Kulturarvsförvaltningens samhällsuppdrag : en introduktion till kulturarvsförvaltningens teori och praktik

Abstract

Thesis for the degree of Licentiate of Philosophy, Göteborg University, Department of Archaeology, 1999. Written in Swedish, with an English summary. The aim of the thesis is to understand and discuss processes of heritage in society and to theorise the practices of the cultural heritage management sector from a number of different angles. The objective is to achieve a deeper and more informed understanding of the processes of heritage as well as the cultural heritage management sector’s societal agenda. Setting the framework for this thesis is the fact that different kinds of heritage issues and uses of history have become more and more politicised and potentially conflict-laden subjects in the world today. It is therefore important to develop a deepened and more critically informed understanding of the meaning and purpose of these processes. The empirical starting point is cultural heritage management in Sweden. The thesis aims at examining various perspectives of the cultural heritage management sector but takes most of its examples from the archaeological part of its management. With the concept ” processes of heritage”, I try to grasp the dynamic, complex processes through which individual and collective memory metaphorically transforms into cultural expressions of various kinds. These processes are understood by the author as cultural expressions of an open, general kind that take place in all parts and levels of society. The part of the process where memory is materialised into different kinds of material cultural expression is of particular interest. With the concept ”cultural heritage management”, I include all the different boards, organisations and institutions that are supposed to support and control heritage processes in society. Its role is to preserve, evaluate and select the collective memories of society. Following fields of discussion open up: - In what way is heritage a function of individual and collective memory, how and on what levels does it express itself ? How is this process to be understood, both as a general cultural expression, and as an extremely politicised process ? - How are the activities and the commissions of cultural heritage management to be understood from a societal point of view? What social and political role does cultural heritage management have for the development of society, both from a historical and a future orientated perspective?