Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the relationships between places and persons in a folklore collection. The paper conclude that the theoretical and ideological premises for the collection demand that a person’s customs and traditions, in order to be understood as such, need a geographical place of origin.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the relationship between places and persons in Karl Gösta Gilstring´s folklore collection. Karl Gösta Gilstring´s collection at the Department of Dialectology and Folklore Research in Uppsala (DFU), consists of more than 8000 original letters (DFU 40265), as well as many recordings, from which Gilstring has made 70 000 records, divided in approximately hundred parish collections and organized according to content (ULMA 34838).

In this paper, the focus is on how the informants when contributing to the collection, also came to be connected to places, such as a small village or part of a parish, and how they thereby came to represent traditions and customs in a specific geographical area. Who could represent the places of interest for the archive and Gilstring? How were the connections between persons and places established? What were the effect of this process, both for the persons and for the places?

In the paper, I analyze the theoretical and ideological premises for the collection, and conclude that the naturalized connection between home and authenticity, demand that customs and traditions, in order to be considered as such, need a geographical place of origin, a home.