Conference article

This paper outlines the background of a project including three national museums in Stockholm: the Nordiska Museet; the National Historical Museum (Historiska Museet); and the Museum of Ethnography (Etnografiska Museet). My part of the project covers museum artefacts related to the Sami; an indigenous people. Most of these artefacts are counted as cultural historical; but there are also human remains. The aim of my study is to investigate how these collections have been acquired; named; classified; displayed; and moved between the museums; thereby defining the Sami as a part of Us or the Other. One theoretical starting point is that the artefacts have become significant actors in networks; constituted by museums; scholars; and the Sami; and that museum collections are today a strong sociomaterial force in the current global indigenous discourse. A later point of departure will be based on how the artefacts’ biographies and trajectories can be used to analyse social systems of value; power; and aesthetics.

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