Norway's Others: the representation of cultural difference in Norwegian Museums.

How are values, beliefs and assumptions about other cultures created and communicated in museums? How are objects embedded in specific narratives and how do these come to be validated and presented as 'authentic' and authoritative? A five months research stay at the IKOS, UiO, will enable me to develop an analysis of the representation of cultural difference in Norwegian Museums. Through multi-sited fieldwork in museums in Oslo (Museum of Cultural History, UiO; Norwegian Museum of Cultural History; Intern ational Cultural Centre and Museum; Kon-Tiki Museum) the investigation sets to attain two objectives. Firstly, it aims to map and critically discuss the representation of cultural difference, revealing recurring themes, approaches and display techniques, but also discrepancies and inconsistencies in discourses and representations. Secondly, it evaluates both reasons and implications (political, social, epistemological) of specific representations of cultural difference by setting them in the cultural, soc ial and political context of contemporary Norway. The study claims originality in conceptualizing museum objects as interfaces mediating agendas and world-views of multiple subjectivities, and as carriers of agency in 'resisting' interpretation and in tel ling multi-layered stories faithful to objects' own social biographies. Methodologically, based on a comparative ethnography of museums, the enquiry combines research methods of museum studies, social anthropology and culture studies. The research will: - reveal the multiple, constructed and instrumental character of museum narratives of cultural Others; - make apparent the role of museums in negotiations of authority between the State and ethnic communities, thus contributing to the understanding of muse ums' potential in the development of multicultural societies; - contribute to international debates on art/anthropology approaches to the representation of cultural difference through the angle of Norwegian museums.