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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- Limited creativity
- The purpose of this paper is to point out the change in women's position in architecture in the period from the early 20th century to date through a prism of their architectural and professional achievements as a form of exercising their rights and achieving the equality with their male colleagues. The purpose of this paper is to also shed light on the reasons of tacit acceptance of the system of discriminatory character that allowed the women architects to be only the „anonymous associates“ (so that they could be able to deal with the job of architect), „assistants in the profession“ (urban planners or critics and publicists where they gained the most popularity and success) or to become „female reformers“ particularly in the domain of legal reforms, planning and development, which they essentially became only after the Second World War when the modernisation and emancipation processes took place and when the Law on Invalidity of the Previous Discriminatory Regulations was passed by which the women acquired suffrage. The paper particularly addresses the status of women architects today who are, besides all professional temptations, also in a conflicting situation. They are a pillar of family and social life, on the one hand, while they are constantly facing the attempts to be pushed from the mainstream of professional life and the attempts to deny their importance, role and influence in society, on the other hand.
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- Linguistic aspects in asymmetrical institutional interaction
- In institutional communications, the roles of participants were determined by institutional frame, and distribution of interactional power was asymmetrical. This work investigates by a case study if interaction between the call center operators and clients can have asymmetrical features. Turn taking organization, overall structural organization of the interaction, sequence organization, turn design, lexical choice, epistemological and other forms of asymmetry were considered. Interruption, enforcing explicitness, controlling topic and formulation were marked in analyzed interactions for instrumental achieving of domination.
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- Literary work of Bora Stankovic and Vranje
- Vranje is a town located in the southern Serbia. Until 1878 the town was ruled by the Ottoman Turks. The period after 1878, at the crossroad of the centuries, was described in the works of a literary writer, Bora Stankovic (1876, Vranje- 1927, Belgrade). His opus describes many old forms of the town life that were replaced with the new forms; in effect, as a writer, Stankovic provided an artistic transposition of reality and not the facts. Vranje is a town with rich layers of reality, but the image of the town, both from the insiders but also the outsiders perspectives, is constantly being associated with only one period of the town's past- the one marked by Orientalism, its symbols and motives originated in the works of Strankovic, and whose meanings continue to be replicated even today. This paper discusses various processes of interaction of inter- and intra- self-determination of the Vranje's identity, as well ad the Orientalistic discourse which characterize the whole process. Vranje's identity construction is made of contradictory elements (both on the inner and outer levels), mutually connected and determined.
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- Living acts of dead bodies
- It is widely known and has been more or less elaborated in scientific literature that return to religion in the area of former SFRY was conducted hand-in-hand with the development of the new national states and establishment of new/old ethnic borders and identities. This is why it is logical that this phenomenon is frequently qualified as the religion of the nation and nationalism. However, this qualification frequently lacks insight into the fact that return to religion also meant increased interest in religious teachings and dogmas, as well as greater attendance at Church rituals. Even though it is certain that, among the large percentage of those who declared themselves as Orthodox Serbs during the last Census, a very small number of them are actually active believers; thus, the evident restoration of the internal, liturgical life of the Church suggests certain issues and advises prudence in labeling modern forms of religiousness and the role of the Church in their development. Historical conditions which led to the phenomenon of religion of the nation in Serbia in 19 century justify the hypothesis that religion of the nation was not, and still is not, something to have sprouted out under the auspices of the Church, but that it has occurred as a state/secular ideological project, whose links to religion are of purely non-religious nature. In order to corroborate this statement, I will try to determine and show what was in the basis of this secular religion of 19 century, and answer the question relating to the manner in which its content was shaped. I will do this based on an analysis of political use of dead bodies, i.e. relocation of mortal remains of Vuk Karadžić from Vienna to Belgrade, and restoration of the grave of Dositej Obradović, which was performed on the same occasion.
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- Local community and ethical citizenship
- This article explores the consequences of redefining citizenship as an ethical category during social protection reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Ethical citizenship refers to a particular way of defining the relationship between the state and a person; a special politics of behavior that seeks to redefine citizens as moral subjects of responsible communities. The article ethnographically demonstrates that a local community, imagined as a collective of ethical actors, was expected to take over a major portion of financing and organizing social protection. Translating neoliberal policies to BiH, under supervision of the international community, created an ambiguous environment without a «clear system or model» in which personal relationships gained a special relevance. The article argues that favors and informal practices, such as veze and stela, were not strategies people used to overcome problems of postsocialist markets and democracies. Veze and stela have become particularly important for the organization social protection because neoliberal reforms left undefined roles, responsibilities, and procedures of protection. The very need to personalize social protection was a constitutive element of contemporary, global, neoliberal ideas about the relationship between the state and society, while veza and stela enabled people to actively negotiate roles, responsibilities, and procedures of social protection within their local communities.
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- Logo and semiosis
- A logo is most commonly observed as an emblem with intent to be widely recognized as a permanent symbol, or an icon, additionally permitting correlative meanings within a designative context. In the particular example of the Glossary of Serbian culture logo the opportunities of elements of design (coded iconic message, non-coded iconic message and linguistic message) have been analyzed with intention to ascertain communication with future users of the Index conveying the desired message not only about specificities of Serbian culture but also its complexity and unifying nature with the global culture. A logo is observed as a multi-parametric code transcending form a concept of artistic design to a “rhetoric figure” in context of presentation and promotion of Serbian culture. While the art of designing, as a discipline, has the objective of artistic modulation, as well as an aesthetic effect, it also, in this case, represents the form of the governmental strategy in communication with others and formation of the cultural identity of its citizens.
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- Luckmann’s theory of personal identity
- The paper deals with the presentation of Tomas Luckman's theory of personal identity. After defining the concept of personal identity and description of Luckmann's approach as an interdisciplinary and dialectic, attention is shifted to the elaboration of the influence of different levels of reality on the construction, maintainance and transformation of personal identity. The explanation starts from the given biological base and evolution of the human organism, and continues at the level of individual consciousness and intersubjective level of face-to-face relationships, where the importance of different temporal structures is especially emphasized. Finally, structural determinants of personal identity are being put under consideration. Within this last level, following Luckman, the conditions for the formation of personal identity are compared in “archaic” and modern societies, conceived as ideal types. Luckman's deliberations on personal identity in modernity are compared with Giddens' theory of personal, that is, self-identity in modernity. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 179074: Tradicija, modernizacija i nacionalni identitet u Srbiji i na Balkanu u procesu evropskih integracija]
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- Maintaining ethnic identity
- Celebration of Family patron's day is very widespread among Serbs in general. The traditional model of celebration suffered many changes, which in practice resulted in many variations in terms of its form. Regardless of its relatively simple form of celebration, Family patron's day still represents a very complex, amalgamating and multifunctional custom. In addition to religious aspects (both pagan and Christian), the celebration itself contains important social and symbolic ethnic identity issues. The latter one is the most emphasized among the Serbs living in Hungary. This paper briefly describes informants' views with respect to the holiday as a symbol of ethnicity, and the holiday's present day forms of celebration.
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- Managing HIV/HCV - related risk at private places among Belgrade injecting drug users
- Some of the results acquired by qualitative research conducted among Belgrade injecting drug users are presented: primary aim of the research was to establish relation between HIV/HCV prevalence and socio-cultural aspects of HIV/HCV vulnerability in population issued. Understanding the way of how HIV/HCV-related risk is managed among these people in their day-to-day injecting routines is crucial tool in operating social epidemiological prevention programs. Vital part of this understanding concerns the physical risk environments, i.e., places where injection occurs. The distinctive feature of Belgrade study among the similar ones is that this happens frequently at various private places, which is depicted and discussed.
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- Marble tabula in Belgrade
- There is an ancient Balkans tradition of building commemoration plates dedicated to perished ones. This actually represents twofold belief, one being that a deceased should rest on his/hers own soil and an attempt to mark a place of someone's death. All were performed with an aim to prolong memory and reminiscence of the deceased. In 19th century Serbia and especially so at the beginning of the 20th century it became popular to build such commemoration plates dedicated to soldiers who have died abroad. In the second half of the 20th century, there are sporadic commemoration plates near roads, not as a designation for an unknown grave but to mark down a place where someone has died, most often in a car accident. At the crossroads of the century, however, this custom was very frequent. Belgrade has also seen many of these commemoration plates. The studying of ways and shapes of this custom is the main subject of this paper. The author tries to follow all changes ranging from those induced by the state to those very rare private commemoration plates placed on certain buildings, including those left to decay, or those maintained regularly, on street lights, near cressets at grave yards, flowers, granite plates etc. The paper also discusses possible causes, frequencies and changes related to this custom.
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- Marriage migrants in Bulgaria - aspects of social adaptation
- This article is based on first-hand ethnographic data and focuses on two cases of bicultural, bilingual and cross-national couples of Bulgarian women and their migrant husbands (an Egyptian and a Filipino). More specifically, it deals with different aspects of social and emotional adaptation of the male marriage migrants to the receiving country - Bulgaria. The main goal of the article is to present different specificities of their everyday life, socialisation and professional development abroad while still being close to their roots. Since marriage with a local is a crucial factor for this multi-layered process, the role of their Bulgarian wives is also considered. The text contains two thematic sections - the first one focuses on the social adaptation of the immigrants in the context of Bulgarian language acquisition. The process each of the foreigners have been going through is presented by their manners of communication within their own bilingual marriages, the professional environment and the ‘new’ social circle. The second section deals with the place of the immigrants’ home country within their lives in migration and their nuclear mixed families. Their habits and the activities they engage in ‘there’, are also used as a tool for describing a part of their social and emotional adaptation ‘here’.
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- Masks and metamorphosis of female creativity - Doll by Milena Pavlović Barili
- The paper analyzes the painting Doll by Milena Pavlović Barili in the context of anthropology, fine arts and feminist studies. Phantasmic figures in the painting are discussed as symbols of transformation, gender and sexual identity tittuping, and their scenic “masking” as a platform for finding comprehensive creative personality, ironizing biological “specialization of females”. The name Doll suggests pondering about gender roles, because a doll is a must toy for girls, thus preparing them for motherhood and housework; in addition, it also carries a status of (beautiful) an object manipulated in men's world. Attaching a male head onto the ”Doll’s” body can be seen as a form of revolt and struggle to overcome inferior position. On one hand, the male head, with its size and audacity pushes into the background body /object doll-girl, while on the other hand, the head as a symbol of "men’s intelligence" provides subjectivity to the "doll" and the desired superiority in the world of male dominance. The Doll, with the characteristics of male power, simultaneously conceals and highlights the vulnerability and social marginalization of femininity. At the same time, in the desire for self-realization, the doll can fall into the trap of imitating men-- the struggle to gain power, but also could mean a recognition of one’s own/ female inadequacy and inferior position. However, the male’s naked body, deprived of the face and hands - and hence subjectivity and activity -is turned into a (beautiful) object and pushed into the background, emphasizing the ambiguity of the relationship of "male" and "female" position and hence opening up the possibility of various interpretations of the painting within the theory of gender, sexuality and creativity. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 47016: Interdisciplinarno istraživanje kulturnog i jezičkog nasleđa Srbije. Izrada multimedijalnog internet-portala Pojmovnik srpske kulture]