Prés. de l'éd.: On the occasion of the 50th year since the publication of the first issue of Ethnologia Europaea in 1967, this issue is dedicated to reflection on the past half-century. It presents five articles, one from each decade of the journal's publication, on the one hand showcasing classic articles and on the other highlighting the shifts and re-orientations the journal has undergone along the way. These changes are addressed in the comments on each article by a wide range of scholars as well as in the overarching reflections on 50 years of Ethnologia Europaea by two of its former editors, Regina F. Bendix and Orvar Löfgren.

On the occasion of the 50th year since the publication of the first issue of Ethnologia Europaea in 1967, this issue is dedicated to reflection on the past half-century. It presents five articles, one from each decade of the journal's publication, on the one hand showcasing classic articles and on the other highlighting the shifts and re-orientations the journal has undergone along the way. These changes are addressed in the comments on each article by a wide range of scholars as well as in the overarching reflections on 50 years of Ethnologia Europaea by two of its former editors, Regina F. Bendix and Orvar Löfgren.

Ethnologia Europaea is an interdisciplinary, peer reviewed journal with a focus on European cultures and societies. It carries material of great interests not only for European ethnologists and anthropologists but also sociologists, social historians and scholars involved in cultural studies. The journal was started in 1967 and since then it has acquired a central position in the international and interdisciplinary cooperation between scholars inside and outside Europe. Ethnologia Europaea is an A ranked journal according to the European Science Foundation journal evaluation (European Reference Index for the Humanities initial list).

Since its start in 1967 Ethnologia Europaea has acquired a central position in the international cooperation between ethnologists in the different European countries. It is, however, a journal of topical interest not only for ethnologists but also for anthropologists, social historians and others studying the social and cultural forms of everyday life in recent and historical European societies. This journal appears twice a year, sometimes as a thematic issue.

Disorder and order are among the principles through which the articles in this issue are connected. Peter Jan Margry grasps the exuberant excesses surrounding the Dutch monarch’s birthday with the term “mobocracy” and sees in the suspension of rules a means to reconcile Dutch republicanism with the anachronism of a monarchical system. Ongoing disorder of a rather different nature is experienced by migrant workers from Poland in Denmark. Niels Jul Nielsen and Marie Sandberg accompany them at work and in their different home settings and analyse the divergent interplay of the Polish labour niche and family dynamics on different constructions of “orderly work conditions”. Stefan Groth uncovers the structuring power of new tools and events to measure performance in recreational cycling; competitive norms are shown to permeate a leisure activity. Old age, too, is not free from the structuring arm of social and health regimes. Through his analysis of billiards – a game favoured by the older men he studies – Aske Juul Lassen critiques aging policies striving to “activate” the elderly and overlooking the rhythms inherent to a traditional game – and activity. The issue concludes with Tuuli Lähdesmäki’s comparison of how local heritage actors choose to narrate the transnationally launched European Heritage Label. Within an initiative to foster Europeanization, she finds actors formulating European identities in different moulds.

Since its start in 1967 Ethnologia Europaea has acquired a central position in the international cooperation between ethnologists in the different European countries. It is, however, a journal of topical interest not only for ethnologists but also for anthropologists, social historians and others studying the social and cultural forms of everyday life in recent and historical European societies. This journal appears twice a year, sometimes as a thematic issue.

Ethnologia Europaea (Volume 24/1) - Journal of European Ethnology