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Expeditioner i det förflutna : etnologiska fältarbeten och försvinnande allmogekultur under 1900-talets början

Gustavsson, Karin LU (2014) In Nordiska museets handlingar 140.
Abstract
In the first decades of the twentieth century there were fieldwork expeditions in rural Sweden, documenting archaic buildings and villages in words and pictures. These documentation efforts were part of a larger context, where the ambition was to survey and collect all aspects of what was presumed to be a vanishing peasant culture. The documentation was carried out by several different museums and archives, with the Nordiska Museet as the major actor. Young men who had studied art history, Scandinavian languages, and archaeology did fieldwork during the summers in the Swedish countryside, travelling by train and bicycle. They documented everything from entire villages to individual buildings, using cameras and various types of measuring... (More)
In the first decades of the twentieth century there were fieldwork expeditions in rural Sweden, documenting archaic buildings and villages in words and pictures. These documentation efforts were part of a larger context, where the ambition was to survey and collect all aspects of what was presumed to be a vanishing peasant culture. The documentation was carried out by several different museums and archives, with the Nordiska Museet as the major actor. Young men who had studied art history, Scandinavian languages, and archaeology did fieldwork during the summers in the Swedish countryside, travelling by train and bicycle. They documented everything from entire villages to individual buildings, using cameras and various types of measuring instruments, and writing descriptions in words. The result of the documentation was a large number of archival records with photographs, drawings, and descriptions which are stored today in the Nordiska Museet and the Folklife Archives in Lund, besides a number of smaller museums. The aim of establishing an archival record was that it would be a medium conveying knowledge about a material reality from a certain time and place to another.

The problem studied in the dissertation is the relationship between practical fieldwork and processes of scientific knowledge. The focus is on everyday life in the field and the function played by technology and tools for the fieldwork and for the production of scientific knowledge. The aim of the dissertation is to use examples from the fieldwork practice of documenting buildings to investigate how scientific knowledge is produced. The study is confined to a specific time – from the 1910s to the early 1930s – and a particular place – Sweden and to some extent the rest of Scandinavia. These chronological and spatial boundaries have been set on the basis of the qualities and limitations of the available source material. Figuring in the dissertation are persons, publications, and practices that were significant in the museum system and in early ethnology in Sweden. The study can be read as a contribution to the disciplinary history of ethnology and museum history, viewed through the fieldwork practice rather than through the texts written by the early ethnologists or the biographies written about the great men who are usually pointed out as the pioneers of the subject. (Less)
Abstract (Swedish)
Popular Abstract in Swedish

Under 1900-talets inledande decennier genomfördes fältarbeten på den svenska landsbygden då äldre bebyggelse och byar dokumenterades på bild och i ord. Dessa dokumentationer ingick i ett större sammanhang, där ambitionen var att alla aspekter av en förmodat försvinnande allmogekultur skulle kartläggas, samlas in och arkiveras. By- och bebyggelsedokumentationerna utfördes av flera olika museer och arkivinstitutioner, med Nordiska museet som den stora aktören. Unga män som studerat ämnen som konsthistoria, nordiska språk, folklivsforskning och arkeologi, samt blivande arkitekter, fältarbetade under somrarna på den svenska landsbygden, där de tog sig fram med tåg och på cykel, så småningom också med... (More)
Popular Abstract in Swedish

Under 1900-talets inledande decennier genomfördes fältarbeten på den svenska landsbygden då äldre bebyggelse och byar dokumenterades på bild och i ord. Dessa dokumentationer ingick i ett större sammanhang, där ambitionen var att alla aspekter av en förmodat försvinnande allmogekultur skulle kartläggas, samlas in och arkiveras. By- och bebyggelsedokumentationerna utfördes av flera olika museer och arkivinstitutioner, med Nordiska museet som den stora aktören. Unga män som studerat ämnen som konsthistoria, nordiska språk, folklivsforskning och arkeologi, samt blivande arkitekter, fältarbetade under somrarna på den svenska landsbygden, där de tog sig fram med tåg och på cykel, så småningom också med bil. De dokumenterade både hela byar och enstaka byggnader genom att fotografera och göra uppmätningsritningar. Resultatet av dokumentationerna blev ett stort antal arkivakter med fotografier, ritningar och beskrivningar, som låg till grund för både vetenskapliga och populära publikationer liksom museiverksamhet. Fältarbetenas resultat kom under lång tid att prägla uppfattningen om den förindustriella epoken på svensk landsbygd tedde sig. Det tidiga 1900-talets etnologi framträder som en vetenskap där bildskapande liksom praktiskt arbete var väsentliga inslag. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
supervisor
opponent
  • fil dr Silvén, Eva, Nordiska museet
organization
publishing date
type
Thesis
publication status
published
subject
keywords
building culture, ethnology, history of discipline, fieldworks, technology
categories
Higher Education
in
Nordiska museets handlingar
volume
140
pages
240 pages
publisher
Nordiska museets förlag
defense location
Sal B251, LUX, Helgonavägen 3, Lund
defense date
2014-10-10 13:15:00
ISSN
0346-8585
ISBN
978-91-7108-570-2
language
Swedish
LU publication?
yes
id
ee6fcda9-3026-4388-8ee3-cd5545149a8c (old id 4628738)
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 14:18:18
date last changed
2019-05-22 08:14:37
@phdthesis{ee6fcda9-3026-4388-8ee3-cd5545149a8c,
  abstract     = {{In the first decades of the twentieth century there were fieldwork expeditions in rural Sweden, documenting archaic buildings and villages in words and pictures. These documentation efforts were part of a larger context, where the ambition was to survey and collect all aspects of what was presumed to be a vanishing peasant culture. The documentation was carried out by several different museums and archives, with the Nordiska Museet as the major actor. Young men who had studied art history, Scandinavian languages, and archaeology did fieldwork during the summers in the Swedish countryside, travelling by train and bicycle. They documented everything from entire villages to individual buildings, using cameras and various types of measuring instruments, and writing descriptions in words. The result of the documentation was a large number of archival records with photographs, drawings, and descriptions which are stored today in the Nordiska Museet and the Folklife Archives in Lund, besides a number of smaller museums. The aim of establishing an archival record was that it would be a medium conveying knowledge about a material reality from a certain time and place to another.<br/><br>
The problem studied in the dissertation is the relationship between practical fieldwork and processes of scientific knowledge. The focus is on everyday life in the field and the function played by technology and tools for the fieldwork and for the production of scientific knowledge. The aim of the dissertation is to use examples from the fieldwork practice of documenting buildings to investigate how scientific knowledge is produced. The study is confined to a specific time – from the 1910s to the early 1930s – and a particular place – Sweden and to some extent the rest of Scandinavia. These chronological and spatial boundaries have been set on the basis of the qualities and limitations of the available source material. Figuring in the dissertation are persons, publications, and practices that were significant in the museum system and in early ethnology in Sweden. The study can be read as a contribution to the disciplinary history of ethnology and museum history, viewed through the fieldwork practice rather than through the texts written by the early ethnologists or the biographies written about the great men who are usually pointed out as the pioneers of the subject.}},
  author       = {{Gustavsson, Karin}},
  isbn         = {{978-91-7108-570-2}},
  issn         = {{0346-8585}},
  keywords     = {{building culture; ethnology; history of discipline; fieldworks; technology}},
  language     = {{swe}},
  publisher    = {{Nordiska museets förlag}},
  school       = {{Lund University}},
  series       = {{Nordiska museets handlingar}},
  title        = {{Expeditioner i det förflutna : etnologiska fältarbeten och försvinnande allmogekultur under 1900-talets början}},
  url          = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/3898366/5157411.pdf}},
  volume       = {{140}},
  year         = {{2014}},
}