Send message to Author

Paper long abstract

In the field of religion, Turner's concept of liminality has been used extensively to understand the transition phase in the rite of passage, and the experience of tourism (McCannell, 1976; Urry, 1995). These two realms of anthropology seem different in many ways, but in our societies driven by liberal and capitalistic economies, both cultural phenomena gain a quality of playfulness. Indeed, today, through its desire for self-fulfilment and freedom of choice, the individual can use and play with cultural symbols to serve his needs and goals in an intentional manner, and also to seek pleasure and instant gratification.

And interestingly, the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott gives us the methodological tools to understand what happens at a psychological and social level during any process of transition. Winnicott locates the cultural experience in play, which he defines as Transitional phenomena, a "potential space [the intermediate area of experience] between the individual and the environment". So, the transitional phenomenon must be a good-enough environment in which, as the child in play, the adult in cultural experience comes across conditions that cannot be challenged and enable him, through a transitional object or a symbol, to express, release his creative impulse which aims at the construction of the self and the acceptance of reality.

A journey towards experiencing has begun from early stage in life to man's cultural life. Thus I will try to convince my audience of the use of such a methodological framework in the fields of religion, tourism, and tradition. But I also want to show that this tool is suitable to understand any other cultural experiences. And I will try to challenge my audience in that sense.

Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

The intensity of any societal interaction can be analysed by means of the discourse and event data analysis. The relevance of these methods for anthropology will be illustrated against the background of anthropological approaches to the Palestine-Israeli conflict.

Paper long abstract

Societies develop through integration and conflict: local, national and international communities, social/political institutions and networks as well as separate individuals are constantly balancing between a certain degree of cooperation and conflict being involved in the processes of social communication and interaction. The balance between cooperative - conflict tendencies is the main precondition for harmonious social development in which conflict acts as a healthy competition among actors. This paper represents a research into the methods for analyzing and monitoring international interaction toward crises/conflict prevention and peace-building, that though originated outside anthropology can be usefully employed within this discipline.

The increasing level of interaction supports the emergence and growth of social networks, accelerates the process of social dynamics and finally leads to the rise of integration. The decrease of intensity of interaction delays the process of integration that gradually overweighs the conflict tendencies above the peace ones. The destruction of cooperative links and institutional/legal frameworks of interaction is the main cause of dispute's transition from the civil discourse to the conflict one (which varies from the verbal aggression in the latent conflict phase to the escalation of violence in its active phase). The balance in the integration-disintegration continuum predefined by the intensity of interaction is the main focus of the paper.

The intensity of interaction can be analysed by means of the Discourse and Event Data Analysis. The Discourse Analysis is aimed at analysing the context and the content field of the interaction. The Automated Event Data analysis estimates the interaction quantitatively and together with Statistical Analysis evaluates the correlation between variables of conflict-cooperative behaviour. The combination of these methods allows estimating and predicting the dynamics of a dispute toward the peaceful settlement or conflict escalation scenario and in the latter case, to generate the tools of early warning and third party intervention. These methods can promote making anthropological understandings relevant to processes of conflict prevention/resolution and policy-making. The relevance of the methods for anthropology will be illustrated upon the background of anthropological approaches to the Palestine - Israeli conflict.

Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

In the aftermath of the March 11th attacks in Madrid train stations, a group of anthropologists from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) started a project that documents and analyses the public performances of grief conducted after the attacks. This poster will graphically show this.

Paper long abstract

In the aftermath of March 11th attacks in Madrid train stations, a group of anthropologists from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) started a project that documents and analyses the public performances of grief conducted after the attacks. This poster will graphically show the objectives, work programme and methodology of this research project. In addition to the testimonies, photographs of the shrines and other materials produced by the research team, CSIC and Madrid's regional train system (RENFE) signed an agreement in 2005 allowing for the donation to the Mourning Archive of materials that citizens have left in the train stations. Our project has a twofold goal: First, the organization of materials that document acts of mourning where information is catalogued in a fashion similar --and in collaboration with-- to that of the Sept. 11th projects at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The second objective is the analysis of collective responses to the violence, utilizing as sources the most immediate expressions of mourning in the aftermath of the attacks and in-depth interviews with diverse groups involved in the event.

Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

The poster presents a recently developed pilgrimage site in Poland, Licheń, resembling a religious amusement park where the borderline between the sacred and the profane is blurred. Our poster invites discussion as to whether Licheń is the result of local circumstances or an example of globalisation.

Paper long abstract

Co-authors: Kinga Sekerdej and Agnieszka Pasieka

The poster presents a recently developed, and a very popular, pilgrimage site in Poland, Licheń. It is based on the research of a group of Jagiellonian University students. We argue that the striking feature of this pilgrimage enterprise is the lack of visible borderlines between the sacred and the profane. Although Licheń has been a pilgrimage place for decades, its importance grew during the 1990s when the parish priest decided on building a huge basilica, meant to be 'the votive of the Polish nation for the year 2000'. Nowadays, the basilica is by far the biggest building in the area; it is in fact the biggest church in Poland.

The pilgrimage centre of Lichen comprises not only of the basilica, but it forms a huge religious complex composed of: shops, restaurants, hotels, information points, a museum, a gallery, parks, to name some. Their presence reshapes the pilgrimage site so that it resembles a religious amusement park, where one moves with the map and visits the "religious highlights". Therefore we argue that the character of the complex blurs the border between the sacred and the profane. It is visible, amongst other, in: (1) religious marketing and tourism; (2) religious syncretism and the intermingling of sacred and profane objects in the basilica surroundings and in the basilica itself; (3) religious nationalist symbolism; (4) the use of modern technology and global influences. Our poster is also an invitation to discuss whether Licheń is only an exception and the result of specific local circumstances or, far from it, an example of how religiosity is manifested in our times.

Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

Many analyses focus too strongly on ethnicity and religion as a cause of conflict in BiH. In this presentation, I suggest concentrating on the dividing lines within social categories in society. Network theory is useful for the analysis of conflicts and provides input for peace-building strategies.

Paper long abstract

During my 14 months working experience in the Bosnian town of Sarajevo one question often crossed my mind: how could a town that was - because of its history of relatively peaceful inter-ethnic and inter-religious co-habitation - formerly hailed as the "Bosnian Jerusalem" become the site of a sudden and violent inter-ethnic war (1992-1995)?

Notwithstanding the known influences originating from the neighbouring countries, many analyses focus too strongly on ethnicity and religion as a cause of conflict in Bosnia. There are other powerful social categories that influence identity in Bosnian society. This emic categories can be shown for example in the choice of swearwords; this is a place, where various social categories become apparent (e.g. rural-city relations, gender, employment).

In this paper I suggest a model of analysis that concentrates on the dividing lines in the social categories within society, where one indicator for social balance is set by the formation of groups that consist of different configurations of people.

Therefore, an opponent in one social category, e.g. religion, can be partner in another category, e.g. employment. This mixed identities of people in society act as pressure relief from social tensions.

Fractures that divide society along the same lines and lead to clearly defined social blocks serve as indicators for either growing tensions (process view) or strong hierarchical relations with distinctive power discrepancies (system view).

Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

Comparative analysis of the socio-cultural impact of emerging landscapes of energy in three European countries (Germany, France, Portugal) that have specific national traditions of this kind of energy production, identifying different groups in the process and how they manage conflictive interests.

Paper long abstract

This poster proposes to present a joint project on "Wind energy and Landscape" (sponsored by French Energy Ministry)which is being carried out by an interdisciplinary working-team, constituted, besides myself, by Dorle Dracklé e Werner Krauss (anthropologists), Alain Nadai (socio-economist) and Martin Döring (linguistic).

The generic goal of the project is to observe and analyze how wind energy is being planted and accepted in different European countries (Germany, France and Portugal) that have specific national traditions of development of this kind of energy production. We will be looking for the impact of the emerging new landscapes of energy, specially those resulting from wind parks, aiming to identify the different groups interacting and understand how they balance the conflict between EU targets for the production of renewable energies (to fulfil until 2010) and the social, cultural political and economic negotiations implicit in the process.

Cases of success and protest will be analysed in order to understand how landscape is at the core of vulnerable policies. The project (lasting 36 months) has just been launched and by September will be able to exhibit visual material focusing the impact of wind parks on the landscape (case studies from the three countries) and underline main issues to pursue through documental review based on legislation and media articles in the 3 countries.

Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

I discuss the evolution of ethnos theory in Soviet ethnography-Russian ethnology. The first version of ethnos theory, prepared by Shirokogoroff, was not known in the USSR or Russia. It is clear now that Shirokogoroff's theory is very important in understanding the problems of ethnos and ethnicity.

Paper long abstract

Russian ethnography had been formed by the end of the 19th century. Further development of this field of knowledge in our country proved to be connected with Ethnos theory. The idea of ethnos meant to study some "peoples", which were considered as definite community of people with their cultural, social, physical (somatic) and other peculiarities. At the same time other conceptions including ones focused on Marxism, American cultural anthropology and others were being formed in Russian ethnography and then in ethnology. In the late 20s when the science was reorganized, that guaranteed its further inclusion in being formed totalitarian system, the theory of stadializm of N.Y. Mar which had something in common with Marxism and Stalin theory of nation were approved. Since that time the isolationistic period of the soviet ethnography developing ignored the world anthropologic tradition had begun. The interest in the ideas of foreign specialists was allowed now only under the condition of being necessarily criticized from the official position of Marxism. In the context of having been accepted Marxist ideology, which determined the theoretical basis of scientific research, there was no place for national (ethnic) differences and significance of cultural diversity to be acknowledged. The concepts of proletarian class solidarity and economic determinism were confirmed here by way of priority. However the necessity of the political course realization under the term of politethnical state made Stalin advance a slogan to form new cultures which was to be national in form and social (class) in context.

The changes of the world and country situation which had taken place after World War II showed the mistaken in the previous authority's attitude to the national factor. As a result the destruction of universalistic theory of stadializm followed, that made the conditions for the theory of ethnos to be returned in the ethnography. The works of P.I. Kushner, S.A. Tokarev, N.N. Cheboksarov, and then Y.V. Bromley and L.N. Gumelev allowed forming the basic directions and variants of the theory of ethnos. Primo dualistic aims and essentialistic sense of ethnos characterized the soviet theory for all the different conceptions of Bromley and Gumilev. The cultural peculiarities and their representatives' self-consciousness were considered to be the important features of some ethnos. The cultural problematic was being developed during that period mainly in the context of researching the philosophic aspects of this phenomenon and studying the different aspects of traditional culture.

During the post soviet period, when the official ideology was canceled and the normal relationships with foreign colleagues were allowed, important changes in transformed Russian ethnology took place. The version of the theory of ethnos by L.N. Gumilev became more accepted, and they started to study the first conception of S.M.Shirokogorov, which greatly influenced other authors' opinions. The new discipline culturology aimed at cultural problems studying appeared in Russia. The tendency to deviate from the communist heritage pressure led to the broad attracting the ideas of foreign anthropology, including the conception of ethnicity. At the same time the problems of ethnos were being developed and the emphasis on cultural aspects of this problem were placed.

Having appreciated Russian ethnological (anthropological) scientific tradition and the importance of the theory of ethnos in it, it is significant to note that there is the research potential in it, firstly in its first version of S.M. Shirokogorov, including research culture (culture as psycho mental complex), which keeps its importance.

Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

I shall present my research of lived experience of work of young and highly educated immigrants from post-communist Poland to the United Kingdom. My main aim is to examine how they construct work and work related activities from a critical discourse perspective.

Paper long abstract

I shall present my research on lived experience of work of young and highly educated immigrants from post-communist Poland to the United Kingdom. My main aim is to examine how they construct work and work related activities. I also intend to explore, within narratives about work, their experience of post-communist and well-established capitalist realities. In the process I shall reach discourses that are used by them to give meaning to the situation they are in.

The research is anchored in the critical discourse perspective. I approach the data, collected in narrative interviews, with lexical and grammatical analyses focused on linguistic choices the informants made. This kind of analysis enables me to observe the way experiences of working abroad were represented and constructed.

There were two dominant categories that characterised the data: 'normality' and 'second modernity'. First, the Poles leaving for the United Kingdom were expecting to find 'normality' and second, they were discursively enlarging rather than changing their living space. But it appeared that both these categories were challenged when the informants were positioning themselves in the work situations in the host society. The passage resulted in self-exclusion that was accomplished by positioning oneself or certain groups as 'the Other'.

Exploring lived experience of working abroad allowed me to see work and work related activities as a sphere where immigrants negotiate their position in the host country. Significantly, it made possible to observe how the immigrants that share the same background and specific attitudes discursively cope on the unifying European employment market.

Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

This poster aims to facilitate discussion about concepts of national identity and national culture, and how they relate to social and political issues. It also questions the possibility of imagining a national identity in a multi-ethnic society, and the relationship between anthropology, academia and the creation of a national identity. Raw data (such as photographs) is displayed from two years of fieldwork in an Israeli college in the West-Bank of Israel/Palestine.

Paper long abstract

The purpose of this poster is to facilitate an open discussion about the concepts of national identity and national culture, and about how they relate to social and political issues. The poster also intednds to raise the questions of the possibility of imagining a national identity in a multi-ethnic society, and the relationship between anthropology, academia and the creation of a national identity. In this poster I intend to present only raw data(such as photographs)collected in my two-years fieldwork in an Israeli college in the West-Bank of Israel/Palestine.