Klaipėdos universitetas

Christiania is the name of a Danish alternative community. In this article I investigate how Christianites, members of Christiania, deal with internal tensions and conflicts. My empirical data suggests that Christianites have developed social mechanisms and practices, in which conflicts accumulate without being resolved. I suggest that these practices are related to the dominant position of community old-timers. In my discussion I employ situational analysis as means to presenting one crisis situation in Christiania. The crisis situation occurred during my fieldwork in Christiania in 2005 and 2006. The first part of my article is about the general features of social life in Christiania. In the second part, one ethnographic example will show how old-timers operate in a specific crisis situation. I use Max Weber’s ideas on traditional authority to explain the dominant position of community old-timers.

This article will explore and explain the effects of the beer law introduced by the Supreme Administrative Court of Republic of Lithuania in July, 2001. I will argue that the new law has been adopted as a result of the strategic calculation and manipulation of the legal system by the municipality of Vilnius. As a result of global finance flows and tourism the law and authoritative voices of the city council seeks to redefine moral, social and physical boundaries within the city space and introduce a new moral public behaviour in the centre of Vilnius. The article suggests that common citizens, unable to participate in the decision-making process, undertake acts of resistance: tactical manoeuvres and creative acts of hidden transcripts of how to subvert and challenge the law. The materials for the article were collected during my three months field works in the community of beer drinkers, as well as 10 partly structuralised interviews with policeman, also 1 interview with high administrative person at Vilnius city municipality.