Det vi bevarar och brukar
om kulturarv i Svenska Offentliga Utredningar 1997-2004.
The purpose of this master?s thesis is to examine the use of the concept cultural heritage in Swedish governmental cultural policy. Ten official reports, reaching over a time period of seven years (1997-2004) are examined in the following way: What is cultural heritage? What functions/ values does the cultural heritage have? Whose heritage is a cultural heritage? With some simplification you can say that there are two different views on cultural heritage in the documents. The most common way to refer to cultural heritage is a category of chosen historical objects whose preservation is motivated by their function as sources of information and knowledge about the history and development of the Swedish society. It also constitutes continuity, context and belonging. This heritage is equally valuable to all people and its relation to different ethnical and social groups is not brought up for discussion in the documents. At the other end of the scale cultural heritage is in a few documents regarded as a pluralistic collection of heritages. Anything can be cultural heritage if someone claims that it is so. Every group and every individual have the right to a cultural heritage of their own. It is therefore important to give special attention to the heritage of marginal groups, who have often been left out in the traditional historical writing. In these documents cultural heritage is not just a historical matter, but also something that is being created at the present time. It is a source of knowledge, but also a democratic tool.