This is part 2 of 3. Link to part 1 and part 3.
Re-telling old stories — how new museum experiences can contribute to a sustainable society
Background
Västernorrland’s museum is in 2022 taking on the task of re-telling the story of the witch trials of the late 17th c in Torsåker, Ångermanland, Sweden. In this process discussing how cultural heritage can contribute to a more sustainable society has to take place. This is blog post 2 of 3, sharing some thoughts along the way on how re-telling old stories can potentially contribute to sustainable communities and empower individuals.
The story
The witch trials in Torsåker, Ångermanland, Sweden, in 1675 connect several places in the area where the events took place, from the accusations and trials to the incarceration and executions. The story is unique, as it is the single largest mass execution in peacetime in Sweden to date. The events are also the reason for opening the local Witch Museum and a monument on the site where the people were executed, Häxberget, the Witch Mountain. It is a story that is currently told in different formats and kept alive and communicated by cultural heritage institutions as well as individuals and groups. At the same time, the causes, extent and background are for many Swedes still unknown today.
A new museum experience about the witch trials needs to, unsurprisingly, have specified target groups. In this case, the dissemination project will be directed at the growing crowd of tourists visiting the High Coast, a popular regional tourist destination. The local population living in the place where the events occurred is also an important target group together with local businesses, associations and others who are affected by visitor destination development and cultural heritage tourism.
The purpose of targeting tourists is to make this group discover the rich history that exists in the area. Visitors to the High Coast often have nature experiences at the top of their wish list, but interest in cultural heritage is growing and is a priority area in the tourism industry today.[2] At the same time, it is important to include the local community living in the area in order to develop engagement but also to create opportunities for dialogue and participation around a common cultural heritage. Joint discussions about values and value creation are necessary for anchoring and for long-term sustainable projects.
Cultural heritage experiences and sustainability
From a sustainability perspective, it is necessary to stop for a moment and discuss the effects of a dissemination project. From the perspective of both the tourist and the local population, and the cultural heritage, sustainability needs to be a key word. The value of a cultural heritage experience is diverse, ecologically, socially and economically.[3] At the same time, certain objectives of dissemination, such as meeting local economic interests, may stand in contrast to strengthening social sustainability and efforts to nurture, preserve and long-term manage cultural heritage.
As a positive development, the value of cultural environments and cultural heritage in recent decades has shifted from a pure focus on products and offerings towards a more pluralistic model that has people in focus, and towards a sustainability model that will ensure that cultural heritage remains a resource for future generations. For a socio-economically sustainable development of cultural-historical environments as places to visit, Murzyn-Kupisz has identified important areas of influence: economics, development of knowledge-based and creative industries, the image of the place, standard of living and quality of life, increased migration / migration to both cities and rural areas. and interaction with and impact on nature and habitats (2012, 115–117).
Murzyn-Kupisz also recalls the direct positive economic impact that heritage dissemination has on, for example, cultural heritage organizations, but also a long-term impact on the knowledge economy that is about learning resources, stimulating creativity, developing cultural capital and inspiring high-quality original products and services in cultural and creative industries as well as tourism. Cultural environments and cultural heritage play a role in leisure and recreation, it affects local identity, the feeling of pride and belonging to a place and a context. It enables communication across generational boundaries and creates contact between individuals and groups (Murzyn-Kupiz 2012, 118–119).
It is therefore necessary to take all stakeholders into account, both institutions and individuals and groups, and to answer the question: Who really benefits from the experience and how? One starting point will be to analyze existing forms of dissemination, and the role of existing environments today (ibid, 120). It is also important to identify the different existing values of the place and the cultural heritage for different stakeholders in order to find a balance in a museum experience project that preserves these values. There is a risk that focusing on a certain value eliminates others (du Cros, 2001, 167). At the same time, combining cultural heritage work with tourism is difficult. Planning in both perspectives is therefore necessary already at the initial stages of a project. (ibid).
Here Birgitta Svensson’s concepts of attraction and affection are also useful. In the book I industrisamhällets slagskugga: om problematiska kulturarv (In the cast shadow of the industrial society, about problematic heritage), she highlights the risk that only economic interests, attraction, may control the dissemination of cultural heritage (Jönsson & Svensson 2005, 147–150). Museums have with their basic mission, to preserve, investigate and disseminate cultural heritage[4] , prerequisites for using affection and emotions in their mediation activities, creating a feeling for a place and building on emotional structures.
The witch trials and The UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals
In addition to linking sustainability on an overall level to building relationships with stakeholders and target groups, the story of the witch trials itself can serve as a “thinking tool”, a tool for developing our current thoughts and perspectives linked to issues of equality, as a basic precondition for a sustainable society. A dissemination project thus needs to be aimed at influencing not only individuals but also communities.
Equality is one of the goals of the UN’s 17 global goals for sustainability. It is in many ways a prerequisite for several of the other goals and for a sustainable society, a more equal distribution of resources, reduced poverty, the opportunity to participate and influence and participate in societal development with economic and political influence. Just as in the stories of the witch trials, there is also in society today a skewed distribution between those who become invisible and those who can influence society. The events of the 17th century were made possible due to power structures such as the state and the church, among other things. Another aspect is that the witch trials took place in a region which, at the time was severely affected by famine, and which at the same time today is struggling in certain areas such as public health and unemployment.
The stories about the witch trials are a difficult cultural heritage, but at the same time Birgitta Svensson reminds usthat the dissemination of difficult cultural heritage constitutes an important part in the understanding of social processes and changes. Dissemination can make people’s lives visible and encourage dialogue about the stories that are preserved and portrayed, whose voices are heard, and the individual’s role in social processes (Svensson 2005, 139). She also formulates questions about the importance of cultural heritage for equality, exclusion and belonging and states that “If you ask such questions, it becomes clear that what we call cultural values or cultural-historical values have more to do with human value than with material values.” (Jönsson & Svensson 2005, 14).
At the same time, it is of course relevant to discuss the museum’s role in being able to achieve a more equal society. Pia Laskar believes in The Unpublished Sexuality that museums in particular are not the ones best suited to influence society in the long term and in depth, as it requires long-term continuous pedagogical processes. She believes that schools are better suited for such processes (Laskar 2019, 47). However, there are many reasons to trust museums. Even if cultural heritage institutions cannot solve structural societal issues based on unequal distribution of power, politics and access to resources, museums can definitely have a positive effect on society. There are many examples of how the museum sector has successfully worked with social and societal impact and change (Black 2021, 100) and where the effects can also be made measurable [5] There are also strong movements that drive museums as catalysts for positive and sustainable societal development, such as Museums are not neutral .[6]
Conclusions
Summarizing the relation between heritage dissemination and sustainability, there are two aspects to take in account. First the very act of disseminating has the potential to create economic, social and ecological value in a region. Well executed cultural heritage experiences can increase visitors to sites and bring positive effects onto the tourism sector. They can also become learning resources, stimulating creativity and developing cultural capital. Increased knowledge about heritage can also strengthen efforts to preserve heritage sites so that they can remain an asset and valuable resource to coming generations. These different values need to be weighed against each other and finding balance is essential.
Secondly the very story itself can be a tool for developing a sustainable society. In the case of the witch trials of Västernorrland, the stories connect very well with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This requires designing a story that facilitates and enhances these connections and that encourages active participation and response. In other words transforms the historical events into a tool for developing our current thoughts and perspectives, allowing us to understand and see context in our own time.
The final blogpost will examine basic methods to disseminate the story.
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The three blog posts are a revised version of a paper delivered at the course Disseminating Cultural Heritage, Umeå University, in December. The list of literature is referring to all three blog posts.
Literature
Aronsson, Peter (2004). Historiebruk: att använda det förflutna. Lund: Studentlitteratur.
Blumenthal, Veronica (2020) Consumer immersion in managed visitor attractions: The role of individual responses and antecedent factors, Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, 20:1, 4–27, DOI: 10.1080/15022250.2020.1725624
Buoningcontri, P & Marasco, A. (2017) Enhancing Cultural Heritage Experiences with Smart Technologies: An integrated experiential framework. European Journal of Tourism Research 17:83–101.
du Cros, Hilary. (2001). du Cros, H. 2001 A New Model to Assist in Planning for Sustainable Cultural Heritage Tourism. International Journal of Tourism Research 3(2): 165–70.. International Journal of Tourism Research. 3. 10.1002/jtr.297.
Cuomoa, M.T., Tortorab, D, Foroudic. P, Giordanod, A, Festae, G. & Metallo, G. (2021) Digital transformation and tourist experience co-design: Big social data for planning cultural tourism. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Volume 162, 2021, 120345, ISSN 0040–1625, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120345.
Gretzel, U, Sigala, M, Zheng, X & Koo, C. (2015), Smart tourism: foundations and developments. Electron Markets (2015) 25:179–188.
Jenkins, Henry (2006). Convergence culture: where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press.
Jönsson, Lars-Eric & Svensson, Birgitta (red.) (2005). I industrisamhällets slagskugga: om problematiska kulturarv. Stockholm: Carlsson.
Laskar, Pia (2019) Den outställda sexualiteten. FoU rapport, Statens historiska museer; 18. Stockholm: Statens historiska museer, 2019, s. 125. http://su.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1357922/FULLTEXT01.pdf
Murzyn-Kupisz, Monika (2012): Cultural, economic and social sustainability
of heritage tourism: Issues and challenges, Economic and Environmental Studies (E&ES), ISSN 2081–8319, Opole University, Faculty of Economics, Opole, Vol. 12, Iss. 2, pp. 113–133
Palombini, Augusto (2017), Storytelling and telling history. Towards a grammar of narratives for Cultural Heritage dissemination in the Digital Era, Journal of Cultural Heritage,
Volume 24, 2017, Pages 134–139, ISSN 1296–2074, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.culher.2016.10.017.
Petti, L, Trillo, C & Ncube Makore, B (2020), Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Developlment Targets: A Possible Harmonisation? Insights from the European Perspective. Sustainability 2020, 12, 926.
Popoli, Z & Derda, I (2021) Developing experiences: creative process behind the design and production of immersive exhibitions, Museum Management and Curatorship, 36:4, 384–402, DOI: 10.1080/09647775.2021.1909491
Rampazzo Gambarato, Renira (2012), Signs, Systems and Complexity of Transmedia Storytelling. Estudos em Comunicação, Volume 12, Number unknown, 2012, pp. 69–83(15). Directory of Open Access Journals.
Vermeeren, Arnold, Calvi, Licia & Sabiescu, Amalia (red.) (2018). Museum experience design: crowds, ecosystems and novel technologies. Cham: Springer.
Notes
[1] https://sverigesradio.se/haxmorden (2021–12–19)
[2] https://www.mynewsdesk.com/se/hogakusten/blog_posts/2020-ett-nytt-decennium-vaentar-89636
[3] The three areas most often mentioned in connection with sustainability. https://www.hallbarhet.lu.se/forskning/vad-ar-hallbarhet
[4] https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-lagar/dokument/svensk-forfattssamling/museilag-2017563_sfs-2017-563
[5] https://medium.com/new-faces-new-spaces/what-is-our-museums-social-impact-62525fe88d16
