Dr. Inge Zwart

Inge holds a PhD in Information Studies from Uppsala University, an MA in Public Humanities from Brown University and a BA in liberal arts – philosophy, history, and sociology, from University College Roosevelt (Utrecht University). Her doctoral research focused on participatory projects in museums, as part of a larger H2020 project on participatory memory practices for social inclusion. In particular, she conducted ethnographic fieldwork in museums in Sweden and Germany which had long standing experience in community engagement and participatory work with various local groups. Her study approached their work from an organisational point of view and looked at professional practices, discussing in which ways such project-based work is maintained and the emotional and affective practices practitioners engage in when working with marginalised communities.

At Uppsala University, she taught on Cultural Heritage and Digital Humanities, Decolonial and Gender Perspectives on Digital Libraries and Archives, and qualitative research methods. Her research interests lie at the intersection of public history, critical heritage studies and memory studies in relation to local social justice and human rights issues. She is interested in how memory institutions such as archives and museums engage with and are criticised for their imperial and colonial histories – embedded in their organisational structures as well as their collections – and how this affects their contemporary practices. Furthermore, she is interested in the place, politics and experiences of collective memory in societies, especially in relation to memory sites, monuments and art.

Previously, Inge worked for various educational and cultural non-profits as museum educator, programme assistant and in communications. As such, she also has an interest in questions of (professional) practice in the field of human rights organisations and non-profits, in relation to translating goals such as social inclusion into programmes, funding structures and everyday work practices. She builds on this practical experience as a scholar, with a strong interest in public scholarship. For example, she worked for public history projects such as Mapping Slavery and co-developed professional development tools and workshops for the cultural heritage sector in relation to evaluation methods and participatory projects. She has an ongoing project, co-developed with Anne Chahine as part of POEM 2020, the Digital Archive of Forgotten Memories, through which she has organised participatory interventions around questions of remembering and forgetting on individual and societal levels, educating publics about the role of archives and museums in society, and engaging people in critical discussions about these topics.