Et nationalmusealt dilemma: inkluderende formidling af kulturel diversitet: en kontekstuel intentions- og indholdsanalyse af Nationalmuseets permanente udstilling Danmarkshistorier 1660-2000

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is from an integration perspective to examine the intentions of the Danish National Museum in presenting Denmark as a multicultural society in the current exhibition Danmarkshistorier 1660-2000. We examine the purpose of the exhibition based on a contextual approach taking into account theoretical perspectives of cultural heritage-strategies, the concept of integration, culture, multiculturalisms, the learning processes accommodation and assimilation, intercultural pedagogy and finally the object-oriented and concept-oriented exhibition types. In the first part of the analysis we discover how the National Museum draws on a remembrancepolitical message designed to repudiate negative understandings of immigration, integration and cultural diversity. We interpret that the National Museum acknowledges Denmark as a multicultural society. From a complex cultural understanding it is their intention to let the remembrance-political message generate new and positive understandings of integration, immigration and multiculturalism, by creating a space for learning, which can promote pluralistic integration. In the analysis of the exhibition we find that the intentions of the National Museum are only partially implemented. Ethnic minorities are included in the Danish history, and the exhibition facilitates possibilities of identification and mutual learning by historicising migration, the construction of the national state and cultural diversity, which can promote pluralistic integration. However, the possibilities of promoting a remembrance-political message are hampered by an implicit dissemination, which may seem exclusionary and confirm negative prejudices. The main reason is that by an implicit dissemination, it is difficult to disrupt already established knowledge structures and the choice of theoretical basis for the exhibition; the state and life forms analysis. This draws on a static culture, which makes it impossible for the National Museum to fully convey the complexity of society and cultural diversity, and thus generate positive understandings of immigration, integration and Denmark as multicultural. In the end this reduces the exhibition’s integrating potential. We recognise the National Museum’s situation; i.e. the difficulties and dilemmas associated with being a national museum which is simultaneously establishing and consolidating the national state and the dissemination of a new social order. We recommend the museum draw inspiration from intercultural pedagogy. Through an intercultural communication, the National Museum can officiate as a democratic educational institution and as a positive agent in the integration processes by 121 offering learning opportunities that are conducive to the individual’s ability to function as a democratic citizen in a multicultural society.