Jonas Engman

Background

About Jonas Engman

Since late 1980's until 2013, I've been holding a position as Senior lecturer at the dep. of Ethnology at Stockholm University. Since late 2013 I've been holding a position as Head of Archives at the Nordiska museet in Stockholm. Since 2019 I'm curator at the Nordiska museet. My empirical and theoretical specialization is folklore, especially rituals in contemporary society, but also in the pre-urban society. My focus has also been on the Swedish military, especially in a Naval context, a field in wich I have performed extensive data gathering in the form of interviws and participant observation, mainly in the context of the Swedish Navy. At present my scholarly interests is more and more focused on therotical and methodological traits in ethnological and ethnographic research, and its tight bindings to archival practices and ideologies. I frequently hold popular oriented lectures outside the academic context. The topic of my lecturs are broad, but mostly concernes modern society culture, social structure and value systems in the light of premodern society. It concenrns traditions, rituals, every-day lives as well as folklore in different forms: folktales, legends, folk-belief, supranatural beings and other topics. Also, I frequently partcipate as commentator in TV, radio and newspapers, many times on contemporary cultural-ideological issues. Specialties: Folklore, traditions, rituals, narratives, politics and culture, comtemoprary and cold war military.