Swedish Heritage

...

global reactions of the Nazi regime. It is worth noting however, that aside from the goals of conquest, Sweden ran a large movement of similar ideas. For a large part of the twentieth century, Sweden enacted many racist and cruel agendas towards people of allegedly inferior race or status.

After taking a closer look at the concept of negotiations of heritage and imagined communities, the second quote becomes much clearer. “The term heritage is not innocent” can refer to not only the horrific historical disasters that occurred as a side effect of heritage and nationalism, but also current and future issues that humanity may face. As noted by Frykman and Löfgren (1996: Page 18). “The customs that have survived best in the struggle for existence are those which are associated in various ways with personal and collective identities.” In order to keep evolving a improving our societal relationships, humanity must deliberate not only the happy and positive aspects of heritage, but also the issues that heritage poses. The naivety, blindness, and superiority complex of heritage are what prevent it from being innocent. The customs that we chose to collect in our museums have to be deliberately chosen to depict the entire picture of said customs or ideas. And once that entire picture is depicted, we must deliberate and analyze it. This process must be constant. (Klein 2006).

The concepts of the negotiations of heritage in museums, and the lack of innocence of the term itself provided an interesting analysis for both ethnologists and museums visitors alike. The consumption of all the information provided by museums often goes unquestioned and the intentions of the museum itself are almost always unknown. By questioning these things, one can learn even more about the museum, its history, and it reasoning. While the content of museums and the concept of heritage are perpetually changing, the process of questioning and examining should follow suit, as it is naivety that prevents humanity from progressing.

Literature Page

Anderson, Benedict 1996. Imagined Communities.Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism.

Klein, Barbro 2006. Cultural Heritage, the Swedish Folklife Sphere, and the Others. In Cultural Analysis 5

Frykman, Jonas & Orvar Löfgren 1996. The Study of Swedish customs and habits. In: Jonas Frykman and Orvar Löfgren

Bringeus, Nils-Arvid 1974. Artur Hazelius and the Nordic Museum. Ethnologia Scandinavica. A Journal for Nordic Ethnology Årgång