Museisamlingarnas sociomateriella dynamik

Abstract

“The sociomaterial dynamics of museum collections” is an overarching research idea connecting three separate projects, with the aim of creating new knowledge about the roles of collections and collecting in the shaping of culture and society. The program includes three Swedish national museums that have been decisive in defining Sweden, Swedishness and the surrounding world – the Nordiska Museet (Swedish cultural history) the National Historical Museum (history, archaeology) and the Museum of Ethnography (the third/fourth world). In one study each, two ethnologists and one archaeologist will focus on objects and issues that have in some way been pointed out as problematic but which also seem to have a strong ability to define identity, social relations and create both conflict and reconciliation: collections from indigenous peoples, human remains and repatriation. The program includes three separate and ongoing projects, financed by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond and The Swedish Research Council. The projects are connected by a shared interest in the dynamic interplay between material practices and social processes of change. This will be analyzed with an emphasis on turning points in collecting, classification, display and storage, such as the relocation of objects between and from the museums mentioned.