Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 13 (2006): Studia Anthropologica, II: Defining Region: Socio-cultural Anthropology and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Part 2, pp. 117–128
Abstract
Anthropology as a discipline is largely concerned with understanding human beings on a local and inter-national scale. As the subject has evolved, a number of sub-disciplines have come to the fore, the most prominent being biological, archaeological, linguistic, social and cultural. Political anthropology is generally placed as a sub-specialism within the context of social and cultural anthropology. This essay argues for greater significance for political anthropology as a sub-discipline of anthropology generally and especially within the Baltic States. Following an initial review of political anthropology in and of Europe, the essay outlines some of the key issues to which the Baltic States can make particularly unique contributions. The Baltic States already have a well-developed tradition of European Ethnology. This essay emphasises that they are also in a unique position to contribute to the development of political anthropology as an important sub-discipline which has acquired a new relevance in the context of an ever-changing EU. In a Europe that has witnessed many political changes over the past half-century and the emergence of new borders is going, insights into the political process can hardly be acquired through the disciplines of politics or sociology alone. The Eastern enlargement of the EU gives an urgency to our thinking about Europe.
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 13 (2006): Studia Anthropologica, II: Defining Region: Socio-cultural Anthropology and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Part 2, pp. 129–139
Abstract
The epithet Euro-American is ubiquitous in contemporary social science research. There is a tendency, however, for the concept to suffer from a ‘misplaced concreteness’: it is variously used to refer to a population, a place, or even a culture. The collaborative study on which I report here was entitled ‘Public Understanding of Genetics (PUG): a cross-cultural and ethnographic study of the ‘new genetics’ and social identity’. The aim was include, within the same framework, a range of publics, including lay and expert, as well as the media and legislation, and to investigate whether developments in genetic science and the use of genetic and reproductive technologies were impinging (or not) on people’s understandings of kin-ship. We were able to focus, to some extent, on the interface between normative and popular understandings of genetics. In juxtaposing policy and popular discourse our aim was to discern the points at which they converge and diverge. In PUG we were interested, then, in the similarities and differences in kinship thinking across the European sites in which we worked. We attempted to apprehend cultural understandings of kinship through the prism of genetics, and we were using new reproductive and genetic technologies as an ethnographic window through which to explore kinship across Europe.
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 13 (2006): Studia Anthropologica, II: Defining Region: Socio-cultural Anthropology and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Part 2, pp. 141–149
Abstract
The human beings use to ascribe themselves and others to certain groups and dividing world for ‘them’ and ‘us’. We should rethink the role played by ethnicity concept in social sciences, common sense knowledge and practice in contemporary world. But the turn from ethnic or national identities to other ones is just the first step in my opinion. The second step in the same direction is to try to answer the question: does it really make sense for sociologists and anthropologists to investigate identities or we rather have to investigate people’s action and their behaviour? Moreover, if only we agree on these points we have to re-think the role that scholars play in the process of interpretation of the world by modern people, because the interpretations that we produce as ‘experts’ do not exist only in an ‘academic world’. They are in use by ordinary people as well as by politicians, and that is why those interpretations have visible practical consequences. Hereby I would like to discuss possible alternatives to ethnically based understandings of the issues of the ‘ethnicity’, ‘identity’ and ‘multiculturalism’. I’ll start with the description of the research experience that made me concerned about the issues pointed out.
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 13 (2006): Studia Anthropologica, II: Defining Region: Socio-cultural Anthropology and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Part 2, pp. 151–157
Abstract
During my anthropological fieldwork in Estonia in 1996–97 I approached various folkloristic traditions and practices at several occasions. My meeting with folklorists and their practices can be described as a ‘clash’ between academic disciplines. As an anthropology student I obviously reacted to how folklorists related to their research material. It is probably often so when people from different disciplines meet, that disagreements will arise about how research is done and fieldwork material is interpreted. Somehow we have to accept these differences, but sometimes it is also inspiring to get to know what people from other disciplines think about your own discipline. I want to give an account of folkloristic practices as seen through the eyes of an anthropologist. And it is related to a particular time and place: Estonia in the 1990ties at the time of my fieldwork. I guess, and I know, that changes have occurred since then, but I still hope that these reflections can be of interest.
Pub. online:20 Dec 2006Type:Book ReviewOpen Access
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 13 (2006): Studia Anthropologica, II: Defining Region: Socio-cultural Anthropology and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Part 2, pp. 159–167
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 13 (2006): Studia Anthropologica, II: Defining Region: Socio-cultural Anthropology and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Part 2, pp. 169–170
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 13 (2006): Studia Anthropologica, II: Defining Region: Socio-cultural Anthropology and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Part 2, pp. 171–177