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Ideologization, manifestation and community making 

- Processes of heritage production in two local communities in transition

As the local industry has taken on an increasingly marginalized role in post-industrial small towns, like Surahammar and Timrå, in Central and Northern Sweden, an industrial past has emerged as the more valuable politically, economically but also socio-culturally, to nurture, preserve and identify with in these local industrial communities that undergo transition. This article aims to analyze local heritage production as a use and representation of history. Empirically resting on data collection and analysis of primary and secondary sources, comprising interviews, observations, archives and contextual literature, the article argues that local post-industrial heritage production may involve continuation as well as alterations of processes started in the past industrial society. Also, it comprises local adaptation as well as adjustments on heritage discourses. In conclusion, despite of local differences similarities may, as shown in Surahammar and Timrå, indeed occur in both design and content. This involves a pre-dominance of “non-professional” producers and including and excluding representations of places and people. Furthermore, local heritage provide combined political, economic and socio-cultural arenas of different ideologies as well as sites for creation of shared values and evoking emotions of belonging in diversified communities. In Surahammar and Timrå this has been done recurrently with the use of effective homogenization strategies within the field of heritage, i.e. by emphasizing sufficiently remote pasts to induce temporary but nevertheless efficient “classless and rootless” unity in pride of local place and values.

Ethnology is a disciplinary field that is more or less interwoven with anthropology. Its main focus is the analysis of various cultures and cultural expressions, usually within a national context. In practice, ethnologists favor an approach toward culture from the individual perspective, with a key interest in how single ordinary individuals, seen as active cultural beings, think and act in their everyday lives. This implies that they are both shaped by and contributors to the shaping of cultures in their everyday lives. However, within ethnology, culture viewed as a bidirectional phenomenon is not merely regarded as an individual process. Rather, it is regarded as something that occurs in collective social contexts. When analyzing culture, ethnologists usually employ a combined focus on its ideational and folkloric aspects as well as aspects of materiality, locality, and identity. Ethnology's general methodological approaches comprise ethnographic fieldwork as well as studies of artifacts and sociocultural structures.

Ethnology. The Adaptability and Continuity of a Discipline

This article discusses the development throughtime and space of ethnology as a multifaceted disciplinaryfield. The objective of the article,however, is to challenge possible pre-assumptionsof ethnology as an incoherent i.e. variable and inconstant discipline, due to national limitations andtheoretical and methodological responsiveness, byproposing some core aspects regarding focalpoints,perspectives and methods that may beconsidered as prominent and unifying amongstethnologists both in Sweden and abroad. The articleargues for a general and continuing disciplinarianfocus on culture as a pluralistic, complexand individual-based phenomenon, as well as fundamentalinterest in the functions, social structures,constructions and experiences of cultures.Furthermore, the article describes how both earlierand later generations of ethnologists in generalhave chosen to study culture based on a selectionof recurring perspectives that comprise boththe intangible and tangible aspects of culture, aswell as the spatial and social contexts in whichcultures are formed and maintained. Finally, thearticle highlights how different types of ethnologicaldata are collected and analyzed via a combinationof constantly developed methods of culturalanalysis, though rooted in a disciplinarian tradition. In conclusion, despite a continuous progressionand adjustments within ethnology in regardto perspectives and methods over time and space,this has more often resulted in additions ratherthan replacements. For this reason, it seems relevantto define ethnology as a coherent discipline,designated by both adaptation and continuity.

Many minor post-industrial communities in Sweden, such as Surahammar and Timrå, struggle with financial difficulties and socio-cultural challenges due to the industrial decline and increased dependency on immigration from neighboring cities. In the light of this, arranging annual local festivals with a focus on cultural heritage can be seen as an opportunity to strengthen local identity as well as its inhabitant’s coexistences and sense of belonging. This article aims to analyze two local festivals, viewed as platforms for the production, communication and experiences of local cultural heritage values. Empirically resting on data collection and analysis of mainly ethnographic fieldwork, comprising interviews and observations, the article argues that these post-industrial local festivals involves identificational negotiations in regard to both the ritualized communication and implementation of local cultural heritage values. In conclusion, these festivals confirms a clearly industrial linked local cultural heritage but at the same time challenges it through enlargements, sufficiently vigilant connected to a local past in order to allow for inclusive local identifications, regardless of e.g. spatial origins.

Utifrån tvärvetenskapliga perspektiv och metoder, hämtade från etnologin och kulturgeografin, och med en empirisk utgångspunkt i tre kulturmiljöer som förvaltas av Statens fastighetsverk (SFV) i Sverige, analyserar artikeln historiebruk i form av kulturarvsproduktion och föreslår ett applicerbart normkritiskt samt i förlängningen normkreativt angreppssätt för att möjliggöra alternativa, varierade och mer inkluderande historieskildringar kring kulturmiljöer. Genom att utveckla och integrera dessa synsätt och verktyg vill artikeln argumentera för att man får tillgång till nya berättelser om platsen; berättelser som går utöver den traditionella, „normala“ historien om staten, enskilda byggnaders materiella utformning och den sociokulturella och ekonomiska eliten. En långsiktig effekt blir att det möjliggör ökad mångfald och inkludering både i fråga om förmedling och representation av platser som komplexa rumsliga och sociokulturella helheter.

Artikeln problematiserar studieavhopp utifrån studenternas egna upplevelser. Baserat på intervjuer med 24 studenter som hoppat av undervisning i etnologi och kulturantropologi vid Uppsala universitet urskiljer författarna två avhoppstyper: en mindre förekommande som är resultatet av ofrivilligt misslyckande, och en betydligt vanligare som sker frivilligt och efterföljs av studier i andra ämnen, ofta med tydligare yrkeskoppling. Artikeln lyfter fram bakomliggande orsaker i relation till detta avhoppsmönster. Dessa berör den enskilda institutionen, det statliga utbildningssystemet samt förhållanden inom humanistiska och samhällsvetenskapliga ämnen, såsom begränsade undervisningsresurser, hög andel fristående kurser och program utan yrkesexamen, och inte sällan låga antagningspoäng.