Folkets försvinnande : Konstruktioner av det förflutna i svensk folkminnesforskning under 1920-talet

Sammanfattning: In Sweden, during the 1920s, the past played a definite part in the folklore research. The folklore scholars argued for collecting the cultural memories (folkminnen) of “the people”, as they were understood to disappear due to a threat from the modern civilization, which was thought to spread across the countryside at an ever-accelerating pace. This study shows that the past is constructed through discourse – not as a predefined object but rather as a dynamic process of temporal constructions. This study analyses the construction of the past in folklore research in Sweden during the 1920s. Two methodological tools have been primarily used to help unfold the process in which the past is constructed. First, by discourses of the past (förflutenhetsdiskurser) which is how, in my case the scholars, relate to the past by various verbal practices. Secondly, by identifying binary characterizations. In this study, the construction of the past, in folklore research, has been shown through three main themes. First, by understanding the importance of collecting the cultural memories of “the people” as an urgent project – due to their inevitable disappearing – but also as a duty towards the people of the past and as a duty towards future generations. Secondly, by identifying three different dichotomies which all functioned as part of the process of the construction of the past. Thirdly, by analyzing “the people” as a category that best is described as a compound of both culture and human.