Etnologins regionala karaktär och internationella ambitioner

Abstract

Swedish Ethnology: Regional or Not?

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.