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


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At the end and at the beginning - the carnival
At the end and at the beginning - the carnival
The processes of transition within the socio-cultural surroundings of contemporary Serbia have inevitably found their way into the activities of the Ethnographic museum in Belgrade. As a significant participant and representative of cultural policy, immersed in the concept of conservation of intangible cultural heritage, the museum itself is at a turning point that should signify the overcoming of the dichotomies between the proclaimed and desired objectives and the achieved results. The frameworks that display standard, petrified representations of cultures, and, on the other hand, the acceptance of concepts of the new museology, have contributed to an improvement in the ingrained concepts, models and systems of museological thought and practice, which in turn signifies changes in the everyday life of museums. Based on this, as well as an analysis of key communication points and meanings within the exhibition project At the End and at the Beginning - the Carnival, which the museum realized as part of Museum Night - an important (in Serbia) museological manifestation, this paper deals with the possibilities and possible avenues as well as dead ends which contributed to the processes of theoretical and practical modernization of museology and Serbian museological practice.
Attitudes of Serbian "returnees" about identity Serbs and Croats
Attitudes of Serbian "returnees" about identity Serbs and Croats
Attitudes of Serbian "returnees" of Livanjsko polje about ethnic identity of Us, Serbs, and Them, Croats, are demonstrated in this article. Croats that have political control and social-economic power, appear as "Significant Others", but also Strangers, representatives of different peaceful and humanitarian organizations. Religious belief and language appear as basic symbol of difference, Marker, between Serbs and Croats, although existing attitudes in a bigger measure rely on religious belief. Basic attitudes about identity Us and Them are led out from interrelations of these Markers and people. There are two groups of attitudes about Us-identity. The 119 first group is mostly the answer at negative external determination, by which the Serbs are determinate as nationalists and aggressors. They are steered on negation of such definition, so the Serbs are generally seen as peaceful, tolerant, nationalists - internationalists; shortly, as bearers of positive collective, but also individual relation to Others. The second group of attitudes mainly relates negative aspects of Serbian identity. There are Serbian dissension, individual interests, generally - attitudes which speak about collective, but also individual negative relation of Serbs to members of their own group. Both groups of attitudes could be explaining by interrelation of orthodox religion and people. This determination of Us, as it is limited by external definition, in that way qualifies determination of Them. So, the Croats, considering the interrelation of Catholicism and people, are seen as nationalists, with clear religion - national aim and steered to its realization - as aggressors. Though, here are both negative and positive attitudes about Croat identity. If positive or negative aspects of that identity would obtain, before all depends of the fact in which measure the Croats are steered by their church, in fact, which politics, in the certain time, the catholic church prosecutes relate to orthodox church. Therefore the Croat appears as bearers of individual-positive relation to Others (Serbs), when the church do not steer them in other way. So, until the catholic, religious politics is neutral, harmonious ethnic relations are possible, owing this positive aspect of Croat identity at individual plan and aspects of Serbian identity at both, collective and individual, plan (regardless of effect of church). On concrete terrain of Livanjsko polje, Serbs see there selves as the most representative bearers of positive aspects of Serbian identity, and neighbor’s Croats (from Livno) as people with enough distanced positive aspect of Croat identity. So, ethnic identity could be the bridge in the peaceful communication of two ethnic groups which were, lately, just because of ethnic identity, conflicted (with developed militant communication).
Australian kinship
Australian kinship
There is a strange custom in Australia, among the Aborigines. A man and his wife give their five-year-old daughter to a young boy to be the little boy’s future mother-in-law. From that moment on, throughout their lives, the boy will call the girl "mother-in-law", will show her extreme respect, will never be familiar with her, and will send her gifts of meat when he’s successful in hunting. Thirty or forty years later, when they have grown up, the boy’s "mother-in-law" will begin sending him her daughters as wives as they reach fifteen years of age or so. In my talk today I shall use Darwinian selection theory to offer an explanation of this strange custom, which may, until recently, have been extremely widespread, perhaps universal (e.g., Goodale 19XX, Shapiro 19XX, Radcliffe-Brown 1953) in the 500 or so tribes that covered Australia.
Autoethnography
Autoethnography
The goal of this contribution is to present autoethnography as a research method which provides an ethnographer with the possibility of combining an essential mix of themes in order to carefully describe the researcher’s personal experience. Despite being at the margins of the regular qualitative method of inquiry, autoethnography has a long history in ethnographic research. One of the main advantages of using such a method of inquiry as an important research tool is the high potential of autoethnography to uncover the process of ethnographer’s mind in the middle of reflexive analytical process. The author focuses on the potential of the use of autoethnography in engaged and applied research, e.g. in case of social justice related topics. The contribution draws from the author’s personal experience from the field of using autoethnography as both the method and a genre when describing the process of gender transition from the non-binary perspective. The author argues that the often “rejected” subjectivity and emotionality of ethnographic narratives have a great potential to uncover, with the proper use of the ethnographer´s reflexivity, the important aspects of the analytical process of the construction of anthropological knowledge.
Back to Serbia
Back to Serbia
This research focuses on spontaneous remigrations from the United States to Serbia, since the beginning of the 21st century to the present. One of the problems in studying remigrants is a large territorial dispersion of the repatriates. Analysis of the narratives - life stories of the remigrants allows us to perceive the key factors that influenced leaving for the United States and then the causes and motivation for returning to Serbia. In addition, the paper discusses issues related to the reintegration of migrants, the ability to apply acquired knowledge and cultural problems faced by remigrants. Remigrants face a number of problems, and major difficulty is the lack of government institutions to assist their reintegration. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177027: Multietnicitet, multukulturalizam, migracije - savremeni procesi]
Basilisk (cockatrice) and its symbolism in the general and south Slavic context
Basilisk (cockatrice) and its symbolism in the general and south Slavic context
The paper deals with the genesis of the image and the symbolism of one of the most striking figures in the imagined medieval bestiary - basilisk, and its related mythical animals - cockatrice, serpent's king, abraxas, both in the general and South Slavic context. An analysis of written sources, from antiquity to medieval and early modern epoch, the folk tradition, as well as artistic representations, show that basilisk and its related forms, emerged through joining the elements of the snake / dragon and the cock / bird. Although essentially ambivalent, they had essentially positive symbolism by representing the driving force and activity, the overcoming of opposites, the establishment of integrity, and the complexity of human nature and cosmic synthesis. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 47016: Interdisciplinarno istraživanje kulturnog i jezičkog nasleđa Srbije. Izrada multimedijalnog portala Pojmovnik srpske kulture and Grant no. 177029: Srednjovekovne srpske zemlje (13-15. vek): politički, privredni, društveni i pravni procesi]
Belgrade breakdance girl
Belgrade breakdance girl
This paper is based on the life story of one of Belgrade break dance dancers who started dancing and competing in early youth, but later she ceased to dance. I was interested in motives which influenced that young person to begin to deal with the brake dance, what she expressed by that, what the reaction was of social environment to the dance and what factors influenced her to stop dealing with this dance.
Benefaction and benevolence
Benefaction and benevolence
The study examines diachronically the phenomenon of benefaction and benevolence in Greece, and endeavors to interpret this through prevailing theories on gift and specifically of the competitive and the pure gift, as these have been formulated by distinguished sociologists, anthropologists and philosophers. It is argued that this offering is intended to strengthen the concept of the community, in the wider sense, either as an ethnic-national group or as a group with man as reference point.
Between art of movement and science of body
Between art of movement and science of body
The paper charts the development of dance anthropology from the beginner’s fascination with body techniques through the first scientific explanations of dance. The paper highlights the fact that the development of this branch of anthropology has been burdened with epistemological uncertainties and dilemmas. Hence, we could hardly talk about a consistent sub-discipline when looking at the approaches to dance in anthropology, but we always talk about mushrooming and interconnected traditions. Finaly, the paper will introduce two current and conflicting approaches to dance, textual and kinaesthetic, which open up old questions and dilemmas but which offer fresh perspectives as well.
Between carelessness and ignorance. Women, sexuality and reproductive health in socialist Yugoslavia
Between carelessness and ignorance. Women, sexuality and reproductive health in socialist Yugoslavia
The paper discusses the changing position of women in the socialist society and its partial, but not complete emancipation. Special attention has been given to gender relations in the conditions of socialist modernization, weakening of social restrains and patriarchal believes, the awakening of sexuality and the consequences that followed these major social changes. The sources from the Archives of Yugoslavia, as well as relevant periodicals and literature, were used. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 177 016: Srpsko društvo u jugoslovenskoj državi u 20. veku: između demokratije i diktature]
Between hope and fear
Between hope and fear
On the basis of structuralist interpretations of religious narratives, the text offers an analysis of the messages contained in the Apocalypse, determined by the preteristic approach and the value of those messages for the original context in which the book is written. By analyzing the text pronounced by the main characters of the narrative in structurally distant episodes, a paradigmatic connection is established that reveals the relevant meaning of Revelation. First, paper analysis Jesus' letters addressed to young Christian communities in Roman Asia, from the beginning of the text. Then, it is analyzed the Third Angel's speech from the middle of the book. Finally, the message of the very God at the end of the text is seen. Through the analysis of formulatory statements and metaphors, the Apocalypse is recognized as a epistle addressed to a young religious movement that is in the middle of the process of establishing its identity, but also undoubtedly in a difficult and turbulent period full of challenges for the young Church. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 177026: Kulturno nasleđe i identitet]
Between pride and shame. Media narratives on "Belgrade Pride Parade" in contemporary Serbia
Between pride and shame. Media narratives on "Belgrade Pride Parade" in contemporary Serbia
This paper discusses the position of the key social and political actors in contemporary Serbia, referring to the broadly accepted concept defined as “European values”. The article focuses on the so-called “Belgrade Pride Parade”, a highly contested event in the Serbian public, which is at the same time considered as the essential part of the EU accession process. Through the analysis of the media discourses related to the “Pride” events in 2010 and 2014, the paper shows the complex relation between the officially proclaimed politics of “European integration” and still very strong nationalist discourses, inherited from the 1990s. The aim of the article is to analyse the present hegemonic struggles between the political forces defending “traditional”, conservative values and the political agents that promote “dangerous”, liberal “European” ideas, such as protecting the rights of sexual minorities. The comparative analysis of the media representation of two events in 2010 and 2014 shows the changes in the public narrative. I argue that the violent clashes that occurred in 2010 Belgrade Pride Parade between the police and the members of right wing organisations were mostly the result of the lack of the political will among the Serbian elites, followed by ambivalent media representations, promoting at the same time the necessity of accepting “European values” and justification of violence. On the other hand, the absence of violent events in 2014 shows the will of the state apparatus to secure the “Pride”. However, the media reports on the event, as well as the public statements made by Serbian officials, still remain ambivalent towards the very nature of the “Pride”, justifying it only by the pressure made by the EU and the protection of constitutional rights. Moreover, the presence of new narratives in the media, discussing the high price of organizing such event, shows the shift in the public discourse from common nationalist arguments to the new, neoliberal rhetoric. This change doesn’t indicate the radical shift of the social climate in Serbia from conservative to liberal, but, more likely, establishes Serbia as just one of the many states on the European periphery, operating within wider framework of neoliberal agendas. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177026: Kulturno nasleđe i identitet]

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