical perspective 20 National Association of Swedish Sámi 13, 17 national minorities, identity and 22 national minorities of Sweden 18 Nordic Sámi Institute 17 origins 9–10 post-colonialism 20

Protection of National Minorities, European Council Framework Convention 18 "Recalling Ancestral Voices: Repatriation of Sámi Cultural Heritage" project 20 repatriation, practice of 21–2 repatriation, reconciliation and 21–2 Romani issues 13–14 Samdok 14, 15, 16, 17 Samernas Egen Tidning 12 Sámi, status as indigenous people 18 Sámi and Swedes, relationship between 22 Sámi collection 10–11 Sámi focus group 19 Sámi Pool 17 Sámi research today and tomorrow 16–17 Sápmi exhibition 19 Skansen open-air museum 9–10, 22 source materials 20 Swedish Diversity Year (2006) 9 Swedish Mountain and Sámi Museum, Jokkmokk 17, 20, 27, 28, 29 Nordreisa 75, 78, 81, 82, 87 Norlie, Olaf M. 136n27 Norsk Folkemuseum collective identity 183, 184 community representation at 206 exhibition forms 240, 242, 243–4 Norwegian Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow? 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 119, 120, 123 North Atlantic Wharf, Copenhagen 39, 55 Northern Lapland Nature Centre 24 Norway Museum, Diversity, Memory, Meeting Place (NOU, 1996) 140 museum establishment in 205 nation-state and borders 197, 198 Norwegian Arts Council 117 Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage 81 Norwegian Kurdish Cultural Heritage Documentation Project 192 Norwegian Kven Association 5, 84 Norwegian Year of Diversity (2008) 231 Norwegianness, difference and 242–3 Sámi museums in 25–7 Norwegian Kurdish Virtual Museum (NKVM) 130–39 artefacts, categorization of 136 artefacts, information on 134–5 authenticity of artefacts 134 background 130, 136–7 collection contents 130–31 collection of information, challenge of 137 COMPASS digital collection 136 cultural context 132–3 cultural heritage, importance of 138 diaspora culture, documentation of 135–6 diaspora ideas 130 diaspora identity, creation of 132–3

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diaspora identity, preservation of 134 diaspora narratives 137–8 forced migration, influence of 132–3 'frozen images' 134 future challenges 138–9 historical knowledge 136–7 homeland identity, relationship with 138 International Conference of Hypermedia and Interactivity in Museums 130 Kurdish heritage, documentation of 130–31, 132, 133–4 Kurdish literature 135, 136–7 Kurdish stateless diaspora 131 MED-TV Brussels 135 methodological experiences 133–4 political context 133 preservation of artefacts 136 rationale for 131–2 resettlement of Kurds, history of 132 shared space 132 socio-historical context 132–3 solidarity, group cohesion and 135 stateless heritage, presentation of 130–39 virtual presentation 131–2 The Norwegian People's History (Munch, P.A.) 199 Norwegian Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow? project 113–23 autobiographies 118 "Bull Project" on life histories 117 children's daily life 118 collections, building up of 116 A Country for Me? exhibition 121–2 cultural diversity, exhibitions of 119 Documentation Project 115, 117–19 exclusion, feelings of 117 exhibition forms 243–4 immigrant traditions, documentation of 118 immigrants and descendants, illustration of lives of 116–17 inclusion, from exclusion to 113–14 International Cultural centre and Museum (IKM) 113, 117, 119, 123 Land of Possibilities? exhibition 120 life histories, Documentation Project and 117–18 museums as guardians 123 National Exhibition of Decorative Arts 113 Next Stop: the North Pole 118 Norsk Folkemuseum 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 119, 120, 123 Norwegian-Americans, experiences of 122–3 Norwegian Arts Council 117 NOVA Research Institute 118 photographic and video documentation 118 pluralism, cultural heritage and the museum 192–3 political objectives for museums 115 renewal of an old vision? 114–15 understanding and change, histories and 115–17 See Me as I Am! travelling exhibition 122 NOVA Research Institute 118 Nuuk Art Museum, Greenland 40–41

Nyerup, Rasmus 200 Nyström, B. 10n5 Obstfelder, Sigbjørn 140n1 Olaus, Magnus 196n2 Olsen, Bernhard 68n1, 86n117, 202 Open Doors - Making Cultural Heritage Sites and Exhibitions Accessible 110 Oscar I of Norway 206 Oseberg Viking burial ships 205 Oslo City Museum 142 Otto, T. and Pedersen, P. 165n11 outdoor museums 205–6 Sámi Open-Air Museum, Evenes, Norway 27 Skansen open-air museum 9–10, 22 Paasi, Anssi 196n3 Pakistani home project 121–2, 234–5 Palace Islet (Slotsholmen) 56 Palmsköld, A. 83n106 Pareli, Leif 234n13 parliament of Sámi 1, 6, 7, 24, 26–7, 80n87, 236 Patursson, Sverri and Jóannes 214 peace, production of 210–11 Pedersen, Ragnar 205n24 Peltonen, Ulla-Maija 208n30 Pentz, Peter 30–36, 250 Personal Stories from Multicultural Norway exhibition 143 Pes, J. 100n26 Pettersson, Richard 152n7 Piper, Adrian 101 Pirak Sikku, Jatarina 237n15 Pitt Rivers Museum, London 135 pluralism, cultural heritage and the museum 187–94 artefacts and objects, meaning of 188 choice, issues of 191–2 collective identity and "roots" 188 construction of identity 190 cultural heritage, museum as guardian of 187 dialogue about cultural heritage issues 190–91 discipline and dialogue 190–91 diverse society, role of national culture in 193 epistemics of institutions 191 ethnic minorities in diaspora 187 global processes and 193 identity construction 188–9 identity on the border 189 Immigration and Multicultural Norway (Parliamentary White Paper) 190 integration, central issue of 189 knowledge presentation 191 memories in museums 194 museum as meeting place 187–8 museum objects, "ours" and "theirs" 188–9 National Heritage Conference (1983) 191 Norwegian Kurdish Cultural Heritage Documentation

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Project 192 Norwegian Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow project 192–3 ownership and understanding of objects 189 pluralist societies 187 pluralistic cultural heritage, examples of documentation of 191–3 preservation practice 194 repatriation of objects 190 representing the nation 193 selection, issues of 191–2 transfer, issues of 191–2 "us" and "them," differences between 189 Wergeland's Children documentation project 192 Polepole, Humphry 238n17 policy hierarchy, emergence of 5, 6–7 political and cultural policies 185–6 political concept of nation 176–7 political context of NKVM 133 political influences on exhibition forms 230 political objectives for museums 115 Porsanger Museum 27, 79 postcolonialism 20, 39, 90, 168–9 Poulsen, Ivaaq 238n17 Poulsen, Lise 124–9, 251 Pripp, O. et al. 9n1 "Promised Lands" Danish Jewish Museum 46, 59, 65 Prophet Muhammed 166n13 Protection of National Minorities, European Council Framework Convention 6, 18, 80–81, 231 provenance 51–2 public access 205–7 public dialogue 97 queer ethnicity 96 racist past, examinations of 235–9 Rasmussen, Jóannes 218 Reagan, Ronald 152 "Recalling Ancestral Voices: Repatriation of Sámi Cultural Heritage" project 20 Rekdal, Per 81n92, 158, 188, 188n1, 189 Rentzhog, Sten 206n26 repatriation of objects pluralism, cultural heritage and the museum 190 practice of 21–2 reconciliation and 21–2 restitution and, debate on 30–31 return of artefacts, problems about 34–5 Rethinking Nordic Colonialism project 168, 170–71, 236–8, 243 Right to an Adequate Life exhibition 143–4 Róbertsdóttir, Hrefna 225n10, 228n12 Rodman, Margaret 131 Rogestam, C. 155n21 Rogstad, Jon 5 Romany (Travellers or Taters) 1, 2–3, 4, 5, 13–14, 80, 89, 178 Rosander, Göran 15, 17n35

Rosing, E. 32n7, 34n9 Rosing, E. and Pentz, P. 32n5 Rossi, Leena-Maija 105 Royal Danish Library 56 Ruija Kvenmuseum in Finnmark 68, 73–4, 75, 76–7, 77–8, 83, 84, 86–7 Runeberg, Johan Ludvig 204 Russia, Sámi museum in 28 Rydén, Stig 96 Rydving, Håkan 23n1 Ryymin, T. 68n2, 71n21 Saga heritage of Iceland 222 Sagatun, Ronald 236 Sahlins, Marshall 165n9 Salto, Iben Mondrop 37–41, 251 Samdok 14, 15, 16, 17 Sámediggi 27n15 Samernas Egen Tidning 12 Sámi 89, 178, 236–7, 241–2 Ájtte Museum, Jokkmokk 17, 20, 27, 28, 29 artefacts and human remains, removal of 23 brokering Sámi culture at Nordiska Museet 11–13 collection in Nordiska Museet, Stockholm 10–11 Cultural Commission 5 East Sámi Museum, Norway 24, 27 Enontekiö, Hetta exhibition at 25 Finland, museums in 24–5 focus group in Nordiska Museet, Stockholm 19 foundation of museums, national 'awakening' and 28–9 Inari Sámi Museum, Finland 24 Kautokeino Hamlet and Museum, Norway 27 Lapponia (Schefferus, J.) 23 Lule Sámi Centre, Norway 25, 26 museums and cultural heritage 23–9 national minorities in Norway 1, 3, 4–5, 6–7 Northern Lapland Nature Centre 24 Norway, museums in 25–7 parliament of 1, 6, 7, 24, 26–7, 80n87, 236 Porsanger Museum 27 research today and tomorrow 16–17 Rights Commission 5 Russia, museum in 28 Sámi Litto (Finnish Association) 24 Sámi Museum of History and Every Day Life, Lovezero, Murmansk 28 Sámi Open-Air Museum, Evenes, Norway 27 Sámi Pool 17 Sámiid Vuorká Dávvirat, Karasjok, Norway 25–6, 27 Savio Museum, Norway 27 Sea Sámi Museum, Kokelv, Norway 27 self -esteem, awakening of 28–9 social and political change, museums as agents for 29 social and political change, museums as agents of 29 South Sámi Collection, Norway 24 spiritual and material heritage 23–4, 28–9

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status as indigenous people 18 Sweden, museums in 27 and Swedes, relationship between 22 Tana Museum, Norway 27 Varanger Samiske Museum, Norway 20, 26, 28, 29, 74 Várjját Sámi Museum, Norway 27 Samzelius, Hugo 10 Sandahl, Jette 32n6, 89n5 Sandberg, Kaj 4n8, 202n14 Sandell, R. 97n20 Sandrup, Therese 185n11 Sápmi exhibition, Nordiska Museet 19 Sara, Sunna-Maaret 25 Sarre, Ella 25 Savio Museum, Norway 27 Scandinavia culture, national history and community representation 198–9 state making in 196–7 see also Denmark; Faroe Islands; Finland; Iceland; Norway; Sweden Schanche, A. 20n52 Schefferus, Johannes 23 Schelling, Friedrich W.J. von 199 Schleswig-Holstein, German families in Denmark from 54–5 Schmedling, Olga 205n25 Schram, Kristinn 221–9, 251 Schweibenz, Werner 130n1 Sea Sámi 236–7 Museum, Kokelv, Norway 27 See Me as I Am! travelling exhibition 122 selection, issues of 191–2 Sennett, Richard 211n39 Serefname (Han al-Bitlisi) 136–7 Shalev-Gerz, Esther 148, 244–5 Sharafnamah (Khan, S.) 136–7 Sheffer, Gabriel 131n3, 131n7 Shelton, Anthony A. 90 Siida Sámi Museum, Finland 20, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29 "The Silent People's Quiet Death?" (Kven film) 84 Silvén, Eva 9–22, 160n36, 210n35, 234, 235, 236, 251 Similarities in the Differences exhibition, IKM 143 Simpson, M.G. 90n7 Site Unseen: Dwellings of the Demons, World Culture Museum 95 Sjørslev, Inger 161–71, 231, 251 Skansen open-air museum 9–10, 22, 183 Skarstein, S. 76n61, 76n63, 77n66, 77n69 Skokloster, exhibition of foreign artefacts at 157 Skougaard, Mette 124–9, 251 Skum, Nils Nilsson 13, 14n25 Smeds, Kerstin 206n27 Smith, Anthony D. 132n11 Smith, L.T. 20n54 social and cultural processes in intangible heritage 166 social and political change, museums as agents for 29 social development, cultural difference and 232–3 social justice, World Culture Museum contribution to 97–9

societal change, new museums and cultural policy in Norway 72 society and minorities, relationship between 180–81 socio-historical context of NKVM 132–3 Solbakk, John Trygve 26n8 South Sámi Collection, Norway 24 "Space and Spaciousness" exhibition, Danish Jewish Museum 53, 57, 60–62, 64 Statens offentliga utredningar (SOU) 152n8, 154n18 Stoklund, Bjarne 215n12 Stråth, B. and Sørensen, Ø. 197n4, 198n6, 208n31 Sturluson, Snorri 200 Sundelin, Rune 83 Sundt, Eilert 2–3 Sunna, Helge 21 supranational organisation and collective identity 177–8 Svanberg, L. and Szabó, M 17n36 Svasek, M. 106n12 Svensson, Marina 154n16 Svensson, Tom 29n19, 154n19 Sweden Agenda kulturarv 155, 158 celebratory patterns, exhibitions of 157 collective memories and "roots," interest in 153–4 Constitution of (1809) 197 "cult of heritage" 151 cultural diversity and museums in 155–9 cultural heritage and museums in 151–60 cultural homogeneity, challenge to 155 cultural inheritance 152 culture and politics, boundary between 160 diversity, cultural heritage and museums in 151–60 economics and tourism 154 ethnic diversity and heritage in 154–5 expressive forms, highlighting of tradition in 156 Far Eastern Antiquities, Museum of 89 as Folkhem (People's Home) 204 "folklife sphere" 151–2 Göteborg Ethnographical Museum 89, 91 heritage ascendant 152–4 Heritage Studies, effect of new disciplines such as 159 immigrant cultures, importance of recognition of 158 inclusion, inequalities and 160 kulturarv, appropriation of concept 153 Mediterranean and Near East Antiquities, Museum of 89 migrant involvement in heritage sector 158–9 migrant museums 156–7 multicultural situations, sensitivity to 158 Museum of Ethnography 89 nation-state and borders 197, 198, 199 National Heritage Act (1983) 152 National Heritage Board 153, 155 national minorities of 89 in nineteenth century 199–204 personal museums 156–7 protection of cultural heritage 153–4

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reformist heritage ideology 151, 159 Sámi museums in 27 Skokloster, exhibition of foreign artefacts at 157 spread of "cultural heritage" 151, 152–3, 159 Swedish Finns 89 Swedish Mountain and Sámi Museum, Jokkmokk 17, 20, 27, 28, 29 Swedish Royal Armoury 202–3 Swedish Travelling Exhibitions 148 Swedish Year of Cultural Diversity (2006) 9, 148, 157 UNESCO heritage initiatives 152 World Heritage Sites 152 The Swedish People's History (Geijer, E.G.) 199 Sør-Varanger Museum 68n3, 74, 76–7, 79, 80 Sörlin, S. 10n5 Tacitus 198 Taikon, Johan Demitri ('Milosch') 13–14 Tana Museum, Norway 27 Tapani, Sainio 110n23 Taylor, Charles 92, 93n17 Thatcher, Margaret 173 Theatre Museum, Oslo 142 The Third Culture exhibition in Finland 108 The Third Text exhibition in Finland 102 Thomsen, C.J. 201, 205 Tillhagen, Carl-Herman 13–14, 16n29 Tingelstad, O.A. 136n27 Tjelmeland, H. 71n24, 72n37 Tomasson, T. 20n51 Toolan, Michael J. 137n37 Topelius, Zacharias 204 Torgrimmsdottir, Anna 201n9 Tornedaler Finns 89 tradition cultural continuity and invention of 165–7 in Danish Jewish Museum 59 maintenance of 165 memorial places and narratives 82–5 museums as upholders of 68–70 problem of rigidity in 100 Trafficking exhibition, Museum of World Culture 95, 99, 239 transnationalism and change 243–5 Tromsø Museum 80 Tuomainen, Ida and Alf 73–4 Tuomainengården 73, 74, 76, 77–8, 79, 83, 87 Turtinen, J. 154n14

UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (CSICH) 161, 162, 163–4, 166, 167, 169, 170, 231 heritage initiatives in Sweden 152 opposition to UNESCO Convention 161–2 ratification of UNESCO Convention 162, 170 Universal Declaration for Cultural Diversity (2001) 92, 231 United States American understanding of nation 182 Norwegian-Americans, experiences of 122–3 Upmark, G. 11n9 Uzun, Mehmed 135 Vadsø Museum in Finnmark 68, 73–4, 75, 76–7, 77–8, 83, 84, 86–7 Valle, Ågot 141 Van Bruinessen, Martin 133 Varanger Samiske Museum, Norway 20, 26, 28, 29, 74 Varangerprosjekt (1973-74) 80 Varine, Hugues de 75, 76n57 Várjját Sámi Museum, Norway 27 Veli-Pekka, Lehtola 24n3, 29n18 Verfassungspatriotismus 177 Viking heritage of Iceland 222–3 Virilio, Paul 137 virtual presentation in NKVM 131–2 Volksgeist 175–6 Waley, Muhammad, Muhammad Isa 136 Webb, J. and Schirato, T. 132n10, 137n34 Wergeland's Children documentation project 192 Westrheim, Kariane 132n14 Weyse, C.F. 55 White, Hayden 69, 70n17, 85, 86, 87 "Wilderness," Danish Jewish Museum 46, 59, 65 Wilson, Fred 95, 96 With the Best of Intentions (Randi Broberg film) 239 Women's Museum, Århus 54 Workers' Museum, Copenhagen 208 World Exposition, Paris (1878) 10 World Heritage Convention (1972) 170 World Heritage Sites in Sweden 152 world society and collective identity 178 Worsaae, J.J.A. 201 Wright, Sue 161, 169, 231–2 Wylie, Jonathan 214n3 Ylikangas, Heikki 208n30 "Youth Writes Back" community project 238