Patterns of Cultural Valuation. Priorities and aesthetics in exhibitions of identity in museums.

The project PaCuVal investigates how different ethnic groups and minorities have been presented and represented in Norwegian museums of cultural history during the last 150 years. The research field of museums of cultural history in Norway and their repr esentations of ethnic groups and minorities opens for a broad range of perspectives and issues. Norway has a long history of being a plural society. Today, it includes an indigenous population, five national minorities and a growing population of foreign origin from both Western and non-Western countries. The project investigates the role of museums of cultural history in shaping representations of the nation, the region and the locality during a span of time going from the 19th century to today. The si tuation of Norwegian museums of cultural history reflects that of other museums around the world and PaCuVal takes Norwegian museums as case studies of wider international trends. The project explores the ways various cultures that make up the social fabr ic of Norway have been integrated in the national Grand Narrative. This implies among others analyzing similarities and differences, cross-cultural contacts and hybridity within the framework of the nation-state. In today's plural societies most museums o f cultural history, also in Norway, have to face new challenges. They are continuously redefining their roles in society and adapting new ideas and methods to their museological endeavours. The aim of PaCuVal is to analyze representations of diversity in museums of cultural history and to explore the dialectics between historical narratives and perceptions of culture and belongingness and the ways these narratives are conveyed visually in exhibitions. It examines how exhibitions draw upon and reproduce ol der models and stereotypes about the nation and Norwegianess, how new visions and paradigms are introduced, and which visual and aesthetic schemes are applied in exhibitions. Further, the project is concerned with the ways ethnic groups and minorities rep resent themselves in their own museums.