Contribution short abstract:

In this paper, I draw on excerpts and cases from my recently completed research project ‘Reframing History’ which investigates the continued influence and effects of the Danish colonial era on everyday life in three areas formerly colonized by Denmark.

Contribution long abstract:

In this paper, I draw on excerpts and cases from my recently completed research project ‘Reframing History’ which investigates the continued influence and effects of the Danish colonial era on everyday life in three areas formerly colonized by Denmark. The departure point is a comparative anthropological critique of historical archives in close collaboration with people living in former Danish colonies in St. Croix (the former Danish West Indies, now US Virgin Islands), Ikerasak (Greenland), and Tranquebar (India) as well as historians, archivists and other experts at universities, museums, research libraries, and archives. The project juxtaposes archives and new collaborative photographs, films, and oral history recordings to nuance and reframe dominant historical narratives.

I focus on my work on vernacular archives with people on the island of St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands. Together we devised a method for analysing, digitizing, and preserving fragile private archives such as photographs and written documents. Part of our collaborative work is exhibited at the CMCArts Museum in Frederiksted, St. Croix in the spring 2024, and I will speak about the debates this exhibition generated, how the public received the exhibition, and conclude by pointing ahead to my current research project ‘North Atlantic Everyday Histories’, which is a continuation of this project in which we device new protocols for the digitization and open-access dissemination of vernacular archives and oral histories from Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands.

For examples of the work see : https://christianvium.com/