Liszka József (szerk.): Az Etnológiai Központ Évkönyve 2000-2001 - Acta Ethnologica Danubiana 2-3. (Dunaszerdahely-Komárom, 2001)
1. Tanulmányok - Schippers, Thomas K.: A határok egyenlőtlensége s annak módszertani következményei az európai etnológusok számára
Acta Ethnologica Danubianu 2-3 (2000-2001), Komárom-Komárno The Fractal Nature of Borders and its Methodological Consequences for European Ethnologists. Thomas K. Schippers Like other concepts and notions elaborated by both anthropologists and European ethnologists, the idea of (cultural) borders and boundaries nowadays refers to quite familiar notions in Western thinking - border and culture - while it generates at the same time some very specific epistemological and methodological problems when one takes a literally “closer” look at it. Narrowly linked to a spatial vision of the world, the idea of cultural borders and boundaries refers to a series of perceptions in terms of “within” and “beyond”, of limits between presence and absence, of transitions, of changes and even confrontations. Especially the geopolitical border, as a child of strategists and international agreements, is conceptually associated with the emblems and artefacts which give it a certain degree of visibility in the landscape (stone posts, fences, barriers, walls etc.) and also with all the “tools” which allow it to have a representational “visibility” or “trackability”. Among these, of course, two-dimensional graphic representations like maps and cartograms are best known (cf. Schippers 1999, 26-27). After centuries of rather approximate mapping, technical improvements in the XVIIIth and especially the XIXth centuries have greatly helped to make geographic maps into acceptable tools for representation of both parts of space and for various forms of “distant decision making” - for example by commanders during wartime1 or by diplomats and politicians during conferences in the aftermath of armed conflicts. Technical improvements in mapping have also facilitated in the XIXth century the introduction of so-called “thematic cartography”, first used by meteorologists and later by all kinds of scientific disciplines to give a graphic, synoptic representation of the spatial distribution of particular phenomena. The European linguistic and later ethnographic mapping and the publication of ethnographic atlases, provide examples of thematic mapping in the field of European ethnology.2 The XIXth century, with the introduction of basic education for all in most European countries, has also progressively familiarised most young Europeans with maps as graphic “icons” of their country, representing not only its “physical” and administrative geography but also literally “outlining” the shape of its external contours. The general use of so-called “blind maps” for pedagogical purposes has reinforced this process of familiarisation of most 1 For example, Napoleon always had always an important staff of cartographers and topographers with him to prepare in situ detailed maps of forthcoming battlefields. 2 For an historic overview European ethnocartography cf. Bromberger-Dosetto-Schippers 1982/83, 15-40. 173
