Folklore beyond Nationalism: Identity Politics and Scientific Cultures in a New Discipline

Abstract

This chapter discusses the development of folklore among the progenitors of ‘civic nationalism’— Rousseau, the Revolution and French Republicanism—rather than the better-known teleology of ‘ethnic nationalism’ that leads from Herder through the Grimms to ‘Blood and Soil’ and the Nazi Volksgemeinschaft . It simply demonstrates that they were trying to grapple with precisely those problems that, according to Barry Reay, they were in denial about: the complexity of cultural interaction, the hybridity of orality and literacy, tradition and modernity. Valorising the voice of the individual as opposed to the voice of ‘the People’ is also not without its problems, but it arose from a methodological scrupulousness, and a commitment to follow the standards of ‘scientific folklore’. Following ‘scientific’ standards would make it very difficult for this generation of folklorists to draw easy connections between folk culture and political nationhood. Keywords:civic nationalism; ethnic nationalism; folklore; politics; scientific culture