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Paper short abstract

In a period of rapid socio-economic change, post-1945 folk museums redefined rural ‘rootedness’ from ethnic/nationalist framings to sociological ones. Comparing UK and West-German exhibitions, this paper traces how rural narratives were renegotiated by curators, locals, and academics.

Paper long abstract

Narratives about rural lifestyles organically frame people’s rootedness to place. Yet what constitutes this rootedness – ethnicity, agricultural customs, “mentalities” – is far from given. This paper considers how concepts of linking people to place were newly narrated in the post-1945 decades, comparing folk museums in West-Germany and the UK.

In this period, previously tacit naturalist understandings about rural rooted lifestyles came into question through the socio-economic changes that threatened the underlying customs themselves, but also through a host of new sociological and economic theories and models that reconceptualized rural (versus urban) lifestyles, and challenged the ethnic and nationalist underpinnings of these narratives. Museums are a particularly interesting place to trace these developments. In a democratized heritage landscape, folk, rural, and Heimat museums grew into hubs of exchange on regional identity, influenced by local cultural policy, and citizens. Yet, as this paper demonstrates, through museum professionals’ academic networks new models of historical linkage came on display.

Through a comparative overview of the public activities (exhibitions and books) of folk and rural museums across West-Germany and the UK, this paper analyses the subtle and less subtle shifts between ethnic and socio-economic narratives of rural life. It examines both prominent/national museums, as well as lesser known local ones. The paper shows that rural notions like Heimat through vivid debate were subtly redefined in the light of sociological critique. Those new definitions remain influential in current discourse.