Borders of Belonging: Experiencing History, War and Nation at a Danish Heritage Site (Museums and Collections, 5)

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. Introduction. Borders Of Belonging: Investigating Landscapes Of Danishness Today -- Dybbøl And The Danish Nation : History And Context -- Out Of Sight : Reconsidering The Modern Museum -- The Banalities Of Being Danish : National Identity At The Castle Museum -- Sensing 1864 At The Battlefield Centre -- The Fate Of The Nation At The Battlefield Centre -- Danish Heritage Today : Cosmopolitan Nationalism And The Reappearance Of The Romantic -- Conclusion. Paradoxes Of Modern Belonging : Reassembling Heritage, Nation And Experience. Mads Daugbjerg. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.