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Contemporary anthropology in southeast Europe must be a matter of acknowledging the value of diverse scholarly traditions. This article explores the contributions of various disciplines and their foreign and local practitioners. The power relations be¬tween Western scholars and their colleagues in countries on the periphery will never be equal but the author pleads for mutual understanding and respect for other methodological and theoretical positions in order to build a forward-looking, cohesive, and socially-engaged discipline.
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In the Earth’s civilisation and the multiplicity of its cultures there exist Christianity; the great mystical religions of the East; the metaphysical sense of divinity of India; the naturalistic and practical sense of humanity of China; the collective heroic sense of Japan. There also exist humanistic pantheisms, fascism and Marxism in the past and today democracy. These are completely new forms of religion, religions where there is no God or revelation. They bring forward the belief in an ideal that is worth dying for, or even, as Erich Fromm says, worth losing one’s mind for. Despite his rather harsh evaluation of the Western civilisation, Teilhard de Chardin finds a possibility of explaining the current state of the cogitative layer of the Earth only in the mysticism of the West, as Christianity teaches us that it is only possible by virtue of the unifying power deriving from God. Love as the unifying power regains the dignity of the highest form of spiritual energy. Thanks to love, by accepting the invitation to the community with God, the uniting human being is saved and maintains forever his/her irreplaceable and indispensable entity in the communion with God and humanity.
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Uroczyste odsłonięcie tablicy informacyjnej przy Rondzie Polonii Mandżurskiej; Promocja tomiku Huang Lihaia pt. Kto biegnie jeszcze szybciej niż błyskawica i otwarcie wystawy rzeźb Xiao Tiana; VIII konferencja naukowa zorganizowana przez Euroseas; Belt and Road Countries Project na Szanghajskim Uniwersytecie Studiów Międzynarodowych; Wręczenie Odznaki Honorowej „Bene Merito” Edwardowi Kajdańskiemu
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This study examines two contradictory attitudes towards twins in African culture and endeavours to find the common denominator that has induced a positive change in the perception of this extraordinary phenomenon. The motive to write this paper was not to idealise or demonise traditional African societies, but rather to understand some of their rough practices in the context of their respect for fertility and children.
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In this article, I complete my brief study of visual anthropological themes and meanings that can be seen in the philosophy of Parmenides, primarily in his ontology. I analyzed the text of the Parmenides’ poem to detect in it the ideas that express the theoretical position of the philosopher from Elea in relation to ontological parameters of human existence. “Optical” characteristics of Parmenides’ philosophical language is accented in this article to clarify his views on the mutual relations of sensually empirical experience and theoretical scientific knowledge, of explicit “many things” and implicit “single”, of the physical dynamics and speculative statics, of “human” world and the “true” being. I paid special attention to the problem of border and form of being-in-general in Parmenides, and I investigated the question of reflection of this form in the physical space. I conclude that the Parmenides’ philosophical “optics” can be explicated and described in the following key points, which was shown to 1) discourse in its specificity, 2) cultural-historical and physical contexts of the narrative, 3) an inner ascetic intention of author, 4) cosmology as a systemic critique of sensory experience, 5) epistemology in its visual aspects, 6) ontology, 7) semiotics.
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The notions of “hospitality” and “a guest” are used in the article in order to analyze and interpret a researcher’s position during field-work. In an ethnographic approach the hospitality of study subjects towards anthropologists is often taken for granted. Relying on anthropological and philosophical conceptualizations of hospitality, different dimensions of host-guest relation (inequality, intimacy and reputation management) are demonstrated in order to reveal the problematic nature of the conceptualization of ethnographer-study subjects’ relation through the notion of hospitality. The ethical and epidemiological consequences of a researcher acting as a guest are shown: the blurring of the boundary between what is personal and what is professional, the potential conflict of loyalties and the excessive control of research subjects over a researcher. The situation of the lack of hospitality – and lack of access to the field – is also presented and viewed as a rule and not an exception of ethnographic methodology. The aim of the article is to propose a more pragmatic vision of ethnographic studies and to draw attention to structural conditioning's of ethnographer-research subjects’ relation that are situated beyond the ethical choices of individuals.
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Scientific paradigm changes are frequently accompanied by the reconsiderationof central terms and ideas. This article demonstrates how this process is currentlyunderway in Russian anthropological studies [narodovedenie] as part of a broadermove away from ethnography to theoretical ethnology. The article also showslines of succession and divergence between various paradigms currently dominantin Russian anthropology, including primordialism and constructivism, andpresents the author’s vision of a definition of “ethnicity”, instrumentsneeded to study ethnicities, the nature of “ethnicity,” the underlying axiomson which ethnicities are conceptualized. An initial attempt has beenmade in the article to outline the central positions that would provide for a principallynew ethnological paradigm by way of a new definition of the phenomenonof ethnicity.
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The article “Prosaic Aspects of Life. (Extra)ordinary Histories” is an attempt at describing the experience of fatherhood found in the poems of the authors from “bruLion” and “postbruLion” groups. While analyzing the social transformations which took place in Poland in the 1990s (e.g. the modifications of the system of social roles stereotypically assigned to each of the sexes, the change of paradigms of what has been commonly recognized as “male” and “female”, “the crisis of fatherhood,” extensively described by sociologists, etc.) and the transformations within lyric poetry itself (domination of personal lyric poetry, autobiographism, rejection of political and social obligations of literature in favour of the interest in privacy and concentration on the individual experience), the author asks about the literary attractiveness of the motif and analyses its various manifestations in the works of Marcin Świetlicki, Jacek Podsiadło, Robert Adamczak, Sławomir Matusz and Dariusz Suska.
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GABRIELA KILIÁNOVÁ, JURAJ ZAJONC: 70 rokov Ústavu etnológie Slovenskej akadémie vied: kontinuity a diskontinuity bádania a jednej inštitúcie (70 Years of the Institute of Ethnology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences: Continuities and Discontinuities of Research and of One Institution). Bratislava: Veda, 2016, 287 p.
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Modern academic disciplines of anthropology, history and archaeology are founded in the cultural, social, political context of the 18th and 19th centuries, at the times of the colonial expansion of the West European countries. Although demarcated by the objects of their study ("primitive societies", the past according to written sources, or material evidence), all these disciplines are grounded in the need to distinguish and strengthen the modern identity of the Europeans as opposed to the Others in space and time.
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Marek Hendrykowski’s study deals with the semiotics of interpersonal proxemic relationships in today’s world. When analyzing this issue, the author puts forward three research hypotheses. First, interpersonal relationships that are connected with social space are not on the margins of systems of culture, but constitute a very important characteristic of each such system. Secondly, the traditional ways of defining proxemics, which emphasize the existence of interpersonal barriers, present the complex issues related to this field of science of signs and meanings too narrowly and usually in a schematic manner. And thirdly, the profound changes in proxemic relationships that are taking place in the macrosystem of contemporary culture have a major influence on the functioning of culture itself as well as on how individuals, groups and communities participate in this culture. When analyzed in terms of the proxemics of interpersonal relationships, the cultural ecosystem is not an abstract model but an operating system which governs the daily living conditions of individuals, groups and communities.
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The article discloses semantics of relict wedding dances of Ukrainians and Byelorussians associated with rituals of round loaf baking and the first married night. The author sees in archaic “skoki” vestiges of pagan producing magic urged to ensure successful procreation. Taking into account the objective situation, set us a goal description the most archaic folklore dance samples that are performed in different situations to social rituals with magical, symbolic and demonstrative, entertainment and gaming functions. Our article is based on literary, archival and ethnographic field materials and does not claim to own choreographic analysis. In the diachronic aspect the wedding dances we can divide into two groups: the ritual and. not ritual. Groups belong to the late formation phenomena, they are not related to the genesis and structure of the ritual and the program may include a variety of festive entertainment. Instead, ritual dances, which we will speak further, belonging to the deeper layers of folk culture and life. They carried out only within the context of wedding and were an integral part of structuring and semantic. Bright lurks in these ancient syncretic principles, where the art of dance is closely intertwined with the other arts: drama, pantomime, singing, music and games. In fact, it is the fragments of archaic ritual chorea: the magic of dance, singing, games, only here and there which prevails today. There is no doubt that "skoki" in ancient times performed magic function, which consisted in the sorcery to manage happy marriage, family and increase the harvest in the fields. Belief in achieving these goals through ritual tested by the ancestors and performed mechanism for stipulate the tradition. In the process of historical evolution "skoki" lost touch with the sacred sphere and finally out of use due to significant transformation and reduction of the wedding ritual.
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In the 19th century, hundreds of reports, novels, short stories and travelogues representing the Balkans as a border between civilization and noncivilization (between Europe and Asia) were published. This was at a time when an important imperial shift occurred: the Ottoman Empire lost its power, while new kingdoms arose in the West. Within this political, territorial, economic and cultural change, the Great Powers began to question the heritage and division of Ottoman territories. This paper focuses on three problems to test the applicability of Orientalist, Balkanist and postcolonial paradigms: 1) orientalization of the Balkans through discursive connections with the Orient; 2) notions of the inversion of European values; 3) construction of the Balkan character. The examples of Bosnia and Serbia are used as paradigmatic specimens.
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The development of the Soviet Arctic was accompanied by a conflict between traditional and industrial cultures. The bearers of the first are representatives of the indigenous peoples of the North, who constitute a significant part of the population of the territory under development, the second — aliens from the “big earth”, who violated the traditional way of life of the indigenous people. The Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (YNAO), which is completely located in the Arctic zone, is of special interest in studying the Soviet practice of developing high latitudes. Here, the rate of change in the 1960s — 1980s was higher than in any other northern region of the USSR, and the way of life of the indigenous peoples, practically unaffected by the middle of the 20th century, was subjected to the most serious tests. The colossal natural resources of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District — water, fish, furs, deer, etc. — could not radically change the status of the District until the unique gas fields were discovered. Their development became the primary task of the State. By the beginning of the 1980s, the “density” of economic development of the Tyumen Far North was no longer able to separate in this area the fields of development of deposits and zones of traditional indigenous fisheries. Aborigines faced a choice: either to retreat further north or to adopt a new, industrial way of life. Mass transfer to a sedentary lifestyle, the consolidation of settlements, the organization of the education of children in boarding schools, the imposition of other new forms of life in the Far North almost turned into a loss of the indigenous population. Attention is drawn to the ecological consequences of the formation of the West Siberian oil and gas complex and its impact on the traditional way of life of reindeer herders.
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This historical and systematic study discusses in the form of a reconstructive proposal the system of the general epistemological principles followed by the eclecticist Proclus, who attempts to organize and present questions on Education directly associated with Practical Reason. From the methodological point of view, the example emerged from his commentary on the Platonic dialogues Alcibiades I and Respublica for providing instruction is multidimensional and holistic and aims at a complete transformation of human personality. The foundation for any philosophical and political approach, as constantly stressed, is that human is a special and unique being that can be able to influence decisively the social status. Considering the content of the study, we are discussing, mainly from a historical point of view, the position and the purpose of Education in Late Hellenistic Period, as well as Proclus’ contribution to the disciplines of Anthropology and Ethics, which are closely related to the objectives of Education. We complete the study with some further remarks with regard to the deepest meaning of Proclus’ proposal and the possibility to implement it in these days. The above-mentioned are not presented as final conclusions, but as questions-inquiries, in order to propose an internally developing methodology for investigating.
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