The author deals with the Bulgarian carnival procession called kukeri. The procession is interpreted as an imitation of universal symbols of nature, fertility, success and wealthy of a human being. Special attention has been paid to the anthropological approach to the ritual as well as the modern function of the procession in the life of Pernik community and the tourist interest.
The article is a part of a book about contemporary culture of Podhale. In the book there are three moments which act as “stops” of the main narration; they concern the cultural phenomenon of the roads or ways. This “stop” is a reflection (of anthropologist pacing the roads of Podhale) on stereotypes of rural landscape and mental landscape, not the real one.
The article is an attempt to consolidate circumstances that make the term local patriotism take on a new meaning today. Regionalism and regional identity play a crucial role in this matter. In the era of post-modernism, identity is not given and unchangeable. It is rather a constantly implemented project. Traditional concepts cover different dimensions of identity: personal, family, local, regional, national, European and human in general. Society is divided in other ways, too: religiously, economically, sexually, politically, by virtue of a hobby. An individual can belong to distinct communities at once. Regionalists today prefer different visions of patriotism and encourage us to reflect on its understanding. Local patriotism can be applied to inter-cultural dialogue.
In the digital age the notion of intangible cultural heritage has modern connotations that give the term new meanings and approaches. According to UNESCO and the EU authorities the “new” heritage needs to be safeguarded and protected as well as old resources inherited from generations. That is why a new folkloristics faces an interdisciplinary “digital turn”. The author presents the results of digitization process undertaken by major European folklore archives. But new archives need new materials (e.g. e-folklore vs. digital folklore) collected by new folklorists. The expansion of folklore field work towards digitally mediated environment and virtual reality is easy to be observed. Therefore, new methods of digital folklore collecting as well as new tools of research and documentation are challenges of the digital folkloristics.
There are three published personal diaries related to Wola Krzysztoporska: Józef i Hana. Kronika rodziny Szpilfoglów z Krysztoporskiej Woli (by Helena Szereszewska), Odłamki czasu (by Włodziemierz Dajcz) and Ze świadectwa profesora Jana Kodrębskiego (by Jan Kodrębski). The diaries are unacknowledged but magnificent and invaluable sources to ethno- history and local history of Wola Krzysztoporska. The nature of the diaries depicts the history that is remembered and mythologized. They duck out of the categories: truth and untruth. It makes them inexact, but beautiful. They do not present the objective history of Wola Krzysztoporska but subjective memories full of myths and nostalgia.
The article presents the “do it yourself” (DIY) phenomenon which is popular in culture nowadays. It constitutes a distinctly noticeable sign of the return to craftwork based on manual work. The author treats this phenomenon as a modern continuation of old handicraft and craft traditions, while at the same time she notices its new functions and socio-cultural meanings. The author recalls historical contexts of the “do it yourself” philosophy in the culture of the West, as well as in native cultural traditions; she also presents current examples of activities of this kind, taken from websites and internet blogs. In the author’s view, the DIY phenomenon is situated in the circle of current trends of design, it is an expression of the criticism of consumerist society and is an ecological attitude towards the natural environment. It also remains strongly connected with the outlook of the involved people and social groups, as well as constituting evidence of people’s creative involvement in their relations with the material world.
A scout uniform is one of the most important traditional symbols of Polish scouting. The specific arrangement of the elements gives us a variety of information about its owner. The goal of this article is to analyse a Polish scout uniform to show its functions. In this research we use a structural-functional theory used by Piotr Bogatyriew to analyse the folk costume. The article comments on different functions (past and present) of a scout uniform, as well as the structure of the functions and its transformation over the years. The survey scout uniform for functions at the same time reveals a number of traditions of scouting.
In the article the author discusses selected changes in the landscape of Mstów village (Silesian Voivodeship, near Częstochowa). The landscape of Mstów, as in many other villages in Poland, is now a subject to important transformations, which are the result of functional, economic and social changes. The author uses the concept of landscape to give cultural commentary to the presented examples. The text highlighted new elements of landscape in Mstów and those that disappear or no longer exist in physical form, and the memory of them is maintained and restored through implemented actions by local authorities activity.
The author addresses the issue of the ethical aspects of research that are relevant to contemporary anthropological practice. They appear particularly in the study of “difficult problems”, which refer to the hard phenomenon (hidden, of people excluded and closed activities). The author refers to her own research experiences, talking about commitment to unfavorable changes for people affected by difficult situations (e.g. unemployment, poverty). Researcher knowledge came mainly from the experience from a dialogue with people, who cannot be treated objectively. She emphasize that anthropology should talk about such aspects with its own voice.
In 1896 a farmer from Retki, Władysław Anyszka (1848–1924), founded a neo-gothic chapel alongside his neighbors and his wife – Marianna. During the restoration works held in 1993, conducted by Museum in Łowicz, records being an example of folk literature from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries were found. These records contained information about his family, development of the village, events related to the first World War and other important events in the history of the region and the whole country. Anyszka died childless; he was buried in the parish graveyard in Złaków Kościelny. The preserved document is an important source of knowledge for ethnographers, biologists, geographers, economists, historians, linguists, and theologians.
The article is an attempt of analysis of Włodzimierz Tetmajer’s chosen works concerning the harvest. I am also describing images of the harvest on the Polish village of Kamionka, being in surroundings of Chełm, which I remembered from the childhood. I am appealing to reality of the myth of the happy village, current in Polish painting and literature. I am taking it back to observed remains of folk customs and the traditions bond with the harvest.
This work is the prolegomenon to my doctoral dissertation. It is not a part of it, the only contribution presenting strategies, which I used during my work on texts. My future work is about Portuguese anthropology. It is a presentation of discipline development by illustrating selected anthropological books and their detailed interpretation. This article depicts the research techniques and methods which I used to interpret scientific texts and the general outline of the history of anthropology in Portugal. It shows the way in which the young anthropologist, from a country differing culturally and historically, will analyze the work of Portuguese intellectuals. It presents the way how Polish anthropologist was writing about the anthropology in Portugal and it shows a comprehensive set of methods that I used as the schemes to interpret the selected texts.
PL
Prezentowana praca ma charakter prolegomeny do rozprawy doktorskiej. Nie stanowi jej części, jest jedynie przyczynkiem ukazującym strategie przeprowadzonej pracy badawczej nad tekstami. Pisana przeze mnie dysertacja naukowa dotyczy antropologii portugalskiej. Stanowi prezentację dróg rozwoju dyscypliny, poprzez zobrazowanie wybranych przeze mnie okresów historycznych, prac antropologicznych oraz ich szczegółową interpretację. Poniższa praca zawiera metody i techniki badań wykorzystywane do interpretowania tekstów naukowych. Ukazuje ona sposób, w jaki młody antropolog z odmiennego kulturowo i historycznie kraju, będzie analizował dzieła portugalskich intelektualistów. Prezentuje zestaw metod, które wykorzystywałam jako schematy interpretacji wyselekcjonowanych dzieł.
Field research is a special kind of cognitive procedure. Paul Rabinow, like no other in the history of anthropology, had revealed the „anatomy“ of this procedure characterizing cognitive activities involved in this kind of research. "Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco" tell us about the identity of anthropology more than some of the discussions which took up on this subject. Rabinow delivers a critical evaluation of the modernist model of anthropology by disclosing discrepancies between assumptions and methods and actual conditions of acquiring knowledge about investigated reality. But what is even more important: he demythicizes anthropology by demonstrating that what is rendered by anthropology is not the reality itself but its presentation. Rabinow gives thereby a new identity to anthropology. The anthropology is still defined by the method of ethnographic fieldwork but this method is conceived as a reconstruction of a process of interpersonal interaction.
The article contains, besides the introduction, three micro-narratives based on my personal memory of the village Cekcyn in the Tuchola Forest (Bory Tucholskie) – the memory of the place, but also of the people, their dialect and some other features of their regional culture. Each of the micro-narratives has a form of an autobiographical fragment (in the sense similar to that of a deliberately undeveloped literary fragment) in which my memory is complemented by the ethnographic details taken from sources and research reports as well as by more general anthropological concepts.
The aim of the paper is to present selected economic problems of Zygmunt Załęski (1892–1966), a leading organizer of new village movement from the times of the Second Polish Republic and an outstanding co-initiator of so-called “Wici” agrarism. During World War II under the German occupation Zygmunt Załęski performed a function as a director of Agriculture Department of the Government Delegation for Poland. Zygmunt Załęski left a multiplicity of socio-economic thoughts, from which only some, related to organization of national economy, mainly agriculture, rural reform, pricing, work and hidden unemployment have been selected and discussed by the authors.
PL
Celem niniejszego opracowania jest przedstawienie wybranych poglądów ekonomicznych Zygmunta Załęskiego (1892–1966), czołowego animatora ruchu młodowiejskiego z czasów II Rzeczypospolitej i jednocześnie wybitnego współtwórcy tzw. wiciowego agraryzmu.
Projekt badawczy „Infrastruktura kulturalna i formuły działania urzędu pracy w nowej sytuacji kulturowej wobec stanu świadomości i praktyk osób bezrobotnych” powstał w konkretnej sytuacji dotyczącej szerokiego planu kultury Łodzi. Projekt pilotowany przez Wyższą Szkołę Europejską im. ks. Józefa Tischnera w Krakowie w ramach programu Kapitał Ludzki – Narodowa Strategia Spójności finansowanego przez Europejski Fundusz Społeczny Unii Europejskiej.
EN
The research project “Cultural infrastructure and formula of office work in a new cultural situation in comparison to the state of consciousness and practices of the unemployed” was made to a particular situation concerning a wide culture's plan* of the city of Łódź. For several years, Łódź's real and media situation is increasingly getting worse. It is a big city with which are associated cases of extreme decay of the fundamental principles of human existence. Since the outbreak of the economic crisis, one more flaw joined the abovementioned list of shortcomings – Łódź is in the forefront in unemployment statistics. The city have not coped a challenge with the free market. Both figures: 24 954 long-term unemployed, and 14 981 belonging to the category over 50 years are a sad example. At some point – particularly in mid-2013, the drama of job losses began to touch the people with higher education, with high professional competence, employees, educational institutions, faculty, universities, professional people. I wanted to go into the context of the integrated functioning of the institutions set up to help those who have been without work (starting from the space and the "world of things", to the axiology of images and ideas about office clients existing in the minds of employees), attitudes and expectations of the beneficiaries of the institution and the transformation of meanings and practices in the area of social praxis The crucial point and objective of the project was, however, the answer the question: How is it? And is there a chance to change something?
In the introduction to the article, the author sketches the European background of the term “folklore” (coined by Thoms in 1846) and its historical and aesthetic Polish determinants. Folk culture in Poland was basically a peasant phenomenon that preserved its archaic character until deep into the 19th century due to persistence of serfdom.In that era, the collections of folk-cultural artifacts were considered as a patriotic and romantic task within Europe, but particularly in a country that had lost its independence.This article presents author’s overview to the main European folklore collectors of the19th century and underlines that the Polish folklore collector Oskar Kolberg was one of the biggest in Europe. His unprecendented activity left panoramic and systematic ethnographical materials of Polish folk culture in his monumental life work called Lud… His 92 volumes of Complete Works have been fully edited posthumously.
The text is more like a supplement, complementary material to the research on the Podhale religious culture. I also use another designation of the word ‘supplement’ – I treat my reflections as material updating the dynamically changing content and form of Podhale religiousness. The subjects of analysis include new shepherd celebrations, the Holy Communion of Holy Thursday, seasonal masses at cemeteries, common gatherings before a funeral, wreaths for late maidens and bachelors, new rituals of Good Friday. These customs belong to the so-called vernacular religion that puts emphasis on relations between religion and life, practice, experience and also on the local, cultural context of tradition.
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