Mattias Frihammar

Reader/associate professor in ethnology with an interest in collective memory processes, difficult cultural heritage and issues at the intersection between nature and culture. Coordinate the Critical Heritage Studies Network (CHSN) at Stockholms universitet. In my thesis, I analyzed social hierarchies in (re)production of contemporary royalty in Sweden. By studying arenas where royalty was present, I showed how social authority was pruduced at the intersection between notions of exclusivity and commonness. The analysis also demonstrated the symbolic and actual importance of the material in the exercise of power, and how rituals forms social superiority.