Börje Hanssen’s dissertation Österlen
Börje Hanssen’s dissertation Österlen. En studie över social-antropologiska sammanhang under 1600- och 1700-talen i sydöstra Skåne (Österlen. A study of social anthropological relations during the 17th and 18th centuries in south eastern Scania) is a pioneer work in Swedish historical anthropological research. Although presented in sociology (at Stockholm university 1952) the dissertation has had limited influence on that discipline, but for ethnology, which became more influenced from anthropology in the 1960s, it has been of great importance. Today it is seen as a living classic within many disciplines, but specially in ethnology, where Hanssen was teaching in the 1960s and 1970s.
The article emphasises some important perspectives in Österlen, which still today should be of interest to historical ethnological research. Among them is the astonishing great significance at the end of the 18th century, of names indicating cultural belonging, the analysis of objects in e.g. estate inventories and customs minutes, where dresses, furniture and handicraft products can tell us about everyday life, economic conditions and social and cultural belonging, and the frequent use of maps in the investigation in order to analyse people’s social network and mobility patterns, what Hanssen calls aktivitetsfält (fields of activity). Hanssen uses these perspectives to discuss the main problem in his dissertation, which is the relations between town (Simrishamn) and countryside (Österlen) or, more precisely written and using the author’s own terminology, the relations between urban and pagan groups.
