World culture, world history, and the roles of a museum: a conceptual study of the Swedish museums of world culture, debates concerning them, and their roles in cultural politics

ABSTRACT

The Museum of World Culture opened in 2004, partially in response to the increased immigration of the 1990s. This article analyses the political process leading to the establishment of the museum, and of the government agency that administers it and three other museums. It also analyses one of its permanent exhibitions, and the recent examples of public criticism of the museum, and of the government agency. Using conceptual history and analysis of historical periodization to analyze understandings of culture, history, and the role of museums, I argue that the museum represents a museum-idea focused on current issues, understanding history in terms of flows and encounters, in contrast to a museum-idea focusing on particular cultures and historical contexts and on understanding these as distinctly separate and context-dependent. Debate about the museum has become intertwined with the debate about the history, and nature, of the Swedish nation, making the museum both, a symbol of, and an actor in, the ongoing debate about Swedish national self-identity. The museum can thus be understood as a national museum, in the sense that it institutionalizes a version of national self-identity, and acts as a focus for debates about it.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural diversity
• world culture
• world history
• museum
• cultural heritage

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this article was presented at The 9th Nordic Conference on Cultural Policy Research (NCCPR) at Bifröst University in Iceland, 28–30 of August 2019. I would like to thank all of those who participated in discussing it there for their comments, as well as Veronika Possek, for editing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Quotes from sources in Swedish have been translated by the author of this article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tobias Harding

Tobias Harding is a Professor of Cultural Policy at University of South-Eastern Norway. He holds the title of Docent in Cultural Policy at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, and a PhD in Culture Studies from Linköping University, Sweden. His research interests includes heritage policy, religious heritage, civil society, and the institutionalization of values, identities, and narratives in cultural policy.