Excavating colonial entanglements in the Danish countryside

Keywords: post colonial geographies, memory, heritage, countryside, Denmark
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Sunday
Session Start / End Time: 2/27/2022 11:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/27/2022 12:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 39

Abstract

In this paper I wish to move away from the traditional focus on the ‘imperial city’ and explore how the members of the small peripheral town, Holbæk, re-understand themselves and their home in light of the local museum’s centennial-inspired efforts to portray the town and the USVI as “overlapping territories” with “intertwined histories” (Said 1994: 50). Here I will talk to the curator leading the efforts, the teachers attending the museum’s ‘teaching colonial history’ workshops, the students subjected to the revised curriculum that also visit the museum and the people whose grand country estates – and family’s history – is reinterpreted in light of the museum’s work.