Europeanization as Strategy : disciplinary shifts in Switzerland and the formation of European Ethnology

Abstract

eThnologia euroPaea 45:1 European ethnology has never been a coherent, conclusive discipline but has rather been a loose network of interests, topics and collaborations. This had already been the case as numerous institutions such as the Société Internationale d’Ethnologie et de Folklore (SIEF) and the journal Ethnologia Europaea were founded. Within these institutions, a small group of “Europeanists” that formed in the middle of the 1960s played an important role. A key member of this group was the Swiss-born Arnold Niederer (1914–1998). Not only was Niederer one of the founders of Ethnologia Europaea in 1966/67, he was also significantly involved in the formation of the loose network of actors who helped promote, share and establish European ethnology as a new discipline. Early on, Niederer saw himself as a European ethnologist; his comparative cross-cultural interests were present already well before the institutionalization of the corresponding research context. Thus, he is one of the pioneers of the discipline; a comparative perspective on the Alpine region and research on forms of cooperative work organized at the community level kindled his interest in European issues. Niederer was one of the researchers, together with Sigurd Erixon, Jorge Dias and others, who wanted to overcome divisions between the different national and local ethnologies in Europe and thus contributed to the network of European ethnology. In this process, they also reflected theoretically on the common – as well as distinct – characteristics of European ethnology across Europe. This paper examines the epistemological and institutional activities in the field of Volkskunde/ folklore studies in Switzerland leading to the discipline’s reformation as “European ethnology”. Drawing on archival materials, the article takes Arnold Niederer (1914–1998) as a starting point by showing how Niederer, his networks and research contexts were involved in the formation of the loose alliance of interests that were subsequently institutionalized. This paper traces the new perception of the discipline “European ethnology” as it draws on early transnational contacts of Swiss Folklore Studies in order to overcome the crisis in which Volkskunde found itself in the 1960s. Europeanization and an orientation toward the present were strategies to stabilize the academic discipline but also to establish the discipline in the public sphere.