An ungovernable diversity?

This article is based on my Ph.D. thesis, entitled An ungovernable diversity? Norwegian museum politics on the subject of local and regional museums in the period 1900 – ca. 1970 (Umeå 2009). It gives an historical account of the development of local and regional cultural history museums in Norway as a topic in Norwegian cultural policy 1900–1970. It describes how local and regional museums became a subject in Norwegian cultural policy during the twentieth century. In 1900, such institutions amounted to about fifteen. Seventy years later, the number was more than two hundred. The museums appear in this perspective as a cultural phenomenon in their own age, a phenomenon to which the Norwegian Parliament, the Ministry of Education and the museum profession attached both interpretations and conceptions. At the centre of their interest was the need to implement measures to ensure that these museums submitted to the main museums concerning key tasks, such as the preservation of objects of cultural value. It was important for the Parliament to create a policy based on accountability and equal treatment.