Vårt svenska kulturarv : En diskursanalys av Sverigedemokraternas syn på kulturarvsbegreppet i relation till den hegemoniska kulturarvsdiskursen

Sammanfattning: The main purpose of this thesis is to gain insight to, and widened knowledge about, the contemporary nationalistic movement in Sweden, represented by the Sweden Democrats, and its’ relation to cultural heritage. The party has made cultural heritage the main focal of their culture politic, but the questions are what cultural heritage is to them, what content they read in to the concept, how they value heritage, what sort of heritage policies they want to pursue, and why. And also what sort of sources and expertise that are invoked by the party. The source material, consisting of transcripts from parliamentary debates, motions, and policy documents from the party’s web page, is processed through a discourse analytic method. An important theoretical starting point is that to define a term is to define the thing itself, and that this is an expression of power, especially when it comes to a parliamentary party. The second purpose is to problematize and discuss the concept of heritage on a meta level by comparing the results from the empirical study with earlier research that explores the hegemonic heritage discourse. The main findings are that the Sweden Democrats, like many of their peers around Europe, want to use cultural heritage to create unity and a common national identity – a mono culture to replace the multi cultural paradigm they mean is prevailing in the country (and ruining it). The party has an essentialist, even positivistic, view on the content of heritage, but they never really define it thoroughly. The study also shows that most of the party’s thoughts on heritage are in line with the hegemonic heritage discourse. Some have argued that the Sweden Democrats are abusing ”the heritage”, but I would rather say that they are using it, in a way that corresponds well with the concept “cultural heritage” as it has been defined by all those involved with it (i.e. journalists, writers, scholars, policy makers, museal personnel, and the public through public debate in the press). The example of this Swedish nationalistic party, shows what the cultural heritage concept of today can be when driven to its peak.