The Institute for Studies in Malmö’s history (IMH) was established in the fall of 2009 as a collaborative initiative between Malmö University and the City of Malmö. The institute initiates research into Malmö’s history, and facilitates discussions on different per-spectives of urban history. The purpose is to widen and deepen the conversation between researchers and residents, and to make it more inclusive. The Institute’s work is based on Malmö University’s vision of interdisciplinary research and cross-faculty collaboration, as well as participative activies with the local community. Even though Malmö’s history is at at the core of activities, these perspectives are also related to other Swedish as well as internationall experiences in urban history, through seminars, workshops, conferences and collaborative research projects.
In 2014, we translated parts of See History. Twelve walking tours for discovering Malmö, a book with historical city walks, into arabic and trained 20 native-arabic speaking guides to perform historical city walks.
Contact: Roger Johansson, Professor and leader of IMH [roger.johansson@mah.se]; Fredrik Björk, lecturer and course oordinator [fredrik.bjork@mah.se]
IMH webpage: mah.se/imh; course syllabus: edu.mah.se/sv/Course/BY250C
The Institute for Studies in Malmö’s history, Dept Urban Studies, Malmö University SE-205 06 Malmö, Sweden
‘MALMÖ’S HISTORY AFTER 1850’
CO-CREATING URBAN HISTORY
A brief history of Malmö: Sweden’s third city with about 320 000 inhabitants (2016). During the late 1800s the city grew quickly and by 1910 Malmö was regarded as one of the nation’s three leading industrial cities. Malmö’s early industrial economy was dominated by the textile companies and engineering works. Kockums, which eventually turned into a world-leading shipyard, was founded in 1840 and vital to the development of Malmö’s early industrial economy. The years between 1950 and 1970 are often described as the ’record years’ of expansion. By 1960, Kockums was the ninth largest shipyard in the world.
After the ’record years’, the city was severely hit by de-industrialization and almost all larger factories were closed. By 1995, the number of people employed in manufacturing and construction were half com-pared to 1960, and Malmö had the highest unemployment rate in Sweden. Since the construction of the Øresund bridge, connecting Malmö and Copenhagen, and a number of initiatives in sustainable urban development and the knowledge economy, the narrative is once again optimistic: In 2013 Forbes magazine ranked Malmö as the World’s fourth most inventive city; and Travel + Leisure ranked Malmö as Scandi-navia’s “hippest destination” in 2015.
Malmö today is a very different city from 1850; and also very different from 1995. The urban layout is very different, the economic, social and political structures also different. Increasingly, it has also become evident that there are several competing narratives of the city, the turn-ing-points and processes of change. One example is that Malmö increasingly has become a migrant and multicultural city: By 1995 almost 25 % of Malmö’s inhabitants had foreign background; in 2015 more than 42 %. But it also possible to go at least a century back, to the late 1800s, and see Malmö at the time as a destination for Eastern Europeans of mostly Jewish descent, escaping pogroms; a stop-over for emigrants from impoverished Småland, Blekinge and rural East Skåne on their way to a new life in North or South America, Germany or Denmark - some stayed in Malmö, others went on; and a bustling industrial city where experts such as engineers from Germany were finding lucrative posi-tions. What is interesting is to investigate and discuss differences and similarities, embracing the complexity of history rather than simplifying - and asking what we can learn from the past. Bringing these approaches and narratives also challenges the question of who has the right to urban history - and in extension - the right to the city. It also challenges the role of historians and historical research.
The purpose of ’Malmö’s history after 1850’ is to develop knowledge and understanding of historical change and living conditions during the time period from the birth of the modern city to the post-modern city of today. Instead of focusing on the ’mainstream’ narrative of Malmö, the aim is to highlight perspectives that are not always so visible. The course is built on a thematic and process-oriented struc-ture, where in addition to lectures, workshops and historical walking tours, students are developing group projects based on topics that they choose themselves - within a place-oriented perspective, structured around processes of historical change and turning points. The aim here is for students to take part in the co-creation of urban histories, as they are encouraged to work with alternative sources, oral history etc. The projects are also to be presented publicly - physically or virtually - to encourage public discussion. The form can be very different: Examples include exhibition, webpage or podcasts.
Previous courses: ‘Malmö’s history after 1850’ build on the legacy of several courses on Malmö’s history. A previ-ous course, ‘Stadens Historia’ (The History of the City), has been given more than twenty times and a follow-up course, ‘Stadens Historia II’, on several occasions. The structure of these courses were similar to the current course, including a lecture series and also student projects, including an excursion to the city distric in focus for the stu-dent projects as examination. In collaboration with the City Library of Malmö, the stustu-dent projects were made accessible to the public, included in the library catalogue and made available in the special “Malmö Collection”. The students that took part in these courses represent great diversity in age as well as academic background. Jour-nalists, staff from museums and public archives and teachers are just some examples. Several were retired. Because of the diversity and first hand experiences within the group of students, discussions ranged from micro- to macro level and generalized statements were often contested.
‘Malmö’s history after 1850’ intends to build on the positive results of the previous courses in Malmö’s history, especially when it comes to methodology and outreach, but also to take a step further, including contemporary research perspectives in urban history, and thereby challenging existing narratives as well as stimulate students to ask new challenging historical questions.
