olika tekniker för att närma sig ett empiriskt fält, dokumentation, översättning och tolkning. Att utforska det till synes välkända är en av etnologins återkommande utman-ingar. Konsten att göra sig främmande inför platser, miljöer, fenomen eller situationer tenderar att bli allt svårare ju närmare vi kommer. Och var går gränsen mellan
observa -spunkt för tolkning och analys?
Inom antropologin är ”ethnographic drawing” en - numera ganska sällsynt - visuell praktik med spretiga rötter som väcker många frågor kring metodologi, dokumentation kanske erbjuda andra former för dokumentation, problematisera invanda kulturanaly-tiska översättningstekniker och möjliggöra nya tolkningsutrymmen. Med utgångspunkt
My contribution will be about the relationship between ethnographic observations and interpretation. Exploring the apparently well-known is one of ethnology’s recurring challenges. The art of making oneself unfamiliar to places, milieus, phenomena, or
situ -ary between observation and illustration? In which way can ethnographic illustrations be used as a starting point for interpretation and analysis?
38. What matters in the research process? On collecting of empirical material.
Ida Hughes Tidlund1
1 Stockholm University, Department of ethnology
My PhD project examines the borders around the Åland islands, or rather the traces left by the borders Ålandic everyday lives. These effects of the borders can be both juridical and cultural, and both limit and enable activities. The aim of the study is to see how borders become lived phenomena, and what the bordering of a region results in on an everyday level.The departure point in the collecting of the empirical material is that borders take various shapes, and that a broad methodology is necessary to cover
the lived-ness of borders. Applied methods are participant observations, current inter-views and archival studies, mainly archived interinter-views made on behalf of the Museum of Cultural History in Åland between 1950 and today. All methods regard the borders and their traces, without explicitly being about the borders per se. If borders are most in stories of other matters. This means that the project partly relies on material gathered with other aims, bringing methodological and ethical considerations to the fore. All through the collecting of material, contemporary and historical, the aim is to discern the border where and in whatever shape it appears, which gives rise to the relation between in seemingly unrelated material, and the assessment of the risk of evoking borders in trying to spot them.
Digital ‘objects’ on the move:
imported weblore and its use,
transformation and domestication in Scandinavian social spaces
1 2 3
1 NOVA, HiOA, Oslo, Norway
2 UiO, Oslo, Norway
3 Mjøsmuseet, Norway
Digital lore genres such as memes, gifs and emojis have become intrinsic parts of daily life for many Scandinavians. Most of these genres have their technolog-ical origin stories in the English-speaking world, and most of these genres have had a life online in completely different linguistic, cultural and social contexts before arriving in Scandinavia.
There are at least two ways that these digital ‘objects’ may be of interest to us as study-ing Scandinavian folklore. On the one hand, internet is part of a globalization process putting Scandinavian lives in more direct contact with foreign popular culture than ever before. How do we as folklorist understand its impact? On the other hand, it is obvious that many of these genres and individual objects have become domesticated. Trans-formed or simply translated, discrete web phenomena as well as whole web genres have moved from being cultural loans, marked by a certain foreignness, to become familiar to the point of being homey. But how to capture and track such transient phe-nomena as internet fads? Is it even possible to retrace their steps – and does it matter?
Our panel will discuss challenges and rewards with studying such digital ‘objects’, ranging from racist memes to Muslim motivational posters.
5. Digital ‘objects’ on the move: imported weblore and its use, transformation and do-mestication in Scandinavian social spaces
1 1 UiO
Through the research project New Voices in the Archive, we wanted to tap into this feed - exploring how new models of participation and digital tools may engage young peo-ple in documenting aspects of cultural identity.
In 2016 the Norwegian Folklore Archives recruited a group of teenagers in an attempt of accessing new sources and new ways of collecting material.
In the fall 2017 we asked them to collect memes. The task was to tag and provide con-text for each meme and post a curated meme-of-the-week each Friday on Norwegian Folklore Archives Facebook page.
This paper takes as it point of departure some of the results of this collection. Focusing on what might be labeled as muslim motivational memes, this paper discuss how me-mes are framed in order to address questions of identitypolitics.
5. Digital ‘objects’ on the move: imported weblore and its use, transformation and do-mestication in Scandinavian social spaces
1 1 Mjøsmuseet, Norway
In the facebook-blog «Trump Humor» norwegian folklorists and journalists publishes international memes about (or shall we say against?) the american president.
The norwegian memes are often dark and shows litle respect of the president. The norwegian primeminister Erna Solberg visit in the white House generated memes with text used earlier about Melania Trump: «Help me!». André Ulveseter posted a meme
the text: «Trump loves Norway because we grow his hair». The meme went virale and was perfect timed with the news about the president comment about imigrants from Norway rather than other «shithole countries». Another example is: «…we should bring more immigrants from countries like Norway» + a picture of Norwegian satanists.
When Trump got elected the norwegian news-drawer in VG, Christian Bloom, drew him as a baby crawling in his own poop and tearing down a globus. The norwegian picture went virale worldwide.
Nearly 600 people follow, comment and share from the «Trump humor» facebookblog.
The majority of the followers are norwegians. The facebookblog has developed from being a colectors-site into a daily «newsfeed». Besides laughing about the presidens shithole, atomrocets, fake news and Melania screaming of escape, we will in this pa-per discuss the boarders of Norwegian chatastrophy-humor and satire. Does the site
-cal Norwegian point of view? And what does the sharings and the norwegian comments underneath the memes tell us?
5. Digital ‘objects’ on the move: imported weblore and its use, transformation and do-mestication in Scandinavian social spaces
1
1 NOVA, HiOA, Oslo, Norway
the American Alt-right movement in 2016. His complex background story on websites of Kekistan. A somewhat bizarre internet phenomenon, Pepe attracted mainstream me-supremacist protesters in the deadly Charlottesville Riots in 2017.
Traditionally, the extreme right of the Scandinavian countries look to German and other Northern European movements, and have tended to use Norse imagery. However, with the use of Kek symbols on social media the last couple of years it seems as the Scandi-navian alt-right is becoming inspired by the U.S. But what do they use the green frog for? This paper will discuss a few instances of Pepe appearing in purely Scandinavian contexts, and what it may tell us of trans-Atlantic inspirations.