Хоризонти будућности: антрополошки и други научни приступи
Horizons of the future: anthropological and other scientific approaches
Contributor(s): Bojana Bogdanović (Editor), Kristijan Obšust (Editor)
Subject(s): Anthropology, Social Sciences, Sociology
Published by: Етнографски институт САНУ
Keywords: Anthropology; Future Studies; Digital Anthropology; Human-Technology Relations; Environmental Issues
Summary/Abstract: This collection brings together contributions from scholars across several countries to explore how socio-humanistic disciplines can address contemporary global challenges. Structured into six thematic sections, the volume covers topics such as the anthropology of the future, digital anthropology, human-technology relations, environmental issues, and applied anthropology, offering both theoretical insights and practical applications. Through diverse case studies and critical reflections, the collection aims to initiate a broader scientific dialogue on reimagining research priorities and methodologies in times of global crisis.
- Print-ISBN-13: 978-86-7587-120-0
- Page Count: 288
- Publication Year: 2023
- Language: English, Serbian
Кратак осврт на концепт будућности у антропологији
Кратак осврт на концепт будућности у антропологији
(A Brief Review of the concept of the future in anthropology)
- Author(s):Bojana Bogdanović
- Language:Serbian
- Subject(s):Anthropology, Social Sciences
- Page Range:19-28
- No. of Pages:10
- Keywords:future; anthropology; time; temporality
- Summary/Abstract:The text provides a brief insight into the ways in which the future is approached as an analytical concept and a subject of cultural anthropological research within anthropology. Referring to some of the most significant foreign and domestic authors/publications in the field of anthropology of time, the paper points to the breadth of the problem affected by the anthropological conceptualization of time/temporality.
Anthropology at a Crossroads
Anthropology at a Crossroads
(Anthropology at a Crossroads)
- Author(s):Dan Podjed
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Anthropology, Social Sciences
- Page Range:31-49
- No. of Pages:19
- Keywords:anthropology; future scenarios; technologies; Big Data; Thick Data; remote ethnography; interdisciplinarity; artificial intelligence; ChatGPT
- Summary/Abstract:During the Covid-19 pandemic, several issues have come to the fore that may not have been so obvious and illuminated in the past. Some of them are related to the use of information technologies, while others relate to the urgent need to address important global issues anthropologically, in collaboration with other scientific fields and in closer contact with industry, nongovernmental organisations, and governmental or international institutions. This paper focuses on these issues, suggesting how anthropology might change in the future to better understand the social realities of the contemporary world. Particular attention is given to remote ethnography as a way to study people from a distance using digital technologies, and an attempt is made to highlight the importance of combining the Big Data and Thick Data analyses as a relevant methodological framework. Explored are also ways in which AI-based tools can be used to analyse results from the field, and how IT-based tools can improve and enhance anthropology. Finally, the paper presents the need for anthropologists to move “from observation to participation” and to collaborate more frequently with other scientific fields and institutions outside academia.
(Ra)stvaranje budućnosti: antropološki programi u kriznim vremenima
(Ra)stvaranje budućnosti: antropološki programi u kriznim vremenima
((Un)making futures: anthropological programs in times of crisis)
- Author(s):Sanja Potkonjak
- Language:Serbian
- Subject(s):Anthropology, Social Sciences
- Page Range:51-68
- No. of Pages:18
- Keywords:anthropology; manifestos; future; crisis
- Summary/Abstract:Political, economic, social, environmental, health and many other crises, take an important role and make a great toll in contemporary anthropological research (in Croatia). In order to grasp and respond to different challenges, Croatian ethnography is trying to (un)make its own research field, looking both at re-inventing its topic and re-adjust its looking glasses. In order to recognize a particular temporal orientation regarding the things futural (Bryant & Knight 2019), a new epistemological stance had to be appropriated. Thinking through a number of selected manifestos and examples of contemporary research projects conducted the last decade in Croatia the presentation will try to outline possible guidelines for an ethnographic research of the future.
Studying memes on social media: the case of memes for the pandemic of COVID-19 on Greek social media
Studying memes on social media: the case of memes for the pandemic of COVID-19 on Greek social media
(Studying memes on social media: the case of memes for the pandemic of COVID-19 on Greek social media)
- Author(s):Rea Kakampoura, Aphrodite-Lidia Nounanaki
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Anthropology, Social Sciences
- Page Range:71-98
- No. of Pages:28
- Keywords:social media; memes; localized internet; digital ethnography; methodology: lurking-lurker; pandemic of Covid-19; humour
- Summary/Abstract:The aim of the paper is twofold: on the one hand methodological issues in digital folkloristic and anthropological research will be discussed by using the example of memes regarding the Covid-19 pandemic that circulated on Greek social media. The goal, thus, is to demonstrate the methodology used in the study of pandemic memes, its limitations, but, also, its peculiarities arising from the field in which it was conducted. On the other hand, by undertaking interpretive analysis, as well as the perception and dissemination by Greek internet users, the paper intends to highlight the impact of the pandemic on people’s lives as conveyed through memes. Comments and related posts will be analysed to determine how well memes are received by internet users. The study questions concern aspects of this new experience, the pandemic, and the way internet users respond to them in relation to memes.
#ustanakzaopstanak – putevima hešteg etnografije u potrazi za digitalnim manifestacijama ekološkog aktivizma u Srbiji
#ustanakzaopstanak – putevima hešteg etnografije u potrazi za digitalnim manifestacijama ekološkog aktivizma u Srbiji
(#ustanakzaopstanak – on the paths of hashtag ethnography in search of digital manifestations of environmental activism in Serbia)
- Author(s):Ana Banić Grubišić
- Language:Serbian
- Subject(s):Anthropology, Social Sciences, Sociology, Environmental interactions
- Page Range:99-119
- No. of Pages:21
- Keywords:digital folklore; hashtag; environmental activism; Serbia
- Summary/Abstract:Using the example of contemporary local environmental activism in the digital environment, this paper discusses the cultural dimension of hashtags as an object and as a tool of anthropological and folkloristic research. In this sense, the aim of this paper is twofold: on the one hand, it considers the use of hashtags as an ethnographic tool in conducting qualitative research in the digital environment; on the other hand, it demonstrates the sociocultural significance of hashtags, especially in the context of creating an idioculture of digital environmental activism in Serbia. The hashtag is considered as a significant phenomenon of contemporary folkloric communication, i.e. as an integral part of the expressive culture of the digital environment.
It’s like an episode of Black Mirror: how the Internet became a capitalist hellscape
It’s like an episode of Black Mirror: how the Internet became a capitalist hellscape
(It’s like an episode of Black Mirror: how the Internet became a capitalist hellscape)
- Author(s):Sonja Žakula
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Anthropology, Social Sciences, Media studies
- Page Range:121-139
- No. of Pages:19
- Keywords:internet; cyborgs; social networks; monetization of user data
- Summary/Abstract:This paper represents a largely autoethnographic account of how the World Wide Web has changed over the last, roughly, ten years, from the perspective of a digital native who also happens to be an anthropologist. It is a kind of freeze frame of the current state of affairs online that aims to point out how the revolutionary dream of Web 2.0 was hijacked for corporate profit through the monetization of user data. It considers concerns about privacy and surveillance as well as some of the bodily aspects of the relationship between humans and technology, and ultimately offers some suggestions for a way out of our current predicament.
Odgovor humanističkih nauka na nove tehnologije: da li će mašinsko učenje promeniti časove jezika i književnosti?
Odgovor humanističkih nauka na nove tehnologije: da li će mašinsko učenje promeniti časove jezika i književnosti?
(Response of humanities to new technologies: will machine learning affect language and literature classes?)
- Author(s):Teodora Todorić Milićević
- Language:Serbian
- Subject(s):Anthropology, Social Sciences, Education
- Page Range:143-158
- No. of Pages:16
- Keywords:humanities; higher education; literature; chatGPT; machine learning
- Summary/Abstract:Since the last couple of decades of the 20th century higher education in most countries has undergone extensive changes. These are, for instance, an increase in the number of students; development of information technologies; globalization and dominance of the English language in science; the rise and spread of neoliberal ideology and hence the emergence of a market oriented university. These changes have caused (self)re-examination of the humanities, which are often criticized for the lack of a practical purpose and for providing irrelevant and non-instrumental knowledge. The aforementioned changes have impact on the Republic of Serbia as well and are particularly noticeable in the problems faced by the Faculty of Philology at the University of Belgrade, which faces decline in student interest in Serbian language and literature majors. At the end of November 2022, higher education faced a new challenge – an advanced chatbot from the company OpenAI called ChatGPT was released. This free software quickly generates answers to various user questions and writes essays, emails and various types of texts. Its emergence has sparked discussions about ethics, plagiarism in science, methodology and, finally, the purpose of certain disciplines. This paper, using the example of literature, analyses answers which that discipline can give in response to new technologies. We point out that literature – as it should be taught in colleges and then taught in middle and elementary schools – has different purpose than machine learning-based tools. In fact, the competencies that pupils and students should acquire in literature classes represent insurmountable obstacles for machine learning, which are creative reasoning in new contexts, the art of interpretation and the ability to make moral judgments.
O ljudsko-tehnološkim odnosima iz antropološke perspektive – promišljanja na preseku prošlosti i budućnosti
O ljudsko-tehnološkim odnosima iz antropološke perspektive – promišljanja na preseku prošlosti i budućnosti
(On Human-Technological Relations from an Anthropological Perspective – Reflections at the Intersection of the Past and the Future)
- Author(s):Sonja Radivojević
- Language:Serbian
- Subject(s):Anthropology, Social Sciences
- Page Range:159-182
- No. of Pages:24
- Keywords:аnthropology of technology; digital; humanity; materiality; future
- Summary/Abstract:Whether we like it or not, visible and invisible, digital technologies today are no longer isolated categories, but an essential part of most contemporary human activities, practices, and experiences, which is why we are increasingly directed to coexist with them. Although today the corpus of literature on our digital everyday life and its various aspects, the main factor of which is technology, is growing, in the theoretical and methodological, as well as in the subject matter, technology was rarely directly discussed from an anthropological perspective, until the emergence of interest in the study of digital technologies at the end of the 20th century. Basing the work on the postulates of anthropology of contemporary, which in the vision of Rabinow and Marcus is conceived as the establishment of bridges between the past and the present, by illuminating the lost period of the study of technology from an anthropological perspective as heritage, on the one hand, and combining contemporary theoretical approaches, on the other hand, in this paper, I will try to present the previous observations about the reflection of human- technological relations in anthropology, as well as the need to establish a more balanced and inclusive platform necessary for the study of human-technological relations in the contemporary world and in the future.
Вода као огледало екоантрополошких односа: случај општине Бабушница
Вода као огледало екоантрополошких односа: случај општине Бабушница
(Water as a mirror of ecoanthropological relations: the case of Babušnica municipality)
- Author(s):Gordana Blagojević
- Language:Serbian
- Subject(s):Anthropology, Social Sciences, Political Ecology, Environmental interactions
- Page Range:185-201
- No. of Pages:17
- Keywords:ecoanthropological relations; Babušnica municipality; water
- Summary/Abstract:This paper views the natural resource of water as a medium for viewing the wider network of social, or rather ecoanthropological relations. Ecoanthropological relations entail, firstly relationships among people, both vertical – power relations, and horizontal – relationships among members of a community that are formed through the relationship to the environment and natural resources, as well as the human relationship toward the natural habitat itself. I have chosen the Babušnica municipality for my case study because it is characterized by one of the largest percentages of depopulation in Serbia, and because its water resources have been targeted by a number of different institutions and individuals over the last few decades, to the detriment of the local population and the environment. The paper analyzes a number of examples that had a strong influence on the livelihoods of the locals, especially in the villages of Ljuberađa, Zvonačka Banja and Rakita. The last example, the fight for the Rakita river, against the building of a mini-hydropower plant has become public knowledge over the last few years. Through looking at the problems that have thus far occurred due to neglecting the needs of the local communities and the poor relationship to water resources and the environment, the paper considers possible ways of resolving these issues and the future development of the area.
Životna sredina u eko-aktivističkim narativima
Životna sredina u eko-aktivističkim narativima
(The environment in the narratives of eco-activists)
- Author(s):Jelena Ćuković
- Language:Serbian
- Subject(s):Anthropology, Social Sciences, Political Ecology
- Page Range:203-220
- No. of Pages:18
- Keywords:environment; ecology; activism; narratives; discourse
- Summary/Abstract:In this paper, I talk about the construction of the environment in the discourse of environmental activism, that is, a particular image created around the personified planet Earth which is decaying and dying as a result of human behavior. Using a specific example from my field research, I examined the conflation of this construction with the nationalist narrative in the case of activism in the Republic of Serbia. The paper is part of the conversation on anthropology (in) the future and aims to position this discipline at the very center of environmental issues research of the new age and to suggest in what ways and with what research topics we can contribute to a better understanding of the environment.
Homo consumens i Homo mediatus – kritički osvrt
Homo consumens i Homo mediatus – kritički osvrt
(Homo Consumens and Homo Mediatus – Critical review)
- Author(s):Lidija Vujačić
- Language:Serbian
- Subject(s):Anthropology, Social Sciences
- Page Range:223-236
- No. of Pages:14
- Keywords:consumerism; exchange; media; new culture of needs; identity
- Summary/Abstract:Every period in human history is marked by some kind of exchange, that is, by a socioeconomic model of behavior in which standardized values circulate according to certain rules, i.e. material and symbolic contents are produced and “consumed”. In anthropological theories, therefore, exchange (information, goods, services, representations, emotions, etc.) is problematized as a complex phenomenon that explains how social relations are regulated, social structure is formed, which moral and aesthetic standards dominate, what is the social stratification. etc. In the paper, in the broadest context of the concept of exchange, current (hyper) 224 consumerism is problematized as an extremely important contemporary social phenomenon whose causes and consequences, from a socio-anthropological perspective, go beyond the economic plane, so the analysis is redirected from Homo economicus to Homo consumens. For the basic reason that consumption is part of the modern culture of needs and is woven into everyday patterns of behavior, as well as in the constant interaction with mass media and digital technology. The current accumulation of subject abundance and the continuous internalization of consumer values make contemporary identity, similar to other constructive categories, increasingly dependent on consumption, at the same time more fluid, i.e. left to the market, which dictates the standards in everything, even in the desirable “identification”.
Nove reproduktivne prakse iz antropološke perspektive: od „veštačkog života“ do kosmopolitske biosocijalnosti*
Nove reproduktivne prakse iz antropološke perspektive: od „veštačkog života“ do kosmopolitske biosocijalnosti*
(New reproductive practices from an anthropological perspective: from “artificial life” to cosmopolitan biosociality)
- Author(s):Suzana Ignjatović
- Language:Serbian
- Subject(s):Anthropology, Social Sciences, Demography and human biology, Human Ecology
- Page Range:237-256
- No. of Pages:20
- Keywords:human reproduction; new reproductive technologies; anthropology; bioentities; kinship; gender
- Summary/Abstract:The paper examines the implications of new reproductive technologies on anthropology. We focus on two historical points: the anthropological perspective on the emerging new technologies at the beginning of the 1990s, and more recent anthropological research in this field. We use a four-item analytical grid to re-examine the transformation of reproductive practices in anthropological discourse: 1) naturalization and circulation of reproductive practices; 2) reproductive actors and communities; 3) kinship and 4) gender relations. Some profound changes were anticipated thirty years ago, whereas some developments in reproductive practices have only recently become relevant anthropological issues. Over several decades, new reproductive technologies have become normalized artifacts, with widespread circulation of reproductive practices. Kinship remains a relevant, anthropological aspect of new reproductive practices, while the gender dimension of reproduction is changing significantly. We also identified the most relevant epistemological, methodological, and practical implications of new reproductive technologies for anthropology in the foreseeable future.
Будућност народне традиције ‒ поглед из перспективе дечје антропологије
Будућност народне традиције ‒ поглед из перспективе дечје антропологије
(The future of folk tradition: a view from the perspective of children’s anthropology)
- Author(s):Nina Aksić
- Language:Serbian
- Subject(s):Anthropology, Social Sciences
- Page Range:257-279
- No. of Pages:23
- Keywords:the media; folk tradition; ХХI century; present and future
- Summary/Abstract:New millennium, new views on both the past and the present, and thus the future, have been noticeable. The aim of the research will be to examine how much new generations of children attending the 1st to 4th grade of primary school are interested in traditional culture, that is, that segment of it which concerns the custom’s practice and former life in the countryside, which is available to them mainly through traditional media, and mostly through various publications. Also, in accordance with their interests, the goal is to find out whether they would pay more attention to such content if they were available through various games on tablets and smartphones. Although after the nineties of the twentieth century, the revitalization of tradition began, since the end of the second decade of the XXI century, with the establishment of numerous publishing houses that have their own departments for children, there is an increase in their interest in printing various publications containing elements of folk tradition, so the paper will give a brief overview of the topics covered in this literature. Given that, today there are numerous picture books and children’s books of small size with and without tasks, as well as coloring books. Since 2010, an elective subject has been introduced in the lower grades of primary schools as a compulsory subject ‒ Folk tradition, and with the help of children’s opinions on this subject, they will try to see and to some extent create an overall picture that refers to the importance, manner of presentation, as well as the interest of folk tradition for these new generations. We will also suggest new ways in which Generation Z (children born from 2007 until today) could be introduced to the richness of folk tradition and be interested in perhaps future work in ethnology and anthropology.
