The co-production of difference? Exploring urban youths’ negotiations of identity in meeting with difficult heritage of human classification

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the capacity of museums to stimulate critical reflection and dialog on constructions of human difference, and thereby to serve as agents of social change. The study draws on material from focus groups with youths, aged 16–18, following their visit to the exhibition FOLK – from racial types to DNA sequences at the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology in Oslo. By juxtaposing past and present ideas and research on human biological variation, and its political and social ramifications, the exhibition aims to provoke consciousness and debate on strategies of establishing Us and Them. Discourse analysis demonstrates the negotiations involved in audience meaning-making, but also indicate the transforming potential of engagement with difficult heritage. The interactions and discussions between the visitors themselves emerge as an important ingredient in what constitute this potential. Museums are, however, in the position to become arenas for such deep discussion.

KEYWORDS:

• Audience research
• difficult heritage
• difference
• identity
• discourse

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Kaja Hannedatter Sontum is currently (2016–2019) a PhD candidate in archaeology at the Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History, University of Oslo (UiO). She graduated from UiO with an MA in archaeology and critical heritage studies in 2015. This work brought her to the University of Cambridge as an exchange student in 2014. She has participated in several archaeological excavations and heritage management projects, most recently at the Museum of Cultural History, UiO. Her doctoral research explores consequences of increasing global mobility and connectivity for constructions and uses of heritage in discourses of identity and belonging.

Notes

1 All names referenced in this paper are fictional and used to facilitate reading.

2 The original statement is: "En av de store spørsmålene hos et menneske er ‘hvem er jeg?’ En annen tanke som mennesker har er ‘hvem er du?’ Du har jo behov for å kategorisere deg selv og andre”. All translations from Norwegian in this article are by the author.

3 Such strategies have been initiated by the National Network for Minorities and Cultural Diversity (Nettverk for minoriteter og kulturelt mangfold). Initiatives also include Norwegian Parliament’s declaration of 2008 as the Year of Cultural Diversity (Mangfoldsåret), and the marking of the European Year of Cultural Heritage in 2018 with the slogan Typical Norwegian – not just Norwegian (Typisk norsk – ikke bare norsk).

4 Since the turn of the millennium, at least 12 million people worldwide have paid for DNA tests, hoping to uncover their own genetic secrets. Norwegians are among the most eager users (Christiansen, 2019).

5 According to Oslo City Statistics’ (2018), the “immigrant population” constitutes 33,1% of the city’s inhabitants. Over a quarter of these are “Norwegian-born to immigrant parents”. The immigrant population is over-represented in several East End city districts (Oslo City Statistics, 2018; Statistics Norway, 2015). Based on numbers form 2011, Terje Wessel (2017, p. 99) observes that especially one variable affects representation in the West End districts: level of education. Recent research also reveals economic and health related patterns of segregation (Elstad, 2017; Wiborg, 2017), and demonstrates a lingering orientation amongst East End residents towards the political left, and towards the political right in the West End (Bjørklund, 2017).

6 The reconstructions in the exhibition are developed by Face Lab at Liverpool John Moores University.

7 My family portrait (2013), directed by Yvonne Thomassen, and Suddenly Sami (2009), directed by Ellen-Astri Lundby. A compilation film is also displayed, with scenes from Tomorrow’s children (1934), directed by Crane Wilbur, and Surviving Eugenics (2015), directed by Jordan Miller, Nicola Fairbrother and Robert A. Wilson.