• Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage
• 2018-2022close
• SE close
• Publikationer från Uppsala Universitet close
• Publikationer från Umeå universitet close

A major attraction in Arctic tourism is the presence of indigenous cultures. However, many tourists have only limited opportunities to access indigenous culture and sites, as long as they are not spatially and temporally fixed. This puts museums at the center of attention and gives them a core role in portraying and interpreting indigenous heritage. A dual role with the responsibility to collect, preserve, use, and develop heritage while at the same time appealing to various visitor groups is challenging, not least in a time of Arctification, luring new visitor groups with various touristic imaginaries to the North. This article reports on an assessment of two indigenous museums in Arctic Sweden. The research reveals that the responsible managers at the museums are aware of the dual role of museums, and need to navigate in a complex environment of local and global expectations based on preconceived notions. The museums are important nodes, and contribute to place-making in peripheral localities in the North.

This article explains differences between historiographical accounts by comparing the working process of contemporary historians to the art of mosaic. The metaphor is cast in a postmodern – particularly constructivist – light. The nature of historians’ object of study (historical reality), of source materials, and of historians’ aim to create meaning are considered essential factors in leading to differentiation in historiography. Six elements are distinguished in the mosaic metaphor: (1) the raw materials, (2) the mosaic tiles, (3) the glue which holds these tiles together and bridges the spaces between them, (4) the flow and direction of tiles as they are arranged, (5) larger constellations into which tiles are organised, and (6) the mosaic. The former three help explain the process of interpreting sources through the creation of inferences, or the process of contextualization. The latter three explore associative creative reasoning, individuality, and the link between them as inducing historiographical differentiation. Genom att likna den samtida historikerns arbete med läggandet av en mosaik diskuterar denna artikel uppkomsten av skilda historiska berättelser. Mosaikmetaforen utgår från en postmodern – särskilt konstruktivistisk – synvinkel. Artikeln lyfter fram tre betydelsefulla faktorer som leder till skillnader i historieskrivningen; växelspelet mellan historikerns studieobjekt (historisk verklighet), tillgängligt källmaterial och historikerns strävan att skapa mening. Sex delar urskiljs i mosaikmetaforen: (1) råvarorna, (2) mosaikplattorna, (3) fogmassan som håller samman plattorna och fyller ut utrymmena mellan dem, (4) ordnandet av plattornas förhållande och riktning, (5) större konstellationer som plattorna är organiserade i, och (6) mosaiken som helhet. De tre förstnämnda hjälper till att förklara processen att tolka källor genom skapandet av slutledningar och sammanhang. De tre sistnämnda utforskar associativt skapande resonemang, särprägel och kopplingen mellan dem som ger upphov till skilda historiska berättelser.

When a social problem is educationalised, i.e. formulated as a responsibility for educational institutions, knowledge becomes a solution for societal ills. This article examines the history of traffic education in Swedish elementary schools as a particular form of knowledge. Focusing on the three first decades of traffic education, the ambition is to delve deeper into the issue of what constituted traffic knowledge during a period of mass motorisation. In teaching about traffic, what were the main things that had to be conveyed? What were the main challenges in teaching the essentials of traffic, and what techniques were used to make traffic possible to understand for an audience of children? Drawing on handbooks for teachers and textbooks in traffic education, the article discusses five forms of knowledge that were used in traffic education: knowledge about risk, juridical knowledge, visual knowledge, moral knowledge, and practical knowledge.

This article examines history mediation and the relationship between education and academia. The aim is to investigate historical representations of the Christianisation in Sweden from 1915 to 1996, by doing a comparative analysis of the content in research publications and history textbooks for upper secondary school (or the equivalent). The research field and the textbooks are perceived as two different knowledge arenas. The analysis shows how the two arenas are more harmonious and consistent in their representations of Christianisation during the early twentieth century. In the mid-twentieth century, the arenas deviated from each other for an extended period, before finally becoming more unitary again by the end of the century. The impact of the schools’ steering documents, as well as the distinctiveness of the two arenas, seems to constitute the conditions for inconsistencies between them at different times. The analysis also suggests that the educational applicability of the knowledge content in contemporary research, likewise impacts the relationship between the two arenas.

This article examines the import of Western pedagogic knowledge, knowledge about the theory and principles of education and teaching, in India from its very first formulations in Bengal in the 1840s until its inclusion at the University of Madras in 1882. The article follows the early trajectory of British pedagogical knowledge in the colonial setting, its associated knowledge practices related to its institutionalization in teachers’ education institutions and the main contents related to it. The research is based on a wide range of documents about colonial educational policy, particularly related to lectures in education and teaching, and a sample of early manuals of education and teaching. This article shows that, although not fully accepted as a relevant form of knowledge in Britain at the time, colonial educators introduced pedagogic knowledge as a manner of transforming inherited educational practices in India. In this process, colonial officials, missionaries, and upper-caste native authors authored manuals and embodied this kind of knowledge, in what can be interpreted as a de-subalternization of the knowledge of education in the colonial setting.

In 1978, Sweden’s oldest women’s organisation, the Fredrika Bremer Association (FBF), organised an event on women and technology. This was the first event of its kind in Sweden and it was met with great interest. Consequently, it became a recurring annual event until the late 1990s. At a time when the computerisation of society precipitated a response from the Swedish state, labour market parties and civil society, the FBF became an authority in the area of technology and gender equality. Framed within the field of history of knowledge, this article claims that the FBF sought to redefine the concept of technology to include what they considered to be female features. They circulated this new definition in the school system and among the broader society. The FBF has been overlooked as a relevant actor in the circulation of technology knowledge, even though it played a significant role in the discussion of women and computer technology in Sweden from the late 1970s to the late 1990s.

Denmark underwent major changes in the 1800s and the first part of the 1900s, which affected the role of education in the lives of women. Until then, women in Denmark had primarily worked as homemakers with few academic opportunities; but from the early 1900s, home economics developed as a field of knowledge, and several schools of home economics appeared across the country. Several factors contributed to and influenced this development. Focusing on the period 1890–1940, which was particularly important to the development of this knowledge field in Denmark, we consider the interests promoting the growth of this field of knowledge, its educational content, and the contradictory meaning it had for the social status of women. On the one hand, the development of home economics contributed to turning home duties into an educational and occupational area, preparing for a welfare state making the private sphere a public matter. On the other hand, it tied women to the private sphere and prevented their influence in the public sphere.

Collecting and producing mass data has offered an appealing way to condense educational phenomena. However, thus far, little attention has been given to the seemingly insignificant preprinted forms that represent the basis for compiling and aggregating data. Taking inspiration from science and technology studies and the ensuing development of so-called paper technologies, this article highlights the potential of small forms in education that were used to record, evaluate, and aggregate data for educational statistics. By suggesting a multi-level methodological approach that we frame as 3D hermeneutics, we seek to contribute a methodological proposal on how to analyse these materials and showcase what lies beneath – or what comes before – the knowledge produced by educational statistics. These analyses draw on pre-printed forms collected by the Prussian educational administration at the turn of the nineteenth century, and re-trace the contexts they were embedded in, examine their materiality, and reconstruct their usage.