Primitiveness and Sovereignty: Conceptions of Temporality in Anthropology and Folklore Studies in Germany (1850s-1930s)

原始性与主权：德国人类学和民俗研究中的时间性概念（1850年代-1930年代）

• 批准号: 284309830
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Christof Dejung
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Historisches Institut
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2015-12-31 至 2017-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/284309830?language=en
• 关键词: Primitiveness; Sovereignty; Conceptions; Temporality; Anthropology

In this project, I argue that in late 19th and early 20th century European societies, claims for territorial sovereignty and social power were closely interlinked with particular notions of temporality. By taking Germany as an exemplary case, the project examines how notions of backwardness and primitiveness, initially used by urban elites in order to legitimate colonial expansion and metropolitan predominance within domestic society, could be redefined in order to become the foundation of both regional and national traditions. This was possible because the contemporary concept of primitiveness involved two contradicting implications: On the one hand, it could be used within metropolitan centres for justifying the dominance of backward peripheries in the colonies and the European hinterland; on the other hand, it could be used to refer to timeless traditions and hence support regional and national quests for identity and self-empowerment. This project examines these ambivalent and ever-shifting implications of primitiveness by focusing on the emerging scientific disciplines of anthropology and folklore studies, which were closely interrelated until the late 19th century. Many scholars from anthropology examined both, domestic and colonial peoples and many later founders of societies for folklore studies had initially been members of anthropological societies as a matter of course. These ties, however, were gradually loosened at the turn of the century and folklorist examinations of domestic cultures were increasingly integrated into national and regional historical narratives. The project examines the modes of temporality which justified this dissociation and explores in how far it was accompanied by an increased importance of racial theories in anthropological research. It therefore ties in with seminal works of scholars such as Johannes Fabian and Nicholas Thomas on the significance of temporal structures in anthropology but opens up completely new research trajectories by relating their findings to intra-European processes such as nationalism and domestic power struggles. In particular by analysing the epistemological shifts between the two different implications of primitiveness and by examining the sociopolitical processes involved, the project analyses what was described as inventions of tradition by European social historians on the one hand and the othering of non-European civilisations studied by global historians and postcolonial scholars on the other within one field of analysis and one theoretical framework. This postulate is often cited in postcolonial and global historical writings; however only a few studies so far really have implemented this claim in empirical analyses.

在这个项目中，我认为，在19世纪末和20世纪初的世纪欧洲社会，领土主权和社会权力的要求是密切相关的特定概念的时间性。该项目以德国为典型案例，探讨了如何重新定义城市精英最初用来使殖民扩张和大都市在国内社会中占主导地位合法化的落后和不稳定的概念，以便成为区域和国家传统的基础。这是可能的，因为当代的包容性概念包含两个相互矛盾的含义：一方面，它可以在大都市中心内被用来证明殖民地和欧洲腹地落后边缘地区的主导地位;另一方面，它可以被用来指永恒的传统，从而支持区域和国家对身份和自我赋权的追求。这个项目通过关注人类学和民俗学研究的新兴科学学科来研究这些矛盾和不断变化的影响，这些学科在世纪后期之前一直密切相关。许多来自人类学的学者研究了国内和殖民地的人民，许多后来的民俗学研究协会的创始人最初当然是人类学协会的成员。然而，这些联系在世纪之交逐渐松动，民俗学家对国内文化的考察越来越多地融入国家和地区的历史叙事中。该项目研究了证明这种分离合理的时间性模式，并探讨了在人类学研究中种族理论的重要性增加的情况下，这种分离在多大程度上伴随着种族理论。因此，它与约翰内斯·费边（Johannes Fabian）和尼古拉斯·托马斯（Nicholas Thomas）等学者关于时间结构在人类学中的重要性的开创性著作联系在一起，但通过将他们的发现与民族主义和国内权力斗争等欧洲内部进程联系起来，开辟了全新的研究轨迹。特别是通过分析两种不同含义之间的认识论转变，并通过研究所涉及的社会政治过程，该项目一方面分析了欧洲社会历史学家所描述的传统发明，另一方面分析了全球历史学家和后殖民学者在一个分析领域和一个理论框架内研究的非欧洲文明。这一假设在后殖民主义和全球历史著作中经常被引用，但迄今为止只有少数研究在实证分析中真正实现了这一主张。