Den dialogiska uppgiften

Reflektioner kring etnologins politiska halt

Abstract

The main purpose of this article is to discuss how ethnology can do better justice to experiences of the past in everyday life and dialogue. Above all attention is drawn to the dialogic nature of cultural and historical phenomena, and to the tasks of responsibility. The point of departure is an ethnographic description of a journey together with real enthusiasts of local history, visiting traces of what is considered as an important cultural heritage, such as remnants of the first settlers. As it seems, the travelling and the conversation itself makes the history "present", and thus it also appears in a dialogic context, that is unpredictable and impossible to control. Furthermore the article also discusses the scientific and social implications of this unpredictability, especially how it can be possible to maintain it in an ethnographic text. The ultimate task is then considered to be to create a public space for this kind of experience, since it is a matter of the existential conditions of social and cultural life. The discussion mainly connects to Michail Bachtins concept of "the dialogical" and the ethic philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, but pays also attention to Jacques Derrida's views on different perceptions of time and heritage. Finally the article argue that the consequences of the dialogical point of view is that we need to consider a new understanding of our role as ethnologists in public space, that recognizes the political content of the experiences of unpredictability, i.e. a content that call the normal conception of time and culture in question, that even may be subversive, but also strives towards dialogic understanding.