Nordisk Museologi / The Journal Nordic Museology (2026)

The twice-yearly peer-reviewed journal focuses on issues and themes currently in the spotlight in the fields of museology, art, natural and cultural heritage, with contributions from many different professions and different bodies – thus providing a broad spectrum of approaches and insights.

17/04/2026

Skål från Stockholm!🍷For the first time since before the pandemic, the editorial board is holding an in-person meeting. It's a refreshing change from being six heads on a Zoom call.

We are being ably hosted by Swedish editor Fredrik Svanberg, who gave us a tour of the incredibly rich Nordbor/Nordic Life exhibition at Nordiska museet. We ended the day with dinner and a visit to Spritmuseum. As hard-working and serious museologists, we naturally engaged with the exhibits as fully as possible!

Tomorrow we'll look at the progress of the upcoming issue and enjoy having more time than usual to discuss other topics connected to the journal.

Editors from left to right: Inkeri Hakamies (🇫🇮), Brita Brenna (🇳🇴), Bergsveinn Þórsson (🇮🇸), Fredrik Svanberg (🇸🇪), Vinnie Nørskov (🇩🇰). Behind the camera: editorial assistant Jack Dhainaut (🇬🇧&🇫🇷)

16/04/2026

🗺️ Mapping Culture and Sustainability: A Critical Approach to an Abundance of Meanings 🗺️

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) address broad environmental, economic and social sustainability concerns. The inclusion of culture was part of the debate until the adoption of the SDGs in 2015. Among other things, the complexity of the meaning of culture alone, and in combination with sustainability, made this inclusion challenging. Along the way, there have been several attempts to define cultural sustainability and make the composite term applicable to museums, for example. This article presents the CultureSustain model, which attempts to map the combinations of culture and sustainability on a critical discourse-theoretical basis rather than defining the concept.

📄The basic CultureSustain model. Property of the authors.

A link to the article can be found in the comments.

16/03/2026

🔎 Appropriations of Cultural Sustainability across Research Fields: A Global Scoping Review, 2001-2023 🔍

This scoping review examines the growing academic use of the concept of cultural sustainability over the past two decades. Based on keyword searches across multiple databases, the study includes 213 peer-reviewed English-language articles published between 2001 and January 2023. It maps the temporal and geographical distribution of the concept, its disciplinary applications, and its varying definitions. Findings show a global increase in usage, with particularly strong growth in Asia and Africa. The concept is applied across a range of subfields and publication outlets, often in interdisciplinary contexts, though most prevalent within heritage studies.

A link to the review can be found in the comments.

📊Distribution of definitions of culture in/for/as sustainability across the different research subfields. The column on the far left shows the total/average number of instances for each definition in the corpus (note that definitions are not mutually exclusive). Property of the authors.

09/03/2026

Denne artikel introducerer CultureSustain, et udforskende forskningsnetværk finansieret af Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond (2022-2026), der undersøger, hvordan kulturel bæredygtighed kan forstås, konceptualiseres og analytisk adresseres inden for museumspraksis.

Projektet udsprang af en fælles erkendelse blandt forskere fra fire danske universiteter af, at museer i stigende grad forventes at bidrage til bæredygtighedsdagsordener i forlængelse af FN's 2030-dagsorden, på trods af at kultur og museer ikke anerkendes som et særskilt bæredygtighedsområde. CultureSustain reagerer på dette ved at sætte museers ofte underanerkendte bidrag til langsigtet samfundsmæssig modstandsdygtighed i forgrunden gennem praksisser som bevaring, læring, deltagelse og lokalt engagement.

Lenken til artikkelen i kommentarfelt.

📸Workshop nr. 2, 17. marts 2025, Aalborg Universitet, København. Ane Hejlskov Larsen.

01/03/2026

A new special issue of Nordic Museology is now available! We are pleased to present "Cultural Sustainability – Theoretical Concept, Political Agenda and Institutional Practice", edited by members of the CultureSustain network which is based at Aarhus Universitet.

The purpose of the CultureSustain network has been to exchange knowledge and experience about how museums and other cultural institutions understand, utilise and contribute to cultural sustainability. The articles in this special issue are based on the network’s activities, and many contributions stem from its research. Other articles are the result of an open call for contributions, intended to reach broader Nordic research and professional communities.

As well as the thematic articles, we include three articles and a book review showcasing other aspects of the flourishing museological research taking place in the Nordic countries.

This is our largest issue to date and you are sure to find a topic of interest. God lesing!

28/01/2026

Did you know that currently, no fewer than seven of our top ten most-read articles are by Finnish authors? 🇫🇮

We are very keen to receive more contributions about Finnish museums and heritage and by Finnish authors. As you can see, there's a good chance your article will be popular!

In the comments is a link to one of these well-read articles, charting the development of Finnish museums in the 40 years leading to 2018, by Janne Vilkuna (University of Jyväskylä - Jyväskylän yliopisto).

Even though it's almost the end of January, we would like to say hyvää uutta vuotta to all our readers 💙🤍

📈: The grey line shows the increase in museum professionals and the black line the increase in GDP (gross domestic product). Janne Vilkuna, 2018.

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