Mads Daugbjerg

Hvordan bliver noget udnævnt til kulturarv – eller ligefrem verdensarv? Hvem bestemmer, hvad der er værd at bevare, og hvad der skal glemmes? Hvordan håndterer vi de dele af fortiden, der ikke vækker stolthed, men snarere skam, skyld eller vrede? Og hvordan kan man, på solid akademisk grund, analysere de kampe, de følelser og den kraft, der knytter sig til sporene fra fortiden? Kulturarvens kraft indfører læseren i det tværfaglige studie- og forskningsfelt critical heritage studies. Bogen går tæt på de kampe, følelser og magtforhold, der præger nutidens kulturarvsdebatter, fra krav om repatriering af plyndrede genstande til kontroverser om statuer og mindesmærker. Med eksempler fra hele verden – fra Scotts hytte ved Antarktis, over amerikanske borgerkrigs-reenactments til memeproduktion i Grønland – giver bogen både historisk kontekst, analytiske redskaber og konkrete metoder til at forstå kulturarvens politiske og følelsesmæssige kraft. Den undersøger også, hvordan kulturarv ikke kun er noget, vi arver, men noget, vi skaber og fortolker i nutiden. Bogens primære målgruppe er studerende på videregående uddannelser, der beskæftiger sig med kulturarv og historiens rolle i samtiden, og som har brug for overblik og pejlemærker i den bugnende internationale litteratur på området.

To have an 'experience' in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the famous Civil War battlefield, has taken on a range of new meanings in recent years. Almost instantly after the smoke had cleared following the battle in 1863, the field was transformed into an iconic site of memory and an emblem of American patriotism. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in and around the alleged ’hallowed ground’ of Gettysburg, this book explores the experiential landscapes and 'sensescapes', examining the powerful appeal of the idea of a personal and historical 'experience' and its relations with paradigms of memory, heritage, and patriotism. Using empirical research to ground these often abstract and vague concepts and the ways in which they are translated into human and social practice, TITLE uses the notion of the 'Gettysburg experience' to scrutinize the processes through which the term 'experience' itself takes on, a range of different and contrasting meanings, as exemplified by experiences of the federal National Park Service and its ’battlefield rehabilitation’ programme, battle re-enactors seeking a bodily, first-person perspective on the fog of war, and practitioners of the paranormal: ghost hunters who aim to connect with the war dead through techniques and media wholly foreign to 'normal' regimes of commemoration. A rigorous and richly illustrated study of memory and meaning in the search for experience, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology, geography and anthropology with interests in heritage, memory and collective remembrance.

In an era cross-cut with various agendas and expressions of national belonging and global awareness, “the nation” as a collective reference point and experienced entity stands at the center of complex identity struggles. This book explores how such struggles unfold in practice at a highly symbolic battlefield site in the Danish/German borderland. Comprised of an ethnography of two profoundly different institutions – a conventional museum and an experience-based heritage center – it analyses the ways in which staff and visitors interfere with, relate to, and literally “make sense” of the war heritage and its national connotations. Borders of Belonging offers a comparative, in-depth analysis of the practices and negotiations through which history is made and manifested at two houses devoted to the interpretation of one event: the decisive battle of the 1864 war in which Otto von Bismarck, on his way to uniting the new German Empire, led the Prussian army to victory over the Danish. Working through his empirical material to engage with and challenge established theoretical positions in the study of museums, modernity, and tourism, Mads Daugbjerg demonstrates that national belonging is still a key cultural concern, even as it asserts itself in novel, muted, and increasingly experiential ways.