Ethnology. The Adaptability and Continuity of a Discipline

This article discusses the development throughtime and space of ethnology as a multifaceted disciplinaryfield. The objective of the article,however, is to challenge possible pre-assumptionsof ethnology as an incoherent i.e. variable and inconstant discipline, due to national limitations andtheoretical and methodological responsiveness, byproposing some core aspects regarding focalpoints,perspectives and methods that may beconsidered as prominent and unifying amongstethnologists both in Sweden and abroad. The articleargues for a general and continuing disciplinarianfocus on culture as a pluralistic, complexand individual-based phenomenon, as well as fundamentalinterest in the functions, social structures,constructions and experiences of cultures.Furthermore, the article describes how both earlierand later generations of ethnologists in generalhave chosen to study culture based on a selectionof recurring perspectives that comprise boththe intangible and tangible aspects of culture, aswell as the spatial and social contexts in whichcultures are formed and maintained. Finally, thearticle highlights how different types of ethnologicaldata are collected and analyzed via a combinationof constantly developed methods of culturalanalysis, though rooted in a disciplinarian tradition. In conclusion, despite a continuous progressionand adjustments within ethnology in regardto perspectives and methods over time and space,this has more often resulted in additions ratherthan replacements. For this reason, it seems relevantto define ethnology as a coherent discipline,designated by both adaptation and continuity.

Ethnology. The Adaptability and Continuity of a Discipline

This article discusses the development throughtime and space of ethnology as a multifaceted disciplinaryfield. The objective of the article,however, is to challenge possible pre-assumptionsof ethnology as an incoherent i.e. variable and inconstant discipline, due to national limitations andtheoretical and methodological responsiveness, byproposing some core aspects regarding focalpoints,perspectives and methods that may beconsidered as prominent and unifying amongstethnologists both in Sweden and abroad. The articleargues for a general and continuing disciplinarianfocus on culture as a pluralistic, complexand individual-based phenomenon, as well as fundamentalinterest in the functions, social structures,constructions and experiences of cultures.Furthermore, the article describes how both earlierand later generations of ethnologists in generalhave chosen to study culture based on a selectionof recurring perspectives that comprise boththe intangible and tangible aspects of culture, aswell as the spatial and social contexts in whichcultures are formed and maintained. Finally, thearticle highlights how different types of ethnologicaldata are collected and analyzed via a combinationof constantly developed methods of culturalanalysis, though rooted in a disciplinarian tradition. In conclusion, despite a continuous progressionand adjustments within ethnology in regardto perspectives and methods over time and space,this has more often resulted in additions ratherthan replacements. For this reason, it seems relevantto define ethnology as a coherent discipline,designated by both adaptation and continuity.

Ideologization, manifestation and community making 

- Processes of heritage production in two local communities in transition

As the local industry has taken on an increasingly marginalized role in post-industrial small towns, like Surahammar and Timrå, in Central and Northern Sweden, an industrial past has emerged as the more valuable politically, economically but also socio-culturally, to nurture, preserve and identify with in these local industrial communities that undergo transition. This article aims to analyze local heritage production as a use and representation of history. Empirically resting on data collection and analysis of primary and secondary sources, comprising interviews, observations, archives and contextual literature, the article argues that local post-industrial heritage production may involve continuation as well as alterations of processes started in the past industrial society. Also, it comprises local adaptation as well as adjustments on heritage discourses. In conclusion, despite of local differences similarities may, as shown in Surahammar and Timrå, indeed occur in both design and content. This involves a pre-dominance of “non-professional” producers and including and excluding representations of places and people. Furthermore, local heritage provide combined political, economic and socio-cultural arenas of different ideologies as well as sites for creation of shared values and evoking emotions of belonging in diversified communities. In Surahammar and Timrå this has been done recurrently with the use of effective homogenization strategies within the field of heritage, i.e. by emphasizing sufficiently remote pasts to induce temporary but nevertheless efficient “classless and rootless” unity in pride of local place and values.

Ideologization, manifestation and community making 

- Processes of heritage production in two local communities in transition

As the local industry has taken on an increasingly marginalized role in post-industrial small towns, like Surahammar and Timrå, in Central and Northern Sweden, an industrial past has emerged as the more valuable politically, economically but also socio-culturally, to nurture, preserve and identify with in these local industrial communities that undergo transition. This article aims to analyze local heritage production as a use and representation of history. Empirically resting on data collection and analysis of primary and secondary sources, comprising interviews, observations, archives and contextual literature, the article argues that local post-industrial heritage production may involve continuation as well as alterations of processes started in the past industrial society. Also, it comprises local adaptation as well as adjustments on heritage discourses. In conclusion, despite of local differences similarities may, as shown in Surahammar and Timrå, indeed occur in both design and content. This involves a pre-dominance of “non-professional” producers and including and excluding representations of places and people. Furthermore, local heritage provide combined political, economic and socio-cultural arenas of different ideologies as well as sites for creation of shared values and evoking emotions of belonging in diversified communities. In Surahammar and Timrå this has been done recurrently with the use of effective homogenization strategies within the field of heritage, i.e. by emphasizing sufficiently remote pasts to induce temporary but nevertheless efficient “classless and rootless” unity in pride of local place and values.

Portals of beauty

The county of Hälsingland is well-known for its large, red-painted farms decorated with impressing porches. In Forsa though, there are white doors typical for this parish. They are decorated with ornaments like flowers, fabulous beasts and biblical inscriptions. The aim of this essay is to compare doors created by the carpenters in Forsa Jöns Månsson and Jonas Lust with the portals by the artist Pehr Westman in the parish of Hemsö, Ångermanland, at the beginning of the 19th century. The carpenters are studied in their social, economical, cultural and architectural context. Jöns Månsson and Jonas Lust developed characteristic mixtures of rococo, Swedish Classicism, empire for decoration of doors, portals, interiors, and furniture. They belonged to a social category called outsiders who were not farmers but often farm-hands, tenement soldiers and craftsmen. Their work can be studied as artistic interpretations of the local mentality, its normsystem, style-codex. The portals of Pehr Westman in Hemsö, Ångermanland, are considered as independent works by a self-conscious talented artist who did not follow a local aesthetic system. Westman was a farmer himself, but delivered artistically expressiv Gustavian portals to local farmers, mansions, burghers in nearest town Härnösand, and Stockholm, where he also had his education. Pehr Westman introduced the Swedish Classicism in Ångermanland. His local cultural knowledge and the style of the regional rural architecture facilitated his introducation of a new style. Storsnickare in Norrland were stylists in independent pre-industrial communities aware of new fashion styles, and of the different tastes in other parishes and nearest town. The craftsman who was at the one with the aesthetics of the parishioners and could add some innovation, was the most sought after, in Hälsingland as well as Ångermanland.

It is hard to deny that Swedish Ethnology retains a regional character, despite the fact that nowadays, many of its practicians transcend national borders in their projects and fieldwork. This paper argues that we could be more confident about the extent to, and the ways in which, Ethnology deals with regional matters. Important in this context is to make clear that our mission insofar is to investigate cultural processes in Sweden and not "a Swedish culture", and that this ought to be perceived as a comparative task. In addition though, the paper claims that our scholarly writing should transcend linguistic boundaries, and that we should embrace with enthusiasm the possibility of reaching out to an international community of colleagues by publishing more of our results in English.

Ethnology of the present: Revisiting a debate in 1967

According to a popular understanding among Swedish Ethnologists (not least in Stockholm), its practitioners turned to studies of contemporary society and culture in the 1960’s, with a young generation taking the lead. This paper examines how a little group of their elders, in the same decade, envisioned and assessed the prospect of ethnological studies of modern life. Based primarily on contributions to a symposium on the theme, the following key components of their vision are identified: an understanding of “the contemporary” as a period of considerable length; the adherence to a particular concept of tradition; and a dedication to the ideal of a broad coverage of modern life and collections of data large enough to secure that results would be representative, or typical. In combination, these components rendered the task of studying modern life overwhelming and in practice impossible to realize, for lack of personnel and resources. In the concluding remarks, various aspects of the transition to an Ethnology of the present are illuminated by comparing the paradigmatic work of Åke Daun (1969) to the vision presented by the elders and to some other publications issued at the same time.

Recension av Jönsson, Persson och Sahlins bok om institutionsbegreppet - Institution.

Recension av Jönsson, Persson och Sahlins bok om institutionsbegreppet - Institution.

Two old houses by the sea have made me an enthusiastic do-it-yourself man, performing manual work of different kinds. Switching between writing and manual DIY can be experienced as moving between separate realities, where body and mind are employed in different ways. Using autoethnography as a starting point I observe myself performing manual tasks, using various tools. Being an acting subject as well as an observed object I then try to capture complex events in written words. In this process the differences as well as the similarities between building and writing become clearer. For example, the questions of involvement, troubleshooting and aesthetics are crucial in both activities. You have to be mentally present, think hard and be concerned about the look of your result. The reality of manual work is linguistically organized. It is symbolically constructed, learned and communicated. Accomplishing DIY-projects you also need to acquire a tacit knowledge residing in your body. This tension or cooperation between hands, tools and brain seems to be more evident in manual work than in writing. Another difference is that in DIY there are ready-made answers. While building, for example a wood shed, mostly is a linear process where you pretty well in advance know the result, writing can take you almost anywhere. But in the end, switching between these activities, using different tools and senses, has integrated them with each other in everyday life as repeated struggles to create something valid.

Between Contemporary Art and Cultural Analysis Artistic research is an alternative way of producing different kinds of knowledge, inside or outside of the Academy. This is accomplished either by producing investigative artworks or by writing a doctoral dissertation about your own work. For cultural researchers the artistic methods utilized in these processes are both familiar and challenging. Ordinary ethnography is mixed with more unpredictable experiments. This article presents several contemporary artworks, such as sculptures, films, dances, installations and performances that explore various aspects of reality. One question asks what is to be learnt from these works. Another question is what an open exchange between artists and academic researchers could attain. Especially four methodological devices are pointed out as interesting subjects for discussion. The first one is that a lot of artists are living experimentally; they make use of themselves both as actors and as research objects. Second, contemporary artworks are approaching the theme of materiality in very tangible ways. Third, much of contemporary art is emotional – even when it is called conceptual – when it comes to the creation, the forms of presentation, and the influence on the spectator. When the artists systematically implement wild whims they exploit their spontaneity professionally. Finally, many artists have the gift to find and show surprising meanings in ordinary life. How do they accomplish that?

Following the Lobster

In this article, lobsters serve as an analytical trace element for a further discussion about the mutual relation between materiality and meaning. Through keystrokes in different historical and contemporary contexts, the first part of the text presents a number of examples of what a lobster could be – and what it could also be expected to do. The second part discusses the act of following as a culture-analytical method, and indicates the benefits that concepts like frequency, density and population can have.

Asking oneself what a lobster could be underlines that lobsters have more than one meaning. In other words, it is a way of helping us to see how the meaning we ascribe to a lobster is dependent on the kind of company it keeps. Lobsters seldom appear alone. On the contrary, they are almost always surrounded by other things, at the same time as they are objects for highly varying practices. For someone whose task it is to actively look for lobsters, i.e. what in the article is called following the lobster, this is especially clear. When lobsters are moved from one context to another, the setting is also changed. The earlier network of objects, people and physical environments that surrounded the lobsters changes shape. For lobsters, every new setting also means a new network.

In this way, the following of lobsters illustrates how translations and meaning-making should be understood as both material and cultural phenomenon. In the analysis, the object is always one and the same – lobsters – while the setting and the network can change several times by simply twisting the lens. All this can be regarded as a kaleidoscopic cultural analysis, where the ambition is to discover something new about the lobster by searching for it in expected as well as unexpected places. At the same time, the intention is also to generate new knowledge about the contexts and activities that are actualised by the presence of the lobsters. This is why the article’s recurring question – which is posed in the presence of every specific lobster population – is, what is the work that the lobsters are expected to do, right there and then?