Exploring culture

European Ethnology sees itself as an empirical cultural science. Culture is a central theoretical concept of the subject. Culture is not understood as a fixed, closed system of traditions and values with clear geographical and national boundaries. Instead, this term describes processes through which people (groups, societies) deal with one another, understand each other, organize themselves, and shape their living spaces. In doing so, they often unconsciously use traditional patterns of orientation or consciously fall back on them, modify them, or develop new strategies in response to technical, economic, and social change processes, especially since modern times. Local societies, groups or individuals in their specifically culturally visible ways of acting do not originate from hermetically sealed, autonomous systems of tradition.

European ethnology examines and explains everyday and popular cultural phenomena in European societies.  When interpreting cultural spaces of understanding using the example of the regionally localized, i.e. small and specific fields of investigation and observation, the orientations and context of international and interdisciplinary cultural research are an important component. Supra-regional and global contexts are taken into account in view of increasing cultural contacts and interdependencies, and comparative perspectives are adopted. This approach is required in order to obtain a targeted, critical view and understanding of cultural contexts and cultural change in our ‘own’ and in other culturally shaped environments. The Central European German-speaking area with a focus on the closer regions remains the central research area of the field of European Ethnology represented in Eichstätt, naturally with a comparative view of European countries depending on the research situation and language competence.

Objects and fields of research

European ethnology focuses on the people of broad sections of the population, their self-evident (everyday) cultural practices, their objectifications and artifacts:

• Oral, literary, visual forms of transmission (e.g. popular narrative and reading materials, images and signs, media and virtual worlds),
• Behavior, action sequences and imaginary worlds (e.g. everyday, festive and leisure behavior, ways of working, forms of piety, values, tastes, conventions, rituals, customs, events),
• Group-based life, forms of living together (e.g. social institutions, forms of living and communities: family, associations, etc.),
• Tangible assets (e.g. buildings, apartments, clothing, appliances, pictures, etc.).
• The compilation refers to a so-called broad concept of culture. Culture describes the ability of people to shape their living environment as expressed in certain patterns of action and their production of things and symbols.

 
The subjects of investigation have led to the development of a large number of special fields of research, such as:

• Work culture research, custom, religion and piety research
• Material culture research, clothing, ceramics, house, furniture and food research
• Image and media research
• Municipal and urban (district) research,
• Narrative research
• Course of life and biography research,

Audiovisual anthropology

Approaches and methods

Compared to other cultural and social science disciplines, European ethnology is characterized by a specific relationship to the object of investigation and the research process. Its perspectives, analytical problems and corresponding methodological approaches form the specific procedure of cultural analysis. With a micro-analytical approach and the perspective on the actors, the different living environments and ways of life of the people in their historical development, their social conditions and their regional characteristics, i.e. under the reciprocal conditions of culture - religion - society - space, are explored as examples. The qualitative hermeneutic procedures associated with the "ethnological paradigm" (understanding others) with a clear self-reflexive impetus are incorporated into the historical-critical analysis.

Field research (e.g. participant observation, filmic and photographic documentation and qualitative interviews), content, image and discourse analysis, evaluation of historical sources and media are the methods used. Such an approach includes the analysis of political, economic, social, media and scientific contexts as well as inequalities and power relations. Recognizing socio-cultural problems in our societies with their historical backgrounds plays an important role in research and teaching.

Special tradition of "Volkskunde" (ethnology)

Cultural anthropology or empirical cultural studies are other names for the discipline in the tradition of ethnology studies. The "discovery" of the "people" during the Enlightenment and Romanticism and the diverse meanings of the word "people" since then, especially in the context of a pronounced national consciousness, are closely linked to the development and formation of the subject of folklore studies (European ethnology) at the turn of the 20th century. The political instrumentalization of the term "Volk", its composites and folklore by the National Socialist ideology led to tragic aberrations and the current appropriation of the term "Volk" also reinforces scepticism towards the term folklore.

In the late 1960s, the increasing trepidation of academics in the reappraisal of (scientific) history led to renaming or additions to the name of the subject at some universities. They also announced future theoretical orientation and research priorities. It was based on the traditional names of similar fields of research and study such as social anthropology (Great Britain), cultural anthropology (USA), ethnology (française) (France), ethnography/ethnology (Eastern Europe) or European ethnology (Scandinavia). In Europe, the ethnological and ethno-cultural anthropological disciplines have joined forces in the "Société Internationale d'Ethnologie et de Folklore" (SIEF) with the journal "Ethnologia Europaea". Not least because of the common historical discourse area "Europe" and the "ethnological paradigm" developed there, the subject designation in Eichstätt is European Ethnology.

Studying European Ethnology

empirical methods of European ethnology such as questioning or observation that require a high degree of participation and empathy; the analysis of historical sources and their interpretation also demand a confrontation with the seemingly familiar and the unfamiliar. Without it, it is not possible to understand the "foreign", "different" way of thinking and acting. These (inter)cultural skills are practiced and learned intensively during the course.

European Ethnology is the right field of study for anyone who

• Is interested in everyday life and everyday phenomena in contemporary and historical societies
• is curious to analyze and interpret different and unfamiliar lifestyles and ways of life, and who is open to experience and sociability
• is attentive to social developments and problems in social, political and economic contexts
• Is prepared to confront what is taken for granted and what is familiar, to reflect on and question their own views and to develop new perspectives
• is prepared to do extensive reading and to analyze and write texts

Practice and professional fields

The study of European Ethnology is not a specific professional training. Rather, students develop the ability to describe, analyze and interpret cultural phenomena and the associated documents and to communicate the results. This also includes key skills such as collecting, inventorying, documenting and presenting objects of material culture.

These skills prove to be fundamental, indeed indispensable, for areas of activity in both public and independent cultural work. Students should make creative and committed use of the freedom of design offered by the degree programs. The prospects of a successful career start increase with the ability to react independently, flexibly and appropriately to work requirements and situations.

Practical experience is of great benefit here. They can be gained through projects at the University and internships during the semester break at a wide variety of workplaces such as museums, collections, newspapers and radio stations. It is strongly recommended that students attend courses that are not subject to compulsory documentation. Furthermore, special events and guest lectures, also in other specialist areas, should be attended. Participation in conferences and congresses in particular promotes the acquisition of diverse knowledge of different subject areas and familiarization with other schools of thought. Field trips throughout the degree course also offer a good opportunity for this. Studying abroad (France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, etc.) is highly recommended.

There are many career prospects and fields of activity that open up after graduating with a degree in European Ethnology: 

Depending on your interests, the BA and MA programs offer a basic, scientific-academic preparation for activities in the following areas:

• Public relations, cultural management
• Museum, exhibition and congress organization, event management
• Adult education
• Journalistic media-oriented professional fields in publishing and press, television and radio
• NGOs, development cooperation, healthcare, integration
• Occupational fields in the areas of mobility, migration
• Companies, Human Resources sector
• Occupational fields in the areas of research and science
• and, following the MA program, there is the possibility of a doctorate in European Ethnology

For further information on your individual career prospects and opportunities, please contact the Career Service at the KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt.
You can find more information on the degree courses on offer under "Studies & Teaching".