Strangers either way Zmegac, Jasna Capo
2007., 20070815, 2007, 2011-07-01, 20070101, Volume:
2
eBook
Croatia gained the world's attention during the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. In this context its image has been overshadowed by visions of ethnic conflict and cleansing, war crimes, ...virulent nationalism, and occasionally even emergent regionalism. Instead of the norm, this book offers a diverse insight into Croatia in the 1990s by dealing with one of the consequences of the war: the more or less forcible migration of Croats from Serbia and their settlement in Croatia, their "ethnic homeland." This important study shows that at a time in which Croatia was perceived as a homogenized nation-in-the-making, there were tensions and ruptures within Croatian society caused by newly arrived refugees and displaced persons from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Refugees who, in spite of their common ethnicity with the homeland population, were treated as foreigners; indeed, as unwanted aliens.
The book offers a critical overview of Croatian ethnology written by the most prominent Croatian ethnologist/ anthropologist in the second half of the 20th century - Dunja Rihtman-Augustin (recently ...deceased). She was the first Croatian ethnologist to break with the long established tradition of diffusionist (culture area) studies of her contemporaries and start to anthropologize Croatian ethnology. This book, compiled and completed by Jasna Capo Zmegac, highlights some crucial remarks with regard to the relationship between ethnology and politics. They are formulated as a series of research questions and problems, including: the role of folk culture as mythomoteur, cannonization of the folk culture, nationalization of the peasants in the 19th century and the role of ethnology. This vividly written text offers an exceptional insight into Croatian ethnological developments in the past century, as well as into crucial ruptures in Croatian society which have had important repercussions on ethnological discipline.
Dunja Rihtman-Augustin, Professor, originally a journalist, was the head of the Institute of Folk Art in Zagreb from 1972-1986 and President of the Croatian Ethnological Society.
Contents: Between ethnicity and nation; Vuk Karadzic: past and present or on the history of folk culture; The Zadruga between real and imagined order; Antun Radic: peasants into Croats; Distancing ethnology from politics; Ethnology during socialism and after; Ethnology and the ethnomyth; Anthropologizing ethnology; The ethno-anthropologist in his native field: to observe or to witness?; The ICTY in the Hague and anthropological expertise?; Bibliography; Index.
The article explores similarities of several cases of particular population displacements: the so-called ethnically privileged migrations. These are mostly forced migrations, in which ethnic ...minorities migrate to their ‘ethnic homelands’: that is, to nation-states in which they become part of the national majority. It is argued that the treatment, acceptance and incorporation of such migrants in their new homelands, in spite of the common ethnicity/nationality shared by the migrant and local population, is a difficult and potentially conflictual process. It is analysed as an instance of a more broadly relevant sociological configuration, in which the intrusion of any migrant group, whether or not it shares ethnicity, cultural traits, language, and/or structural features with the local population, sets the stage for cultural differentiation and symbolic conflict between the old and the newcomer population.
Through ethnography of the particular – by analysis of the experience of dying parents and the experience lived through by offspring during the process of their dying – this paper opens up certain ...issues regarding the contemporary stance towards illness, death, and the treatment and care of the sick. Within the framework of anthropological, historical and psychological literature, the author weighs the culturally constructed perceptions, the patterns and the emotions connected with particular diseases (cancer) and the question of the dying patient as the intimate Other within the family, but also ventures into certain relevant questions from the sphere of the medical and overall social treatment of patients and the dying, for example, that of the primacy of curative over the palliative medicine, of the deficit in holistic overview of the patient and his/her illness, and that of primary importance concerning the communication between patient and physician and the patient’s family and the physician.
The 1990s were an intense period for the construction of the symbols of Croatian identity. One such project – the story of the Croatian provenance of the necktie authored by a non-profit institution ...named Academia Cravatica – is interesting analytically not only because they arranged some more or less spectacular cultural happenings, but because of their skilful handling of the iconic postmodern concepts of flexible identities, concentric circles and levels of identities, interactions and hybrid cultures, cultural relativism and the like. After presenting some "cravatologic" activities, I will analyse, through the history of the diffusion, transformation and changing semantics of the kerchief of Croatian peasants, the shifts to which that artefact was exposed from the 17th century to the present.
The author discusses some generally accepted interpretations of return migrations inside the framework of migrational theories of assimilation, multiculturalism and transnationalism. Firstly, the ...author shows that the research of return practices inside the assimilational and multicultural paradigms was neglected only in immigration countries, but not in the countries of emigration. Secondly, contrary to certain interpretations, the author thinks that through redefining the classic dichotomies in migrational research, the transnational paradigm has provided new insights in return migrations. Finally, discussing different forms of return in the context of Croatian Diaspora, the author thinks that return migration can also be defined as a form of immigration.
The author discusses some generally accepted interpretations of return migrations inside the framework of migrational theories of assimilation, multiculturalism and transnationalism. Firstly, the ...author shows that the research of return practices inside the assimilational and multicultural paradigms was neglected only in immigration countries, but not in the countries of emigration. Secondly, contrary to certain interpretations, the author thinks that through redefining the classic dichotomies in migrational research, the transnational paradigm has provided new insights in return migrations. Finally, discussing different forms of return in the context of Croatian Diaspora, the author thinks that return migration can also be defined as a form of immigration.
Using the ethnographic approach, the article describes three modalities of family arrangements practiced by Croatian migrants in Germany over the past thirty years. In all three, family members were ...divided between two localities in physical space, which were situated in different states – Croatia or Bosnia-Herzegovina and Germany: in one case only the father was a migrant while his wife and children stayed in the native country; in another the couple left for Germany leaving the child in Croatia; in the third the couple lived with some of their children in Germany while other children were living in Croatia. Some of these families were dispersed across international borders during the entire life and migration course (thirty years or more), while some experienced shorter or longer periods of separation followed by reunion of all or some family members, who crossed borders in one or another direction. It follows from this presentation that, rather than being a temporary phase aimed at reintegration of the family at a higher economic level, bilocality, viewed from a diachronic perspective, is a more or less continuous family arrangement and a way of life of migrant families.
The question remains open as to whether transnational families are units in which emotional ties and closeness between its members are maintained. The data might point in this direction but might also lead to a hypothesis that, precisely because it is dispersed across long distances, the family needs to construct its unity (emotional if not physical) and therefore narratively presents itself as integrated and reconfigured.
U radu se iznosi teza da u Hrvatskoj supostoje konfliktne memorije ustaštva i komunizma te da sukobi oko režima memorije nastaju na svakodnevnoj razini, unatoč tomu što je 70 odnosno 25 godina ...proteklo od nestanka ustaškog i komunističkog poretka. Nadalje se tvrdi da su konfliktne memorije reproducirane od strane političara i politiziranih medija te da se upravo zbog toga označitelji “komunist” i “ustaša” osnažuju u svakodnevnom diskursu. U potkrijepu navedenih teza iznosi se kontroverza oko jednoga znanstveno-popularnog zbornika.
Analyzes historical data drawn from the Cernik estate, 1760-1850, on the size & composition of multiple-family households in northeastern Croatia & the likely social & economic forces contributing to ...household patterns. Results indicate that major differences in household size & composition existed between rural serfs of the village & urban serfs of Cernik, with rural villagers much more likely to have large, multifamily households. It is argued that economic & demographic constraints favored a simple, single-family housing design among urban dwellers. The contention that significant differences likely existed between urban & rural households challenges conventional wisdom that multiple-family households were dominant in Croatia. It is concluded that interpretation of aggregate historical data must be made wtih extreme caution to avoid ignoring significant regional or urban-rural variations. 5 Tables. Adapted from the source document.
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