Bridging Theoretical Fields of Heritage Studies and History Education

An important field of research has sought to address the educational aspects of museums, heritage and historic sites (Reference Lonergan and AndresonLonergan & Andreson, 1988; Reference Ludvigsson and LudvigssonLudvigsson, 2012), emphasising the potential to encounter the past that heritage may have for young people. These and other studies have demonstrated the complex links between the sensory and cognitive systems (Reference Martin, Ungerleider, Haxby and GazzanigaMartin et al., 2000; Reference Tiballi, Chatterjee and HannanTiballi, 2015) and the importance of historical empathy for developing historical understanding, and thereby the relevance of affection and emotions in learning processes (Reference Bartelds, Saavenije and van BoxtelBartelds et al., 2020; Reference Barton and LevstikBarton & Levstik, 2004; Reference Endacott and BrooksEndacott & Brooks, 2013; Reference KohlmeierKohlmeier, 2006). In addition, other researchers have investigated sensitive topics or traumatic histories in relation to heritage (Reference De NardiDe Nardi, 2020; Reference Marcus, Stoddard and WoodwardMarcus et al., 2012; Reference SpaldingSpalding, 2012; Reference TrofanenkoTrofanenko, 2014) and the making processes of heritage through embodied experiences (Reference Lovell and BullLovell & Bull, 2018; Reference Smith, Wetherell and CampbellSmith et al., 2018; Reference Tolly-Kelly, Waterton and WatsonTolly-Kelly et al., 2018), including representational and non-representational studies in which the performative agency of visitors is in focus (Reference SmithSmith, 2021; Reference De NardiDe Nardi, 2020).

Three focal theoretical points steer our research on the dialectic between visitors and heritage sites. Firstly, due to the potential variety in interpretations and meaning-making, heritage sites are contentious. We want to emphasise that sites should be seen as processes, open to interpretations and reinterpretations, and that the importance of heritage sites cannot be easily separated from the individual or group that experiences the place (Reference Crouch, Waterson and WatsonCrouch, 2016; Reference HarrisonHarrison, 2013; Reference SmithSmith, 2006; Reference SmithSmith, 2021). Secondly, historic sites can be interpreted in different ways, but not in just any way; the visitor is steered by expectations and common values as well as by the ways in which the heritage site is displayed and presented. In the present study, both adults (guides) and children (pupils) are defined as visitors, although they occupy apparently different subject positions, with an agency of display – the guide from a guide perspective and the pupils from the everyday context in school. We draw on theories from history education research and from heritage studies to identify tools for interpreting how pupils encounter heritage sites. Thirdly, in line with this performative approach to space and sites, critical heritage scholars have underlined the centrality of ‘the flesh and embodied agency’ in the experience of sites (Reference De NardiDe Nardi, 2020, p. 13). Recent research argues that our engagements with heritage are figured through the politics of affective registers such as pain, loss, joy, nostalgia, pleasure, belonging or anger. The idea of affective practices is based on Margaret Wetherell’s emphasis on the sensual experiences, and on the affections and emotions that are born from it. Affective practices point towards a non-dualistic position in learning processes, where the sensual and bodily material dimensions are intertwined with the discursive cognitive aspects (Reference WetherellWetherell, 2012). Aligning with De Nardi, who studies visualisation of places by drawing on affective theories by Wetherell et al., we argue that places are never abstract because ‘social knowledge [is] always situated somewhere’ (Reference De NardiDe Nardi, 2020, p. 20). A point of departure in this Element is the ‘haptic approach’; that is, the notion that humans are connected to the surrounding physical environment. The bodily sensations and responses that naturally occur as part of experiences. In this sense, one can speak of haptic knowledge, which involves relationships between the visual, the non-visual and the somatic senses (Reference Lee, Donovan and BransfordLee, 2005; Reference MasseyMassey, 2005; Reference PatersonPaterson, 2009). Haptic knowledge can be related to ‘knowledge by acquaintance’ and the role that sensory experiences can play in a knowledge process (Reference Ludvigsson, Stolare and TrenterLudvigsson et al., 2021; Reference Trenter, Ludvigsson and StolareTrenter et al., 2021; Reference WinchWinch, 2013).

Meaning-making Experiences in History Education Research

The starting point for the study is, as emphasised above, that places and cultural heritage are performative and created. The meaning-making experiences of visitors, both pupils and guides, have the epistemological residence in phenomenology’s ‘lifeworld’; that is, the perceived and subjective world in which individuals live their lives.

We argue that there are action offers (affordances) of places and cultural heritage (see, e.g., Reference Achiam and MaradinoAchiam et al., 2014; Reference GibsonGibson, 1979). It is by no means given what a particular place represents, as different interpretations are always possible. Pupils, as a group but also individually, can perceive different affordances offered by the place, which is why different places can be created simultaneously at the same site. In this study, we lack empirical material to shed light on this process at the individual level; instead, we discuss the construction of sites on the group level. The role of materiality when experiencing the past can be related to Reference ZerubavelZerubavel’s (2003) discussion of how historic sites and objects can serve to establish a link with the past. This is well in line with arguments made in history education research. Through visits to historic sites, and in encountering cultural heritage, pupils are thus given the opportunity to engage with the past in different ways than are usually possible in a classroom. The differences between the numerous forms of experiencing the past can be described using the concepts erfahrung and erlebnis (Reference ArthosArthos, 2000; Reference CarrCarr, 2014; Reference GadamerGadamer, 2004; Reference TapperTapper, 1925). In the classroom, learning is articulate, cognitive and reflective (erfahrung). Relations to the past are indirect, mediated and moderated by the teacher and the resources used, such as textbooks. The visit to a historic site and the encounter with cultural heritage includes erfahrung, but can at the same time represent something less steered; namely, an offer of meaning that is less filtered than in the classroom, more direct, unreflective, subjective and bodily (erlebnis), which occurs in the encounter with the materiality of the place. Our study emphasises the interplay between different ways of experiencing the past, between erlebnis and erfahrung, in the negotiation of places.

In our collected material, three groups of actors are represented: guides, pupils and teachers. We have chosen not to focus on the teachers’ perceptions of the meaning potential of the places. One reason for this is that the teachers’ role during the visits to the historic sites is less prominent than that of the guides and the pupils. Another reason is that we have discussed teachers’ perceptions and use of visits to historic sites elsewhere, from a didactic perspective and within the framework of teaching history (Reference Stolare, Ludvigsson and TrenterStolare et al., 2021).

Stock of Knowledge, Knowledge by Acquaintance and the Importance of Imagination

In the next few sections, we explore the meaning-making of cultural heritage in school field trips to five sites, underpinned by the idea of performative agency. We thus treat the materiality of the place and experiences of the guides and the pupils, obtained in school as well as in other contexts, as meaning-making resources during the site visits. These experiences, or the ‘stock of knowledge’ to quote Reference Selby, Waterson and WatsonSelby (2016), gain importance in the meaning-making of the historic site, both during the site visit and the interviews by the pupils conversing with each other and with the guide and the interviewer. Selby explains the visitors’ encounter both with the site and with other visitors in terms of performance. During the visit, different layers of knowledge are activated and collectively negotiated between visitors to the site in order to make sense of both the visit and the site. The ‘stock of knowledge’ primarily revolves around everyday experiences and shared knowledge about the past. For pupils, knowledge of the past can be based on what has been learned in school before the excursion and may be practised during the visit. Not all classes included in the study had received instruction in the historical period relevant to the tour; however, the pupils generally had some prior knowledge. This knowledge may, but need not, consist of a common historical canon. References to famous figures or events appear in our material both in the guides’ stories about the places and in the pupils’ questions and comments. These common references to the historical canon serve as an important part of the negotiations on the value of the site. However, and importantly, we believe that cultural heritage and historical canon are not necessarily the same thing. The historical canon can consist of fragmented clusters of names and years, such as ‘Gustav Vasa was the first king of Sweden’, or insights into historical inaccuracies such as ‘The Vikings did not have horns on their helmets’ or ‘Marie Antoinette never said the phrase “Let them eat cake”’. The historical canon may consist of knowledge obtained in school about overall processes, such as industrialisation or the emergence of the modern welfare state. Cultural heritage, on the other hand, may coincide with the historical canon, but has been estimated to be worthy of preservation for the future through cultural heritage policy. By cultural heritage, we mean the staging of the site that confirms its historical value in a local, national or international context. Cultural heritage does not have to consist of a historic site, but can include, for instance, collections in museums. Not all historic sites are cultural heritage. This study is based on site visits to historic sites that are defined as cultural heritage. This is not to say that the participating school groups visited these sites because of their value as cultural heritage. Rather, these sites were chosen because they are located in the school’s immediate environment and can be linked to the school syllabus.

Knowledge by acquaintance connects existing knowledge, including canonic historical knowledge of the past, to the situated experiences from heritage sites. Included in the wide definition of knowledge of the past that shapes the experiences at the site is the common knowledge of field trips as canonical cultural experiences, shared by generations of people who have visited particular places in their region. Within the framework of this study, the sites also serve as representative places in the sense that they offer concretisations of the period of history from ancient times up to the 1800s which pupils study in the first six years of Swedish compulsory school, encompassing the history of the nation and the early history of the kingdom. One of the sites included in this study, the Alvastra monastery ruin, is also an established part of the traditional itinerary for the region of Östergötland, which generations of pupils have carried out, often in year 4, and covers ancient and medieval cultural heritage sites in the western part of the county.

No interviews were conducted with pupils or guides before the excursions, nor were their experiences or preconceptions mapped in any other way. However, some parts of the guides’ and pupils’ previous experiences are obvious and spelled out; the fact that the field trip is conducted under the auspices of the school and that the group consists of pupils indicates that any preparations for the visit undertaken at school are present in the negotiations and meaning-making.

Knowledge can also stem from universal human needs. The pupils may be able to perceive that their own needs are much the same as those of people who lived in the past. For instance, people in the past used to cook, but they did it in a different way than we do today. They would have needed to get up to go to the toilet at night just like we do, but they used pots rather than toilets. This fact created an idea that seems to lead to an experience more direct, unreflective, subjective and bodily, it carries the nuances of erlebnis. In the awareness of those parts of existence that can be related to universal needs, it becomes possible to let go of one’s own present for a brief moment. Transforming practical experiences and needs into insights into the history of a place requires imagination, where the already experienced is translated into a new (historical) context (Reference De NardiDe Nardi, 2020). Imagination can thus be used to create an insight into the historic site, becoming a tool for communicating and negotiating with others – between visitors and between guide and visitor – about the site (Reference Trenter, Ludvigsson and StolareTrenter et al., 2021).

Temporalities and Performative Experiences of the Past

Aspects of historical change such as causes and consequences, and alternative interpretations of historical processes, are difficult to mediate during guided tours, which tend to favour a polarisation between ‘now and then’ – between visitors and the past presented at the site. In the course of the study, we will challenge the idea that guided tours build on a fixed point in time, a ‘frozen moment in the past’. Rather, as our cases will illustrate, heritage sites are often linked to several historical stages and periods at the same time; for example, a castle or palace that has been inhabited for several hundred years and whose interiors span several eras. It is common that the display of a place is based on a given context, such as the late 1800s at Löfstad Palace; medieval monastic life through the Cistercians who lived at Alvastra; or the construction of the Göta Canal at Motala mill site. Yet, while the point in time that is highlighted during the tour can be specific and concrete – that is, a particular date and place – it can also be a vaguer narrative abbreviation (Reference RüsenRüsen, 2005) that refers to an era or process where the concretisation of the history through an object, a point in the landscape, a story or other condensation of the narrative is presented in the display and guided tour (Reference ErllErll, 2011).

The complexity of place, space and time has been explored by researchers who problematise how the present at a heritage site triggers a simultaneous understanding of temporality. Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope describes how narration, time and space are created in fiction through densification and embodiment of time by the artist (Reference BakhtinBakhtin, 1981). The term ‘chronotope’ has been used as a theoretical tool to describe how historic sites are created by artistic and aesthetic means (Reference AxelssonAxelsson, 2003; Reference GustafssonGustafsson, 2002). Other scholars have investigated how visitors perceive places defined as cultural heritage sites, frequently entangling participants’ experiences and thus creating an emotionally saturated atmosphere that is unpredictable and blurs the boundaries between time and space (Reference De NardiDe Nardi, 2020; Reference Sumartojo and PinkSumartojo & Pink, 2018). We argue that the consequences of performativity in relation to experiences of time suggest that the only fixed points in time are the very moments during the visit and interview; that is, a performed ‘here and now’. The complexity of temporalities in which the past and present are blurred when performed at the site and in the interviews means that heuristic tools are needed to interpret the meaning-making of the sites in terms of learning about the past. Based on history education research, we study how the interaction between pupils, place and guides mobilises proximity and distance in time (contemporary as well as past) in a way that problematises the division between now and then by creating multitemporality.

Method

The cultural heritage sites covered in the following sections are all located in the province of Östergötland, in southeastern Sweden. This region has a varied landscape with cultivated plains, large forests, cities and coastal areas. There are a number of traces of the past, such as natural traces of the Ice Age; petroglyphs and runestones from the Viking Age; churches, monasteries and castles from the Middle Ages; noble palaces, battlefields and agricultural areas from the early modern period; industrial areas from the 1800s and 1900s; as well as a number of historic buildings from different periods that are preserved and cared for by local heritage associations or by state or regional authorities. Over the past 200 years, the region has experienced emigration, urbanisation and, more recently, immigration. This historical, mainly agricultural county has undergone significant change, and today most of the inhabitants live in the two large cities of Linköping and Norrköping. A common feature of the region’s historical traces is that to a large extent, they represent key parts of Swedish national history. Linköping was a key location for the emerging royal power during the Middle Ages, Norrköping was the country’s first and long-dominant industrial town – Sweden’s version of the English city of Manchester – and Vadstena Castle was one of the strongholds of the royal Vasa dynasty.

The study’s focus is on the guides’ and pupils’ descriptions of what happened during the excursion, what they perceived as important, and how the different senses came into play during the site visit. One or two researchers accompanied each field trip, making audio recordings and taking field notes. The researchers attempted to stay in the background, being present but not intruding during the activities. Sites were documented photographically. The interviews followed a semi-structured form. With the guides, individual interviews (about thirty minutes long) were conducted, which were designed to include more general questions about tours and the location, since the guides’ experience of tours was based on many more tours than the one observed for the study. The recent excursion was used as a concrete example. The pupils were interviewed in groups of four or five. The pupil interviews, which were about fifteen minutes long, focused exclusively on the experience of the excursion just undertaken, but also included associations and reasoning from, for example, lessons in school and experiences from the pupils’ lifeworlds. Thus, the experiences of the place are examined in different ways in the pupil and guide interviews. The guides are not presented as individuals but rather are interviewed as representing a certain position, namely that of professional guide or representative of the site. The pupils are allowed to interact with each other as individuals during the field trips and interviews but are steered by the peer culture in the class, and by the fact that the field trip took place in school.

The relationship between guide and pupils is at the centre of the analysis, as well as their relationships to the historical period/cultural heritage value that is tied to the place. Since the pupils were interviewed in groups, and the pupils interacted with each other during the visit, the negotiation between the pupils about the value of the place as cultural heritage becomes relevant in the study (Reference Kvale and BrinkmannKvale & Brinkman, 2009).

By choosing visits to cultural heritage sites that bear both similarities and differences, we have aimed to by inductive methods explore the similarities and differences between sites, relate to the character of the place as cultural heritage, the relationship to the past that the guide and teachers promote and the pupils’ activities during the visit.

Within the framework of the project, about ten school classes were observed while visiting heritage sites, and a relatively large number of interviews were conducted with pupils, guides and teachers. The sites were selected to represent different parts of the cultural-historical landscape, and included historic agricultural areas, monasteries and churches, historic house museums in palaces and workers’ homes and historic industrial areas (Reference Ludvigsson, Johnsson Harrie, Stolare and TrenterLudvigsson et al., 2020).

The data collection was carried out in 2017, 2018 and 2019. One of the authors (Ludvigsson) photographed the sites; collected information documents provided by the sites; documented the class visits with audio recordings and field notes; photographed drawings and stories that pupils produced in the classroom after the visit; and interviewed guides, teachers and pupils (Reference Drew, Hardman, Hosp, Drew, Hardman and HospDrew et al., 2008). It is conceivable that during the observation and/or subsequent interviews, guides, teachers and/or pupils were influenced by the presence of the researcher, although there are no clear indications that any of them adapted their behaviour to the interviewer. Guides, teachers and pupils were informed in advance that participation in the research project was voluntary, and that the aim of the project was not to evaluate, nor would it affect the pupils’ grades. Some of the guided tours clearly followed a script that would have been the same whether a researcher had been present or not. Nonetheless, it is entirely possible that the researcher’s presence may have led participants to adjust their behaviour or comments. Some guides may have wanted to make a good impression and therefore prepared more thoroughly than otherwise would have been the case or tried to give the appearance of being well prepared. The researcher’s status as a historian may have caused him to be perceived as an authority on the historical period at hand and may have led to the participants seeking confirmation rather than talking freely about the past.

The study involves primary school pupils and their classes, with the majority being between ten and twelve years old in upper primary (years four to six). However, in one case (Bomtorpet), the pupils are in lower primary (year three) and are nine years old. It is worth noting that history becomes a separate subject for pupils in Swedish compulsory school starting from year four in upper primary. In lower primary (years one to three), history is integrated with other social studies subjects such as civics, geography and religious education. Extensive efforts were made to inform pupils and their guardians about the study and to obtain informed consent. In some cases, however, pupils were not able to participate because their guardians did not submit a consent form (Reference Balen, Blyth and CalabrettoBalen et al., 2006). For ethical reasons, all participants have been de-identified. The study has been approved by ethical review in Sweden.

The collected material has undergone a qualitative content analysis. The interviews and site visits were documented via audio recordings and field notes, which were then transcribed in full. In order to capture the performative actions that took place during the interviews and fieldtrips, all sounds – such as laughter, sighs, cries and similar non-articulated verbal expressions and noises – were transcribed. Knudsen and Stage make a historiographic distinction between researchers for whom affect is beyond language categorisation, which force the focus to signs of affects, and those who regard language as being capable of expressing affects, in other words that there is no contradiction between the categories of language and the categories taking part in the social shaping of bodies (Reference Knudsen and StageKnudsen & Stage, 2015, p. 4). Our study approaches this epistemological dilemma by considering connections between categories of language on the one hand, and sensorics and haptic bodily categories on the other. To be able to include a wide range of the data we use analytical strategies presented by Knudsen and Stage, namely characteristic communication of affects, such as outbursts, broken language, hyperbole, redundancy; non-verbal communication, such as laughter and bodily gestures; and also communicative content about experienced or attributed affect, as when people describe how they feel (disgust, fear, amazement) mediated during the excursions or in interviews (Reference Knudsen and StageKnudsen & Stage, 2015, p. 9; Reference Ludvigsson, Stolare and TrenterLudvigsson et al., 2021; Reference Trenter, Ludvigsson and StolareTrenter et al., 2021). The participants’ bodily expressions are evaluated together with their verbal expressions to investigate their reactions to the sites. Knudsen and Stage also acknowledge certain challenges in collecting and producing data. How can the researcher define and measure affects and bodily experiences? This study uses different types of data collection, namely first-hand data-mediated ‘in situ’ – that is, in the situation when the affect is happening; or mediated as remembrance – that is, when the person who has experienced the affect communicates the experience in retrospect.

Knudsen and Stage further distinguish between ‘emic’ perspective (produced by the one who is in the affect) and ‘etic’ ditto (observed by someone else) (Reference Knudsen and StageKnudsen & Stage, 2015, p. 8). The present study focuses on etic aspects; that is, observations by people mediating affections both ‘in situ’ and remembered. The ‘in situ’ is performed by participating in the excursion. However, we consider the interviews as equally ‘in situ’ for historical experiences; when participants remember collectively, or individually, and recall the excursion by talking about it, affections are both remembered and re-experienced, and are sometimes subject to new affections. Since we consider the experience of the site as an ongoing process, we define the interviews, although they were conducted some days or up to a week after the field trip, as also being experiences of the historic site.

Regarding quotes from the empirical material, it should be noted that all dialogues conducted during observations and interviews were in Swedish. For this publication, quotes have been translated into English. Inevitably, some linguistic nuances may be altered in translation; however, we have attempted to focus on the essence of the points made in dialogues between pupils, and between pupils and guide.

The Five Historic Sites and Cultural Heritage

The choice of historic sites was informed by their accessibility for schools and pupils. All of the selected places are used to receiving pupils on excursions. The five sites selected for this study represent different aspects of historic Östergötland. We use the term ‘historic site’ as a description of the actual material places, all of which consist of settings where history has taken place; they have all been regarded in their own time and retrospectively as important sites in a national or international perspective, either by virtue of the uniqueness of the place (e.g., a castle where a peace agreement was signed or a factory where a decisive strike started) or as representative of a certain type of phenomenon (a medieval church or a sawmill from the era of industrialisation).

Two of the chosen historic sites – the cathedral in Linköping and the ruin of the Alvastra monastery – were built during the Middle Ages when Östergötland was a core area in the Swedish kingdom and part of Catholic Europe. Both places are included in the Swedish national historical canon due to their respective positions in medieval political history. Linköping Cathedral was built in the Middle Ages and is one of the largest church buildings in Scandinavia. The construction of the cathedral went on for centuries. It has since been rebuilt and altered many times, yet is considered to have largely preserved many medieval features. Nicolaus Hermanni, a bishop and key political actor during the 1300s, worked in Linköping Cathedral, and he was also close to Saint Birgitta and her daughter Katarina. The cathedral is still used today as a place of worship. It is located in the centre of Linköping and occupies a clearly visible position in the urban space, near the city’s squares and the train station. The guided tour that features in this project was a time travel role play for ten- to twelve-year olds. The role play is based on a script developed by church staff. In addition to the building itself, the materiality of the building includes props consisting of replica clothing, herbs, wax tablets and incense, as well as the fixtures of the church interior. The location is well defined for the purpose of the visit. The time travel element is indicated by the ringing of a bell, upon which the visitors are taken back to the year 1381, during the Middle Ages. The historic site becomes a place by virtue of its historical authenticity as a church, along with the props and staff who lead the role play, creating a clearly defined chronotope.

Alvastra, Scandinavia’s first Cistercian monastery, was founded in the 1100s by King Sverker’s queen, Ulvhild. The monastery was run for 400 years, before it was closed in connection with the Reformation in the 1500s. Today, Alvastra is a ruin. Parts of the monastery’s limestone walls have been used throughout history in the construction of other buildings in the area. As part of Swedish national history, Alvastra is a famous and popular excursion destination, located on the eastern shore of Lake Vättern, some forty miles from Linköping (Reference AxelssonAxelsson, 2003). The ruin is also a regular stop on a traditional itinerary around western Östergötland. The tour that the project participated in was given to a class of ten-year olds and led by a freelance guide with Alvastra as one of her specialities. The materiality of the site consists of ruins and traces of the rooms in the monastery and abbey church, as well as certain plants found in the surroundings which were used by the monks. The guide uses pictures of similar monastery gardens in the tour. Since it is a ruin, the place requires the staging of notions of what the site would once have looked like.

Löfstad Palace is one of many palaces in the region that were built in the early modern period, and represents a time when the nobility had great power and vast wealth, in Sweden as in other European countries. The palace is weakly connected to the Swedish historical canon due to the fact that the sister of Axel von Fersen, the lover of French queen Marie Antoinette, lived at Löfstad; however, the historical value of the palace lies in the building representing the lifestyle of Swedish nobility for the past 300 years. Löfstad was originally built in the 1600s in Sweden’s so-called Great Power Era. The palace was given its current design in connection with an extensive renovation during the 1700s. The palace is a typical historic house museum. Emilie Piper, who was the last owner to live there, transferred the palace to Östergötland Museum for preservation in 1926. Inside, the palace is fully furnished, and looks much as it did the day Emilie died. However, it also contains objects belonging to those who lived there in the centuries before her. Therefore, Löfstad Palace gives a good insight into the kinds of homes that were inhabited by the nobility, the very highest circles in Sweden (cf. Reference MeurlingMeurling, 2008; Reference SylvanSylvan, 2010). The palace is located near the E4 motorway, 170 km south of Stockholm. The tour for eleven- to twelve-year olds included in this project was led by a staff guide during a standard tour of the palace interior, including the ‘ghost room’ number 13, which is not usually included in the standard guided tour. The materiality consists of inventories and artefacts organised in a contemporary staging that corresponds to Emilie Piper’s organisation of the home from the 1920s, and includes wallpaper, furniture, utensils, clothes and textiles.

Löfstad Palace is staged according to a narrative that reflects Emilie Piper’s life, but also her own ambitions to stage earlier eras in the palace’s history. The materiality both guides the narrative of the historic site and forms the basis of the guide’s story about the palace. Löfstad Palace is a well-defined chronotope in the sense Bakhtin defines the phenomenon: by aesthetic means and staging, the milieus at Löfstad appear as frozen moments in time – one being the exact moment that Emilie Piper died, as her bedroom remains exactly as it was on that day. Other rooms in the palace capture moments from earlier periods, resulting from Emilie Piper’s lifework 100 years ago.

The soldier’s cottage Bomtorpet was originally inhabited by a soldier and his family. In Sweden (and Finland), the soldier’s cottage was a simple croft built for and used by the local soldier in the permanent keep (military tenure) from the beginning of the 1680s. Each village financed a soldier by providing the cottage, which remained even after 1901 when national service took over. Soldier’s cottages are today frequently present in toponyms and materialised as buildings in urban environments as well as in more desolate areas. Despite its military origins, the soldier’s cottage is part of a past civil society whose history can be traced, since military source material contains the names of soldiers who have lived in the croft. Bomtorpet can therefore be seen as a historic house museum. The soldier names in the form of given names – for instance, adjectives such as ‘Kind’, ‘Witty’ or ‘Strong’ – were assigned to the soldier when he enlisted and can still be found in contemporary Swedish surnames. The soldier’s name was usually associated with the soldier’s croft, and would also be given to his successor. The croft Bomtorpet (‘Bom’ is thought to be a reference to the ‘boom’ noise of a gun) dates back to the 1700s. Today, it is surrounded by modern buildings. Here, the countryside has been transformed into a suburb that can be reached by city buses. The croft with outhouse and root cellar is managed by the local heritage association, two members of which led the guided tour for a group of nine-year olds. Bomtorpet is filled with objects, collections of artefacts from different contexts and eras that are linked to the cottage and to Sturefors, the village named after the Sturefors estate. The historic site is a well-defined place by virtue of the cottage’s position in the local community and the type of cultural heritage, the soldier’s cottage, and is a defined chronotope through its value as heritage.

The Motala mill site, finally, is located right next to the Göta Canal, a huge artificial waterway which here represents industrialisation, modernisation and the great transformation of the old society in the 1800s, and can be considered an important part of the Swedish historical canon. The Motala mill site can be characterised as an open-air museum. The industrial area from the first half of the 1800s is preserved. Old industrial buildings are scattered throughout the area, each with its own specific features. There is also workers’ housing. The adjacent Göta Canal is still used for boat traffic. The focus on the workers’ labour and everyday life is reminiscent of Bomtorpet’s depictions of ordinary people’s living conditions, but the exposure of materiality sets them apart. The tour included in this project was led by an employed guide who escorted a class of ten-year olds around the workers’ housing. While the Motala mill site stages specific years in the workers’ housing, the material environments in Bomtorpet consist of collections of artefacts from different eras that have the place as a common denominator. The Motala mill site is a tangible site and materially well-defined cultural heritage site and chronotope by virtue both of its collections and of its position by the canal, which was historically important for industry and fishing.

These five case studies form the empirical part of the study presented in Sections 3 and 4. Section 3 deals with the Alvastra monastery ruin and a tour for pupils in year 4; a tour of Motala mill site also for year 4; and a role-playing activity at Linköping Cathedral with year 5 pupils reliving ‘the Middle Ages in the Cathedral’. The choice of these three cases is justified by the fact that all of them include planned participation of the pupils during the visit. At Alvastra and at the cathedral, pupils’ participation involves different forms of bodily and sensuous experiences through active participation during the visit. Both sites are characterised by being less object-dominated – consisting in Alvastra’s case of ruins and walls, and in the cathedral’s case a place of worship. The time period treated during these two visits goes back more than 500 years into the past. The Motala mill site consists of environments characterised by physical traces of the relatively modern history to be conveyed. The participation here consists of the visitors’ (teacher and pupils) dialogue and interaction with the guide during the tour.

Section 4 deals with two cases, Löfstad Palace (year 5 pupils) and Bomtorpet (year 3). These two displays can be considered more traditional museums in that they contain rich collections of objects and clear physical traces of the history to be conveyed. In addition, these tours were guide-oriented. The relevant historical period in each case dates back between 100 and 400 years. The interaction between guide and visitor group in both cases takes place in the form of the guide’s commentary to the pupils in combination with the pupils’ questions to the guide. One difference between the two cases is that Löfstad Palace does not represent part of the pupils’ everyday experience, while Bomtorpet is a more integral part of their local community and daily life.

Alvastra: The Visit

The pupils are led by the guide between the different rooms of the monastery – or rather what remains of them. Since this is a ruin, as can be seen in Figure 1, only the walls and parts of the floors of the buildings are preserved; it is the guide’s task to reconstruct the place by narrating and describing it. While the guide does this, the pupils ask spontaneous questions. In this way, they shape the place together. However, it is the guide who ultimately sets the tone. The teacher is in the background, making occasional comments and handing out apples to the pupils.

Figure 1

Alvastra monastery ruin.

Photo: Niels Bosboom, 2006. CC-BY-SA 3.0. Source: Wikipedia.

The visit to the site is physical: the pupils walk on the stone slabs that make up the floors and feel them under their feet, while touching the limestone walls. In their experience of the site, the ruin, the narrative given by the guide and their own imaginations are all essential elements that make up a total possible experience. The guide creates situations where pupils, with their bodies and minds, get the opportunity to discover the site firsthand. This strategy becomes evident at the beginning of the visit, where pupils are allowed to climb through a narrow aisle to get to what was once the monastery’s dining hall.

By walking between the walls, and visiting the different rooms and buildings, the pupils get an idea of how the monastery was laid out. The pupils come from a nearby school and have previous knowledge of the site; several have been there before. However, in their interactions with the guide, their historical frame of reference appears limited.

The focus of the visit is the monastery itself and the lives of those who lived there. The guide describes how cold it could be during winter, since only one room in the monastery was heated. The pupils’ interest is aroused when the guide reveals that the monks used to carry around small dogs to keep warm when it was cold. When the guide then revealed that the monks consumed four litres of strong beer daily and therefore probably walked around slightly intoxicated, the guide got a spontaneous counter-question from one of the pupils: Were there children in the monastery and what did they drink? The guide answered that there were few children in the monastery and that they too were given beer, but that the beer was then diluted with water. Pupils gasped, and some giggled when they heard the guide’s response. In the guide’s story, an emphasis is generally placed on how different the lives of the monks were, compared to their own.

In the narrative that emerges during the visit, the guide tried to establish a pedagogic comparison between then and now. When the group is standing in one of the monastery’s gardens, the guide asks the pupils if they know someone who grows vegetables in pallet frames, to which several pupils quickly reply that they do. The guide goes on to describe that this was something that the monks also did; they used boxes that were specially designed to facilitate weeding. In this sense, the site’s cultivation system becomes a link between then and now.

The guide tells the group that the monks harvested pears and cherries. The class visits the place where the fruit trees are supposed to have grown, and the guide shows photos from other contemporary (preserved) monastery gardens. When they enter the abbey, the guide stops and points to a plant. What is that? she asks them. Rhubarb, some pupils answer. Butterbur, the guide replies. It is a species that the monks introduced into the area. The guide picks a plant and breaks off the stem. She passes the plant around, urging each child to smell the liquid that seeps out of the stem:

Here, the plant becomes something tangible linking the pupils to the time of the monks, through its use as a kind of soap, something that the pupils use every day. Moreover, they can now hold in their hands the same plant that the monks used 700 years ago.

A challenge with Alvastra monastery as a learning environment is that it is a ruin. In the absence of objects, the site itself and the plants that grow there must connect the pupils to the past. After the forty-minute guided tour, pupils are invited to explore the monastery on their own, and are clearly instructed that they are not allowed to climb the ruin walls. After a while, the guide reassembles the class. She then carefully instructs them to stand in a particular place, in a passage between two rooms in the ruin. Once they have gathered there, she tells them that extensive excavations of the ruin have been made. She asks them if they know what an archaeologist does, which they reply they do. The guide then reveals that right where they are standing, under their feet, the remains of monks have been found buried in seven layers. The ground beneath the pupils’ feet thus links them to the monks and the Middle Ages.

Alvastra: The Guide’s Voice

Alvastra: The Pupils’ Voices

Motala Mill Site: The Visit

A guide meets the pupils and takes them around the various exhibits housed in the old industrial area. The guide establishes clear and direct contact with the pupils early on. It turns out that she has met the pupils before in a different context, which seems to make the interaction easier. The interplay between guide and teacher is developed throughout the tour. The teacher does not hesitate to interrupt and ask the pupils questions about what they are experiencing. The guide takes a position reminiscent of a teacher: she shows and educates the pupils about the place. She often uses the initiate–response–evaluate (IRE) model of questioning, and the pupils do not hesitate to ask questions. The guide is constructing the tour; however, the pupils play a very active part. Together, the pupils, the guide and the teacher construct the place. The guide explicitly links to the frame of reference that the pupils have gained through their education at school. The site, buildings and objects displayed in the various exhibitions inspire the pupils to ask spontaneous questions about what they see and experience.

An essential dimension of the visit is that the pupils have the opportunity to wander between the historic buildings; sometimes, they walk around only for a minute, and sometimes they take a longer walk. The area with remaining factory buildings can be seen in Figure 2. The walking seems to have a function: by walking the site, the pupils get to experience the organisation of the place physically, through their bodies. Thus, they are given the opportunity to experience how the buildings, with their different functions, are located in relation to each other along the Motala river. In this way, the historic site is constructed, and this is done in interaction with the historical frame of reference that the pupils have built through their schooling.

Figure 2

Motala mill site is located by the Motala river and the Göta Canal. In the nineteenth century, the smoke from the mills coloured both workers and buildings black; the black colour is largely missing at the site today.

Photo: Carl Schnell, 2022. Published with permission from Motala kommun.

The interplay between the lifeworld of the past residents and the pupils’ frame of reference established during lessons in school developed through the visit. In the beginning of the visit, it was essentially the historical frame of reference that was addressed. Gradually, however, there was an increasingly clear connection made to the pupils’ own lifeworlds and experiences. The key connection was made by comparing their own living conditions with what was shown in the exhibitions. One exhibition described the harsh life conditions of the workers who dug the Göta Canal in the early 1800s, reconstructing the workers’ sleeping quarters with beds and life-size mannequins lying in them. The pupils reacted to how close together the workers lived and how narrow their beds were. Some pupils tried to tickle the mannequins lying in the beds, which the teacher prevented them from doing. Thus, the desire to interact with the exhibitions and objects was strong; the pupils wanted to touch and feel.

The exhibits are not treated as closed stories by the pupils, and objects play a vital role in this. It is mainly through their lifeworlds and physical experience that the pupils are able to connect to the narrative presented in the exhibitions.

The connection to experience and to the pupils’ lifeworlds becomes particularly clear when, towards the end of the visit, the class is allowed to enter a house where two working-class homes are displayed, one from the mid-1800s and the other from the turn of the century, c. 1900. As can be seen in Figures 3 and 4, these homes are tiny and cramped – but that does not stop the pupils from exploring the rooms and pointing out different artefacts that interest them. The guide describes the living conditions of the families who would have lived in the homes and thus puts the rooms in a historical context.

Figure 3

Museum apartment in Motala, furnished as in 1853, with an open fireplace.

Photo: Carl Schnell, 2022. Published with permission from Motala kommun.

Figure 4

Museum apartment in Motala, with furnishings in accordance with a probate from 1902, with the wood-burning iron stove in the middle. A potty can be glimpsed on the floor to the right.

Photo: Carl Schnell, 2022. Published with permission from Motala kommun.

With the teacher’s support, the guide tries to draw the pupils’ attention to the changes that society underwent in the second half of the nineteenth century and which are illustrated by the homes. The guide’s stories of the two homes differ. When talking about the older of the homes, she emphasises how different it is compared to what homes today look like. However, when talking about the home from the early 1900s, the starting point used by the guide is rather to point out the similarities with the pupils’ own homes, rather than the differences. Here, the tendency is that past and present merge; the room from the turn of the century almost represents the present. The pupils recognise many of the objects that are displayed and express their own relationships to them.

The artefacts in the homes take centre stage. Special attention is paid to the furniture, clothing and items relating to cooking; that is, objects that relate to basic needs, and which the pupils also have in their own homes, although they may look somewhat different. By connecting the rooms to specific historical actors, the homes come alive; they appear authentic. The authenticity is also something that arouses the pupils’ interest. When visiting the home from 1902, pupils began to ask questions about what they saw. Where did the artefacts actually come from? The power of the exhibition is based on the idea of authenticity, that the different objects on display really were once used by people living there. In the guide’s narrative, these were real homes. However, the pupils challenge this narrative as they begin to apply a meta-perspective on what they are experiencing.

The objects are significant since they seem to open up the narrative. As the objects connect to the lifeworld of the past residents, they link this lifeworld to the historical frame of reference that pupils have acquired in the classroom. In this way, there is the potential for the pupils’ historical understanding to be deepened by what they experience through the exhibition.

Motala: The Guide’s Voice

Motala: The Pupils’ Voices

Materiality of the Site

Many pupils commented on the historically reconstructed workers’ housing they had visited with the guide. They accurately referred to the fact that the exhibits represented the homes of working-class families in 1853 and 1902. This knowledge probably stemmed from the fact that on returning to school, the class and their teacher had discussed the excursion and, among other things, written up key dates on the board; whiteboard notes can be seen in Figure 5.

Figure 5

A summary of the class’s excursion to the Göta Canal and the Motala mill site was written up on the whiteboard in the classroom. The summary mentions the horse’s grave and the apartments from 1853 and 1902.

Photo: David Ludvigsson, 2018.

The pupils referred to several objects and interior details in the workers’ homes. However, they were particularly interested in the fireplace in the apartment from 1853, which they had been told could get very smoky, and sparks could fly out ‘so a fire might start’. The pupils recalled that the guide had said these problems only occurred before the home had an iron stove (which was installed from 1902), and one pupil considered that the guide was ‘in love’ with the iron stove and its oven. Clearly, the guide had made them think about the importance of the fireplace and the iron stove, since they mentioned the smoke, the risk of fire and how these things affected the possibilities for cooking. The pupils made positive comments about the guide. They especially appreciated that she had been dressed in historical clothes, which made her ‘fit in’ with the past. However, it puzzled them that they had also met her at another museum the class had visited – and one of the pupils claimed that he had run into her in several different supermarkets; she was simply everywhere.

Another object the pupils were fascinated by was the chamber pot under the bed in one of the workers’ homes. They carefully accounted for the fact that the people who had lived there went to a privy or into the forest when they needed to defecate, but used the pot if they woke up at night when it was cold and dark outside. The pot became the subject of lively dialogue and thus constituted an example of ‘heritaging’ in the pupils’ internal dialogue. The pot sparked several pupils’ fantasies about faecal matters, and one jokingly pointed out that you could not go out into the woods and pull down your underpants because then an animal might come and eat your private parts.

Middle Ages in the Cathedral: The Visit

This is how the time travel exercise begins, where the medieval cathedral in Linköping is used to give pupils an experience of what it was like to live in the Middle Ages – more precisely, in 1381. Time travel is simulated in the form of a role-playing game. The frame story is that the construction of the cathedral has dragged on. The situation has become grave, as there is a lack of construction workers, which is why the bishop is now asking the pupils to help. Behind this idea is a team of staff at Linköping Cathedral, who have been staging the time travel activity for several years. Different members of the team take on the leading roles in the role play, namely the king, bishop, housewife, abbess, building contractor and school master.

Before the pupils are allowed to enter the church, which appears in Figure 6, they are divided into three groups: some become novices (nuns), while others become schoolboys or stonemasons. The researcher accompanies the schoolboys group. The pupils change into medieval clothes and are each given a name typical of the period by which they will be known during the activity. Once the clothes are on, they gather for a slow ritualised countdown from now to then, from 2019 to the Middle Ages and the year 1381. Then they step into the cathedral’s large incense-scented nave, where medieval choral singing sounds in the background. It is with the help of the medieval building with its scents, lighting and special acoustics that the time travel is constructed, to create a medieval experience for the pupils that is as authentic as possible.

Figure 6

Linköping Cathedral, seen from the cathedral park (domkyrkoparken).

Photo: Katlinke, 2022. CC-BY-SA-4.0. Source: Wikipedia.

The smells and sounds bring pupils into their roles and help make the transition from 2019 to 1381 believable. Despite this framing, the pupils are somewhat sceptical initially, and nervous giggles can be heard on the audio recordings. However, gradually, these fall silent, and it becomes obvious that the pupils respect the framing; they are playing along. The pupils no longer occupy the role of visitors; instead, they participate in the role play. The straightforward narrative of the time travel contributes to the site becoming time specific. In this context, the site takes on the character of a well-defined chronotope (time-space). What the pupils experience is not the Middle Ages in general, but the specific chronotope of Linköping in 1381.

The pupils follow the character in the game that is linked to their group. Once inside the cathedral, the groups carry out various activities. Schoolmaster Mattias, played by a female guide, leads the pupils who are now medieval schoolboys. The character Master Mattias takes the disciples out of the building in order to show them their living quarters. To get outside, they need to open the large cathedral gate, something the pupils are asked to do while in the roles of disciples. Everyone is given a task, meaning that they open the gate together.

They go back into the cathedral. The next step is to learn a few phrases in Latin for greetings and giving their names (‘nomen meum est … ’). In order for the pupils to be able to study by candlelight like medieval schoolboys, they each have to make a candle from beeswax tablets, which is done in a corner of the cathedral, appearing in Figure 7.

Master Mattias shows them how to make their candles. Suddenly, she starts to sing a liturgical song, ‘Jubilate Deo’, which the disciples learn in advance of the ceremony when the novices are to be ordained as nuns. However, before it is time for that, the disciples get the opportunity to try writing on wax tablets with long pencils made of wood, the words that they have just learned in Latin. While doing so, they can hear the other groups singing in Latin. The acoustics of the vast nave give their voices a distinctive sound.

Figure 7

The pupils/disciples sat on the cathedral floor when training to write on beeswax slates.

Photo: David Ludvigsson, 2018.

After the pupils have been in their groups for a little more than forty-five minutes, the class reconvenes for the final episode of the time travel, when some of the pupils acting as novices are to be ordained as nuns. However, the ceremony is interrupted abruptly when the king appears and begins to accuse the bishop of not paying his taxes. The time travel ends with the pupils marching out of the cathedral in a procession with lit beeswax candles in their hands, singing in Latin the song they had learned during the hour and a half that the time travel had lasted. In the armoury, the ritual countdown is repeated, this time from then to now. Once back in the present, the pupils change back into their own clothes, and the characters in the role play hand the pupils over to the teacher.

Middle Ages in the Cathedral: The Guide’s Voice

Middle Ages in the Cathedral: The Pupils’ Voices

Löfstad Palace: The Visit

The fact that Löfstad Palace is a historic site containing many authentic objects impacts what the pupils get to experience during their visit. The objects are fragile, so even before entering the palace that appears in Figure 8, the pupils are asked not to touch them; ‘Look, but don’t touch’ is the message they receive from the guide. Thus, the pupils’ opportunities to interact with the objects are limited, which also sets the framework for what the guide is able to do.

What the pupils participate in is a pre-planned tour where the guide leads them from one room to another. The teacher is rarely heard on the recording made during the visit; the guide is solely responsible for the content during the tour of the palace. The pupils visit the dining room, sideboard-room, office, salons and bedrooms. The guide shows and tells. She talks about the various objects in the rooms, linking them to the people who lived in the palace. The guide’s basic narrative is that of Emilie Piper and her home; however, the guide also introduces the pupils to other people who lived there, such as Sophie von Fersen, the sister of the famous aristocrat Axel von Fersen. By telling the pupils about Axel von Fersen, his love affair with the French queen Marie Antoinette and his failed attempt to save the French royal family from the guillotine, the guide connects the historic site – the palace – to a broader historical context. Her focus is on the rich inhabitants, and less so on the servants, although the latter are also part of the story (cf. Reference PustzPustz, 2009).

Figure 8

Löfstad Palace (Löfstad slott) is located on a hill top.

Photographer unknown. CC BY-SA 3.0. Source: Wikipedia.

By contrast, the pupils remain silent when the guide is telling her story. It is only while they move between the different rooms that they talk quietly to each other. Once inside a new room, they fall silent again and listen to the guide. The pupils do not ask any spontaneous questions to the guide, who in turn does not attempt to delve into any deeper interaction with them. The questions asked by the guide are of a rhetorical kind. It is the guide’s narrative, illustrated by objects, that takes centre stage.

The objects and the place itself appear as teaching material that the guide provides commentary on. In the story, the guide oscillates between different layers of time. The tour pays much attention to the furniture and objects found in the rooms visited, and the guide links different rooms to different activities, times and periods. For example, Emilie Piper’s bedroom belongs to the early 1900s, while the palace library and salon concern the 1700s and Sophie and Axel von Fersen. In this way, the tour is characterised by multitemporality. With the intention to link the visit to the pupils’ lifeworld, the guide also makes references to the present.

The question of what really entices the pupils during their visit is an interesting one. Their interest in the historical context and the people who lived in the palace is potentially quite limited. It appears that their focus is rather on the supernatural rumours with which Löfstad Palace has been associated. It is revealed during the tour that the pupils have heard about the mysterious bloodstain found in one of the rooms, and of the ghosts that are supposed to appear there. There is also a possible connection between the palace and the pupils’ lifeworld. One of the most popular Swedish YouTube channels at the time, with hundreds of thousands of followers, and run by influencers Jocke and Jonna, was on the topic of ghosts and spirit beings. The two influencers often posted videos in which they visited houses known to be haunted and tried to make contact with ghosts. The pupils in the class match the channel’s target audience well, and Löfstad Palace is famous for its special ghost tours.

That it is the idea of ghosts and spirits that makes the palace attractive for the pupils becomes apparent when the guide reveals that they will get to see the bloodstain. It is the last thing they do on the tour, a bit like the intended crescendo. The pupils talk loudly among themselves as they make their way to the room, which is located on the top floor of the palace. Once in the room, the guide tells of a gun duel, of the bleeding young man who had been laid on the floor and who, in the moment of death, allegedly told those in the room that he would return from the dead. The pupils react to the stain. It is clear that it does not look like they expected. The stain is quite small and more brown than red, which does not tally with what they had imagined. Some pupils say it looks more like discolouration of the carpet, rather than blood. Clearly, the bloodstain is the highlight of the tour for the pupils, although, at the same time, it is something of an anticlimax.

Finally gathered outside, at the bottom of the palace steps, the pupils and the guide thank each other for the visit and the pupils continue on to their next destination of the day – the nearby Air Force Museum.

Löfstad: The Guide’s Voice

Löfstad: The Pupils’ Voices

Experiences of Heritage Created in Dialogue among Pupils

What the pupils talked about most was the palace’s connection to ghosts. Several of them mentioned the legend that in the room where Emilie Piper had died, you could supposedly smell her perfume; this was thought to be ‘awesome’ and ‘spooky.’ Although the pupils were generally not interested in coming back to the palace (several of them had previously been there with their families), one of them specifically mentioned that she would like to come back to ‘go on the ghost hunt’ – a special walk held in the palace during the dark season. The pupils knew already before the visit that the palace was known for ghosts, but the detail about being able to smell the perfume of the dead Emilie Piper was something they heard from the guide. The single detail that engaged the pupils the most was the bloodstain on the floor in room number 13, appearing in Figure 9. All the pupils knew about the bloodstain prior to the visit, and they discussed it among themselves. According to the guide, the bloodstain was created after a man had fought a duel and then bled to death in the room, but the pupils were disappointed both with the colour of the stain and, in particular, with the stain being so small:

P1: The bloodstain … I thought it would be bigger.

P2: And be more visible.

P3: I also thought it would be more visible.

P2: Barely saw it.

P4: But the floor felt kind of swaying when you walked on it. It felt like it was going to collapse. …

P1: I thought it was a bit exciting that the wallpaper was torn down like this in a few places.

P2: Hard to stand and half-paint it there then.

P4: … thought it would be more horror, scary [with the bloodstain]. I thought it would be much bigger. …

P1: I’ve been there another time and then they told us that they had tried to wash [it] away and that there was blood dripping down from the ceiling, but she didn’t tell us that this time.

P5: I’ve also heard that it dripped.

As can be seen in the excerpt, the pupils created much of the experience of the room with the bloodstain through their conversations with each other; for example, by reproducing the story about blood dripping down from the ceiling. Some pupils perceived the visit to room 13 as physical in a different way than the rest of the tour. They described the wooden floor as feeling wobbly as if it was going to ‘collapse,’ and that it was ‘freezing cold’ in the room. Thus, the experience of the bloodstain was based not only on visual impressions and the guide’s commentary but also on other physical impressions and on what the pupils heard (and probably told each other) before and after the visit.

Figure 9

Room 13 at Löfstad Palace. On the floor is the famous bloodstain. Further, rumour has it that the wallpaper, which is peeling in places, refuses to stay on the walls. In short, the room is associated with ghosts and the supernatural.

Photo: Jonas Karlsson. Published with permission from Löfstad slott/Östergötlands museum.

Bomtorpet: The Visit

The reason for the pupils’ visit to the cottage is that they have been learning about the local community and its history in class (for more on this tradition, see Persson 2017; cf. Cooper 2005). Approaching history based on local history is a tradition for Swedish primary schools that can be traced back to the early 1900s and the subject of ‘hembygdskunskap’, that is, a Swedish version of home geography. The cottage is not the only site that the pupils will visit as part of their studies; for instance, they have also visited the local church, where they were guided by the vicar. The soldier’s cottage appears in Figure 10. It is owned today by the local heritage association, and the two guides who greet the pupils, both in their 70s, have leading roles in the association. Before the visit, the pupils were asked to think of questions for the guides. The guides received the questions in advance, allowing them to plan the visit.

Figure 10

Bomtorpet, the old cottage used to be unpainted but has taken on a modern look with painted walls and a Swedish flag.

Photo: Emma Fornell, 2019. Published with permission from the photographer.

The room is small and cramped. After some time, and not without difficulty, everyone finds somewhere to sit. The guides sit down on two chairs at one end of the room. After the pupils have been welcomed and the guides note that ‘there have probably never been so many people in this room before’, they begin to address the pupils’ questions, reading aloud from notes they have brought with them. The teacher sometimes intervenes and asks questions to the guides that link to things they have talked about in school. The first few questions are about the house, how old it is and who lived there. However, questions are also asked about the guides themselves, such as how old they are. The guides express their surprise at this, but reveal to the pupils that they are both in their 70s. Gradually, it becomes clear that a bond is being established between the pupils and the guides, where the latter are given the role of reporting from the past about a place that they all hold in common today; the local area and the present represent a reference point to gather around.

The pupils have also submitted some questions about the old grocery store, which was located on the other side of the village. This leads the female guide to point to a picture of the building where the store was once located. She talks about the store and how the local people did their shopping there, mentioning that unlike now, people used to make their purchases over the counter. She continues by connecting her childhood experience to the narrative, telling the pupils how her mother would send her to the store with a shopping list. Mainly in passing, she informs the children that she used to go to the same school as them. In this way, a bond of experience is established between the guide and the pupils. Now the conversation is changing: from having focused on the cottage and those who lived there, the pupils and guides begin to talk about what was around the cottage, about the local community they are all part of.

The pictures and paintings in the room serve as inspiration for the conversation. Some pupils question the status of the images as they are not photographs and therefore do not portray the exact authentic remnants of the past.

Here the interplay between the present and the past becomes apparent, where an experience of the present place becomes a shared reference point. In fact, this interplay touches on several different pasts, such as a relatively non-specific past regarding life at the cottage and its inhabitants; references to the Linköping Bloodbath and other events during the 1600s; and the guides’ childhood memories from the mid-1900s. The conversation also becomes more open; gradually, the pupils express themselves more spontaneously. However, it is still the guides that dominate the conversation. The objects in the room, especially the pictures, serve in this way to open up the conversation, and provide a focal point around which both the guides in their 70s and the nine-year-old pupils can share their experiences.

After half an hour, the guides have answered all the pre-submitted questions, and the pupils’ questions about the objects in the room ebb away. The conversation comes to a natural end, and the pupils now have the opportunity to discover the yard outside. The root cellar had previously aroused the pupils’ interest, and now they are allowed to enter it and experience the cold, darkness and humidity for themselves. Otherwise, it is the privy that attracts the most attention. The pupils flock outside the open door, sharing their own experiences of using a privy. After playing a little while, it is time for snacks, and after that, the teacher gathers the class, and they head back to school on foot to continue their school day.

Bomtorpet: The Guides’ Voices

Bomtorpet: The Pupils’ Voices

Materiality of the Site

The main building of the cottage is a relatively small house, but several pupils pointed out that originally it had been even smaller. They spoke in great detail about how fifteen families had lived in the house and that one of them had had as many as six children, which ‘is quite a lot for being a family’, although one of the pupils said that her great-grandmother was the tenth sibling in her family. With six children, it must have been crowded in the cottage, the pupils thought, not least if the whole family needed to go to the toilet at the same time.

The group interviews show that the pupils had noticed several objects in the cottage, such as an iron stove, a tramp sewing machine, old-fashioned irons, paintings and rifles; some of these items can be seen in Figure 11. When the pupils referred to these objects, they demonstrated that they had seen similar objects in other places and that they had some knowledge of how they had been used. Of all the objects, it was especially the rifle that the pupils found exciting, and they explained that if the soldier ran out of gunpowder, he might have to run forward and fight with the bayonet. This was also something that the guides had told them.

Figure 11

Inside the cottage. On the wall: a rifle with a bayonet.

Photo: Emma Fornell, 2019. Published with permission from the photographer.

Performed Temporalities A: Universality Exemplified in Materialities

Human needs for sleep, food and social togetherness are particularly highlighted in those sites where everyday life is made visible, with both similarities and differences. At Motala mill site, the pupils observe what kitchens and cooking were like in the late 1800s through the workers’ housing and artefacts. The pupils’ questions about the authenticity of the artefacts – for example, whether the kitchen utensils in the exhibition were actually used by the workers who lived there – show a sense of a historical ‘now’ that coincides with the historical people who once, like the pupils and guides in the present, prepared food. The pupils’ comments about the danger of the fire spreading from the fireplace are also an expression of their identification with the people who lived at Motala through their own understanding of the risks of fire in the present.

The everyday experience of universal needs applied to the conditions of a different time comes into play when the pupils see the mannequins crammed into the beds. Although the mannequins are obviously contemporary artefacts – one pupil tells another not to touch them – the crowding of the mannequins in the beds provokes insights into what it must have been like to live in such cramped conditions.

At Bomtorpet and Motala mill site, through chamber pots and outhouses, a temporal present is created. This is yet another example where universal needs and the intimate sphere in the form of toilet visits make it possible for pupils to make connections to past times.

Performed Temporalities B: Acquaintances Mediated in Materiality

Materiality as a common point of contact – between the pupils and the guide, but also between both pupils and guide and a historical here and now – is stimulated in the cathedral role play, where the pupils get to taste and touch herbs that were used in medicine during the Middle Ages and are still used in cooking today. During the tour of the Alvastra monastery ruin, the smell of soap from the butterbur plant stimulates the pupils’ acquaintances when they learn that the monks used this plant for washing. The exposure of the plant butterbur that served as soap in the Middle Ages starts through the guide’s question about the name of the plant. The pupils’ experience with plants of the same material appearance is rhubarb, although this acquaintance with the sight is not correct with the actual name of the plant, the reasoning leads into the function of soap and the scent of lemon. The materiality through both the plant and the students’ hands and noses, which hold and smell, creates a multitemporal meeting between students, guides and medieval monks.

Materiality, in terms of a site that becomes a common place due to shared experiences at different times, bridges guides and pupils at Bomtorpet. The guided visit to the cottage starts with a question-and-answer session where the pupils’ questions are answered by the guides. Here, the temporal present is established in the discussion of the guides’ and the pupils’ common reference of going to the same local school. This also happens through the utilitarian items that are used to stage everyday life in the historical past. The pupils can touch and feel the artefacts, and they move through environments that clearly connect them to the past that they are experiencing in the heritage site. Their notion of this past is based on similarities and differences between now and then in regards to, for example, food. In the interviews, they note that the diet of the 1800s was meagre, while in the 1900s people were allowed to eat meat. A temporal ‘now’ is created when pupils ponder how cramped it must have been with several people sleeping in the same bed. Another example of this phenomenon, when pupils’ experiences and interpretations of the past are based on their own lifeworlds, is when they discuss the risk of fire from the fireplace.

At Löfstad and at Bomtorpet, where materiality is defined as a cultural heritage that should not be touched but that tells its own story, the connection between erfahrung and erlebnis is not as clear and controlled as in the three previous cases, when the guides deliberately allowed the pupils’ experiences to shape the tour. However, the guide at Löfstad strives to give the pupils an ‘aha experience’, and even argues that materiality in the form of beautiful furniture, for example, might stand in the way of the kind of historical understanding she wants to impart. It is important to her that the frozen moments represented in the various rooms and linked to the nobility – Piper’s 1900s and von Fersen’s 1700s – are supplemented with information about the lives of the servants. The guide also describes struggling to acquire knowledge about all of the artefacts that are housed in the museum. Thus, there is a conflict between the rich materiality and the history that the guide wants to convey. The pupils, for their part, recognise some of the people who appear in the paintings on the walls or in the guide’s commentary, and connect them to what they have learned in school, thereby confirming their existing knowledge. The guide’s ambition to portray the lives of the servants can be seen to succeed through the pupils’ reflections on the screen in the dining room, behind which the servants would stand during meals so as not to be seen. This feeling of ‘strangeness’ creates a temporal and empathetic ‘now’; a meeting between the pupils’ experiences of how meals are conducted today and the hidden existence of the servants.

Performed Temporalities C: Imagined Materialities

A multitemporal here and now can be created through imagined materiality. A collective notion of rooms, walls, windows and doors becomes evident in Alvastra, where the guide and the pupils imagine how the monastery and the abbey church might have looked based on ruins that leave only traces of the buildings. The pupils’ comments about the fun of encountering things that turn out to be something completely different from what they first thought, show that this absence of material remnants does not reduce the quality of the experience. The lives of the medieval monks, which are foreign to the pupils, nonetheless include some elements of recognition, as when the guide talks about how the monks kept warm by carrying around small dogs. Both cold and dogs are experiences that pupils and guides share with the bygone monks. However, even in environments that are rich in material remnants and provoke a high degree of recognition among the pupils, such as Löfstad Palace, an imagined materiality can take on significance, as with the supposed scent of Emilie Piper’s perfume.

There are also examples of how multitemporality is created with a clear connection to the future. The imagined materiality of the mythical treasure in Alvastra leads the pupils to speculate whether the treasure will be found before they become adults. Adulthood in the future as a temporal dimension also appears when the pupils discuss the limited freedom of nuns and the prospect of not being allowed to choose who to marry.

Performed Temporalities D: Through Rituals and Materiality

Multitemporality can be created by repeating the same rituals, walking over the same floors, or touching the same objects as previous visitors. At Linköping cathedral, this idea is systematically put to use in the role play through, for example, the wax tablets and the rituals that the novices carry out. The materiality of the three knots in the rope around the novice’s waist, which symbolise obedience, chastity and poverty, clearly embodies not only the nuns’ dress, but central values in their monastic life. The pupils’ discussion of the implications of living in a convent during the Middle Ages – both limitations, for example, in terms of freedom to marry, and opportunities for women who came from poor backgrounds – shows how their reflections on the knowledge of monastic life coexist with the experiences of living under monastic rules that are so clearly materialised in the nuns’ clothes. The pupils make a temporal fusion between how they want to live their lives today (which does not correspond to the limitations that the nuns lived under) and how living conditions for some women during the Middle Ages could actually make monastic life a good alternative.