Sind wir stets (trans-)national gewesen? Die Fachgeschichtsschreibung der Volkskunde auf dem Prufstand

Abstract

This article discusses ‚transnational Volkskunde / folklore studies‘ as both a historical phenomenon and an interpretative framework. To this day, the examination of transnational entanglements in the history of Volkskunde / folklore studies – known in German-speaking regions today as Empirische Kulturwissenschaft, Europaische Ethnologie, or Kulturanthropologie – remains a neglected area, particularly with regard to its institutionalization in the late 19th century. Studies on this period almost exclusively follow national or regional narratives. In our article, we first examine the background that may have led to the absence of transnational considerations in the historiography of Volkskunde / folklore studies. Building on this, we demonstrate how new approaches in the history and anthropology of knowledge within our discipline open up fresh possibilities for studying transnational developments in folkloristic knowledge production. The following section addresses the methodological and practical challenges of investigating such entangled histories of Volkskunde / folklore studies. We also outline our approach to tackling these challenges within the DFG project „Actors – Narratives – Strategies: Constellations of Transnational Folklore Studies, 1875–1905“ (funding period: 2022–2027). In the final section, we reflect on how ‚transnational Volkskunde / folklore studies‘ can be understood and used not only as an object of investigation, but also as an instrument of interpretation.