Powwow, fra revitalisering til museumsudstilling

Sammanfattning: Powwow is a gathering of North America`s native people. North American native people meet to dance, sing, socialize and honor Native American culture. The thesis seeks to understand why the North American natives uses powwow as a way of manifesting their identity and cultural affiliation. The thesis also seeks to understand how the North American natives and the powwow movement is represented at the Danish National museum. This thesis is based on participant observation done at the National museum in Copenhagen. The thesis uses the powwow exhibition and the ethnographic collection at the museum as a case in the investigation of the powwow movement and the exhibition itself as a symbolic and cultural way of representing the self and other. Furthermore, I have set the thesis in a theoretical perspective and highlighted some key theoretical concepts from a number of different theorists. These concepts continue and are brought into play in my analysis. The thesis conclude that the powwow exhibition humanized the unfamiliar and used objects like Native American scalps as a symbolic force of contrasting the cultural difference between ourselves and the North American Indians. The thesis also conclude that the North American Indians uses powwow as a way of renewing their own culture, enhancing their identity and understanding themselves to the other, which is the American mainstream society.