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. Vo lksleben coincided with a strong development In Germany theAbschied vom Vo lksleben of the of critical theory, in the spirit of the Frankfurt 1960s was a much more dramatic revolt against school. Inspiration came mainly fr om within the old generation. In Sweden the revolt lacked Germany, fr om social theory and social philos­ the political edge of the German historical situ­ ophy. (This Frankfurt influencenot only direct­ ation with the need to scrutinize the Nazi past ed the choice of topics and questions, but also of the discipline. (Strikingly enough, there has the style of research and presentation in a very never been a thorough analysis of the politics of marked way.) Swedish ethnology, after or before the Second In Sweden the situation was totally differ­ World War. ) Secondly, it turned in a totally ent. The SwedishAbschied vom Vo lksleben was different direction, when it came to findingnew not, as I have discussed elsewhere (see Ehn & tools for reinventing the discipline. Lofgren 1996) a child of 1968, but an earlier This also meant a radical shift in the mental disillusionment with ethnological research. world map ofSwedish scholars. German-speak­ There was not much inspiration to be obtained ing Vo lkskunde all but disappeared, and was locally fr om either history or sociology; instead replaced by British, American and Norwegian an anthropologization of the discipline took social anthropology and - to some extent qual­ place. The new utopian project was "Discover itative sociology of the American and British Sweden", and the rallying cry was "back to brands. (The swiftnessof this shift is illustrated fieldwork", and in those days fieldworkmainly in doctoral dissertations from the late 1960s: meant community studies. This new interest over a couple of years nearly all German refer­ really dates back to the 1950s, when the Amer­ ences all but disappeared and Anglo-Saxon ti­ ican anthropologist Robert Redfieldhad visited tles took over.) Sweden, charismatically pleading for the study The somewhat negative image of German of"the little community". Inspired by him, sev­ Vo lkskunde among my own generation was fo s­ eral ethnologists went out in quest of this mi­ tered by the fact that most ofthe German schol­ crocosm. In the 1960s this interest in local ars we met as guest lectures were those repre­ communities grew in strength to become a dom­ senting the old, established and traditional inant mode of thought. We who received our

159 education then learned to sec Sweden in terms The interest in the little community also oflocal communities. Ifwe look at the choice of came to have a political edge after 1968. The student essay and dissertation topics in this growing social critique of Swedish society fo­ period, we sec the emergence of views of which cused on the alienation and anonymity oflarge­ communities were more community-like than scale urban settings, as well as th e bureaucra­ others. This created a new selection principle, tization of life. For the counter-culture move­ which was influenced in large measure by con­ ment, small was beautiful, and the search fo r temporary anthropological theory, both the func­ local community life became a search fi1r cu ltur­ tionalist and the interactionist variety. This al alternatives: small-scale, dense and informal interest fo cused on the periphery of society cultural settings. This utopia of togetherness rather than the mainstream. It is in this light fitted very nicely with the interactionist theo­ that we should sec the great interest, for exam­ ries used by most of us. Cultural integration ple, fishing hamlets; ior many of us they repre­ was created through face-to-face interaction. sented the perfect cultural fo rm of the little This was the kind of social stuff whichcreated community: isolated, homogeneous, well-inte­ "good cultures", rich in shared experiences, grated, self-sufficient, and so on. (On closer everyday rituals and habits. The search for examination, these coastal communities re­ good cultural models was also a way of empow­ vealed a differentreality.) The disproportionate ering settings which seemed marginal to the number of studies of such marginal settings general developments in society. Rural villages, was a quest for communities that were as "exot­ fishing communities and traditional working­ ic" or "anthropological" as possible. With this class neighbourhoods thus became models for search profile, for instance, the study of work­ social change. There was a strong emancipato­ ing-class settings was chiefly concentrated to ry element in the search for the little communi­ small fa ctory towns, and metropolitan studies ty. fo cused on "urban villages", such as traditional, . close-knit neighbourhoods Looking fo r subcultures There was a paradox in this development: in many ways it fe lt like a liberating period of The interest in local communities was to dom­ internationalization. We were all busy reading inate ethnological research during the 1960s international anthropological theory, but on and part of the 1970s, but by the end of the the other hand research became intensively 1970s it had lost its leading position to the Swedish. We all went out to look for local com­ concept of subculture. Interactionist theory had munities. Compared to the perspective of diffu­ already directed interest towards cultural scenes sionist and culture area studies of earlier gen­ and social interplay; for the fieldworking eth­ erations, our geographical space was narrowed nologist this was "where the action was". This down. The prefix "European" of the discipline approach also brought in the concept of cultural became more of a rhetorical statement; very few communication as a crucial selection principle. Swedish ethnologistsof my generation did their Certain phenomena and relations were fo und research outside Sweden in the 1960s and 1970s. more "communicative" than others, and thus The interest in local communities also as­ more interesting research topics. The search for pired to let the little community reflect society subcultures grew out of this interest in interac­ at large. The English anthropologist Ronald tion and communication, but also from a wish to Frankenberg's classic study Communities in break down stereotypes of Sweden as a homoge­ Britain (1966) was based on this idea. Here a neous society (or local communities as well­ necklace of community types, fr om the little integrated). The new concept was used to cap­ agricultural village to the city suburb, was ture other social units and cultural systems threaded together to illustrate English society. than the local study, but here too the result was The macrocosm became the sum of a number of that some groups and milieux were considered microcosms. Many of us in Sweden were influ­ "more subcultural" than others: teenagers, chil­ enced by this model. dren, women, workers, immigrants. (Middle-

160 aged, mainstream, middle-class men were con­ early class fo rmation - often seen as a "purer" sequently the least subcultural category that fo rm of class culture than, for example, tho could be imagined.) periods after the Second World War. The ::;tudy of subculture began in an interac­ tionist tradition but went on to fo llow a semiotic Approaches to national culture path: fr om roles and scenes to codes and mes­ sages. li began to fo cus more on the expressive: The studies of culture and class came to prob­ style, taste, codes, identity markers, and the lematize ideas about the typically Swedish and like. to look at the ways in which mainstream cul­ A central concept in the study of subcultural ture was produced and contested. identities and boundaries was the concept of The renewed interest in the national grew culture building: the analysis uf how different out ofthree very different approaches. One was groups continually constructed and transformed the research of Ake Daun which fo cused on a a collective image and lifestyle. The Marxist discussion of a "Swedish mentality" - an at­ influences, mainly in the fo rm of cultural Marx­ tempt to generalize about specificSwedish atti­ ism developed by British scholars like Ray­ tudes and practices (cf. Daun 1989). His re­ mond Williams, E. P. Thompson and their pu­ search had - by its nature - to become compar­ pils in the so-called "Birmingham school", also ative. The Swedish experience and the Swedish created a new interest in processes of cultural data had to be interpreted in comparison with domination and subordination. These Marxists data fr om other nations. His research was main­ influences were often rather eclectically blend­ ly contemporary in its time perspective and ed with ideas of hegemony taken fr om such drew heavily on interdisciplinary research tra­ differentscholars as Antonio Gramsci, Norbert ditions not very common among other ethnolo­ Elias, Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault (cf. gists: attitude measurements and the social Ehn & LOfgren 1996). psychology of modal personalities. The linking of class and subcultural studies Ake Daun's research must also be seen mainly took the fo rm of two rather different against the background of Sweden's rapid trans­ genres: the study of bourgeois culture as a fo rmation into an immigrant nation in the 1970s hegemonic process and "the making of Swedish and 1980s. At the Stockholm department an­ working-class cultures" in the Thompsonian other new generation of scholars came to be tradition. engaged in questions ofnational culture through There were striking differences in the way the rapidly growing field of ethnicity and cul­ these studies were framedand delineated. Work­ tural confrontations, as immigrants were ex­ ing-class culture was mainly studied in the posed to Swedish culture and society, and Swedes fo rm of community studies, whereas bourgeois fo und themselves reflecting more and more culture was analysed through a bricolage of about their Swedish identity and cultural her­ materials on a national level. (This was for itage (see for example Daun & Klein 1992). example striking in the project "Class and cul­ Karl-Olov Arnstberg and Billy Ehn both came ture" in which I was involved myself, see the fr om an interactionist tradition, fo cusing on discussion in LOfgren 1988). Another effect of intensive fieldwork, and their studies among this research strategy was that working-class immigrants produced another approach to the culture much more often was studied through discussion of"Swedishness". (In Lund, Gunnar oral history, whereas bourgeois culture was Alsmark also came to develop a similar ap­ analysed through memoirs, etiquette books, proach.) Here definitions of ethnic or national diaries, mass media material, creating a brico­ identities were strategically constructed in eve­ lage approach. ryday interaction and communication between Just as the study of peasant culture had Swedes, immigrants and refugees. This kind of previously drifted into a devolutionary search research also dealt with the growing hostility for "a golden age" or classic fo rms, working­ towards immigrants and the development of a class studies tended to fo cus on the heroic age of new kind of"Swedish fu ndamentalism", among

161 ::;kinhcads and other anti-immigration groups. National and transnational processes F'or decades "the national" had been a non­ issue in Sweden, a problem ot'Lhe past. Now it The renewed interest in national identity has in returned a:; a conLe�;Led terrain in identity pol­ many way:;forced Swedish ethnologists back to itics. The battles over what constituted "Swed­ a comparative, international fr amework, or ish culture" also helped to develop a third ap­ rather to develop strategies of research which proach to the ::;Ludy of national identity and fo cus on global, national and local processes culture. It came out ofthe Lund project on class alike (cf. Hannerz & Lofgren 1994). Let me and culture in nineteenth- and twentieth-cen­ outline some perspectives for fu ture research tury Sweden, where the analysis of processes of along these lines. cultural hegemony in Swedish �;ociety fo stered The modern nation state is a striking exam­ an interest rather in the deconstruction of no­ ple ofthe globalization of a nineteenth-century Lions of"Swcdishncss": to sec the national as a institution. The interesting paradox in the cultural arena where diffe rent groups and gen­ emergence of nationalism fr om the end of the erations battled for their version of"true Swed­ eighteenth century onward is, of course, that it ishness" to be naturalized into ideas of normal­ is a highly international ideology which is im­ ity or modernity (cf. Ehn, Frykman & LOfgren ported for national ends. In this perspective we 1993, Frykman 1993, 1995 and Lofgren 1989, may view the ideology of nationalism as a gi­ 1993). gantic do-it-yourselfkit. Gradually a more and For outside observers, this new Swedish ob­ more detailed list of ideas is developed as to session with the national has been striking in what elements make up a proper nation. Fixed many ways. The fa ct that the Swedish national conceptions emerged in the nineteenth century self-understanding has been highly ahistorical, about how a cultural heritage should be shaped, apolitical but also rather idyllic must be noted how a national anthem should sound, and when here. Here I think it is important to look at the the flag should be flown. National galleries ways in which different nations choose to nar­ were fo unded; national mentalities discovered. rate their history: there are a number of genres In this parallel work of nation building, cultur­ here, as I have discussed elsewhere (LOfgren al matrices were fr eely borrowed across nation­ 1993). The making of the Swedish (and Nordic) al fr ontiers. welfare state is usually told as a light-hearted Nations are busy making themselves differ­ success story: the nationalization of modernity ent, but in an increasingly contrasting and without wars and great class conflicts. It is an competitive manner, which creates standards optimistic tale, as Billy Ehn, Jonas Frykman of comparability and symmetry. By trying to be and Konrad Kostlin among others have pointed unique they are at an other level becoming more out. To a great extent Swedish ethnologists similar. have embraced the basic credo of modernity: The end-product is the image of the ideal life can always be improved and we should keep nation, a cultural construction which has an optimistic attitude about the future: culture emerged step-by-step over the last two centu­ building is a creative and positive process. ries, and this normative, transnational image The advent of postmodern pessimism and has had great influence on all kinds of nation­ the return of aggressive nationalism has some­ building processes: it definesthe perfect nation what bridled this optimistic world view, but as one with: again I think it is interesting to look at the totally different situation in, say Germany, or a homogenous population or "folk" - no dif­ some of the fo rmer East European countries, fe rence between ethnicity and national iden­ where national identity and national culture ­ tity for historical and political reasons - became a a high degree of integration between the much more problematic field during the 1980s state and "the nation" and the early 1990s. a well-definedterritory where physical space should be turned into cultural space

162 a distinctive culture with a high degree of and reworking transnational flows through its sharing between the members of the nation, economic and cultural infrastructure - a ma­ a common language, a shared past and a chinery for the nationalization of the interna­ common future, high internal/external in­ tional. How has this become possible? teraction ratio. In order to understand why the nation state has been such a successful machine for political As we all know, it is rather hard to finda nation mobilization and cultural homogenization, dis­ state wh ich would fitthis ideal model, but still placing or overruling other traditional loyal tics it has been exported to different comers of the and allegiances, we have to develop a broad world. New developing nations have had to approach which includes studies not only of conform to existing standards of "what a real how the national fr amework is generated and nation :;hould look like", both in terms of the used in political struggles and administrative organization of a national heritage and in the procedures but of also how the nation state is development of nation state infrastructure, with materialized in the everydaylife ofthe ordinary everything from national museums to national citizen. How does the state empower the nation airlines. and vice versa? Through the nationalization of The normative strength of the national mod­ the state this bureaucratic, anonymous struc­ el of culture is not only seen in its geographical ture is emotionalized in several ways. On the diffusion, but also in the ways in which this other hand the infrastructure of state has sup­ national fo rmula has recently been exported to plied a unique arena for codifying and commu­ other cultural domains, where we find similar nicating a national culture. The paternal role of processes of standardization and fo rmalization the state has been balanced with the maternal of cultural difference. We findcheck-lists emerg­ ideology ofthe nation as a home. Again, we find ing with blue prints for how "an immigrant great differences in the integration between culture" should look within the fr amework of ideas of state and nation. American right-wing multiculturalism, or how the cultural profileof patriots defend the nation by attacking what a minority group should be structured and they see as the monstrous state. communicated in order to make itself visible on Strong nation states have been very success­ the political arena. Similar processes of"micro­ fulin reworking transnational imports. In many national" culture building occur in the con­ ways the welfare nationalism ofthe twentieth struction of new regional and local identities. century has been such a period of a nationaliza­ The so-called "new regionalism" in Europe is tion of the international - in media and mass often carried out with the aid of the cultural consumption, for example. grammar of nationalism, as attempts are made In Sweden this is very striking for the post­ to turn economic regions into cultural ones, or war period from the fifties up to the seventies. economic space into emotional place. As Anders As in many other Western nations, this period Linde-Laursen (1995) and others have pointed is usually described as a time of intense inter­ out, we find the same grammar applied in the nationalization. It seemed as if the sweeping ideological work ofmaking the European Union wave of modernization was making the world a new supranational nation. more and more homogeneous - obliterating old national differences. Sweden in this period was The stern father and the warm mother often depicted as "the most Americanized na­ - linking state and nation tion in Europe". This grand narrative saw the project of modem mass consumption as an The comparative analysis of national projects internationalizing or westernizing force draw­ has also fo stered an interest in a hitherto rather ing backward nations into the modem world underdeveloped field: the ethnography of the system, providing them with paved roads along state. which modem citizens hastened towards the The nation state has often been seen as the future, dressed in practical business suits and local mode of cultural production: translating rational values, worrying about punctuality.

163 The language of' modernity wus supposed to Living in transit? become a lingua fra nca which could be under­ stood in Montev ideo u::; well as in Novosibirsk. In a recent book the sociologist Zygmunt Bau­ Real ity wus much more complex. The m ak­ man (1995) makes a fa scinating but problemat­ ing of modern Sweden illustrate::; the ways in ic historical analysis of the ways in which the which nationalization and internationalization politics of identity and belonging have been arc not polarized processes but pa rallel and transformed over the centuries. He looks at the interdependent ones. The decades after the manner in which identity evolves in modernity Second World War, when Swedish life was often as a pilgrimage and a quest for the true self, and described as undergoing a rampant.American ­ then goes on to discuss the way in which con­ ization, were also, as I have discussed else­ temporary identities are constructed: their frag­ where (cf. Lofgren 1994 ), a period of intense men ta Lion, their f1uid ity and lack of grounding. national homogenization on the level of rou­ In his attempt to outline the profileofPos tmod­ tines, taste, dispositions and habits, when class ern Man, he chooses four (and very male) met­ and regional di11erences became smaller. The aphorical roles: the flaneur, the vagabond, the inflow of American icons, ideals and fantasies tourist and the gambler. served primarily as an arena for a discourse on There are many parallel statements about development and modernity. They helped to Postmodern Man. Much of the present debate open up menial spaces for change, but the deals with loss, the loss of grounding, ofbclong­ change itself occurred on the level of experi­ ing. Identities today are described in terms of menting with new, and very Swedish everyday de-territorialization, de-localization, de-cen­ practices. The American imagery in many ways tring, de-stabilization. Identities no longer take became a vehicle fo r Swcdification (cf. O'Dell place, territories are less important. Rootless­ 1993). ness and homelessness are other important As ethnologists we should devote more at­ ways of describing these processes. People are tention to "the nationalization of trivialities" seen as living in transit, or in an age of hyper­ (Linde-Laursen 1993), the ways in which na­ mobility. There is a celebration of borderlands, tional differences become embedded in the ofborder zones, a new kind of poetics ofhybrid­ materialities of everyday life, and not only fo und ity and bricolage. in the rhetoric of flag-waving and national rit­ This "now" is often polarized against a "then", uals. We thus need to develop an ethnography when identities were clearly delineated, stable of statehood on the level of everyday life: how over time and firmlylocated in space. In the old does the nation state make itself visible and days people knew their place, so to speak. Space tangible, important or unimportant in the life of or rather place is no longer the dimension around its citizens? We have to explore the technologies which we organize our lives and construct our of integration, belonging and intimacy fo und in, identities. In their recent book Economies of for example, the media and in the routines of Sign and Space the sociologists Scott Lash and administration. John Urry try to summarize and synthesize Much of the current discussion of the crisis of this transformation, using a quotation fr om the the nation state has to do with the fa ct that sociologist Luke: we have moved "from place to many young or weak states cannot live up to flow, from spaces to streams, from organized these normative ideals of what a nation state hierarchies to disorganization" (1994:323). should be like and what kinds of services it This kind of postmodern scenario also looks should provide for its citizens. Another perspec­ at a world where old hierarchies and classes are tive concerns the ways in which some ofthe old said to disintegrate and new power structures nations are seen as threatened by the rapid emerge. The losers are traditional institutions transnational movements of people, ideas and like the nation state and the groups and organ­ capital across old borders. Are we, as some have izational forms which have depended upon this argued, entering a post-national era? arena. New transnational economic and intel­ lectual elites emerge - cosmopolitans who are

164 at home in the world and have fewer loyalties to police, for the trained cosmopolitan who feels their old nation or home ground. They travel the security of his Visa card in all the transit business class through life. Against this new halls of the world, for the teenager spending his elite we find an increasingly marginalized work­ first summer Inter-railing or for the old-age ing class, trying to defend themselves against pensioner on his firstcharter trip abroad? For globalization by becoming even more national, some people, living in transit is an adventure, regional or home-loving. They opt for the seem­ for others an enforced ordeal. ing safety of place and ritual belonging, and in Thirdly, we have to analyse the ways in this nostalgia they become both more inward­ which current statements about the end of looking and more xenophobic. The main point modernityget trapped in a traditional, devolu­ in this scenario is that the world is become de­ tionary genre. There are some clear parallels to territorialized. Old regions, borders, places lose the fi n-de-siecle debate we are having now and their meaning, fade away or disappear, and new the one we had a century ago. Then people loved forms of allegiances, networks and groups to talk about the disintegration ofthe home, the emerge: fr om neo-tribes to proto-communities. nation and the sense of belonging (cf. LOfgren Scenarios like these may depict some cur­ 1995). rent trends, but they have to be handled with But it is far too easy a rhetorical device to care - they contain elements of utopia and reduce this debate to the recycling of an old dystopia. Above all they are too sweeping and genre. The discussion of postmodemity has, in evolutionary, holding up a complex present a fruitful way, challenged many of our earlier against a far too simple image of the past. oftenrather simplistic notions of cultural iden­ The first question must be: when, where, tities as being well-bounded, neat and well­ how and for whom is this development a reali­ integrated, securely rooted in time and space. ty? Is it a unilateral development or a more Our use of concepts like identity, culture and complex process of movements in different di­ place will never be the same. Furthermore, the rections? We should avoid universalizing state­ postmodem debate on identity fo rmations has ments about the present condition of the world. been extremely important and creative in his­ There is no general Postmodern Man, no unilin­ toricizing modernity, in creating a critical and ear development towards displacement, home­ reflexive distance, in fighting the taken-for­ lessness or deterritorialization. Rather than grantedness of modernity. trying to generalize the present in terms of Instead of getting trapped in the rather fruit­ devolutionary or evolutionary scenarios, we less debate about whether we live in a modem, should scrutinize the different and sometimes late-modem, hyper-modern or postmodern age, contradictory movements occurring at the same we should explore the ways in which the cultur­ time, in the same way that we have begun to al processes sometimes labelled postmodern analyse the many different national and local coexist with those called "modem". Some of the paths to modernity, hidden under earlier, gen­ new theoretical perspectives can even be used eralized ideas of Western modernity. to problematize our notions of "premodern" Secondly, we need to look at the ways in configurations: what are the postmodem ele­ which our lives, our activities and our ideas are ments in premodern lives? changed by differentkinds of mobility. Increased mobility does not have to mean increased root­ Research strategies lessness. Mobility can sometimes be a strategy to produce stability and prevent change (cf. the We need to reflectupon what kinds of contribu­ discussion in Eyerman & LOfgren 1995). tions European ethnologists can make to the Who is actually living in transit? How does heated interdisciplinary debate on identities the fluidity of the present look fr om different and territories. There is a tendency among us to social perspectives and positions: for the fu gi­ see our discipline as an eternal importer of tive, who just has thrown his passport away and wisdom, a constant borrower of key concepts is waiting to be interrogated by the border and grand theoretical perspectives. Maybe the

165 time has come for us io f(>cus on what specific to look at the procc::;::;e::;of uprooting and reloca­ eth n o logical rc::;earch practice::; and experienc­ tion among migrant::;,c osmopolita n ::; and peo­ es can contribute to the general debate. Lei ple in transit in urban ::;cttings ofihe 1890s nnd sugge::;i ::;omeoi ' ihc::;epo::;::; ibiliiic::;. the 1990s. ln both settings we fi nd the same Ethnologists have devoted a great deal of worries about di si ntegration, but what arc the attention to the ways in which new cultural similarities and diilcrcnces between these two fo rms emerge over time, and become insiiiu­ contexts? In retrospect we can study how the tionali7.ed or n atural i zed paris of the social homeless and u prooted in the cities ofihc 1890s land::;capc. In the current debate there is too claimed new spaces and made new places for much focus on disintegration, too much talk themselves. It is also important to remember about "post": posinaiional, posimodern, posilo­ thai the great era of hypermobiliiy occurred cal, too m uch "de-focused, de-centred, de- terri­ during the latter pari ofihc nineteenth cen tury torialized, de-localized", and also too much and up to the First World War. The waves of "trans", as in transit, transnational, translocal, migration and displacement taking place then transcultural . We must balance our usc of post­ were on a much greater scale than the one we

' de-, trans- with a greater focus on pre-, rc-, and arc experiencing today. Somehow these histor­ in-. ical experiences and the processes of uprooting In what ways can a deterritorialization be and re-rooting occurring then seem strangely part of a reterritorialization, or transgression absent fr om the current debate on displace­ be fo llowed by integration, the defocused be­ ment and mobility. The fact that urban mi­ come refocused - in new forms and combina­ grants in the 1890s lived in social settings tions? A longer historical perspective may help which may have seemed fluid, chaotic and dis­ us to remember that the other side of dissolu­ organized does not have to mean that their tion and disintegration is remaking, reanchor­ identities were transient, fr agmented or disin­ ing and routinization. Are we really facing a tegrated. How did, fo r example, the peasants fu ture of intense deterritorialization or are we who turned into urbanites learn to cope, to look simply not observingthe different ways in which and overlook, to select and ignore. How were people and identities take place on new arenas new identities crafted on this seemingly chaotic and in novel fo rms? urban scene? Similar learning processes of cop­ The current debate on homelessness and the ing and crafting are fo und among today's mi­ post-national needs to be confronted with the grants. ethnological research on how the new ideas of There might be a historical lesson here for home and nation became such a strong emo­ our current discussion of identity constructs. tional force and locus of identity during the Instead of talking about bricolage or fleeting­ nineteenth century. Here we have two good ness, we can ask what kinds of cultural compe­ examples of the cultural and social organiza­ tence are needed to handle all the alternatives tion of "taking place": the processes through and possibilities ofthe present: how do we learn which abstract ideas or images are turned into to cope with complex or fr agmented settings? lived experience. Both these concepts devel­ Comparative discussions ofidentity and root­ oped as very abstract, ideological constructs edness tend to get trapped in measurements of only to become concretized and materialized ­ how much, in terms of losses and gains of grounded in routines of everyday life during the identity, but there is no cross-cultural or time­ twentieth century. What does it mean to have a less quota ofhuman need for identity. We should home, to belong to a nation or a locality in 1850, be wary of thinking in terms of compensatory 1930, 1995? The experience of homelessness identities: the loss of local identity being com­ can only exist in cultures obsessed with the pensated by emerging national ones, the loss of necessities of home, and the debate of the post­ neighbourhood roots compensated by sub-cul­ national above all illustrates the ways in which tural identities etc. the nation has become such a powerful reality. Instead of asking whether place and identity The same comparative approach may be used meant more or less in the past, we should start

166 by asking more basic questions, such as: what This competence should be fu rthered in stud­ does place mean in different historical and ies of the ways in which the local, the national cultural settings? Were identities really stable, and the global interact, constitute each other, secure und integrated in the past, or is this an blend, mix or are kept apart. example of' our own cultural projections of nos­ Sometimes the global makes the local stand talgia for identity lost? out more clearly. I was reminded ofthis once, as Comparative approaches like these also un­ I was walking down Eerste van Swinden Straa t, derline the need for good ethnographies and near the TropenMuseum in Amsterdam. There close readings. It is quite plausible that many you pass Autoshop West End, Garden City people today organize their lives, their anchor­ Snackbar, Super Photo, Mega Pool, Pizzeria ages and ideas in new ways, but we need more Santa Maria, Credit du Maroc (just opposite detailed ethnographies of this: looking at the The European Exploitation Company - an an­ complexities and patterns in habituation, in archist bookshop), King David's Grill Rooms, routines and rhythms, as well as the processes Milano World Cosmetics and finally JangTse whichAllisonJames (1986) has called "learning Chinese-Indian Specialities. And do you know to belong". what struck me? How extremely Dutch this We should scrutinize the microphysics of street seemed, the global mix was turned into a movement and of taking place. The experience Dutch Gesamtkunstwerk. of place is a very complex thing, and there is a pedagogics of space that is very powerful. What does it mean that you are actually there, not only fantasizing about being there? The concept "placelessness" must be used rather restrictive­ References ly. What is the difference between living in a Bauman, Zygmunt 1995: Life in Fragments. Essays in media-scape and in a social landscape: different Postmodern Morality. Oxford: Blackwell. forms of presence, how does culture take place, Daun, Ake 1989: Svensk mentalitet. Stockholm: Norstedts. take up place, how are experiences and fanta­ Daun, Ake & Klein, Barbro (eds) 1992: Making the sies materialized, made concrete, tangible, Wo rld Safe fo r Diversity. Stockholm: Institutet fo r multi-sensual, and so on? There is an elabora­ fo lklivsforskning. tion, massivity and redundancy in actually be­ Ehn, Billy, Frykman, Jonas & Lofgren, Orvar 1993: Forsvenskningen au Sverige. Det nationellas fo r­ ing there. On the other hand we should be vandlingar. Stockholm: Natur och Kultur. aware of the fact that identity and place are Ehn, Billy & Lofgren, Orvar 1996: Va rdagslivets et­ never linked in a simple way. We are always nologi. Reflektioner kring en kulturvetenskap. Stock­ travelling in a constant dialogue between mind­ holm: Natur och Kultur. Eyerman, Ron & LOfgren, Orvar 1995: Romancing scapes and landscapes, which for example makes the Road. Roadmovies and Images of Mobility. the underdeveloped ethnography ofday-dream­ Theory, Culture & Society, 1995:1. ing an important topic: the art of being in Frankenberg, Ronald 1966: Communities in Britain. several places at the same time. Harmondsworth: Penguin. The postmodern debate provokes us to find Frykman, Jonas 1993: Becoming the Perfect Swede. Modernity, Body Politics, and National Processes new strategies both for comparison and for in '1\ventieth-Century Sweden. Ethnos 1993:3-4: ethnography, experimenting with new combi­ 259-274. nations of approaches and materials. This calls Frykman, Jonas 1995: The lnformalization of Na­ for a strategy of research constantly linking tional Identity. Ethnologia Europaea, 25:1: 5-16. Hannerz, Ulf & Lofgren, Orvar 1994: The Nation in theorizing and ethnography, choosing back doors the Global Village. Cultural Studies (May 1994), to big issues sometimes. Again, I think that the vol. 8:2:198-207. tradition of doing fieldwork in the archives as Lash, Scott and Urry John 1994: Economies ofSign well as in the present has given ethnologists a and Sp ace. London: Sage. Linde-Laursen, Anders 1993: The Nationalization of certain knack for finding surprising combina­ Trivialities. How Cleaning becomes an Identity tions of materials, methods and perspectives. Marker in the Encounter of Swedes and Danes. The bricolage tradition is important here. Ethnos 1993:3-4: 275-296.

167 Linde-Laursen, Anders 1 99fi : Ovr•r UI'WIIS<'I: .'itudier i Lofg-ren, Orvar 1994: The Empire of Good Ta ste. dnusl! -svr•uslie rr>/ntioltr'l: Copenhag-en: Nordisk Ever-yday Aesthetics and DonwHtic Creativity. In: tninist.crd\d. Barbru Klein & Mat� Widbom (cds), Swedish Folh Lofg-ren, Orvar 1988: Deconstructing- Swedishness. Art. All 1}·n.ditiou is Chnnw•. Hnrry Ahn1ms: New ClaH� ami Culture in Swctl iHh Society. In: A. Jack­ Yo rk, PP- 2::l!'i-246. son (cu.), Aulhropology nt T-lo/111', London: Tavi­ LOfgren, Orvar 199!'i: Leben in transit?Hisl orische Rtock. Authropologie, 1995: :.! . Lofgren, Orvar 1989: The NationalizationofCultur e. O'Dell, Thomas 199a: "Chevrolet ... That:s a Real Etluwlogin Eumpnen, XIX,l :!'i-24. Raggarbil": The American Car and the Production Lofg-ren, Orvar· 1.99:.!: Matcriali;r.ing the Nation in of'Swcdish ldcntitieR. Joumn.lo(Follilore Rl's<'Orch Sweden and America. /!:t/111.o., 199:3::3-4 : 161 -1.96. :.!0:61 -74.

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