"There are dangers to be faced": Cooperation within the International Association of Folklore and Ethnology in 1930s Europe

This article demonstrates how scholarship and political positions can be negotiated when democratic and authoritarian systems converge in an international context; it takes as a case study cooperation among members of the International Association for Folklore and Ethnology (IAFE) and its successor organization, the International Association of European Ethnology and Folklore (IAEEF) in 1930s Europe. In particular, it examines how leading Swedish folklorists and ethnologists experienced the influence of Nazi politics as they sought international cooperation in their field. Attempts to dialogue with colleagues whose home countries had adopted fascism were combined with attempts to prevent Nazi dominance of the IAFE and IAEEF. This paper examines the discourses that circulated among different scholars and groups and demonstrates how these discourses constructed people, stances, and fields, sometimes in contradictory or self-serving ways. Discourse-historical analysis thus reveals how scholars from different countries negotiate the connections between scholarship and politics in varying political contexts.