Bulgarian Karakachans: Building a Narrative of Crisis

Author(s): Gabriela Fatková / Language(s): English Issue: 19/2016

In the last few years we have observed growing post-communist nostalgia within the Eastern bloc countries. Surprisingly we can also find this tendency among those societies, whose lifestyle was completely damaged by the communist regime and who were forced to live under very poor conditions for several decades. Karakachans (in Greece Sarakatsani), former transhumant shepherds, experienced such a radical shift in their lifestyle due to the collectivization process during the late 1950’s to 1960’s. In this article we will try to understand the inner logic of Karakachan “memoryscape”. The narrative structure of their stories will be juxtaposed with observations of their housing strategies, material realities, and entrepreneurial opportunities. The paper illustrates that the Karakachans do not identify periods of immediate economic prosperity as being high points of their narrative as they are connected with negative experiences of work migration dissolving their family structure.

Развојни лук и основне карактеристике читаоничког покрета у Војводини - српске читаонице до 1918. године

Author(s): Karla Selihar / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 3/2016

The reading rooms started becoming cultural institutions in the time when books became an important part of the society that had desire to get more information by attending different reading clubs. What sets apart Serbian reading rooms in Vojvodina from the others in Europe and Serbia, is their national character and struggle for basic human rights. If we are to see the bigger picture of the reading rooms’ establishment, they cannot just be classified as a precursor of public libraries, they were national cultural institutions that had an educational, cultural and political role. From the librarian point of view, with all the things they did such as: reading, formation of the public holdings (periodicals and books) as well as the advocacy of the written word, these reading rooms were public libraries. According to the fact collected we can say that this reading movement made a deep mark in the national and cultural renaissance of the Serbs not just in Hungary but also the Serbs in other areas outside of Serbia and gave a very good foundation for the development of the public library in the years after the war.

Słownik a plastyczność świata. Studium społeczno-humanistyczne

Author(s): Andrzej Zaporowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2015

W niniejszym studium rozważam świat jako zbiór zdarzeń, w tym ludzkich działań. Owe zdarzenia znajdują się w sprzężeniu zwrotnym z mnogością układów postaw propozycjonalnych, które nazywam kulturami. Jednocześnie to poprzez odniesienie do kultur zdarzenia są porządkowane. Z drugiej strony, wspomniane układy postaw odzwierciedlają stosowne języki, a w ich ramach – słowniki, których się używa. Analiza tych ostatnich pozwala dostrzec sposób porządkowania świata zdarzeń między innymi za pomocą działań, w tym używanych słowników. Co więcej, porównanie różnych słowników pozwala ująć ten świat w kategoriach plastyczności, jako że postać świata widzianego przez pryzmat jednego słownika różna jest – w tym okazuje się uboższa lub bogatsza – od postaci widzianej przez pryzmat innego słownika. W niniejszym studium podaję dwa przykłady zdające sprawę z takiej różnicy. Oba pochodzą z obszaru nauk społecznych i humanistycznych. Jestem jednocześnie zdania, że działając, w tym słowami, jednostka zmienia świat. Tym samym też zmienia samego siebie. ===== In the present study, I consider the world as a set of occurrences, including human activities. These occurrences construct a feedback with the multiple sets of propositional attitudes that I call cultures. At the same time, it is thanks to a reference to cultures that the occurrences are ordered. On the other hand, the already mentioned sets of attitudes reflect appropriate languages and through them – the dictionaries which are used. The analysis of the latter allows us to see the manners of ordering the world of occurrences, among others with the use of actions, including the applied dictionaries. What is more, a comparison of thought of different dictionaries allows us to grasp this world in terms of plasticity because the shape of the visible world depends on the dictionary – one can be poorer, the other richer. In the present study, I give two examples which perceive this difference. Both of them come from social sciences and humanities. I am convinced that by acting, including acting with the use of words, an individual changes the world, and at the same time changes their self.

Erzincan-Kemaliye (Eğin) Sıra Gezme Sohbet Toplantıları ve “Eğin Fasıl Grubu”

Author(s): Sagıp Atli / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 51/2016

In terms of the Sohbet meetings has an important place in keeping oral traditional culture alive, ensuring continuity and transfering correctly to the new generation. In different regions of Turkey it is known such as: “Barana, Kürsübaşı, Yârân, Erfene/Ferfene, Oturak Âlemleri, Sıra Yarenleri, Cümbüş, Oda Sohbetleri, Sıra Gecesi, Gezek, Sıra Gezme, Velime Geceleri (Eyvan Geceleri), Ateş Gezmesi (Birikme Geceleri), Oturmah”. Outside of Turkey; it is known different names such as: “Geşdek, Coro Bozo, Meşrep, Konuşma and Muhabbet”. Sohbet meetings is known by the same or different names in different regions was carried out, depending on the region's socio-cultural structure, with similar or different applications. Sıra Gezme Meetings the subject of our research, performed in Kemaliye in Erzincan is a tradition. Nowadays, that is not conducted within the traditional structure of meetings is continued with the only musical aspect by “Eğin Fasıl Group”. In this research, after giving general information about the sohbet meetings, we do field research on the subject in Kemaliye and the data obtained from other studies will be examined as titles including Kemaliye Sıra Gezme Sohbet Meetings, “Development and Current Status of the Kemaliye Sıra Gezme Sohbet Meetings”, “General Characteristics of Kemaliye Sıra Gezme Sohbet Meetings”, “The Executive Order of Kemaliye Sıra Gezme Sohbet Meetings”, “Functions of Kemaliye Sıra Gezme Sohbet Meetings”. In the second title; the members of meetings and management structure, conditions of participation, rules, times, space, seating arrangements, meeting types, clothing, etiquette, table manners and fines will be evaluated. Finally, the findings obtained as a result of assembly, research and investigation will be included.

СПРИЙНЯТТЯ ОДНЕ ОДНОГО В КОНТЕКСТІ СТАНОВЛЕННЯ ОСОБИСТОСТІ. ПРОБЛЕМНЕ ДОСЛІДЖЕННЯ

Author(s): Carmen Derebush / Language(s): French Issue: 2/2017

The paper examines how language builds an ethnic and artistic identity before, during and after the concentration camp experience, in the book having an autobiographical content, The Story of a Life by Aharon Appelfeld. His childhood languages-German (native language), Yiddish (his grandparents language), Ukrainian sprinkled with Romanian words (official languages of social environment, especially the city of Czernowits) are the stable roots looking for a new assumed identity in Israel through the Hebrew language learned in a cultural context.

Süper-Çeşitlilik Çağında Çokkültürcülük

Author(s): Filiz Goktuna Yaylaci / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 1/2017

Today all societies live in a world shaped by communication and transportation technologies, and in an environment where diversity is increasingly distinctive, and different cultures are increasingly in interaction with each others. Ensuring the healthy coexistence of individuals, communities and cultures with different characteristics remains a fateful challenge for all nations and governments around the world. Having emerged as a reaction to uniform policies put in place by modern nation states, and introduced as the best response to flourishing diversity, multiculturalism has been charged with failure in recent years. However, in spite of negative attitudes adopted by some governments, multiculturalism retains its merit in terms of theoretical dimensions and practical applications to provide a fruitful ground for scholarly debates on the future of a world of super diversity. This paper, against the backdrop outlined above, examines the potential of new approaches towards cultural diversity, addressing other academic standpoints critical of multiculturalism, and theoretical conceptions still in the making to replace it

ANTROPOGENESIS TRIAD "BRAIN – CONSCIENCE – LANGUAGE" AS CULTURAL DETERMINER

Author(s): Yan Kapranov / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2017

Purpose. The work deals with the study of the anthropogenesis triad "brain – conscience – language" as a cultural determinant, which allows to assume the possible range of resettlement of the first representatives of the Homo, as well as their links with Olduvai culture, i.e. the culture of Pebbles and / or Abbevillian culture. The research methodology is based on the application of the historical-cultural method with the use of data from archaeology and linguaantropology. The scientific novelty of the work consists in the representation of relatively new archaeological data, which give fundamentals to talk about the lateralization of the hominids’ brain, i.e. the beginning of abstract thinking, the development of the second signalling system (language), the formation of conscious and purposeful work, including the processing of tools, belonging to the Olduvai culture and / or Abbevillian culture. Conclusions. The territory of the African continent, which is hypothetically designated as the "Cradle of Humankind" is currently considered the most likely habitat for the settlement of the first representatives of the Homo; it is confirmed that archaeological finding of the early (lower) Paleolithic arethe tools of Olduvai culture or pebble culture; it has been established that the role of technology progress in the early archanthropes belongs to the Abbevillian culture, which produced stone tools and used the language of the initial stage of development, which is called the hominid language / language of hominids.

Jocuri populare tradiţionale: învârtita

Author(s): Silvia Macrea / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 24/2010

Romanian traditional dances are well known for their beauty and variety, but also for the one corpus they design together with songs, traditions and old rituals. One of the most important traditional dances is Învârtita / the 'turning' dance, specific to the South and Centre Transylvania. Its basic form is at moderate tempo with turning as a couple, in alternate directions separated by a resting step, without progressing around the dance space, but there are variants at distinctly different tempi. Some of these variants are danced by the “Cindrelul-Junii Sibiului” Professional Folk Ensemble and are presented in this research paper.

DRUŠTVENA STRUKTURA I STANOVANJE

Author(s): Aleksandra Milićević / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 3/1994

Ivan Szelenyi, famous Hungarian sociologist, has worked on problems of relation between social structure and housing in socialist countries, specially in Hungary. Szelenyi has discussed housing as one of the major elements in satisfying basic human needs and, therefore, he thinks that distribution of housing has big significance for creating and maintaining social inequalities. In state socialism methods of distribution help to riches, and make difficulties to poor persons. Such distribution is not effect of some irregularity, it reflects logic of system and dominate social relations. Szelenyi, in his work, unites three approaches to this problem: historical causal, structuralfunctional and social-anthropological.

OSVRTI

Author(s): Danilo Mrkšić / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 3-4/1983

Review of: DANILO MRKŠIĆ - Aljoša Mimica, "Ogled o srednjoj klasi", Istraživačko-izdavački centar SSO Srbije, Beograd, 1983, str. 181.

OSVRTI I PRIKAZI

Author(s): Lidija Topić / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 2/1980

Review of: LIdija Topic - OSVRT NA PRIMENJENU METODOLOGIJU U SOCIOLOŠKOM ISTRAŽIVANJU »DRUŠTVENI SLOJEVI I DRUŠTVENA SVEST« (Beograd, 1977, izdanje Instituta društvenih nauka).

BIBLIOGRAFIJA

Author(s): Miodrag STOJANOVIĆ / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 2-3/1975

СРБИЈА – ДЕСТРУКЦИЈА ДРУШТВА И СТВАРАЊЕ ПАРАЗИТСКИХ И ЗАВИСНИХ КЛАСА

Author(s): Vladimir Milić / Language(s): Serbian Issue: Sp. Iss/2012

The author explores the relationship between destruction of society as the cause and rising of new classes as the effect. In the first part author points out to different aspects of destruction of material and human resources and focuses on the two main ones: “normal destruction” which has been produced by the process of transition from one to another social system where one form has been changed by another. The second type of destruction is “abnormal destruction” where nothing has been created but only destroyed, with the effect of rising unemployment and poverty. In the second part the author explicates the pluridimensional effects of this ’abnormal’ destruction. In the third part the author describes the features of the collective human appearance of dependent classes and their social profile.

KULTURNI TURIZAM: HRVATSKA ISKUSTVA

Author(s): Damir Demonja / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 1/2011

With the Strategic plan for the development of cultural tourism, the establishment of the Office for Cultural Tourism, and with activities realized by the Office and Ministry of Tourism of Republic of Croatia at the national level, cultural tourism is defined as one of the priorities of Croatian tourism. Implementation of the Development Strategy for Cultural Tourism creates preconditions for systematic development of cultural tourism in Croatia. In this way, the tourist image of towns and small villages can be created, protecting simultaneously the cultural heritage. With the Development Strategy for Cultural Tourism, and especially with regional and local development stakeholders, preconditions of systematic development of cultural tourism in Croatia will be created. It should benefit both the tourist and the cultural sector. The overall destination image should be raised, which would retain existing guests, stimulate their activity and consumption during their stay, encourage extension of their stay in the destination and extend the season. Quality destination image would attract other visitors. It is also necessary to use cultural assets in a sustainable manner which would increase the revenue due to the increase of the number of visitors. During its more than four years implementation, the Development Strategy for Cultural Tourism has shown certain failures that will need to be carefully analyzed and solved. The Strategy lacks an interdisciplinary approach which has impacts on its implementation. One of the key problems is the articulation and organization of all organizations, bodies and agencies that should participate in the implementation of the Strategy. Although since 2005 the state budget for cultural tourism has increased, recognizable cultural tourism products have not been developed. Therefore, it is necessary to detect specific problems regarding this issue. On the other hand, there are a number of cultural and tourist initiatives, especially individual ones, whose implementation is largely dependent on their own knowledge and skills. For effective implementation of the Strategy, it is necessary to critically evaluate actions done so far, and the recently conducted research about attitudes and consumption of cultural visitors to the attractions and events in Croatia is an excellent basis for this, as well as the inter and intra sectoral cooperation. Namely, it is essential that all stakeholders of the Strategy actively cooperate as equal partners in all processes of its implementation. Only then the opportunities for cultural tourism in Croatia will truly be changed to better.

The Experience of Systemic Transformation in Contemporary Biographical Narratives of Older Poles

Author(s): Danuta Życzyńska-Ciołek / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2019

The aim of this article is to explore whether—from the subjective perspective of people born before the end of WWII—systemic transformation brought about significant changes in their individual lives, and if yes—what was the meaning of those changes for them. In particular, I examine how experiences related to the events that preceded systemic transformation in Poland or took place during its most intensive stage are reflected in contemporary biographical narratives of 49 persons aged 72 or more, for whom the period of professional activity, in whole or in major part, occurred in the times of the Polish People’s Republic. I perform the analysis in three steps. First, I investigate the place of systemic transformation in the narratives, and consider the reasons why it is relatively often absent or poorly reflected there. Second, I present thematic motifs prevailing in those interviews where references to the systemic change appear. In the third step, I investigate the meaning of experiences connected with transformation for the narrators, the accompanying emotions—some of them still persisting—and ways in which the narrators incorporated those experiences into their biographies. The underlying narratives come from people who were drawn for a nationwide quantitative panel survey many years ago, in 1987, and participated in it for the next 25-30 years.

Migration as a Source of Suffering in the Context of the Biographical Experience of the Process of Transformation in Poland. Case Study of Weronika’s Life History

Author(s): Joanna Wygnańska / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2019

The article focuses on the case study of the life history of Weronika, a person biographically experiencing the consequences of the transformation process in Poland. On the one hand, the text concentrates on showing the change in the status of the narrator’s family from a privileged position in the socialist period to the experience of unemployment and poverty after 1989. On the other hand, the text analyzes the necessity of the narrator’s mother’s emigration to Italy in the mid-1990s. Thus, the article focuses on the narrator’s experience in the context of being a migrant woman’s child. This experience is related to the time of socialization and education, which was difficult for the narrator, and the consequence of which is shown in the text in connection to the narrator’s persistence in trajectory. The text also presents the perspective of transnational motherhood within the framework of Polish women’s migrations after 1989. Also, an important perspective adapted in the article is the experience of migration by the narrator, who at the time of the interview has also been living in Italy for 10 years. Permanent emigration of the narrator is associated in her life history with high biographical costs. The article is, therefore, an attempt to present migration as a source of suffering in relation to the context of being a migrant’s child and being a migrant oneself. The analysis of Weronika’s case is also an attempt to show the relationship between the individual experience of the narrator and the mechanisms of collective influence. Thus, the text treats the analyzed life history as one of the biographical accounts reflecting the biographical and social processes assigned to a specific time frame. In this perspective, the text aims to reconstruct the complexity of these processes and to interpret the experienced social reality in an individual biography.

Winners and Losers of the Process of Transformation as an Etic Category versus Emic Biographical Perspective

Author(s): Kaja Kaźmierska / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2019

One of the common and schematic descriptions in the perspective of the 1989 breakthrough are two ways of dealing with it by people who are respectively called winners or losers of transformation. These stereotypical characteristics are not only the tool to draw the general image of effects of the transition, but are also based on the specific way of interpretation deeply rooted, for example, in neoliberal thinking. Yet, from the perspective of an individual—so-called Schütz’s man on the street—the categorization of winners and losers not only simplifies the description of social reality, but also it cannot be easily biographically justified because the etic categorization is not always relevant to the emic perspective. In other words, the life history of an individual, showing the main phases and events of biography, and life story—the way that one interprets his/her biographical experiences— may not correspond to each other. The analysis of these two aspects of biography (what is lived through and how it is interpreted) shows how people have dealt with the process of transformation. In the paper, it is presented on the basis of one case study.

Narrative Agency and Structural Chaos. A Biographical-Narrative Case Study

Author(s): Piotr Filipkowski / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2019

The article is an analysis of a single case—a biographical narrative of a Tri-City resident who enters adulthood at the beginning of political transformation in 1989, and whose life path turns out to be an unintentional, dynamic journey between various professions, social worlds and structural positions. This creates a complicated and ambiguous biographical pattern which does not fall into either the socio-economic promotion of the “winner” or into the degradation of the transformation “loser.” The reconstruction of this pattern reveals the hero’s great resourcefulness and entrepreneurship, but also the fragility of the structures stabilizing his life and the volatility of life orientation points. The binder of this biography turns out to be, above all, reflexivity and, what I suggest calling, the narrative agency of the narrator, who can transform his structurally dispersed and chaotic life experiences of the time of transformation into a very original story, making him a strong subject of his own fate. This, however, creates the inevitable tension between the experienced or lived life, life history and the narrated life, life story, prompting us to again pose the question about the commonly assumed, although differently defined, correspondence between the level of reality and the level of its linguistic (in this case—autobiographical) representation.

The Story of the Nearest Relative: Shifts in Footing in Dramaturgical Replayings

Author(s): Lisa Morriss,Greg Smith / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

This discussion assesses the utility of Goffman’s thinking about conversational interaction for illuminating features of a research interview between one of the two authors (LM) and a fellow social work professional. We use this case to explore aspects of Goffman’s contribution to the sociological understanding of spoken interaction. While many of his ideas offer rich sources of guidance for interactionist and qualitative researchers, the value of Goffman’s (1974) concept of “dramaturgical replaying” has been overlooked. We trace the leading themes of Goffman’s thinking about conversational interaction and show how they can provide an analysis of the story of the “Nearest Relative” that is attentive to its live, improvised enactment. Goffman’s approach to storytelling is shown to be distinct from but complementary to conversation analytic approaches to storytelling.

STRUKTURALNO-ANTROPOLOŠKA TEORIJA SRODSTVA KLODA LEVI-STROSA

Author(s): Gordana Gorunović / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 1/2009

100th birthday of renowned French anthropologist and founder of structuralism Claude Levi-Strauss is a particularly good occasion to remind ourselves once again of the enormous intellectual significance of his scientific work. Following numerous critical readings, deconstruction, and destruction of structuralism in anthropology, this paper advocates novel and literal reading of Levi-Strauss’ early works dealing with questions of kinship in the frame of anthropological theory and structural analysis of systems of meaning.