Робството през погледа на един африканец - Олауда Екуиано и неговата автобиография

Author(s): Pavlin Atanasov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2014

The article deals with the life of Olaudah Equiano, also known as Gustavus Vassa – one of the most prominent Africans involved in the British movement of the abolition for the slave trade in Britain in the late 18th century. His autobiography, first published in 1789, was a valuable source for the abominable slave trade as one of the few texts that presented slavery from the point of view of a victim. The author narrated about his kidnapping in Africa asa child, his sufferings during the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, his service asa slave of an officer in the British Navy for ten years and his participation in the Seven Years’ War, as well as his life after he purchased his freedom in 1766. As a free man he worked as a merchant and explorer in the New World, the Arctic, and the United Kingdom. However, he became most famous with his book which was a first-hand and vivid description of the inhumanity of slavery. It contributed to a great extent to the success of the abolitionist movement in Britain with the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807.

Крахът на неолибералните утопии

Author(s): Vihren Bouzov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2015

The ongoing process of globalization has entailed growth of inequalities and injustice worldwide. Neoliberalism cannot be an adequate strategy in this process. As a development strategy it is unable to ensure normal functioning of a social system and just relationships between people. The neoliberal values claim to be an universal therapy for all economic and social diseases. But they are utopia that were scattered because of the mismatch between the social interests of the elites and the underprivileged people around the world. The outliving of the nation states, the free media, the neoliberal economic slogans and the global democracy are utopian projects that collapsed in the world today. Formulation and acceptance of new social values on the basis of communitarianism is a road leading to the finding of a way out of permanent crises and regional conflicts, to boosting up economic and social development.

Lühikroonika

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 05/2018

Chronicle of events.

Мотивация и ценности волонтеров: результаты исследований

Author(s): Alla Mellnikova,Maria Sozinova / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/2022

The phenomenon of volunteer activity is actively studied by psychologists and sociologists from different countries. Despite the fact that the interpretation of volunteering has some distinctive features due to cultural differences, they do not contradict each other in general. The greatest interest is aroused by the motives and values of volunteers, the study of which has become significant in sociological and psychological research over the past decade. This article presents studies of the motives and values of Russian volunteers.

Sectarian language and perception of the “Other” after the Arab Spring

Author(s): Reima Al-Jarf / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

This study explores how sectarian language prevalent on Arabic media shapes common Arab people's perceptions of sects such as Sunni, Shiites, and others. A sample of Arabic sectarian expressions was collected from social media, print media and TV channels. A sample of students and faculty was surveyed. Sectarian language was analysed according to the components of perception (perceiver, target, and situation), the factors that affect each, and the social amplification and attenuation risk framework. Sectarian language used by students, faculty and Arab media is characterized by contempt, hostility, hatred, and intolerance of the sect(s) they disapprove of as they constitute political and ideological threats. Many Sunnis are afraid of the Shiite tide and Shiite Crescent. Hezbollah, Houthis, and Muslim Brothers are considered “terrorists” and “militias”.

Jewish Cultural and Sporting Associations between “Romanianization” and “Unionization”

Author(s): Diego Ciobotaru / Language(s): English Issue: 15/2022

In 1922, in Romania, fascist youth organizations began to undertake actions of intimidation and annihilation of Jews and of those accused of supporting them, through the use of physical and verbal violence, manifestations that continued and radicalized year after year. Sports and sports venues were among the spaces where Romanian antisemitism seemed tobe allowed to manifest itself unhindered. The systemic spread of the antisemitic ideology led to an increase of such occurrences. As of the 1930s, the foundations of the anti-Jewish legislation continued by the Antonescu regime were laid, and the war of the far-right groups against Jews and Judaism was total and concerned all aspects of life, including sports. Step by step, athletes and officials of Jewish origin were excluded from this field, meaning that the Maccabi association, as well as other Jewish sport teams, were banned from all official competitions of the Romanian State. this situation lasted four years, until the end of the Antonescu regime. Jewish associations were categorized by the police and military authorities as a cover for communist activity. In Romania, just like in other countries, persecution and discrimination of Jews continued after the end of World War II, given that stadiums in Bucharest and in the province witnessed reprehensible deeds against Jewish soccer players and sports clubs, done by the other athletes and especially by the audiences. In this article, I will present several such cases in detail, in order to show a lesser known side of Romanian antisemitism before and after the Second World War.

Book review

Author(s): Piotr Kałowski / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2022

NARATIVNA REPREZENTACIJA BOSANSKO-JEVREJSKOG INTRAKULTURNOG IDENTITETA (NA PRIMJERIMA PRIPOVJEDAKA ISAKA SAMOKOVLIJE)

Author(s): Šeherzada Džafić / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 21/2022

The Jewish cultural tradition, which within the framework of the Bosnian habitus went through stages - from assimilation, concretization, activation, and even fusion - represents a paradigm of intracultural processes in the complex Bosnian society. These processes take place through various interactions, which have not been bypassed by local literature, and are representative of one part of the literary oeuvre of Isak Samokovlija. Based on the theoretical starting points of intercultural interpretation and psychoanalysis, the work questions Samokovlija's short stories in which the characters act through the suppressed own versus the foreign. This is especially expressed in the stories “Od proljeća do proljeća” (From Spring to Spring) and “Plava Jevrejka” (The Blue Jewess).

NACIONALNI MESIJANIZAM U SLUŽBI SAMOUNIŠTENJA: STAVOVI MIROSLAVA KRLEŽE O NACIONALIZMU

Author(s): Senadin Musabegović / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 21/2022

The paper focuses on the divergent national perspectives – Croatian and Serbian – regarding the reasons behind Yugoslavia's unification (the Kingdom of SHS), moreover on the causes of its disappearance from the historical scene, both as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes and as the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. From the perspective of Serbian „nationally conscious“ historians, it was the Croatian separatism that should be blamed for the downfall of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia during the Italian and German occupation in 1941 as well as the inner disintegration of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1991. From the Croatian perspective, the reason behind the downfall of Yugoslavia is in Serbian unitarism, which, through Yugoslavia, aimed to dominate over the other nations. While condemning the nationalistic politics of other nations for the breakup of Yugoslavia, both of these nationalistic perspectives consider Yugoslavia an artificial creation. Miroslav Krleža, a Croatian and Yugoslav writer, criticized the politics of Croatian national separatism and Serbian unitarism in the texts he wrote during the time of the Kingdom of SHS (Yugoslavia). These writings also represent his efforts to open a possibility for a new political community based on socialistic principles. Although his polemic thought was based on the recognition of national particularities, Krleža was looking for ways to overcome the national antagonisms within socialist Yugoslavia. Although Yugoslavia disappeared, his thought on nationalistic antagonisms is relevant in the current political framework, the one in which national exclusion is dominating.

Staging Race and Gender in the Era of Contemporary Crises: Dramas of African American Women Playwrights

Author(s): Ifeta Čirić-Fazlija / Language(s): English Issue: 39/2022

Starting from the premise that contemporary crisis is a pervasive continuation of the modern “series of interrelated crises” (Fernández-Caparrós and Brígido-Corachán vii), this article examines the manner in which the US theater has responded to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Simultaneously considering crises as “agents of change and transformation” (xvii) and bearing in mind the #MeToo, and Black Lives Matter movements, the article questions the likelihood of contemporary American theater overcoming its own crisis of representation. Relating modern and current crises, the essay first outlines twentieth century dramatic literature and theaters against the backdrop of the World Wars, the 1918 health crisis, economic depression, and post-war (racialized) society, focusing on plays by American women of color. The study then centers on dramatic and theatrical developments brought about by the annus horribilis of 2020, surveying new genres, authors and performances, and discerning no significant improvement in systemic discrimination on Broadway stages. The essay also offers complementary reading of Trouble in Mind (1955), a meta-drama mirroring systemic racial and gender discrimination in American theaters, and By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (2011) which unravels similar issues, albeit in the film industry.

IMAGES TO REMEMBER: Nostalgia and Hegemonic Identities in „Italia 90: The Movie”

Author(s): Bértold Salas Murillo / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

The reconstruction of the past and memory is examined in the feature film Italia 90: The Movie (2014) by Miguel Gómez, which depicts the first participation of a Costa Rican team in a World Cup. The analysis includes the narrative, visual, and sound operations with which the past and memory are recreated (... or created), as well as the ways in which the story involves the viewers, particularly those who remember the episode. It is explained that, although the story resorts to certain topics of sports cinema, it is presented more as an adventure of the community, which would eventually include an entire country, and favors the exploration of the intimate over the epic. Italia 90: The Movie appeals to nostalgia, through recognizable images and sounds, as well as figures anchored in the hegemonic Costa Rican imaginary (such as the “common peasant”), to narrate an episode that, in addition to being central in the history of sports in Costa Rica, it is among the events that symbolically mark the country’s entry into the globalized world.

„Praca we krwi”. O języku podmiotu kobiecego i podmiotu zwierzęcego w „Mateczniku” Małgorzaty Lebdy

Author(s): Anouk Herman / Language(s): Polish Issue: 10/2022

Anouk Herman’s aim in this article is to introduce the ecofeminist theory of the animal subject and its absent referent in the poetry book Matecznik by Polish author Małgorzata Lebda. Ecofeminism provides tools for elaborate analysis of the conceptual connections between women (as well as persons of nonbinary identities) and animals and may be used as a theoretical background for ecocritical research on literature. Ecofeminist philosophers Carol J. Adams and Marti Kheel have developed theories regarding relationships of human and non-human phenomena. They examine the issues of sexuality and carnality in the context of the killing and hunting of animals, themes which constitute important motifs in Lebda’s poetry.

An inquiry into the evolution of Romania’s public sphere

Author(s): Iulia Anghel,Elena Banciu,Flavius Pană,Ana Maria Birtalan / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

The concept of ‘public sphere’ remains one of the most disputed landmarks within the inquiries and debates upon sources and legacies of Romanian transition. Drawing on the arguments of Frazer, Hauser, and others, the present article argues that nowadays reconfiguration of the public sphere in Romania is influenced by ascent of hybrid public-private arenas enabled by a rhetorical function of the internet. The article discusses the sources, genesis context and evolutions of Romanian public sphere, tackling issues as role of diasporic communities in reshaping publics’ categories, democratic balance, and the notion of legitimacy, highlighting also possible outcomes stemmed from ongoing multiplication of modernity. The research employs a two-step methodology: the first section of the article proposes a conceptual reconstruction of the public sphere term, exploiting the peculiar casuistry of Romanian communist and post-communist scenarios, while the second part analyses the evolution prospects of public sphere in the Eastern Europe and not only.

Dinamica formelor și a relațiilor sociale în grupările socialiste din secolul al XIX-lea

Author(s): Maricica Munteanu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1/2023

Focusing on two theoretical concepts, sociability, driven from Maurice Agulhonʼs theory, and social networked as developed in Georg Simmelʼs formal sociology, the present article aims to discuss the Romanian socialist circles from the 19th century in a twofold manner. On the one hand, it explores the social imaginary and the transferable social forms due to the existence of the “weak ties” (Mark Granovetter), such as clandestinity, the anti-bourgeois attitude, the idealism, and the generic portrait of the socialist. On the other hand, the article analyses the forms of life that are specific and dependent on the material spaces, shaping the particularities of different socialist groups. Such elements of shared life are, for example, the exaltation in Neculai Beldiceanuʼs cenacle from Iași, the anti-intimacy in Nădejdeʼs house on Sărărie, the farce at „Adevărul” magazine, but also the experience of drinking tea, common to the majority of the socializing groups, and the relationship between men and women, considered as the myth of the 19th century socialist movement.

KULTŪRA KĀ VĒRTĪBA UN KULTŪRAS VĒRTĪBAS JAUNIEŠU UZTVERĒ: PĒTĪJUMA REZULTĀTI FORMĀLĀS IZGLĪTĪBAS IESTĀDĒS

Author(s): Alina Romanovska / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 2/2022

The values of an individual, as well as of a larger or smaller community, exist and are revealed within the framework of a certain culture. Being ethnically, historically, religiously, politically, and otherwise determined, culture is the custodian and creator of universal human values – it ensures the unity of humanity, and understanding of individuals and nations, despite ethnic, religious, etc. differences. In Latvian policy documents, culture is considered the most important value, which forms the core of the nation’s identity and has unlimited potential for the state’s economic development. Moreover, in educational documents, culture is mentioned as an important value, an understanding of which should be formed in schoolchildren during the educational process. The school’s objective, which is defined in curricula and education policy documents, is to develop a comprehensive understanding among children and young people of such values as life, human dignity, freedom, family, marriage, work, nature, culture, the Latvian language and the Latvian state, developing an appreciative attitude and responsibility for themselves and their actions. The results of the conducted study on the understanding of cultural values among 14-18-year-olds provide not only for better understanding of the value system of young people and the reasons and motivations for their activities but also describe how young people understand the similarities and differences of different cultures (European, national, ethnic, regional, local), how they feel in the conditions of coexistence of different cultures and how they define their cultural belonging on the basis of values that are important to them. Using the broader understanding of culture as a basis, it can be concluded that local, regional and national cultural values are important for young people. Young people, on the other hand, have a rather abstract understanding of European cultural values. They also cite communication skills, tolerance, and participation as important values of universal human culture.

PREVALENCE AND MANIFESTATIONS OF DIGITAL HARASSMENT AMONG YOUNG ADULTS IN SERBIA

Author(s): Aleksandar Matković,Ivana Novakov,Vanja Glišin / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

Although the literature on digital violence is largely dominated by studies focusing on the pre-adolescent or adolescent population, young adults are a vulnerable category as well, due to a high prevalence of Internet use. The goal of this research was to examine the extent to which young adults in Serbia report committing or being exposed to different types of cyber harassment and to identify possible differences in gender and the level of attended education (secondary school or university). The research was conducted on 312 participants (32.69% male and 67.31% female), from 18 to 25 years (mean age = 19.23). The sample included high school seniors (33.33%) and university students (66.67%). Obtained results reveal that the most represented forms of cyber harassment are online stalking (52.56%), ignoring/excluding someone from groups on social networks (27.88%), harassment by phone calls (24.68%), and the use of false/someone else’s identity or creating profiles in someone else’s name (22.76%). We conclude that one of the main priorities in the digital era is to create a secure online environment not only for children and adolescents but also for young adults, as they too are frequently exposed to digital violence.

LES ÉCHELLES SPATIO-TEMPORELLES DES PRATIQUES DE LA FRONTIÈRE. MOBILITÉS, MÉMOIRES, ET DÉVELOPPEMENT URBAIN DANS LE BANAT ROUMAIN (JIMBOLIA)

Author(s): Bianca Botea / Language(s): French Issue: 2/2023

I propose here to look at the transformations of a border landscape of a small town (Jimbolia, Romania), in a context of border opening after 1989 and industrial crisis. I focus my attention on the role of the border in the social configurations of the city, both at the level of the daily practices of its inhabitants (and tourists), and at the level of the urban renewal. I also examine the extensible social spaces that are created around the use and crossing of this border and I show the time-space scales of these territories of circulation. I show that they mobilize networks of kinship, language and more broadly ethnic, as well as the memory processes. The text opens up to methodological and epistemological aspects concerning the “multi-site ethnography” of borders.

DE L’ÎLE DE COS À BODRUM ET AU DELÀ : REPRÉSENTATIONS DE L’ALTERITÉ ET PRATIQUES FRONTALIÈRES ENTRE LA GRÈCE ET LA TURQUIE

Author(s): Kira Kaurinkoski / Language(s): French Issue: 2/2023

This paper discusses perceptions of alterity on the Greek island of Kos and analyses border crossing practices at the Greek-Turkish border in the Aegean. The paper differentiates between different categories of locals according to their ethnic and religious belonging (Greek Orthodox and Muslim Turks in Kos, and “mainland” Turks and Kos Turks in Turkey). In Kos, distancing strategies can be explained by competition for limited resources, as well as identity and visibility politics. Perceptions of Turkey and border crossing practices also differ according to ethnic lines. For ethnic Turks, Turkey represents a second homeland; for Greek Orthodox, a powerful neighbouring country with whom historical and political relations are difficult. As this paper shows, lived and shared experiences can, however, nuance the perception of others. The paper is based on ethnographic field research and interviews conducted by the author on the Greek island of Kos, and in Bodrum, Izmir and Ceşme in Western Turkey.

FRONTIÈRES GÉOGRAPHIQUES, SOCIALES ET MÉMORIELLES : CIRCULER ENTRE LA TURQUIE, LA GRÈCE ET LA BELGIQUE

Author(s): Katerina Seraïdari / Language(s): French Issue: 2/2023

The article examines the life story of a Greek Pontic, who migrated from central Macedonia (Greece) to Belgium in 1965. The account of his life starts with his father being born and living in the Samsun province (Ottoman Empire), that is before the exchange of populations in the 1920s and his arrival to Greece as refugee. This dense and precise life history narrative not only allows us to revisit major events of Greek history, but also to follow the social and geographical transitions and trajectories that a family made during a century. Socialization processes, appropriation and loss of economic resources, political choices, transmission of stereotypes are some of the issues discussed here. The analysis of this material is inspired by cognitive anthropology: one of the aims has been to examine how « analogic thinking », through the connections and the correspondences it establishes, leads to exegetical reflections that facilitate the process of understanding and coping with novel situations. In this framework, analogies not only play a heuristic role, but also give the impression of intimately knowing not lived situations and experiences of the past. By listing similarities and differences, analogical arguments become an adaptation tool in migratory contexts as the one analyzed here.

LE MUSÉE DES PROPHÉTIES DE KREMNA (SERBIE OCCIDENTALE) AU CROISEMENT DES FRONTIÈRES ET DES PATRIMOINES

Author(s): Galia Valtchinova / Language(s): French Issue: 2/2023

The paper is focused on Kremna, a village in Western Serbia close to the Serbian-Bosnian border where a series of prophetic pronouncements, recorded and publicized in the early 20th century, gained momentum during the demise of Yugoslavia and are undergoing a process of heritage-making. It builds on two kinds of ethnography: visits of the field “site” which is the Museum/Memorial of the Prophecy”, and an ethnography of a main road which crosses the state border and relates two former Yugoslav countries. The first and longer part of the paper is dedicated to Kremna, its prophets, the prophecies and to those promoting it as the “Serbian Delphi”. It first outlines the local context and the history of the purportedly prophetic pronouncements subsequently known by the name of the village. It uncovers the logic and the circumstances in which the Kremna prophecies have been brought to public knowledge, to become a banner of Serbian national aspirations and during the last decades, of nationalism. A special section is dedicated to the legitimation of local prophets and the inscription of their work in the longue durée history as well as in cosmic processes. The second part evolves around the ethnography of the road Užice-Višegrad, Kremna being half way from both. It helps to grasp the overall landscape of history- memory- and heritage sites, the dynamics of their intertwining, and the creation of a kind of symbolic grammar of events, personae and cultural items which impacts the historical imagination. Throughout the paper, attention is paid to the importance of border and of boundaries broadly speaking in the microareas where outspoken national prophets are born and have lived.