Ett skyddsrum för kulturarvet? : En komparativ undersökning av Riksarkivets och Rigsarkivets krisberedskap

Sammanfattning: This master’s thesis aims to investigate how crisis preparedness is conducted in the Swedish and Danish archive sector and specifically the national archives in Sweden and Denmark. The research questions asked are: 1. Which crisis consciousness do the Swedish and Danish national archives have? 2. In which way does the formal frameworks control and affect crisis preparedness in Sweden and Denmark? 3. How is crisis consciousness traded in a practical crisis preparedness in the two national archives? Two organizations were interviewed in this study: the national archives in Sweden and in Denmark. I am interested in how the national archives plan for potential social crisis, natural disasters, or armed conflicts. Do they have the means necessary to protect their collections and thus a part of the cultural heritage in Sweden and Denmark? The theoretic frameworks applied to the research material are critical discourse analysis. The discourse in focus in this master thesis is the discourse of crisis preparedness and how the discourse has transformed and developed concerning the crisis consciousness in the national archives in Sweden and Denmark. The results of this study show that it is mandatory by law in Sweden to have an evacuation plan but currently the Swedish national archive does not have one, but work on one is in progress. The Danish national archive has an evacuation plan, but due to secrecy, they cannot say anything about it. Crisis consciousness is an important and current event in the archives, due to the world mode: the war in Ukraine, natural disasters, and social crisis like the Covid-pandemic. The Danish national archive cannot share which collections they choose to save in an emergency crisis due to secrecy. Collections of legal certainty is something that is important to save according to the Swedish national archive. It is important to have a crisis plan before something happens, and not when it happens, then it can be too late to save the cultural heritage in the archives. Crisis preparedness is a collective business, everyone must give a hand. The findings of this study are important since it show how the world mode affects the crisis preparedness of the national archives in Sweden and Denmark. It shows that there is important that the formal frameworks support crisis preparedness and that there is economical means to be able to have the right methods to save the cultural heritage in the national archives.