Text and object: the bus shelter that became cultural heritage

Abstract

In order to meet the increasing critique of official heritage as elitist and hegemonic, several attempts have been made to become more inclusive, participatory and democratic. The Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage undertook an interesting and surprising move when they decided to grant 12 ‘everyday’ sites Special Protection Orders as a contribution to the Norwegian 2009 Cultural Year. An assumption is that such an approach could represent a particular challenge for heritage experts by broadening the perspective on what to include and exclude in their appraisals. This article examines how one of the chosen sites, an unusual bus shelter, was constructed as official heritage, by critically examining the narratives the heritage authorities produced to sustain their listing of this object. A central argument is that the Norwegian heritage authorities contributed to construct the bus shelter as ostensibly harmless by creating it as a symbol of a rather vague local past, while the object from the outset represents a potentially dangerous and ambiguous object containing lots of complex history. It discusses how the textual construction of the bus shelter’s relation to its locality, a small mining community, tends to bolster and reinforce the impression of a masculinist society and a dominant company, and thereby forecloses alternative visions, in contrast with the initial intentions of the everyday perspective on heritage.

Keywords:

• everyday heritage
• heritage authorities
• narratives
• mining town
• gender

Acknowledgements

This article has improved from the valuable suggestions from the editor and two anonymous referees who are warmly thanked!

Notes

1. All translations from the Norwegian by the author.

2. See http://www.kulturminneaaret.no; and, http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/sub/kulturminneaaret-2009.htlml?id=538671 for overviews.

3. For a complete list and presentation see ed. Risåsen (2010).

4. Nazi Germany occupied Norway between 1940 and 1945, and built up a stronghold in this region to carry out the attack on the Soviet Union. The region was heavily bombed as a consequence, and was liberated by the Soviet Army in the autumn of 1944 (more than half a year before the rest of the country). The Germans withdrew rapidly applying a scorched earth tactic, and forced the evacuation of the population, leaving nothing behind. The population in Bjørnevatn prepared for this, and for some months in 1944, several thousand people moved into one of the tunnels in the Bjørnevatn mine. These events, and the pictures of the Russian soldiers liberating the people in the tunnel, have become a national icon in Norway.

5. The geopolitical situation in the north, not least due to the resource issues, has been a major area of concern for the Norwegian Government. For the official version, see white papers NOU (2003:32) Mot Nord. Kirkenes is here created as the centre of this ‘new’ region.

6. A private citizen bought the mine and its extensive land holdings in 2006. He was most interested in the harbour facilities for developing shipping routes in the north and separated out those facilities for further development. He then established a new company, as a subsidiary of an Australian mining company, renovated the mine, and from 2009, production of iron ore was again set in motion, however with a substantial amount of fly-in-fly out workers.