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Bodil Axelsson

Professor

Head of the Division of Culture, Society, Design and Media.

Meaningful pasts and heritage

Bodil Axelsson’s interdisciplinary research and teaching examine heritagization, that is processes in which cultural institutions, associations and individuals produce meaningful pasts.

She uses dynamic combinations of interviews, participant observation, and text interpretations so as to understand contemporary and historical processes where relevant pasts is actualised, restored and reinserted into present and future actions.

Research

In recent years Axelsson's research has concerned digitalisation at museums – a process that changes museum’s operation on many levels: administration, collection management, research, education and how visitors are addressed. Her latest research project investigated the circulation of digital versions of museum objects on global platforms like Pinterest, YouTube and Google. It addressed curation – selection, contextualisation and presentation – when human meaning-creation interacts with algorithms’ automated selection, platform economy and global technical and material processes.

Previous research projects have focused on historical theater plays, popular history magazines, cultural history museum’s contemporary collecting, and artistic work.

Industrial heritage in NorrköpingFoto: Thor Balkhed

Publications

2024

Wiktoria Glad, Bodil Axelsson (2024) Shapes of hot water: the ontological politics of handwashing during the COVID-19 pandemic Social & Cultural Geography, Vol. 25, p. 1248-1271 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI

2023

Bodil Axelsson (2023) Book review: Förflutenhet för alla? Digitalt deltagande som metod för demokratisk kulturarvsproduktion, Ina-Maria Jansson (2023) Nordic Journal of Library and Information Studies, Vol. 4, p. 87-93 (Article, book review) Continue to DOI

2022

Bodil Axelsson (2022) Viking Jewellery on Pinterest: Drifting Digitisations and Shared Curatorial Agency Museum Digitisations and Emerging Curatorial Agencies Online: Vikings in the Digital Age, p. 71-94 (Chapter in book) Continue to DOI
Bodil Axelsson, Fiona Cameron, Katherine Haputman, Sheenagh Pietrobruno (2022) Museum Digitisations and Emerging Curatorial Agencies Online: Vikings in the Digital Age
Bodil Axelsson (2022) Museum diplomacy in the digital age The International Journal of Cultural Policy, Vol. 28, p. 124-130 (Article, book review) Continue to DOI

Research

Culture and society (Tema Q)

Tema Q/Culture and Society research environment is an interdisciplinary unit that seeks to foster a critical outlook on the multiple roles played by culture in society, in the present as well as in the past.

News

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Virtual worlds and 3D objects – the digital future of museums

Virtual environments or 3D objects printed directly into the classroom. Linköping University and the Museum of Östergötland are starting a research collaboration to find new and better ways to utilise technology.
Bodil Axelsson at Motala ström in Norrköping.

Cultural heritage is both everyday and political

What happens to our cultural heritage when it is digitalised? When versions of Viking-era jewelry circulate on Pinterest? When their colour, form and descriptions interact with the algorithms of the big platforms?

Organisation

Division of Culture, Society, Design and Media (KSFM)

The division conducts problem-oriented cultural science research and teaching at the intersection of the humanities and social sciences.

Department of Culture and Society (IKOS)

At the Department of Culture and Society (IKOS), social sciences and the humanities gather in environments where research and education work together.

Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FILFAK)

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences provides education and research in humanities, social- and behavioral sciences, commercial law, art disciplines and thematic science.

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