Keywords

The Swedish History Museum (SHM) in Stockholm, Sweden, has repeatedly been the subject of opinions , debates and value judgements (Bergström and Edman 2005; Hegardt 2012; Svensson 2014). Along with several other museums, the SHM is presently under the aegis of an agency tasked with promoting knowledge and interest in Sweden’s history as a matter for all people in society. The collections area of the SHM includes archaeological material and ecclesiastical art history. For the past fifteen years, the museum has had the stated ambition to engage in dialogue over its collections and exhibitions, for example, within the field of public archaeology (cf. Hauptman and Svanberg 2008; Hauptman 2015).

Meanwhile, many colleagues have noted changes and constraints in their professional roles in daily operations. More common is the aggression directed at new research, and particularly noticeable with regard to the research on the Viking Age that brings into question past stereotypes of gender roles, sexuality, power and violence (Hauptman 2014). Other controversial themes include Scandinavian contacts with the Islamic world and issues of nationhood and Swedishness (Svanberg  2016b). The situation at the SHM can be attributed to the broader, increasingly polarised discourse on the value of heritage and the functions of museums in contemporary Sweden (cf. Zabalueva 2019). This polarisation has led to it becoming more difficult to live up to the museum’s ideal of ensuring space for the multiple voices, complex conditions and disagreements over interpretations of archaeological evidence, that is, granting the museum a civic or “congregant space” that can bring communities together, even as opinions diverge (Gurian 2006). This polarisation can be linked to broader societal changes in the field of cultural heritage that have escalated after the entry in 2010 of the Swedish Democrats (SD) into parliament. Aligning with right-wing movements in Europe and the Nordic countries, SD advanced culture in terms of an inherited, distinctly national way of life that is under threat from immigration, integration policies and intellectuals advocating multiculturalism (Gustafsson & Karlsson 2011; Niklasson and Hølleland 2018).

Against this background, this chapter explores the discussions surrounding research in the SHM’s area of expertise and its collections on Internet forums, blogs and digital news media. It is grounded in the practical work at the museum and the observation that the dynamics of digital conversations have shifted over a fifteen-year period. This also follows the development of societal debates, in which antagonistic confrontations appear to be on the rise, all the while the conditions for the advancement of dialoguing are decreasing.

In this chapter, I will give examples of the appeals, opinions, discussions and debates that mainly concern the Viking Age and that have ties to the SHM during the period 2004–2020. My purpose is to draw attention to the curatorial challenges a museum may face when archaeological knowledge becomes a force in an increasingly polarised public debate. The focus is on the contexts in which interaction or dialogue occurs. The analysis does not delve further into the issues themselves but concentrates on patterns of communication.

In following an extended period of changes in the digital discussions over the Viking Age, I have chosen a method that might even be compared to an archaeological investigation. I dig up examples, look for keywords and arguments, or, if you like, fragments and clues, to interpret the context of the discussions and how the actors involved curate the theme through their interactions. The text reproduces only a few quotes, in part because they are in Swedish; in part so as not to repeat sexist, misogynistic or discriminatory language; and in part to maintain anonymity for the contributors (cf. the discussion about ethical challenges in digital spaces, see Richardson 2018).

In order to indicate the trends developing over time, the investigation will start on the Archaeology Forum, where discussions about the Viking Age and the SHM have been given voice in the form of an exchange between professionals and informed, interested amateurs. Visible traces of posts that have been moderated and references to events beyond the current thread also turn up here. This type of forum is preserved like archaeological relics that have been permanently abandoned but which have an afterlife, as people return to understand them in their previous contexts. The method is also comparable with netnography, ethnographic observations of digital communities and conversations through their generated material in order to interpret social interaction (Kozinets 2010; Pink et al. 2016). Some of the dynamics in the discussions can be traced through posts, replies and references to moderation; it is also possible to follow how the conversations have changed during the forum’s active time between 2004 and 2015.

In the period 2010–2015, discussions about the Viking Age shifted to different types of digital spaces, often distinguished from one another by participant, ideology and content focus. The analysis in later parts of this chapter, therefore, turns to the SHM blog about the Viking city of Birka and the museum’s digital Birka portal, both containing extensive material on the Viking Age. This is followed by discussions on the Archaeology Forum from the last years before closing in 2015 (Swedish: Arkeologiforum). This is placed in relation to the extensive discussions about the Viking Age and the SHM on ultranationalist news sites and posts on Flashback, one of the largest digital forums in Sweden. To cast light on the developments in recent years, an extensive debate that flared up in 2017 over a research article about a Viking Age grave at Birka is discussed.

Archaeology Forum, 2004–2009

May 2015 marked the closing of the digital Archaeology Forum, which for eleven years had functioned as a non-profit discussion forum for members (Arkeologiforum in the References). The forum then held 78,730 posts on 5954 topics written by 2608 members. Archaeology Forum can still be read in open guest mode, but no new posts can be entered since 8 May 2015.

The language of the forum was Swedish and in some cases Norwegian or Danish. In practice, significantly fewer than the number of registered members has been actively authoring their own posts. The forum is still often visited for reading more than five years after closing, although posting or membership is no longer possible. According to the site’s counters, the greatest number of users, namely 513, to be simultaneously online occurred on 1 December 2019.

The theme Iron Age/Viking Age has far more posts and views than other topics on the Archaeology Forum. Many of these were written in relation to excavations and new finds, while others were more generally about events related to societal changes, nationhood or mythology. Between 2004 and 2009, many of the posts disclose the museum and profession to which the writer belongs or has experience from, or whether the student analyses specific archaeological or osteological materials. In some cases, members are totally open with their identities and sign posts with their names. Some are slightly anonymised, but details from their everyday lives remain, such as that they explicitly state that they are women (while men do not divulge their gender in the same way), that they are part of a certain work group or that they are students in a particular academic environment. Other members are informed, interested amateurs, which some divulge in their posts and in connection with questions to which they want professional answers.

During this period, the Archaeology Forum acted as a semi-professional environment that captured themes of interest in the broader context of society and the museum sector. Especially during the forum’s first year, there were discussions about museums, exhibitions and digital resources, something that then decreased or disappeared completely. None of the museum threads among the forum were livelier, but questions about digital resources, exhibitions, programme items, management and working environment at museums occurred.

Separate Forums: Different Viking Ages, 2010–2015

In the years 2010–2015, the debate climate on the Archaeology Forum hardened (Arkeologiforum). In the same period the SHM’s then-new blog about the Viking city of Birka generated only the occasional comment. Meanwhile, full-blown aggressions were voiced on ultranationalist sites, such as Avpixlat, or in forums that marketed themselves as “safeguarding free speech, and actively defending freedom of opinion and expression”, such as Flashback.

We begin where many archaeologists and discussions about the Viking Age have begun. The proto-urban community Birka, on the island of Björkö in Lake Mälaren, Sweden, is one of the most iconic sites dating from the Scandinavian Viking Age. The place was densely populated and characterised by extensive craft and trade activities, encounters and knowledge exchanges between people and cultures, as well as with warlike and defence-related elements. There are also manifestations of power and vast burial grounds with thousands of buried people who had various social roles and multiple geographical connections (Andersson 2016).

Objects from Birka are among the most in demand in the SHM collections. There is a long tradition of differing interpretations and debates about Birka; indeed, interest has not diminished over the years. The SHM Viking Age collection contains extensive material from Birka in particular, in part because some of the ancient remains on Björkö were excavated as early as the nineteenth century. Many of them have formed the SHM basic exhibitions for decades. They have also been lent to other museums, published in countless scientific and popular science works and used in films and documentaries about the Viking Age.

Much work has been done to care for older excavations and to create a context from the materials there. In line with this, the Birka Project at the SHM was launched 2011. The project lasted for several years and included, among other things, an archaeological investigation of a grave at Birka, which yielded new findings showing that older investigations were often incomplete, as well as a digital portal to all Birka material (Birkaportalen). Started in November 2011, the project’s blog has been accessed several thousand times but has garnered few comments, mostly from colleagues (Birkabloggen). Thus, the blog remained essentially a one-way conversation. This is probably due to the posts describing the project’s activities, rather than discussing the new research findings. The project also communicated via social media. At the time of research only a handful of posts on #birkabloggen were traceable on Twitter and Facebook. They all had the purpose of directing readers to the blog, the text conveying a tone of inviting everyone to join in. None resulted in comments, but they were shared a few times and received some likes. This is an example of how information and discussion respectively have been split onto different spaces, making it difficult to follow the complexity of the reception of a research theme. The results of the Birka project are further discussed in academic contexts and not linked to its digital spaces, which were used for informative purposes during the active project period, rather than for connecting to other Birka discourses.

Let us now return to the Archaeology Forum during the same period. In its last year, the voices that had previously written posts and replies in their professional roles were silenced. Professionals were probably still involved in the discussions, but references that place members in organisations and special projects were reduced and almost completely eliminated. This could be construed partly as the development of other channels for more personalised semi-professional exchange on Facebook, for example, partly because there would be a shift where the organisations communicate more officially on social platforms, requiring a clearer division between what is said privately and professionally, respectively. During the same period, discussions on the Archaeology Forum became harsher in tone. It was also no longer possible to identify any women who authored posts. Probably women still participated, but they no longer stated their gender or revealed details about their identity in other ways.

In a discussion thread on the Archaeology Forum from 2009 to 2010, an increasingly antagonistic attitude to established museums and, to some extent, researchers emerged. The thread included several misogynistic posts focusing on gender and gender issues (man, woman or Odin in women’s clothing?). The debate was sparked by a silver figurine, two centimetres high, which shortly beforehand had been found in Lejre, Denmark. Wearing a robe, the figurine has a pearl set around its neck and sits on a throne flanked by two birds (Fig. 2.1). Archaeologists interpreted the figure as Odin, one of the Æsir gods. The thread discussed the question, “Man, woman or Odin in women’s clothing?” Writers on the Archaeology Forum disagree or were unsure whether it was Odin, Freya, Frigg or an unnamed man or woman. They proffered detailed factual arguments, comparisons with other objects, including some from Birka, and references to what different archaeologists believed. Despite the disagreement, the posts initially stuck to the issues but were skewed because the figure is a woman. Nevertheless, even when someone’s tone was a little too harsh, the thread was kept clean from personal attacks. However, the longer the discussion, the further it distanced itself from the figure.

Fig. 2.1
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Odin from Lejre, 900 CE, Roskilde Museum. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Odin_fra_Lejre.jpg

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For reply #55, the moderator has gone in and altered something, but it is not possible to track exactly what this is, and the discussion continues. Reply #156 shared the link to a lecture at the SHM, “Odin, a god in dress and other ancient transgressors”. The reference to the SHM was met directly by reply #157 which stated, “Sounds very queer and PK.” The same thing happened to reply #167, with someone informing about a “Danish” interpretation that seemed to be supported by both the Roskilde Museum and the National Museum in Copenhagen. This was met with antagonistic comments in reply #169, “Which then clearly shows that some have interpretive precedence, a very serious scientific deficiency … here maybe the gender perspectivists could win a couple of points!” and reply #170, “Hair-raising Danish interpretation.”

Here, a clear dividing line emerges between the forum discussion’s own framework, whose community granted space for different interpretations between the members, and the distrust of what public institutions and established researchers convey. Several commenters testified to the need to downplay academic credibility.

At this time, employees at the SHM were not participating on the Archaeology Forum and most did not yet have particularly active accounts on social media, although these began to be launched more widely in 2009 and 2010. This was the time that some debates about the SHM flared up on another digital forum, Flashback. Flashback was long Sweden’s largest digital forum, whose topics spanned from gossip, sex, private investigation, conspiracy theories, politics, spirituality, culture and media to history, science and technology. Flashback has many times been criticised for the aggressive tone in its posts and for spreading hate speech (Bjurwald 2013; Svanberg 2016a). From time to time, the site has been shut down for violating Swedish law. It is currently partly located in the USA and the UK, but according to its own sources seeks to be run in its entirety from Sweden. The forum stands out by the ways it allows for diametrically different opinions and interests, and despite its now old-fashioned functionality and design, it remains active.

On 1 August 2011, the thread “The Swedish History Museum: a thousand years ago there were no Swedes” was started on Flashback and the introductory post generated 208 replies in four days. The starter refers to an article on the ultra-national site Nationell.nu that raged against the sign introducing the SHM exhibition Vikings. The article on Nationell.nu tried to rouse hateful, racist and sexist call-outs, implicit and explicit, of the museum and its staff. Nationell.nu was closed down and resurfaced a few times, but it no longer exists. A quote from the original article still on Flashback reads, “Further into the exhibition, we saw a black woman in Viking clothes, texts about multiculturalism and an opportunity to ‘confront our prejudices’ regarding starting a family and learn that a ‘family can look any way’” (The Swedish History Museum: a thousand years ago there were no Swedes, 1 August 2011). These words led to a long stream of posts that could be deemed racist and sexist. In the thread’s discussion of the initial question regarding the name of groups of people during the Viking Age, a time when there was no nation called Sweden, there are some more nuanced posts, which try to argue around the substantive issues of societal change and nationhood.

Issues of Swedish nationhood often kick-start antagonistic discussions. On the Archaeology Forum, a thread started in 2012 on “Viking history and nationalism” to discuss a new book on the subject. The thread has 162 replies and has been read 30,340 times. In reply #27, the moderator intervenes, writing:

I have now weeded out the most obvious off-topic posts in this thread. Immigration policy , etc. must naturally be discussed, but there are plenty of places on the Internet where this can happen. Let’s stick to archaeology and history here. Of course, the boundaries can be blurred, but let us at least try to stay on the right side of the boundary. Anyone who wants to discuss this moderation is welcome to contact me via PM. (Viking history and nationalism, 21 September 2012)

In the discussion thread, anger is directed at how the Swedish National Heritage Board and the visitor destination Birka Museum have worked with inclusive perspectives along with the then active multicultural magazine Gringo. The collaboration concerned an exhibition that posed the question, “Is the Viking alive?” The exhibition addressed stereotypes about the Viking Age from a use-of-history perspective, an approach welcomed by some researchers but controversial to others. In a review in the popular science magazine Forskning & Framsteg, strong criticism was levelled at the exhibition (Höjer 2006). The review was used several years later, among others by Nationell.nu and Flashback in their ultranationalist, antagonistic texts. It emphasised how cultural heritage institutions systematically aim to eradicate Swedish identity through their work with history. Thus, opinions took a turn that based directly on people’s desire for a unified identity and a traceable origin today. The critique of pluralistic interpretations of Viking Age societies is not believed to be founded on the demonstrable conditions in the past but on present-day associations. From around 2012, this is clear not only in various opinion forums but also in the concrete lines of reasoning around research on the Viking Age.

The Viking Age has long had links to ultranationalist environments and their traditions of ideas. Fredrik Svanberg has analysed these issues based on comments in connection with the article “Propaganda Hostile to Sweden at the Swedish History Museum’s Viking Exhibition” (Svanberg 2016a which refers to Avpixlat 2013-03-29). The comment thread on Avpixlat was filled at a rapid pace with 843 posts, most of which had hateful, discriminatory content (Svanberg 2016a). The article dealt with the same ultranationalist issues as the above-mentioned Flashback thread. Here, however, were a few comments that tried to put forward factual arguments and correct inaccuracies in the thread. It had a temporary dampening effect on hatred, but these comments were also met with harsh personal attacks, and the antagonistic posts continued.

Before about 2015, there was a significant difference in comments on right-wing extremist channels and what was written in the mainstream media, on semi-professional forums, or in the Swedish History Museum’s digital channels. Hateful and aggressive posts appeared, but you often had to look them up on specific platforms.

The thread that would be the Archaeology Forum’s last clearly illustrates a development over several years that signifies a hardening debate climate and increased workload for the administrators, as discussion threads were increasingly filled with antagonistic and discriminatory posts. The administrator’s post one month before the closing date explains their decision:

After a long period of reflection and discussion, we have made the decision to close down the Archaeology Forum. The forum has been around for 11 years and we have always been an active forum, which of course is positive in itself. In recent years, however, the forum, for us, has mostly been a source of negative energy and too many conflicts…. As for us who run the forum full-time, we will instead spend our spare time on something that creates positive energy. Sometimes you simply have to choose what is best for you, so we ask for your understanding. (Archaeology Forum closes, 6 April 2015)

The thread received 106 posts, which have been read over 44,000 times. Some understanding of the decision was expressed by several members who chose to reply in the thread. One wrote that they “now have decided to leave the forum just because of these elements” (reply #5), which indicates that several users have perceived the same hardening conversational climate as the administrators. The same member expressed a desire for tougher moderation to “avoid ‘private moderators’, who have abused the forum, ridiculed dissenters and of late slowly destroyed it”. The member also made suggestions for how moderation could work with warnings and suspensions (reply #47), but also expressed some concerns about opinion registration on other forums, which they had now turned to (reply #60).

In reply #15, an antagonistic question about hidden agendas appeared for the first time. Here the writer wondered whether there are economic reasons behind the shutdown, or if it is the “cultural policy issues” that are controversial. This led to a response from the administrator which made it clear that they have run the forum non-profit and that the economy has not been a factor (reply #19). The same post stated that the administrators would not pass the forum on to someone else to continue running the discussion threads. This is because at present there was no one to entrust it to. Meanwhile, one member submitted the proposal that those who want to can continue the discussions at the Scandinavian Archaeology Forum, something that several announced they would (Swedish: Skandinaviskt Arkeologiforum). Afterwards, the discussions moved to the Scandinavian Archaeology Forum, where the moderation and rules are described as tougher.

A number of usernames on the Scandinavian Archaeology Forum are the same as on the Archaeology Forum and the exchanges between them are recognisable, but the texts are more restrained, probably due to the stricter regulations for what may be published (Skandinaviskt Arkeologiforum in the References). There is a special thread under the heading “Tinget”, where “warned” and “prosecuted” are published along with the alias in question, but without the detailed arguments and evidence according to the forum’s rules. This is an example of an arena with clear regulations for how the members should behave in the discussions, which is common for forums and websites with comment functions.

Antagonistic Argumentation, 2016–2020

Topics such as power during the Viking Age, its ideals of war, the roles of women and men, and transnational mobility and influences between cultures and traditions have been the focus of antagonistic debates since the 2010s. This is now noticeable both in museums’ own channels and in forum threads and mainstream media. Museums in Sweden are more publicised than ever. This applies certainly to other phenomena, as research, reports and opinion articles are widely circulated in the daily press on the Internet. Their presence in the news service strengthens the museums’ roles in current societal issues and certainly calls for more debate, which many museums have long demanded. However, few museums and staff have been prepared for the kind of antagonistic input that has grown increasingly common.

To provide context, this section deals very briefly with a museum debate that was conducted in the media and mainly on editorial and debate pages in Sweden during 2016–2017. It elucidates a break in the public discourse in Sweden, in accusing museums and research of being run according to hidden agendas. This is not reducible to reviews on how museums communicate about art, history and society, but criticism that they are perceived to push political issues.

The dynamic in the so-called museum idea debate was antagonistic. There were few posts that explained the contexts of museum development or nuanced the background of the museum operations that were now criticised for working with inclusive perspectives, gender research and norm criticism, human rights and minority groups. It was repeatedly implied that the museums’ purpose is to influence party politics or that the museums are so governed by the current government policy that the credibility of independent research has been eroded (Högberg 2016; Bernsand and Narvselius 2018; Gustavsson 2018; Zabalueva 2019).

This debate concerned physical museums but was conducted digitally. Several of the debaters referred to digital information about exhibitions that they themselves had not visited or to anecdotal comparisons between various kinds of cultural operations. Although the arguments were often about the importance of academic knowledge , the debate was not always conducted with first-hand experience of all the conditions described (Högberg 2016). It also became clear in retrospect that the debate may not have been as fired up as it seemed. Many posts were written by individual debaters or rewrites between newspapers in the same group of owners. The articles that tried to fit the work of museums into a history of research and argued that more perspectives generated more knowledge or suggested that the museums’ problems were more about economic conditions than lack of expertise were shared to a much lesser extent than the articles that questioned museum operations.

Debating Female Warriors

In archaeology , graves containing weapons have been hotly debated over the years, as has the presence of female warriors. Interpretations differ. How exactly should a warrior be defined and what objects are indicative of belligerence rather than labour, craft or power symbolism? Traditionally, sex, gender patterns and social roles have been interpreted on the basis of relationships between grave’s form or superstructure, the human remains, the buried person’s personal objects and clothing, grave gifts and traces of the rituals performed (Fig. 2.2). Although extensive archaeological gender research (e.g. Gero and Conkey 1991; Stig Sørensen 2000) has drawn attention to the need for revisiting preconceptions about gender roles in the Viking Age, traditional paradigms remain active.

Fig. 2.2
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Personal belongings and/or grave goods in grave Bj. 581 at Birka, as they were exhibited in the exhibition “We Call Them Vikings”. SHM. Licenced under Creative Commons CC BY 2.0

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Based on the known material, the warrior role has been interpreted as primarily belonging to male spheres. At the same time, women carry weapons in the Old Norse sagas, giving reason to problematise archaeological gender assessments based on grave goods. On the Archaeology Forum, this topic was discussed in the threads “Female warriors in Ireland and in the Nordic countries?” in 2011 (42 replies) and in “Female ‘warrior graves’—what do they mean?” in 2014 (127 replies). A thread from the period 2007–2008 has only five replies: “Shield-maiden, myth or truth?” A post in this thread recommends a visit to the exhibition “Prehistories” at the Swedish History Museum, which problematises stereotypical gender assessments based on archaeological objects.

Themes concerning women’s roles in connection with weapons and warrior equipment during the Viking Age have attracted attention in many contexts without being further explored or particulary debated. But when an article entitled “A Female Viking Warrior Confirmed by Genomics” was published in the Journal of Biological Anthropology (Hedenstierna-Jonson et al. 2017), something changed, and the title immediately went viral (Källén et al. 2019; Williams 2017). Posts on social media and brief rewrites about the results were often accompanied by a line drawing of the grave from the article, which was republished in many media across large parts of the world. Researchers, as well as media houses and the general public, shared articles and notices that refer to the researchers’ new findings. After the first days, those who quickly engaged split into two camps: those who welcomed and applauded the news, often with reference to feminist points of view, and those who were critical and questioned the results, from either a research or a political perspective.

The self-assured article title probably plays an important role in how the news was communicated in wide circles internationally. The statement is easily accessible and clear but avoids the complexity both in determining gender and in the concept of warrior (Källén et al. 2019). The article presents scientific analyses in a journal of biological anthropology and with a long line of authors for a short text that mainly reports laboratory results (Hedenstierna-Jonson et al. 2017). The cultural-historical syntheses are less elaborated, but the results were publicly translated into far-reaching interpretations that deal with societal roles, status and ideals in Viking Age society. These conditions are probably some of the things that provoked well-known archaeologists to criticise the study with great force (e.g. Jesch 2017; Williams 2017).

One factor that seems important for the large and critically held commitment to the article is that it concerns an iconic grave. The original excavation was carried out by Hjalmar Stolpe in the nineteenth century, an archaeologist and ethnographer who examined many graves that have provided important material for the SHM collections.

The dramaturgy of how the article “A Female Viking Warrior Confirmed by Genomics” was received can be divided into three waves. The terms “female” and “warrior” were in focus, but often without direct references to gender studies. First, the news flew around the world in the daily press as a positive sensation (news articles, shares on Twitter and Facebook) and then came criticism from research colleagues (e.g. blogs) over the lack of problematisation, as well as aggressive questioning of results and casting suspicion on the intentions of the research group from trolls and right-wing extremists (websites, forums and sharing on social media). The third wave also includes a number of positively held drama documentaries to bring warring women to life, often with dramatised parts interspersed with interviews, which obscures the boundaries between fiction and research. In the last two years, the SHM has received numerous requests from filmmakers in different countries to gain access to the material from grave Bj 581 and to comment on the various interpretations.

Several archaeologists authored posts in their own social media with arguments that questioned the results of the published article, while others commented in the media. It can be noted that few entered the debate in order to support the research group’s arguments and the published article—this follows the paradigm of the above-mentioned museum debate that took place in Sweden.

Stockholm University published a film on its website and on social media to make the results more accessible and to provide answers to some of the critical questions that have arisen (Fig. 2.3). The film’s teaser was entitled “The Birka Warrior Was a Woman” in Swedish and “An Officer and a Gentlewoman from the Viking Army in Birka” in English. The Swedish ingress states, “The study is the first of its kind that can show genetic evidence that the warrior profession was open to women during the Viking Age.” The text also describes the woman as an officer. The film begins with dramatised scenes that show Vikings attacking from ships, with the text “The fierce Viking Warrior—a role always assumed to have been for men. But new research has determined that one Viking Warrior grave did not belong to a man.”

Fig. 2.3
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The Viking warrior was a woman. Screenshot from the website of Stockholm University. https://www.su.se/2.1275/profilomr%C3%A5den/kulturarv-historiska-artefakter-processer/birkakrigaren-var-en-kvinna-1.346138

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This is followed by a research interview with Hedenstierna-Jonson, who in many ways deflates the far-reaching images from the introduction.

The facts are that it’s a richly furnished grave, it contains a complete weapon set, and within this grave, and very central in this grave, a woman is placed, in a dress that is not typically female. By her feet there are two horses. These are the facts. Then comes our interpretation. (Hedenstierna-Jonson 2018)

However, the title and the details of the introduction have a much greater impact than the attempts to distinguish between material evidence and interpretation in the interview. In sum, communication is contradictory. On the one hand, the implication of the warrior role would be that it could also be held by women. On the other hand, it is made clear that the study is only on one grave. In terms of communicating the research, it is therefore unclear.

Several further discussions can be traced to the blog post “Let’s Debate Female Viking Warriors Yet Again” published by researcher Judith Jesch (2017). Jesch has written extensively about women’s various roles and power during the Viking Age, even in popular science contexts (Jesch 2019a, b). However, she holds several critical views on the concept of female warriors, on the ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis of skeletal parts from grave Bj 581 and on the interpretations of the contexts of the grave.

On Flashback, as of 9 September 2017, the thread “The Birka warrior—a prominent woman” was started by someone who is positive about the news. It appears from the post that the person has some archaeological training. The discussion becomes immediately mixed with misogynistic comments and scepticism over the results of the research, but it also contains reasoning about battles, injuries and who may have which roles in different societies. Reply #46 mentions that the researcher Judith Jesch has detailed criticism of the article about the female warrior, but interestingly, few use her original blog to strengthen their own resistance to the fact that a woman during the Viking Age could have the role of a warrior. Jesch emphasises, for example, that the article’s interpretations go far beyond the concrete study that is presented and reproduces several concepts around what an officer means, the importance of strategy games and the importance of weapons (Jesch 2017).

The posts in the Flashback thread give the impression that the writers seem to be satisfied that a researcher can stand on their side. Despite this, they seem to have more faith in the arguments in posts on Flashback. Among other things, several posters in the thread emphasise that they themselves have archaeological training and therefore know what they are talking about. It can be noted that some of the thread’s combatants do not really disagree on substance but that they still write antagonistically with offensive personal attacks, misogynistic statements and clear markings against what they call a politically correct elite. The impression is that the debate is not really about research results or historiography but mostly about discrediting those who stand up for new findings and nuances of archaeological interpretations and do so by asserting their own interpretations of the past.

The research group behind the article “A Female Viking Warrior…” eventually followed up the debates in new articles and lectures (Hedenstierna-Jonson 2018; Price et al. 2019). Many parts of the media coverage of the two articles have been analysed and summarised by Howard Williams on the blog Archaeodeath. He states that there is not as much interest in debating the second article as the first and that it is the first article’s clear conclusion about a female warrior that persists—despite all the discussion. Williams lends nuance to certain criticisms that have been made and at the same time devotes much of his own space to questioning the conclusions of the articles. He also goes through the need for problematising the issues of sex and gender during the Viking Age. In total, there are ten posts on the blog Archaeodeath (Williams 2017).

Perhaps the interpretations of the female warrior are approaching discussions in which the opposing parties display mutual respect, but until now the antagonistic positions seem to persist. The aDNA results are still not anchored in societal terms and mainly translated directly to biological women and men in the debate, although a later article efrom the research group emphasises that we cannot know how the woman in the grave was perceived in gender terms during her own time (Price et al. 2019). Varying interpretations of warrior roles, officerhood or how funerals are staged and communicated are not given sufficient space in the discussion. In this dramaturgy, the argumentation returns to traditional and stereotypical descriptions of the Viking Age .

Curatorial Challenges

During the period 2004–2020, one can notice a clear escalation of increasingly questioning, confrontational and aggressive reactions to museums’ operations. Precisely on digital forums, antagonistic and threatening interactions leave traces through explicit moderation, and those who participate with content or views refer to how they are treated or announce that they choose to refrain from participating in certain contexts.

The hopes that archaeology and history as subjects, and that museums as arenas, would be unifying forces in society have not been fulfilled since the interactions between users and museums has intensified. Instead, many situations indicate that antagonistic encounters are growing more common. Noticeable over time is that the debates that engage and become antagonistic converge across digital spaces, while the knowledge of previous discussions and contexts is obscured. Referencing general opinions, popular science and the mainstream media, any user can now bring into question new archaeological interpretations. Researchers also continue to debate on these same platforms, and so the arguments get mixed. Thereafter, it can be difficult to distinguish an expressed opinion from the various layers of knowledge based in research. New ethical challenges are clearly developing on digital platforms where archaeologists want to communicate with the public (Richardson 2018). But lacking in-depth knowledge about how discourse works when people meet in digital spaces, there is a risk of losing stringency in the public debate.

Elaine Heumann Gurian raised concerns about this course of development in the introduction to her collected works, where she comments and reflects on thirty-five years of changes in the museum sector. She advocates museums as a kind of “congregant space” that should be able to gather communities even as opinions differ. She warns of the political pressure imposed on museums on behalf of a society in which there is a constant competition over right and wrong, instead of efforts to understand the value of the one little word “and” (Gurian 2006: 1ff). Today, Gurian’s conclusions are more relevant than ever. There are many indications that the authority of the museum and the researcher is no longer perceived as an obvious measure of insight into a subject, while the museums have not been as inclusive as they once might have thought.

Academic digital forums and blogs are frequented by people who know or know about each other well. Conversation becomes a hybrid of seminar room and anonymous comments. But there are always many more people reading than participating. Most people are not likely to have a deep knowledge of the subject and so quickly form opinions that are cemented and become difficult to re-evaluate. Alliances between parties who do not usually agree contribute to conveying credibility to detached details. The impression of broad consent with arguments that are not established among the main group of researchers of the topic often encourages more antagonistic posts online. The situation indicates a distrust of established institutions and of those in power who work with inclusive perspectives.

The impression is that the SHM has regarded these digital interactions as tracks parallel with the museum but not integrated into its core operations. Only when object information and marketing have converged, the critical points of view hit home and affect the museum’s work. The situation probably also leads to some ambiguity in the museum’s curatorial agency in terms of professional roles and the framing of objects in displays and online.

Engagement in the museums’ operations is widespread, which is noticeable in lively media discussions about their position in society. Many of the interactions express evaluative judgements. It is perhaps also the clearest invitation to use the museum that the visitor receives: they are encouraged to rate their experience and also recommend the museum to others (cf. Gronemann et al. 2015). Therefore, it is an expected development that digital comments about museums’ content, lectures or exhibitions are about opinions, sometimes supportive, sometimes critical and questioning.

Five aspects stand out when a topic is debated and engaging for those who participate: (1) the struggle for interpretations of different kinds of sources, (2) the focus on detail at the expense of syntheses, (3) questioning people’s credibility and personal attacks, (4) hastily connecting to contemporary politics rather than valuing relationships between data and interpretations and (5) an immediately aggressive tone in the posts.

On digital forums, different types of applicants for a homogeneous national cultural heritage appear. A few years ago, such perspectives were presented mainly by ultranationalist and right-wing extremist movements (cf. Gustafsson and Karlsson 2011; Niklasson and Hølleland 2018). Today, there is a broader foundation in searching for origins and anchoring people’s identities in history. Above all, detached arguments from scholarly discussions are used to substantiate the nationalist practice of history. Blog posts and comments by researchers and writers who want to deepen and problematise the topic of the war grave from Birka are shared, for example, by right-wing extremist groups or others who seem to show support for opposition to feminism, pluralism and inclusive perspectives. The desire to define complex contexts in simple binary oppositions is reinforced by the dramaturgy of comment threads. Opinions come first, and evidential knowledge either is added much later or is more difficult to summarise in short posts.

As can be seen from the anthology The Digital Turn: User’s Practices and Cultural Transformations, the asymmetries between institution and public, between official and unofficial cultural heritage, do not disappear when databases and source material are made digitally available (Runnel et al. 2013). Digital curation should have the whole world at its feet but often seems to get caught up in details or miss the point. One way is for museums to focus on context, synthesis and understanding of different societies and cultures. It would help to build knowledge, nuance conversations and enter into dialogue instead of competing for limited factual information and truth claims. Through their pedagogical competence, museums can take greater initiatives to curate readily accessible analyses, questions and conclusions within their subjects. Museums can generally become more proactive in raising themes and issues that contribute to understanding complex historical and cultural contexts.