Contribution short abstract:

As “at home” anthropologists, Romanian ethnologists were offered the public role of reconnecting their peers with almost forgotten cultural ethnic roots and as facilitators able to encourage people to discover their local oral culture.

Contribution long abstract:

Scholars of national ethnology are quite active in the Romanian public space, especially as speakers invited by media outlets to offer descriptions and explanations of holiday rituals and symbols, or to describe and support specific data of the national cultural heritage. Given the importance of the Romanian folklore as a mandatory ingredient of the ethnic imaginary and self-representation of Romanians, it is expected for ethnology to act as a science devoted to the public good and for ethnologists to step out of their academic ivory tower and to frequently disseminate their findings to the general audience. Moreover, ethnologists are often in competition with digital influencers attractively displaying spectacular “ethnological” interpretations thus serving the need of a certain part of the Romanian public for an exciting bygone ethnic ancestry.

Besides fulfilling the requested mission of a healer of cultural amnesia, decoding superstitions, ritual behavior and costumes about which both performers and the public seldom claim to have lost original meanings, ethnologists have sometimes the unintended but meaningful mission of reminding people of their direct connection with family and community memory and cultural local codes. This specific social role of ethnologists stretches out of their primary scholarly duty turned towards cultural archeology and the folklore archive and reaffirms the relevance of their discipline for providing contemporary interpretations and enhancing individual and community self-discovery.