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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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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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This paper presents a small sample of the results Creatology has achieved during its first thirty years of existence from 1977 to 2007. The main chapters below deal with the short prehistory of Creatology, its paradigmatic framework and applications. The author’s ambition was first and foremost to outline the theoretical foundation, because pragmatic work in this domain is over-represented at the expense of losing even the theoretical minimum obligatory for any scientific enterprise. The article gives also descriptions of what it calls the “Big Bang” of Creatology and the mainstream view about creativity based on the generalized market structure.
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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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The foreign travelers who had crossed the Romanian territory in different periods of history wrote also about the colours observed especially on the woven fabrics decorating the houses. The present paper traces back the perpetuation of certain colours in the Romanian rural universe, starting with an eloquent example, that of Marcel Fontaine, captain of the French Mission in Romania during World War I (1916-1918) and author of memories about people, places and mainly colours from the Southern half of Moldavia. He noticed the white and blue peasant houses placed between green hills and forests, decorated with carpets using bright colours, including red, yellow, black or green geometric motifs (rhombuses, squares, lines); moreover, the clothes had bright colours, red and yellow, prevalently. The incursion into the past offered by the narratives of other foreign travelers to Romania, such as Martin Gruneweg in 1583, Paul of Aleppo in 1653, who noticed the carpets on the walls but also the stoves painted in red and green, or Alexandre d’Hauterive, who, in 1785, in Vaslui, noticed the red ceiling of the room, complete the image of the Romanian rural world.More than a century ago, in 1908, folklorists Tudor Pamfile and Mihai Lupescu researched the topic of old colours used in Romanian woven fabrics and noticed their harsh, dark, manly appearance and a limited range of colours: “natural white, natural black and brownish black or pure black, nice yellow and dark red. Blue must have appeared later, just like green, which can be obtained by mixing yellow and blue”. Generally speaking, out of all woven fabrics, towels have best preserved the archaic background, the esthetic effect, being a result of the autochthonous embroideries’ favourite chromatic binomial, red-black, which enhances the feeling of movement; black would be later replaced by blue. As a comparison, the Mediaeval Occident after the year 1000, in the view of Michel Pastoureau, uses a new order of colours, the old triad white-red-black being replaced by blue-yellow-green. Only folklore of Mediaeval origin has preserved traces of the old chromatic system, white-red-black, in folktales and fables. Similar chromatics has been also sporadically traced in the Romanian space, namely in the conservative, predominantly agrarian areas, such as those of Bârlad Plateau in the Southern part of Moldavia. The old carpets made in this area use red as prevailing background and woven, mainly geometric motifs, and these elements suggest the archaicity of these weavings in a Romanian rural world placed at the periphery of the storm of modernity.
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During WWII, American anthropologists were engaged in advising administration that governed internment camps for Japanese citizens in the West Coast, as well in the work of a number of civil and military agencies. The contribution of anthropologists to US wartime efforts was primarily in studies of Japanese national character and propaganda for American troops. The Cold War brought the continuation of the application of anthropology in military and security agencies in the US, founded in the State of national security. The involvement of anthropologists in US military activities in Korea, Latin America and Southeast Asia provoked a series of sharp debates within the American Anthropological Association, that resulted in the adoption of the document with the title "Principles of professional responsibility". In time, the ethical standards in this document became milder, which enabled the application of anthropology in the wars the US had started at the beginning of 21st century.
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