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Contribution short abstract:

Based on a critical review of Sweden-based Ethnology with an empirical focus on postsocialist Europe, this paper discusses four modes of disciplinary territorialisation: methodological nationalism, methodological regionalism, institutional territorialization, and epistemic marginalization.

Contribution long abstract:

This paper offers a critical reflection on research conducted by researchers based in Swedish Ethnology whose research has explicitly contributed empirically and theoretically to knowledge on postsocialist Europe. Based on a critical review of such existing literature, the aim of this paper is to identify overarching trends and themes within this body of literature, especially after 1989, and to critically reflect on which kind of ethnological knowledge has hitherto been produced about the region. We will discuss our findings in terms of four modes of territorialisation involved in ethnological research, which we believe deserve further critical attention and reevaluation: i.) to what extent Swedish Ethnology with an empirical focus on postsocialist region remains shaped by methodological nationalism, ii.) how the shifting borders both in and of Europe since 1989 raises a related set of questions concerning what could be called methodological regionalism, and about the inbuilt epistemological dilemmas regarding different scales of territorialisation, iii.) how methodological regionalism, tends to be naturalised and reproduced not just by discourses about “Eastern” and “Western” Europe but also by institutional means such as research funding other forms of research governance; and, iv.) how, against this background, we see a strong need to systematically explore issues of epistemic inequality and marginalisation in Sweden-based Ethnology with an empirical focus on the region. In doing so, we hope to reactivate some older debates of what “the European” in European Ethnology means – and to contribute to a renewed debate about its current pitfalls and future potential.