OBS! De inledande 2 sidorna saknas i den uppladdade filen.
Ethnological Fear
This article may be said to be reflections on trends in Swedish ethnology today - with a certain polemical touch.
In my opinion a lack of scientific generosity exists today in Swedish scholarly society, which I feel stems from a fear of what is different, or perhaps the competing other, those thoughts which challenge a hegemonic mainstream. The fear manifests itself in many ways, one of which is for institutions to limit knowledge about the unusual for their students. That leads to obedient students, but certainly does not encourage free creativity, a development which in the long run can be devastating for ethnology.
Fear of coming with statements about what is or has been is also evident. The reality which we all know is unattainable is decomposed by the scholar in to pictures and stones, and the scholar should not be held responsible for interpretation, because what is written is merely the scholar's own story about the stones. 'Who gains any pleasure from such stones, except the scholar? The wholesome introspection, which to my way of thinking is a continuation of earlier compulsory self-criticism, can also lead to a pretentious mirroring of oneself, which has also been pointed out by James Clifford and Billy Ehn/ Barbro Klein.
A fear has spread among younger ethnologists which causes the arduous critical thought process to tend to be replaced by "correct language" with quotations from currently popular authorities, sometimes statements of the most banal type. Knowledge seems to come second. Intellectual debate and research are constantly threatened by a growing superficiality, according to Sven-Erik Liedman. What I feel is that subservience has influenced many of the younger scholars in ethnology.
This lack of knowledge of the other is partly responsible for this development. What is distinctive is that within Swedish ethnology many seem to want to forget the ethnological knowledge which has been won by the "older" ethnology. That has been pointed out by Reimund Kvideland, Reginald Byron and Bo Lönnqvist. In reality that is a denial of ethnological identity. Fear of the historiography of and within a subject has led to the development of a research genre which I would call trivial ethnology. My criticism on this point is not that ethnology takes up trivial questions in human life, but the way in which this is done. Trivial ethnology has a strain of general opinions, and there are many occasions when it may be asked whether journalists or others who have not studied ethnology could not make the same comments about the ordinary.
Contradictions, conflicts, class and gender differences, and international and historical comparisons are left out of trivial ethnology. Konrad Köstlin has commented on the same theme in regard to German conditions in the article I have cited.
This article finally considers my own fear. I fear that ethnology will become superficial, adapted to the admiration of the mass media and will lack self-examination. The discussion about what knowledge the subject should strive to supply is lacking, about how it should relate to the society which supports it. In Sweden the regional colleges are rapidly being built up. Many kinds of positions are being created. But the demand for ethnology is not great, and that is an understatement. Does this also tell us something? Can it lead to introspection?
Translation: Marie Clark Nelson
