Conflicts Over the Repatriation of Sami Cultural Heritage in Sweden

Abstract

More than 400 years of colonization and assimilation policy by the Nordic states has created a new situation for Sami culture. Over this long period the Sami heritage has become thoroughly marginalized, but today the more overt conflicts that we find elsewhere in the world between colonizing states and indigenous peoples have diminished. Such conflicts are, perhaps, more characteristic of an earlier stage of the colonial frontier, and they have been replaced by post-colonial forms of consensus. Despite the shared experiences of the Sami in their recent history, some important differences have emerged between Nordic states in how the Sami heritage is perceived and how it is managed. Much more than in Norway, the dominant attitudes of the Swedish state continue to echo the discriminatory attitudes of the past, but in a more restrained way. This continuity of attitudes is demonstrated here using examples of current policies and practices. Particularly in Sweden, there are continuing conflicts between nationalism and the Sami world view, but I argue that these old conflicts are no longer the main problem in Scandinavia. Instead, scholars, Sami leaders, and others concerned with heritage in the north are finding common cause in opposing what we might call the ‘wilderness assumptions’ of policy makers in the south, especially within the neo-liberal Swedish state. These assumptions have been reinforced by the restructuring of state finances, and they are now leading towards neglect of northern cultural heritage and its associated institutions, particularly museums. These assertions are supported using examples from various museums and through case studies of the repatriation of Sami cultural objects such as drums and siejdde-stones, and the continuing problems with Sami skeletal remains.     

2007 Cultural Heritage Legal Summary

Abstract

During the past year there has been continuing progress in the ratification and implementation of the two most important international conventions that deal with tangible cultural heritage. This progress is, to some extent, surprising as it involves some of the more significant market countries, such as Germany and Switzerland. At the same time, Italy's efforts to recover its stolen cultural objects continued to meet with success as the Getty and Princeton museums agreed to return significant numbers of antiquities from their collections. Finally, two cases decided in British courts have recently taken center stage in the ongoing efforts of nations to protect their archaeological heritage through the legal system.     

The sound of yesteryear on display: a rethinking of nostalgia as a strategy for exhibiting pop/rock heritage

The increasing presentation of popular music culture as heritage is manifested in the recent proliferation of museums of pop/rock culture. This calls for an examination of the current practices of disseminating pop/rock heritage through exhibitions. Two trends have been identified and criticised by previous commentators: first, the prominence of nostalgia in exhibition narratives and second, that exhibitions of popular music tend to display ancillary objects rather than music itself. This article offers a rethinking of nostalgia as a strategy for disseminating pop/rock heritage and explores the potential of music as a trigger for nostalgic experiences in exhibitions. While agreeing with much of the critique levelled at the nostalgic approach to pop/rock culture, we suggest that with a more nuanced conception of reflective nostalgia, the affective appeal of the nostalgic approach can be harnessed without giving in to glamourised oversimplifications of the past. Further, we suggest that mediated memories can form the basis of nostalgic feelings and thus enable the nostalgic approach to span the generational gap and engage visitors who do not have a lived experience of pop/rock heritage. We will illustrate this by contrasting our approach to that taken at ABBA The Museum.     

Museums as Relational Entities: The Politics and Poetics of Heritage

Over the last 40 years museums have become important sites to understand the politics and poetics of heritage management, display, and knowledge production. The books under consideration here all help demonstrate how museums as relational entities—containing dynamic relations between persons and things, as well as generating them—are emergent processes. Each work helps demonstrate why museums in their many guises remain critical terrains for the negotiation of identity, history, and culture in the push for more collaborative accounts of our world and the circulation and display of things.     

Benefits of visiting heritage museums: Chinese parents’ perspectives

Abstract

The family, as a leisure unit, is an important museum consumer group. The literature on family leisure in museums concentrates on the cognitive and the learning aspects in science museums and art galleries in western contexts. It provides limited explanation of the leisure outcomes acquired from visiting museums. This work addresses this lacuna by exploring the benefits perceived by Chinese parents who take their children to a cluster of museums along China’s Grand Canal, a world heritage site in Hangzhou. A review of museum and heritage research, combined with 17 on-site, in-depth interviews, generated information on a range of benefits which was used to design a questionnaire that was completed by 450 respondents. Five perceived benefits were identified using factor analysis. In order of significance, they are family bonding, community attachment, cultural awareness, restoration and personal growth. These perceived benefits have implications for museums and other public facilities catering to the family leisure market, as well as for governments, community organisations, the heritage sector and other stakeholders that are charged with managing cultural heritage.     

从立法视角审视“文物”概念——以《文物保护法》的修订为契机而展开

《文物保护法》中的“文物”作为法律概念,承载被普遍认同的“历史”、“科学”和“艺术”等重要价值,其必须有形、可控,且范围确定,而“文物”概念本身亦应具备法律规定性和明确性两方面的重要特征。故此次修订《文物保护法》不宜将类似“文化线路”、“文化景观”等范围模糊概念仓促纳入“文物”范畴;而以“文化遗产”概念取代“文物”的观点也值得商榷。     

Heritage,Tourism and Museums: the case of the North Atlantic islands of Skye,Scotland and Prince Edward Island,Canada

Heritage tourism, and the products and experiences related to it, represent a growing attraction in international tourism and the museum is a potential partner in the development of heritage activities for tourists. This paper explores the relationship between tourism and museums and analyses their roles in relation to heritage. It recognises that the shared characteristics of tourism and museums provide a basis for the two to work together in the development of heritage tourism. This exploration is illustrated by the comparison of case studies of legislated museum provision and their relation to tourism on two North Atlantic islands. In conclusion, the paper argues that while in some cases museums may be seen as somewhat reluctant partners in the process of heritage tourism they are in fact constrained by traditional roles and responsibilities and influenced by both differing jurisdictional contexts and views as to their functions.     

Digital heritage in a Melanesian context: authenticity,integrity and ancestrality from the other side of the digital divide

This article examines how digital heritage, in the form of 3D digital objects, fits into particular discourses around identity, ancestrality and cultural transmission in Melanesia. Through an ethnographic analysis of digital heritage use amongst the Nalik community in New Ireland (Papua New Guinea), it demonstrates how digital heritage is understood not in terms of deceit and a loss of authenticity, but instead, towards an understanding of authenticity in terms of completeness and integrity. A notion of completeness and integrity, I argue, has the effect of creating an authentic experience of the past for Nalik communities by bringing back museum objects (‘old’ objects) that have been dispersed amongst museums and heritage institutions worldwide. In tracing out the operations and effects of how a Melanesian community engages with 3D digital objects, this article offers unique ethnographic insights into digital heritage in ways that challenge widely-held assumptions about the heightened value placed on the original object over its digital counterpart.     

史密森早教中心“基于实物的学习”之理念与实践研究

时下,我国博物馆针对幼童(0—6岁)阶段的教育项目相对较少,还常常与小学阶段的混合,不具备足够的契合度,也未从幼童的特点和需求出发,未发挥博物馆展览、展品展项等资源优势。幼童早在通过语言和书本学习之前,是通过实物来探索世界的。博物馆作为藏品库,需要拓展他们手动探索馆内实物的机会,帮助其理解自己以及身处的世界。史密森早教中心自1988年起,即开始为幼童提供早期学习体验。它作为将早教实践与博物馆学习糅合的全球典范,其核心的"基于实物的学习"、在熟悉物与非熟悉物之间嫁接桥梁以及超越实物聚焦概念等的理念与实践,值得我们深入研究和广泛应用。     

Strategic management for visitor-oriented museums

Abstract: Strategic management is a familiar concept in for-profit organisations but is relatively new to museums. This paper presents and discusses a model of strategic management for visitor-oriented museums that aims to be more comprehensive than current approaches. It shows how museums can overcome the tension between the strategic demand to develop visitor-oriented museum services and the duties and social mandate of museums as public institutions that are defined by cultural policy—enabling access to cultural heritage, promoting broad cultural participation and providing informal education. Visitor-oriented strategic museum management is concerned with attracting a variety of visitors as well as the development of museum services that are appropriate to diverse museum audiences. The model presented here emphasises the comprehensive strategic management concept. Audience research and evaluation are shown to be valuable analytic and revision tools for strategic management in visitor-oriented museums.     

Pioneer Living 1963 Style: Imaginations of Heritage in a Post‐war Canadian Suburb

This article connects the origins of a Canadian living history museum to the cultural and social developments of 1960s suburban Canada. Although there exists a strong literature on heritage and commemoration in Canada (and around the world), few scholars have looked explicitly at museums in that country. The literature on history museums elsewhere in the world is stronger. However, despite the strengths of this international literature, its focus has been on the use of museums in the present. An important aspect of the use of heritage, the historical contexts in which past museum visitors interpreted museum themes and displays, has not received much attention. This article argues that museum patrons of the 1960s, the decade in which many living history museums were founded, saw pioneer villages in the context of their own modernising lifestyles. However much Black Creek Pioneer Village might reflect anxiety about the direction of modernity, it also framed the past in ways that legitimated modern, suburban living.     

近现代工业遗产博物馆的特点与内涵

近现代工业遗产博物馆是博物馆的一种特殊类型,目前正呈现快速增长的态势。其特点主要表现为以近现代工业遗址性博物馆为主体,以在工业遗址的原状陈列为主要展示手法,以反映近现代城市工业文明足迹为主题,体现专题性与区域性的产业发展史。近现代工业遗产博物馆具有独特的内涵,它是解读近现代工业城市发展历史的一部书,也是折射近现代工业城市社会生活的一面镜子。近现代工业遗产博物馆的建设对城市个性的塑造具有重要的意义(增加)。     

Portraits in the Background of “Nothingness” Sheikh Jabber Burnt House, an Object of Persian Gulf War

War is a common heritage of Middle East, the experience of war was changed to a dramatic propaganda in Iran while the southern neighbor of Iran experienced it in another way: oblivion. In such a context, both states attempt to change the facts of the war, one to a process of sanctification and one to the portraits of nothingness. We, as archaeologists, were accidentally encountered with a heritage of Persian Gulf War during a contemporary archaeology project. Our curiosity made us to take a look at Jabber house, a forgotten building, a domestic architecture destroyed by a racket during the war. What was recorded in our frames was actually an artistic work, out of its original context. Our subjectivity as archaeologists made us to think about the other objects fossilized in museums, they are out of their painful context and structure, they are only beautiful, the portraits in the background of nothingness, in a burnt gallery. Persian Gulf War is treated in Kuwait as a negative heritage, what is discussed in this article as the main theme??a negative heritage lost its original context and meaning: Sheikh Jabber house.     

A Very Remote Storage Box Indeed: The Importance of Doing Archaeology with Old Museum Collections

Although our practice has come to be defined by a focus on excavation as the trademark of archaeological research, research on archaeological collections lies at the scientific heart of the discipline. We demonstrate through two very different case studies how a return to primary sources (in this case, boxes of artifacts) can upend our understanding of the objects themselves and create new narratives of social and technological change. At the same time, access to museum collections is becoming increasingly difficult as institutions struggle with the growing pressure to enhance public outreach and modernize data management, while simultaneously contending with persistent budget cuts. As archaeologists who work closely with museum curators and museum collections, we offer suggestions for how researchers can work with museums to ensure that future generations of researchers and the general public can learn from the ancient materials preserved within their collections.     

论观景台之作用、保护与制度建设

观景台是人类经选择从事观察景物活动的最佳场所,其形式多样,既有天然观景台,也有人工观望台,还有的观景台本身即是景观。观景台对所观察到的遗产能发挥促进保护的作用,因此,既是一类重要的文化遗产保护对象,更是一类可以发挥重要作用的保护手段,可以纳入文化遗产保护的制度建设。     

‘No more road to walk’: cultures of heritage and leprosariums in Singapore and Malaysia

This paper examines how the state, social activists and former sufferers of leprosy participate in an international heritage discourse and how they construct the history of leprosy in contemporary Singapore and Malaysia. This paper finds both dissonances but also convergences between these different interests. The emergence of such entangled narratives is taking place at a time when the leprosariums are threatened by redevelopment and while social activists are calling for their conservation as heritage sites. The paper finds that both the state and social activists, in different ways, have selectively appropriated the history of leprosy to fit an international heritage discourse. Meanwhile aspects of that history, which are deemed incompatible, are discarded to fall in between the cracks of the discourse. By contrast, the oral history accounts of the leprosariums’ residents, as a possible source for intangible and radical heritage, are ambivalent about the sites’ heritage values. They reveal that while many residents reject the heritage discourse that seeks to save their homes from demolition, others have created a unique culture of heritage that appropriates the international discourse, but also expresses their own needs and perspectives. Cultures of heritage are, however, themselves fluid and liable to change like the memories on which they are based.     

Coastal heritage in touristic regional identity narratives: a comparison between the Norwegian region Sørlandet and the Dutch Wadden Sea area

ABSTRACT

Heritage plays a central role in narratives of coastal regions that promote them as places of leisure. This paper compares this role of heritage in Sørlandet (Norway) and the Dutch Wadden Sea area. Both regions have rich and related cultural histories, but at the same time exhibit striking differences in the role of cultural heritage and other aspects of heritage in regional identity narratives that are aimed at attracting tourists. We conclude that while the narratives of Sørlandet affirm a romantic, picturesque image of pre-industrial, societies, those in the Dutch Wadden Sea area frame this region as a pristine and timeless wilderness, in which human history has no place.     

Archaeology in African museums

Museums curate, document, conserve, and protect the earth's diverse natural and cultural heritage for purposes of educating humankind. Through research, exhibitions, and other activities that stress our common demominators and achievements, museums help us to forge and affirm local, ethnic, national, and international identities, unity, and pride. To accomplish such diverse goals, museums require dynamic, dedicated, ethical, and fairly well-educated staff. Museums must also be well-funded and should have local, national, and international support systems. This paper discusses the challenges faced by museum professionals in Africa, especially archaeologists, as they attempt to unearth, and in some cases reinterpret, Africa's cultural history.     

Modelling the heritage world: Economic,legal and political considerations

Abstract

The economic literature on heritage has primarily analysed the impact of building preservation on real‐estate values and community redevelopment. Recently, economists have expanded their study on heritage to include everything from historic buildings and antiques to museums and monuments. However, this research ignores the political and legal characteristics of heritage and is used primarily to justify government expenditures on heritage. The economic study of heritage should include a conceptual framework to explain the process through which certain artefacts acquire historic significance and value. This framework would provide guidance to establish which economic agents form part of the heritage world and what incentives guide them to join it. With this framework in place., we can evaluate how the tools used by these agents to obtain their own goals affect the provision of historic resources.