The centre of the world: The material construction of Eurocentric domination and hybridity in a Scandinavian 17th-century context

Abstract

The New World was present in material representations in the 17th-century castle of Skokloster, Sweden, in contrast to the concepts of history and centrality that were used in the construction of a locality of power in a European colonial society. Material displays, architecture and art visually constructed the New World as an integral, yet inferior, part of the Old World. The commodification of the material culture of the North American Indian reproduced the dominion of the colonial powers but at the same time included the New World in the old. Parallel to this process was the integration of history on the estate. Architecture, the construction of landscape and material culture became an arena for the display of a new, hybrid global culture, signifying the advent of modernity. Although juxtaposed in their display, the New and Old Worlds mingled and created a world of hybridity expressed and executed in the castle and estate of Skokloster.