Folklig diktning om sjukvård och älgjakt

• This article explores the writing and circulation of poems as a 20th-century form of folklore, especially with local newspapers as a base for their publication. Poems about regional health care and about the elk hunting season are chosen as examples in order to focus on how writing poems can be a way of making public statements on matters of common interest in a regional (county) context. The examples show how different subject positions and varying attitudes towards a topic can be expressed through poems. A conscious choice of genre, such as prayer, thanksgiving, praise and accusation, can make positions clearer and give further emphasis to the tendency of the message. I also argue the importance of noticing poems, and local media in general, both in ethnographic research and in the documentation strategies of archives and museums. Poems can be a genre in which it is possible to speak of big and small questions in everyday life; writing them is one form of a local specialist role; and the local circulation of written texts (published or unpublished) is an important part of cultural history, a forerunner of social media. Local newspapers have been one of the few arenas where the voice of the public has been given space.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Annan humaniora -- Etnologi (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Other Humanities -- Ethnology (hsv//eng)

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Litteraturvetenskap (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- General Literary Studies (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

folklore

poems

letters to the editor

local politics

elk hunting

health care

public discourse

literacy

local media

folklore

diktning

lokalpolitik

insändare

älgjakt

sjukvård

skriftlighet

massmedier

Ethnology

etnologi

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)