Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 15 (2007): Baltijos regiono istorija ir kultūra: Lietuva ir Lenkija. Karinė istorija, archeologija, etnologija = History and Culture of Baltic Region: Lithuania and Poland. Military History, Archaeology, Ethnology, pp. 135–146
Abstract
Symbols, as a certain expression of signs, may be examined when concentrating on social functions of a sign or on logical functions of the same sign. This article deals with the place of signs (gestures) in communication not only in the eyes of the representatives of semiotics but also in the eyes of anthropologists and ethnologists. This article is restricted to the first group of gestures when non-verbal gestures appear as a part of ritual behaviour that is they are used in everyday situation at the moment of greeting. It is a hand-kissing which is the object of research in this article. The aim of the article is to reveal the origin of hand-kissing and follow the development of this gesture in Lithuania in the 20th century. The tasks there are: to examine forms of the expression of hand-kissing; to determine functions of ethical norms which regulate hand-kissing with regard to a sex, age, social status, degree of acquaintance; to show modifications of the expression and normative functions of this gesture in a certain period of time. The work is grounded on the data of field works from the territory of the Republic of Lithuania collected in ethnographical expeditions in 1998-2005 by the author herself, and it is also based on the archive manuscript collections, as well as works on non-verbal communication published by other researchers.
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 13 (2006): Studia Anthropologica, II: Defining Region: Socio-cultural Anthropology and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Part 2, pp. 89–102
Abstract
Social or Cultural Anthropology, in the Western sense, is little known territory in parts of contemporary East Europe. It is the case in Lithuania where biological anthropology traditionally claims the term anthropology for itself. Lithuanian ethnology and sociology partially fill the void normally covered by anthropology. There were definite political, academic and practical factors that stunted the growth of anthropology in Lithuania. The aim of this article is to identify these factors, and to define the sphere and the field of research and instruction, that should be allocated to anthropology. I seek also to present the case for an urgent need of the discipline to be established in the educational, research and applied frontiers of contemporary Lithuanian society. It has been even more complicated to establish the importance and capability of socio-cultural anthropology as a separate field of endeavour vis-à-vis Lithuanian ethnology. While socio-cultural anthropology in the West examined the other and otherness, there was no political interest for a newly independent nation-state in a discipline with a wrong focus.