4th InASEA
Conference
“Region, Regional Identity
and Regionalism in Southeastern Europe”
Timişoara, Romania, 24–27 May 2007
Supported by
Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (USA)
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG (Germany)
Abstracts
of the conference
presentations
Keynotes speaches
Klaus, Roth (Department of European Ethnology, University of Munich, Germany)
What’s in a Region? Southeast European
Regions between Marginalization, Globalization and EU-Integration
‘Region’, a term used in several disciplines, is certainly a vague but
nevertheless useful concept. It denotes a (spatial) category ‘in between’ and
is defined on the basis of extension, function or formation, denoting either an
objective or subjective, a physical or constructed space. In Southeastern
Europe (SEE), in itself a peripheral region, three developments have affected
the subregions and regionalism within it: (1) The adoption of the centralist
model of state administration in the 19th century greatly reduced
the significance of traditional (rural) regions, rendering them emotional or
‘folkloric’ rather than political regions; (2) In the socialist period, forced
collectivization and heavy industrialization further shifted the economic and
political balance away from rural to urban regions; after 1990, globalization
exacerbated this dichotomy between flourishing (metropolitan) regions and peripheral,
backward regions, which are increasingly populated by ethnic minorities (or
old-age pensioners from Western Europe) and (as ‘double peripheries’) depend
more and more on tourism; (3) The EU policy of federalism and a ‘Europe of the
Regions’ has yet to be put into practice in SEE, and will probably
encounter opposition from the centralist governments. Likewise, the planned cross-border
‘Euroregions’ will have to be accepted by the local population. The paper will
discuss these developments and the strategies of coping which, in most cases,
consist of symbolic action rather than political empowerment. They usually lead
to ‘nostalgic regionalism’, i.e., to the ‘aesthetization’, ‘folklorization’,
‘festivalization’ and ‘musealization’ of rural regions as counter-worlds to
urbanization and globalization.
Ballinger,
Pamela (Bowdoin College, USA)
Between Region and Nation: The Space of Anthropology
In this talk, I draw on my ethnographic research on the
Istrian region to explore the use of the concepts “region” and “regional
identity” by both anthropologists and other social actors in Southeastern
Europe. The first part of the paper details multiple genealogies
and definitions of the region, examining key moments (such as the 1930s and
1990s) in which both the region and regionalism assumed particular importance
as either complements or alternatives to the “nation.” In particular, I examine
the different ways and levels at which regions have been understood: as
environmental and geographical entities; as sub-national political units; as
culturally distinct areas within or cutting across states; and as economic
blocs.
Given
these diverse understandings of regions, with what precision do anthropologists
employ the “region” concept? What analytical purchase does the region concept
offer, particularly for anthropologists studying Southeastern
Europe? Recent focus on regions, regional identity, regionalism
and/or nations, national identity, and nationalism has emphasized the logic of
territoriality, on which both region and nation rest, thereby downplaying
processes such as diaspora. As anthropologists have explored the constructed
nature of nation-ness and national identity, they have paradoxically risked
naturalizing the region and regional identity. In addressing these issues, I
reflect on what I deem the “space of anthropology” between region and nation in
the study of Southeastern Europe.
Neumann, Victor
(West-University of Timişoara, Romania)
Between Past and Future: Timişoara
as Local and Regional Identity
The way the citizens of Timişoara
co-operated during the revolt of December 1989 was exemplary and helps to
understand the importance of Timişoara
during the 1990s. A sensus communis
dominated the city, which was revealed in these tense historical moments. The
large demonstration of December 1989
in Timişoara
was also closely linked to the multicultural and multi-confessional physiognomy
of the city. The demonstration against Ceauşescu and communist rule was
closely linked with Pastor László Tökés’s protest against the destruction of
Hungarian villages in Transylvania. This
protest was positively received not only by Western Europe
but first and foremost, by the inhabitants of the city. The plans of
Ceauşescu’s political police to provoke a Romanian-Hungarian conflict were
baffled by the demonstrators who proved to be a real societas civilis animated by the ideal of liberation from the
totalitarian regime rather than supporting an obsolete historical misunderstanding.
However,
sociological studies indicate that after 1989 Timişoara had not the necessary
resources to integrate the newcomers to the town, as it had happened during the
interwar period or in the decades in the aftermath of the Second World War, i.e.
in the context of other radical political changes. The set of values professed
by the average of the population, the one that gave personality and comfort to
the city, has been dissolved under the pressure of fast demographic mutations.
The attraction exerted by Timişoara during
the previous 15 years is explained, on the one hand, by the fact that it was
the place of turning down the dictatorship, and on the other that many Romanian
citizens were tempted to reach at least Timişoara,
situated in the Western part of Romania,
if they were unable to emigrate to Western Europe.
Political pressures to change the social and cultural structures of the city
have been felt as well.
The
emigration of the German community, the loss of the Jewish community and the
move of an important part of the Hungarian language cultural and artistic
elites to Budapest
provoked a change in the cultural model and in behaviour. The emptiness left
behind by the massive emigration of inhabitants was imperceptibly replaced by a
population coming from the villages and small towns of Banat, but also from Moldavia,
Oltenia and Maramureş. Identities in Timişoara
were modified to a great extent.
Most
probably, the multicultural and multi-confessional character of Timişoara will also
play a role in process of the decentralization of the administrative system, of
the renewal of educational programs and the political socialization of the new
citizens. Irrespective of short-term local evolutions, the future is open to
any alternative. I state this because in an era of globalization the new
colonists will find an acceptable support for their economic development or
innovation in a city with serious multicultural prints and legacies.
Giordano, Christian (Ethnological Seminar, University of Fribourg, Switzerland)
Ethnic versus
cosmopolitan regionalism: For a political anthropology of identity
constructions
The process of
globalization, which began at the latest with the surfacing of the world system and the Occident’s
consequent hegemony, according to the hypothesis proposed by sociologist Manuel
Castell has led to the national States’ gradual cession of sovereignty over the
past thirty years. Such a shift of sovereignty has gone to the advantage of
supranational organizations or the so-called global governance one the one hand and, on the other hand, to more
localistic institutions, thus apparently confirming the emergence of that
rather dialectical societal model which Roland Robertson termed glocalization.
Regionalisms, which are noticeable not only in
the western and (south)eastern areas of Europe but even in adjacent regions
such as the Caucasus for example, are the political expression of these
localistic trends within the dialectic of the far broader process of
accelerated globalization currently under way. In this presentation we shall
put forward a typology of the various expressions of political regionalism in Europe grounded in the assumption of the existence of two
basic yet, surprisingly enough, not fully divergent forms; i.e. ethnic regionalism and cosmopolitan regionalism. In the first
case, we paradoxically encounter a scaled down replica of the national State
(Catalonia, Basque Country, “Padania” etc.) while in the second case,
apparently with a post-ethnic connotation, just as paradoxically we are dealing
with transnational yet not entirely non-ethnic
projects (Black Sea Region, Tatarstan etc.).
Conference papers
(in
alphabetical order by name of speaker)
Alexiu, Teodor Mircea (West University of Timisoara, Romania)
Processes of Change
in the Lives of People with Intellectual Disabilities in the Western Region of Romania
A basic assumption is
that both living conditions of people with disabilities per se and changes in
such living conditions to a large extent depend on contextual characteristics,
such as national economical conditions, rights and obligations linked to
citizenship, cultural representations and customs etc. As a result, processes
of change affecting the living conditions of people with disabilities are
likely to differ between regions and actions that prove to be effective
promoting change in one region are not necessarily the most effective in
another region. This had important consequences for our study. Our understanding
of the processes of change and improvement is better facilitated by rich
contextual data than by comparisons with other similar interventions aiming at
social change. As a consequence, extensive case studies are likely to be more
helpful than broad comparisons of many different cases. We therefore decided to
limit the study to three successful projects resulting in improved living
conditions of people with intellectual disabilities.
The projects selected for the study were:
· LACRIMA Special
School in BISTRITA, the only public
school in Romania
specially designed for pupils with more severe intellectual disabilities.
· The ARNSBERG project, a centre for
rehabilitation, which first and foremost aims to improve the physical,
emotional and intellectual functioning of children with disabilities within its
region of operation.
· PENTRU VOI located in Timisoara, one of the best day centers for adults with
intellectual disabilities in Romania,
with international recognition.
The essence of success reflected in these
three projects that makes them all stand out in relation to most other projects
is the sympathy and identification with the people served as
shown among managers and staff. Sympathy, we believe, is
something more than empathy, involving an emotional bond to and a personal
identification with the other as a subject, reducing the traditional gap
between “us” and “them”. This is also what beneficiaries themselves, in various
ways point out as the most significant qualities of these projects, and which
we therefore believe contribute the most to the enhancement of their quality of
life.
Anastassova,
Ekaterina (Institute of Folklore,
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia,
Bulgaria)
Bulgarians in Bessarabia:
between National Definitions, Regional Cultures, and Geopolitical Choices
My presentation
delineates the multiple identities and the mechanism of identity choice among
Bulgarians living in Bessarabia, a transborder region located partly in Moldova and partly in Southwestern
Ukraine. In the course of the last decade, the self-definition of
this population as ‘Bulgarian’ in Moldavia was impeded by a variety of limiting
factors, mostly of political and economic nature; this resulted in a massive
emigration in neighbouring Ukraine, a process which local people tended to see
in terms of ‘repatriation’.
My aim is to analyse the factors that
determine the present-day identity choices of this group of the Bulgarian
population. I will scrutinize the whole range of extra-local influences that
made for a shifting identity of this population: impulses coming from Bulgaria,
the ‘historical motherland’, the impact of the aggressive national policies of
the post-Soviet new independent states Moldova and Ukraine, as well as the
impact of the discourses and realities of new geo-political orientations,
especially the ‘clash’ between Russia and the European Union.
The text is based on field research done in
the village of Krinichnoye,
Odessa region,
in 2006.
Aschauer,
Wolfgang (Technische Universität Chemnitz, Deutschland)
Ethnizität und grenzüberschreitende
Beziehungen in Nordost-Ungarn
Eine Staatsgrenze beeinflusst Ausmaß
und Gestaltung ökonomischer Aktivitäten tiefgreifend: Sie wirkt sich sowohl auf
die Grenzregion als auch auf die grenzüberschreitenden Wirtschaftsbeziehungen
aus. Untersuchungen über Grenzen konzentrieren sich daher oft auf Differenzen
der Preise, Löhne, Warenverfügbarkeit, Steuern, Gesetze und andere
Regulationsformen. Aus diesem Blickwinkel scheint Ethnizität kaum Relevanz für
Regionalentwicklung haben. Der Beitrag möchte demgegenüber auf dem Weg der
Thematisierung eines Faktors „Vertrauen“ die Frage erörtern, inwieweit in einer
peripheren Region sowohl des betroffenen Nationalstaats als auch der
Europäischen Union Ethnizität als Grundlage einer präskriptiven
Zusammengehörigkeit Möglichkeiten der Vertrauensbildung im Rahmen
grenzüberschreitender Beziehungen eröffnet. Es wird diskutiert, inwiefern
solche Formen der Kooperation die typischen Aspekte geographischer,
ökonomischer und sozialer Marginalität abschwächen oder sogar beseitigen
können.
Der Beitrag will die Realität dieser Annahmen auf
drei Beobachtungsebenen diskutieren:
1. Wie reagieren ethnischen Gruppen auf
Globalisierungsprozesse, d. h. auf von außen induzierte Formen der
Regionalökonomie und (allgemeiner) –entwicklung?
2. Welche Rolle spielen dabei
grenzüberschreitende Beziehungen sowohl auf Haushalts- als auch auf zwischenstaatlicher
Ebene?
3. Welche Relevanz haben grenzüberschreitende
Beziehungen ethnischer Gruppen für die Regionalentwicklung in der
Untersuchungsregion?
Babau, Alexandra / Andreica, Luminita (West University of Timisoara, Romania)
Serbian-Romanian Relationships between Conflict and Cohabitation: Case Study - Felnac Village, Arad County
There
is no specific country uniform from the aspect of ethnic structure, although
this reality could perhaps be found at a lesser scale within the framework of a
community. This is why the study of interethnic relationships is so important,
because it develops valuable information related to the social organization of
the community, to the relationship between “majority” and “minority” and to the
way in which ethnical identity is constructed and expressed not only on an
individual, but also on a collective level. These are also the main objectives
of this investigation. The study took place in the region of Banat, Felnac
village, Arad County, where the Serbian “minority”
represents 10% of the village inhabitants. We carried out interviews and
questioned people from the Romanian “majority” and from the Serbian “minority”.
The main points that we conclude from this study are:
A.
In this village there were no major interethnic conflicts, the relationship
between the two ethnic groups being characterised by cohabitation. However, at
an individual level there are some “little” disagreements, which are related to
the grade of nationalism and culture, and mainly with the standard of living.
B.
The Serbian “minority” recognizes its status and is aware of the necessity of
integration according to the “majority” rules, but without losing some of the
main elements of its ethnic identity (religion, customs, beliefs).
C.
The two groups are trying to coexist, interact and not allow the differences of
nationality to segregate them, but this aspect is relatively superficial, in
the real sense, and everyone is aware of the differences between the groups.
Baćević, Jana (Faculty of Philosophy,
Belgrade, Serbia)
Anthropology, Tourism and Transition: Concepts of Tourist Development in
the Region of Knjaževac (Southeast Serbia)
In this paper I will present some of the
results of the research on concepts of tourism and regional development
conducted in Knjaževac, a town in the southeastern part of Serbia, in 2003
and 2005. At the time of beginning the research, the town in question was far
from being commonly recognized as a tourist destination. In addition to its
economy and surroundings being heavily damaged during the 1990s, it also lacked
classical major tourist attractions, such as a lake or sea, mountains with
ski-slopes, spa facilities, luxury hotels and the like. Therefore, the focus of
this research was on how people who inhabit the region conceptualize the
transformation of their hometown and surroundings into a tourist destination.
These concepts were shown to strongly interrelate with opinions and ideas
concerning the economic transition, accession into the European Union,
globalization and other major political issues affecting not only the country,
but the whole region of Southeast Europe as
well. The paper demonstrates how a region and its tourist elements are invented
and narrated during a period of economic and political change, and how
identities are constructed around these particular narratives, pointing to the
fact that regionalisms can never be understood without apprehending the larger
forces that define their existence.
Bardoshi, Nebi (Tirana,
Albania)
Regional Identity and Political Border: the Has Region between Albania
and Kosovo
The
region called Has is a ‘borderland’ between Albania and Kosovo. The inhabitants
of Has identify themselves as Hasjan
(people from Has), i.e. people that are 'different'
from those of the two neighbouring. This region
represents in itself an area that has at the same time inhabitants of different
tribal and religious backgrounds and a strong social memory. Even though they
have such differences they have had a common law that they consider originated
from their ancestors, called the Kanun of Lek Dukagjini. From another
perspective Hasjan as identity
represents both groups of identities: those which are still territorially
defined, and those which are carried as the collective structures of
meaning by networks more extended in space as, for instance, national and
transnational levels. A regional identity was created during the time
when the area was under the Ottoman Empire and
we find it named for the first time as a region in the 17th century.
When Albania
as nation-state was created, this region was divided by a political border. The
political border was a symbol of separation and isolation, which is why we need
to use an anthropological perspective here. The period that represented and enhanced
the phenomenon of separation is the time spent under communism. Based on
ethnographic and historical data the regional identity, at least among
Albanians, has played and plays a significant role in social relations
(economical, political, etc). On the other hand, scholars sometimes
misinterpreted this identity as a tribal identity. This paper will
address the question of the way of creating this cultural identity in a historical
context and its situation in the present time: What makes this identity? And
how does the regional identity fit ‘between’ tribal and ethnic identity?
Among Albanians, for example, regional
identity is not usually linked to any memory of having a common ancestor as the tribal and
ethnic identities are. An additional focal point will be the impact of
the political border on the regional identity throughout history. From
our standpoint, the Has region is taken as the case study for exploring the
issue of regional identity on a political border.
Benga, Ileana (The Folklore Archive of the Romanian Academy,
Cluj-Napoca, Romania)
The
Regional Relevance of Specific Age-Group Controlled Ceremonials: Ceata de Tineri
Traditionally transmitted
ceremonials require the keenest attention from the folklorist: all levels –
tradition, transmission, ceremonial – have to be critically exposed. But beyond
the scientific ethnological evaluation, the customs on focus continue to exist,
whether there is a ‘foreign’ eye to witness or not. It is what we called the
core of transmission, as a variant of orality, in a broader sense. A sure way
to expose it is to follow ceremonials controlled by the clearly individualized
age group of fourteen to twenty-five year olds in rural Romania. Once,
the lads were assembled in a real institution, ‘ceata’, and explanatory
endeavours document this old structure plentifully. But to this present day,
the old institution seems to have reproduced itself, with or without the aid
and with or without the result of usual markers, like the formal election of
their chief and formal segregation from the rest of the community for the actual
period of performing the custom. Other markers are to be found untouched,
weaved into the contemporary custom, like the restriction to the mentioned age
group and its closure to specifically designed male attributions,
unquestionably approved and respected by whole surrounding communities. Trying
to reveal such specificities, leaping out of the trans-generational survey, the
study follows several ceremonials controlled by the ceata de feciori,
which we were able to research in the field over the last four years: the Green
Men of Saint George, the Ceremonial Ox of Whitsunday, the Bark Masks of
Whitsunday (Transylvania), the Căiuţi of New Year (Moldavia)
and the Căluşari of Whitsuntide (Oltenia). Half way between
the masks, i.e. altered identities, and epitomes of local creeds, i.e. enhanced
identities, these ceremonials and all the customs embodying them are genuine
carriers of local cultural fertility that shall continue to reproduce in one
way or another, more or less regionally trademarked, in more or less
predictable forms.
Benovska-Sabkova,
Milena (Ethnographic Institute, Sofia / New Bulgarian University, Sofia,
Bulgaria)
“Ethnographic Groups”: Regionalism or
Ideological Construction?
The term “ethnographic group” belongs to theoretical
tools of official Soviet theories of “ethnos”. This term was readily accepted
by Bulgarian ethnographers during socialism not just as a product of ideological
influence, but also due to the term’s intellectual trajectories in the early
formative years of the discipline in the 19th century. Semantically,
“ethnographic group” has had to conceptualize the empirical evidences of
regional differences which shape the structure of “traditional culture”. The
concept of “ethnographic groups” has been (and still is to a certain degree)
also of practical significance, as far as it has given serious impetus to the
very principles of the organization of ethnographic field research in Bulgaria since
the 1970s and until very recently. It is the aim of my paper to represent the
intellectual history, the meaning, ideological content and cognitive weakness
of this term and to outline its influence on the production of ethnological
knowledge during socialist and post-socialist developments of the discipline(s)
in Bulgaria.
Bielenin, Karolina / Paczóska, Katarzyna (Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Warsaw University, Poland)
Construction
of Identity in a Multicultural Community: Case Study of Torbeshi in the Centar
Zhupa Region of the Republic
of Macedonia
The region of the Macedonian-Albanian borderland is
inhabited by groups whose basic indicators both of self-identity and others’
assignment to a particular group are nationality, religion and language. These
categories involve orthodox Macedonians and Muslims: Albanians and Turks.
Beside this clear distinction are Orthodox Albanians (Shkreti) and Macedonian
Muslims (Torbeshi). The subject of our paper is the analysis of the way in
which the identity of the Torbeshi, living in Centar Zhupa region, is
constructed depending on the socio-political context as well as local
determinants (as multicultural neighborhood, the merging of different
languages, religions and customs). Our conclusion is based upon fieldwork
conducted in 2006. The Torbeshi themselves are unanimous in self-identification.
In part they declare their affiliation to the Macedonian nation, in part they
consider themselves as an autonomous ethnic group, while some derive their
origin from the Turks. The majority however, declares their “Macedonianness”
through preserving the Macedonian language and maintaining many traditional
elements of culture regarded as indigenous Macedonian. Of particular interest
is the Torbeshi's attachment to such important aspects of Macedonian culture
such as monasteries and Orthodox churches. This manifests itself in numerous
pilgrimages to Orthodox holy places as well as financial support of them. Religion
associates Torbeshi with Turks and Albanians. Similarly, customs, rituals and
some gender differentiations bring the Torbeshi closer to these Muslim
minorities. Therefore, depending on the political context, they are regarded either
as Turks or as Albanians. This “peculiar appropriation” of the Torbeshi has a
purely political dimension – if Turks and Albanians prove they are more numerous,
their vote in demanding for minority rights becomes stronger. According to some
respondents, Torbeshi are in fact Turks who only declare themselves as Macedonians
to obtain some privileges like e.g. easier access to a career in administration.
The example of this
in-between group presented in the above paper confirms fluidity in the category
of identity – how it changes, is redefined and is being constantly renegotiated
according to the context. The role of the anthropologist in such cases remains
clearly defined – to capture the social and political determinants immersed in
regional uniqueness.
Birladeanu, Virgiliu (Institute of History,
Academy of Sciences
of Moldova, Republic of Moldova)
Belarus, Moldova
and Ukraine
“between East and West”: Prolegomena to Inventing a Region
For the entire post-Soviet area, the collapse of Empire designated
inclusively the end of the great ideological narratives. In this context, Belarus, Moldova
and Ukraine,
considered until recently a marginal appendix of Russian history, started to
find their place on the global arena. The modernization trajectory of these
societies during the past two decades gives us reason to ascertain some
regional characteristics determined by post
valence (post-communism, post-colonialism, and often post-democracy), as well as by
socio-cultural practices generalized in the East-European borderland. This
paper proposes to discuss the articulation of new identities “between East and
West” as the first post-imperial experience in the areas of Belarus, Moldova
and Ukraine, as well as the implications of these new identities in the
projects of ‘nation-making’ in Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine.
Birt, Danijela
(Department of Ethnology and Anthropology, University of Zadar, Croatia)
Where Did all These People Come from on the Day of Youth?
This paper
is the result of one day spent in the field on the Day of Youth (25th
May) in Kumrovec, the birthplace of Josip Broz Tito. It deals with the situation
in 2004, twenty-four years after his death. The subject of my paper is to
present from which regions in Croatia
people came to Kumrovec on this day, to celebrate Tito’s birthday. I also
wanted to see which groups joined in very actively in dancing, singing,
photographing, etc. In the first part of the paper I will focus on the regions
from which people mainly came to this celebration and their reasons for this.
By comparing regional knowledge of these people and their attitude towards
Tito, his work and political situation, I will, in due time, try to show
specific regional differences. I talked to several people and tried to come out
with some conclusion about these differences, calling on their testimony and my
knowledge as ethnologist and historian. In this part I will mention regions
like Istra and Slavonija (regions in Croatia), two opposite examples. In
the second part of my presentation I will focus on the regions from which
people didn’t come to the celebration. I also point out my reflections on this
as an inhabitant of one of those regions. The thought that led me when I was on
the field and afterwards when I finalized my results was that a society's
memories and interpretations of the recent past can also be seen from a
regional perspective.
Bloch, Avital H. (Center
for Social Research, University
of Colima, Mexico)
Macedonians, Macedonia and Its Neighbors:
Nation, State, and Ethnicity
This paper will discuss the problem of the Former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), or Macedonia,
and the issue of Macedonians who define themselves as such, but who are
concentrated in regions within the political boundaries of neighboring states: Greece, Bulgaria,
and Albania.
The paper originated in visits to Thessaloniki
and Northern Greece, and FYROM in 2004, which
triggered an exploration of the issue of Macedonians, their diasporas, and
their claims for ethnic identity. I describe how demands by ethnic Macedonians
for rights as a recognized minority in the three nation-states outside of FYROM
have become the center of difficult relationships between those communities and
governments that refuse to grant them such status. The paper investigates the
Macedonian minority in Bulgaria,
where the government argues that modern Macedonians had historically been
Bulgarians, and what is currently Macedonia
is a region of Bulgaria.
I describe Greece’s ideas
about the region of Macedonia
as Greek since ancient times, hence the dispute between the two countries over
its national and symbolic essence and the fight over the legitimacy of
Macedonians to use the name for the sovereign country north of the border, in
addition to disagreements over rights for a Slavic identity in northern Greece. I point
to Albania’s
similar treatment of Macedonians within its borders and to the situation of the
large population of Muslim Albanians in FYROM. After a civil war, as a possible
consequence of the deadly war in the mainly ethnic Albanian Kosovo, which
threatened Macedonia
as well, it ultimately recognized its Albanians as a cultural minority with
equal rights. Yet, the complexities of ethnicity, nation, and state as
exemplified by the Macedonian question are far from being resolved. For the
historian and the student of culture, the labyrinth of Macedonian identities
and affiliations offers as much an opportunity to learn about the peculiarities
of the Balkans as to re-think the question of cross-border diasporas everywhere.
Blomqvist, Anders (Södertörn University
College, Stockholm University, Sweden)
Ethnic Narratives and Regional Identity in the Hungarian, Romanian and
Jewish City of Szatmárnémeti
/ Satu Mare / Satmar.
This
paper analyses the construction of regional concepts and ethnic narratives
connected to the city of Szatmárnémeti / Satu Mare / Satmar. Much of the
historiography includes linguistically defined regional concepts and I will use
historical works to deconstruct these concepts. The ethnic narratives include a
historical perspective, but also ideas about the present political situation as
well as demands for the future. The Romanian regional concepts related to the
city include Dacia, Ardeal, Transylvania,
Crişana, Satu Mare and Northwest Romania.
The first concept of Dacia
involves the Daco-Roman continuity theory and is part of the meta-narrative of
the story of the Romanian people. The concepts of Ardeal and Transylvania are
synonymous, but can include a smaller territory, historical Transylvania, or a
larger territory, thus representing all the territory Romania
received after the First World War. If the first definition is used the local
region of Crişana is added to describe the part between Transylvania
and the Hungarian border. Both the name of the province, Satu Mare, as well as
the more neutral regional concept, Northwest Romania – which indicate a more
geographical location of the region – do not have the strong historical
narrative roots as their first concepts. The Hungarian regional concepts
related to the city include keleti Magyarórszág, Erdély, Partium, Kőrös
vidék and Szatmár. From the Hungarian point of view the present smaller Hungary is a truncated nation (Csonka
Magyarország) and the real ‘Hungary’
is the pre-First World War territory in which Szatmárnémeti was included.
Szatmárnémeti did not belong to the historical Transylvania (Erdély), however
Hungarians sometimes use the wider definition of the concept to include all the
territories lost to Romania
after the First World War. The Hungarian equivalent to the Romanian concept of
Crişana is the Kőrös vidék and is used together with Partium to
describe the part between Transylvania and the Hungarian border of the
historical Transylvania and Hungary.
The regional concept of Szatmár is still used in Hungary
for the province of Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg, which includes the whole
historical county
of Szabolcs and parts of
the counties of Szatmár and Bereg. The name of the province is thus a
historical reminder of the loss of the territories in 1920. The Jewish
perspective of the city has distanced itself from the city as the Satmar
Hasidic Jewish community continued to live elsewhere in the world after the
Second World War, like in New York, Jerusalem and London.
The Jewish community was destroyed and deported during the Holocaust, but the
rabbi of the Satmar Jewish community, Teitelbaum, survived. The Hasidic Satmar
Jewish community preserved the traditional and orthodox life of the Jews and continued to live their lives as they did when
they lived in Satmar. From the Jewish perspective the present city is viewed
from their new location in Western Europe and they place the city within
concepts such as Northwest Romania, Central and Eastern
Europe and the Carpathian region. The Jewish perspective tries to
avoid regional concepts connected to the Hungarian and Romanian national narratives.
The Jewish community was linguistically and culturally close to the Hungarian
one, but as the city was part of Fascist Hungary during the Second World War,
the Holocaust is sadly connected to the Hungarian period. The Hungarians' and
Romanians' regional concepts are sometimes mutually exclusive in their perspective
on the past, which make them politically problematic for outsiders to use. It
is obviously politically insensitive to name the region as Hungary proper,
because this indicates a revisionist claim. However, it is also problematic and
anachronistic to use Satu Mare as a historical region or as the name of the
city before 1920 as this concept did not exist, not even for the Romanians as
they used the name of “Sătmăr” and it was only in 1920 that the name
of “Satu Mare” was constructed.
Bošković, Aleksandar
(Institute of Social Sciences, Belgrade, Serbia)
Political Actors, Anthropologists
and NGOs Representing Former Yugoslavia:
Telling It Like It "Is"
Taking as its starting point representation and self-representation of
the former Yugoslavia,
I take issue with an idea that anthropologists (and scientists in general) are
somehow "neutral" or "objective" observers of the outside
world. In situations of war and conflict, as well as one's human rights being
violated, it is our right and our obligation to actually take sides. If we do
not, that is a very strong political statement as well. The works of Todorova,
Heyden and Glenny are critically evaluated in the context of local
representations such as "Balkanism", while I argue for an engaged (pace
T. H. Eriksen) and activist anthropology that cannot be separated from
"real" life.
Botea, Bianca (ATER, Université Lyon 2, France)
Ethnicité et
renouveau régional en Transylvanie
Mon intervention
portera sur la construction symbolique de la Transylvanie à partir des
recompositions sociales et territoriales de type régional qui ont émergé
récemment dans cet espace, sous l’influence de l’Europe des Régions.
Territoire controversé dans l’histoire entre élites roumaines et hongroises de
la région, et question sensible entre deux Etats voisins (roumain et hongrois),
la Transylvanie fut étudiée jusqu’à présent essentiellement sous l’angle des
processus ethniques et des nationalismes. Si la Transylvanie fut une production
symbolique notamment des deux nationalismes concurrents, aujourd’hui la dimension
transnationale et européenne est un élément important dans le processus de
renouvellement territorial. Cette situation de globalisation se traduit en
Transylvanie dans un renouveau du phénomène régional visible dans d’autres pays
en Europe du Sud-Est. Mon intervention tentera de retracer l’émergence de ce
phénomène en Transylvanie à partir des discours et des pratiques des principaux
acteurs (de type associatif) ayant un rôle pionnier dans le renouveau régional.
J’analyserai ces organisations comme des lieux d’expérimentation de nouvelles
formes de vivre ensemble qui s’expriment dans une tension permanente entre
ethnicité et régionalisme. Enfin, je prêterai mon attention sur la conception
du territoire (et sur l’articulation territoire-culture) sur laquelle repose ce
modèle régional de l’Europe des Régions repris en Transylvanie. Si ces
actions régionales et « régionalistes » dépassent en partie les
anciens nationalismes, je tenterai de montrer qu’elles introduisent néanmoins
de nouvelles formes d’exclusion basées non plus sur le principe des communautés
du sang, mais des communautés du sol. Mon terrain principal porte
sur la ville de Cluj, mais les actions des acteurs de terrain m’ont conduit
dans plusieurs autres villes et villages de Transylvanie.
Branc, Simona (West University of Timisoara, Romania)
The Construction of Banatian Regional Identity
through Life-Story Interviews
This paper will discuss the mechanisms
that form the Banatian regional identity, the way in which this identity is
negotiated during social interactions, and the relationship between national,
regional and ethnic identity. In this research we have voted for an inductive
analysis of oral history interviews within the archives of the Group of
Cultural Anthropology and Oral History, belonging to the ‘Third Europe’ Foundation
in Timisoara.
The analysis was made following the specific steps of the grounded theory,
through coding operations of the interview content and establishing some
thematic categories. The inductive analysis was completed with a narrative
analysis (objective hermeneutics), through which the discovery of
significations, correlations and ways in which the discourse was influenced by
diverse factors was followed. The analysis of life-story interviews taken with
people belonging to different generations and ethnic groups emphasizes ethnic
and regional prejudices and stereotypes. It also reveals patterns of intercultural
socialization and the role of various social institutions in the development of
inter-ethnic tolerance. Personal narratives are built in the general social
context; they produce and are produced by the dominant cultural
meta-narratives. The scripts which individuals choose to live can conform to or
oppose these institutionalized meta-narratives. The life-story is a social
construction. It presents the way in which an individual understands events,
social and political movements, as a member of a social group, a community or
generation. The revealing of beliefs, values, customs or traditions through the
meaning of life-stories leads to an understanding of cultural significations
and the dynamics of cultural changes.
Brunnbauer, Ulf (Institute of East European Studies, Free University of Berlin, Germany)
Space,
Ethnicity and Conflict in the Republic
of Macedonia
Ever since independence in 1991, the “Albanian
question” was top of the political agenda in the Republic of Macedonia.
In 2001, the conflict between the ethnic Macedonian majority population and the
ethnic Albanian minority (which amounts to about 25% of the total population of
the country) even turned violent. An important part of the resolution to the
conflict, as agreed upon by the opposing parties in August 2001, was
decentralization and the strengthening of local decision-making bodies. The
bulk of the existing literature frames the tension between ethnic Macedonians
and Albanians in terms of a majority-minority conflict, in which the minority
struggles for more rights in the spheres of cultural reproduction (language
use, schooling, display of national symbols etc.) as well as more political and
economic power. In my paper, I will suggest a different perspective that looks
at this problem from the viewpoint of center-periphery relations. I argue that
the “ethnic” conflict in Macedonia
is very much shaped by the spatial dimensions of social and economic
development since World War Two. Albanians not only live concentrated in the
northwestern parts of the country, but their region experienced socialist
modernization as well as post-socialist transformation differently from other
parts of Macedonia.
Therefore, diverging socio-cultural patterns developed that are closely related
to specific places. The analysis draws on demographic data as well as
ethnographic information in order to highlight the structural differences
between Macedonians and Albanians, and the respective regions which they
inhabit.
Bucin, Mihaela (University of Szeged, Hungary) and
Emilia Martin (Erkel Museum, Gyula,
Hungary)
Ceremonies of Identity, from Feast to
Festival: Avatar of the Folk Dances of Romanians from Hungary
After
1920 some Romanians found themselves living in small, isolated communities in
the Southeast of Hungary, being politically and administratively separated from
the large masses of Romanian population in Banat and Transylvania.
Because of the complex social and historical background, in the case of
Romanian communities from Hungary,
bilingual members of the group usually regard the Romanian culture as their
own, developed mainly from elements of folkloric tradition and Orthodox
religion. The prestige of national indicators (language, ceremony, holy days)
decreased, especially as a result of the ongoing urbanization process that
ended the closed communities. The process of urbanization and the breaking up
of these traditionally closed communities led to an acceleration in the
assimilation process of the Romanian community from Hungary. The ethnical self-defining
of the studied groups is mostly composed of elements of religious belonging and
local patriotism. One aspect of the latter is the folk dance, almost the only
collective form of ceremonial and traditional expression that has survived up
to the present day. The Romanians from Hungary do not form a uniform group
from a linguistic and religious point of view, nor regarding their traditions.
The folk dances have their own specific elements for every local community,
becoming on the one hand an overall identity symbol, and bearing on the other
hand the specific marks of one specific community from the entire ethnic group
(i.e. folk dances from Aletea, Chitighaz, Micherechi). After its decline in
traditional form and the diminishing of its original socio-cultural role, the
folk dance appeared presented on a stage,
performed with high virtuosity, favoured by its success with the public, but
also by the specific ideology of certain regimes. At present, the folk dance
still has a role in maintaining the Romanian identity, but during the exertion
of this role, the ceremonial characteristic has shifted into a festival-like
atmosphere.
Calindere, Apostu Otilia
(Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Bordeaux, Université de Bucarest, Roumanie)
Raconter le régionalisme pour construire le
nationalisme – du communisme au postcommunisme
L’image et les sentiments construits sur la propre nation
et le propre territoire sont associés à l’histoire qu’on nous a racontée pendant
nos enfances. Façonnée par les stratégies communicationnelles du temps présent,
l’histoire présentée aux élèves dans les contenus scolaires devient l’une des
stratégies utiles pour la construction de l’identité nationale. En prenant le
territoire régional et national comme dimension de la construction identitaire,
nous nous proposons de chercher dans les contenus des manuels d’histoire des
Roumains, les répertoires territoriaux régionaux en tant que éléments
constitutifs du territoire national. Ce dernier n’est pas vu comme la simple
somme des éléments régionaux mais comme l’intégrateur de ceux-ci pour la
formation de l’identité nationale des jeunes. L’analyse des contenus d’histoire
sera structurée selon les régions historiques de la Roumanie, pour chacune
d’entre elles étant mis en évidence les particularités de l’espace physique
voire ses richesses, les lieux de mémoire et les grands hommes qui les ont
institué. Puisqu’on considère dans cette étude que les stratégies
communicationnelles et discursives spécifiques au temps présent influencent les
significations des contenus scolaires, on se propose de voir la variation entre
les histoires des régions historiques de la Roumanie racontées aux enfants
pendant deux périodes gouvernées par deux systèmes politiques différents –
communisme et postcommunisme. Quel est le statut des régions dans les deux
périodes mentionnées ? Quelle est leur importance pour l’histoire
nationale ? Quel type de nationalisme encouragent-ils ? Ce sont
quelques questions auxquelles on essayera à répondre par l’analyse de
l’invocation territoriale régionale dans les contenus scolaires d’avant et
d’après 1990.
Calvo, Nagore (Lancaster University, United Kingdom)
Contesting ‘Transitions’: Transitional Justice and Legitimacy
According to Smith (1991), the defining
feature of a nation is the shared territory or claim on a common homeland;
likewise, Gellner (1983) and Giddens (1985) suggest that the ultimate goal of
the nation is national ‘self-determination’ (or other forms of political
autonomy) within the territorial boundaries of a nation-state. While there are
many examples of a nation without states and states that do not comprise a
nation, it is usually assumed that the nation-building project requires
completion within the boundaries of a sovereign national state. In this paper I
will be arguing however that the ‘territorial trap’ underlying this assumption
(Agnew, 1995) is undermined by processes of global restructuring and the
associated redefinition of the state’s role (Jessop, 2002). Looking at the
broader notion of ‘transition’ we can offer a further analysis of the evolution
of the political system in Spain.
The issue of when the transition is to be declared complete is treated
differently by different political parties in Spain, which also envisage different
futures for the country. We can distinguish at least three different rhetorics
and practices related to the Spanish ‘transition’. First, the political right
sees the transition as beginning and ending with the writing up of the
Constitution in 1973 (Heywood, 1995). The country entered a ‘normal’ path of
development after that and the subsequent challenges, including more recent
ones, are either provoked by illegitimate violence and/or by economic,
political, and cultural challenges that are no different from those experienced
by other Western European states. This paper will look at the different
economic and institutional strategies and rhetoric in order to challenge the
view that regards transition, on the one hand, as a “consensus” among the
social and economic “forces” and, on the other hand, inaugurates the “modern”
Spanish nation-state project. In other words, I want to open up the meaning,
extensions and implication of ‘consensus’ in terms of the options, visions and
rhetoric of different political agendas with regard to the economic reforms
that Spain had to undergo in order to fulfil the criteria for EU membership
(and to be fully accepted in the international community) and, on the other
hand, to fulfil the claims for autonomy raised by local national elites.
Chicos, Alina (L'Institut National d'Urbanisme et
Aménagement du Territoire de Roumanie)
Histoire de la
propriété agricole et l’évolution du ménage paysan dans la région viticole
Vrancea
Le milieu économique
général de la transition en Roumanie a facilité, par son instabilité, le
blocage de l’agriculture privée, ce qui a mené à la baisse du niveau de vie,
notamment dans les régions rurales, où l’agriculture représente la plus
importante ressource de revenus. Comme branche importante de l’agriculture, par
rapport au potentiel à exploiter dans les villages de Vrancea, la viticulture
se trouve dans la même situation. Dans ces conditions, le ménage paysan a été
moins orienté vers l’économie de marché, en produisant surtout pour
l’autoconsommation, ce qui a déterminé la nécessité de la stimulation de
l’esprit d’entreprise dans le milieu rural. Par le développement du milieu
d’affaires dans l’espace rural, les produits agricoles roumains pourraient
atteindre les standards de qualité, ce qui les rendrait plus compétitifs sur le
Marché Commun Européen. Pour cette raison la communication présente va se
concentrer sur la mise en évidence des éléments spécifiques qui
caractérisent l`évolution de la propriété viticole et du ménage paysan depuis
la période communiste jusqu’aux nos jours, en influençant le milieu
d’affaires viticole des vignobles de Vrancea. L’évolution de la propriété a des
conséquences non seulement sur le mode d’organisation de l’activité du ménage
paysan, mais surtout sur les représentations et l’attitude du paysan roumain
envers la propriété. En utilisant les résultats d’une recherche qualiqantitative
développée dans les trois vignobles de Vrancea : Panciu, Odobesti et
Cotesti, j’ai identifié quelques facteurs favorables mais aussi défavorables à
l’initiation et au développement des affaires dans ce secteur d’activité.
Cojocari, Ludmila
(Laboratory of Cultural Anthropology and Ethno-Political Studies, Free International
University of Moldova, Republic
of Moldova)
Practices of Memory and Amnesia in a Borderland
Society: the Case of the Republic
of Moldova
This paper proposes to analyze the practices of memory
and amnesia reflected in ordinary people’s attitudes versus the policies of governmental structures towards identity
structures, in the context of borderland society: the case of the Republic of Moldova. The interstitial (Homi Bhabha, 1990) placement of Moldova is interpreted
from the perspective of its cultural, economic and political status of borderland
region between West and East. In order to understand the collective memory and
amnesia practices’ criteria of collection, selection and transmission within
the process of the collective identity’s re/construction, the study will
analyze the rites of communication (A. and J. Assmann, 1994) between ordinary
people and official institutions in the context of heroic mythology developed
around three monumental complexes: (1) the monastery “Capriana”, (2) the World
War II memorial “Capul de Pod Serpeni” and (3) the monument “Badea Mior”. All
of them are oriented to the revival of certain dimensions of collective
identity, becoming ambiguous symbols and arenas for symbolic fights (A.
Assmann, 1999). This competition, in the case of post-Soviet Moldova, is
stimulated by the influence of visible and invisible borders of Western and
Eastern realities reflected in the participation or non-participation of
different groups and the presence of officially invited guests or of unofficial
speakers at ceremonies. The perspective of “border region” and a comparison
with the Western societies' experience could contribute to the understanding of
the complicated mechanisms of memory and amnesia during the national and
democracy building process in post-Soviet Moldova. Preliminary researches
indicate the study of collective memory and identities in the Republic of Moldova
is an effective way of understanding the traumatizing Soviet legacy and its
role on the nation building process in this region.
Corković, Mirjana (Faculty
of Philology, University of Belgrade, Serbia)
Standard Language Ideology and Local Varieties in
Serbian Banat in Radu Flora's Novels
Apart from religion and tradition, one of the most integrating
factors of the Romanian community in Serbian Banat is their language. In the
context of scientific research on the relation between language and culture,
this paper explores the issue of Romanian identity through the use of language
in literature. The analysis is based on Radu Flora's novels. The writer, who
belongs to the first generation of the Romanian intellectual elite formed after
WWII in Serbian Banat, distinguishes himself as novelist, poet, university
professor of Romanian language, dialectologist, folklorist etc. In the spirit of Bakhtin's
"double-voicing", the said literary text shall be explored as
material that represents a point of view on the social reality of the Romanian
community. The text represents a concrete expression of the ideological
function of language, the occurence of diglossia and code-alternation within
this society. It points to the writer's commitment to the process of special
cultural identity formation, whose main formative factor and carrier of
cultural activities would be the standard dialect of the Romanian language
(High variety). Such an attitude strongly differs from the real linguistic
situation, where in everyday conversations Romanians identify themselves with
local dialects of the Romanian language (Low variety). This paper does not aim
at giving the answers to such a complex question as what the
language-culture-society relationship is. It suggests, however, opening up
questions about the construction of identity through language, especially about
standard language ideology manifested in literary texts, code-alternation and
related language attitudes, metapragmatic awareness etc.
Cotoi, Călin (University of Bucharest, Faculty
of Sociology and Social Work, Romania)
Cultural Regionalism and Nationalism in Interwar
Romania: Geography, Ethnology and the Imagining of National Space(s)
This paper is a critical reassessment of the
importance and inherent ambiguities of the concepts of regionalism in the
Romanian interwar period. Using an analysis of the meanings of “territoriality”
in constituting national and regional identities, we are led to recognize the
existence of two major ideal-types of regionalization: the
cultural-identitarian and the economically-administrative. These two different
regionalization trajectories are compared, the former with the process of
“imagining” national identities in Europe and
the latter with the dialectal relations between territory and capital formation
and circulation. Regionalist discourse in the Romanian cultural context was
often regarded with suspicion. However,
interesting views and studies emerged questioning a hurried overlapping between
institutional centralism and cultural integration. The most interesting are
probably those perspectives coming from the social and geographical sciences,
which we might describe as “nationalist-regionalist”. The whole background against
which the dynamism: small community – region – nation is played in a kind of nationalized
“chain of being” connecting long series of social units, consists in the
existence of a kind of meta-organism, the nation, this being seen as able to
sustain, undamaged, the tension: abstract – concrete, to absorb and heal the
breaches between tradition and modernity, past and present; to be, on one side,
the object of a new synthetic-analytic science and, on the other side, its
grounding and its warranty. The Romanian interwar regionalist-nationalist
discourse belongs, we believe, to a set of heterogeneous
scientific-disciplinary discourses having though an implicitly common project:
national space imaging from a scientific point of view.
Crînguş-Balaci, Mariana (West University of Timisoara, Romania)
Minorités et majoritaires dans le Pays Almaj (dép.
Caraş Severin)
Les relations humaines du Pays Almaj ont été développées
tous près avec le milieu géographique, la condition historique et les
traditions de la population majoritaire. Les dimensions des liaisons entre les
roumains et les différentiels minorités sont en partie spéciales, si on a eu
vue le contexte géographique où sont disposés les établissements. En partant
des formes de relief nous avons la dénomination de la région qui, dans la
langue slave ancienne signifiait « le Pays des collines«. À présent,
dans les localités de la dépression Almaj habitent encore envieront 160.000
gens d’ethnies différentes. Parmi les 32 établissements de la région
concernante, 6 sont des villages tchèques qui se constituent dans une
concentration unique dans le sens de la délimitation géographique de la
population tchèque du territoire roumain. Les villages roumains d’Almaj doivent
être regardés dans leur relation avec la population colonisée. Les
colonisations ont commencé surtout pendant la domination autrichienne quand
apparaissaient des macédoniens, des serbes, des allemands, et puis, des
tchèques. Malgré cela, l'unité et l'uniformité régionale est évidente dans le
Pays Almaj.
Ćuruvija, Ivana (Faculty for Sport and Tourism, Novi Sad, Serbia)
Are Programmes of Package Tours Based on
Attractions in the Vojvodina Region?
It is common knowledge that
the assets of the
Vojvodina region were, due to many political reasons, quite poorly being used,
as regards tourism. It was only a few years ago that Vojvodina regained her
attractive status as an tourist destination and started to appeal to larger
numbers of tourists. Therefore, an increasing number of new, receptive tourist
agencies now exist and various package tour programmes are being offered to both
foreign and domestic tourists. However, most of these package tours only offer
a one-day excursion or longer visits to Novi Sad, the capital of the Vojvodina
region, and sightseeing in its surrounding area. In this manner, the small
provincial towns of Vojvodina, as well as other parts of the region, are being
left out of the tourist offers and presentations. We assume that the most
attractive parts of this region, although they might seem appealing to
tourists, have not entirely been equipped to suit the tourist's needs,
especially foreigners, so they cannot be included in package tour programmes.
However, the region of Vojvodina boasts an abundance of tourist offers that
could be considered as regular tourist offers. The objective of this research
is to determine the reasons for such "selective" tourism programmes,
that is, to re-evaluate the facts based on this matter.
Dalipaj, Gerda (Institute of Folk
Culture, Tirana, Albania)
Similar and Differing Patterns of Exchange in the Region of Shpati
This
research on exchange is being conducted in Shpati, a region in Middle
Albania; the area is administratively included in the district of Elbasan.
Scientific sources identified the area as an ethnographic region, in the
meaning of well crystallized and communally shared cultural features. It is
important to notice here that the region of Shpati consists of people of
different religious belonging and it lies in a diverse relief from which the
nominations of its sub-localities emerge. Being in Middle Albania, Shpati
was also classified as a transitory area between the regions of Southern and Northern Albania, intermingling features from both
sides. Alongside the paper we will address the issue of exchange as a
cultural feature, commonly shared among the sub-localities of Shpati,
which served its people as a means of identification. In a comparative view,
we’ll see how different sub-localities share similar patterns of exchange, but
also bear significant differences among them (with specific reference to
collective and ceremonial events). People, emotionally linked with this
cultural feature, convey it in very stable terms. Among many other
features, the region has served as a delineating means for orienting exchanges
among its own people as well as with outsiders. We will also consider exchange
as directly linked with the notion of region, as a creator of its social
boundaries, as maintainer and reflector of groups within it, as a code of
behaving, as a social order. At the end of the paper we will reason on
how, during the socialist period, the isolation of remote Albanian regions from
urban life or from each other, helped the old ways of human interaction to
survive. After the socialist order declined Shpati witnessed flows of
migrations towards more profitable cities or outside Albania, which made its
people confront a new Otherness: powerful and spaceless and consequently the
Self was not the same. These movements were much more present in the remote
high-relief areas than in the near-city areas of the region. It is in the
latter indeed where we still find abundant living traditional patterns of
exchange [with specific reference to collective and ceremonial exchanges]. The
rise in individualism, the growing number of alternative exchange relationships
and the freedom to choose among them, disorder, instability, poverty and a
materialistic approach to life carve a new face for exchange. The consequent
tendency to cut clear boundaries, exists together with the desperate search for
the Similar one - people oriented through similar rules and spheres of exchange
- withdrawing into kinship and regional ties, as the closest way
to communication and survival.
De Rapper, Gilles
(Institut d’Ethnologie Méditerranéenne et Comparative. Maison Méditerranéenne
des Sciences de l’Homme, Aix-en-Provence, France)
“We Give and Take Inside”: Defining the Region through Kinship and
Marriage?
In
Albanian ethnology, Albania
is divided into more than fifty ‘ethnographic regions’ characterised by
linguistic, ethnographic and historical specificities. Although their limits
generally do not match the administrative divisions, these regions have been
since the 1990s the basis of local or regional identities all over the country.
This obsession of regional belonging is faced however with the question of the
territorial boundaries to be given to the regions: where does the region start,
where does it end, what villages are in/out? In what way are small ethnographic
regions parts of larger ones? Based on material collected in the border
district of Gjirokastër, in Southern Albania, this paper is an attempt to
question both scientific and vernacular definitions of the region in Albania. It
considers a generally underestimated criterion: connubium. Self-definitions of the region generally include comments
on marriage patterns such as “we give and take inside”, i.e. there are no
marriages with people outside the region. These statements (and those referring
to marriage with people from adjacent regions), although reported, are rarely
commented on by ethnographers. I suggest looking at the actual patterns of
marriage – in the framework of the local kinship system and in comparison with
the idealised endogamous pattern – in order to understand to what extent the
region can be defined in terms of kinship, marriage and social organisation.
Are the boundaries of regions maintained through marriage practices? The
argument is that both these practices, as well as discourses on regional
identity are better viewed as the mediation and expression of social transformation
and political change in Albania.
Becoming
Bulgarian the Macedonian Way:
Changing Identities among Recent Macedonian Immigrants in Bulgaria
This
paper studies the relationship between changing citizenship and ethnic/national
loyalty among Macedonians who currently apply for Bulgarian citizenship on the
basis of Bulgarian origin. During the Ottoman rule, inhabitants of geographic Macedonia were
practicing Bulgarian and Macedonian identity interchangeably, while after 1913
they became subject to two separate national projects for ninety years, when
Bulgarian and Macedonian increasingly became two opposing ethnic identities.
Yet, as of April 2001 when visa requirements for Schengen countries in Europe were partially removed for Bulgarian citizens, an
increasing number of Macedonians who can prove Bulgarian origin have applied
for Bulgarian citizenship. My hypothesis is that, although it is commonly believed
that Macedonians desire Bulgarian citizenship for personal interest, such as
the possibility to travel and work in the countries of the European Union, the
very process of applying for Bulgarian citizenship is caused by and affects the
way they perceive themselves in ethnic/regional categories. In fact, I suggest
that those, who are by no means all Macedonians, who have the chance to get
Bulgarian citizenship based on Bulgarian origin, can become loyal to two at
present seemingly mutually exclusive ethnic identities – Bulgarian and
Macedonian. This process is in stark contrast to current Macedonian and
Bulgarian national ideologies, yet it may indicate the reappearance of a larger
regional identity. By studying the relationship between citizenship changes and
ethnic identity among the Macedonians applying for Bulgarian citizenship, I
attempt to challenge ideas that ethnic identities in the Balkans at present are
rigid, predetermined and territorially bound and that the possibility of once existing
regional identity (Macedonian and Bulgarian together) may be resurfacing again.
Especially after the recent wars in Yugoslavia which ended in the
creation of only Serbs, only Croats, only Boshnjaks out of previous Yugoslavs,
some scholars have stated that the creation of new nation-states rigidifies
nationalisms and eliminates other possibilities except those of solid
ethnic/national identification (Bakic-Hayden 1995, Hayden 1995, 1999, 2002,
Verdery 1996). Through ethnographic research among Macedonian immigrants in Bulgaria I
attempt to show that space may have existed before and also now to have more
than one ethnic identity, and despite the hegemonic power of the new national
projects, ethnic identity can be a matter of personal choice and predilection.
Dimova, Rozita (Institute for
East European Studies, Free University of Berlin, Germany)
Culture Recycling: Balkan-Beats-Berlin. Performing
Balkan Cosmopolitanism in Berlin
This paper examines the formation of
an alternative regional Balkan scene in the heart of Berlin. Initially the scene started as a
“coping strategy” of young refugees from former Yugoslavia. In time, however, the
Balkan-Beats evenings turned into a music attraction frequented primarily by Germans.
By examining the transmutation of the initial project, which relied on music
from former Yugoslavia,
into a music brand that now incorporates generic ethno music from everywhere, I
will pose questions addressing regional identity, displacement, space and the
nature of humanitarian intervention. Further, I will address the central
contradiction of the legal (Duldung)
status for refugees in Germany, which, on the one hand afforded important
humanitarian relief, but on the other, also generated tremendous uncertainties
as to whether or how protection would come to an end – especially as
substantial numbers of refugees found themselves subject to deportation.
Dincă,
Melinda / Ţîru, Laurenţiu (West University of Timisoara, Romania)
Aspects of Regional and Ethnic Identity in
the Rural Area of Timiş County,
Romania
“Being
Romanian” or more specifically “being Bănăţean” does
not only mean the legacy of a certain ethnicity, language and tradition along a
genealogical line, but also their representation, namely a sum of culturally
created products. Social identity is
approached today in sociology as a social process. Jenkins (Social Identity,
2000) for example, considers identity as dynamics in which relationships of
similarity and dissimilarity are permanently established between individuals,
between communities, and between individuals and communities. The present paper is structured in two parts.
The first part is reserved for a review of theoretical aspects regarding
ethnical identity and ethnic conflict. The second part presents the results of
field research and discussions related to these two matters. Our study has been
achieved by encompassing two perspectives of social identity: the ethnic identity
configuration and regional identity configuration of the population in rural
areas of Timiş County,
Romania. The
two investigative sequences have been approached using the same types of
research instruments (Bogardus social distance scale, Likert
scale etc.) and starting from convergent objectives and criteria: aspects of social identity from the rural
environment (self- and hetero- identification). The study took shape by
projecting and applying a sociological investigation through questionnaires.
The sample consisted of 1200 subjects from twenty-two villages in Timiş County. The questionnaires were
distributed so as to cover all the types of rural community in the county
selected, according to the geographical distribution in the areas and the
socio-demographical composition of the population (the structures of the
population according to religious and ethnic belonging, age, gender and
education). Data gathering took place between the 1st and 15th
July 2004 by a team of student interviewers from the Sociology - Anthropology
Department, West University of Timisoara, and centralisation, interpretation
and statistical analysis of the data was done by the authors of the study.
Đurđević,
Jasmina (Institute of
Architecture and Urban & Spatial Planning of Serbia, Belgrade)
Regional Aspects of the Peri-Urban Development of Niš
In light of the requirements for a more balanced and dynamic
polycentric development of Serbia, a goal which was set up by the Spatial Plan
of the Republic of Serbia, the aim of this paper is to determine, according to
socio-economic analyses, the peri-urban belt of the town of Niš (third largest
urban centre in Serbia). More precisely, the paper investigates the influence
which Niš and its peri-urban zone have on the transformation of their local
environment as well as the position which Niš takes in spatial and functional
relations within the territory of the Republic of Serbia.
Generally, Niš is subdued to the influence of Belgrade and its metropolitan region because
Niš bears the brunt of the countries’ development axes, the latter being mostly
in congruence with magisterial infrastructure corridors. This influence on Niš
can be noticed through its emigrating population flows, which are mainly
pointed in the Belgrade
direction. Regarding the fact that the process of metropolisation is now at its
prime in Serbia, Niš is expected to transform from a medium-sized town into a
city, which would be able to reduce the population pressure on Belgrade as well
as gaining population from the town’s wider surroundings, which was during
former Yugoslavia more directed towards Skoplje.
Djurić,
Aleksandra (Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade, Serbia)
The Cross with Four Pillars - the Center of Spiritual Gathering throughout History
In this paper I will focus on the anthropological
research of four villages in Serbia inhabited by Romanians (Sălciţa,
Coştei, Iablanca) and one village in Romania (Vrani) on the other side of
the Serbian-Romanian border, which have been in cultural and spiritual contact
for decades. Romanians have inhabited the Banat
territory since the Middle Ages. Massive Romanian migrations towards this area
started during the Habsburg colonization of the Balkan
Peninsula in the 18th and 19th century. In
fact, this period was the most important for the cultural and spiritual
progress of the inhabitants of this region. It was then that the religious
monument called Crucea cu patru stâlpi
(The cross with four pillars) was
erected in the central area between the four villages – Sălciţa,
Coştei, Iablanca and Vrani. This sacred place was the center of spiritual
gathering for the inhabitants of the four villages. Every year, on the occasion
of the Orthodox religious holiday The
Descent of the Holy Spirit, they traveled from their villages to the
monument with litany, priests and peasants. In the year 1918, when the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
was formed, this area was divided by the newly formed border between Serbia and Romania. Therefore one of the
villages – Vrani – was separated from the others and now belongs to Romania. One of
the crucial issues this paper is trying to analyze is how strong the influence
of the border was for keeping the tradition and contacts in this region alive
and in which way the people living in these villages perceive the border. We
additionally wish to explain the role this sacred place had in the lives of the
villagers from 1918 until the present time. The question which remains to be
answered is whether “micro-regions” will succeed in keeping their community
traditions and identities in the period of developing supra-state regions, such
as the EU.
Engin Hande, Bilsel (Bahcesehir
University Faculty of Communication, Osman Pasa Mektebi, Istanbul, Turkey):
“Lazutlar”: The Eastern Black Sea Turks and
the Commodification
and Appropriation
of the “Tea Land” People
In Turkey there are different cultural
influences which affect the various regions of the country. There are also a
number of stereotypes which depict the ways of thinking, traditions and
character traits of people belonging to different regions. The most distinctive
regional stereotype is probably that of the eastern Black Sea Turks. These are the people who inhabit the northeastern slopes and coasts of
Turkey that comprise Ordu, Giresun, Trabzon, Rize and the coastal part of
Artvin. This paper examines the “Lazut” stereotype and the relationship of this
stereotype to the present day
Black Sea Turkish customs and mainstream popular culture and market forces. In particular, the way in which these regional stereotypes are appropriated and
mainstreamed by market forces and the media will be
tackled, by providing
examples from several areas of popular culture such as the music industry, television series and advertising.
The views on and reception of these appropriations by eastern Black Sea Turks
who dwell mainly in Istanbul will also be obtained through an ethnographical
approach as to whether they can identify with this brand new depiction of the
region and native culture, whether they can create a vivid nostalgia and a
sense of belonging and community among city Lazuts and how they react to these
regional portrayals and melanges co-opted by marketing forces.
Florea, George-Tudor (Central European
University, Budapest, Hungary)
The Impact of the Council of Europe’s
Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities on Domestic
Administrative Practices in the Central and Eastern European Region
The current thesis attempts to illustrate the impact
of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) on
the domestic public administration’s practices in the Central and Eastern Europe region analyzed in direct relation with
the states’ compliance with it. Furthermore, it provides an assessment of the
FCNM document in both its theoretical implications as well as on its practice
while evaluating its possibilities to reach effective norm empowerment at the
states’ public administration level. The main question discussed is underlined,
in particular, through the connection between the FCNM and the two relevant
theories of rationalism and constructivism. These two theories are used in
sociology and political science to interpret the relationship between human
rights treaties and the states’ compliance with them. The FCNM provides a clear
example as it is applied according to both theoretical approaches. While
rationalism promotes treaty coercion, cost/benefit calculations and material
incentives, constructivism is based on elite learning, socialization and argumentative
persuasion. On this note, taken from a rationalist perspective, it has been
difficult to coerce a state into abiding by international regulations on
national minorities since there have not been enough legal and practical mechanisms
of externally pressuring the domestic public administrations into fulfilling
their own duties. Indeed, in the absence of a powerful FCNM backed enforcement
mechanism, the Convention’s implementation has been highly dependent on the
political will of those in power and the structure of their governments. Additionally,
from a constructivist point of view, in relation to the existent domestic
mentality in many countries of the CEE region, the FCNM has been perceived as
the maximum a minority may get and it is consequently seen as a major favor
done to both the international organizations in the field as well as to the
national minorities existent over their territory thus limiting drastically the
Convention’s norm relevance. The solution that I propose envisions the possibility
of expanding the FCNM towards a more effective implementation and
practicability by improving and efficiently correlating the initial rationalist
and the long-term constructivist theoretical strategies of norm empowerment
while directly applying them in relation to the states’ domestic public
administrations. Consequently the outcome can be successful if the Convention’s
norm empowerment tactics and approach additionally take into account all the
major factors involved in the implementation process, ranging from the
political will of the member states to abide by the FCNM, to the financial and
logistical possibilities of the European institutions to cooperate more
effectively in intensifying the pressure on the member-countries into complying
with the existent norms. Furthermore, the approach needs to be enhanced through
the promotion of extra patterns or communication in which joint multilateral
organs of decisions involving all the subjects concerned from European institutions,
international experts, public administration leaders, national minority
representatives, and relevant local and international NGO representatives
active in the field could exchange ideas effectively and take common decisions,
which in the end would count towards the overall stability and prosperity of
multi-cultural societies throughout the Old Continent.
Frantz, Eva Anne
(Institut für Osteuropäische Geschichte, Universität Wien, Austria)
Regionale Identitäten in Kosovo in
spätosmanischer Zeit (1870 bis 1913)
Identitäten und Lebenswelten konstituierten sich in
Kosovo Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts nicht anhand ethnischer und nationaler
Kategorien, sondern wurden noch bis zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts vielmehr
durch religiöse, regionale/lokale, sozioprofessionelle und großfamiliäre
Loyalitäten bestimmt. In meinem Referat soll die Wirksamkeit regionaler
Elemente für die Identitätsbildung in diesem Raum in spätosmanischer Zeit
aufgezeigt werden. Berücksichtigt werden hier nicht nur die albanisch- und
serbischsprachige Bevölkerung, sondern auch die Lebenswelten der Aromunen und
der slawisch-katholischen Bevölkerung in Janjevo. Insbesondere soll der Frage
nachgegangen werden, inwieweit das Bild von „Kosovo“, das als
Verwaltungseinheit erst 1877 gebildet wurde, oder etwaige andere
regionale/lokale Vorstellungen existierten. Ansätze einer kosovospezifischen
regionalen Identität lassen sich zum Beispiel bei der orthodoxen Bevölkerung
finden, die sich teilweise als Kosovci,
d.h. Bewohner des Kosovo (vgl. die heutige albanische Variante Kosovar) bezeichnete. Eine weitere Frage
stellt sich nach der Beeinflussung regionaler Identitäten durch äußere
Faktoren. So versuchte etwa die serbische Regierung in Belgrad seit Ende des
19. Jahrhunderts, durch eine gezielte Nationalisierungspolitik derartige
regionale Identitäten zu bekämpfen. Dies betraf nicht nur die
serbischsprachige, sondern ganz besonders auch die aromunische Bevölkerung.
Gleichzeitig soll durch einen derartigen regionalgeschichtlichen Ansatz auch
der Tendenz entgegengetreten werden, die Geschichte Kosovos auf eine reine
Konfliktgeschichte der Serben und Albaner zu reduzieren. Neben konfliktreichen
Zeiten ist auch ein weitgehend friedliches Nebeneinander, wenn nicht auch
Miteinander der Bevölkerungsgruppen zu beobachten. Mit einem Fokus auf Kosovos
regionale Identitätsoptionen, die auch ethnische und religiöse Grenzen
überschreiten konnten, soll diesem Aspekt ebenfalls Rechnung getragen werden.
Friedman, Jack R. (University of Chicago, USA)
Regions and Exclusions: On Statementality and the Analytics of
Abjection
As
Southeast Europe slowly, fleetingly, and, at times, furtively moves toward a
deeper inclusion in Western Europe, much of the attention of social scientists
has been focused on those moments in which inclusion has been negotiated,
challenged, and/or imposed. But, what of those “regions” that have found
themselves excluded from the struggle over European belonging? How can a richly
informed re-examination of the analytical and theoretical nature of “regions”
and “regionalisms” help us to understand both inclusion and exclusion from Southeast Europe’s
“Europeanness”? In short, can we use a new perspective on the nature of regions
and regionalisms to map a geography of hope and hopelessness that accounts for
experience rather than only reflecting the abstractions of the workings of
broad, global forces? In this paper I will consider the differentiations of suffering
and hopelessness, the multiplicity of routes toward downward mobility, loss,
and abjection that demand the anthropologist’s perspective. To this end, I will
introduce a “regional” analytic I call “statementality” as a corrective to the
de-regionalized Foucauldian notion of “governmentality” in order to suggest a
way that one can rethink regions of exclusion. I will use examples drawn from
some of Romania’s “zones of
social abandonment” (Biehl 2005) to discuss these themes – specifically,
ethnographic examples from 1) the declining Jiu Valley
and 2) psychiatric hospitals throughout the country.
Fruntelată,
Ioana-Ruxandra (Department of Ethnology and Folklore, Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest, Romania)
Media Building of a
Regional Emblem
In Romania,
the awareness of regional belonging has been enhanced by the historic
separation of the main regions of the country (Walachia,
Moldavia and Transylvania). Nevertheless, contacts between the three
Romanian principalities have always been intense and the political unification
of the three regions at the beginning of the 17th century became a
fact due to the vision and valiance of King Michael the Brave. Before acceding
to the throne, Michael the Brave was the ruler of Oltenia, a region in the
southwest of Walachia. After more than 300
years since the real unity-maker lived, he was impersonated by a very talented
actor who starred in a movie on his life and deeds. The actor who played
Michael the Brave (Amza Pellea) was born in Oltenia and he also invented and
ran a television talk show based on the building of a regional character called
Nea Mărin (Uncle Marin). The talk show with “Uncle Marin” knew immense
popularity in Romania
in the eighth decade of the 20th century and created a prototype of
the rural inhabitant of Oltenia, using as a model the actor’s emic and synthetic
appropriation of his native regional identity. With the help of television,
Uncle Marin got to embody the quintessence of the Oltenia spirit, directing the
“regional imagination” of Romanian television watchers towards the model set by
the “image” on the screen. From “Michael the Brave” to “Uncle Marin” a media
emblem of regional identity was (re)-invented.
Havadi-Nagy Kinga, Xenia (Eberhard-Karls
Universität, Tübingen, Deutschland)
Freier Bauer und Soldat: Identität und Bewusstsein der
Grenzergesellschaft in der Österreichischen Militärgrenze im 18. und 19.
Jahrhundert
Thema des Referats ist die Entstehung und Gestaltung der regionalen
Identität und des Bewusstseins der Grenzergesellschaft in der kriegsgeprägten
Raumkonstruktion der Österreichischen Militärgrenze. Die Österreichische Militärgrenze
war eine Region, die die östliche und südöstliche Grenze der
Habsburgermonarchie zum Osmanischen Reich in einem etwa 1.800 km langen Bogen
umspannte. Sie war das Ergebnis eines vom 16. bis 18. Jahrhundert vollzogenen
Machtbildungsprozesses. Aus Teilen unterschiedlicher Länder bestehend, von Menschen
verschiedener Abstammung, Sprache, Religion, Sitten und Gebräuche bewohnt, kam
die Raumkonstruktion „Militärgrenze“ hauptsächlich durch exogene,
kriegsbedingte Faktoren zustande. Wegen der mannigfachen Vielseitigkeit der
Österreichischen Militärgrenze, war die Formung eines zusammenhaltenden
Grenzbewusstseins, somit einer einheitlichen kultivierten Grenzeridentität für
die Verwirklichung des erstrebten Zieles ständiger und wirkungsvoller
Wehrhaftigkeit und regionaler Wirtschaftseigenständigkeit mindestens so
ausschlaggebend als die Kultivierung des Raumes. Die Menschen der Grenzregion
zu kultivieren, sozial zu disziplinieren und entsprechend ihrer Doppelidentität
„Bauer und Soldat“ zu formen, bedeutete die Veränderung der Gewohnheiten und
Glaubensmaximen der alteingesessenen und zugewanderten Bevölkerungsgruppen und
die Vermittlung neuer Wertvorstellungen. Sie erfolgte durch staatliche
Maßnahmen im Bereich von Raumordnung und Wirtschaft, militärischer Erziehung
und gesellschaftlicher Organisation, Bildung und Konfession, somit durch Institutionalisierung
aufgeklärter zentralstaatlich-absolutistischer Zivilisationsbestrebungen. Die
raumwirksame Tätigkeit des absolutistischen Staates und seine Mittel zur
sicherheitspolitischen und wirtschaftlichen Stabilisierung der Provinzen
stießen jedoch wiederholt auf den Widerstand der ortsansässigen aber auch der
angesiedelten Bevölkerung. Die den Zielvorstellungen der Militärverwaltung
entsprechende Stabilisierung der staatlichen Ordnung und der zivilisatorische
Vorhaben der Entscheidungsträger entsprach nicht vollständig den Vorstellungen
und Erwartungen der Bevölkerung. Die
Grenzbevölkerung war zwar dem staatlichen Kultivierungsexperiments ausgesetzt,
doch sie gestaltete die konkrete Umsetzung des staatlichen Formungsprozesses
aktiv mit. Im Erfahrungsraum Militärgrenze führte die Wirkung spezifischer
Faktoren zur Entstehung eines Gesellschaftssystems, in dem sich einzigartige
Lebensformen entfalteten.
Der nach 1830 einsetzende Nationalisierungsprozess sprengte die von der
Verwaltung erkämpfte und von der Kriegserfahrung der Grenzgesellschaft geprägte
Homogenität der Identitätsregion „Militärgrenze“. 1848/49 endete der bis dahin
kultivierte Entwicklungsweg: Viele Grenzer sahen sich eher als Angehörige einer
säkular auftretenden Nation, denn als militärische Gehilfen kaiserlicher
absolutistischer Macht. Durch die allmähliche Aufspaltung in nationale
Glaubensgemeinschaften und die Zugehörigkeit zu verschiedenen Nationen wurde
die militarisierte Gesellschaft in ihrem Kern getroffen. Zwar führten interne
und externe politische, diplomatische und wirtschaftliche Entwicklungen zur
Auflösung der Militärgrenze 1881, doch die prägende Kraft bestimmter Elemente
von Grenzeridentität und -bewusstsein gedieh regional langfristig fort.
Hedeşan, Otilia (West University, Timişoara, Romania)
The Carnivals (Făşancuri) from the Mountain Banat, as Cine-rituals
Our paper circumscribes
a ceremonial phenomenon which is characteristic to a region, namely of
interference by German (Catholics) and Romanians, the so-called Banat of
Moldavia. Regarding this custom, the carnival (făşancul) from
Lasata Secului, the villagers around the area are very thrifty about it, they
usually express what is going on there through specific sentences: “look, they
do narozai”. But if you look carefully at the text, the things seem to look
totally different. There are anthropologists that pay attention to what people
say and there are anthropologists who pay attention to what people do (Leach).
In the case of the făşanc, if we consider what people are
saying, we obtain nothing; but if we start from what people are doing (and this
part we’ll deduce from the image) the things are completely different. As long
as these ceremonial traditions reported themselves in an exclusively oral
fashion, we knew little about the făşanc. The usage of visual
methods has produced a major change of view in the research of carnivals,
showing us an extremely thick, and full of life ceremonial. Considering the
vitality of the costum, it is so far too early to talk about festivalisation.
But, obviously, the tourist afflux, and the social changes will soon produce
important transformations to this ceremony.
Hristov, Petko (Ethnographic Institute with Museum of the
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria)
Transborder
Exchange of Seasonal Workers (Pechalbari) in the Central Part of the Balkans
In the central part of the Balkans, one can delineate
a ‘region’ stretching from Southeast Serbia and Western Bulgaria to Macedonia and Albania, which is characterized by
a specific cultural pattern: the seasonal migration of adult male population
involved in masonry and construction works. This is a historical overview of
how the destinations preferred by masons and construction workers (djulgeri)
coming from various parts of this region have shifted, mainly from what is now
the western edge of Bulgaria.
Before 1878 the major routes led to both Istanbul
as the capital of the Ottoman Empire and the autonomous Serbia and Wallachia.
After the liberation of Bulgaria
its newly proclaimed capital Sofia became an
attractive centre for the earners (pechalbari) from the regions of
Western Bulgaria, Eastern Serbia and Macedonia. In time, the annual
journeys of the men from this central Balkan region “at work” and “for gain” (pechalba)
developed specific features of rituals, celebrations, and oral tradition in the
villages of these regions. In this paper I will present both the
transformations within the local societies and the formation of transborder
communities in the modernized city. Starting from the 1960s-1970s, the centuries-old
model of seasonal labour migration from the centre of the Balkans was reversed.
In this period, temporary migrants from the territory of former Yugoslavia settled down permanently in Western Europe, America
(USA, Canada, Argentina)
and Australia
with their families. My fieldwork allows studying these transformations in the
Western Balkans in the perspective of the future accessing of the Balkan
countries to the EU.
Hysa, Armanda (Institute of Folk Culture,
Albanian Academy of Sciences,
Tirana, Albania)
Regional-based Networks in the Metropolis – the Case of Tirana
After the fall of the communist order, Albania
witnessed a large wave of migration inside and outside the country. The reason
for such displacements is almost everywhere the same: the old economic and social
organization structures begin to crumble. To this end, migration was a
necessary “survival strategy”. The migration toward Tirana has been seen as
chaotic and unorganized, because the state played no role on it. The reality is
a little different. Some “invisible” networks regulated and made possible the
whole mechanism of this migration. We can refer to this kind of network as
being regional-based. In this paper we will deal with the network created by
the newcomers from the region of Skrapari. We will analyze the ways in which
this “invisible” network was interwoven and its function as an agency that
first provided temporary accommodation and a temporary employment. In a second
stage, it then picked the most convenient home apartments or pieces of land for
building houses, thus enlarging the network itself. A key issue in this paper
will also be the political support this network gained and vice versa.
Ilić, Marija (Institute for
Balkan Studies, Serbian Academy of Sciences, Belgrade, Serbia)
The Notion of Territory in the Identity
Discourse of the Serbs from Szigetcsép
This
paper is based on the ethno-linguistic field survey conducted among the older
Serbian population (born before or immediately after the Second World War) in
Szigetcsép (2001). The main goal of the survey was collecting data on the
traditional way of life of the local Serbs and their traditional lexicon.
Nevertheless, questions related to local traditional culture triggered the
identity discourse patterns of the local Serbs, such as memories of their origin
and the US/THEM contrast. These identity discourse patterns comprise a very
specific territory notion, which seems to be of utter relevance for the
identity formation of the local community. The first is to be recognised in the
narratives on origin as all of the informants repeated (spontaneously or when
asked) basically the same narrative, which was structured to enlist the
territories their ancestors were believed to inhabit before dwelling in
Szigetcsép. The second is found in the narratives giving evidence of the
traditional concept of the territory, which is very closely linked to the
contrast between US/THEM. Having all this in mind, I tried to point out the
relation of the territory concept to the basic identity issues of the local
community.
Iliescu, Laura Jiga
(“Constantin Brailoiu” Institute of Ethnography and Folklore, Bucharest, Romania)
Maramures, what is this?
When a local or a foreign tourist wants to visit an
“authentic” region in Romania,
he/she is guided to Maramures. Also, when an anthropologist is looking for
“authentic” traditions in Romania,
he/she has necessarily to make fieldwork in Maramures. Hence, the region
becomes a meeting point for
everybody, due to its constructed image as being “savage”, inhabited with a
sort of strange people who preserve their old fashion of life and their old folklore.
How “real” is this image and how does it influence the self-perception of the
people living here? They developed a network of rural tourism, trying to sell
the image the others have created for them. They also adapted their customs to
the visitors’ expectations (for example, people from Botiza moved a drama
usually performed during the Christmas Eve to the night of the new Year, just because
the number of tourists increased on this last occasion). But in the meantime
the region has its own life, stories, songs, customs, fears and hopes, more or
less hidden to the eyes of the hurry visitor. On the other hand, many people
from here used to work abroad and when coming back, they built new and large
houses which have noting in common with the old architecture of the area. They
are, also, visitors from other places. My paper is about the history of this
image of Maramures and about the manners the inhabitants manage (or fail) to
find an equilibrium between reality and “authenticity”.
Jankowski, Wojciech (Institute of Slavic
Studies, Polish Academy
of Sciences, Warszawa, Poland)
Romanians
in the Czernowitz Region: Regional or National Identity?
As many authors write, the period of Austrian
domination in the Bukovina region had created
a very specific type of non-nationalist identity. In 1918 the most popular
ideas were Ukrainian and Romanian nationalism. In November of that year, the
Romanian army went into the city of Czernowitz
and the entire region was incorporated into Romania. After 1940, the northern
part of the region was under Soviet rule. The Russian authorities created a new
territorial district: the Czernovitz Region (Regiunea Cernăuţi),
which contained Southern Bukovina, ţinutul Herţa and a small
part of Southern Bessarabia. Under Soviet
rule, a new Moldavian ethnicity as well as a new Moldavian language were
created. After half of century of Sovietisation, Moldovanisation, and
Russification, there is still a large Romanian speaking minority (20 % of
the population of the Czernowitz Region). It is difficult to say if homo
bucovensis has ever existed but for sure there was some kind of regional
identity. How is one to classify the identity of the Romanian speaking minority
in independent Ukraine:
as Bukovinian, Romanian or Soviet? Some of them declare themselves as Moldovans
(Moldavians) but for regional Romanian leaders this is out of the
question: they are part of the great Romanian nation which lives in Romania, Ukraine
and the Republic
of Moldova. According to
them they represent a brilliant kind of Romanian: Bukovinians.
Jovičić, Svetlana (University of Arts
in Belgrade, Faculty of Drama, Serbia)
The SEE Region - Sold/Consumed through European Films
This
paper examines the past and existing trends in ‘selling’ and ‘consuming’ the
SEE region in the European film industry. How is the region represented in
regional productions (especially in Serbia,
Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia) and other European
films? Which films have been awarded prizes (Cannes,
Venice and Berlin film festival) and interpreted by the
official critics? How are these prize-winning films advertised to the wide audiences
and with what success? How does the SEE's regional identity become their
‘unique point of sale’? How do European film funds’ guidelines determine the
content and conditions for the production of regional films? The paper analyzes
ten films (from the region and the rest of Europe),
which were made at the beginning of the 1990s and after 2000.
Kanygina, Antonina (National University
of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy”,
Ukraine)
Cultural Landscape vs Regionalism: Established Borders or Imagined
Areas?
The SEE
region is a highly differentiated and in a certain way complicated but rather ambiguous
space with its mosaic authenticity. This last point turns to the problem of the
cultural landscape of this territory, its conceptualised constructs and
identifications. How does one determine these intra-transparent borders,
outwardly imagined as the underground of Europe,
and thus isolated? Or should one follow Peter Zilahy's ideas of the dominant
Danube line, which unites and reaches to Vienna
and so on? What is the mental map of the region? And is the notion of region a
reliable approach for the whole area and local places? All these initial
questions emphasize two main points. The first theoretical one proceeds with,
so to say, the SEE topos, or thinking space of this area. The second goal
applies to the thematic cases. This is an attempt to consider the SEE landscape
in terms of intellectual writing, e.g. Dubravka Ugresic, Aleš Debeljak, Ivan
Colović, Emir Suljagić etc.; to outline not only what is actually
perceived, but also that which is associated with historical memory and cultural
context. Thus, the main focus of this research refers to an intangible sense of
place, its mental representations and recognition in terms of landscape.
Kartari,
Asker (Faculty of Communication, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey)
Regionale Identitäten und Alltagsleben in
türkischen Großstädten
Als Folge der Wirtschaftssituation in ländlichen
Teilen fand ein massiver Landfluch in der Türkei in letzten 50 Jahren. Der
Begriff Gecekondu bezeichnet die Häuser der Einwanderer aus den Dörfern in Istanbul,
Ankara, Izmir oder in anderen Großstädten. Gecekondu ist die türkische
Bezeichnung für eine Marginalsiedlung, also für ein ungeplantes Viertel mit
primitiven Unterkünften am Rande einer Großstadt, jedoch nicht einen Slum. Übersetzt
bedeutet es soviel wie „nachts hingestellt“. Um ein Gecekondu aufbauen zu
können, braucht jeder ein staatliches Grundstück, dessen Besitzer keine
Privatperson ist. Jeder Gecekondu-Inhaber reserviert benachbarte Grundstücke
für seine Verwandten oder Bekannten aus seinem Dorf oder Provinz, also aus
seiner Region. In Laufe der Zeit tauchen große Gecekondu-Siedlungen mit
homogenen Bevölkerungen. In jeden türkischen Großstädten finden sich Mahalle’s
(Siedlungen), die mit ihren regionalen oder ethnisch-kulturellen Namen
bezeichnet sind; zum Beispiel „Erzurum Mahallesi“, „Abdal Mahallesi“, „Cingene
Mahallesi“, „Ege Mahallesi“ usw. In diesem Beitrag wird die Identitätsbildung
der Einwohner dieser Siedlungen diskutiert und die Rolle ihrer regionalen
Herkunft dargelegt. Des Weiteren wird das Netzwerk zwischen den Mitbewohner,
die aus selben Regionen eingewandert sind, dargestellt. Dieses Netzwerk
funktioniert in allen Feldern des Alltagslebens. Die Landsleute nennen sich
außerhalb ihrer Herkunftsregion gegenseitig als Hemseri und der
Hemseri-Anschluss hat einen großen Einfluss auf den menschlichen, offiziellen,
kommerziellen Beziehungen.
Kaplan,
Melike (Ankara
University Faculty of Letters,
Department of Folklore, Ankara,
Turkey)
Regional Identity: from the Region to the City Centre
From
the end of 1960s, cultural identity, one of the basic subjects of social
anthropology/ethnology, generally became a research topic in the social
sciences by the beginning of the 1990s. Concepts like ethnicity, regionalism
and regional identity are the focus points of these studies. From the point of
view in this article, “The Association of Madenliler” (in the capital of
Turkey, Ankara) will be examined of the context of the movement from the region
to the city centre, which formed in one of the eastern towns in Turkey,
Elazığ, Maden. The basic aims of the Regional Association, its
membership and activities, will be argued on the base of ethnicity and cultural
identity. This article is based on participant observation and in-depth
interviews from anthropological fieldwork.
Kilinc, Seda (Ankara
University Faculty of Letters, Folklore Department, Turkey)
Ethnographic Analysis of Pomak
Turks’ Cultural Identity and Ethnic Structure
In
this paper the cultural identity, ethnic structure and interactions with the
socio-cultural and economic environment of Pomak Turks who had come to Turkey during
the population exchange were studied. Being fundamental elements of the Pomak
Turks’ traditional structure, who live in Belkıs and Yukarı
Yapıcı Villages (Erdek/Balıkesir), language, religion and dress
and finery were examined for their effects on the Pomak Turks’ cultural
identity. This is a social anthropological field study which was carried out
using participant observation and interview techniques. Throughout the field
study, the researcher went to the villages and interviewed Pomak people and
joined their special days. Their religious rituals and activities, women’s
dress and fineries, wedding preparations and rituals, daily life and economic
activities were documented by photographs and camera recordings. Pomak women
who have carried the determining elements of cultural identity forward were the
focus of the research. As a result of the study, it was seen that they
protected their identity's distinctive characteristics by using their languages
among their own people, valuing religious rituals and wearing their folkloric
dresses in everyday life. Furthermore, results indicate that they raise their
children, who will pass on their culture to posterity, as persons faithful to
those same traditional values. In order to protect their cultural values,
Pomaks seem to emphasize their language, religion and dress. It was also found
that they accommodated different conditions of the region from where they came
through exchanges, emphasized their distinctive identity by consciously highlighting
their cultural differences, and that they experienced the separation of ‘me/us’
and ‘other.’
Kimm, Chantelle-Marie (University of Athens,
Athens, Greece)
Bosnia-Herzegovina: Identities, Politics and the Nation
Despite
progress in “Westernization”, the region of Southeastern
Europe is often stereotyped as backward and irrational. This is
particularly true of the Western Balkans. Although the prospect of EU membership
offers a glimpse of hope at moving beyond such characterizations, mainstream
Western perception of the region during the past decade remains at status quo.
Nevertheless, the tacit acceptance of North American and Western European
academics and political figures of this region as economically backward and
undeveloped fails to explain the perpetuation of its historical image as being
comprised of an inherently irrational and volatile population. It is precisely
the perpetuation of this stereotype that this paper sets out to examine. By
tracing the use of the term “irrational” in the development of early nationalism
theory typologies, we find that what was originally intended as a German
romantic based counter classification to the characteristic “rational” thought
of the Enlightenment, evolved into a pattern of Western perception whereby
Eastern Europe is associated with political and social backwardness expressed
by irrationality in comparison to Western Europe as advanced and rational in
thought. These early misinterpretations of nationalist doctrine terminology and
the original context in which it was developed have contributed to the
perpetuation of this pattern throughout the 20th century and
continue into the 21st. What began as a process of classification
developed into the characterization of the Southeastern European region whereby
the terms rational and irrational were taken out of their original context and
used in a literal meaning. This paper utilizes a case study of
Bosnia-Herzegovina to examine the far reaching effects of the Western
perception of Southeastern European cultures and their social and political
dynamics to which the negative connotations of this classification gave birth.
Emphasis is given to the development of ethnic identities in Bosnia-Herzegovina
from the early 19th century in relation to the parallel
manifestation of the Western nationalist doctrine and concludes with their
intersection on the eve of the Bosnian war.
Kotska, Olha
(Development of MA Programmes in Sociology and Cultural Studies at Ivan Franko
National University
of L'viv, Ukraine)
Constructing the Region in Literary Tradition: Galicia – a
Field of Austro-Hungarian “Fictitious” Reality
The
main issue of this paper is to present how the works of B. Shults, L. Zakher-Mazokh,
G. Trakl, J. Rot, R. Muzil and other “Austro-Hungarian Galicians” create a
specific literary tradition which has an influence on regional mentality.
Literature is able to construct an “alternative” history for a region's memory.
In reality there is no “region Galicia”
on the administrative map of Ukraine.
But in the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, there remained a strong net of
cultural relations between the countries of Eastern Europe.
The result was a compromise which brought with it unique
consequences: multilingualism in university and administrative discourse and a
multilingual cultural life which was however permanently overshadowed by
conflicts between the various nationalities. A transnational civil society did
not arise, but the Habsburg monarchy was also not a nation-state. And while
this indicates an Austrian literary history which should incorporate at least
twelve languages, that history has yet to be written. “Mental” constructions,
which were inculcated by the Austro-Hungarian Empire are still alive, are still
part of the real Galician space.
Krasteva-Blagoeva, Evgenia / Blagoev, Goran
(New Bulgarian University,
Sofia, Bulgaria)
Tasting the Balkans: Food and Identity
This
paper is an attempt to study the complex problem of constructing and
de-constructing a region through food. It is based on fieldwork conducted in
the town of Sofia
(including data about Serbian, Turkish and Greek restaurants in the town) as
well as some material about Bulgarian migrants. Eating habits and the concept
of taste in the Balkans are viewed as a form of shared culture, which is able
in certain circumstances to create a sense of common identity. All aspects of
the ethnicizing of food in the frame of the so-called “Balkan cuisine” (if such
a concept exists except in an etic sense) are analyzed. Several debates about
the privileged “ownership” of certain food and drink, considered typical for
national cuisines in the Balkans, are presented.
Krel, Aleksandar
(Ethnographical Institute of the Serbian Academy of Sciences, Belgrade, Serbia)
Ethnic Identity
(Re)construction in Vojvodina: The German People in Sombor
The German national minority functioned as an important
factor in the specific ethnic mosaic of Vojvodina up until the end of WWII. In
the decades that followed, the negative attitude of the newly established
socialist authority towards the German people led to Germans being sent to the
work camps, and afterwards also being expelled from the area of Vojvodina. Due
to the process of assimilation and a negative rate of population growth for the
remaining Germans, today in Vojvodina they represent a very small community,
the members of which are concentrated in several big towns. During the period
of strong ethnic clash in the area of ex-Yugoslavia, members of the German
national minority appeared publicly for the first time
since the period of “ethnic mimicry”. They started to establish unions, which
gathered citizens of German nationality and tried to (re)construct their own
ethnic and cultural identity. Today, there are several such unions in
Vojvodina, the aim of which is to protect the ethnic and cultural identity of
Germans. One of these is the Gerhard Union in Sombor. In this paper I am going
to deal with the conceptualisation and symbolization, as well as to analyze the
strategies and to represent modalities in which the Gerhard Union (with its
leaders and members) strive to guard and/or reconstruct certain elements of
their own ethnic and cultural specificities. In this way, I am going to
represent how a small group, without any social power, defines its identity,
consciously formulating it and carrying it onwards, changing also the
strategies of its own perseverance in accordance to social circumstances. The
results of this research
should contribute to a better understanding of the meanings, dynamics and
perspectives of the multiethnic life in the Vojvodina region. Key words: German
national minority, Vojvodina, Sombor, hidden minorities, identity
(re)construction, strategies of ethnic identity (re)appearance.
Krneta, Jelena (Faculty
of Sport and Tourism, Novi Sad, Serbia)
Tourist Farm Houses: Possible Ways to Preserve the
Cultural Identity of the Vojvodina Region
Vojvodina is a typical agricultural region in the
southern part of the Great Plain. This region is specific for its old farm
houses, called “szalas”, which were built in the middle of wide agricultural
areas. These farm houses preserved the traditional architecture, way of life,
old furniture, traditional cuisine, production, traditional entertainment,
customs and dress. For these reasons they are considered as cultural heritage.
Today, traditional farm houses are disappearing. Vojvodina could lose a unique
cultural identity, which has survived thanks to the traditional way of life on
those farm houses. The question is how to stop this process and motivate people
to keep on living in these traditional ways? How can all the characteristics of
the old farm houses be retained in order to preserve the cultural identity of
Vojvodina? One possible solution is to revitalize old farm houses and include
them in the tourist offer of the region. This idea has become popular and now
some farm houses offer accommodation, traditional cuisine, famous hospitality,
entertainment, relaxation and sports facilities. This paper will try to answer
the question of whether tourism on traditional farm houses can contribute to
preserving the cultural identity of Vojvodina. Experts from different
socio-cultural areas (tourism, sociology, ethnology, culture) were questioned
about the problem. In addition, visitors to the tourist farm houses were
questioned whether they consider farm houses as places where a traditional way
of life is preserved and where it is possible to learn about the local culture
of Vojvodina. The results will be presented in this paper and should help to
answer the main question asked.
Lafazanovska Stojanovic, Lidija (Institute of Folklore “Marko Cepenkov”, Skopje, Macedonia)
Erinnerte Symbole. Zur symbolischen Bedeutung von
Geburtsort in lebensgeschichtlichen Erzählungen
Dieser Beitrag will einen Blick auf die Beziehung zwischen regionalem
Bewusstsein und narrativem Gedächtnis mit Hilfe der Erinnerungen von
makedonischen Migranten in Deutschland an ihren Geburtsort bieten. In diesem
Sinne erscheinen als besonders wichtig die Beschreibungen von Kindheit,
sozialem Leben (Festkultur, Familienleben und Geseligkeit, wie der Hochzeit als
einem der wichtigsten Momente im dörflichen und kleinstädtischen Leben). So
markieren „Seßhaftigheit“ (typisch für den sog. makedonischen Lebensstil) und
auch „Mobilität“ (typisch für den deutschen großstädtischen Lebensstil) extreme
Positionen auf einer Skala unterschiedlicher Verhaltensweisen, zwischen denen
sich in der Regel das soziale Leben makedonischen Migranten abspielt. Viele
interessante Beschreibungen und Deutungen des Geburtsortes kennzeichen eine
Entfremdung von der Herkunftsregion, aber auch es taucht auch wieder das
nostalgische Bild des Geburtsorts auf. Diese Ambivalenz könnte als Suche nach
Heimat und Identität erlebt und untersucht werden. Eine andere interessante
Beobachtung stellt die Tatsache dar, dass der neue Lebensstil als Auflösung der
traditionellen Gewohnheiten sowie die Mobilisierung der Menschen aus Makedonien
eventuell zu einem Abbau regionaler Unterscheide führen können.
Lafazanovski, Ermis (Institute of Folklore “Marko Cepenkov”, Skopje, Macedonia)
The New Macedonian Regional Identity
between Virtual Narratives and Academic Discourse
Despite
the huge and well-known academic discourse (history, politics, ethnography,
ethnology) about the ancient and new regional identity of Macedonia,
there is also a wide web of virtual communities discussing historical and
contemporary facts about the Macedonian new regional identity.
The aim of this paper is to bring the contemporary regional academic and
real theories into the context of the new regional Macedonian identity and
compare them with “virtual narratives”, from the point of view of competence.
For this
purpose in the context of the “virtual ethnography”, the
virtual community that shares common questions about the Macedonian regional
identity and regionalism will be studied, in an attempt to gain a proper answer
for the following questions: How do virtual communities (electronic
communication) help to create a sense of Macedonian regional and cultural
identity? How does such a mechanism contribute to the mutual development of
regional and cultural identity in Macedonia? Does the ethnic pride
depend on demonizing or denigrating other ethnic groups, and if so, how is this
goal accomplished? How are the virtual and “natural” similar and how are they
different?
Lazea, Andrea
(University Babes-Bolyai, Cluj-Napoca, Romania)
The Post-Communist Monuments of Bucharest and the
(Re-)Creation of a Local Identity
After
1989, a total of thirty-nine monuments were erected in the capital city of Romania, of
which twenty-nine represented the commands of public institutions. The research
I conducted upon the post-communist monuments of Bucharest was aimed at identifying public
preoccupations and projects concerning the maintaining or (re)creation of local
identity. Starting from the concept of “identity” as it was defined by Manuel
Castells: “le processus de construction de sens à partir d’un attribut
culturel, ou d’un ensemble cohérent d’attributs culturels, qui reçoit priorité
sur toutes les autres sources”, the direct observations and interviews pointed
towards an image of the city as a political and diplomatic capital. A limited
number of cultural attributes of the city, such as “the capital status”, “the
revolution of 1989”, “the national political and cultural past”, and “the
European future of the city”, were used in recent analyses. In the process of
commanding and constructing monuments, the city's belonging to the geographical
territory, to the history of the region of which Bucharest is a part, is poorly taken into
consideration. The few references to local personalities or history are present
in Bucharest’s
public space only due to their prominent national relevance, to their
contribution in the creation of the national state. Therefore, the results fall
under two main considerations:
1. Local history / urban memory are not promoted;
2.
The disconnection between the city's identity and the regional identity leads
to “a regional neutrality” of the capital city.
Lehti, Marko (University of Tampere, Finland)
The De-Balkanization
of the Balkans: Searching for Unity after the Ottomans
In this paper, I am focusing on
various efforts to create Balkan unity in the place of the disintegrating Ottoman Empire. During the past two centuries various
ambitious and imaginative visions of the future order have been presented. The
origin of federation or confederation plans could be dated back to the early 19th
century but according to my reading, the most promising and also
too often forgotten period was the early 1930s, when altogether four big Balkan
conferences and several sub-meetings were organized. When we are talking about
the Balkan federation movement it is obvious that any of these various brave
plans were not successful enough to reach their goal, but the importance of
these various plans, visions and discussions is elsewhere. Even if the
spreading of nationalism fragmented the former Balkans into exclusive national
communities there were also those who still cared for the peace and development
of the whole peninsula. This goal – development in peace – required tools for
achieving it but also a vision of Balkan solidarity and a shared past. These
plans, visions, dreams and efforts represented the marginal voice, but were
also a proof of an alternative existence in the history of the Balkans. They
show the different ways in which the future of the Balkan peoples and states
has been possible to envision and about existing feelings of unity in destiny
but also in culture among all the Balkan nations, which is currently a much
forgotten idea.
Levytska, Maryana (Ethnology Institute, L’viv, Ukraine)
Nineteenth Century Galicia
and its People: Regional Identity Characteristics in the Artistic Context
The
presented paper aspires to study “region” not only as a certain geographic
nation, political formation etc, but also as an interrelation of specific
values created in peculiar national and social surroundings. The period examined
is the time when a certain interstate regional formation of the 19th
century like Galicia
could exist. Its eastern part (with L’viv in the centre) forms ethnic Ukrainian
territories which belong to present day Ukraine,
and the western part (with Krakow in the
centre) constitutes Polish territory with an indigenous Polish population. Both
these areas had for many years been part of Pzecz Pospolita. Within the time
limits of the Habsburg monarchy in the period of the so-called “long 19th
century”, Galicia
was not only an administrative and political nation, but also a variety of
connotations related to social and anthropological contexts. Galicia is a
region that can be viewed as a mixture of paradigms, namely Ukrainian, Polish,
Jewish, Armenian, Czech, and German. This discourse is of special actuality for
Ukraine
if we consider its contemporary situation in the context of local identity
bringing back the national background “ad noster lare”. In order to have an
insight into the regional and social background which moulded a unique archetype
of a “Galician”, one should go to works of art. The concept of regional
identity can be traced in portraits by the region’s individual residents, who
represent various social, vocational and national groups. Thus the subject of
study in this work is ways of presenting by visual means the conventional
artistic impersonation of the Galician archetype along with its individual and
typical features.
Loer, Thomas (Universität Dortmund,
Deutschland)
Zum Begriff der Region
Regionen werden im avisierten Vortrag auf der Basis von empirischen
Untersuchungen zur Region Ruhrgebiet und in Lettland als sozio-kulturelle
Einflussstruktur konzeptualisiert. So wird Region als Gegenstand eigener
Strukturiertheit begriffen, der sich im Handeln der Angehörigen einer Region
ausdrückt, da diese in ihrer Sozialisation einen regionalspezifischen Habitus
erworben haben. Die Genese einer Region ist zurückzuführen auf
Handlungsprobleme, als mit denen konfrontiert die Praxis in dieser Region sich erfahren
hat. Die Lösungen dieser konstitutiven Handlungsprobleme verdichteten sich im
Zuge ihrer Bewährung als eben jene genannte sozio-kulturelle Einflussstruktur.
Erst wenn der Begriff der Region derart ruhend auf materialer Analyse gewonnen
wurde, lassen sich andere Konzeptualisierungen von Region angemessen entwerfen.
Angemessene Konzeptualisierungen von Region – sei es etwa auf der Ebene des
politischen oder des wirtschaftlichen Handelns – stellen stets eine
Rekonstruktion der zugrundliegenden und im Handeln der Angehörigen sich
ausdrückenden regionalen Einflussstruktur dar. Diese stellt im Sinne Braudels
eine longue durée, Struktur langer Dauer dar, die in der Region auftretende
neue Handlungsprobleme präformiert, indem sie die Wahrnehmung dieser Probleme
ebenso strukturiert, wie sie die Optionen für deren Lösung bereithält – und
auch bestimmte andere Optionen ausschließt. Der Vortrag soll dieses Konzept
materialhaltig – an exemplarischen Analysen zum Ruhrgebiet und zu Lettland –
erläutern und im Rahmen der Tagung seine Fruchtbarkeit für Regionen des
südöstlichen Europas überprüfbar machen.
Lubanska, Magdalena (School for
Social Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw,
Poland)
Three Narrations about the Dissenter Neighbors
in the Muslim - Christian Local Communities of the Western Rhodopes (Bulgaria)
The western Rhodopes are inhabited mainly by the
autochthonic Slavic population of the Orthodox Christian and Muslim
confessions. In my paper I will describe the main components of three types of
narrations which I had heard in Muslim-Christian local communities during my
fieldwork in the summer of 2005 and 2006. I consider them as important to
understand the shared and hidden pattern of coexistence in the region of Western Rhodopes. The first narration is common for
Muslims and Christians and is unifying both groups. The main component of it is
the declaration: “we are like brothers”, “we are the same”. It is fundamental
for supporting the neighborliness (komshuluk)
in the region. The other two types explain for each religious group why their
dissenter neighbors, Muslims and Christians, differ. These narrations are not
shared with dissenter neighbors and are completely different. The Muslim
narrations treat Christianity as a fallacy and support this thesis by mainly
non-canonic Muslim stories, explaining how Christians had been misled.
Christian narrations do not recognize Muslims as different from Christians,
presuming that Muslims in the Rhodope Mountains
are in fact crypto Christians only pretending to be Muslims. These narrations
are trying to uncover this, by saying for example that Muslims “still keep
their traditional Bulgarian clothes in their attics” and “remember their
Christian past very well”. My thesis is that the first narration, common for
both religious groups, is making possible the unshared existence of the other
two narrations, without destroying the neighborliness in the region of my fieldwork.
The other two narrations are important because of the axiological needs of each
of these religious groups, because in them they prove to themselves the
superiority of their own religion over the other's religion.
Lukanović, Jovica
(Frankfurt/Main, Deutschland)
Das Banat – eine Region und ihre Grenzen
In der Habsburger Monarchie wurde das Banat, an der
Grenze zum Osmanischen Reich gelegen, zunächst zum Migrationsraum.
Kriegsflüchtlinge und angeworbene Soldaten siedelten sich an der „Militärgrenze“
an, und auch durch die wirtschaftlich motivierte Ansiedlung von Deutschen und
Ungarn und den Zuzug von Rumänen und Slowaken trafen unterschiedliche
ethno-konfessionelle Gruppen in der Region zusammen. Gerade die Sprachen,
Sitten, Gebräuche und Alltagskulturen, die einander gegenseitig beeinflussten,
machten aus dem Banat eine spezifische Kulturlandschaft. Im Hinblick auf
Architektur und Theater war sie stets offen für Einflüsse aus Mittel- und
Südosteuropa. Vor allem aber trat das Banat wegen seiner wirtschaftlichen
Bedeutung in Erscheinung: Seine Getreideproduktion verschaffte ihm den Ruf als
Kornkammer des Reiches, auch der Bergbau und die Eisenindustrie waren
bedeutsam. Dabei erlangte das Banat in der Habsburger Monarchie nie den Rang
einer selbständigen Provinz. Zum Schluss war es in drei Verwaltungseinheiten –
so genannte Komitate – eingeteilt.
Obwohl es an identitätsstiftenden Faktoren fehlte – etwa
an der territorialen Geschlossenheit oder einer Führungsschicht, die die „Nation“
hätte bilden können – und obwohl die Verschiedenheit der Konfessionen, Sprachen
und sozialen Schichten Grenzen innerhalb der Region schuf, konnte sich im Banat
ein regionales Bewusstsein herausbilden. Eine Chance, diesem durch äußere
Grenzen einen sichtbaren Rahmen zu geben, bot sich mit der „Epochengrenze“
1918. Der Versuch der Banater Sozialdemokraten, in den letzten Kriegswochen
eine „Banater Republik“ zu etablieren, scheiterte allerdings nach einem kurzen
Aufblühen der Hoffnungen. Das Banat wurde zur Verhandlungsmasse zwischen dem
neuen Nationalstaat Rumänien und dem südslawischen Königreich. Der Vertrag von
Trianon zog eine Staatsgrenze quer durch das Banat. Dadurch wurden abermals
auch die Grenzen zwischen den einzelnen Nationalitäten sichtbar: Sie erlagen
dem Sog des Nationalismus und gaben die Region ihren neuen Nationalstaaten
preis. Das Regionalbewusstsein erwies sich letztlich als zu schwach, um eine
einheitliche Banater Identität zu stiften. Auch in den neuen Staaten blieb die
Bedeutung des Banats als Migrationsraum, als eigene Kulturlandschaft und als
Kornkammer erhalten. Das Regionalbewusstsein ist seither allerdings
zweigeteilt. Liegt die Zukunft des Banats in Europa?
Malešević, Branka (Department of
Sociology and Anthropology, University of
Windsor, Ontario, Canada)
Aesthetics, Politics of Identity and Regionalism in Southeastern
Europe
The aim of this paper will be to examine the processes by which
regionalism and identification occur in Southeastern
Europe. While different kinds of identity are often discussed in
terms of spatial metaphors, or what Paul Gilroy and Stewart Hall identified as
“politics of transfiguration”, more recent discussions on the formation of new
subjectivities are drawn from the work of Deleuze, Guattari, Virillo and Maffesoli.
I will argue that there are serious objections to the theorization of movement
and positive cosmopolitanism due to rising demands for subjective singularity
in post-socialist Southeastern Europe. Drawing
on what Félix Guattari referred to as the “conservative reterritorializations
of subjectivity” I will demonstrate how the rising demands for subjective
singularity are made possible through more complex strategies (e.g. the NGO
market). In other words, I will argue that it is not only important to redefine
the concept of the state, but also to take into consideration how new subjectivities,
communities, and regionalisms in Southeast Europe are produced through new
theoretical figurations which highlight a specific kind of knowledge, i.e. “not
just to live better, one must now live more acutely” (Virillo 1995). What
is at issue is the way in which power is reconfigured. It means that power
relations have been progressively governmentalized, that is to say,
rationalized and centralized through new communication technologies, especially
the Internet (e.g. the community museum in Bačka, Focus Vojvodina).
Maričić, Tamara / Petrić,
Jasna(Institute of Architecture and
Urban & Spatial Planning of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia)
Physical Expansion and Sub-Regional Disparities
in the Growing Metropolitan Region of Belgrade
The Belgrade metropolitan region with
its distinctive position and status in the Republic of Serbia
has always been one of the key elements of the country’s main development axis.
Despite more than a decade-long international isolation and visible
environmental, social and economic problems, Belgrade has continued with its
territorial expansion and facilitated creation of further gaps between the
country’s underdeveloped southern, border and mountain regions on the one hand
and the more developed northern regions (including the Belgrade metropolitan
region) on the other hand. As the biggest city in the state, Belgrade is a gathering pool for immigrating
population from all over the country, including a great number of refugees from
the former Yugoslav republics or temporarily displaced people from Kosovo and
Metohija. Since there is a specific disparity in growth of the different
municipalities (administrative areas) of the Belgrade region, in this paper we will focus
on two of them, which in the last decade have been faced with the biggest
population growth. One of the analysed areas belongs to the inner urban
municipalities and the other one could be characterised as suburban. The
comparative analyses are conducted using different criteria, which are relevant
to establishing the economic and social profiles of these two sub-entities of
the Belgrade
region. Their example may serve as a reference point in understanding
sub-regional disparities and the process of changing lifestyles and spatial
patterns within the Belgrade
metropolitan region.
Marković.
Aleksandra (Codarts Research, Rotterdam, The Netherlands)
“The Balkans for Dummies”? Balkan
Music as Perceived in Western Europe
When discussing the Balkans within the framework of contemporary
society and culture, it is important to address Balkan music as one of this
region’s cultural products that is most present in the West. After having appeared
in the international music scene mainly through movies by Emir Kusturica,
Balkan music is gaining increasing attention and popularity, and has claimed
its place in the current world music market. Such a role makes this genre a
suitable vehicle for communicating images of the Balkans to the Western
audience. It is important, however, to distinguish between different directions
in communicating these images: 1) from the Balkans to the West (Balkan music
that is performed by Balkan musicians, with the Western audience as a target
group), and 2) from the West to the West (Balkan music conceived, “imagined” by
Westerners for the Westerners). The analysis of selected examples of Balkan
music shows that many musical means (rhythm, form, orchestration, tonal
structure and so on) are being utilized to construct a sound that is “alien” to
a Western ear. This is why this genre can be explored in the light of
discussions about Balkanism (“nested Orientalisms”). The question of why this
music is undergoing a rising popularity is related to constructing the image of
the Balkans as a region within Europe, and the notion of this region as Europe’s “internal other”.
Maxwell, Alexander (University of Nevada,
Reno, USA)
The Regional Basis of Macedonian Ethnic Identity: Slavic Macedonia,
1903--1943
The
Ilinden uprising, organized by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization,
demonstrates the vitality of ‘Macedonia’
as an inspiration for political action. During the Ilinden uprising, however,
Macedonian Slavic patriots frequently saw themselves as ethnically Bulgarian,
and thus Macedonia as an ethnically diverse (if predominantly Slavic) region,
not an ethnically pure territory. The partition of Macedonia
during the Balkan wars destroyed the territorial unity of Macedonia, and
encouraged Slavic Macedonian patriots to redefine their ‘Macedonian’ loyalties.
The struggle between Serbia
and Bulgaria to win the
national allegiance of Slavs in Vardar Macedonia
resulted in a stalemate: Slavic Macedonians came to be seen as neither
Bulgarians nor Serbs, but as a transitional ethnicity, which introduced the
idea that Macedonia
possessed a unique ethnographic character. Members of racial political parties,
partly under the influence of the Comintern, began to propagate the idea of a
distinct Macedonian ethnicity. These processes helped transform regional
Macedonian identity to a Macedonian ethnic identity. This process culminated
during the Second World War, when Bulgarian occupation turned Macedonian Slavs
violently against Bulgarian ethnicity. At the 1943 Jajce conference, the future
leaders of Yugoslavia
proclaimed the existence of a Macedonian language and recognized a Macedonian
republic within federal Yugoslavia.
This bid for Macedonian support for the Partisan movement legitimated a new
ethnic nationalism in the southern Balkans. Macedonianism’s transformation from
regionalism to nationalism could be reformulated as the shift from civic to
ethnic nationalism; this paper ends by examining the historiographical and
political stakes in choosing between these two interpretations.
Miloseska, Eli
(Institute for Old Slovenian Culture, Prilep, Republic of Macedonia)
Macedonia’s Carnivals and Local, National and
Supranational Identity
Since 1990 in the Republic of Macedonia
a period of social democratization and unfortunately still current transition
began. The later process triggered a crisis in every sphere of well-being as
well as great uncertainty for one’s future. This resulted in an identity crisis
for both the individual and the collective on a local, national and
supranational level. In the quest of confirming its own identity, the
individual as well as the community restarted to nourish the values of folk
culture, which according to tradition are kept most sacred. By calling on these
traditional values the individual and the communities feel safer, strengthen
their awareness and internal relationships and hence comes the affirmation of
their community on all levels: societal, economical and ritual. In this
direction, the carnivals in Macedonia
(the Strumica, Vevcani and Prilep) represent a typical example of one of the largest
global forms of identification for both the individual and the ethnic
community. They unite different identities – local, national and supranational.
The local identity is expressed by a strengthening of one’s unity and the community
on a local level (belongingness to a certain city or village). The national
identity is expressed by a strengthening of the feeling by an individual or
community for belongingness to the same creed and ethnic group. The supranational
identity is expressed by a strengthening of the feeling of belongingness to the
larger Balkan and more European family. These are the major directions of
researching, analyzing and processing the problem according to the following
relations: the carnivals in Macedonia
– local, national and supranational identity.
Misev, Vladimir
(Centre for Political
Systems and Local Government in the Institute for Democracy “Societas Civilis”,
Skopje, Macedonia)
Defining Regions?
In
the academic sphere there is almost always a huge debate among scholars about
the three most employed topics in the field: regionalism, federalism and
confederalism, whether these three concepts belong to one theory or they are
different models with its specific characteristics. On the other hand, some of
the academics argue that all these three concepts are mutually connected and
through the prism of time one model is changing to another. Nevertheless, it
can be concluded that all three models have different characteristics that
makes distinction between them reasonable. Two basic elements distinguish the regional
states from the federal states. The first element is the existence of a second
chamber and the second one is the historical development of the state. In many
European states due to the lack of a second chamber or the lack of legislative
competences of the constituent units, the classical distinction between a
federal and a regional state is still adequate. Regarding the second issue, the
historical development, the accent has been put on the foundation act. If
independent units constitute a new state, that state is usually characterised
as a federal state. But if the state was originally founded as a unitary state,
it is often treated as a “regionalised” system, although the constitution is
strongly decentralised, “adopting the same institutional characteristics that
are peculiar to federal state”.
In this paper I shall attempt to make a distinction between them and to specify
what distinguishes regions and regionalism as a theory from other models of
federalism.
Morcov, Dora Alexa
(Université de Bucarest, Faculté de Sociologie et Université Bordeaux 2, Roumanie)
Les jeux de construction d’une région
métropolitaine dans la Roumanie après le 1989. Le cas de la zone métropolitaine
de Bucarest.
L’étude de cas se relie au projet de constitution
de la Zone Métropolitaine de Bucarest qui
comprenne la ville de Bucarest et 98 communes environnantes. La recherche a
révélé que même si ce projet veut définir une zone de coopération notamment pour créer des infrastructures de transport et
édilitaires, les administrations locales des communes
environnantes se sont positionnées différemment en montrant des attitudes
divergentes à cette initiative et plutôt hostile en invoquant l’intérêt obscure
de la mairie de Bucarest (l’initiateur du projet). Mon approche porte sur les
jeux de pouvoir des acteurs locaux dont l’objet principale c’est l’espace. Ces jeux
sont mobilisés à l’heure de la construction d’un nouvel espace de gestion
superposé à une «ancienne» structure
d’organisation territoriale faite pour aider le «centralisme démocratique» qui rendait un territoire dans la subordination
d’un autre et qui n’est pas change après 1989 (comme c’est le cas du
département de Ilfov qui a été construit rond autour de Bucarest, pour que la
ville Capitale s’assure un espace avec des ressources naturelles et économiques
à sa disposition). Cela devient, à l’ère de l’autonomie locale, un pouvoir qui
contraigne ‘sans force’ l’ancien dominateur. Son pouvoir vient juste de sa
position d’anneau autour de Bucarest, géré maintenant d’une façon autonome, qui
peut dire Oui et Non sur toutes les initiatives que le Bucarest ait sur son
territoire. L’hypothèse autour de laquelle j’ai réalisé ma recherche est que la
logiques des acteurs, quant à la volonté de coopération en vu de construire une
région, porte plutôt sur l’utilisation d’une pouvoir qui leur vienne d’une position
spatiale, à travers leur rationalité limitée, en fonction de leurs croyances
sur ce qu’un tell construit peut leur apporter, en vue de garder ou d’améliorer
une situation dans un réseau des acteurs territoriaux .
Nadolu, Ioana Delia /
Nadolu, Bogdan (The Department of Sociology and Anthropology, West University of Timisoara, Romania)
From the Anthropology of Borders to the Borders
of Anthropology
Apart from a limitative role, the border has an
associative implication, reflected in neighborhood, as a specific way of living
together. The material (non-symbolic) delimitation, the boundary, separates but
also unites areas with different values to a common social history. This paper
will follow a semantic route for the concept of border through a
multidimensional approach: from the traditional ethnological frontier, marked
by specific symbols and rituals, to what the developed
anthropological border becomes and how it is understood under the pressure of
new social realities. The
dissociation and association, as complementary functions of the border,
transcend the level of the object of study, and can also be identified at one
meta-analytic level into the contemporary epistemic transformations of
anthropology as scientific discourse, unitary but also interdisciplinary, and
adequate for a knowledge based society.
Nadolu, Narcisa
(Department for Teachers Training, West University of Timisoara, Romania)
Regionalization and Gender Stereotypes
Stereotypes and gender prejudices represent a
dimension of identity that includes similarities and distinctions of
socio-cultural spaces inside a unique matrix. This paper tries to analyze the dynamic
of gender stereotypes from the perspective of globalization. In this context
the reconfigurations generated by social and cultural interferences obtain a
new identity. Are gender stereotypes an element of integration or of the
dissolution of a globalizing society? It remains to be seen in the new
reconstruction of the regional macro-social that the gender identity represents,
whether one argues for the new “European nation”.
Nagy, Raluca
(Université Libre de Bruxelles / “Babes-Bolyai” University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania)
and
Colotelo,
Cristina (National School of Political Science and Administration, Romania)
Regional Images and Stereotypes in Maramures, Romania
The
alleged specificity of Maramures, from literary texts and research to the image
offered by the media, is a well-preserved authenticity. The use of tradition as
an instrument for nation-state building was a common practice during the last
century. Escaping collectivization, few things changed in this region during
communism. Maramures, a rural area in the north of Romania, is considered one of the
last remaining “cradles” of authenticity and tradition. We assist in an
invariable discourse on this region and people adapt the stereotyped image that
is attributed to them and assimilate it into a regional identity. This identity
is built on local and regional pride and cultural traditions. It is interesting
to see how these images and stereotypes are developed and diversified within
the region, according to differences in access, location, ethnicity or
religion. In a system of multiple identities situations may be conceptualised
as selective “spotlights” eliciting some types of identity and blocking out
others. In a given situation two people from Maramures may stress their mutual
belonging to the same region. In another situation they may adopt exclusive,
sub-regional or ethnic identities which impose a boundary between them. We
explore the way in which aspects of regional identity are (re)negotiated and
how people who interact come to define what it means to be from Maramures as
opposed to any other region in Romania
or from a sub-region in this area as opposed to others.
Neagota, Bogdan (“Babeş-Bolyai” University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania)
Spring ceremonials from Transylvania
Our paper approaches spring ceremonials from current
day Transylvania, performed on different occasions and representing different
social-cultural stages of festivalisation: the Ploughman from
Şurdeşti, Chioar (second day of Easter), the vegetal processions and
the “charivari” from Saint George, the Ceremonial Ox (Pentecost and
Midsummer's Day), and the fires of Midsummer's Day. The aim of the research is
to understand the present functionality of these ceremonials for the rural
areas, and to identify possible means of patrimonialisation. For this purpose, data which are collected from the
field using audio-visual methods are connected to existing data in the Folklore
Archives of Cluj and Bucharest, as well as with data from personal archives,
aiming to seize and analyze mutations produced in time within this custom due
to historical fractions (the two World Wars, the agrarian reformation in 1921,
forced cooperativisation, navetism in the 1970s and the 1980s and economic
migration after 1990, as well as the acculturation of mass media in the last
fourteen years). Ethnological methodology is used
along with oral history techniques. In parallel with a morphologic description
of cultural facts, we also aim to establish their age as well as their
cultural-geographical location (the territorial amplitude of the investigated
ceremonials). Some anthropological-social aspects are also examined (the social and
professional milieus in which the custom is found), as well as cultural
anthropological facts (valorising the intra-episthemic motivations,
significance and explanations given by subjects in connection with every fact
investigated). In addition to the interviews, we also collect from the field
and scan photos from personal archives made on the occasion of these very
feasts. We thus have two distinct plans: direct investigation, which takes
place during the actual celebration, when ritual practices performed on the
occasion are to be filmed, and non-direct investigation, which allows the
reconstruction of the ceremonial scenario through memorata narrated by subjects
and through visual materials existing in situ.
Nevenić, Marija (Faculty of
Geography, University of Belgrade, Serbia) and
Krunić, Nikola (Institute
of Architecture and Urban &
Spatial Planning of Serbia, Belgrade)
Macro-Regional Centers as Decentralization Instruments of Serbian
Regional Integration to Southeast Europe
Serbia does not have a correct and
uniformly developed urban system, that is, the Serbian urban system is neither
compatible nor coherent with European objectives for urban development. The
process of urban transition on Serbian geographical territory was only
intensified after the first half of the 20th century. It was
developed under the conditions of industrialization and had a polarization
character, which all led to the development of an urban network characterized
by regional differenciality, (in)compatibility of its parts, asymmetry and,
often, territorial disjunction and isolation. Since the European strategy aims
towards polycentric urban structures, it is imperative that Serbian planning
adapts to this concept. In this paper, possibilities for a Serbian regional
integration into Southeast Europe are
presented. It is pointed out that the principal objectives of further Serbian
regional development are dynamics and spatial balance. These could be
accomplished by a gradual decentralization of the urbanization of its regional
parts. In this sense, four forms of territorial urbanization and urbanity have
been identified in Serbia:
insular urban areas in rural environs, smaller and larger urban settlement
agglomerations with developed peri-urban rings, complex regional functional
urban systems, i.e. agglomeration systems, and the Belgrade
agglomeration or Belgrade
metropolitan region. In other words, major decentralization instruments for regional
development such as macro-regional centers (Belgrade,
Niš, Kragujevac, Uzice, Pristina and Novi
Sad) are emphasized, which would become centers of
future regional cooperation with the surrounding SEE regions.
Norton, Claire (St Mary’s University College,
Strawberry Hill, London, United Kingdom)
Contested Identities in Narratives
of the Ottoman-Hungarian Marches
My
paper will explore how regional identities were constructed and contested through
the process of remembering a specific place or region. Using a variety of
Ottoman and modern Turkish texts, which narrate events that occurred on the
Ottoman-Hungarian marches I will seek to demonstrate the transient and flexible
nature of identities of self and other in this disputed region. I will trace
how these identities were contested and re-formulated by later writers to more
accurately accord with changed socio-political geographies and the discourses
of nationalism and empire. I will also argue that identity in these 17th
century border lands, unlike later 19th and 20th century
constructions, was not necessarily seen as immutable and singular, but instead
manifested a fluidity and heterogeneity that permitted an extension of self to
include Muslims and Christians, Turks, Serbs and Hungarians. Consequently, in
contrast to narratives articulated within frameworks dominated by the
nation-state criteria of ethnicity and religion, I will argue that there
existed socio-culturally a more complex, integrated and pluralistic border
society in which religious tolerance and mutual pragmatic co-existence
prevailed despite official rhetoric. Sources that will be used include: gazavatnames
[campaign narratives], muster records, official histories, popular histories,
and encyclopaedia entries.
Otoiu Gabriela Damiana (Faculty of Political Sciences, University
of Bucharest, Romania)
Bringing Back the
Nation-State: Sovereignty, Identity, Private Property
At
the beginning of the 1990s, policies concerning the restitution of nationalized
properties, which were generally implemented in Central and Eastern European
countries, privileged one group of former victims of expropriation (the
“majority” group) and excluded from compensation the minorities (notably the
German and Jewish minorities). “The underlying moral economy framed a
region-wide rhetoric of restitution as a reconstruction of national identity”
(Barkan, 2000: 128). This stems from the fact that “in the post-communist
world, restitution had become an adjudicator of national identity and
ethnicity”(Barkan, 2000: 131). I aim
to explore this "reconstruction of property" in post-communist Romania through
the investigation of the policies concerning Jewish communal properties. I deem
this to be an illustrative case, which may foster a wider reflection on the
status of the “foreigner-outsider” in general and of the national minorities in
particular, as reflected in the post-socialist property regime. I argue that
these “Romanian people”, whose civil rights, including the right of property,
are re-defined after 1989 to “represent [...] an organic nation, by the ethnic
understanding of citizenship” (Barbu, 2001: 23). My research is based on fieldwork
undertaken in Bucharest, Romania (2004 – 2006) and on archival research
(the archives of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Bucharest,
the National Romanian Archives, Bucharest, the
Archives of the Centre of Jewish Contemporary Documentation, Paris,
and the Open Society Archives, Budapest).
Özkan, Özgür Dirim (Yeditepe University, Department of Anthropology, Istanbul, Turkey)
Football Fandom as a Source of Identity
Formation in Post-Yugoslavia: the Case of Football Fans in Sarajevo
The
aim of this paper is to present how “football fandom” might be effective in the
formation of regional identities. Football, which is without any doubt the most
popular branch of sports in the world today, has gained its popularity due to
several reasons. If the simplicity of the game is one of them, the more
important factor behind the popularity of the game is the promise of identity.
During the establishment of nation-states, football became one of the tools to
prove the legitimacy of the nation. In contemporary society, when the
legitimacy of nation-states is questioned, it can be seen that one of the basic
determinants for a football fan to take his/her side is the overlapping of
his/her football fandom identity with several forms among other identities of
which “regional identities” are of importance. Relying on preliminary research
conducted in Sarajevo in March 2006 and on a year-long fieldwork that will be
launched in February 2007 in Sarajevo about “Differences in Identity Formation
Established by Football Fandom: A Comparative Study on FK Sarajevo & NK
Zeljeznizcar”, this paper will aim to examine the early outcomes of the
research. After the collapse of Yugoslavia
and the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in the first instance, fandom identities
were seen as the fortress of nationalism. However, fifteen years after the
dissolution of Yugoslavia
and eleven years after the end of war, football fans began to seek new forms of
identities. The experience of the Adriatic League in basketball had also
sparked the idea for such a league among ex-Yugoslav football clubs. The paper
will not only focus on identity differentiation in a postwar ex-Yugoslav
country, but also, referring to the idealized “Adriatic League”, it will try to
show how old regional identities might still be effective.
Pamporov, Alexey (Institute of Sociology at the Bulgarian
Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria)
Regional Similarities and Differences in Romani
Kinship Terminology in Bulgaria
The Roma (singular Rom), most commonly known as Gypsies,
are a transborder ethnic minority that lives throughout Europe.
According to different expert assessments, the size of the Roma population in
the world varies between eight and ten million, of which about 70% lives in
Central and Eastern Europe. The proportion of
Roma in both the new accessing countries Bulgaria
and Romania
is estimated as being up to 10% in some NGO surveys, while the official
censuses measure 4.7% and 2.5%. The Roma population is not as homogeneous as it
seems to look through the eyes of outsiders. There are several subdivisions
with plenty of subgroups inside. In Bulgaria,
there are five main Romani groups: Daskane Roma (Bulgarian Gypsies), Horahane
Roma (Turkish Gypsies), Kalderash (Coppersmiths), Kalaydjes (Tinsmiths), and
Ludari (known in Europe as Boyash). There are
also more than one hundred subgroups mainly in the Daskane and Horahane
subdivisions. This paper focuses on the similarities and differences in Romani
kinship terminology between the main five groups, while keeping account of
regional changes and influences. A comparison between several regions
(Northwestern, Southwestern and Central Southern) will be made. The aim of the
paper is to investigate how the kinship terminology of these groups varies in
the different regions – what remains and can be considered as a core and what
undergoes changes. We could study the proximity of the ethnic identity further,
after having identified the core of the kinship terminology.
Patrikios, George (Democritus University
of Thrace, Athens, Greece)
and
Vatavali, Fereniki (National
Technical University of Athens,
Greece)
Between
Global, National and Regional: Institutions in Greek-Albanian Border Regions
One of the main policies of the EU is to diminish the
strength of states and strengthen the power of regions. Apart from the aim of
economic integration, regions express a common
sense of identity, combined with the function of institutions that shape
collective action within a geographical region. In this framework, the role and the importance of
regional institutions has been highlighted, either towards a more global, or
towards a more regional direction. The role of regional institutions seems to
be more extensive and complicated in borderlands, as, in many cases, they are
dealing with cross-border issues. The Greek-Albanian
borderland is an area of turbulent historical background. In the Ottoman era,
Southern Albania and Epirus
(Greece)
used to be part of the same socio-economic region, where a wide network of
relations existed. The imposition of the Greek-Albanian borderline after the
Balkan Wars (1912-1913), and then the adoption of a concrete policy of
isolation by the Albanian communist regime divided the region into two parts
and broke the existing socio-economic networks. The collapse of the communist
regime in 1990 and the opening of the external borders motivated exchange
initiatives between Greek and Albanian border regions. In this process, the
role of the regional institutions on both sides of the border is of high importance.
On the one hand they implement the decisions and policies of the central governments
and the EU, on the other hand they reflect the priorities of local societies,
with a focus on regional identities, which, in many cases, cross national
borders. The aim of this paper
is to lighten the role, the structure and the function of regional institutions
in Greek and Albanian border regions, with regards to the distinction between
global, national and regional levels, as well as regarding the strengthening of
cross border networks that have been revitalized or created in the border
regions.
Pavlović, Mirjana
(Ethnographic Institute, Serbian Academy
of Science, Belgrade, Serbia)
Regional identity
– Serbs in Timisoara
Timişoara is
the capital of the historical Banat region. It
is also a multicultural, multinational and multi-religious town, in which
different ethnic and confessional groups (Romanian, Serbs, Hungarians, Germans
and others) has been living together since the 18th century. Besides that,
Timisşoara is the cultural, religious and political centre of the Serbian
minority in Romania.
The aim of this paper is to analyze the complex
processes of forming the regional identity of Banat and its relations to the
ethnic and local identity of the Serbian minority in Timişoara in a synchronic and diachronic
perspective. The focus will be of the views of the members of this group. Most data were collected during field research between 2002 and
2006 in Timişoara
by combining participatory observation and interviewing. Literature, statistical
sources and minority publications (newspapers, calendars, bulletins etc) are
also used.
Pesić, Dimitrije (Belgrade, Serbia)
Magazines as a Means of Inter-Ethnic Communication: Case Study of
Balkan Jews' Periodicals
Periodicals
played an important role in Jewish social and cultural life, as they brought
relevant information and enabled communication between them, as well as
expression of their cultural and political views. El Amigo del puevlo and Hashalom
magazines, published in Belgrade and Sofia in the period from 1888 to 1906,
were newspapers “for Jews in Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia”, aimed at providing
Balkan Jews with news and information from the whole region. The research was
based upon texts in both magazines, in order to establish their role in the
social, cultural and political life of Balkan Jews. The first part of this
study concentrates on basic data about magazines themselves (where and by whom
they were published, themes, goals, political orientation, text types,
languages used...etc.). It contains a valuable source of information which is
inaccessible to most scholars interested in Jewish history in this area,
because it was written in the Judeo-Spanish language with Hebrew characters.
The latter part of the study draws special attention to the historical and
social analysis of the texts and the influences of other Balkan societies,
especially in the field of language, folklore and tradition. The beginning of
the 20th century was a time of modernization and cultural transition
for the whole region. Balkan Jews represent an interesting sociolinguistic
phenomenon. They were bilinguals in a monolingual environment and with great
effort maintained their language, but were not immune to the influences of other
languages in the region. This work will also examine the extent and type of
these influences.
Petre, Raluca (“Ovidius” University, Constanta, Romania)
Regional Narratives as Shaped by Media Goods Circulation in the
Previous Regime
In
this paper I
explore the specific narratives of the people living in the Dobrogea region,
their memory of the communist regime on the Black Sea
coast. More specifically, I refer to the appearance and circulation of videotapes
and video recorders in the last years of communism and some of the consequences
of this phenomenon. Thus, it is apparent from interviews on the past that the
narratives of the population in this region were influenced by the access to
materials that were running against the official line of the communist regime.
At the same time, it did not provide an alternative political platform but a considerable
taste for media consumption. It might be argued that the circulation of
videotapes was a specific element of this region, which was inhabited by many
sailors and generally people that would go to sea and bring this kind of media
product back. This paper focuses on the stories of the people of the region,
some that had been at sea, others that had family or friendship ties with people
at sea. Last but not least, I refer to the people that had access to the media
materials brought by the sailors. My main argument is that the videotape
phenomenon was larger and more influential in this coastal region, differing
somewhat to the other regions of Romania under communism.
Pimpireva, Ženia (Ethnographic Institute and
Museum of the Bulgarian Academy
of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria)
Regional Identity of the Bulgarians in Ukraine
This
paper analyzes the problems of ethnic identity for Bulgarians living in Southern Ukraine during the post-socialist period, its
construction and current development in this historical region, as well as the
changes in its parameters under the new social and cultural conditions. The
study is based upon the results of fieldwork undertaken in 2005 and 2006 in
settlements of predominantly Bulgarian population in the Bolgradski, Artzizski,
and Ismailski regions of the Odessa district in Ukraine. The
community of the Bessarabian Bulgarians was being formed from the second half
of the 18th century to the mid-19th century, when
Bulgarians from various towns and villages in Eastern Bulgaria left their
native lands, fleeing Turkish repressions after the periodic Russian-Turkish
wars and following the withdrawing Russian army. With the support of the Russian
Empire the Bulgarians settled in the region of Bessarabia, in the territory of
today’s Moldova and Ukraine. They
named their villages after the names of places they had left behind. The fate
of generations of Bessarabian Bulgarians was connected first with the imperial
Russian rule, then with the transfer of power from Russian into Romanian hands,
later with the imposing of the Soviet communist regime and the repressions of
Stalinism, and in our days - with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the
transition to democracy in the former Soviet republics now turned into the
sovereign states of Moldova and Ukraine.
Pistrick, Eckehard (Martin-Luther University
Halle-Wittenberg, Germany)
Memories of Migration in Epirus
Borderlands: Regional Constructions of Identity and Memory through Place and
Sound
The
legacy of migration (ksenitia, kurbet) and the recent migration
movements on both sides of the Greek-Albanian border have been discussed
extensively from statistical, economical and political viewpoints. The
self-conceptualization of this legacy, its actualization in the memory of the
people and its artistic responses in the specific regional context of a
transborder region have attracted comparable little attention. The terms ksenitia
and kurbet attain diverse meanings and often contradictory sentimental
connotations in oral folk history. Migration as part of regional history
becomes “mythistory”, based on regional belonging and experience, exemplified
through individual biographies and the symbolism of space found in bridges,
trees, rocks or passes. Songs as part of the oral folk history help to condense
and subjectify the migration experience and regional belonging in its
mythologized form. They also support the sentimental notions of migration
through its musical form incorporating lamentation techniques. These multipart
songs do not only reflect emotional states of the individual and the imagined
collective but also attract diverse ideological interpretations dictated by the
official state discourse on history. Furthermore, in these songs the recent
Albanian mass migration finds its most personalized artistic response through
language and discourse, referring to a constructed past incorporating an
explicit nostalgic notion of kurbet. Visual and audio examples collected
in fieldwork projects in 2004 and 2006 should exemplify how the border-crossing
legacy of migration in Southern Albania and Northern
Greece is constructed and expressed through place (regionalism)
and sound (song).
Popescu, Raluca (Research Institute for
Quality of Life, Romanian Academy) and
Virdol, Amalia (Department for
Social Affairs, Health, Education, Culture and Cults, Prime Minister's Chancellery, Romania)
Oltenia: A Surviving Region in Romanian Regional Development
This
study brings together an interdisciplinary approach, integrating a
sociological, anthropological and geographical perspective. In spite of the
abundant Romanian literature on topics related to regional development
processes, only a few studies have tried to integrate various specialized data
into a larger perspective. This paper sketches the lines for an integrative
perspective. The aim of the study is to debate the causes of the disparities
among different areas, based on socio-economic and geographical data analysis,
in a larger perspective of Oltenia’s historic and cultural identity. A special
focus is given to the impact of societal changes after 1990, in a larger
framework concerning the historical regional development process in Romania in a
comparative perspective on two levels: national (with other development
regions/cultural areas) and international (with Southeast and Western regional
trends). The historical Oltenia region covers the majority of the Southwest
development region that was created in 1998 in order to implement regional
development policies. Previous elaborated studies pointed out strong
development disparities between northern counties (Gorj and Vrancea) and
southern counties (Mehedinţi, Dolj, Olt), and identified areas with
specific problems of development, related to geographical condition, industrial
decline, historical and cultural factors, and so on. This study will provide a
special focus on poverty and on social inclusion as a Europeanization
development attempt, relevant mainly in the urban context, as it will be shown
in the paper. Rural/urban differentials will be asserted. The data analyses
seem to indicate that the poorest rural localities are localized not in mining
areas or agricultural zones as we were expecting, but in mountain areas, the
prosperous villages being founded around big cities. Urban poverty looks more
territorially dispersed, the poorest towns being the small, agriculture-based
ones (former rural localities declared towns after 1968) or those with a mixed
economic profile. The southern part of the region can be considered the
poorest, as we will demonstrate, not only in economic features, but also in
human and social capital. The study is based on a combined methodology, with
administrative, census and survey data analyses complemented by interpretations
of qualitative data gathered through interviews and observation.
Prato, Giuliana B. (University of
Kent, United Kingdom)
Albania at the Crossroads of
Inter-Regional Exchange
This paper
focuses on the Albanian case, drawing on historical and contemporary data on
national identity and international exchanges. It sets the contemporary
situation in the framework of the EU projects of enlargement and cooperation
and of a ‘Europe of Regions’. The paper suggests that Albania itself
could be regarded at the crossroads of inter-regional exchanges with
neighbouring and overseas countries. In particular, the paper addresses
exchanges across the Adriatic Sea as
constituting a significant ‘cross-border region’ in the new European situation.
Historically, Albania has
enjoyed economic and political exchanges with Regions across the Adriatic Sea,
particularly with Southern Italy, where
Arbëresh communities established themselves between the 13th and 16th
centuries. Significantly, many contemporary Albanians favour cooperation and
exchange (through EU InterReg programmes) across the Adriatic,
rather than with neighbouring Balkan countries, where ethnic Albanians live.
Those who favour overseas exchanges advocate historical reasons for their
choice. Drawing on recent comparative research, the paper shows how the
Arbëresh migrations were a direct consequence of military events and political
alliances. The nature of these alliances and of the integration of the Arbëresh
communities in Italy are
contextualised in the historical events that led to the opposition of Western Europe to the Ottoman expansion. Similarly, the
post-communist Albanian migrations and the contemporary exchanges are analysed
in relation to the events that led to the collapse of ‘real socialism’ and to
the real or potential conflicts that might endanger the new geo-political
equilibrium.
Preda, Sinziana (West University of Timisoara, Romania)
Regional
Identity: The Pemi from the
South of Banat
The relationship with the “other”, from either a
familiar or non-familiar group, or a similar or a different “other” is a way of
finding one’s identity, of expressing certain opinions, beliefs, and values,
which represent the basis for any individual or collective existence. One
shapes one’s personality through a permanent relationship with the other, one
constantly renegotiates one’s identity and this process is inherently conducive
towards tolerance, acceptance and coexistence. The identity mythology of Banat space is revealing in this sense: the
historiographical discourse includes events that exemplify the trajectory of
interethnic and/or intercultural relationship. The research project suggested
by us (which established my PhD subject) refers to the communities of mainly
Czech population, communities that are isolated in the Almãj Mountains (in the
south of the Banat region); the axiom, that lies at the basis of the research
theme, consists in the possibility to prove that both of the double identities
- Czech and Catholic - represent the condition for this minority to survive. We
will follow different aspects regarding the identity of six Czech villages
(from the self identification and heteroidentification point of view); the
distinctions existing between these villages – Baptists' presence beside
Catholics, different sources (for each village) of regional origin, occupation
specific, the perpetuation of endogamous marriages (almost until our days), the
“ascendancy” of certain villages over the others – do not undermine ethnic
unity, but “grind” an identity profile. The ethnic identity of the “pemi” (the
name given by German colonists to the Czech population settled in the Banat
region, derived from the German die Boehmen - many of them were native
of Bohemia) is not a recent construction: it is a matter of ethnic insularity
sliding between acculturation and multiculturalism; the post-communist period
had marked a rebound in some respects, but extraordinary possibilities of
evolution also: the lasting mechanisms of ethnic conscience will transcend an
eventual identity crisis.
Prentović, Sonja
(Faculty of Sport and Tourism, Novi Sad, Serbia)
The Relation between Cultural Identity and
Cultural Thematic Routes in Vojvodina
In recent times the need
for preserving and presenting the cultural identities of areas and cultures is
evident. Everything that is typical for an area on the creative, spiritual and
material level represents cultural identity. With this approach the sense of
cultural identity is broadened and it means more than ethnic characteristics,
even if they are included in cultural identity. In accordance with the need for
innovation of the touristic offer, cultural thematic routes are one of the
possibilities of presenting cultural resources in tourism in different and more
specific ways. The area of Vojvodina is typical for its cultural resources,
both tangible and intangible. Multiculturality and multiethnicity represent
special additions to the diversity of material cultural resources, which can be
seen through the diversity of music, gastronomy, events, customs and the way of
life of the residents of this area. The research was based on questionnaires of
visitors to Vojvodina and agents and experts in the field of culture and
tourism. The goal of the paper is to point out the importance of creating
cultural touristic thematic routes which are based on cultural identity and
their positioning in the mind of tourists and with this, the tourist success
that is evident through tourist satisfaction. These results imply that
currently the most interesting and perspective cultural routes are those of
Vojvodinian music, vineyards, historic town centres and also farmhouses and
events. Tourists mostly want to see the Vojvodinian cultural identity like traditions
and customs, urban architecture and farmhouses.
Pribac, Sorin
(Faculty of Sociology and Psychology, Sociology-Anthropology Department, West University of Timisoara, Romania)
French Communities in the Historical Banat Region
French communities were constantly present throughout
the history of Banat. One could find them here
in the early phases of the Habsburg occupation, with their own culture and
habits and with their priests (Roman-Catholic) officiating in French. Several
villages from the Romanian Banat (i.e. Tomnatic/Triebswetter/Nagyösz, Remetea,
etc.) but also from the Serbian Banat (Charleville, Seultour and St. Hubert) were French according to the church books,
namely populated by Alsatian and Lotharingian colonists. It is a fact that
after the second generation, almost nobody has spoken French any more, due to
the state policy of introducing German and later Hungarian and Romanian as
official languages. Yet, during the 20th century, there was a
revival of French ethnicity in Banat.
Especially after World War II, several people with French ancestors founded the
“Association
des Descendants des Anciens Colons Français du Banat”, facing and eluding in this way deportation to the
work camps to many locations in the former Soviet Union. As far as
documentation on this topic is concerned, only very few books, studies and
articles cover our topic of interest. Therefore this proposed paper basically relies
on archival materials (obtained from the Branch of National Archives Timisoara).
Focusing also on general issues related to ethnic minorities from the Banat
region (other than Germans and Hungarians), we try to identify whether there
are still, or are at least remains of, French cultural traits in the mentality
of the inhabitants of Banat. It is also worth
mentioning that nowhere else in Romania,
apart from in Banat, are French colonists and
cultural traits present.
Radu,
Cosmin-Gabriel (Central European University,
Budapest, Hungary)
Enduring Commodities, Border Tricksters, and
the Predatory State: Contraband at the Romanian-Serbian Border During the Embargo upon Former Yugoslavia
Anthropologists generally examine
state practices mostly in local settings and in highly contextualized power relations.
It is usual, for example, to document local institutional practices and
ideologies and to think about linkages between governmentality and everyday
practices of local people.
My paper tries to go further.
Using the period 1992-1999, the different contexts of economic sanctions upon
former Yugoslavia
and the regional reference of the Romanian-Serbian borderland, my research
introduces an interesting case of the state’s central power intrusion into its
peripheries. Unlike other studies that develop cases of the cross-border
circulation of commodities around the world, in my context the central state
and low-level contrabandists were apparently on the same side of the game.
Nevertheless, the outcomes of contraband they all carried out were very
different. Interestingly, it was not the local state that competed with
cross-border contraband networks, but rather central power that came into play.
In relation to international organizations, the central state as a high-level
contrabandist acted as a predator. At the same time, it captured itself and was
caught by big business.
My paper will see the connections
between two forms of the illegal traffic of commodities: from below (that of
individuals and networks of local border people) and from above (that carried
out successfully by state representatives converted into state class) and how
they relate with different formations of the Romanian post-socialist state.
Radu, Cerasela (Central
European University,
Budapest, Hungary)
Do Peasants Disappear in Romania? Rent
Regimes and Control over Land in Southern and Central Romania
Katherine Verdery (2003) uses the
notion of “supertenants” to designate the category of farmers who rent large
areas of land from peasants. By pointing out the class relations between supertenants
and peasants, the author shows that transition from socialism to post-socialism
did not generate a better economic position for peasants within the social
structure but on the contrary, the former inequalities were reproduced and even
exacerbated. Peasants’ land remained an “abstract entity” (Verdery 2003) that
passed from collective farms’ property to the “supertenants’” control. In this
context, the US
anthropologist suggests that peasantry is doomed to disappear. This
“disappearance thesis” argues that peasants, under global capitalism and
neoliberalism, transform into rural proletarians or capitalist farmers. On the
other hand, the “permanence thesis” states that peasants are not affected by
capitalism because they have their own economic logic (Araghi 1995).
Nevertheless, according to other authors, peasants could appear or disappear
depending on the influences of the state and the market on peasant economy and
society (Bryceson, Kay and Mooij 2000).
My paper demonstrates that the
dominance of “supertenants” in Romania
does not lead necessarily to the disappearance of the peasantry, but to new
forms of reciprocal accommodation between the two socio-economic classes.
Basically, my argument goes as follows: the ethos of subsistence and dependence
are somehow negotiated. I will describe and compare two rent regimes as two
modes of dependence and control. I also address peasants’
disappearance/permanence theses in various regional contexts: Romania as a periphery of the European Union, as
well as different patterns apparent in regions of Romania (Southern and Central).
Ranković, Daniela (Faculty of
Architecture, University of Belgrade,
Serbia)
Regional Architecture: Case Study
of the Balkans – from a Local to a Global Perspective
Periods of transition and a
globalised society have caused many differences and non-sequentialities in the
development of contemporary Balkan architecture. Contemporary architecture at
the crossroads of two millennia should be considered in a wide context. That is
why it is important to observe these phenomena from different angles (different
disciplines), to be able to comprehend them completely. This research is based
on the development of contemporary architecture in Balkan countries in the last
decade explaining the topic from social, political, anthropological, cultural
and historical points of view. Contemporary architecture is now being glorified
and criticized, but rarely compared with that of neighbourhood countries.
Bearing in mind the many contrasts and different cultural layers in
architecture deriving from different social and cultural conditions, from Slovenia in the West to Bulgaria and Romania in the East, there are
hundreds of reasons why we should deal with the question of its fast
development, the continuous construction work underway and rapid modifications
of the urban shape. The city’s spirit and its environmental organization have
usually first been felt in the city’s architecture. It is impossible to stop
the process where market requirements are above any other. The question is: “Is
the Balkans capable of creating its own contemporary physical and social
identity without the strong and inevitable influences of Western society and
without copying their models for a better future?” Possible answers foster a certain
anxiety over the future: will Balkan heritage be pledged and eventually
disappear in the process of transition and globalization?! No doubt, the
Balkans today is struggling for a cognizable identity in the contemporary
world, to match the one it had in the past. Every country is struggling in its
own way. These different ways are exactly the thing that makes this region
interesting and worth observing.
Rautenberg,
Michel (Université Jean Monnet, Saint-Etienne, France) and
Krastanova,
Krassimira (Université Paissii Hilendarski, Plovdiv, Bulgarie)
Images et stéréotypes de Plovdiv à travers la
peinture
Plovdiv, qui prétendit longtemps au titre symbolique de
capitale bulgare de la culture, « ville des peintres et des poètes »,
possède de nos jours une douzaine de galeries privées de peinture, une académie
des Beaux-Arts. Les manifestations artistiques y sont nombreuses et elle fut
capitale européenne de la culture en 1999. L’association des peintres y
compterait environ 400 membres. Cette image artistique de la ville
s’appuie sur un passé ancien et glorieux. La ville est réputée pour avoir été
l’un des principaux foyers d’un art « national » dans les années
20/30, et pendant le communisme elle continua à jouer un rôle important dans le
maintien d’une activité artistique parallèle à l’académisme officiel. La
proposition de communication que nous faisons, fondée sur des enquêtes
ethnographiques, est d’identifier les stéréotypes qui continuent à être
présents dans la peinture plovdivienne, en marge des grands courants de l’art
qui se développent plutôt dans la capitale, et d’analyser leur signification
actuelle. La peinture « typique » de la ville, fidèle aux grands
maîtres du milieu du 20ème siècle, garde une certaine côte auprès
des acheteurs locaux mais, surtout, elle alimente une profusion de cartes
postales, de pastiches de plus ou moins bon goût, de copies médiocres qui sont
vendues aux touristes de passage. Ainsi l’image de la ville se construit,
hésitante, entre d’un côté une histoire bimillénaire, un patrimoine
architectural unique et une peinture réputée qui ont produit une imagerie très
stéréotypée ; et de l’autre une production artistique médiocre et des
restaurations architecturales parfois agressives qui prétendent à incarner la
continuité de la tradition.
Ristovska-Josifovska, Biljana (Institute of National
History in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia)
The Mijak Region in Macedonia
through Memories and Narratives
This
topic will be focused on the population from the Western part of Macedonia (in
the so-called “Mijak region”), researching its history and reflection in
memories and narratives, especially from the end of the 19th century
and beginning of the 20th century. An interdisciplinary and
comparative analysis of written records could offer some deeper answers
concerning the region inhabited by the Mijak ethnographic group, who were exposed to
a continuous acceleration of cultural reshaping. Accordingly, we
can extract the historical data by exploring information from historical
sources in order to identify cultural, confessional, traditional and other data
concerning the cultural history and the cultural identity of the Mijaks in Macedonia.
Bearing in mind the events that occurred in the Mijak region, we felt it would
be interesting to analyze and compare personal observations and testimonies
(autobiographies, memoirs, ethnographic collections, diaries) written by
individual Mijaks, famous or anonymous, with various profiles and various
levels of education. However, the folk and art poetry, documents, statistics, and press will be also used as research
material. The comparison will unroll generally at two levels – subjective and
objective (traditional or artistic expression and interpretation on the one
side and documented historical information on the other) and in two directions:
verifying the historical data in traditional narration, as well as exploring
how historical events were experienced by their narrators. It is noticeable
that information on some events or individuals overlap. This can be followed
through the writings and can confirm or cancel each other out. The narratives
considered together make one whole, relevant to the history and the tradition
of this Macedonian region as well as to the regional identity of the Mijaks.
Rüb, Claudia (München, Deutschland)
Bessarabien – erinnerte Region
Im Angesicht einer fortschreitenden Europäisierung sind viele Blicke auf
die neuen Mitglieder und neuen Nachbarstaaten der Europäischen Union gerichtet.
Die Geschichte, die Entwicklungen, Trennendes und Verknüpfendes bekommen nun
eine andere Relevanz in der Öffentlichkeit und der Wissenschaft. Zwischen
Deutschland und einem Teil dieser Gebiete besteht schon seit fast zwei
Jahrhunderten eine Verknüpfung.
Die historische Landschaft des ehemaligen Bessarabiens befindet sich zu
zwei Dritteln in der heutigen Republik Moldau, zu einem Drittel in der Ukraine.
Welche tiefen Spuren die Umsiedlung und der Verlust der „alten Heimat“ bei den
Bessarabiendeutschen hinterlassen haben, habe ich – viele Jahrzehnte später –
im Verwandtschaftskreis erfahren. „Bessarabien“ war ein immer wiederkehrendes
Thema bei Besuchen bei meinen ebenfalls umgesiedelten Großeltern und anderen
Verwandten. Möglicherweise hat die Sehnsucht nach der „alten Heimat“, die ich
als Kind eher unterbewusst und vielleicht sogar etwas widerwillig während der
Besuche bei den Großeltern „mitgegessen und mitgetrunken“ hatte, den Samen
gelegt. So wuchs in mir der Wunsch, meine Doktorarbeit dieser Thematik zu
widmen. So stellen sich beispielsweise folgende Fragen: Gibt es individuelle
Erinnerungen an Bessarabien oder hat sich im Laufe der Zeit eine „kollektive
Erinnerung“ entwickelt? Wird durch ein gemeinsames, auf Treffen vollzogenes
Erinnern (und Vergessen) eine einheitliche Erinnerung geformt? Wenn ja, wie
sieht die Erinnerung an diese Region aus?
Forgetting
and Reviving the Balkans: Changing Identities in the Ukrainian Bessarabia - Reni District Case Study
The Reni
district (“rayon”) situated in the southeast of
the Odessa region (“oblast”) of Ukraine
represents an example of an area which belongs to several different larger
entities. In its long-term history it has been part of the Balkan region, part
of the Ottoman Empire, and a Moldavian
principality. Later on it became part of another territorial entity – the
Russian Empire and consequently the Soviet Union.
In the modern epoch it has become a distanced region of a new independent state
– Ukraine,
which is trying to follow the Central European path of development. Belonging
to three different regions has left deep traces on the Reni district. There are
strong features of belonging to all three regions. It is certainly Balkan: a
major part of the rural population of the district is made up of Moldovans,
Bulgarians, and Gagauz, with strong relations to their “historic motherland”.
On the other hand, Reni preserves strong cooperation ties with some parts of
the former Soviet Union and a considerable
part of the population are Russians. However, a considerable segment of the
urban population has declared its loyalty to a new state project – Ukraine. The
aim of this paper is to trace how the triple belonging to different regions influenced
the process of shaping local identities. What role has the regional level had
in shaping the identity of the population? Which region and why has become more
attractive? And how does real and declarative belonging work in every segment
of the society?
Savkevych, Oleksiy (Donetsk National University, Ukraine)
Regional Differences in Ukraine
– between the West and the East
Ukraine is not a homogenous country where
the representatives of only one nation live. Even after the Orange revolution
in Ukraine many people in
Western Europe still do not know much about the country and tend to identify it
with Russia.
Yet, as the second Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma stated in his book, “Ukraine is not Russia”. Actually, many researchers
try to answer the question
of the Ukrainians' belonging to a certain civilization, especially taking into
account Ukraine’s
geographical location between East and West. Ukraine
is a country where democratic traditions laid in the Cossack period were broken
by the tsar and Soviet regimes and only now begin to revive. The process is
complicated by the historical background due to which there are two visible
conceptions of the country’s development – Eastern and Western. The common
national idea is highly important for the unification of Ukraine, yet in
reality politicians tend to hamper this process. Sociologists state that in
both parts of Ukraine
there is almost the same attitude towards political liberties and legal
equality while the attitude towards market economy, private ownership and
entrepreneurship is very similar. And only issues such as Ukraine’s membership of the EU or CIS, relations
between Ukraine and Russia, and the
status of the Russian language separate the Ukrainians. This becomes especially
evident during elections and the Presidential elections of 2004 clearly
revealed the polarisation of opinion. Stereotypes often prevent Eastern
Ukrainians from treating Western Ukrainians as
friends. Yet communication between them (this was also proved during the Orange revolution) breaks the barriers. Also it is important
for central authorities to cautiously treat the mounting problems because as V.
Lenin stated in his work on national issues, “a state terrorism towards
national minorities gives birth to the reverse processes”.
Selimi, Yllka (Institute of Folk Culture,
Albanian Academy of Sciences,
Tirana, Albania)
Albania: One Country, Two Realities
According
to the Albanian social and human scientists, Albania is composed of two great
regions: Gegëria and Toskëria. Generally when talking about them, the main difference
stands in the spoken dialect. We can say that these two regions had quite the
same level of economic and cultural development until the Second World War with
some exceptions in the southeastern part of the country, which had the highest
level of migration abroad. After the Second World War, when the communists came
to power, things changed. Because most of the new members of the communist
elite had a southern origin, coming from Toskëria, during the years of
dictatorship, development policies were concentrated mostly on the southern
part of Albania.
Due to this, the North and especially the Northeast region remained the most
undeveloped. In this paper I will focus on the impact that the communist
policies had on the economical and cultural differences between the northern
and the southern regions of Albania.
Sideri, Eleni (Faculty of
Communications, University of New York, Skopje,
Macedonia)
Borders and Orders: Constructing Regions and Selves in Shifting
European Lands
The
notion of the “field” alludes both to the demarcation of the disciplinary
subject matter and the distinct anthropological tradition of fieldwork. This
paper intends to question the homogeneity of both. Examining the various
borders that are involved in the process of fieldwork - physical, linguistic,
social - this paper will highlight the fragmentation of the field and the
constructed unity based on academic pretensions of established “fields of
knowledge”. These are also connected to the quest of a European identity
through regional EU policies and politics of expansion and integration to the
European project. How are these borders being constructed and experienced? If
their construction is unavoidable, how could they contribute to a better
understanding of the intersection of everyday life with wider political and ideological
conceptual frameworks? The paper is based on multiple borders crossing from Greece to Macedonia
and from Georgia to Turkey and Greece. During this process the
role of the fieldworker has changed as well as her goals and her status. In
which ways do these shifts allude to the construction and perceptions of a
“region”? Does this multi-sited perspective create the conditions for a deeper
understanding of the academic notion of the “field”, which is often
territorialized and translated into a “region”? How are these two notions
(“field”/“region”) interrelated and finally, does their interrelation result in
the production of a “regional” or “border” anthropology?
Sikimić, Biljana (Institute for Balkan Studies SANU, Belgrade, Serbia)
Orthodoxe
Religion bei den Rumänen im serbischen Banat
Der Vortrag basiert auf der Analyse von
transkribierten Gesprächen, die 2004-2005 mit nach ethnolinguistischen Prinzipien
ausgewählten Informanten als Trägern der traditionellen Kultur im serbischen
Teil des Banats im lokalen rumänischen Dialekt geführt worden sind. Ich
analysiere das Verhältnis von „objektiven“ linguistischen Unterschieden in der
heutigen dialektalen Stratifikation und subjektiv wahrgenommenen Differenzen,
die die regionale Schichtung bedingen (Codru vs. Pusta, Bergbewohner vs.
Talbewohner), bzw. die Feindifferenzierung (in Form minimaler lexikalischer
Differenzen) im Rahmen ein und desselben Dialekts. Vor allem in Städten wie
Novi Sad, Zrenjanin oder Pančevo, wo es keine rumänische orthodoxe Kirche,
aber eine starke Präsenz rumänischer Intellektueller gibt, fällt das Bekenntnis
der gemeinsamen Zugehörigkeit zur rumänischen und serbischen orthodoxen Kirche
auf. Ein besonderes Verhältnis in der Frage von Religion und Nationalität
weisen rumänische Anhänger protestantischer Kirchen und anderer kleinerer
Glaubensgemeinschaften (Nazaräer, Zeugen Jehovas) auf, egal ob ihre Kirche aus
Rumänien oder Serbien in die Region gekommen ist. Der Unterschied zwischen
ethnischer, konfessioneller und sprachlicher Identität im Verhältnis zu den
Vlachen in Nordostserbien ist durch historische Prozesse bedingt – er wird auch
nicht durch die Tatsache abgeschwächt, dass ein großer Teil der Vlachen
denselben Banatdialekt spricht wie die Mehrheit der Rumänen im serbischen
Banat.
Spyridakis, Manos (University of Peloponnese, Department of Social and Educational
Policy, Korinthos, Greece)
Space and Local Development: A Contested
Relation in Eastern Crete in the Light of the
International “Golf Industry”
Within anthropological discourse the notion of
space has from time to time been mainly considered as an obvious entity
identified with what it “includes”. There are many instances in anthropology
where fieldwork has also been identified and equated with the significance of a
specific “culture”, identity and behaviour. On the other hand the significance
of space is used in many different frames of reference and its importance as an
analytical tool is not always clearly explained. My particular interest is
focused on the way in which anthropology could incorporate the notion of space
as an analytical tool for issues concerning local and regional development. I
will attempt to support the view that space is the product of
interdependencies. Insofar as this happens, interdependency entails
multiplicity. However, precisely because multiplicity exists as the condition
of the existence of space, the latter is in a process of permanent
configuration as it “encapsulates” social relations, which are realised through
an ongoing process. The anthropological dimension of space is related to the
presentation of this process, as it consists of and emerges through meaningful
social relations as well as through the material and political practices of
social actors, which result in the comprehension and management of space as a
field of multiple dimensions. My ethnographic paradigm comes from the Sitia
province in the prefecture of Lasithi in Eastern Crete, where state policy
about local development as the destination place of the international tourist
golf organisations provoked a great deal of discussion and reaction among those
involved in the planned investments.
Stanculescu, Cristina
(Bruxelles, Belgique)
Les fondements de la politique régionale en
Roumanie
Après 1989, la question des régions et des régionalismes
se soulève de nouveau en Roumanie. L’acteur principal : la Transylvanie.
Raisons historiques, identitaires, ethniques. Les scénarios envisagés sont
variables et vont d’un degré plus ou moins élevé de décentralisation jusqu’à
l’autonomie régionale. Le but de ce travail est de répondre à la
question : commet est-ce que l’Etat roumain regarde la question régionale,
quels sont les fondements philosophiques qui justifient les différentes
politiques? La méthode de recherche est celle de faire la somme des différentes
politiques qui ont été mises en œuvre après 1989 par les gouvernements roumains
face à la Transylvanie. L’enjeu principal est d’identifier la vision nationale
roumaine sur le régionalisme tel qu’elle apparaît à travers ces mesures prises
tout au long de la période post-communiste par rapport au statut de la Transylvanie,
par rapport aux demandes faites par celle-ci au nom de la distinction ethnique,
identitaire, culturelle.
Ştefănescu, Atalia
(Faculty of Sociology and Psychology, Sociology-Anthropology Department, West University of Timisoara, Romania)
Religious Identities in the Intercultural Region of Romanian Banat
The region of Banat (we will study the Romanian part of the region
only) is well known in the history of Southeastern Europe as a territory
characterized by deep intercultural relationships due to its ethnic diversity
and to the special rapport between the members of different communities. From
the point of view of religious anthropology there are two particular aspects to
discuss: the religion of the ethnic groups and the religion of the majority
with all its confessions and cults. The majority of Romanians and Serbians are
orthodox, and the Germans and Hungarians are Catholics or Protestants, but
during the last century neo-protestant cults and oriental religious movements
have largely spread. This study will approach the relationships between the
ethnic and religious minorities on the one side and the majority following the
religious aspect on the other. We will thus underline that from a
socio-cultural as well as religious point of view the main feature of this
region is tolerance.
Stefanov, Nenad (Osteuropa Institut, Freie
Universität Berlin, Deutschland)
Nationale Homogenität
vs. Bewusstsein von Differenz. Das Verschwinden des Sopluk im 20. Jahrhundert
Gegenstand des Referates ist die Art und Weise der
Konstitution nationalen Bewusstseins, insbesondere dessen Verhältnis zu schon
existenten regionalen Bewusstseinsformen. Anhand des Sopluk der Region zwischen
Pirot und Sofija wird der Prozess der Verdrängung nicht-ethnischer,
gesellschaftlich differenzierter Wahrnehmungsformen beschrieben, die
Durchsetzung eines eindimensionalen, nationalen, Identifizierungsmusters
gesellschaftlicher Wirklichkeit. Die Region des Sopluk eignet sich besonders
für eine solche Fragestellung, da die christlich-slawische Bevölkerung dieser
vormals zum Osmanischen Reich gehörenden Gebiete 1878 vor die Alternative
gestellt wurde, entweder für Serbien oder Bulgarien zu optieren. Die
Bevölkerung dieses Gebiets wird als Šopen bezeichnet. Serbische
und bulgarische Ethnologen, haben in ihren Arbeiten von Wende des 19. zum 20.
Jahrhundert bis in die Gegenwart hinein die Bevölkerung als „ethnische
Varietät“ innerhalb der serbischen bzw. bulgarischen Nation betrachtet. Bemerkenswerterweise
kommt in ihren Arbeiten eine äußerst negative Konnotation der Šopen hinzu: Diese werden als
„national bewusstlos“ – im Gegensatz zu „eigentlichen“ Serben oder Bulgaren -
beschrieben, da sie über keine ethnische Eigenbezeichnung verfügten, keine
Volkskultur pflegten die ein Gedächtnis an die vorosmanische Zeit wach hielte
und sich in ihrer Abgrenzung von anderen Gruppen nur als Christen bezeichneten.
Anhand der Šopen wird die Frage aufgeworfen, inwieweit es sich bei der
Entstehung von Nationalstaaten um organische, kontinuierliche Prozesse handelt,
wo sich aus dem Keim eines Bewusstseins der Zugehörigkeit zu einer ethnischen
Gruppe notwendig das Wissen um die Zugehörigkeit zu einer national homogenen
Gemeinschaft entwickelt, wie es viele Wissenschaftler aus Serbien und Bulgarien
nahe legen, oder ob es sich nicht vielmehr um eine vielfach gebrochene, von
unterschiedlichen gesellschaftlichen Gegensätzen begleitete Entwicklung
handelt. Das Referat beschreibt in zwei Schwerpunkten das nach 1878 eintretende
allmähliche Verschwinden einer Selbstwahrnehmung jenseits nationaler Zuordnung,
sowie das Aufscheinen der Möglichkeit von Differenz jenseits des Nationalen im
realsozialistischen Jugoslawien.
Ştiucă, Narcisa (University of
Bucharest, Romania)
The ‘Căluş’: An Emblem of Identity
There are
not many Romanian customs and traditions that equal the vitality and the
prestige of the Căluş,
a dance from southern Romania.
Fascinating throughout the complexity of the message and its meanings, as well
as its functional dynamism, the Căluş has awakened a slight yet constant interest by researchers from the 18th
century onward. The fact that in a different epoch the Căluş
could have been “read” from different interpretative perspectives – almost each
one of them enjoying living arguments and support throughout the ages till
today – it provides exactly these kinds of qualities. After a period of scenic
valorizing, just as a dance being evidence for its virtuosity and vitality,
there follows a period of syncretic demonstration by presenting it to the
public in the theater halls. Here parts of ritual sequences were shown which
only suggested the initiatory and esoteric senses, everything being done from
the outside with the procedures coming from instructors and cultural activists.
The inclusion of the Căluş on the list of the “Intangible World Heritage List” will result, no
doubt, in a powerful impulse given to revitalizing and transmission tendencies.
Without trying to interfere in this process, we say that it is necessary for
the specialists to study closely and honestly record all these changes, trying
to delve as deeply as possible into the problems and explaining them from the
perspectives of changing mentality and reception. This kind of approach will
result in witnessing the conservatory capacity of traditions in present rural
communities.
Stoicescu, Adrian (University of Bucharest,
Chair of Ethnology and Folklore,
Romania)
Creating Regional Identity through Laughter: Regions and Regionalism in
Contemporary Romanian Jokes
Even
though Romania’s birth certificate dates back almost 100 years, when in 1918
all the provinces were reunited into the modern state that is today, one can
still perceive the regional diversity of the country. The idea of regionalism
is mainly due to the long years of separation and autonomy of the provinces –
i.e. Moldavia, Muntenia,
Transylvania, Oltenia, and Banat – and it is
second to nothing to mention that the ethnical composition of the country plays
a significantly important part in building up regional identity. To some extent,
the Romanian reality shows the society perceives itself as the result of a
melding process, which labels with a depreciative meaning somebody which they
consider to be inferior by resorting to the adjective naming of a particular
province or another. To this respect, the Moldavian or Oltean (the inhabitants
of Oltenia) become the epithets of stupidity, laziness, poverty, rudeness and
so on. But this reality exceeds the fringes of everyday speech; snippets of
this tensed state of fact can easily be found after searching one of the most
vivid samples of contemporary culture: jokes. The present paper aims at
analysing a few patterns in which the contemporary society tries to deal with
the regional diversity integrated into the context of culture that determined
it and, at the same tine, the context of culture integrated into the moment of
telling these jokes.
Stoimenov, Ivaylo (Sofia
University, Bulgaria)
Identity Building through Football Rivalries in the
Balkan Region
Nowadays
professional sport is much more than just a game. Besides its highly important
economic dimensions, it is also an interesting object of research with its
communication, cultural, psychological and political aspects. Sport is also a
key element of national and regional cultural identities. The Balkan countries
are no exception in this respect. The "ideological" fundamentals of
the fanship to a club or a sportsman are being built year in, year out,
deliberately or as a natural process. They have an impact on public life in a
positive (such as the uniting of the nation when there are great sport
victories) and a negative way (such as football hooliganism). The current paper
aims to define, analyze and compare the football rivalries having the greatest
impact on society in Bulgaria,
Romania
and the countries of ex-Yugoslavia. (It will not research Greece and Turkey,
because they do not share the socialist past, and Albania, due to the lack of strong
football traditions). It will also explore what happens with the bias towards a
particular club when the national team plays – whether they are melted together
or there are separate tendencies. The hypotheses about the ideologies and
public images of the clubs, their formation and communication, the external
influence (imitation of Western models) and local specifics will be examined by
a content analysis of the specialized press and websites and inquiries.
Suveica, Svetlana (The State University of Moldova,
Chisinau, Moldova)
Regional Tendencies in Interwar Bessarabia:
a Case Study
The
subject of interwar Bessarabia as part of Romania after the union of 1918
still arouses the researcher’s ambition and reader’s curiosity. While the
delegates to the Paris Peace Conference were debating over the legitimacy of
the union, the Bessarabian deputies to the new parliament launched debates over
the necessity of a special treatment for Bessarabians who suffered from
denationalization and Russification imposed by the Russian regime. During the
years of 1918-1940, Bessarabian and Bucharest
elites were discussing adequate methods and resources that were to be used in
order to integrate Bessarabia into Romania. The ethnic profile of the
population, as well as the Russified elites that regarded Russian as the
language of high culture on the one side, and permanent tension on the Dniester
border, together with acts of Soviet propaganda, provocations and military
riots on the other, made ground for suspicion of the loyalty of Bessarabians
towards the new regime. At the same time, many Bessarabian politicians used
different opportunities to stress that Bessarabia’s
specific evolution was deeply marked by the Russian regime, and despite
critics, there was a positive regional experience that can be borrowed and
successfully implemented in other provinces. They were convinced that through
ignorance, incompetence and a lack of professionalism, it was impossible to
overcome Bessarabian rigidity and fully integrate the region into Romania.
Svyetlov, Oleksandr (NBB Civil Organisation, Kyiv, Ukraine)
A Europe of Regions: Theory and
Practice
The
fall of communism in 1989 raised great enthusiasm towards creating a new
Europe, a Europe perceived as an integrated
community characterized mostly by the absence of political borders. However,
even if in 1989 the border between Western ‘democratic’ Europe
and the Eastern ‘communist’ one was destroyed, very soon new borders were
established. Nowadays, Europe is far from
being perceived as an integrated community, but as being composed of
micro-regions, nation-states, or macro-regions. What are the bases of these new
regionalizations and what are their consequences? These are the two main
questions I would like to address. I shall mainly focus on the nationalism theory as the theoretical
framework. The reasons for choosing it over other economic, social, or
political theories is that the countries from the Eastern regions, namely
Romania, Hungary, Moldova, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland,
former Yugoslavia, etc. are more or less ‘imagined communities’ in the sense
described by Benedict Anderson (1991) and this is the reason why at present
there are three overlapping regionalizations and not only one.
Hypothesis:
As a test case for the whole of Europe, Transylvania
simultaneously belongs to three regional layers of analysis: micro-regional,
nation-state and macro-regional, whereas the micro-regional takes precedence in
importance.
Implications:
The EU, i.e. the Europe of macro-regions is
largely an imagined construct. The case study of the Transylvanian region is proof
that the nationalism theory raises many empirical paradoxes when the actual regionalizations
are studied through this theoretical framework. First of all, if the
nation-state is an ‘imagined community’ then the macro-regions built by EU
policies are also ‘imagined communities’, but at a higher level of abstraction.
Therefore, their economic functionalities will also be challenged by the
socio-cultural, religious, and historical disparities that can hardly be
overcome. On the other hand, the micro-regions are too small to be units for
the efficient functioning of the economic mechanisms. However, even if at the
present time it seems only hypothetical, I believe that this paradox can be
solved by creating a Europe of socio-cultural similarities instead of a Europe of economic similarities, where economic
regulations can be more easily imposed. A second paradox is the desire to
create a common ‘self-consciousness’ not only at the level of micro-regions,
but also at that of nation-states and of macro-regions. The case of Transylvania as a multiethnic region shows that as long
as there are ‘competing’ socio-cultural and religious identities this will be
very hard to attain. Thus, I believe that these ‘self-consciousnesses’, if
built up, will have only functional utilities. In other words, being part of a
nation-state or of a macro-region will be a question of cultural and economic
advantages. This hypothesis emphasizes the centrifugal character of
micro-regions. Moreover, the increasing atomisation of the modern world might
lead to an even higher fragmentation than that existing at the moment, and the
resulting units might be possibly integrated only by developing functional
dependencies. A third paradox is the historical one. The ‘existence’ of nation
states, and of micro-regions particularly, is always a question of a common
historical background. However, the macro-regions in the way they are described
at the present do not have any history behind them, but only present and future
economic and geopolitical interests. It should also be added that even if forty
years of communism experienced in this part of the world tried to ‘reorient’
and ‘influence’ history, it remained an important argument for differentiation
or integration. Therefore, the macro-regions as ‘imagined communities’ should
build up a ‘common’ historical heritage in order to remain the way they are at
the present. In conclusion, the new regionalization of Europe
into macro-regions is more theoretical than ‘real’. The policies to shape Europe in this way are still being implemented and their
efficiency is sometimes doubtful. Moreover, a Europe
of nation-states is becoming difficult to defend, firstly because it is
challenged by the policies introduced for bigger units (i.e., macro-regions),
and secondly because of the socio-cultural, historical, and religious diversity
inside a nation-state that tends to split its smaller units apart. However, a Europe of micro-regions is also hard to argue for since
these units are too small and thus it is difficult for them to function
efficiently together.
Tamminen, Tanja (Institut des Etudes Politiques, Paris / Turku
University, Finland)
Euroregion, Micro-Region, INTERREG-Project Region: Europeanizing the
Southern Balkan Border Regions?
The aspirations to change state
borders resulted in wars and violence in the post Cold War Balkans. However,
since the elaboration of the Stability Pact for Southeastern
Europe and the attribution of an EU perspective for the Balkan
countries, regional and cross-border cooperation has received increasing
attention in this area. This paper deals with the identity political debates
around the changing perceptions of borders and political space in the Southern
Balkans. By using the concept of paradiplomacy
the paper approaches the emerging cross-border cooperation projects on the
local level. This study is based on the assumption that all spatial constructions
can be regarded as techniques of identity politics. Thus, the objective is to
examine the larger identity political processes around the border regions of
the Southern Balkans. Can the emerging cross-border micro-regions be considered
as part of the "European identity politics?" The Southeast European
states striving towards the European Union with different speeds all need to
adapt themselves to the European standards, also to what concerns the
organization of political space (the role of local government, regional
cooperation and so on). However, what are European standards? Different
political institutions promote different kinds of cross-border regions. The
Council of Europe prefers the Euroregion
concept, the European Union finances different kinds of projects in the border
regions. Through a few cross-border projects in the Southern Balkans this paper
looks at transferring the so-called “European” way of organizing political
space in border regions, thus this proposal fits best the conference theme of
“(Cross)-Border Regions”.
Teampau, Petruta (Babes-Bolyai University,
Cluj Napoca, Romania)
Sulina – “The Dying City” in a Vital Region
Sulina
is a small city at the mouth of the Danube, a region that has always been the
focus of political and economic interest; once a pirates’ nest, then a humble
rural settlement, Sulina witnessed its golden age with the establishment here
of the European Commission of the Danube (CED) in 1856. Until 1939, this turned
Sulina into “the most cosmopolitan city in the country”, a fashionable resort
and a flourishing harbour (porto franco)
of over 10,000 inhabitants (with about twenty different ethnic groups and
several religious confessions). Beyond its unique multicultural history, Sulina
is also a post-socialist city, with a prosperous industry during communism, now
sharing the decaying fate of many of the cities of Romania. The most Eastern city
geographically, opening both to the Danube and the Black
Sea, it is today only accessible by water. This paper, based on
anthropological field research, analyses the strategies the local community
employs for coping with this acute marginality, both geographical and social,
as summarised in the words of the locals: “We are the first to see the light
and the last to see justice”. Described by the media as “a dying city, lost
between two ages”, Sulina struggles to have an implausible future by reviving a
past it has long lost. A new local identity is being forged, which obscures the
recent communist past, and refers back to the multicultural history of the
city. At the same time, the official discourse increasingly pinpoints to
European integration, portraying Sulina as “the gate of Europe”,
thus reversing symbolically its marginality. Once part and nexus of one of the
first European organizations, today doomed to isolation, Sulina tries to
recuperate a regional identity and position.
Theodosiou, Aspasia (Department of Music,
Epirus Institute of Technology, Greece / Social Anthropology, Manchester
University, United Kingdom)
“Tradition” in a Marginal Margin: Reviving Polyphonic Singing on the
Greek-Albanian Border
This paper explores how region and its locatedness (physical and
symbolic) are implicated in processes of othering played out in and through
‘traditional’ music; in other words rather than characterising any culture,
people or region, ‘tradition’ is seen here as a technology (in Foucault’s
sense) for the production of certain kinds of knowledge about them.
Ethnographically my analysis concerns the recent revival of polyphonic songs on
the Greek–Albanian border in Northwest Greece.
The paper discusses the ways in which polyphony is re-discovered through the
concept of the ‘authentic’, the interventions invited in its name, and the
manner in which these become intertwined at different nodes of social
hierarchies and are effectively imbued with authority. Such a project represents
of course something different but not something unheralded, as it has to be
seen within a context of a complex history of ambiguity/marginality. I argue,
however, that by bringing wider cultural negotiations and their ‘identitying’
(Boon, 1999) practices to the centre of regional affairs, this recent trend
generates even more ambiguity in terms of the what of the region and its people; it proliferates excesses and
hybrid situations and ultimately, I argue, tradition becomes a technology of
marginality: it produces knowledge about the region and its people that cannot
cohere to an –ism (Boon, 1999) and in so doing renders them unable to play
along the axes of a ‘centre –periphery’, ‘self-other’, ‘identity politics’ game
in the way prescribed by the exigencies of the post-enlightenment culture.
Tošić, Dragutin
(Faculty of Geography, Belgrade University, Serbia) and
Maksin-Mićić
Marija (Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Management, "Singidunum"
University, Belgrade, Serbia)
Problems and Possibilities for the Regionalization
of Serbia
During
the 20th century there have been several attempts to regionalize Serbia, all of
them with little success. The first attempt occurred during the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia, between the two World Wars.
The Kingdom had administratively organized macro-regions, as a result of
political goals to achieve the integration of different entities by giving them
some level of governance autonomy. Today such an attempt would match the macro
trans-border regions at EU level. At the some time the great extent of
decentralization had been achieved at the local level of governance by
establishing so cold "srez" as the basic local territorial unit.
Today such units would match the size and the functions of municipalities in EU
states. After the Second World War there had been only one attempt to establish
regionalization in Serbia.
It occurred while the liberalization of the economy and the decentralization of
governance were the key objectives of development policies in former Yugoslavia
(1974-1989). Thirteen macro-regions had been established in Serbia.
However, the real transmission of governance from national to regional level
and the autonomy of newly formed regions were lacking. Without real power to govern
and coordinate, the local communities' proposed macro-regional concept could
not be efficient and widely accepted. The third attempt has been made at the
spatial planning level, as presented in the Spatial Plan of the Republic of Serbia during 1996. The stated
conceptual propositions of the Plan are elaborated through the macro and mezzo
regions, based on the functional areas of the macro and regional urban centers.
This paper deals with the problems and possibilities for functional and spatial
integration at the macro and mezzo-regional level, and for considerably greater
communications and economic links at the trans-border regional level. In future
the spatial-functional re-organization of Serbia, i.e. regionalization should
be based on the functional areas of urban regions, differentiated in accordance
with their hierarchical structure and gravitation areas. The necessary
decentralization of the municipal government system and possibilities to
transfer some of its competences and access to public funds to small local
communities in the rural area, as well as in the town and its peripheral zone
have been pointed out.
Totelecan, Silviu G. (“G. Barit” History
Institute, Romanian Academy,
Cluj-Napoca, Romania)
Trading the Local Networks: Colliding and Coalition
The
shift from local and territorial embedded socialization to the reconstruction
of territories according to our “identity” (i.e., from spatial socialization to
social spatialization), the development of hybrid or creolized cultural forms, boundary shifting and border
melting are just some of the features
of the current transitory process. Within these, the
change from pre-given relationships (“Beziehungsvorgabe”)
to choice (“Beziehungswahl”), and the
passage from a community-type sociality to network sociality is evident. Above
them, global influences preside over the local areas and their
correlative responses upon the shapes and/or features of spaces and places (both geographically and physically) are also in charge.
Within this framework, it is important for me to see what is happening on the
mezzo-level within the local/regional power configuration (i.e., local
administration on the one hand and entrepreneurial groups on the other). Using
the research I have undertaken in the Transylvania
region, I will emphasize the roles played by the actors of these two main
networks regarding the trade of local resources.
Tunc, Aybak (Middlesex University, London, United Kingdom)
Regionalism in the Black Sea Periphery and the EU’s New Neighbourhood Policy: Thick Regionalization and Thin Regionalism
The aim of this paper is to look at the dynamics of regionalism in the Black Sea region in the light of its evolving relationship with the EU’s New Neighbourhood Policy. Regions are not only the products of inside-out developments but also derive their legitimacy from outside-in cognitive processes. Since the end of the Cold War, regionalism in the Black Sea region has been maturing. The establishment of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation in 1992 was clearly the institutional manifestation of this regionalist drive. The impacts of globalization, the re-emergence of geopolitical visions and the enlargement of the EU and NATO towards the Black Sea have been the key drivers behind the regionalist instincts of the Black Sea countries' elites. While the institutionalization of the BSEC has widened covering several issue areas and countries, the regional institutions have failed to deepen regional cooperation. Regionalism has failed to respond to the exigencies of increasing regionalization and a deepening of intra-regional and inter-regional interdependence between the Black Sea and the EU. However, the Black Sea countries are not the only ones to be blamed for this incipient regionalism. The EU has also been reluctant to recognize the functionality of this multilateral forum in its enlargement strategy. At best, the EU’s policy towards the Black Sea region was characterized as one of bilateralism leading to fragmentation and uneven alignment with the policies and institutions of the EU. The EU has been gradually distancing itself from offering full membership perspectives to the prospective candidates in the region while the strategic value and significance of the BSEC actually seemed to have increased in the EU’s New Neighbourhood Policy. The New Neighbourhood Policy has now the potential to overcome these obstacles and divisions but it still suffers from an epistemological gap and silences in fully recognizing the functional and strategic value of regionalism and multilateralism in this European periphery. How can this lack of recognition and silence be explained? This paper will seek an answer to this question.
Valtchinova, Galia (Ethnographic Institute with Museum of the Bulgarian Academy of
Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria)
Speaking Locally, Thinking Transnationally: Negotiating ‘Regionalism’
in Bulgarian and Turkish Strandzha
Separated into two halves by the
Bulgarian-Turkish border (1913), the mountain of Strandzha is synonymous with a
cultural region in the past, torn apart by the vicissitudes of nationalism and
the Cold War; in recent years, it has been spoken of as one of the Ottoman
multiethnic ‘lost paradises’. The ethnic, religious and linguistic mixing and
cohabitation of a still palpable past (pre-WW1) is often opposed to the bounded
mono-ethnic and nationalized societies of the present, the moment of forced
displacement and of ‘deportations’ of populations (Bulgarians from Turkey,
Greeks from Bulgaria) being stressed to explain the depth of the rupture.
Fieldwork undertaken in Strandzha on both sides of the Bulgarian-Turkish
border, during two one-week periods in the summer of 2004 and again in 2006,
allowed me to check these representations against the lived realities of pre-EU
accession Bulgaria and a not-allowed-EU-accession Turkey. Fieldwork being
conducted on both an ‘official’ level (with village and small towns’ mayors and
officials) and among ordinary people in their everyday lives, I will try to
sort out discourses and practices of grief and pain for the past, of
expectations for a (EU) future. My point is that the European policies pursued
during the last few years, which are aimed at creating a ‘transborder [Euro]
region,’ are limited to a few actors and albeit providing a suitable framework
and discourse of empowerment, are not translated into transformative action. In
this sense, they are opposed to the logic of multiplying low-level and
‘popular’ initiatives of transborder cooperation. Scrutinizing the latter, I
will try to show that their ‘success’ is largely due to certain cultural
‘habits’ and patterns of everyday religiosity shared by people on both sides of
the border.
Vasiluta, Stefanescu Marius (West University
of Timisoara)
Regional Identity in Banat: Multiculturality vs.
Interculturality
Are perhaps the concepts of
interculturality and multiculturality more able to provide an appropriate
concept of regional identity in today's Banat?
They apparently try to overcome some of the flaws in the traditional concept by
advocating a mutual understanding of different cultures. Yet they are, as I
will argue, almost as inappropriate as the traditional concept itself, because
they still conceptually presuppose it. The concept of interculturality reacts
to the fact that a conception of cultures as spheres necessarily leads to
intercultural conflicts. Cultures constituted as spheres or islands can,
according to the logic of this conception, do nothing other than collide with
one another. Their "circles of happiness" must, as Herder said,
"clash" (Herder, 1967a: 46); cultures of this kind must ignore,
defame or combat one another. The conception of interculturality seeks ways in
which such cultures could nevertheless get on with, understand and recognize
one another. But the deficiency in this conception originates in that it drags
along with it unchanged the premiss of the traditional conception of culture.
It still proceeds from a conception of cultures as islands or spheres. For just
this reason, it is unable to arrive at any solution, since the intercultural
problems stem from this island-premiss. The classical conception of
culture creates by its primary trait - the separatist character of
cultures - the secondary problem of a structural inability to communicate
between these cultures. Therefore this problem can, of course, not be solved on
the basis of this very conception. The recommendations of interculturality,
albeit well meant, are fruitless.
The concept does not get to the
root of the problem. It remains cosmetic. The concept of multiculturality is surprisingly
similar to the concept of interculturality. It takes up the problems which
different cultures have living together within one society. But
therewith the concept basically remains in the duct of the traditional
understanding of culture; it proceeds from the existence of clearly
distinguished, in themselves homogenous cultures - the only difference now
being that these differences exist within one and the same state community. The
concept seeks opportunities for tolerance and understanding, and for avoidance
or handling of conflict. This is just as laudable as endeavours towards
interculturality - but equally inefficient, too, since from the basis of the traditional
comprehension of cultures a mutual understanding or a transgression of
separating barriers cannot be achieved. As daily experience shows, the concept
of multiculturality accepts and even furthers such barriers. Compared to
traditional calls for cultural homogeneity the concept is progressive, but its
all too traditional understanding of cultures threatens to engender regressive
tendencies, which by appealing to a particularistic cultural identity lead to
ghettoization or cultural fundamentalism. The basic point, however, is in each
case that the concept implies and affirms the traditional conception of
cultures as autonomous spheres, and that it's exactly this which emerges in
present-day phenomena of separation and ghettoization. It comes to light here
just how fatal the outcome of recourses to the old concept of culture can be.
The old cultural notion of inner homogeneity and outer delimitation engenders
chauvinism and cultural fundamentalism. Criticism of the traditional conception
of single cultures, as well as of the more recent concepts of interculturality
and multiculturality can be summarized as follows: If cultures were in fact
still - as these concepts suggest - constituted in the form of islands or
spheres, then one could neither rid oneself of, nor solve the problem of their
coexistence and cooperation. However, the description of today's cultures as
islands or spheres is factually incorrect and normatively deceptive. Cultures
de facto no longer have the insinuated form of homogeneity and separateness.
They have instead assumed a new form, which is to be called transcultural
insofar that it passes through classical cultural boundaries. Cultural
conditions today in Banat are largely
characterized by mixes and permeations.
Vassilev, Ivo (University of Teeside, Middlesbrough,
United Kingdom)
Sovereignties and Identities in European
Transformations
Questions of sovereignty and
identity have been widely discussed in relation to issues of nationalism, which
reflect the establishment of the nation-state as the dominant coupling between
sovereignty and identity for the 19th and 20th centuries
(Kohn 1969, Gellner 1983, Giddens 1985, Anderson 1983). More recently, however,
we have witnessed the complexification of both identities (Bauman 2001, Kymlicka
1995, Rajchman 1995, Maffesoli 1996) and sovereignty regimes (Amin 1994,
Storper 1997, Brenner 1998) and while such processes have been discussed at
some length there is little systematic engagement between the different
literatures. In this paper we will use Bob Jessop’s work on the state (1990,
2002) as a starting point for bringing these literatures together. Jessop
argues that the more recent changes in the organisation of the state can be
captured as a movement from a Keynesian
Welfare National
State to an
entrepreneurial or Schumpeterian Workfare Post-national Regime. We argue that
the meanings and relationships behind ‘post-national regimes’ merits closer
attention as well as a re-conceptualisation of the dominant forms of
post-national solidarities and their relationship to the state. The
complexification of identities and sovereignty regimes does not necessarily
mean that the nation-state has lost its significance (Mann 1990, Ohmae 1996).
Quite in contrast to such conjectures we argue that the nation-state, while
certainly transforming and weakened, remains a main actor in the multiple
transformations of contemporary society. Drawing on examples from the post-1989
changes in EE and the FSU, the paper will examine different cases of
nation-state transformation. The paper aims first, to make inroads in
conceptualising different identity regimes and second, to re-examine the ways
in which the dominant form in which identity and sovereignty are coupled
continues to be significant.
Velimirović, Danijela
(School of Philosophy, Belgrade, Republic of Serbia)
Region, Identity and Cultural Production:
Yugoslav Fashion in the “National Style”
Fashion in the “national style”, as mostly
referred to in printed media, left its mark on the Yugoslav fashion production
of the 1960s. These were fashionable garments made in accordance with current
Western fashion codes, but – on the other hand – they were creating their own
distinctive stylish identity compared to the Western fashion by incorporating
exotic motives. Exotic motives were taken from the thesaurus of regional
culture and provided the Yugoslav fashion system with relevant distinctive
features. This paper analyzes three different fashion productions, which are
directly demonstrating specific regional identities of the Yugoslav fashion:
the socialist version of the haute
couture of Mr. Aleksandar Joksimovic, handmade knitted products
“Sirogojno”, and the “National Salon” production. The paper researches social
and cultural stimuli that were favorable for reviving the romantic clothing
practice, which supported authenticity and exoticism. In the same way, this
paper attempts to answer the question of whether the regional identity of the
fashion industry was closely linked to the distinguishing traits of the
Yugoslav political and social milieu (socialist and non-aligned country). It
adopts an interdisciplinary approach, combining cultural, social and
anthropological interpretations with a historic approach.
Vitkov, David (University of Graz, MA candidate / Institute for
Democracy “Societas Civilis”, Skopje,
Macedonia)
Identity in the Region of West
Macedonia (Greece)
Quite
often, discussions on region and ethnicity in Southeastern Europe seem to exclude
Greece, a country which
although it is politically a part of the European integration process driven
largely by Western Europe, is located geographically in Southeastern
Europe. There is a perception that issues of ethnicity are not an
issue in Greece, however
this is not the case, especially in some regions in Northern
Greece. This paper shall focus on the region of West Macedonia in Northwestern Greece. Issues of ethnicity, language and
culture have and continue to remain a contentious and sensitive issue in this
region of Greece.
In this paper, I shall firstly examine the historical development of the
various identities of the region including the local identity, ethno-cultural
identities and the Greek national identity. Next the Greek state policy in
relation to the preservation of these identities will be examined. Here, I will
argue that the lack of tolerance for a plurality of identities in the region on
the part of the state has prevented some inhabitants of the region from
enjoying full equality as citizens of Greece. Specifically, those
inhabitants who do not choose to identify with the dominant Greek ethnic
identity have and continue to face discrimination. This situation will be put
into the context of the emerging notion of a European identity and whether the
development of such an identity can be a catalyst for the recognition of a
plurality of identities, not only in the region of West Macedonia, but more
widely in Greece.
Vlad, Mihaela (Faculte
de Sciences Politiques, Universite de Bucharest, Roumanie)
Régions et
régionalismes dans le discours politique roumain
Partant du constat que la Roumanie est considérée, du
point de vue de ses régions, un modèle de cohabitation réussie, je vais
analyser comment les hommes politiques roumains abordent le thème des regions/des
regionalismes. Rappelant qu’il y a des manières spécifiques de discuter ces
thèmes, selon l’appartenance des hommes politiques à différentes familles
politiques, je vais essayer de dresser un court « inventaire » des
images de la « régions » dans le discours politique actuel. Je vais
porter une attention particulière au cas de communauté hongroise de la Contrée
des Szeklers (Tinutul Secuiesc), qui a constitué dernièrement un thème
recurrent (et très controversé) dans le discours politique roumain.
Voss, Christian (Institut für Slawistik,
Philosophische Fakultät II, Berlin, Deutschland)
Sprachideologien bei den slawischsprachigen
Balkanmuslimen: Die Pomaken in West-Thrakien
Die Pomaken in Griechenland sind seit fast 90 Jahren von ihrer genetischen
Überdachungssprache, dem Bulgarischen getrennt. Auch infolge der
griechisch-türkischen Minderheitenschutzverträge von Lausanne 1923 hat eine
kulturelle und politische Assimilation der slawischsprachigen Pomaken an die
zahlenmäßig größere, ethnisch türkische Minderheit in West-Thrakien eingesetzt.
Seit den 1990er Jahren versucht die griechische Seite, diesen Prozeß durch die
Stärkung einer regionalsprachlichen pomakischen Sonderidentität zu stoppen. Der
Vortrag zeichnet die Reaktionen der pomakischen Gemeinschaft auf diese
Sprachpolitik und ihre Kodifizierungsversuche nach: Für die Pomaken ist Sprache
kein relevantes Zuschreibungskriterium für Gruppengrenzen, zumal Sprache von
den Bulgaren wie auch von den Griechen, also als Fremdzuschreibung,
instrumentalisiert worden ist. Diese Lokalstudie wird mit der einschlägigen
Forschung zu minoritärer Sprachideologie abgeglichen, vor allem aber soll eine
komparative Perspektive zu anderen slawischen Balkanmuslimen eröffnet werden:
Vor allem anhand der Inkompatibilität der Pomaken mit der bosnischen
Entwicklung kann gezeigt werden, dass der bosnische Weg von der Region zur
Nation ein Sonderfall ist und nicht verallgemeinerbar für die Balkanmuslime
ist.
Vučinić-Nešković, Vesna (Department of
Ethnology and Anthropology, School of Philosophy, University
of Belgrade, Serbia)
Regional Identities in Montenegro
Viewing the process of the political disintegration of Yugoslavia from
the 1990s onwards a well-known historical phenomenon characteristic of the
medieval Montenegrin society appears: the traditional tribal identities and
institutions come alive. The Southwestern part of the Montenegro coast, known as Boka Kotorska (Bay of Kotor),
joined Yugoslavia or what
was then the Kingdom
of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
in 1918. Prior to that, it shared a history with the Serbian and Bosnian
medieval states, as well as the Venetian, Turkish, and Austrian empires, and
the short-term French and Russian rules. In the southeastern part of the deep
and picturesque coastal line of the Bay
of Kotor, there are a few
local societies that consider themselves as one historical and
socio-territorial unity, which they call “oblast” (region) and most recently
even “pleme” (tribe). Such societies are Pastrovici and Grbalj. This paper will
deal with the post-socialist processes of identity creation in Grbalj, a small
region situated between the towns of Kotor, Tivat and Budva. It will
reconstruct the activities of the indigenous nongovernmental organization that
brought forward the formation of local religious and civil institutions, the
renovation of the monastery and numerous churches, the initiation and financing
of the scientific investigation of Grbalj, and the organization of a scholarly
meeting and publication of its proceedings. Some of its members went on to make
interventions into local administrative reforms, to set up an agricultural
society promoting olive cultivation, and to fight against illicit municipal
transactions with their communal land. Special emphasis will be placed on the
traditional rituals that have been extended into the public sphere, the best
example of which is the burning of Yule logs on Christmas Eve.
Vučković,
Marija (Institute
for the Serbian Language, Belgrade, Serbia)
Language and Religion among Bulgarian and
Croatian Catholics in West Banat
This paper
is based on fieldwork conducted in the communities of Bulgarian Paulicians and
Kajkavian speaking Croats in the territory
of West Banat (in Serbia).
Besides the fact that they share the same settlement area, the “polyglot and
multicultural” region of Banat, these two groups have several more features in
common, some of them being the status of minority group, the confessional
affiliation, the predominantly rural character of the population, the “island”
position in relation to the “mother countries” which is result of migration
movements, etc. From a confessional point of view, they are both Roman
Catholic, which represents an important element of their identities. The paper
focuses upon the relationship between language and religion, more precisely
upon language use in the religious sphere among Paulicians and Kajkavian
speaking Croats in Banat. According to data
provided by the Zrenjanin diocese's website (www.catholic-zr.org.yu), the
languages of sermons in parishes inhabited by these two population groups are
Hungarian, Hungarian and Croatian and Hungarian and Bulgarian = (Croatian)
(!?). I will try, on the basis of narratives recorded during this research, to
outline the attitudes of informants to the languages used in church and also
their individual perception of the role that this aspect of language use plays
in the construction of their group identities.
Vukov, Nikolai (Institute of Folklore,
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia,
Bulgaria)
Food Labels, Meal Specialities and Regional Identities: the Case of Bulgaria
The
specificities of national cuisines are often marked with explicit reminders of
regional identifiers. These do not only designate particular food preferences,
production markers and local features, but also place regionalism in
perspective as negotiated on the map of other negotiating and self-imposing
identities. Widely spread in many countries and regions, these have particular
resonance in the Balkans, where food products and items from the national
cuisines usually go under the sign of regional labels. Having their roots in
folklore perception and stereotypic formulae, these not only enter the list of “national meals”, but also function as shaping the
different regions in a characteristic perspective. The current paper focuses on
food labels and meal specialities as expressing and shaping regional
identities. The examples that I will elaborate on will be mostly from Bulgaria,
though diverse parallels will be drawn to other Balkan and European countries
as well. The eggs fried in Panagyurishte style, the salad in Shopska style, the
sausages from Smiadovo, the wine from Melnik, etc. will be shown as not merely
designating affiliations to particular regions, but also as creating a symbolic
geography of origins in which the national, regional, and the local enter into
an intricate relationship. The goals of this paper will be twofold: the first
one is to elaborate on the strategies of defining regions through such food
labels in “nationally shared” cuisine patterns and to trace the construction of
regional identities along the code of food production and culinary specificity.
Secondly, the paper will approach the historical dynamics of this formation and
will outline (with respect to the Bulgarian case) how it has developed in the
first half of the 20th century, in the socialist period, and in
post-socialist times. This will outline the varying emphasis in approaching
regional identities and in drawing symbolic power from regional specificity –
from the structuring of national cuisine to the television adverts and commercials
in a market economy. The paper refers to several of the conference themes, but
maybe the most appropriate one will be either “Regional Identities – Region and
Identity” or “Regional Images and Stereotypes”.
Wiederhold, Uta (Technische Universität Dresden,
Deutschland)
Regionale Identität – eine sozialpsychologische Perspektive.
Regional Identity – a social-psychological perspective
In einer globalisierten Welt zunehmender Mobilität kann
man auch einen gegenläufigen Trend zunehmender Regionalisierung beobachten. Die
Region gewinnt politisch, ökonomisch und aus Sicht ihrer Menschen an Bedeutung.
Auch aus einer sozialpsychologischen Sicht ist anzunehmen, dass die Region als
identitätsstiftende Kategorie an Bedeutung gewinnt, wenn Grenzen offener werden
und Kulturen sich durch weltweite Migration vermischen. Die Region ist für
viele ein bedeutsamer und vertrauter Ort und mit Gefühlen von Heimat verbunden.
In einer beschleunigten Welt gibt die Region Orientierung und Unterstützung.
Der Beitrag geht dem Konstrukt der Regionalen Identität anhand von drei
zentralen Fragen nach: Was ist die Region für die Menschen? Was bedeutet die
Region und wie wirkt sich die regionale Bindung auf das Erleben und Verhalten
der Menschen aus? Obwohl Ansätze aus der Anthropologie oder der
Sozialgeographie vorliegen, fehlt bislang eine sozialpsychologische Konzeption
regionaler Identität. Auf der Grundlage des so genannten Social Identity
Approach (Tajfel et al.) wird vorgeschlagen, regionale Identität nicht als
territoriale Zuordnung, sondern als Aspekt jenes Teiles der Identität zu verstehen,
der durch sozial geteilte Gruppenmitgliedschaft konstituiert wird. Ein
Individuum fühlt sich zu einer Region hingezogen, weil er sich mit den Menschen
dieser Region identifiziert. Wichtig ist, dass die regionale Identität, wie
andere soziale Identitäten, von positiven sozialen Vergleichen zu Fremdgruppen
abhängt, und deshalb von Differenzierungsprozessen beeinflusst wird. Der
Vortrag wird zunächst die Entwicklung eines Instrumentes zur Erfassung der
regionalen Identität vorstellen und erste empirische Ergebnisse präsentieren,
welche Faktoren die regionale Identität beeinflussen und inwieweit sie von
Abgrenzungsprozessen abhängt.
Yusufi, Islam
(Department of Politics/Southeast European Research Center, Skopje, Macedonia)
Regional Governance in the Western Balkans
This paper is devoted to systematic cross-country
comparisons of governance in the countries of the Western Balkans, based upon
which a construction of a conception of regional governance will be sought.
This issue requires a better understanding of the nature of the EU's
involvement inside these countries from the perspective of the promotion of
regional policies in light of the region’s European integration prospects. This
is an issue that I also tackle in my doctorate program at the Department of
Politics/Southeast European Research Center of the University of Sheffield.
By examining the process of regionalization in the Western Balkans, with
special focus on the case of Macedonia,
the proposed paper will seek to provide a useful picture of the roles of the
regions in the country’s governance. This will be achieved through an analysis
of the EU instruments that have dealt with the development of regional policies
in the country. In this context, special attention will be paid to the EU’s
cross-border and neighborhood programs (which contain large sections
specifically on the promotion of regional policies) and how they relate to the
countries’ policies of the promotion of regions and regional policies.
Zane, Rodica (Université
de Bucarest, Faculté des Lettres, Roumanie)
Histoire de famille et identité régionale en
Muscel, Roumanie – étude de cas
Le travau propose une confrontation entre l’image du
« paysan roumain » , nonlocale, générale et géneralisée, construit
comme « portrait » représentatif, et une image particulière,
réconstituée (ré-construite) d’un certain paysan, celui de Muscel. Deux
facterus de variation organise la différence de ces images : celui temporel,
à travers de l’histoire de famille, la famille Nae Dobrescu, opposée à
l’histoire officielle, et celui spatiel, à travers la « région »
Muscel, opposée au térritoire nationale, la Roumanie. En même temps, on met en
évidence les stéréotypes induit sur la culture paysanne,
« traditionnelle », par la « haute culture », stéréeotypes
dénoncés par cet étude de cas. Le local et le familiel sont revelés dans une
narration compensatrice, parce que « avant on avait peur de parler de ça ».
L’identité se compose dans une dimenssion exceptionnelle, et ceux d’aujourd’hui
la produisent aussi pour leurs descendents comme patrimoine familiale. Pour
ceux qui ont émigré, l’histoire de famille est reprise et partagée aux fils,
dans une variante destinée à fonder leurs origines dignes.
Zerilli, Filippo M.
(University of Cagliari, Italy)
Rural Development and the Global Language of Rights: Transylvanian
Peasants Entering the EU
Drawing on ethnographic material concerning
the conceptualisations of property in post-socialist Romania, this paper explores how
the notion of the “rural world” (la tară,
which in Romanian also translates into “the nation”) is currently undergoing
significant transformations within specific social and political spaces. It
particularly focuses on the social practices and discursive strategies adopted
by a Greek Catholic community in order to recover its church in a Transylvanian
village (district of Alba), and makes clear how it has partially succeeded in
translating its claim into the universalising (global) language of human
rights. Seeking to refute reification of the “rural” vs. “urban” binary
opposition (one largely used by local and global actors alike), the paper
attempts to show how diverse local projects (such as the construction of a
church, the making of an ethnographic museum, and the opening of a new food
store) reshape internal and external boundaries of the village, clarifying how
the idea of the “rural world” is creatively used and modified through political
agency. Whereas the paper focuses on how local subjects cope with difficulties
and opportunities generated by the European enlargement process, it tries also
to deal with the question of how people from the village categorise and relate
to “outsiders” (such as regional, national, and international social actors,
including the ethnographer). This raises a number of important political issues
and shows how relations of identity and difference are articulated and
spatialised within the temporality of the research process.
Zheleva-Martins,
Dobrina (Center for
Architectural Studies, Bulgarian Academy
of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria)
Migration as a Factor for Forming a Common Regional Architectural
Picture of the Balkans
The
author will try to prove that in the Balkans the migrations of people from
different ethnic identities lie at the basis of mutual architectural
influences, including the formation of traditional Balkan architecture. The
method of cross-cultural analysis will be applied to examples taken from the territory of Bulgaria. This crossing of data from
various sources: history, toponymy, dialectology, onomastics, folklore, ethnography,
linguistics, etc. and “the migration movements”, leads to the correction of a
number of preconceived, imagined, or wishful theses on architecture, as well as
a self-organization of the historical picture and objectification of the
conclusions drawn. Information about these migration movements can shed a lot
of light on this much discussed topic of the construction schools, and also
objectify the no less debatable question of mutual influences in the
architecture of the Balkans. There does not exist an important architectural
problem which should not be considered in the context of the entire Balkan Peninsula, including theses about the
architectural and construction schools, and the spreading of styles,
techniques, constructive methods, decorative systems, etc. The author will try
to show how studying migration flows could contribute to achieving a way of
architectural thinking which transcends ethnic and national boundaries in the
name of a common, regional Balkan architectural picture.
Edward Said's concept of orientalism, understood as a discourse that constructs and
essentializes the “other” and is based on the East/West dichotomy, is often
applied to the post-Yugoslav context. In the ex-Yugoslav areas, functions the
gradation according to which the “other” is always in the East, which is more
suitable for orientalist ethics. In the frame of Serbia, orientalist discourse is
moved towards the Southeast, to the wider region south of Niš, which is
pejoratively called “južna pruga” (“south railroad”). However, within the frame
of this area, the city of Vranje
has a special status: except for backwardness and primitivism that are usually
ascribed to the Orient, completely different characteristics are ascribed to it
due to the literary work of Bora Stanković: luxury, sensuality and
exoticism. Although Vranje in reality has rich people, its image, both inside
as well as outside the city, is related exclusively to the symbols acquired
from outside and to the motives that originate from the work of Bora
Stanković, the meanings of which are still multiplied. The identity
construction of Vranje is formed from contradicting elements, both on the
inside as well as from the outside, which are mutually connected and interdependent.
Unrestrained enjoyment of song and dance, sensuality and exoticism represent
the components of a picture that has an enormous identity power for the people
of Vranje. They continuously construct this picture of themselves, at the same
time trying to keep a distance from the Orient (in the periods of fighting for
a “pure” nation) that others ascribe to them. In recent years, transitional
movements, the context of globalization and commercialized nostalgia demand a
very pragmatic understanding of local identity, while oriental symbols become
simplified, common, easily recognizable, likeable and ready to be used.
Zlatkova, Meglena (“Paisii Hilendrsky” University of Plovdiv, Bulgaria)
“Who owns the Orpheus”: Sacral Mountain or (Re)-construction of the
Central Southern Euro-Region in Bulgaria
“Come
to visit the birthplace of the Orpheus” became a common slogan on the entrances
of many villages in the Rhodope Mountains in
the last few years. How does the ancient past of the region become a resource
for competition in the “new regionalization” in Bulgaria and how do the different
discourses make a “product” of that past for “us” and for the “other”? How do
the “new” transformations in the European space from a Europe of Nations to a
Europe of Regions and the enlargement of the “territory” of the European Union
with the accession of the new member states from Central and Eastern Europe
happen in Bulgaria?
The new administrative frame of the regions, according to the definition of the
EU, faces the “traditional” regions and cultural area, which existed on the
territory of contemporary Bulgaria.
These regions were “normalized” by the socialist nation-state as cultural
ethnographic zones and thus included in the symbolic territory of the national
state. This paper will present the reconstruction of a region in Southern
Bulgaria that included a part of the Rhodope Mountains
– an old zone of intercultural, interethnic and cross-border interaction –
“separated” by three Balkan countries in the 20th century. These
attempts at regionalization, which are still in construction, are examined from
the viewpoint of cultural and tourist projects in the last ten years. Common
points in the analysis of the cases are: who are and how do the local actors –
institutions, private entrepreneurs and communities – interact with national
ones in constructing the Central Southern Region as a unique and ancient space?
The tensions between local and global as well as the still strong national
discourse will be studied on the level of different “uses” and negotations for
the patrimony and self-construction using “antiquity”. The question of to whom
we wish to “sell” the region and what kind of strategies are chosen by different
actors to “present” this sacral territory will be put into the context of the
interactions between local communities and visitors, between private and
public. How do private actors appropriate the common patrimony and how could
the public sphere be created by negotiation for the region? How is the “end” of
the national territory presented as a symbolic center and the “entrance” to Europe? A metaphorical answer to these questions could
be: Orpheus belongs to everybody, but only “we”, the people living on that
territory, being “heirs” own it.