
Konstruisanje starosti kao društvenog problema kroz organizovano domsko zbrinjavanje – od sirotinjskih do staračkih domova
More...Konstruisanje starosti kao društvenog problema kroz penzije – od prvih penzionera do penzionih fondova
More...Ogled iz etnografske antropologije
This is an essay-book whose subject matter focuses on group identity, individuality and subjective consciousness within one particular traditional socio-cultural environment (Orahovac village in the Bay of Kotor, Montenegro), which has undergone radical changes in the course of time, especially in the period following the Second World War, and at the same time managed to adapt and survive. The first two parts of the book provide descriptions and interpretations of the context, both from a wider historical and a narrower ethnographic perspective (for the period preceding and immediately after the Second World War), while the third part is dedicated to the memoirist text written by a member of the studied local community in the late 20th century, who was the key informant in the ethnographic research. It is about the way in which a real person, a "common woman", who had been socialized/enculturated in a patriarchal rural environment, understands her own life “in between historical and personal time ", and seeks to transpose that knowledge into an (auto)narrative and an "autobiography about others", a text which also speaks about other people and other times in this local community. The title itself, "Autobiography of a Woman from Orahovac" is an evocation of the relative reference point which is Didara: Life Story of a Woman from Prizren (Malešević 2004). Herein I outlined an interpretative framework: autobiography vs. life story, and autobiography as self-portrait (William Howarth’s concept) for the reading of the text of the key informant, which is edited and published for the first time as a personal source for history and ethnography.
More...Muzika kao element konstrukcije lokalnog identiteta
The topic of this research is understanding a two-wayrelationship between the concepts of music and place. Thehypothesis I am starting from is that music has an“ability" to create an identity of a certain space. Morespecifically, that would mean that music can have animpact on the establishing a set of images and knowledgeof a specific city through daily social interactions (such assocializing, going out, going to concerts). In this case, “anidentity of a city", comprises everything that is identifiedas an important identification mark within a specificsociocultural context and understood in that way, can bereflected in different physical places (e.g. a club, culturalcenter, café, park, square), and in various modes ofeveryday living in that particular city and in experiencesthat evolve from it (e.g. daily routes within a city, aspecific style of speech, topics for conversation). Theexample which I have chosen to analyze this relationshipon is the new wave rock-and-roll music scene in Belgradein the eighties. Although this music phenomenon is notsomething that accounts for an original local product, itpossesses its local authenticity. Therefore, my goal is toexplore the process of creating that specific Belgradeidentity, and draw attention to the features which makethe authentic local phenomenon of this musical “wave".Analyzing current narratives about this phenomenon inthe local discourse, I endeavor to identify and abstract thekey elements of the “new wave" Belgrade identity andconsider them in the light of the theories (in the first placeanthropological) which treat music and place as asociocultural (and therefore contextually dependent andfluid) categories. The analysis is based on the interviewswhich have been made during the summer of 2011.
More...Periodični rituali i demonologija narodne religije Srba
U monografiji Demoni i rituali dr Danijela Sinanija, profesora na Odeljenju za etnologiju i antropologiju Filozofskog fakulteta u Beogradu,obrađeni su rituali vezani za najveće religijske praznike - one koji su to po dogmi, ali čija se proslava vrši na način koji se razlikuje od njihove katehitičke propisanosti, što je jedna od osnovnih karakteristika naše narodne religije. S druge strane, posebna pažnja je posvećena demonologiji, koja predstavlja važan činilac svakog religijskog sistema, s obzirom na to da ukazuje nastavove i vrednosti koje pripadnici neke zajednice pripisuju određenim pojavama, procesima i događajima - kako iz sveta prirode, tako i iz ljudskog sveta, sveta kulture. Autor se usredsredio na osnovne demonološke kategorije naše narodne religije, u kojima se reflektuje tradicijska kulturna misao o ljudskom ponašanju i organizovanju, njegovim vezama s prirodom od koje zavisi i koju koristi, te s drugim ljudskim grupama - aposebno značajnom se čini uvodna studija o „srpskoj“ demonologiji. Studija Demoni i rituali predstavlja celovit i ujednačen pristup najznačajnijim fenomenima iz jedne izuzetno značajne oblasti duhovne kulture našeg naroda. Potenciranje savremenih pristupa, promišljanje teorija i metoda, kao i insistiranje naantropološkoj perspektivi u posmatranju problema, otkriva skrivene”dogme” narodne religioznosti i prikazuje ih kao ujednačen sistem koji ima nemerljivu funkciju u organizaciji života - kako tradicionalnih, tako i savremenih seoskih i urbanih zajednica u Srbiji. Prof. dr Ivan Kovačević
More...Kovertiti: kako su se zvali
Personal name always communicates identity, and as a result of this, taking a new name is very important part of conversion, this name being a formal feature of the new Muslim identity of a convert. Repertoire of names in Islam is very rich, because the whole nature, starting from the Sun itself (šems – Šemso, Šemsa), serves to Muslims as a source of names. Starting from the fact that the emissary Muhammad recommended only those names that are not opposed to Islamic dogma, in the forthcoming period, during the process of islamization of non-Arabic nations, it became a duty for a new Muslim to be given such a name. That is the reason why converts came to take names most often associated to Arabic history and Old Testament prophets. It is known that in the Arab Middle age even more than two thirds of Muslims – converts gave their sons Arabic religious names (Mehmed, Ahmad, Ali, Hasan, Hüssein) or biblical or more precisely those from Koran (Ibrahim, Ismail, Yusuf along with others). This practice will continue in Turk Osmanli period. Finally there is the name Sinan that was, as a rule, according to Fr. Babinger, taken only by renegades (Mimar Sinan was certainly the most famous among them).Importance that is placed on names is convincingly illustrated by the fact that even those that had Turkish or more precisely Islamic names on the occasion of conversion took a new, Islamic name. Namely, it is not unknown that since the times of Turks Seljuk, and later in Turk Osmanli period as well, many Christians and Jews bore Turkish and Islamic names (such as Kaya, Arslan, Aydin, Armağan, Bahtiyar, Devlet, Gökče, Tursun, Emin, Čoban, Hizir, Kurd, Kargöz, Iskender, Sinan, Budak, Karaca, Čiček, Kumru, Šahin, Timur, Dede, Širmerd, Musa.Yahya). Similarly, the Greek man Murad from Manisa, after conversion (1621) gained the name Mustafa. For example, in the town Adana, as recorded in the census record book from 1572, out of 451 Christians, 61 of them or 14% had Turkish name, being mainly Karagöz. As claimed by Y. Kurt, these are pre-Islamic names that were brought along with Pečenezi and Uz Turks, Christians-builders Sulejmanli in Istanbul also had Muslim names. Along with the aforementioned, names such as Bayezid, Džafer, Hasan, Hüssein, Hudaverdi, Mehmed are encountered. Generally based on the official Osmanli census records, on the Balkans region Christians bore Turkish names (and these names were also welcomed by converts), and the most frequent names are Šahin, Širmerd, Dogan, Balaban, Senk(ğ)ur, Karadža and Hamza. This last mentioned name originates from German or Sasi name Johannis or more precisely Hansa, later Hamza, and it is not protective name. The aforementioned Turkish names do not have necessarily to be such: it is an obvious process of turkisation, especially in the area of Asia Minor.
More...Teorija etnografije
Teorija etnografije, promišljanju i danas provokativnih, disciplinarnih učinaka postmoderne antropologije. Riječ je o knjizi posvećenoj trima krizama: krizi reprezentacije, realizma i autoriteta, koje autor uzima za središnje i ogledno mjesto krize društvenih i humanističkih znanosti, koja se prelila u antropologiju.
More...Posle postmodernizma
After reassessing "what was postmodern after all" in anthropology, the analysis aims at repositioning the debate into a relatively coherent change in a view of what (social) science is. My main purpose is to demonstrate how anthropology should or has already changed its objects, theories and methods conforming itself to interdisciplinary and multicultural politics of knowledge. In a separate study I suggest that reflexivity in anthropology can be viewed as a coordinative definition that helped anthropology survive its three crises – the crisis of ethnographic representation, the crisis of scientific realism, and the crisis of anthropological authority. In addition, reflexivity, in a specific sense, can be taken as a substitute for experiment, a subsititute even better than comparative studies, and can thus help fulfill the long dream of consolidating anthropology on firm scientific grounds (a dream I believe is, though, no longer necessary). This text should be understood as a part of a series of studies that strive towards the methodological formalization of supposedly formalization-resistant concepts of postmodern anthropology. In reality, reflexive anthropology became postmodern science only by admitting to be experimental art, but the question is who would understand and, more importantly, finance and apply this concept? The incorporation of reflexivity into the core of anthropology enabled it to finally achieve the status of science, in the most conservative and general methodological sense. Therefore, the anti-postmodern frustration present in some relatively recent debates is neither methodologically nor pragmatically founded. Reflexivity can only be useful, not harmful to the discipline, even from the standpoint of traditional, problem-applicative concepts of method. The only remaining assignment is to reformulate it so it could be applied by methodological traditionalists as well. As much of the debate driven by the postmodern critique may well be reduced to the problem of whether there is any relevant epistemic difference between theoretical and observational assertions, my purpose is to suggest that it corresponds with "the entity realism debate" in philosophy of science. Concluding chapter aims at repositioning "the writing culture debate" into the "writing political subjects" debate, and at reaffirming its relevance both for research and acceleration of broader social, political, scientific and educational changes in contemporary Serbia.
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The study takes the perspective of the anthropology of science and the studies of science as culture, and relies on traditions of research into popular culture and new religions, to examine the theoretical, methodological, epistemological, logical, media and institutional mechanisms through which ufology seeks to legitimize its own system of beliefs, ideas and thought as scientific knowledge, and to secure authority over interpretative rights for its own discourse. It also takes a look at the importance of cultural construction of epistemology and of the socio-cultural context which has enabled the ongoing establishing of a contingent semantic matrix which tends to interpret "strange celestial occurrences" as extraterrestrial ships. In shedding light on the political, ideological and ethical climate in which UFO discourse first arose, and on broader debates reassessing the established scientific canons characteristic of the second half of the 20th century, ufology is not seen as a mere pop-cultural sensation, but rather as a potentially subversive amalgamation of claims challenging both the mechanisms traditionally seen as the only legitimate and reliable producers of truth, and the channels for the distribution of truth and knowledge. The main objective of the study is to analyze the mechanisms for the construction and use of "science" as a symbol of cultural legitimacy. UFO discourse 6 hough originating on the fringes of popular culture and revolving around a purportedly nonexistent phenomenon 6 2come a very powerful and potentially dangerous system of beliefs/thought/knowledge defying the accepted knowledge, challenging the justification of the ways in which it is being produced as "objective", "real" or "existing", and the legitimacy of the mechanisms for the distribution and circulation of the knowledge as "true". It analyzes the rehabilitation of debates within the philosophy of science 6 2vious in scientific and public polemics about ufology 6 7tred on demarcation between science and pseudoscience, in order to demonstrate that there is no such thing as universal and operational criteria for demarcating science from less valid epistemic achievements. It stresses that the demarcation issue is not only a theoretical problem of an internalist notion of science, but rather that these criteria are a playground for an incessant battle over who will set them up and thus acquire the epistemological credibility and social authority to speak from the position of science. In that way, popular culture 6 in an age marked by a crisis of trust in official institutions and by the dismantlement of science conceived of as a value neutral and objective correspondence to reality 6 ge for ufology to aspire to establish itself as "more scientific than science" and "more objective than objective science", in other words, as an epistemologically valid, methodologically standardized, institutionally grounded, fiscally worthwhile and ethically superior scientific discipline. The study also proposes the concept of "science-likeness" (veriscientitude) as heuristically and analytically potentially productive in analyzing any process of creating new sciences.
More...Popularna kultura, kriminal, ideologija i društvo
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World music is a hybrid musical form which is based on traditional elements. Being a product of growing interaction between people, intensive cross-cultural flows and technological achievements, world music became a complex cultural phenomenon. Some authors think that this concept presents a new kind of imperialism over, so-called, Third World countries, while the others see it as a possibility for promoting I#$ @#her", I-Western" music. Popularity of this musical form is evident in numerous specialized festivals, magazines, new performers, but also in the fact that world music became a relevant topic of academic researches and curriculums. In Serbia, world music presents a phenomenon in the making, the scene is not developed enough (the lack of media coverage, publishing and so forth). Despite all that, there is an evident effort that this type of musical expression comes to life locally. World Music Association of Serbia is one such example. The members of this association launched series of activities that seek for better visibility of this phenomenon. They started a magazine Etnoumlje, established an independent recording company WMAS Records and SWM internet radio, a project of registration of Serbian world music groups and musicians. The first festival, Etnomus, was active from 1997-2006. In August 2012, the new festival in Takovo – Serbia World Music Festival was started. This study presents an anthropological analysis of world music phenomenon. The attention is focused on interpreting the term "world music", in Western and local context, and then it reviews the perceptions and usages of this concept by musicians and audiences. Theorethical frame of this work consists of perspectives of two ethnomusicologists – Lauren Aubert and John Blacking, who treat music as a cultural phenomenon. The analysis is divided into three parts: world music in Serbia, world music in the world, and comparison of local example and global flows. Material that is used in the first part of the analysis consists of interviews with informants who deal with ethno music, while the other part is based on relevant literature and internet sources.
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