Scandinavian Museums and Cultural Diversity

Museums face the task of representing the similarities and differences that exist between groups, such as national identities and indigenous and minority voices, material and intangible heritage, and current status and past history. In order to achieve this aim, a complex and not always easily compatible set of interests have to be taken into account, from those of the museum itself, to those of its main audiences, sources of support, and the groups that are, or wish to be, represented. The approach taken by Scandinavian museums in response to this challenge highlights a very active concern for forms of cultural diversity and how they are interrelated.

By bringing together debates and discussions of diversity, this volume offers insight into the Nordic region and its diverse peoples, from the Sámi and the Inuit to newer immigrants. It presents a set of historical reviews on the formation of national museums and emerging and contested perceptions of national identity. Furthering the general debate on representations of diversity and museums, it also offers museum curators possible ways forward.

Preface Jack Lohman

Introduction: The Construction of Identities: Introduction and Overview
Katherine Goodnow

SECTION I: MUSEUMS, NATIONAL MINORITIES AND THE INDIGENOUS

Chapter 1. Indigenous Peoples and National Minorities in Norway: Categorisation and Minority Politics
Einar Niemi

Chapter 2. Cultural Diversity at the Nordiska Museet in Stockholm: Outline of a Story
Eva Silvén

Chapter 3. Sámi Museums and Cultural Heritage
Vuokko Hirvonen

Chapter 4. Return of the Prodigal Son – But is the Seat Taken?
Peter Pentz

Chapter 5. An Appetite Whetted
Julie Edel Hardenberg and Iben Mondrop Salto

Chapter 6. The Danish Jewish Museum: A New Museum Asserts its Character
Janne Laursen

Chapter 7. Cultural Minorities in Danish Museums
Søren Kjørup

Chapter 8. Kven Culture and History in Museum Terms
Lena Aarekol

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 Diaz

Chapter 11. Norwegian Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow? A Joint Documentation Project
Liv Hilde Bøe

Chapter 12. Embroidered History
Lise Poulsen and Mette Skougaard

Chapter 13. Norwegian Kurdish Virtual Museum: A Presentation of Stateless Heritage
Janne Mellingen

Chapter 14. As in a Mirror
Hans Philip Einarsen and Bente Møller

Chapter 15. Botkyrka Multicultural Centre
Leif Magnusson

SECTION III: NATION AND HERITAGE

Chapter 16. Cultural Heritage, Cultural Diversity, and Museums in Sweden: Some Critical Reflections
Barbro Klein

Chapter 17. Intangible Cultural Heritage and Ethnographic Museum Practice in a Global Perspective
Inger Sjørslev

Chapter 18. Museums and Collective identity: A New Concept of the Nation?
Knut Kjeldstadli

Chapter 19. Pluralism, Cultural Heritage and the Museum
Haci Akman

Chapter 20. Representing Community: National Museums Negotiating Differences and Community in the Nordic Countries
Peter Aronsson

Chapter 21. Museums and Related Institutions on the Faroe Islands
Jóan Pauli Joensen

Chapter 22. The Negotiation of Identity within a National Museum: Iceland
Katla Kjartansdóttir and Kristinn Schram

Chapter 23. Exhibition Forms and Influential Circumstances
Katherine Goodnow