Glasnik Etnografskog Instituta SANU
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The Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnography SAS (I-VII)/ SASA (VIII/) is a scientific periodical of international significance which publishes papers in ethnology/anthropology. From its inception in 1952, the Bulletin publishes the results of scientific research projects of scientists and associates of the Institute and other affiliated institutions in the country and abroad. In addition, discussions and articles, supplements, field data, retrospectives, chronicles, reviews, translations, notes, bibliographies, obituaries, memories, critiques and similar are published as well. The Bulletin was founded as a means to publish the results of research of settlements and origins of populations, folk life, customs and folk proverbs. However, the concept of the Bulletin, like that of any other contemporary scientific journal, changed over time to accommodate the social, cultural and political processes and research trends in the social sciences and humanities.
The Bulletin (GEI) is referenced in the electronic bases: DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals), Ulrich's Periodicals Directory and SCIndex (Serbian Citation Index). All articles are digitally available in a form typographically true to the original (in .pdf format). The Bulletin is also available in the same form on the website of the Institute of Ethnography SASA.
The Bulletin (GEI SANU) can also be found and read at CEEOL (Central and Eastern European Online Library): http://www.ceeol.com
Pages
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- "Commonplaces of memory“ in personal memories
- Members of the Gorani community with whom I have spoken talked about the Gorani wedding ritual as a marker of the Gorani ethnic community. In other words, they did not present it only as an important event in their own lives, but also as an event which is meaningful for the whole community. I have assumed that if an event is of special significance then the memory of it must occupy a special place in individual memory. This encouraged me to analyze personal memories of Gorani weddings in this paper. In the paper I will show which elements contribute to the maintaining of certain contents in individual memory and how commonplaces of memory are made within individual memory. At the same time, I will attempt to answer the question of the influence of collective frameworks of remembering in the formation of these commonplaces. In this context I consider the question of the relationship between the individual and collective memory and rememberance. Furthermore, in the paper I will show that commonplaces of memory within personal memory are formed under the influence of collective memory, and that the selection of events which will be remembered more intensively that others, as well as the measure in which the retained memories will be near to the collective model depends on the individual’s personal (subjective) choice. It is evident that the Gorani wedding represents a social practice which is not comprised only of the influence of the collective on the individual memory and remembrance, but that the reverse is also plainly visible. Individual memory, because it is organized in accordance to a certain collective frame of reference enables that frame to last and reproduce. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177027: Multietnicitet, multikulturalnost, migracije - savremeni procesi]
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- "Da Vinci code"
- The second half of the 20th century, especially the last thirty or so years witnessed an increase in interest related to subjects dealing with the roots of Christianity, which came about as a consequence of the general identity crisis of the contemporary world. Dan Brown’s novel "Da Vinci Code" published in the USA in 2003, and in 2004 in Serbia, has achieved worldly success in sales has become very popular literature among other works that deal with central characters or norms based on Christian thought. In Serbia and Monte Negro, as well as in other Christian countries, "Da Vinci Code" is the best seller for 2005. This great popularity of the novel tells us that the readership worldwide Christina civilization, including in Serbia, has recognized certain questions relevant to their own respectable lives and identities. Among the Serbian readership, it is not so much the question of the basic norms of the general Christian civilization, but in effect, much more - the reality of living in transition. Dan Brown’s "Da Vinci Code" has thus became, a true trial-step-stone of identification, pointing out that the images of our everyday reality are not after all only those of the past and isolation, perhaps them being not even the dominant any more. At the same time, the novel shows how a text could be interpreted in many various ways becoming so a foundation for opposed identifications.
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- "Deaf wedding"
- The subject of interest of the present article is time in the traditional Balkan cultures, with special emphasis on Macedonian female folk healers i.e. the time when they perform their ritual practices. The ritual practices of treatment, whether it is about collective curing practices, when the entire rural community is threatened, mostly due to an epidemic, or it is an individual in question, usually is performed at night, or in the so-called "deaf time", or "no time”, “dead hours" - that is, the time around midnight or the twilight after the setting of the sun; at moonlight (under the influence of the lunar phases); before sunrise, etc., which can be related to the liminal periods during this period of a day and night. On the basis of symbolic and semantic analysis, the present article tries to make a link between the symbolic representations of the time with the day and the night, further to those of the Sun and the Moon, which are connected with the interpretation of the this-worldly and the otherworldly.
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- "Do not draw attention to yourself" - Is the integration of migrants important, and for whom is it important?
- In this paper, I discuss the question of the process of integration of the Gorani people who moved to Belgrade during or immediately after 1999, or during the war in Kosovo. I consider the process of integration of members of the Gorani community particularly important because it is a relatively small community not officially recognized as a minority in Serbia. Members of the Gorani community were turned into a category of internally displaced persons because they came from a territory that constituted a part of the same state (FR Yugoslavia). Integration is often referred to as a complex and multi-dimensional postmigration process. In this paper, I proceed from the fact that the integration process does not represent a sui generis phenomenon. In that sense, I support the critical attitude towards understanding this process. This has partly contributed to the fact that in the research I focused on the perception of the integration process resulting from the experience of the migrants themselves. Through analysis of narrative discourse, I present the specificities of the process of integration of members of the Gorani community in Belgrade. At the same time, I point out to the shortcomings of the integration policy implemented by the state. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 177027: Multietnicitet, multikulturalnost, migracije - savremeni procesi]
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- "Hooligan" - "Enemy of the people" or "Patriotic hero". The media construction of football fans in Serbia
- This paper aims to present the ways in which the image of football fans as hooligans is constructed in contemporary Serbian media; as an image of actors whose actions produce damaging effect for the society. I focus on the existence of terminological misunderstanding surrounding the definition of a football fan occurring between the local media and the official policymakers. From one side, the omni-present violence, both verbal and actual one, is very often overlooked in media reporting. From the other side, the individuals, often with a criminal record, are titled as fan-leaders and are being sensationalized and placed as the signifiers of the entire group. The latter creates an image of criminal activity as an act of fanbased, hooligan action. When constructed in this way the made discourse is translated from public perception to the realms of policy making; marking the violent acts at sporting events as a security issue the state institutions are not capable to handle.
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- "Oganj - association of cremation in Belgrade"
- And although the development and spreading of the idea of cremation, as well as mentioned laws, could be seen as the beginning of secularization of death death has remained, for a long time, closely associated with this or that religious beliefs and practice. Still, the development of the idea of cremation during the 20th century testifies on changes related to understanding of death among the contemporary, especially urban population in Serbia. This is particularly true for Belgrade and Novi Sad, although some other areas seem to be accepting new ideas and practices. The paper illustrates the development of the idea, its latent and real content, symbols used during its promotion. The accent is put on an ideological polarization that came about as a result of the development of cremation.
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- "Serbian language in emigration"
- This paper analyses an application of Serbian language idiom within communication in private and public spheres, among members of the Serbian ethnic community in Ljubljana. Based on the idiom’s dissemination and the intensity of its usage, the paper draws conclusions about communicational function of language as well as about perseverance of native tongue as a segment of ethnic identity. Research results imply that the immigrants in question are asymmetrically bilingual, meaning that Serbian idiom is used in all spheres of communication. On the other hand, Slovenian language represents a language used in public communication while Serbian idiom is used within private spheres of communication. Therefore, a conclusion could be drawn that the level of perseverance of native tongue depends of dissemination and intensity of its usage within private sphere of communication. However, usage of Serbian idiom is not in direct correlation with a need to preserve one’s mother tongue and ethnic identity, but it is correlated with its communicative function. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177027: "Multi-ethnicity, multiculturalism, migration – Contemporary processes]
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- "The ideal ethnographer"
- This article is conceived within the scientific project "Anthropology in the 20th Century: Theoretical and Methodological Achievements". Focusing on the the disciplinary debates and critique around Millennium, this first article in a series offers a preliminary redefinition of some of the basic anthropological concepts: ethnography, ethnographer and informant, as used in pre-postmodern theory of ethnography. Critics interpreted postmodern anthropology as a strong form of relativism that is both epistemologically self-refuting and socially irresponsible. Much credit for the resulting turmoil goes to "postmodernists" themselves, as they failed to articulate precisely in what way their project rejects the traditional concept of regulative methodology, and what their reinterpretation of relativist conceptions of truth, authority, reflexivity, objectivity, interpretation and representation is. The critics dwelled heavily on the notion of incompleteness, vagueness and methodological irrelevance of postmodern criticism in anthropology, largely due to the fact that it never put forward clear definitions of the basic concepts it aims to pursue or to relinquish. As opposed to this received view, the article argues that at least one of the basic concepts used by postmodernists can be methodologically formalized: it is that of "traditional" or the "realist ethnographer". By construing hypothetical "ideal ethnographer", the article formalizes background theory of ethnography against which the postmodern project raised.
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- "Those were difficult years..."
- Considering that the oral accounts of the people who experienced the events at a difficult period in time is the most important of all the other research material, I am attempting, with this article, to present a few phases of the captivity of the Vlachophones in Požarevac in 1916. The main objective is to depict the climate of the era throughout the time frame from 1916 -- the commencement of their captivity outside Greece - and their return in 1918 through the personal and collective experiences of ordinary people. It is an effort to highlight the value of the oral culture, incorporating the voice of the unseen protagonists into the historical data. It describes the way they reached this specific area, the two years they spent there, and the four phases of their return.
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- 'Cloak' and 'Wholeness'– iconicity of the lexemes 'telo' and 'put'
- Analysis of the lexemes telo and put arrives to the conclusion that the original iconicity of the lexeme telo “body” (<*tel- “a flat surface, a plank”) represents the formation of the amorphous, unformed substance under a pressure, compressing, or division (a cutting off or separation) and refers to the earth or tree as a form of matter. Put/plot (<ie. *pelH- “to cover, skin”) implies the subjective sensations of the body gathered through its own sensitive interface, in which arises the sensitive desire which along with another body initiates a new, alive and sensitive body. The metaphors of the body function like the metaphors of the interrelation between parts and the whole – the human body on a symbolic plane represents a part of the social and cosmic organism so that the metamorphosis of the bodily into the related and social as well as of the bodily, related, and social into the cosmic level is apparent in many ways, from the notion of people as an enlarged family, through the concept of the religious community which establishes itself through eating of the body and drinking of the divine blood, and the mythic accounts of the creation of the cosmos by way of the dismemberment of the divine body, or by way of elemental catastrophes caused by the waywardness of single individuals.
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- 'Our' diaspora in Argentina
- There are about 30 000 people of Serbian and Montenegrin origin living in Republic of Argentina today. They mostly originate from the territories of today’s Montenegro and Croatia (Dalmatia), and, to a lesser extent, from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Emigration in Argentina, despite the same origin as the one in North America, has developed distinguishing social and cultural character. The presented historical synoptic and brief review of the present state point out that this unexplored immigrant population in South America represents a complex phenomenon, a community which identity has embedded various historical, political, cultural, religious and ideological layers. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177028: Strategije identiteta: savremena kultura i religioznost i br. 47016: Interdisciplinarno istraživanje kulturnog i jezičkog nasleđa Srbije. Izrada multimedijalnog internet portala "Pojmovnik srpske kulture"]
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- (De)construction of a female body in Euripides' Hippolytus
- Ancient Greek theatre and theatre in general, offering a special experience of reality, uses body as its medium to a great extent. At the same time, body is the sovereign of the stage, it benefits from its own possibilities and the possibilities of the text, scene, tendance of the audience. When it comes to tragedy, paradoxically enough, it possesses the greatest power and attracts the highest attention when it reaches the limits of its strength, when it walks on the edge, when it experiences labor, pain, suffering, and even death. Female body has been, and not only in ancient times, perceived as more fragile, open, susceptible to influences, more prone and inclined to experiences such as pleasure and pain. This perception is one of dimensions of a complex polarity in which woman takes place of the other. The conflict between male and female character is in the focus of dramatic action very often: in the opus of Euripides in a way which is maybe the closest to the contemporary audience and readers. This paper has taken as its case study Euripides’ drama Hippolitus, which characterizes a woman as a δύστροπος áρμονία. This „reversed, disonant harmony“ is placed within a female body. Biological limitations force a female being to adapt, mutate, to be at odds with her very self - that is how her inner conflict and ambiguity appear. In reading the chosen tragedy, philological and anthropological will encounter together with the perspectives of gender and culture studies. The here offered reading of Hippolitus is given with the awareness of the struggle for body (or against it) in the XXI century. Contemporary anthropology, other social sciences and humanities prominently aim their attention towards social and cultural dimensions of the body’s existence. Medicine and sport vest in the body a media dimension, being concern with its limitations. On the other hand, the today body has increasingly been an object of interpretations, decoding, studying, virtualization, reading and re-reading, and decreasingly an object (and even subject) of reception and experience by the means of sences. On the trail of “somatosophic” thought that the body is an agent for accomplishing interchange, communication, dialog, that eros beholds a dialogical nature as its most distinctive feature, and that there is a desire for dialog in the essence of an erotic desire, it could be said that Euripides’ Phaedra longed for interchange and communication, for understanding and empathy - for eros as dialog. This cry and this desire were placed within a female body which witnessed, with its condition, decadent process and finally dissolution, a non-fulfillment of the essential need. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177028: Strategije identiteta: savremena kultura i religioznost]