Conclusion

Abstract

The conclusion summarises the findings of the study and points out that the way in which scholars of anthropology and folklore studies established relations between primitive societies home and abroad was much more ambiguous than has been presented in histories of these disciplines so far. The detachment of non-European anthropology from folklore studies after the 1890s was accompanied by a realignment of modes of temporality. What until then had been considered primitive was reframed, or rather re-invented, as comprising regional and national traditions. Thus, it is argued that an examination of the relation between anthropology, folklore studies, and history also allows reflection on the epistemology of historical scholarship.