Online publication: https://pub.norden.org/temanord2020-514/ Abstract [en] Nordic national cultural history museums are linked with Arctic societies due to the shared heritage of substantial museum collections. We share concerns to re-vitalize, preserve and exchange knowledge on this heritage. Thanks to a grant from NMR’s The Nordic region and its neighbors to the west the National Museum (DK) in partnership with the Museum of Cultural History (NO) in 2017-19 successfully executed the project Arctic heritage in Nordic museums. Strengthening Arctic efforts in Nordic national museums. This volume presents recommendations within the project’s three major fields: 1) Intensified collaboration on digital strategies and heritage perspectives with Canadian Inuit organizations, 2) a comprehensive and critical analysis of digital databases of cultural institutions in the ABM sector, 3) the constitution of a feasible and sustainable Nordic Cross-Arctic Museum Network.
This collection follows anthropological perspectives on peoples (Canadian Inuit, Norwegian Sámi, Yupiit from Alaska, and Inuit from Greenland), places, and practices in the Circumpolar North from colonial times to our post-modern era. This volume brings together fresh perspectives on theoretical concepts, colonial/imperial descriptions, collaborative work of non-Indigenous and Indigenous researchers, as well as articles written by representatives of Indigenous cultures from an inside perspective. The scope of the book ranges from contributions based on unpublished primary sources, missionary journals, and fairly unknown early Indigenous sources and publications, to those based on more recent Indigenous testimonies and anthropological fieldwork, museum exhibitions, and (self)representations in the fields of fashion, marketing, and the arts. The aim of this volume is to explore the making of representations for and/or by Circumpolar North peoples. The authors follow what representations have been created in the past and in some cases continue to be created in the present, and the Indigenous employment of representations that has continuity with the past and also goes beyond "traditional" utilization. By studying these representations, we gain a better understanding of the dynamics of a society and its interaction with other cultures, notably in the context of the dominant culture’s efforts to assimilate Indigenous people and erase their story. People’s ideas about themselves and of "the Other" are never static, not even if they share the same cultural background. This is even more the case in the contact zone of the intercultural arena. Images of "the Other" vary according to time and place, and perceptions of "others" are continuously readjusted from both sides in intercultural encounters. This volume has been prepared by the Research Group Circumpolar Cultures (RGCC) which is based in the Netherlands. Its members conduct research on social and cultural change focusing on topics that are of interest to the Indigenous peoples of the Arctic. The RGCC builds on a long tradition in Arctic studies in the Netherlands (Nico Tinbergen, Geert van den Steenhoven, Gerti Nooter, and Jarich Oosten) and can rely on rich Arctic collections of artefacts and photographs in anthropological museums and extensive library collections. The expertise of the RGCC in Arctic studies is internationally acknowledged by academics as well as circumpolar peoples.
Scandinavia and its Arctic territories of Svalbard and Greenland represent geographical regions with a long history of Mesozoic palaeontology. However the last few decades have witnessed a surge of new discoveries, especially from the famous Triassic and Late Jurassic Lagerstätten of East Greenland and Spitsbergen in the Svalbard Archipelago, together with the Late Cretaceous strata of southern Sweden and UNESCO World Heritage locality at Stevns Klint in Denmark; the latter recording one of the most complete terminal Mesozoic rock successions known globally. Collectively, these deposits encompass the spectrum of Mesozoic biotic evolution from the explosive radiation of marine faunas after the Permian-Triassic extinction and seminal specialization of amniotes for life in the sea, to the Late Triassic–Jurassic domination of the land by dinosaurs and Cretaceous development of modern terrestrial floras and marine ecosystems. This volume authored by leading experts in the field encapsulates key aspects of the latest research, and will provide a benchmark reference for future investigations into the Scandinavian Mesozoic world.
This book is a pioneering effort in critical Arctic studies. The contributions identify and investigate some of the blind spots in human development in the Arctic that research in the social sciences had yet to broach. To this end, the authors tap a variety of critical approaches in fields spanning aesthetics, affect theory, biopolitics, critical geopolitics, Indigenous archaeology, intersectionality, legal anthropology, moral economy, narrative studies, neoliberal governmentality, queer studies and socio-legal studies. The chapters probe topics such as representations of the Arctic in contemporary art, the role of affects in postcolonial Greenland, Canada’s Arctic policies and China’s engagement with the Arctic. The book provides a rich knowledge base for researchers in Arctic social sciences and offers an absorbing textbook for students interested in Arctic issues.
The performance of heritage takes place in prestigious institutions such as museums and archives, in officially sanctioned spaces such as jubilees and public monuments, but also in more mundane, ephemeral and banal cultural practices, such as naming of phenomena, viewing exhibitions or walking in the countryside. This volume examines the performance of Nordic heritage and the shaping of the very idea of Norden in diverse contexts in North America, the Baltic and the Nordic countries and examines the importance of these places as sites for creating and preserving cultural heritage. Offering rich perspectives on a part of Europe which has not been the centre of discussion in the Anglophone world, this volume will be of value to a wide readership, including cultural historians, museum practitioners, policy-makers and scholars of heritage, ethnology and folkloristics.
The story of the Vikings in North America as both fact and fiction, from the westward expansion of the Norse across the North Atlantic in the tenth and eleventh centuries to the myths and fabrications about their presence there that have developed in recent centuries. Tracking the saga of the Norse across the North Atlantic to America, Norse America sets the record straight about the idea that the Vikings 'discovered' America. The journey described is a continuum, with evidence-based history and archaeology at one end, and fake history and outright fraud at the other. In between there lies a huge expanse of uncertainty: sagas that may contain shards of truth, characters that may be partly historical, real archaeology that may be interpreted through the fictions of saga, and fragmentary evidence open to responsible and irresponsible interpretation. Norse America is a book that tells two stories. The first is the westward expansion of the Norse across the North Atlantic in the tenth and eleventh centuries, settling in Greenland and establishing a shore station at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland (to which a chapter of the book is devoted) and ending (but not culminating) in a fleeting and ill-documented presence on the shores of the North American mainland. The second is the appropriation and enhancement of the westward narrative by Canadians and Americans who want America to have had white North European origins, who therefore want the Vikings to have 'discovered' America, and who in the advancement of that thesis have been willing to twist and manufacture evidence in support of claims grounded in an ideology of racial superiority.
Library and Information Studies for Arctic Social Sciences and Humanities serves as a key interdisciplinary title that links the social sciences and humanities with current issues, trends, and projects in library, archival, and information sciences within shared Arctic frameworks and geographies. Including contributions from professionals and academics working across and on the Arctic, the book presents recent research, theoretical inquiry, and applied professional endeavours at academic and public libraries, as well as archives, museums, government institutions, and other organisations. Focusing on efforts that further Arctic knowledge and research, papers present local, regional, and institutional case studies to conceptually and empirically describe real-life research in which the authors are engaged. Topics covered include the complexities of developing and managing multilingual resources; working in geographically isolated areas; curating combinations of local, regional, national, and international content collections; and understanding historical and contemporary colonial-industrial influences in indigenous knowledge. Library and Information Studies for Arctic Social Sciences and Humanities will be essential reading for academics, researchers, and students working the fields of library, archival, and information or data science, as well as those working in the humanities and social sciences more generally. It should also be of great interest to librarians, archivists, curators, and information or data professionals around the globe.
