Skirtys ir bendrumai
Dichotomies and Shares

Summary/Abstract: Anthropological and ethnological questions about the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’ draw on distinctiveness and otherness, on dichotomies and shares and their interrelationships, on aspects of the consolidation and integration of society and concerns with collective and individual identities, on nationalism, on the homogenizing factor of the State and processes of globalization, and many other issues that are on the agenda in a variety of contexts today. The separation between ‘we’ and ‘they’ we often understand as ‘alterity within’ community (G. Bauman, A. Gingrich, N. Rapport, V. Savoniakaitė) and etc. The contemporary reality makes it explicit that the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’ are not only approaches to cultural and social classification applied by researchers, but also a part of the actual human life that invites us to return critically to the classics of social theory – the dichotomy of Gemeinschaft/Gesellschaft.We argue that the ‘other’ and the ‘different’ that appear unexpectedly in contemporary contexts of the quotidian space, the flow and the amount of movements of people that extend the scale of migration showed once again the most important cultural and social aspect of human existence – differences that separate and similarities that unite. The parts of Logos volumes seeks to discuss critically representations of ‘dichotomies’ and ‘shares’ in human life, European communities and Lithuanian nation as (1) theoretical approaches, (2) alter cultural and social meanings, and (3) challenges to contemporary society. The dichotomy of urban and rural Gemeinschaft/Gesellschaft are analyzed in the articles of Christian Giordano and Irma Šidiškienė. Vladislav B. Sotirović and Anna Gomóła discover the historical narratives of a community’s issues of nationalism and culture. Challenges of migration to contemporary society in Lithuania and abroad are discussed in the articles of Vida Savoniakaitė, Laura Laurušaitė, Darius Daukšas, and Vytautas Tumėnas.These Logos volumes publish articles based on presentations in the international conference of the Lithuanian Institute of History, Dichotomies and Shares in Cultural and Social Contexts, 22-23 September, 2016 (sponsor: Research Council of Lithuania, project Contract No. LIP-106/2016) and our new research results working on the programme Cognition of Ethnicity and Nationalism (2017–2021, www.istorija.lt).The authors would very like to thank the chief editor of Logos, Dalia Marija Stančienė, for her support of our ideas and for her advice.

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