Gjenstander og meninger i det post-koloniale museet. Kontaktsoner og autoetnografi

• Published in: Nordisk Museologi
• Main Author: Johansen, Eva D.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Norwegian
• Published: University of Oslo Library 2016
• Subjects: museum; colonialism; heritage; diversity; collaboration; contact zones; reflexivity; Alta; Clifford; Norway; Finnmark
• Online Access: https://journals.uio.no/museolog/article/view/3100; https://doi.org/10.5617/nm.3100

James Clifford has proposed looking at museums as contact zones, where different knowledge systems meet. In a collaborative project between Alta Museum and Alta Secondary School in Finnmark, Norway, the museum made an attempt to open up the power relationship between the museum and students and families by giving space in the exhibitions to “private” objects and stories from everyday life. In this article, I discuss the opportunities and constraints associated with opening up the museum’s methodology for the objects and meanings that “the others” have considered worthy of preservation. I argue that the changing structures of museum practice may lead to new reflections on history and heritage in a museum context, and to the democratization of public cultural heritage production.