This dissertation deals with the work of documenting Swedish folk culture at the Institute of Dialect and Folklore Research in Uppsala. This work is analyzed as a scholarly field and from the perspective of power and resistance structures. The investigation has to do with the gathering of material from the perspective of ideas and of practice. On the ideological plane the purpose of the work of the Archive was to create true and objective historical documents concerning folk culture, factual and linguistic information taken directly from the people, representative parts that could be brought together in larger, functional units. Reality was to be investigated in all its range. In practice, on the basis of their special competence and interests, researchers by making a subjective choice decided exactly which factual areas were to be investigated. No unified investigation was therefore achieved. Instead, traditional rural culture was chosen for investigation. Certain factual and/or geographical areas were given priority while others were rejected. By means of various strategies the researchers tried to influence the collectors in the field to gather the sort of information that the Archive wished to have. What was collected, however, was also influenced by the interests and knowledge of the collectors and was therefore the result of an agreement between the researchers and the collectors. The whole enterprise was primarily conducted as a rescue operation, in which the oldest, the most threatened and the most popular cultural elements were to be collected. The old tradition was made to represent stability and continuity. What was modern, learned or literary was eliminated in favour of what was regarded as traditional and genuine. The enterprise entailed a sort of cultural criticism by the researchers of their own turbulent, contemporary world and of the working classes, which were made to represent modern and artificial culture. The material that was gathered, therefore, was not primarily a contribution to an understanding of the popular culture of the 19th century, but rather commentaries on and criticisms of culture at the moment of recording it. It therefore tells us more about the modern human being of the early 20th century that about rural life in the 19th century. / <p>Doktorsavhandling för filosofie doktorsexamen i etnologi framlagd vid Uppsala universitet 1996.</p>

The purpose of this essay is to investigate why a group of young adults, living in the village of Järvsö in Hälsingland, choose to live their lives according to the ideals attributed to the peasantry in the early 19th century. The essay examines what gives them inspiration for their way of living and the driving forces behind their choices.   The theoretical starting points of the study are production of cultural heritage, nostalgia and performance studies. The study is based on interviews with young adults, and the older generation that inspires them, living in Järvsö, as well as participant observations and media coverage.   The examination of how the cultural heritage has been produced in 2018 gives an insight into the everyday life of those who choose to live by these ideals today in Järvsö and how it has shaped and affected how Järvsö is presented to the outside world.   The study concludes that the ideals that the young adults strive for are to live as environmentally friendly as possible. The inspiration comes from stories about people who lived during the 19th century and the aesthetics attributed to the folk culture. They use folk culture that includes stories, folk music, folk dance, folk costumes, crafts and games and reshape these expressions and adapt them to a contemporary life in the 21st century.   Because the decorated farmhouses of Hälsingland have been declared world heritage, there is also an authenticity guarantee which gives the interviewees legitimacy for their life choices and confirmation of the importance of passing these folk traditions on to future generations.

I mötet mellan den traditionella delsbodräkten och vår samtid vill jag konkretisera en idé om att tradition är i ständig förändring och att denna förändring är en förutsättning för att folkkultur ska kunna leva vidare.

<p>Validerat; 20130612 (global_studentproject_submitter)</p>

Denna uppsats handlar om folkkulturens mening och dess relation till nationalism. Högerradikala partier prioriterar frågor om kultur och vill bevara traditioner och återvända till ett etniskt homogent Sverige. Kaminsky menar att folkkulturen per definition är kopplad till nationalism genom sin relation till historia och önskan om att bevara. Men samtidigt demonstrerar utövare av folkkultur mot nationalism. Det tycks finnas en konflikt om folkkulturens mening och därför är syftet med denna uppsats att närmare undersöka hur meningen av folkkultur konstruerats diskursivt i samhällsdebatten och inom folkmusik- och folkdansrörelsen. För att besvara syftet har 6 intervjuer genomförts och analyserats tillsammans med två dokumentärprogram och 15 debatt-, och nyhetsartiklar, onlinematerial såsom hemsidor och inlägg i Facebookgrupper, samt en del direkta inblickar i fältet i form av etnografiska observationer. Jag har använt mig av Laclau och Mouffes diskursteoretiska perspektiv för att analysera hur mening konstrueras diskursivt och kampen om mening som enligt detta perspektiv är att betrakta som politisk. För att analysera den affektiva dimensionen av denna kamp har jag använt mig dels av psykoanalytiska bidrag om njutande och fantasier och dels av Ahmeds sätt att förstå känslor som sociala och analysera vad känslorna gör. Analysen har visat att folkkulturens mening är mångtydig och präglas av en konflikt. En del utövare försöker genom att betona genrens ständiga föränderlighet och öppenhet undkomma eller utmana en nationalistisk användning och meningskonstruktion. Samtidigt finns inom fältet också traditionsbärare eller bevarare, vars synsätt på bevarande på vissa sätt kommunicerar med en nationalistisk nostalgi. De utmanar istället den nationalistiska diskursen genom att konstruera folkkulturen som inkluderande och intresset för den egna kulturen som en del av en öppenhet för andras.