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In Memoriam of Maxim Mladenov
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This article delves into Bosnia-Herzegovina, and especially into the town of Bihać, to ethnographically examine the changing nature of the state and family, as visible through practices of elder care. I use my ethnographic data gathered at a nursing home Vitalis in Bihać, and especially the predicament of an elderly Bosnian woman whom I call Zemka, to argue that both the state and family in postwar and postsocialist Bosnia-Herzegovina materialize as semi-absent. In the process of unpacking these multiple semi-absences, I reveal the lived effects of changing postwar and postsocialist state, and altering kinship relations as they affect "ordinary" people.
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In recent years, domestic work has become the centre of many scientific studies. Still, in most cases, disregarding its specific aspects and features, domestic work is displayed as a homogeneous category. In contrast, by observing daily activities and narrations of the live-in eldercare workers, specific working conditions, dispositional attitudes, duties and obligations are disclosed. The article suggests that in order to fully comprehend the extent of the eldercare work it is equally important to place the research where care work is located – within the domestic space. Hence, only by entering the deepest void of this work, space for exploitation, struggle and invisibility can be reduced to a minimum.
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The essay gives a critical review of The Rituals of the Media by Lajos Császi. It seeks to showhow the Durkheimian sociology of religion can be applied to the modern communicationtheory and what perspectives such a combination can store for sociology. The mediahas a significant impact on the formation of public opinion; therefore, its rituals deservea special attention. However, the opinion forming power of the media depends on thesocial structure and the movement of the masses. Today even ordinary people can broadcastInternet TV-programmes and we have not even mentioned the technical possibilitiesoffered by the various social network sites. It is not only the technical competence, whichdetermines whether a given opinion will remain embedded in a narrow subculture or itsucceeds to move the masses, which was a well-loved catchword of the 20th century
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This article offers a closer look at the intellectual origins of ‘textual debate’ in the field of cultural anthropology – as initiated by Clifford Geertz in The Interpretation of Cultures and Works and Lives, and continued then on by James Clifford and George Marcus in their volume Writing Culture. An attempt subsequently followed at combining the insights, having appeared within the debate’s confines, into interpretation and textual processing of ethnographic data with the idea of anthropological reflectiveness conceived as examination of de-objectivising influence exerted upon the ethnographic description of culture by factors such as historicity and politicality of the writing individual; his/her assumed research strategy and writing rhetoric; and, unconsciously accepted socio-cultural and personal data determining the cognitive process.
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Cultural norms in relationships are learned from parents, peers, and many others whose values, attitudes and behaviors take place in the context of their own social culture. This paper, partially based on my diploma thesis ‘Doubled identity of crew members on cruise ships as the instrument of cultural adaptation’ supervised by Mgr. Helena Tužinská, PhD. investigates intimate relationships of men and women of various ethnic identities with different cultural backgrounds who work on the cruise ships. Coming from all over the world, crew members of cruise ships bring here different cultural values, norms and attitudes. Nevertheless, shortly after the embarkation they are confronted by ‘ship life’ – the specific way of life on the cruise ships. Its acceptance is the only way of successful adaptation to the new social environment. Independently of their authentic cultural norms in relationships they acquire norms specific for ‘ship life’ and enter intimate relationships with characteristics of its part - ‘ship love’. This paper explores these characteristics as well as the strategies the crew members involved in these intimate relationships use to deal with the difference between their authentic and newly acquired intimate relationships’ norms. To make the mosaic of intimate relationships on cruise ships complete, I take closer ‘look’ at themes which are communicated by crew members most frequently: arranged marriages in some parts of India and transnational bride migration of some Filipino and Thai women.
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The article presents the program of sexual education prepared and offered by Krakow Branch of the Planned Parenthood Association in the wider context of socio-political situation in Krakow (1956 – 1989). Since the beginning of the Association’s existence, the special attention was paid to the development of educational program, which concerned the different aspects of „family life“. The article is going to answer the questions about its goals, the educational tools used to achieve them and its social targets. To accurately determine the position of the Association in the city‘s community I will analyse its foundation and activities in wider context of the pre-war traditions of the organisation and the activities regarding premarital counselling undertaken by the Krakow Catholic Church.
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Contemporary study of history approaches popular witchcraft and magic folk culture as concepts associated with cultural dichotomies: popular culture versus high culture. The component of magic is considered most characteristic of popular culture. Aron Gurevich constructs medieval folk culture from the aspect of magic by means of early medieval books of penitence. This material, however, does not allow such construction for two reasons: firstly, the content information, and secondly, the articles on superstition and magic in the books of penitence are not targeted at peasantry. Quite conspicuously, it is often the clergy that is accused of witchcraft. The letters of witchcraft (charms), mostly spread in written form, were accessible for the literate clergy. Thus the early medieval witchcraft was clerical rather than popular. The access to the tradition of witchcraft texts makes the clergy an expert of witchcraft, to whom the people turn for advice and who are therefore persecuted in the Late Middle Ages. Therefore, witchcraft formulae moved in the downward direction.
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Discussion of Dariusz Czaja's works.
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REVIEWS AND COMMENTS
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The objectives are to analyze the development of the relations in the sphere of the culture between Switzerland and Germany in the 1930-40’s and to determine the reasons for termination of the cultural dialogue between the countries after the arrival of national socialists in German and conditions of its recovery after the Second World War. The historical-genetic and comparative methods were chosen for the study. With the use of the historical-genetic method, the evolution of the German-Swiss cultural relations in the first half of the XX c. was explored. Appeal to the comparative method has enabled to draw the conclusions about the features of the bilateral cultural relations between Switzerland and Germany in the period between the two world wars, during the war of 1939 – 1945 and post-war years. Scientific novelty of the proposed article is that for the first time in Ukrainian historiography an attempt to explore the development of the cultural relations between Switzerland and Germany in 1930 – 40's was made. Conclusions. The main reasons of the Swiss efforts to withdraw from the involvement in the German cultural world in the late 1930's – 40's were memories of the First World War, when the conflict between the French and German communities had put in jeopardy the peace within the Swiss society, and a desire not to create the pretext for the global public accusations against Switzerland of its involvement in the crimes of the national socialists, which could raise doubts about the issue of Swiss neutrality. The background for the restoration of the cultural dialogue between the countries was the desire of Swiss to support the formation of a new democratic regime in the neighboring country, which was realized through the activities of both individual private artistic associations and institutions, and the work of the Swiss diplomacy, which through the analysis of the cultural situation of the particular German states was searching for the potential areas and ways of cooperation.
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This paper was written between 2002 and 2003 as the result of a first anthropological fieldwork by the authors in Rovinari, a Romanian mining town. “Systematisation” is considered to be one of the particularities of the last communist decade, together with the industrialisation and urbanisation process. These lead to a systematic regrouping and large scale re-distribution of the population, as well as to the proliferation of ‘the block of flats’ – the only type of building and inhabitation mode accepted, following the political will to increasingly homogenize the population. Built almost overnight, on barren land, as accommodation for the necessary work force brought by the increasing development of the regional mine, the “industrial town” of Rovinari can be considered a “dorm” or “work colony”. Without denying it this characteristic, we tried to analyse the way in which people who arrive in this town from all over Romania and for different reasons, have managed to feel “at home” in the apartments assigned to them.
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In this paper I will analyze Serbian documentary films about guest workers dating from the last decade of the 20th and the first decade of the 21st century, using the perspective of visual anthropology. I question the popular cultural notions about guest workers in films Весеље у Ждрелу (A Celebration in Zdrelo) by author Kamenko Katic, Звона позне јесени (The Bells of Late Autumn) by author Zoran Milenovic, Кад је Милорад удавао ћерку (When Milorad Gave His Daughter in Marriage) by author Vladimir Milisavljevic, Странац тамо, странац овде (A Foreigner There, a Foreigner Here) by author Sandra Mandic and 242 метра живота (242 Meters of Life) by author Novica Savic. The films deal with a number of issues: the economic aspects of guest workers’ lives, their liminal character, the issues of the second and third generations of guest workers, going away "temporarily" to work, and religious rituals. Even though the films were made recently, they all follow the lives of Vlach and Serbian, or rather Yugoslav guest workers who left to find temporary work abroad in Western Europe in the 1960’s and 1970’s. This serves the purpose of avoiding to deal with contemporary reasons for emigrating from Serbia and thus the possible critiques of current regimes or policies in power at the time the films were made.
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The recent rhetoric of the "end" or "failure" of multiculturalism in Europe and beyond came as no surprise to anthropologists. Moreover, the statements made by leading politicians of key European economies seem as though they are based on the decades old anthropological critique of the consequences of the failed implementation of multicultural policies in Europe and on the global level. It is as though the messages we have been getting over the course of the last few years – that multicultural policies are contraindicated, that they weaken the contacts between cultures, rob individuals of the right to change and chose their identities and strengthen intra-cultural mediators of power, with patriarchy, violence against women and children, leaving school, religious fundamentalism and even terrorism as main consequences – are being read by politicians from anthropological analyses of abuses of collective "cultural" rights. The paper considers the nature of this similarity between the discourse of politicians and anthropologists with a special emphasis on the status of "Islam" in them, and discusses whether it is congruence or mere coincidence of stances toward minorities, immigrants and cultural differences, as toward the regulations which were tasked with protecting this diversity as a fundamental European value which today, at least at the rhetorical level, seems to be fading.
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This edition presents a commented transcription of the memoirs of Ester Karbulová, a former inhabitant of the only Czech village in Bulgaria – Vojvodovo. The memoirs cover many aspects of the (ex)Vojvodovo villager’s life in Bulgaria as well as in South Moravia, where almost all Vojvodovan Czechs settled after their remigration following World War II. The edition is supplemented by informative commentaries and prefaced by a short introduction explaining the background of the manuscript in the context of history of Vojvodovo and its Czech (ex)inhabitants. A brief review of other manuscripts written by Vojvodovo (ex)villagers, as well as of existing academic literature concerning Vojvodovo is also presented.
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