Johansson Museums, Migration and Cultural Diversity

Swedish Museums in Tune with the Times?
1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-3-7065-5742-9
Verlag: Studien Verlag
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 124 Seiten

Reihe: Europäische Geschichte und Öffentlichkeit - eine Schriftenreihe des Ludwig Boltzmann Instituts

Historically, an important role of museums has been to contribute to national homogenization. The book specifically deals with how the Swedish museum sector of culture and history addresses new demands from a society that is profoundly characterized by migration and cultural diversity. Besides the museums' representations of migration and cultural diversity, the book also examines how changes in the museum sector relate to general policy developments in the fields of culture, integration and minorities. The book also discusses whether and how museums are open for dialogue and collaboration with migrants and ethnic minorities and the kinds of problems museums encounter in their efforts to be more inclusive.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Johansson, Christina

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction

Overview of the Research Field

Theoretical Points of Views

Limitations, Sources, and Methods

Swedish Migration History and Migration Politics

Swedish Museums' Work with Migration and Cultural Diversity over Time

Museums' Current Approaches to Migration and Cultural Diversity

The Museum of Work - A Modern Museum Promoting Equality

Malmö Museums - Is This Traditional Museum in Tune with the Times?

Conclusions

Leseproben

Acknowledgements
In recent years my research interest has focused on how aspects of migration and cultural diversity are dealt with in the museum sector. This book is a result of this interest and an outcome of the research cooperation between Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for European History and Public Spheres in Vienna and Malmö University, ongoing from 2007 to 2013. Without the funding, support, and academic inspiration received through this cooperation I would have found it impossible to write this book. The research I conducted within the framework of this project also received its prolongation in a new research project entitled “Learning about Migration and Cultural Diversity: School and Museum in Collaboration”, funded by the Swedish Research Council. Additionally, as the last phase of the book project has been conducted within the framework of this new project, some of the funding has been used to support publication. This book deals with the Swedish museum sector’s work on migration and cultural diversity. The intention is to contribute to research; especially research on continuity and change within the sector. In addition, it is my hope that museum professionals will find my results useful in their work to create and renew exhibitions and in establishing contacts with the civil society. To some extent the book summarizes and deepens the theoretical approaches and arguments that have been brought forward in my earlier publications. A very early version of the case study of the Museum of Work’s projects on migration was published in the anthology “Migration and Memory: Representations of Migration in Europe since 1960”, which I edited together with my colleague in Vienna, Christiane Hintermann. Parts of the theoretical introductory chapter to the museum section of that anthology have also formed the basis for the theoretical discussion in this new book. Also, a compact analysis of Malmö Museums’ projects on migration and diversity was published as a contribution to the anthology “Museums and Migration: History, Memory and Politics”, edited by Laurence Gouriévidis. However, the present book also sheds light on issues that I have not dealt with before, such as how the Swedish museum sector has engaged with and is currently dealing with aspects of migration and diversity. In this sense, the book is both theoretically and empirically wider in scope than my previous publications. I would like to extend my warm thanks to everyone who over the years has participated in the above-mentioned research cooperation. Most of all I would like to thank Fredrik Lindström, Bo Petersson and Christiane Hintermann. I am very grateful to Fredrik, who in his role as coordinator of the Malmö part of the collaboration invited me to participate. Bo Petersson, who eventually took over the coordinating role, has provided me with insightful and valuable comments on the book manuscript as a whole. The same is true for my colleague in Vienna, Christiane Hintermann, who over the years has been a valuable research partner and friend. My daily places of work, namely the Institution for Global Political Studies and the research institute Malmö Institute for Studies of Migration, Diversity and Welfare, to which I am affiliated, with their multi-disciplinary approaches, have been fruitful environments for the realization of this research project. I would also like to express my gratitude to Berit Wigerfelt and Anders S. Wigerfelt, who at an early stage provided valuable feedback on the book manuscript. As always, the blame for eventual errors in the book can only be assigned to me. Although the research field of museums and migration is relatively young, it has attracted the attention of researchers and museum professionals. For me, this has resulted in enriching years, with many opportunities to attend interesting conferences, workshops and seminars, where I have presented and discussed early drafts of my research. In this context, I would especially like to express my gratitude to the arrangers and participants of the conferences “The History of Migration in Museums: Between History and Politics”, held at the Blaise Pascal University, Clermont-Ferrand, and “Migration, Memory and Place”, held in Copenhagen in 2012. My research has benefited greatly from the critical review these occasions induced. I also want to express warm thanks to all the interviewees working in Swedish museums for explaining their work and sharing their thoughts with me. Without your participation, conducting this study would have been difficult. Although this book is a critical review, it is my hope that it will be some kind of reward for the time and insights you so kindly shared. Thanks are also due to Sue Glover Frykman, for her language editing of the manuscript. But my final words go to my dear family and friends – you enrich my life immensely. Most of all I want to thank my life companion, Göran, for our valuable discussions, and for your love and support. Introduction
Are Museums Obsolete and Dusty, or Novelties?
Swedish museums are sometimes accused of being obsolete, dusty and anachronistic institutions in dire need of reorientation, where myopic curators line up old objects without considering the relevancy for contemporary community life. At times the criticism comes from within the museum sector itself, and sometimes from outside. In a way, it is not difficult to understand why some people think of museums as relics from a time when the main task of museums was to create national unity and foster citizens. For example, if you visit Nordiska Museet in Stockholm, which is Sweden’s largest museum of cultural history, you step into a grandiose building opened in the late 1900s – at a time when nationalism was flourishing. An imposing statue of Gustav Vasa, who ruled Sweden from 1523–1560, greets the visitor. He is often considered as the king who founded the modern state of Sweden. The first thing that comes to mind when looking at the statue is not a feeling of innovation and modernity, but a feeling of stagnation. If the visitor looks beyond the actual building and the royal statue and carefully examines the museum’s collections, exhibitions and ways of working, the picture becomes more complicated. Here you will find traits of both change and continuity over time. These two themes of change and continuity in certain parts of the Swedish museum sector will be further illuminated in this book. The general focus is on museums devoted to culture and history, and those museums explicitly devoted to migration and diversity.1 The overall question under scrutiny is how the Swedish museum sector of culture and history, which has traditionally contributed to national homogenization, has entered a new era characterized by globalization, migration and requests for recognition of cultural diversity. As migration and cultural diversity – central concepts in this study – have many different meanings, it is appropriate to already now say something about how they are used and defined in the contexts covered by the book. By migration I mean all kinds of international migration, or, more specifically, movement of people, such as labor immigration and refugee migration, across international borders and where migrants stay in the immigration country for at least one year (see for example King & Suter 2013 p. 30). When it comes to the concept of cultural diversity, the meanings are manifold.2 One way of defining cultural diversity is in the sense of ethnic diversity. However, cultural diversity can also have a broader scope that includes aspects such as gender, age, disability and sexual orientation (see for example Klein 2008 p. 156). In my examination of how Swedish museums work with aspects of migration and cultural diversity, I mainly focus on cultural diversity in the sense of ethnic diversity, in that I illuminate how migrants and domestic minorities are included in the museums’ work. I am also interested in how the museums have defined the concept of cultural diversity. Why Study Museums, Migration and Cultural Diversity?
Migration is an important reality in our contemporary world. Some researchers even claim that the period after the Second World War should be categorized as “The Age of Migration” (Castles & Miller 2009). In a way, this choice of words is unfortunate, because it reduces the importance of older migration movements. Nevertheless, there is certainly something special about post-war migration movements, not least when it comes to the amount of people on the move and their impact on societies. The issues of migration and cultural diversity have successively penetrated to the core of public debates in many European countries and societal institutions in for example the political, medial and educational sector have been forced to relate to and address these issues. This also applies to the cultural sector, of which museums constitute a vital part. The era in which we now live is quite different from that of the late 19th century, when the establishment of museums intensified. It is also evident that the museum sector’s interest in issues of migration and cultural diversity is growing (Goodnow 2008a; Baur 2009; Gouriévidis 2014). An indication of the museum sector’s increased interest in issues of migration is the installation of the UNESCO-IOM joint initiative on migration museums (UNESCO 2014).3 This growing interest is connected to the presumption that migration museums could be beneficial tools in the societal inclusion process. For example, they are assumed to raise awareness about migrants’ contributions to the host societies and about...

Über Autor(innen)

Christina Johansson is a senior lecturer in International Migration and Ethnic Relations at Malmö University and has for several years been affiliated to the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for European History and Public Spheres in Vienna. In addition to her studies of how museums address issues of migration and diversity, she has published extensively on the relations between state, nation, migration policy and the representation of migration. She is currently engaged in a research project concerning the collaboration between museums and schools to educate schoolchildren about diversity.