WHAT IS THE MEDITERRANEAN BASIN TO MODERN EUROPEAN ETHNOLOGY? SELECTED PROBLEMS

• Authors: Kuzma I.
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The article describes a research problem, which relates to the modern ethnological understanding of the concept of 'area', using the Mediterranean Basin as an example. The Basin is one of the more distinct cultural territories, present in the research tradition of ethnology, mainly western ethnology. The contemporary political and economic changes affect the ideas of the European cultural identity, including that of its regions and cultural areas. The roots of the so-called European character, its place in Europe (also understood as the sources of specific symbols and values) at the intersection of these phenomena, which is called the South and the North, the East and the West, are re-examined. It is still meaningful to ask questions about the place of the 'otherness'/'distinctness', the dimension of 'strangeness' in the seemingly tamed world, about the sense to build the cultural identity in the decentralized reality of today, which, generally speaking, is subjected to two opposing forces: conscious decentralization and search for locality and (often) subconscious subordination to unification. Programme transformation that 'Musée des Arts et Traditions Populaires' is presently undergoing is part of this context. The museum will be moved from Paris to Marseille and renamed to 'Musée des Civilisations de l'Europe et de la Méditerranée' (planned to be opened in 2008). It is this project that is the axis around which the problems discussed in the article are focused: 1. what is the modern understanding of such concepts as 'cultural space', 'region' and 'cultural area'; 2. the history of the formation of the scientific concept that describes a specific cultural identity, i.e. the Mediterranean Basin; 3. how selected western ethnological research centres dealing in the problems of the Mediterranean Basin solve the problem of its metaphorization, when it is no longer treated as a real territory but it is moved to the level of pure research category.

Keywords

EN

CULTURAL AREA; EUROPEAN ETHNOLOGY; MEDITERRANEAN BASIN

Discipline

• ETHNOLOGY: ETHNOLOGY

• Publisher: Polskie Towarzystwo Ludoznawcze
• Journal: Lud
• Year: 2006
• Volume: 90
• Pages: 121-138
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Kuzma I.

• I. Kuzma, Uniwersytet Lódzki, Instytut Etnologii i Antropologii Kulturowej, ul. S. Jaracza 78, 90-243 Lódz, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

07PLAAAA02104458