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Accepted Paper:
Borders, battles and authority at a symbolic battlefield site
Mads Daugbjerg
(Aarhus University)
Paper short abstract:
Drawing upon fieldwork among tour guides and visitors at a Danish battlefield site, this paper identifies and discusses two dominant modes of (war) heritage interpretation, each resting upon its own set of claims to authority, authenticity, and community.
Paper long abstract:
Just north of the present-day border between Denmark and Germany lies the former battlefield at Dybbøl, the spot where the Danish army was defeated by the Prussians in 1864. The defeat was a defining turning point in Danish foreign policy, shattering former ambitions of European influence and leading to introspective small-state political thinking. Also, the Prussian victory was heralded by German historians as the first of a 3-step series of victories leading to the unification of the German Empire in 1871.
Over the past century, the Dybbøl nametag has held an almost sacred status in the eyes of generations of Danes, who have ascribed strong national sentiments to it, fuelled by anti-German emotions in the wake of the world wars.
This paper analyses the dominant ways that the Dybbøl stories are narrated today. Focusing on present-day tourism in the shape of a so-called Battlefield centre, the paper argues that a constant negotiation between interpretation forms and narratives is taking place these years. Two dominant and competing modes of heritage interpretation, differing in form as well as content, are identified in the unfolding of the logics underpinning a key part of the guided tours at the heritage centre. Both of these modes, it is argued, are predicated on their own claims to authority, authenticity and community.
Drawing upon theoretical insights from tourism and museum studies, the paper suggests that recent turns towards 'eyewitness' and 'post-heroic' approaches to heritage interpretation does not entail a completely ungoverned and anti-authoritarian stance, as radical postmodernists would have it. Instead, as social analysts we must strive to unravel new and emerging logics and sense-making in the tourism of war heritage.
E-paper: this Paper will not be presented, but read in advance and discussed
Focal points and talking points: objects of desire in tourism
EPapers