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Linking the Local, the National and the Global

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Linking the Local, the National and the Global Linking the Local, the National and the Global Past and Present Trends in European Ethnology Orvar Lofgren Liifgrcn, Orvar 1996: Linking the Local, the National and the Global: Past and PrcHent ']'rends in European Ethnology. - Ethnologia Europaea 26: 157-168. The first part of the paper gives a historical overview of some ways in which the intercl:it in the local, the national and the global has shifted European ethnology - mainly in Sweden - during this century, whereas the second part discusRes cu rrent research strategies for linking these levels, exploring some possi ble ethnological contributions to the current debate on space, place and identity lormations. Orvnr Lofgren, Professor ofEuropean Ethnology, Lund University, Finnga. tan 8, S-223 62 Lund. E-mail: Oruar.Lofg [email protected]. tradition in Europe also had to do with highly The division of labour in Academia varying politics of nationalism. Seen in this We are sometimes misled into believing that light it is hardly surprising that a country like there is a grand system behind the division of the Netherlands ended up with more anthro­ labour among the various disciplines in the pologists per square metre than any other Eu­ humanities and social sciences. Ye t most of ropean nation, but hardly any institutionalized these disciplines were created by chance condi­ academic tradition of either "European ethnol­ tions and political and cultural interests in the ogy" or "folklore studies". On the other hand, a past. The making of European ethnology is a country like Finland during the same period striking example of these processes. If we look acquired more fo lklorists per square metre than at a map of Europe we will find a most uneven any other nation, but was rather late in devel­ distribution of the discipline, and where it has oping social anthropology as a fo rmal academic been established it also has highly varying discipline. Here the making of a fo lkloristic positions in the field of cultural studies and national heritage profoundly shaped the aca­ cultural history. With a grand simplification demic landscape, whereas in Denmark archae­ one can argue thatEuropean nations with strong ology took the position of"the national science" colonial traditions tended to create a global at an early stage. In countries like Sweden and kind of anthropology, whereas late or small Germany a more general ethnological study of colonial nations turned to discover "their prim­ the national heritage produced departments of itives within", either in the fo rm of fo lklore European ethnology. studies or as a more general cultural anthropol­ Unlike European ethnology, social anthro­ ogy of the nation. It is this latter tradition which pology emerged rather late in Scandinavia. It today is labelled "European ethnology". Folk­ lacked the support of a network of both central lore studies came to be integrated in this tradi­ and regional museums as well as the moral tion or developed as a special discipline with an support of cultural nationalism. international and comparative orientation, but Although general anthropology and Europe­ my fo cus in the fo llowing will be on the making an ethnology developed within the same tradi­ and remaking of a European ethnological tradi­ tions of cultural theory, and the early pioneers tion. The emergence or non-emergence of this read much ofthe same classics, their position in 157 Academia came to be very diHerent. European In Lithberg's generation, and especially eth n ol ogy was defined as belonging to the hu­ among his fol klorist colleagues, we lind this manities with links to history, literature, art grand, comparative approach and a close link to history and languages, whereas anthropology the contemporary and general anthropological was seen as a natural science, with strong ties theories of evolution and diffusion, which made to geography and other natural sciences. This research both comparative and international ­ division of labour can be seen in the establish­ but also rather speculative. But if the fo lklor­ ment of the national museums during the nine­ ists kept up their international, com parative teenth century. In Sweden anthropology be­ approach, the European ethnologists soon came longed to the Natural History Museum, Euro­ to fo cus mainly on the local. As in most of pean ethnology to the Nordic Museum, and disciplines which were born out ofthe project of there was a long fight about who had a right to national universities, like history, literature, the Lapps. Were they part of the Swedish na­ art history and geography, ethnology was a very tional heritage and thus part of the Nordic national science with the task of discovering, Museum, or should they be seen as an exotic collecting, presenting and analysing a national tribe, which belonged with the other primitives fo lk culture. History largely became national of the zoology collections? history, while students ofliterature fo cused not How significant is it that we in the Nordic only on those authors writing in Swedish but countries and Central Europe have a division of also on those who happened to live inside the labour between a general anthropological per­ present borders of the nation. The national spective and a regional specialization (with a project meant a territorialization of research in historical perspective) in the fo rm of European much of the humanities, as well as a strong ethnology? From the end of the nineteenth ideological fr aming of research: the production century and onwards, a new discipline has of a suitable national heritage. staked out its territory in these countries, there­ In ethnology, the diffusionist interest often by shaping not only its own identity but also the fo rced scholars outside the national borders, orientation and aims of neighbouring subjects. but on the whole the national became a natural In countries without this tradition of European and unquestioned fr ame of research. The na­ ethnology, the fieldof cultural studies has been tional borders were seen as representing a divided up in a very different way. rather unproblematic division oflabour. On the other side of the borders there were Danish, Finnish and Norwegian ethnologists waiting, From the global to the local ready to do their national part of the job in order In 1918 the firstSw edish professor ofEuropean to create a fu ll European picture of folk cul­ ethnology, Nils Lithberg, held his inaugural lec­ tures. ture at the Nordic Museum in Stockholm. His There was a strong ambivalence in this task. chair was named "Nordic and comparative fo lk­ Ethnologists could demonstrate that national life research" and his presentation of the new borders often had little relevance for traditional academic discipline was comparative indeed. fo lk culture, but on the other hand the main He discussed how Swedish ethnologists should raison d'etre for the discipline was its national relate to international research in ethnology task. and cultural history, and in his discussion he moved quickly between differentcontinents and Reinventing European ethnology eras. Why is the mentality of a European differ­ ent fr om that ofa Hindu? How is the use ofburial The grand project of mapping Swedish fo lk trees in Dalarna related to similar traditions culture kept the discipline on a steady course among Austrian peasants? He ends on a grand for decades, fr om Lithberg over to Sigurd Erix­ note, stating that European ethnology is the on - the great organizer and European entre­ study of Man and that our task is to find the preneur in Swedish ethnology fr om the 1930s answers to mysteries ofthe human mind. into the 1960s. All ethnologists fr om old profes- 158 sors to the young studentR were united in this school. It was much later that some of us discov­ common task. In the end, however, it turned ered the new generations - and by that time, into routine. They rarely asked the question: is most Swedish ethnology students had never this massive input of work really producing learned German in school, and had little chance results worth the effort? In a way the atlas of following the German debate. (Unfortunate­ project had turned into a great ocean liner, ly, the German-speaking community of ethnolo­ which kept moving fo rward even when the gist has been big enough to prevent most Ger­ engines were burned out. man scholars fr om writing in English.) When I started to read ethnology in the Thus we have, in Scandinavia and in Germa­ 1960s the ocean liner was still there - but ny, parallel attempts to reinvent European eth­ stranded. As young students we moved around nology in the 1960s, but with very different in a landscape of ruins from the Sigurd Erixon results. Although both of them resulted in the research industry at the department in Stock­ import of new social theory and a marked inter­ holm. On the abandoned desks we found boxes est in contemporary culture, the ethnological of excerpts, half-finished maps and long proto­ research practice and theoretical profilesmade cols of evidence collecting dust. We never had a German and Swedish ethnology of the 1970s chance to experience the enthusiasm and the more differentthan they had been in the 1950s. exhilarating fe eling which went with the idea of (Today there is a much stronger affinity in the a common project uniting the discipline. For us ways in which research is carried out - but that much of the earlier knowledge was dead. We is another story.) needed to develop a new utopian project. The There are many reasons for this different same disillusion was fo und elsewhere on the development. In Germany the Abschied vom European scene, but took rather different fo rms.
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