Gränslös och tydlig

Etnologisk kulturanalys i det 21:a århundradet

Abstract

This paper discusses contemporary ways of understanding and defining culture, on one hand, and the discipline of (European) Ethnology in Sweden, on the other hand. It argues that though many of us have abandoned the concept of culture as an analytical tool, we still sorely need the word when it comes to spelling out what kind of reality we are studying, and what the discipline of Ethnology is actually about. The paper gives a brief outline of a re-formated minimalistic understanding of culture, suitable for posing open-ended questions about how culture is created, handled and altered in various settings. It also discusses the difficulties that stem from our habit of studying a wide variety of subject matters, and proposes that rethinking and sharpening the concept of "ordinary people" might contribute to solving some problems here. Likewise, the paper stresses that as long as we write our reports in Swedish and are eager to make our texts accessible to wide audiences, Swedish society stands out as the area for which we take on particular responsibility, whether we explicitly intend it or not. However motivated this may be, the paper also suggests that we should expand our writing strategies by contributing more to international scholarly discourse on various fields and issues.