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Accepted Paper:
(Re)Making sense of historical fieldwork practices
Line Esborg
(University of Oslo)
Methods with a deep connection to natural history seem to have played an important role in informing the methods and genres of what became the study of folklore in Norway. But how were folkloristic and naturalist practices intertwined?
Paper long abstract:
Methods with a deep connection to natural history seem to have played an important role in informing the methods and genres of what became the study of folklore in Norway. The Norwegian Folklore Archives contains the works of pioneers of what can be called both a folkloristic discipline and a folkloristic movement. This pioneering work was closely connected to the collection work of naturalists at natural history museums. Of special interest for this paper, are the works of Peter Christen Asbjørnsen (1812-1885), famous for publishing the first Norwegian folktale collections, but also known for extensive publications which shows a concurrent parallel interest in both folklore and natural historical topics, especially marine zoology. (Re)making sense of his historical fieldwork practices raise big questions, such as how folkloristic and naturalist practices were intertwined. What were the “methodological” commons in these knowledge fields that are normally seen as separated and divergent? How were disciplinary demarcations formulated in these contexts? How has natural history influenced the knowledge history of folklore.