This essay deals with the founders of Hallwylska museet and Waldemarusdde in Stockholm, who donated their homes as museums to the Swedish state in the first half of the 20th century. The aim of this essay is to compare how Hallwylska museet and Waldemarsudde portray their donors’ museum-making in relation to the intentions of the donors, which can be deducted from their catalogues and the documents validating their donations. The catalogues that Wilhelmina von Hallwyl and prince Eugen saw to making give an idea of the approaches they had towards their museum-making. The intentions they gave for their donations can be found in the official documents and testament respectively regarding their donations. To find out how today’s museums portray the donors and their museum-making I have attended two guided tours at each museum and analysed their guidebooks and the texts available in the milieus. With the intentions of the donors as a contextual background I have applied a class and gender perspective on what visitors may learn at the museums. I use these perspectives with a post structural view in mind, seeing society as based on structures formed by the people living within that society. My results show that the two museums have rather different ways of presenting their founders. The guides and guidebooks at Hallwylska museet explain Wilhelmina von Hallwyls place in society as a noble lady grown up in an upper-middle class environment, and they high-light her break with female norms of the time. They portray her as open-minded in her wish to show future visitors her cultural milieu, but the elaborate and scientific catalogue she made and the great amount of work she put into her museum is seen as both admirable and weird. The guides, perhaps unintentionally, portray the extent of her activeness in realising her museum plans as abnormal. In contrast prince Eugen receives no criticism for not seeing to the completion of his collection catalogue, but like Wilhelmina von Hallwyl he receives praise for making his art collection and house available to the public. Prince Eugen is positively contextualised as a royal who broke with tradition in becoming a modern artist. The guides and guidebooks portray him as timeless in his modern tastes, but this gives an impression of him as standing above the society and culture that formed him. Adding to this is the negligence of contextualising the great privileges he held as a man of the royal family. My conclusion is that the guides unintentionally put the two museum founders in different light because of their differences in class and gender. Public museums are educators, and as such it might be in their interest to include a greater amount of social critique and historical context in their history telling. This is a two years master’s thesis in museum and heritage studies.

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 of this two years master’s thesis in Archive, Library and Museum Studies is to analyse how Swedish cultural history museums work to include LGBTQ-heritage (LGBT is the acronym for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer) in their collections. This work is articulated around three research questions. These interrogate museum practice about collecting and collection management, what it looks like in the already gathered collections as well as the implications such work implies on a broader level. The theoretical framework throughout the paper is gender and LGBT studies as well as queer theory. The analytical tools that have been used are bias-theory (Carruthers 1987), stereotyping (Pickering 2003) and classification theory (Bowker & Leigh Star 2000). Seven interviews form the main empirical material that is analysed in order to grasp museums collecting practice and collection management. Today’s museums practice is influenced by the new trends in democratic representation and seeks therefore to include new narratives that include the LGBTQ community. Museums are either collecting new material with connection to the LGBTQ community or look inwards in order to reinterpret older collections and maybe find a link to it. Both strategies rouse questions that are discussed in this paper. How to classify and document that material as well as selection processes and the traditional museums relation to the alternative collecting practice as the grassroots organizations stand for are discussed in the thesis.

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The thesis explores the complex area between preservation of museum collections, and the need to allow access to the collections and the artefacts for researchers. The focus is on archaeological collections, and inorganic materials in particular. The aim is to illustrate the problems, as well as the opportunities, of archaeological scientific analysis when combined with museological sciences such as materiality and material culture studies, theories of object biographies, the concept of objects as actors, and the issue of silent objects. Exploring the exchange between the museological and the natural sciences to promote enhanced usage of collection artefacts, and to explore whether there are real barriers or if they are perceived due to a lack of mutual understanding. Methodologically it is a text based analysis of the research situation internationally and nationally in Sweden, with a case study comprised of observation of a research team that at the same time were making archaeometallurgical analyses of bronze age objects, and interviews with a small group connected to the areas of interest for this thesis. The sources have consisted of the material generated by the case study, as well as the text material used to provide the necessary background. By using text analysis, Actor-network theory, observation, and interviews, the discussions can revolve around the theoretical perspectives of materiality, object biography and silent objects, with the premise that sample analyses could bring back some context to an artefact. The findings indicate that the museum sector and other disciplines would greatly benefit from closer collaborations with each other and work more interdisciplinary. Museum collections harbour artefacts that could enrich the collective disciplines with their informative values, and with a mass of sampled and analysed context-less artefacts, new and fascinating patterns could emerge, leading to new discoveries. The findings also show that, in archaeology, this is already in motion, and the hope is that this develops on a larger scale in the museum sector as well. / Den här uppsatsen undersöker det snåriga område mellan museers plikt att bevara samlingarna samt behovet att tillåta åtkomst för forskare till samlingarna och föremålen. Fokus ligger på arkeologiska samlingar, och oorganiskt material i synnerhet. Syftet är att belysa problemen, samt de möjligheter som arkeologisk vetenskaplig analys har att ge i kombination med museivetenskapliga begrepp såsom materialitet och materiell kultur, teorier om objektbiografi, objekt som aktörer och ”tysta” föremål. Uppsatsen utforskar utbyten mellan musei- och naturvetenskap som främjar ökad användning av föremål i samlingar, och undersöker om det finns verkliga hinder i utbytet eller om de endast är upplevda på grund av en bristande ömsesidig förståelse. Metodologiskt är det en textbaserad analys av forskningsläget internationellt och nationellt i Sverige, med en fallstudie bestående av observation av en forskargrupp som samtidigt gjorde arkeometallurgiska analyser av bronsåldersföremål, och intervjuer med en liten grupp personer med koppling till intresseområdena för denna uppsats. Källorna består av det material som genererats av fallstudien, samt den litteratur som gett den nödvändiga bakgrunden. Genom att använda textanalys, Actor-network theory, observation och intervjuer, kretsar diskussionerna runt teoretiska perspektiv som materialitet och materiell kultur, objektbiografi och ”tysta” föremål utifrån förutsättningen att analys kan återföra lite av en artefakts kontext. Resultaten visar på att museisektorn och andra discipliner i hög grad skulle tjäna på ett närmare samarbete och att arbeta mer tvärvetenskapligt. Museisamlingar inhyser föremål som skulle kunna berika de samlade disciplinerna med sina informativa värden, och med en mängd provtagningar och analyser av kontextlösa föremål kan nya och fascinerande mönster framträda, vilket i sin tur kan leda till nya upptäckter. Resultaten visar också att detta redan är satt i rörelse inom åtminstone arkeologin, men förhoppningen är att detta även kan ske i större skala inom museisektorn.

This study examines a project carried out by Stockholms stadsmuseum in the area of Östberga in Stockholm called Stadsmuseet på plats – Östberga. Interviews with museum personnel and analysis of documents related to the project make up the material for this study. The theory used is The Contextual Model of Learning, which in this study is adjusted to apply a museum-centered perspective rather than a visitor-centered one. The aim is to examine the intentions behind this type of outreach work and how it relates to the concept of the socially responsible museum. This concept is an expression of the development of the museum towards a visitor-centered, democratic and inclusive institution. It also includes a political idea, primarily in a British context, of the museum as a vehicle for positive social change. This study shows that Stadsmuseet på plats – Östberga is connected to larger political goals within the municipality regarding a sustainable social development. The museum’s intentions behind the project combines a regard for the local development of Östberga, with the fulfillment of internal institutional goals relating to audience development, development of museum collections, and creating an inclusive cultural heritage that represents every part of Stockholm. This is a two years master’s thesis in Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies.

This study examines uncontested human remains from a staff- and institutional perspective in Scandinavia. Focusing on Sweden and Denmark, this study aims to understand more of the practice and approach concerning the Egyptian mummy, Bog bodies and Relics. Today, human remains are debated and treated in different ways depending on different ethical issues concerning the category. Here, we can talk about contested and uncontested human remains. Contested human remains is, for example, ancestral remains belonging to indigenous groups or remains of a more modern date that are deemed for have been inappropriately handled historically. The uncontested human remains however, are remains that do not fit in given examples above and that have not been seen as problematic as the contested human remains. With that said, the uncontested human remains are more prone to be covered, moved around or discussed, but in the end of the day they are still there in the exhibition or in the collection and not removed. This study is based on Tiffany Jenkins (2011) definition about the contested and uncontested and Berit Sellevold’s (2013) figure of ethical aspects in which groups of people and researchers view certain remains. Arisen from these theories and the earlier research of human remains this study attempts to examine the practice and the approach about uncontested human remains. The result of the nine case studies in this thesis shows that the Egyptian mummy, Bog bodies and Relics are used and being used for bringing human beings closer the human remains as the individuals they are and for telling stories of the past. In a concrete way of understanding this, it is the staff of the institution that makes this use and approach possible neither if it’s connecting humans to the individual, the history or the religious sphere. Two main results from this study are that the appearance and context are highly affecting whether the institution, mainly the museum, chooses to exhibit uncontested human remains or not. This is a two years master’s thesis in Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies.