'Latent Ethnicity' or 'Patent Problematics' in National Schools of European Ethnology?

This short comment on Tamas Hofer's paper discusses the opportunity of the association on 'latent' ethnicity with national schools of European ethnology rather than with certain academic centres of influence in the history of European ethnology. It also points out the danger of overestimation ofthe cultural dimension of the ethnologist's personality compared to his personality as a scientist. Finally the use of an 'ethnic' terminology in an European context is questioned.

This short comment on Tamas Hofer's paper discusses the opportunity of the association on 'latent' ethnicity with national schools of European ethnology rather than with certain academic centres of influence in the history of European ethnology. It also points out the danger of overestimation ofthe cultural dimension of the ethnologist's personality compared to his personality as a scientist. Finally the use of an 'ethnic' terminology in an European context is questioned. In other countries like France, this has also been the case during the period when the carto graphic methods were considered as the way of doing national ethnology in a scientific manner: the mapping of regional cultural differences was 'unconsciously' (?) perceived as endanger ing national unity (cf. Le Bras, Todd, 1981: 13-30). The introduction of the monographic stud ies, based on other methods and theories, en dangered probably less the national 'latent' fe ar for national diversity and allowed the birth of an 'ethnologie fra nr;aise' inspired by general ethnology/social anthropology and 'Annales' like history. In these different cases 'latent ethnicity' seems of more influence on the 'quan tatif' development of national ethnological in-108 stitutions than on the content n fthcir resea rch.
Another i m portant is::;ue discussed by Ta mas Hofe r, concerns the role of the languages in which E uropean ethnologist::; p ublis h (and think?). Al th ough most European ethnologists have, until quite recently, mainly published in th eir own national languagcs -ofwhich some at least, are internationally read -this has never been a more important obstacle for communica tion among its practitioners than in neighbour ing disciplines. This persistence of the use of one's own language in our disciplines, even if this language is not generally read abroad, may also be due to the groups of potential readers of national or regional ethnology. Many European ethnologists arc mainly employed by national or regional administrations or governments to document and analyze aspects of their own country or region and to communicate their research results to a national or regional public in various forms (texts, lectures, teaching, exhi bitions, etc.). Comparing with other regions or countries has been for these reasons only a secondary preoccupation for many, if one at all. Although today it is generally accepted that each scholar is also an 'encultured' member of his society as well as an 'accultured' member of the local scientific community in which he has been educated, he also is a scholar. This means someone capable to 'de-centre' his point of view, with the help of heuristic and theoretic tools, fr om the one of the layman. This necessary distantiation and 'de-centration' are of course more difficult to achieve in a study of the 'famil iar nearby' than when working in a setting, which is very different fr om one's own geo graphical, social or cultural background. In this perspective (scientific) European ethnology has tried, by borrowing heuristic tools fr om sociolo gy, social and cultural anthropology, socio-lin guists, historians and others, to avoid the dan ger ofbecoming a sophisticated fo rm of national or regional belly-buttonism.
Finally, I would like to put a questionmark on the use Tamas Hofer makes -in his English written paper ... -of the term 'ethnicity' as an apparent equivalent of 'national'. I suppose he is referring here to the (ab)useAmerican sociol ogists, cultural anthropologists and after them American administrators and politicians have made since more than twenty years of this concept as an equivalent of (cultural) identity (cf. Poutignat, Streiff-Fenart, 1995). The links he seems to suggest between the ideas and concepts elaborated in a particular national language on the one hand and the ('latent') ethnicity ofthe group (or groups?) that uses th i::; language as its national language on the other, seem very questionable to me (as a Dutch-born, French educated ethnologist, studying Europe an societies ... ).
Or does he want to suggest some 'latent: influence between the research items of partic ular national ethnological schools and regional or national ethnographic originals? Ifthis is the case, the use of the concept of ethnicity is not necessary and even dangerous, because it would suggest the existence of(homogenious?) 'ethnic' groups as national or regional entities in Eu rope. More general, the actual (ab)uses made by politicians, especially in Central and Eastern Europe and often for demagogic reasons, of 'ethnic' terminology, should make European ethnologists particularly cautious and critical toward the use of terms like 'ethnicity' and 'ethnic', that recall in Europe and especially in our discipline some dark moments of our past.
To conclude these few comments on Tamas Hofer's interesting paper, I would agree with his idea of linking the specificity of certain schools ofEuropean ethnology to the con texts of the centres that gave birth to them. But very few of this centres can be qualified as strictly national, as many have extended their influ ence into peripheries, which have been variable in size during their history. Of course the use of a particular language has often been closely associated with these various schools, which has led to the preeminence of certain research items and concepts by most of their members also outside the national context of origin (al though not always with an equal success). I also agree with Tamas Hofer on the necessity of 'contextualisation' of the relations between scholars and the facts they observe and ana lyze, as this is today usual in most neighbouring disciplines, but by avoiding certain excesses that can lead to scientific nihilism. Finally I would like to suggest an extremely precautious use of the term 'ethnicity' (whether 'latent' or not), especially in our discipline where all refer ences to the concept of ethnie recall better forgotten souvenirs of our past as ethnologists both inside and outside Europe.