Att berätta historia : En studie om museers verksamhet

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this essay is to look at how museums design their activities as tourist destinations through the dissemination of history. In order to research this problem we have posed the following questions: How do museums act in order to animate and interpret history? What does the future hold for the museums? In order to find the answers to these questions we have made a deep-going analysis of the activities of four museums, Nordiska Museet, Etnografiska Museet, Historiska Museet and Naturhistoriska Museet. These museums have been analyzed by means of interviews, observations and the study of documents. Our theoretical perspective is informed by a hermeneutic perspective as well as Foucault´s definition of museums as institutions, and the concept of storytelling. Our conclusions are as follows: Museums have progressed from an Enlightenment ideal to a more post-modern approach, which means that they want to activate the visitors and make them reflect and form their own opinion by presenting different versions of the past that will stimulate imagination. Our belief is that this trend will continue and the museums will become even more oriented towards creative tourism at the same time as they will protect their position as vehicles and creators of knowledge and guardians of the Swedish cultural heritage. Unfortunately a growing centralization of the field is working in the direction of limiting the range of offers and restricting the museums´ potential to offer different versions of the past.