Gradients of Alterity 13 Gradients of Alterity Museums and the Negotiation of Cultural Difference in Con- temporary Norway Marzia Varutti Part of the charm of museums as objects of study resides in their propensity to reflect and inform social and cultural change. As platforms for intercul- tural communication, museums are ideal sites for the investigation of how collective values and attitudes coalesce and evolve over time. The analysis of these processes is all the more relevant in a country such as Norway, whose population is becoming increasingly multicultural (Goodnow & Ak- man 2008). In Oslo alone, a quarter of the population are immigrants, most- ly of non-Western origin (Council of Europe 2008:2). How are museums re- sponding to these changes in Norwegian society? This article endeavours to provide an answer to this question through an analysis of museum displays of non-ethnic Norwegian cultures in a sample of museums in Oslo. 1 These include the Intercultural Museum (IKM) and specifically the exhibition Our Sacred Spaces; the Kon-Tiki Museum; the ethnographic galleries of the Museum of Cultural History of the University of Oslo; and the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History (specifically, the galleries devoted to the Sami and the display of the Pakistani apartment). The study also draws on examples from other museums, such as the Glom- dal Museum in Elverum (specifically the permanent exhibition Latjo Drom devoted to the Travellers minority). These museums were selected since they are the main sites in which the visitor may encounter non-ethnic Nor- wegian cultures, given their location in the capital and their prominence in the national museumscape. The analysis of museums of non-ethnic Norwegian cultures is based on discourse analysis of displays, analysis of relevant literature and interviews with museum curators and academics. The investigation yielded two main interrelated insights. Firstly, the various modalities in which other cultures are represented in museums point to a range of different articulations of dis- cursive and representational practices which I call “regimes of representa- tion”. Secondly, different “regimes of representation” reveal different kinds