Uppsatsens syfte är att undersöka hur begreppet ortskaraktär och samtidens idéströmningar påverkade kulturarvsbygget vid tiden för förra sekelskiftet. Som exempel används Hermanna Stengårds samling och bok Gotländsk sticksöm (1925). Genom litteraturstudier och ideologikritisk analys kontextualiseras Hermanna Stengårdsförfattarskap, liv och samlande genom 1800-talets nationalromantik, Artur Hazelius och hemslöjdsrörelsens insamlingspraktik och syn på ortskaraktäristisk textil. Genom textanalys har Gotländsk sticksöm (1925) även delats in i fyra huvudspår, historiska referenser, litterära referenser, Information och urval samt Hermannas egna ord. I undersökningen påvisas Stengårds nära band med Verner von Heidenstam, ett faktum som stärker kopplingen mellan nationalromantikens sökande efter nationell identitet och tanken om ortskaraktär. Samtidigt visar resultatet att Hermanna Stengårds samling är kurerad och utformad i ett specifikt syfte, vilket gör att samlingen förr speglar samtidens idéströmningar och behov av identitetsbygge än en faktisk ortskaraktär. Detta perspektiv vidgar samlingens kulturhistoriska värde, trots att dess status som bärare av faktisk ortskaraktär försvagas. / This essay seeks to understand how the concept of local character and the social climate in late 19th and early 20th century Sweden influenced the constructing of cultural heritage and the curation of collections at the time, with Gotlandic knitting tradition and the book Gotländsk sticksöm (1925) by Hermanna Stengård as the example. Through literature studies and ideology-critical analysis the author examines how 19th-century national romanticism, Artur Hazelius and the handicraft movement’s concept of local character influenced Hermanna Stengård's historiography, collection practice and selection for the book Gotländsk sticksöm (1925). This is achieved by the contextualizing of Hermanna Stengård’s life, collection, and authorship. The result shows a deep connection between Stengård and Verner von Heidenstam. The discovery of Stengård's unreferenced use of paraphrases from Heidenstam’s prose grant a better understanding of the Stengård’s book Gotländsk sticksöm (1925). It also strengthens the connection between the late 19th and early 20th national romanticism’s notion of national identity and the concept of local character. Further, the result shows that the collection itself does not tell what is defining for Gotlandic knitting, but rather how it has been defined at a certain time in history and why. The collection’s cultural-historical value has been broadened through these finds, even though its actual status as a bearer of local character is weakened by it.

Local identity (Swedish: ortskaraktär) has played a big part in shaping the view of crafts in Sweden during the last century until today. This rapport investigates the history of local identity in the Dalecarlia region, specifically looking at local bobbin lace traditions.  The work endeavours to see how the bobbin lace is made today, what importance the local identity has had on the survival of the craft, and how important local expressions within the lace remains today, as well as why it is still important. To investigate this relationship between local identity and crafts the rapport makes use of primary sources in the form of interviews with active local bobbin lacemakers. The work also relies on archival material on order to put the interviews into a historical context. These archives range from the national to the regional and local level. The material is analysed using the theoretical base of authorised heritage discourse and performativity, and a hermeneutical approach informs the method of analysis.  The rapport concludes that local identity, “ortskaraktär” remains a key factor to the survival of the lace making tradition. But it also recognises that to ensure the continued survival of the craft, a revival might be necessary. The rapport proposes recontextualizing the use of the craft, making it more popular beyond use in folk costume, or a recognition of the craft on the list of immaterial cultural heritages in Sweden. Official recognition might lead to resources being directed towards the preservation of the tradition.

The overarching theme of the thesis concerns the terminology aspect of searchability in digitalised archival data. The aim of the work is to analyse material from two archives (The Institute for Language and Folklore (ISOF) and The Nordic Museum) on the subject of sprang and the names of that technique during the 20th century in a Swedish rural setting. The questions posed to the material concern geographic occurrence, descriptions, confusions due to homonyms, and the origins of names. The theoretical foundation is based in relationships like ideology, gender, and power. The idea of nationalism through symbols like names is used to analyse the material. The method is archival research, based in the two archives and a small case-study of the names used for sprang objects in the database digitaltmuseum.se (containing several Swedish museum collections). Key words are used in the search and in total twenty-six hits are examined. The material is categorised in geographic position, names used, and whether it is sprang or not.  The study finds an occurrence of sprang in a rural context later in time, and further north in geography than the literature on the subject would suggest. The case study shows that some confusion in terminology exists between museums, and sometimes within the collection of a single museum. The study suggests that technical terms should be preferred by institutions rather than rural, folkloric, names.