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life; writing them is one form of a local specialist role; and the local circulation of written texts (published or unpublished) is an important part of cultural history, a forerunner of social media.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.

Subject headings

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)

Keyword

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

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)