"En temmelig lang fodtur" : HGIS, Text mining, and folklore collection in 19th century denmark
(2018) In Human IT 14(2). p.43-81- Abstract
In Scandinavia, the folklore collection of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries coincided with rapid changes in political, economic, and social organization, and resulted in national collections of extraordinary scope. Although some later folklorists have expressed skepticism about the usefulness of these collections as resources for the study of folklore, ethnography and intellectual history, this skepticism is often based on incorrect notions of how these collections came to be, rather than a deep exploration of the actual practices of the collectors themselves. Methods that support detailed analysis of these collecting practices result in a more nuanced view of the role of folklore and fieldwork in the imagining of the... (More)
In Scandinavia, the folklore collection of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries coincided with rapid changes in political, economic, and social organization, and resulted in national collections of extraordinary scope. Although some later folklorists have expressed skepticism about the usefulness of these collections as resources for the study of folklore, ethnography and intellectual history, this skepticism is often based on incorrect notions of how these collections came to be, rather than a deep exploration of the actual practices of the collectors themselves. Methods that support detailed analysis of these collecting practices result in a more nuanced view of the role of folklore and fieldwork in the imagining of the nation. These methods can also help delineate the role folklorists played in developing ethnographic perspectives on the impact of social, political, economic and technological change on the lives of normal people. Building on our earlier work, we show how techniques from historical Geographic Information Systems (hGIS) and text mining, wedded to time-tested archival research methods, can be used to reveal the complex dynamics behind a folklore collection. By detailing the routes taken by the Danish folklore collector Evald Tang Kristensen (1843-1929) over the course of his fifty-year active career, we trace how changes to transportation infrastructure impacted his collecting and how his attitudes toward fieldwork developed over time.
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- author
- Storm, Ida and Tangherlini, Timothy R.
- publishing date
- 2018
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Folklore, Historical GIS, Intellectual history, Text mining, Topic modeling
- in
- Human IT
- volume
- 14
- issue
- 2
- pages
- 39 pages
- publisher
- Högskolan i Borås
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85059241246
- ISSN
- 1402-1501
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- no
- id
- 0d91000a-7c00-4e54-8eb8-7a40d2897ae8
- alternative location
- https://humanit.hb.se/article/view/581
- date added to LUP
- 2019-01-16 10:20:51
- date last changed
- 2022-01-31 08:31:56
@article{0d91000a-7c00-4e54-8eb8-7a40d2897ae8,
abstract = {{<p>In Scandinavia, the folklore collection of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries coincided with rapid changes in political, economic, and social organization, and resulted in national collections of extraordinary scope. Although some later folklorists have expressed skepticism about the usefulness of these collections as resources for the study of folklore, ethnography and intellectual history, this skepticism is often based on incorrect notions of how these collections came to be, rather than a deep exploration of the actual practices of the collectors themselves. Methods that support detailed analysis of these collecting practices result in a more nuanced view of the role of folklore and fieldwork in the imagining of the nation. These methods can also help delineate the role folklorists played in developing ethnographic perspectives on the impact of social, political, economic and technological change on the lives of normal people. Building on our earlier work, we show how techniques from historical Geographic Information Systems (hGIS) and text mining, wedded to time-tested archival research methods, can be used to reveal the complex dynamics behind a folklore collection. By detailing the routes taken by the Danish folklore collector Evald Tang Kristensen (1843-1929) over the course of his fifty-year active career, we trace how changes to transportation infrastructure impacted his collecting and how his attitudes toward fieldwork developed over time.</p>}},
author = {{Storm, Ida and Tangherlini, Timothy R.}},
issn = {{1402-1501}},
keywords = {{Folklore; Historical GIS; Intellectual history; Text mining; Topic modeling}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{2}},
pages = {{43--81}},
publisher = {{Högskolan i Borås}},
series = {{Human IT}},
title = {{"En temmelig lang fodtur" : HGIS, Text mining, and folklore collection in 19th century denmark}},
url = {{https://humanit.hb.se/article/view/581}},
volume = {{14}},
year = {{2018}},
}