Open AccessMotion and flow in heritage institutions. Two cases of challenges from within
Author(s) -
Christine Hansen,
Ingrid Martins Holmberg
Publication year - 1970
Publication title -
nordisk museologi
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2002-0503
pISSN - 1103-8152
DOI - 10.5617/nm.3063
Subject(s) - subaltern , cultural heritage , institution , conversation , government (linguistics) , sociology , mythology , restitution , political science , cultural heritage management , aesthetics , history , media studies , social science , law , art , politics , linguistics , philosophy , communication , classics
Through two case studies, one in Australia and one in Sweden, this paper looks at how seemingly stable heritage institutions such as museums, archives and government repositories can be reformed through engagement with subaltern subjects. Highlighting institutional permeability rather than conservative resistance, we follow the movement of this “motion and flow” and how it in turn affects ideas of what constitutes both “heritage experts” and broader notions of “heritage”. Although these examples vary in scale, they nevertheless share the contemporary myths and misunderstandings around what happens when heritage institutions meet with subaltern peoples and the challenges they offer from within for the inner workings of the institution. In one case a radical inclusion has been achieved while the other has begun what is likely to be a long-term, complex, cultural conversation. Taken together, these institutional achievements may offer an alternative to recent critiques of official heritage institutions as merely inheritors of a nineteenth-century legacy.