DEI Workshop ‘Dark Histories ’of Europe an Ethnologies and Folklore Studies

Teresa Eastman from the University of Mainz reports about the DEI Workshop on 22 September 2023.

The workshop ‘Dark Histories’ of European Ethnologies and Folklore Studies was organized by the SIEF Diversity, Equity and Inclusion taskforce, online, on September 22, 2023. The workshop focused on the problematic roles and responsibilities of European ethnologies and folklore studies in the past.

After the opening words delivered by the SIEF president, Marie Sandberg, the workshop started off with the keynote talk by Hande Birkalan-Gedik under the title “Perennial Moments and the Responsibility of Intellectuals: Towards More Engaged, Critical Disciplinary Histories”. Participants were reminded that the responsibility of the researchers is to critically view disciplinary histories and past studies, as well as to deal with ethical and moral questions when doing scholarly research today. Arguing for the need to act against the misuse of power, Birkalan-Gedik proposed writing disciplinary histories with a focus on a future-oriented folklore and ethnology. She invited researchers to a dialogue with ‘critical folkloristics’ which requires a repositioning as “everyday activists” and the engagement in “feminist, post-colonial, transnational, and transdisciplinary debates and issues” (Cited from the abstract). Furthermore, Birkalan-Gedik proposed realigning European ethnologies and folklore studies toward transnational perspectives, by including the cultural contexts outside of Europe and at its margins.

The first panel, chaired by Dani Schrire, explored the question of responsibility and the ethical use of researched materials when it comes to indigenous communities. In his paper, “Taking Native Sovereignty Seriously: Notes toward an Ethics of Practice” Thomas DuBois discussed the treatment of Native Sovereignty in the US. His studies of the Native Americans show that the research of those groups usually does not bring an advantage for them. It happens for “our sake”, meaning for that of white Euro-American researchers. The question about provenance research and the current uses of artefacts in museums was also tackled. DuBois argued that scholars have a responsibility to counter racist stereotypes and dismantle them to work toward a better future. One productive way to do so is through collaborative research with the native communities.

Paper “Roma and ‘Dark Histories’ of European Ethnologies and Folklore Studies”, authored by Carol Silverman and Adrian Marsh (who unfortunately could not participate) explored how the emergence of stereotypes about the Roma was supported by Ethnology. One example is the Gypsy-Lore-Society. Its early work was the case of scientific racism, including cataloguing as a tool to establish the so-called ‘cultural circles’. These ‘dark histories’ carry special weight today, when the Roma are yet again the target of hostilities.

“From Lappology to Sámi Studies. Shifts in positionality, responsibility and ownership in Indigenous research” was a paper presented by Coppelie Cocq. The term ‘Sámi Studies’ was introduced in the 1970s as a reflection of a major conceptual shift. Preserving Sámi languages became more important and Sámi voices got more attention. Cocq underlined the importance of trust for building sustainable research.

The discussion after the first panel focused on the questions of collaboration and researchers’ responsibility. It brought up difficult questions about representativeness and the ethics of speaking up on behalf of a whole group. The consensus was that it is problematic when diverse and complex communities are being rushed into one discrete group. Reflecting on one’s own decisions during research and the reasoning behind these is an essential step. A consensus was that activist collaborations offer a chance to work towards a better life for the studied people and to stand up against inequalities, racism, and intolerance. However, collaborations require finances and resources, and the budgets of some collaborative research projects today include finances for collaboration partners. (One example of this is the project “Sensitive provenances”, University of Goettingen.) Furthermore it was asked: How can research be shaped to fit the goals of the community?

The second panel, chaired by Čarna Brković, focused on questions of authenticity and the influence of researchers on nation building. Ljiljana Pantović presented her paper “Medicine, Eugenics and Nation building in the writing of Batut,” focusing on the work of Milan Jovanović Batut, a prominent Serbian physician in the late 19th and early 20th century in Serbia. Pantović demonstrates that eugenics discourses had implications for the biopolitical aspect of nation formation in Southeast Europe too. Batut discussed the role of women as mothers not only of children but also of the nation, instrumentalizing women as tools important for nation building. 

In a paper “Negotiations of ‘authenticity’ in the margins of Balkans’ ethnology: Internalized orientalism?”, Rozafa Berisha focused on the role of ethnologists in the discussions about cultural authenticity in Kosovo. She demonstrated that, during the Milošević regime, Kosovar ethnologists produced knowledge that countered the Serb nationalist political and academic discourse on the racial inferiority of Muslim majority Kosovar Albanians. In doing so, however, they objectified Muslims women’s bodies, and took on the role of ‘cultural authenticators’. Berisha argued that the production of “authenticity” can be understood as a process that rests on unstable evaluative criteria and converges with the orientalist paradigm.

In her paper “White, grey, black? Ethnologists and propaganda in Finland 1941–1944”, Sanna Kähkönen offered three analytical categories. First, black propaganda, which is easily identifiable, includes false information, sender is unknown or difficult to identify. Second, white propaganda that comes from an identifiable source and the information is accurate yet selective. Third, grey propaganda, a hybrid of the two previous categories that is the most common type of propaganda and includes ambiguities. Based on her material, Kähkönen demonstrated that ethnologists used propagandistic elements in their works and that here were researchers who influenced the political decision-makers.

In a concluding discussion, chaired by Konrad Kuhn, the critical use of the term ‘authenticity’ was brought up. The workshop participants agreed that the term ‘authenticity’ is highly exclusionary and that it is not the task of ethnologists to define ‘authentic’ cultural forms. Our task as ethnologists is rather to ask who uses ‘authenticity’ as a value and in which discourses it is embedded. Another strand of the open discussion concerned questions of researchers’ positionality. Some of the raised questions were: What do people gain from collaborating with academics? How can privilege be used to work against inequality? How does one integrate native voices to evaluate the research process? The discussion clarified that power and hierarchy are important to consider when interrogating who is talking to whom about what. The responsibility to produce new and challenging results is also an important element of field research. The consequences of past histories are part of the present research and of our disciplinary futures.

The workshop was organized by:

• Čarna Brković (SIEF board member, DEI taskforce)

• Dani Schrire (SIEF board member, DEI taskforce)

• Konrad Kuhn (SIEF-Working Group Historical Approaches in Cultural Analysis)

• Hanna Snellmann (former SIEF board member) and

• Marie Sandberg (SIEF president, DEI taskforce).

The full program of the workshop with the abstracts is available here.

Teresa Eastman, University of Mainz