Introduction to thematic issue of Bebyggelsehistorisk tidskrift, identifying trends.
Why do people decide to leave everything behind to find work in harsh Arctic environments? This is an important question, if we want to explain the development of industry in the Polar Regions. In this presentation we will try to answer it, by analyzing the stories of employees in the Spitsbergen mining industry in the early 20th century.
The late 19th and early 20th centuries experienced the culmination of an exceptional hero cult surrounding polar scientists and explorers. Far less celebrated, but probably no less important, were the numerous mining workers and engineers present and active in industrial enterprises in the High Arctic at about the same period. While the motives and driving forces of polar scientists and explorers have been relatively carefully examined, very little attention has been paid to these, less glamorous, people and their choice to earn a living in an Arctic industrial community.
By examining a unique material of written accounts, diaries, newspaper articles and images from the Swedish coal mining establishment of Sveagruvan (the Svea Mine) on Spitsbergen, in production during the first two decades of the 20th century, we will analyze the narratives of workers, foremen and managers, men and women, expressing their views of the time they spent on Spitsbergen. The material will be discussed from four identity creating perspectives: gender, nationality, class and profession. How did individuals in different positions narrate their life and work at the Svea Mine? What was the source of inspiration for those narratives? To what extent were they inspired by the established heroic picture of the Arctic scientists and explorers? What does this tell us about the motives for working in the High Arctic?
This article compares the histories of two museums of polar exploration, both founded in the 1930s but based on well-known expeditions dating back to the decades around 1900. The first is the Fram Museum in Oslo, centered around the famous Norwegian polar ship, the second is the Andrée Museum in Gränna, com-bining accounts of the ill-fated balloon expedition with a polar centre reflecting more recent polar research activities.
The aim of the article is to analyze the relationship between museum and narrative. Museums are shapers of narrative but at the same time shaped by the narratives they relate. The article explores the symbolic and medialized dimensions of polar research, expressed in museums, as well as the way in which museums in-terrelate with national identities and selfimages.
What does it mean to be a modern polar nation? And how is such an identity expressed in cultural terms? In which ways can museum institutions and exhibi-tions be used as means for such expressions? And how do “the grand narratives” of Sweden and Norway relate to the epic representations of polar activities, presented by the museums?
This paper compares the histories of two museums of polar exploration, both founded in the 1930s but based on well-known expeditions dating back to the decades around 1900. The first is the Fram Museum in Oslo, centered on the famous Norwegian polar ship; the second is the Andrée Museum in Gränna, Sweden, combining accounts of the ill-fated balloon expedition with a polar centre reflecting more recent polar research activities.
It can be argued that these institutions originally were firmly rooted in notions of polar exploration that in important aspects stand in contrast to the altruistic, transnational rhetoric of the IPY’s. The conflicting images of the arctic explorer as either the heroic champion of his mother country or the scientific collaborator in common, international pursuit of progress, remains a central issue for museums of polar exploration in their efforts to display “the modern arctic nation”. As society, culture and science changes, so do museums. Their attempts to represent both the past and the present of polar research involve changing and often conflicting notions of nation, gender and modern science.
Highlighting the narrative aspect of museum collection and display, the paper combines Mieke Bals theories of narratology with recent research on Arctic exploration as a medialized enterprise, aimed at a public audience.
How do "the grand narratives" of Sweden and Norway relate to the epic representations of polar activities and IPY activities, presented by the museums?
Arbete pågår ständigt, någonstans, i någon form. I ett historiskt perspektiv har synen på arbete förändrats och så även de sammanhang där människor är verksamma. Ändå finns starkt rotade bilder av vad arbete är – i tankens mönster och kroppens miljöer. Boken tar sin utgångspunkt i idén om att arbete både är något immateriellt och materiellt, arbete som föreställning och kulturell norm men också något ytterst påtagligt och konkret. Forskare från ett antal olika vetenskapsområden har här samlat sig kring dessa frågor. Tanken har varit att vrida och vända på begreppen om vad arbete är och med utgångspunkt i den egna disciplinen bidra med nya perspektiv på ämnet.