Purpose - This thesis investigates how London art museums work to deconstruct heteronormative filters. The aim is to study how museums relate to LGBTQ content, and the influence of internal power structures. I have chosen to focus on the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Wallace Collection, and the British Museum.  Method - To answer my questions, I interview eight individuals who work with LGBTQ content in museums. I am also doing some activity-based observations during several LGBT History month events. Analysis - The qualitative data collected through interviews and observations will be analyzed and presented in case studies. I apply an intersectional perspective, and a critical theoretical method, encompassing queer theory. Findings - The findings show that museums are slowly incorporating more LGBTQ content and perspectives. This may be due to changing social norms as well as a conscious effort to address various target audiences to diversify visitor demographics. The current focus is on visibility. Ideally, this will encourage updating terminol- ogy in databases and galleries, staff training, policies explicitly supporting LGBTQ content and LGBTQ staff, increased online presence, publications, and community co-creation, to name some aspects. Museums still think of LGBTQ interpretation as optional. People often work with these efforts in their spare time. Increasingly, the legacy of these events is being evaluated, as well as how museum terminology can become more inclusive. There are no coordinated efforts shared by the museums, but they often look to each other for inspiration.  Originality/value - Previous research on LGBTQ museum projects has not evaluated their legacy. There hasn't been any particular focus on LGBTQ perspectives in art museums. I am taking into account aspects of gender and queer theory, discussing the act of labelling as a means to exercise power through language. Paper type - Two years master's thesis in Archive, Library and Museum studies. / Syfte - Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka och jämföra de insatser som tre konstmuseum i London, Stor- britannien, gör för att dekonstruera heteronormativa filter. Målet är att observera hur olika museum jobbar med HBTQ som tema och innehåll. Jag studerar vem det är som initierar normkritiska projekt på museerna, samt de maktstrukturer som projekten anpassar sig efter. Metod - Jag intervjuar åtta individer som på olika sätt jobbar med HBTQ på museum. Därtill företar jag mig ett antal aktivitetsbaserade observationer. Analys - De kvalitativa data som insamlats genom intervjuer och observationer analyseras utifrån ett intersek- tionellt perspektiv. Teori och metod inspireras även av kritisk kulturteori samt queerteori. Resultat - Resultaten visar bland annat att samhälleliga förändringar och besökarfokus öppnar upp för HBTQ- teman på museer. Synlighet ligger för närvarande i fokus. Detta kan utvecklas till arbete med t.ex. normkritisk personalutbildning, uppdaterade museipolicydokument som inkluderar HBTQ-fokus och skyddar HBTQ- personal, mer inklusiva etiketter och databaser, samt medskapande i dialog med olika sociokulturella grupper.  Värde - Tidigare forskning fokuserar på teoretiska utgångspunkter, och har sällan utvärderat existerande HBTQ- museumprojekt. Konstmuseum och HBTQ har inte heller specifikt utvärderats utifrån ett normkri- tiskt/intersektionellt perspektiv som involverar kritisk teori och queerteoretiska aspekter. Typ av uppsats - Tvåårig masteruppsats inom Arkiv-, biblioteks-, samt musei- och kulturarvsvetenskap.

The aim with this study is to shed light on the relationship between ideals and practises at the National Museum of Finland (the NMF) and at the Swedish History Museum (the SHM). The focus is on the museums’ role in society regarding integration and cultural diversity. In order to fulfil this aim, I have studied the two museums’ pedagogical programmes for immigrants learning Finnish or Swedish. Through an ethnographic field study (including interviews and observations) and text analysis, I have studied ideals and practices connected to these programmes. My hypothesis is that intercultural dialogue opens up for museums to combine aims concerning cultural diversity with aims of supporting integration. My study shows that there is a problematic relationship between cultural diversity and integration within the ideals and practices at the two museums. At the SHM, the staff’s aims of supporting integration as a mutual process are contradictory to that they are toning down the importance of mutual learning to the programme. At the NMF, the approach to communication within ideals and practices and the shortage of dialogue within the programme makes it difficult to fulfil the aim of representing a diverse society. At both museums, intercultural dialogue is seen as something very positive when it occurs at the learning sessions. It is, however, rather seen as a bonus than as an aim within today’s versions of the pedagogical programmes. This master thesis is written within a two years master programme in Archive, Library and Museum Studies. / Syftet med denna uppsats är att belysa relationen mellan ideal och praktik på Nationalmuseum i Finland och på Historiska museet i Sverige. Fokus ligger på museernas roll i samhället gällande integration och kulturell mångfald. För att uppfylla detta syfte har jag studerat dessa två museers pedagogiska program för invandrare som lär sig finska eller svenska. Genom att genomföra en etnografisk fältstudie med intervjuer och observationer samt textanalys har jag undersökt ideal och praktik kopplade till dessa program. Min tes är att interkulturell dialog öppnar upp för museer att kombinera mål kopplade till kulturell mångfald med mål att stödja integration. Min studie visar på en problematisk relation mellan kulturell mångfald och integration inom ideal och praktik på de två museerna. På Historiska museet motsägs personalens syfte att stödja integration som en ömsesidig process av att de tonar ned betydelsen av ömsesidigt lärande för det pedagogiska programmet. På Nationalmuseum gör synen på kommunikation inom ideal och praktik samt bristen på dialog inom programmet att det blir svårt att uppfylla syftet att representera ett mångkulturellt samhälle. På båda museerna ses interkulturell dialog som något mycket positivt när det sker inom de pedagogiska programmen. I dagens versioner av de pedagogiska programmen ses det dock snarare som en bonus än som ett syfte i sig.

Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 139-150). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

This thesis presents three main arguments. First, that curating in national museums is a process of meaning making and that the exhibitionary meaning is situated in and mediated by culture, thus, the products of curatorial work, i.e. the exhibitionary complexes are complex political and cultural constructions. Second, that the exhibitionary complexes final visual outcome, i.e. the exhibitionary complexes images and texts result in the presentation of mythological constructs of Byzantium as the only truth to their audiences. Third, that what is finally communicated through the presentation of mythological constructs of Byzantium is national identity and dominant cultural values. The latter is effected through the representation of the Byzantine Empire as part of the identity of the dominant cultural group of the country to which each national museum belongs. National identity is communicated through the exhibitionary complexes, either by suggesting historical continuity of the contemporary national identity of a country s dominant cultural group through Byzantium, as in the case of the Greek national museums, or by undermining the very idea that Byzantine history, European history and British history are so very different, as in the case of the British Museum. Both interpretations are culturally constructed realities . The above approaches are explained through the investigation of exhibitionary meaning around Byzantium, by identifying and analysing the nature and cultural functions of the presuppositions that are involved in each museum s curatorial practices. These presuppositions are the cultural ideas, values and beliefs of the involved dominant cultural groups on Byzantium and on their own identity. My identification and analysis of these presuppositions includes research on the historical, political and cultural context of each museum, the culturally accepted history and art history literature of each country on Byzantium, as well as research on museum archives. By explaining and using the curatorial concepts of democratisation and demystification , adopted and adapted to the practices of the museums under study, and by analysing the British and Greek interpretations of Byzantium, which make themselves apparent in the images and texts of the British and Greek exhibitionary complexes , I provide a cultural account of the making of exhibitionary meaning, explaining contemporary perceptions of Byzantium, its use in identity making and its relation to national politics. By doing this, I also explain the implications of those presuppositions to the making of exhibitionary meaning, and I provide an explanation of how and why the power system of the exhibitionary complex is still in play although we are shifting into the era of the Democratic museum (Fleming, 2008). The concluding remarks of the thesis include suggestions for the further development of the curatorial practices of democratisation and demystification.

Magister Artium - MA / The study through the topic: An investigation of Zimbabwe's contemporary heritage practices of memorializing war: A case study of the Heroes' Acres in Matabeleland South Province focuses on post liberation war memorialisation and management in the post-colonial state of Zimbabwe. It analyses the emergence and management of war memorials and shrines in the form of heroes' acres, in the province of Matabeleland South in Zimbabwe from 1988 to 2010. Zimbabwe attained independence in 1980 after a long protracted war waged by two guerrilla movements against the unilaterally declared independent state of Rhodesia led by Ian Smith. Post-1980, ZANU (PF) became the dominant political party in the new state now renamed Zimbabwe. A national memorialisation structure was established soon after independence; charged with ensuring a befitting memorialisation of the war of liberation. Post-independence political contradictions between the parties notwithstanding, the results of the 1980 election showed an ethnicized landscape, a trajectory that has been at the centre of the national political discourse. Political disturbances in the Matabeleland and Midlands provinces became one of the most important and interesting historical issues that unsettled the nation in respect of memorialisation. Against this background, this research proposes to assess how political actors contributed to the issue of memorializing a war in post-1980 Zimbabwe. Using the central question which arose from a critique of Zimbabwe's memorialisation structure as a graded one, in which the local site subordinates the national, the research aims to examine whether the shifts in the political and management spheres of the heroes acres as represented by the inclusive government currently governing the country and the transferring of management duties of heroes acres to the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe, has managed to challenge the claim made above. By embarking on this work, the research aims to examine whether the local memorial sites actually act as mere subordinates in a deliberate graded structure to the national shrine represented by the National Heroes' Acre in Harare, within the politics of memorialisation.

The re-curated Canadian History Hall (CHH) opened at the Canadian Museum of History (CMH) in Gatineau, Québec, on July 1st, 2017, becoming the first Canadian national narrative to exhibit the history, experiences, and aftermath of Canada’s genocidal Indian Residential School (IRS) system. Through interviews and participant observation, this case study considers experiences of CHH curatorial engagements between Alberni IRS Survivors and museum professionals. Their experiences illustrate practical challenges, structural limitations, and complementary interests of Western museums and Indigenous source communities attempting to collaboratively curate difficult history. Despite having limited capacities for indigenization or decolonization, this thesis demonstrates that museums like the CMH can be complicated but beneficial partners for some Indigenous source communities and their anti-colonial engagements with Canadian society. / Graduate

The creation of a new Holocaust museum in Sweden has sparked discussion regarding placement, how to make it accessible, and how to make that accessibility equal between the physical and virtual. The National Historical Museums of Sweden was given the task to open the Swedish Holocaust Museum in Stockholm 10 month after they were appointed the task (Regeringskansliet 2021b). This and receiving less than half of the funds requested for the project lead to the museum not being able to open with a physical space but will be a purely digital space on the official website when opened (ibid.; Hörmark 2022). The museum will then gradually gain a physical space (Annika 2022). Academic research on a new Holocaust museum and their implementations of virtual and digital tools has not been found, therefore this thesis aims to fill that gap with the aid of the previous research. The thesis examines the current available material for the not yet opened Swedish Holocaust Museum through qualitative methods. The pre-process entailed gathering available reports and public discussions, getting into contact with the staff at the National Historical Museums of Sweden and limiting the scope of the thesis. Interviews were conducted with three employees and observations were conducted on two testimony AI by Dimensions in Testimony. The post-process was transcribing, analysing, and categorizing the material under different themes. Throughout the process, academic research has continuously been read and implemented.   The analysis was conducted on the importance of the location of the museum and the public discourse on whether the museum ought to be located in Malmö or Stockholm. It also analyses the expected contents of the website, being the testimony AI and the interactive timeline through a pedagogical perspective. The website will only include the Dimensions in Testimony AI as well as five items and their description when it launches. Finally, the expected website contents were analysed through the potential of being a virtual museum.  The thesis found that the importance of the location might have been mediated by putting emphasis on accessibility through the website. Both the testimony AI and the timeline are pedagogically rich but comes with some technical difficulties. The website has great potential in becoming a virtual museum and should be viewed as such. The thesis also found that interactions between the physical and virtual space might increase the perceived authenticity of the virtual museum and generate more interest.