Kanon med kanon? : En analys av hur den politiska argumentationen om en svensk kulturkanon illustrerar olika sätt att se på kultur

Sammanfattning

In the autumn of 2022, the Swedish government together with the Sweden Democrats declared that a national Swedish cultural canon was to be constructed. Previous research about canon debates and Swedish cultural policy illustrates a picture of a more politicised cultural policy field and a difference in how one views and values culture – either as an autonomous sphere or as a political tool. The aim of this study is to show how the political arguments about the cultural canon possibly can illustrate different views of culture and how culture should become part of the population. By doing an argumentative analysis of a range of political argumentations, the arguments for and against a cultural canon are clarified. By using the theoretical concepts of disembedding, reembedding and democratisation, these arguments are then interpreted in relation to how they demonstrate different views of culture. The results show that although expressed in different ways, the proponents and opponents have a somewhat similar view of culture, although they have different views of how culture should be connected to the population. Taken together, this mostly indicates a possible difficulty with viewing culture as something autonomous with an intrinsic value when culture becomes part of the political field.