History can be used in many ways. It can be rewritten, or used by radicals or conservatives in order to gain power. There are a lot of myths about for instance the Viking age!
Therefor one of the main goals with the Archeological museum The Viking Village, where IAL had its summer workcamp, is to experience history hands on.
We learned all this when speaking to Britta, housewife at Vikingabyn. The villge is part of “folkbildning”, a word that is somewhat hard to translate. ’Folk’ in Swedish means ’people’, and ’bildning’ means ’enlightenment’. “The critical component is that folkbildning is collaborative, with each participant bringing their own point of view and experience to the process.”
You can read more about “folkbildning” here!
Meet Britta and Malin
Meet Britta and Malin!
Britta is the “husfru” (housewife) at the Viking Village. She is everywhere at the same time and if you want to know something about the village – ask Britta. She is excellent at “kulning”, “herding calls”, a special kind of singing that was used to call on the lifestock of goats or cows.
She tells us about the graveyard where there are 160 authentic viking graves and of course she knows handicrafts. Britta was one of the founders of the Viking Village 27 years ago and apart from her commitment to the viking village, she is an ethnologist and a researcher at university. Britta believes in experiencing history hands on. She tells us that many volonteers returns to the village year after year, and that 4 of the foreign volonteers actually have moved to Sweden and become Swedish citizens!
Malin is a member of the organisation that inhabits the village. She lives in the village during the summers together with her husband and three children. She knows a lot about the village, the people living there and of course handicraft and history.
