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Reversing the decline of biodiversity in European agricultural landscapes is urgent. We suggest eight measures addressing politics, economics, and civil society to instigate transformative changes in agricultural landscapes. We emphasize the need for a well-informed society and political measures promoting sustainable farming by combining food production and biodiversity conservation.

This book explores attitudes and strategies towards the return of the wild in times of ecological crisis, focusing on wolves in Europe. The contributions from a variety of disciplines discuss human encounters with wolves, engaging with traditional narratives and contemporary conflicts. Covering a range of geographical areas, the case studies featured demonstrate the tremendous impact of the return of the wolf in European societies. Wolves are a keystone species that exemplify humanity’s relation to what is called nature and their return generates powerful debates about what ‘nature’ actually is and how much it is needed or should be permitted to exist. The book considers the return of the wild as a catalyst for fundamental socio-biological changes of the world within human societies, and the various responses of humans to wolves demonstrate both our potential and limitations when it comes to multispecies communities and negotiating societal change. Managing the Return of the Wild will be relevant to a broad audience interested in discussions of social and ecological conflict today, including scholars from multispecies studies and diverse disciplines such as biology, forestry management and folklore studies.

Am Ende des 19. Jh.s wandten sich die ethnologischen Disziplinen Volkerkunde und Volkskunde dem Fremden im ethnischen und kulturellen Sinne zu. Das Interesse galt einerseits den Volkern auserhalb Europas und andererseits ausgewahlten sozialen Gruppen in der eigenen Gesellschaft, die im Prozess der Industrialisierung in den Hintergrund getreten waren. Stadt und Land wurden dabei zunehmend gegensatzlich gedacht und mit unterschiedlichen Zuschreibungen versehen. Fortschritt wurde mit der Stadt, Stillstand bzw. Ruckschritt mit dem Land verbunden. Zentrum war die Stadt, das Land dagegen erschien marginal. Als dann am Ende des 19. Jh.s die Industrie- und Stadtentwicklung auch als Gesundheits-, Umwelt- und Sozialproblem erkannt wurde, polemisierte die intellektuelle Opposition dagegen und vollzog gewissermasen eine agrarromantische Wende. Das Landliche wurde nun als eine Art Gegenpol zur hektischen Stadt imaginiert, als Hort der Einfachheit und Ruhe.

How do people use history to shape their lives, places and ‘worlds’? Which kind of history do they use, and in what ways? What are the functions of history in this context? How do people interact with places and spaces by constructing history, and what are the implications of these constructions for a sense of place? These are some of the questions explored in this special issue of the Anthropological Journal of European Cultures on history and place-making.

Werben is a small town in eastern Germany, situated at the periphery both geographically and in terms of current economic and social dynamics. Since 2004, the inhabitants of Werben restore their cultural heritage in order to re-enact a new Biedermeier Werben so as to create new jobs in the tourist industry. Twice a year, re-enactors invite tourists and locals to engage in time travel to the period at the beginning of the nineteenth century. This article discusses the ways in which the people of Werben use history to revitalise their town. History becomes a space which allows individual and collaborative experiences; it is used as cultural resource. Meanwhile, history is interpreted in a peculiar manner, holding different functions and values for different people. In its staging of Biedermeier, Werben develops into a laboratory in which various elementary needs and problems of postmodern society are discussed.

In its current form of "European ethnology," Volkskunde is increasingly conceptualized as a Europe-oriented study of the present. As a result, historical research is often limited to those periods considered part of the European "modern," and may be restricted to uses that illuminate the present. In contrast, this article advocates an open approach to cultural anthropology, particularly with respect to historical research. It outlines ways in which the new focus perpetuates old fault lines within the discipline and ways in which they may be bridged. It discusses ways in which the themes of "micro," "macro," and "agency" have played out in the author's own work, but it also highlights the real differences between works focused on the present and the past.

Zusammenfassung Schriftliche Mitteilungen an politische Machthaber sind seit der Vormoderne ein wichtiges Instrument der Teilhabe der Bevolkerung. Weitgehend unbeachtet von Wissenschaften und Offentlichkeit, gehort das Schreiben auch in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland zu den politischen Praktiken der Bevolkerung. So schrieben spatestens seit den 1950er Jahren wieder zunehmend jene Burgerinnen und Burger an Politiker sowie politische Institutionen der Bundesrepublik, die mit vergleichsweise wenig okonomischem, sozialem, kulturellem und symbolischem Kapital ausgestattet waren. Als Medien politischer Kommunikation ermoglichten die Briefe den Schreibenden unter anderem, sich selbst zu beheimaten, sich den neuen Staat und seine Grundlagen sowohl anzueignen als auch, diese mit zu entwerfen und zu gestalten. Konzeptuelle Grundlage des vorliegenden Beitrags ist eine Anthropologie des Schreibens, in deren Zusammenhang Schreiben als kreative Praxis der Weltaneignung und Weltauslegung begriffen wird. Die hier untersuchten Briefe eroffneten den Schreibenden besondere Moglichkeitsraume. Schreiben bot nicht nur individuell eine Moglichkeit der Bewaltigung des Erlebten und der Orientierung, schreibend setzten sich die Burgerinnen und Burger auch zum Staat in Beziehung. Dabei zeigten sie immer wieder, welche Praktiken aus dem offiziellen politischen Feld bei ihnen auf Resonanz stiesen und welcher Masnahmen es aus Sicht der Burgerinnen und Burger bedurfte, um sich heimisch zu fuhlen. Jenseits der in ihnen dargestellten Belange verdeutlichen die Briefe mittelbar auch, wie viele Hurden manche Schreiberinnen und Schreiber auf dem Weg der Selbst-Beheimatung zu uberwinden hatten und wie viele Mitglieder der Bevolkerung sich in der Bundesrepublik ausgeschlossen fuhlten. ----- Bibliographie: Fenske, Michaela: Schreiben als Praxis der Selbst-Beheimatung. Briefe aus der Bevolkerung an Politiker und politische Institutionen nach 1950, BIOS, 1+2-2014, S. 125-138. https://doi.org/10.3224/bios.v27i1-2.22122

Encyclopedias are special “knowledge formats” (Wissensformate) . They follow a particular method and form of defining, arranging, and representing knowledge. They claim to be all-embracing, objective, systematic, and valid over a long period of time. This essay argues that encyclopedias are, like every other knowledge format, “cultural snapshots” that mirror the conditions of their time and production. Based on archival studies and oral history interviews, this article presents the “knowledge story” of the Handworterbuch der Sage (Encyclopedia of legends). Analyzing its failure offers deep insights into the practices of knowledge production and representation within the discipline of German Volkskunde in the 1950s and 1960s.

Whenever ethnologists and folklorists study any aspect of culture, they also participate in defining, presenting, and distributing knowledge. As they collect and publish narratives, document and exhibit material culture, investigate dialects, conduct regional surveys and community studies, design and contribute to encyclopedias, and organize scholarly conferences, scholars employ many genres in order to represent their findings. Choices regarding representational genres and knowledge formats—i.e., the media of transfer—are guided by perceived expectations of target audiences and shaped by the conventions of knowledge venues such as museums, public lectures, or university seminars (Kaschuba et al. 2009). Knowledge formats reflect the rules of knowledge production and knowledge transfer; they exist in various aesthetic forms of material culture. As basic instruments of the sciences, knowledge formats combine different practices of knowledge production, representation, and transfer, such as defining, collecting, arranging, interpreting, and representing. Their form, material, aesthetic culture, content, and performance are all intertwined. Knowledge formats reflect ways of thinking as practices, relationships of power, cultural norms, and ideals (Kaschuba et al. 2009). Today many folklore scholars engage multiple and varied knowledge formats without apparent difficulty. The range of possible formats