Project Details
Projekt
Fairgrounds in border regions - A transnational history of the Luxembourgish city funfair
Applicant
Professorin Dr. Machteld Venken
Subject Area
Modern and Contemporary History
Term
since 2021
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 285228642
The project has one major aim encompassing four smaller aims. The main purpose of this project is to understand how the national, the transregional and the transnational were intertwined in popular funfair culture on the Schueberfouer, and how that intertwinement changed over time. * This study wants to reveal the relevance of popular funfair culture for national identification processes within Luxembourg. The project aims to dissect the importance of the national on the Schueberfouer during key celebrations in 1946, 1963 and the yearly Hämmelsmarch (sheep parade). To that purpose, it analyses the narratives related to national identification as can be found in archival documents, pictures, newspaper articles and during meetings of the Confrérie du Poisson d‘Or. * The project aims to dissect the importance of the transregional on the Schueberfouer through the development of its spatial grammar. Through a digital quantitative reconstruction of the flows of professionals, public, food and attractions over time, which are linked to digitalized former floor plans of the Schueberfouer, this project analyses the dynamic genesis of its transregional shape over time. The digital reconstruction is a relevant tool to interpret the gradual internationalization of popular culture in Luxembourg, as well as the way it was experienced and perceived. c. The project includes an oral history study of children of funfair vendors and their caregivers in the Centre d’Accueil des enfants des forains. This Center opened its doors in 1961, offering about 40 children multilingual and transregional day care for three weeks a year. The Centre was created in a period of time that witnessed a growing consciousness for social diversity and saw the invention ofnew concepts of plurality. Investigated will be how the expectations of the caregivers in the Centre corresponded and / or differed from the experiences of the participating children. Through analyzing the negotiation of interculturality in the Centre d’Accueil as expections and experiences, this project has the potential to offer a long-term perspective to current debates about social diversity and plurality within Luxembourg and the Greater Region. d. The project aims to dissect the importance of the transnational by analyzing the negotiation of traditions on the yearly Luxembourgish funfair family afternoons in Chicago (USA). It asks which traditions were copied, which ones adapted, which ones ignored, how these traditions were bestowed with meaning, and how all of this changed over time. In doing so, Luxembourgish migrants in America are approached as active transnational cultural agents.
DFG Programme
Research Units
International Connection
Luxembourg
Partner Organisation
Fonds National de la Recherche
