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The Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics is the joint publication of the Estonian Literary Museum, the Estonian National Museum and the University of Tartu. Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics (JEF) is a multidisciplinary forum for scholars. Addressed to an international scholarly audience, JEF is open to contributions from researchers all over the world. JEF publishes articles in the research areas of ethnology, folkloristics, museology, cultural and social anthropology. It includes both studies focused on the empirical analysis of particular cases as well as those more theoretically oriented.

JEF is indexed by Sciendo (De Gruyter Open), Elsevier – SCOPUS, Anthropological Index Online, Central and Eastern European Online Library (C.E.E.O.L.), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), ERIH PLUS, MLA Directory of Periodicals (EBSCO), International Scientific Indexing (ISI), MLA International Bibliography (EBSCO) and Open Folklore Project.

From March 31, 2016 the Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics has been published in partnership with Sciendo (De Gruyter Open), the world‘s second largest publisher of Open Access academic content, and part of the De Gruyter group which has over 260 years of publishing history. Sciendo closely cooperates with the majority of abstracting and indexing services, universities and libraries, providing a wide availability of journal‘s content and increasing its visibility. Journal‘s full-text articles, starting from issue 10, can be found on the Sciendo‘s platform at https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/jef/jef-overview.xml.

JEF has neither article submission nor article processing charges.

Rejection Rate 50%

Plagiarism Policy

The editorial board is participating in a growing community of Similarity Check System’s users in order to ensure that the content published is original and trustworthy. Similarity Check is a medium that allows for comprehensive manuscripts screening, aimed to eliminate plagiarism and provide a high standard and quality peer-review process.

OA statement

JEF is issued two times per year, both in print format and online. The journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. 

Review process

Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics is a peer-reviewed journal. All submissions are reviewed initially by the editors. Submitted research articles that meet the scientific and journal’s editorial standards will be read by two anonymous referees. Based on the reviewers reports, the Editor-in-Chief can accept, reject, or request modifications to the manuscript.

Copyright statement

The non-commercial use of the article will be governed by the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license as currently displayed on http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.  Under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license, the users (other than authors) are free to share (copy, distribute and transmit the contribution) under the following conditions: 1. they must attribute the contribution in the manner specified by the author or licensor, 2. they may not use this contribution for commercial purposes, 3. they may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Authors retain the following rights: 1. copyright, and other proprietary rights relating to the article, such as patent rights, 2. the right to use the substance of the article in future own works, including lectures and books, 3. the right to reproduce the article for own purposes, provided the copies are not offered for sale, 4. the right to self-archive the article.

@article{JEF, author = {Lidia Gripenberg}, title = { “Rebuilding Ties That Existed Long Ago“: Experiences of Finnish Roma during Missionary Work in Estonia}, journal = {Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics}, volume = {16}, number = {1}, year = {2022}, keywords = {}, abstract = {This article analyses Finnish Roma experiences of interaction with Roma in Estonia, in the period after the historic fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 through to the present. The research data rely on semi-structured interviews and informal conversations, as well as indirect observations of Finnish Roma missionising activities. The results show that Roma identity was seen as a unifying factor and a source of a feeling of belonging, but not as the major factor driving mission. The driving force of the mission stems from the urge to evangelise, inherent in how Pentecostal teaching is lived and directed. This study contributes to the understanding of the interplay of ethnic identity and spirituality in Roma communities in the context of missionising, as well as the role of missionising for the missionaries themselves.}, issn = {2228-0987}, pages = {117–134}, url = {http://www.jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/429} }

This article relates to the studies of roads and engages with the experience of driving in Sakha (Yakutiia), Siberia. The article intends to contribute to the broad corpus of literature on mobility and argues that an alternative perspective on roads and road-users from a geographical area beyond the West might better inform and add another dimension to our notions of roads and our movement along them. The article examines the fluid nature of roads in Siberia and the social significance the roads carry by focussing on truck-drivers and their perception and engagement with the so-called winter roads through their sensory experiences. The article analyses narratives of the truckers who frame their experiences of the road with close reference to time and money and where notions of agency of the road become prominent.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license, the author(s) and users are free to share (copy, distribute and transmit the contribution) under the following conditions: 1. they must attribute the contribution in the manner specified by the author or licensor, 2. they may not use this contribution for commercial purposes, 3. they may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

Authors retain the following rights:

– copyright, and other proprietary rights relating to the article, such as patent rights,

– the right to use the substance of the article in future own works, including lectures and books,

– the right to reproduce the article for own purposes, provided the copies are not offered for sale,

– the right to self-archive the article.

Fairytale plots are studied in the present article in the context of the shamanic practise of the Nanai people; they are mainly dealt with from an emic perspective. The plots about the cruel behaviour of the bride, which are in contradiction to real Nanai traditions, are divided into two categories in the present article – on the one hand, plots connected with the cohabitation of humans and the spirits, and, on the other hand, plots that speak about the marriage of two people in which the cruelty of the bride is very often expressed by the perishing of the bridegroom, who loses a pre-marriage contest with the bride or her relatives. Our analysis shows that the task of the pre-marriage contest is not to find the worthiest pretender to the bride’s hand, but to find a bridegroom with more powerful shamanic strength than that of the bride’s family in order that, in ‘virtual battles’, he is able to beat shamans who are hostile to the bride’s family. The pre-marriage contest is an episode in the shaman ‘war’, although the marriage itself can be unreliable, producing only a short truce between the two hostile tribes of shamans. The gender asymmetry of these marriage problems (a cruel bride, but not a cruel bridegroom) can be explained by Nanai ideas that, as a result of cohabitation, the man is involved in hostile relations with those shamans who are hostile to the bride’s family.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license, the author(s) and users are free to share (copy, distribute and transmit the contribution) under the following conditions: 1. they must attribute the contribution in the manner specified by the author or licensor, 2. they may not use this contribution for commercial purposes, 3. they may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

Authors retain the following rights:

– copyright, and other proprietary rights relating to the article, such as patent rights,

– the right to use the substance of the article in future own works, including lectures and books,

– the right to reproduce the article for own purposes, provided the copies are not offered for sale,

– the right to self-archive the article.

@article{JEF, author = {Kristin Kuutma}, title = { Preface to the Special Issue}, journal = {Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics}, volume = {3}, number = {2}, year = {2011}, keywords = {preface}, abstract = {Preface by the quest editor of the special issue \”Cultural Heritage: Entanglements of Knowledge, Creativity and Property I\”.}, issn = {2228-0987}, pages = {3}, url = {https://jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/8} }

@article{JEF, author = {Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt and Agnes Aljas}, title = { Digital Cultural Heritage – Challenging Museums, Archives and Users}, journal = {Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics}, volume = {3}, number = {1}, year = {2011}, keywords = {Internet users; digital heritage; cultural heritage online; memory; institutions; heritage professionals}, abstract = {This article will analyse the many challenges that creating, storing and using digital heritage has brought to the memory institutions and their professionals. We look at the interrelationship between the potential users of the museum collections, the collections themselves and information and communication technologies as intermediaries to these relations. By analysing survey data, we look at the average Internet user in order to find out who could be the current and future users of the online collections. In addition that, we analyse interviews conducted with 12 members of different Estonian memory institutions in order to understand their perspective on online cultural heritage. Third empirical pillar of the article comes from the two focus group interviews to understand what are users percieved needs for the digital cultural heritage. The data will be analysed through three key functions of the memory institutions in order to understand how digitisation helps with preservation, opening access to the collections and inviting audiences to become active participants and increasing their involvement with cultural heritage.}, issn = {2228-0987}, pages = {109–127}, url = {https://jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/24} }

@article{JEF, author = {Aimar Ventsel}, title = { Old Colony Mennonites in Argentina and Bolivia. Nation Making, Religious Conflict and Imagination of the Future}, journal = {Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics}, volume = {3}, number = {2}, year = {2011}, keywords = {book review}, abstract = {Review for the book by Lorenzo Canás Bottos, Old Colony Mennonites in Argentina and Bolivia. Nation Making, Religious Conflict and Imagination of the Future. Leiden, Boston: Brill 2008, 216 pages.}, issn = {2228-0987}, pages = {105–106}, url = {https://jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/16} }

@article{JEF, author = {Maria Krom}, title = { Contested Spaces. Meaningful Places. Contemporary Performances of Place and Belonging in Spain and Brazil}, journal = {Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics}, volume = {3}, number = {2}, year = {2011}, keywords = {festivals; performance; space; place; appropriation; belonging}, abstract = {This essay aims to contribute to current anthropological debate on space and place, analysing in two instances of festival performance how, on the one hand the politics of appropriation of space contributes to the configuration of power relations, and how on the other hand, participants in these festivals engage individually and collectively with physical space(s) to create places which they experience as meaningful in terms of identity and belonging.}, issn = {2228-0987}, pages = {33–46}, url = {https://jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/11} }

@article{JEF, author = {Kaidi Tamm}, title = { On Some Aspects of the Lilleoru Community}, journal = {Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics}, volume = {3}, number = {1}, year = {2011}, keywords = {community; identity; lifestyle; rituals; holism}, abstract = {This paper explores the raison d’être of the only proper Estonian ecovillage, Lilleoru. Exceptional in the Estonian context, this relatively small and young community is a member of three established international networks uniting similar communities. Based on fieldwork and ethnographic interviews, the present article describes some focal aspects of the community and investigates how Lilleoru functions as a community. After a brief overview of the formation of the community, the following questions are touched upon: what is its significance for its members, how are they differentiated from other similar groups, what creates coherence among its members, how is the community managed, what are the everyday practices and how does it fit into the global context. As a result of the study it might be said that although from the outside Lilleoru is mainly seen as an ecovillage, from inside being an awareness training centre is central. The ecological lifestyle is regarded as a side result of a conscious lifestyle.}, issn = {2228-0987}, pages = {95–107}, url = {https://jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/23} }

@article{JEF, author = {Maili Roio}, title = { The Warship Schleswig-Holstein : History, Cultural Value and Legal Status}, journal = {Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics}, volume = {3}, number = {2}, year = {2011}, keywords = {underwater heritage; jurisdiction; warships; management; UNESCO convention}, abstract = {The current paper looks into the issues connected with underwater cultural heritage in Estonia and deals with its legal and physical protection. The report discusses the topic of what we actually mean by underwater heritage, what are the threats in terms of preservation and what are the possibilities to protect underwater heritage in Estonia. The paper analyses objects that are not defined by the UNESCO convention from 2001 as underwater cultural heritage, but which form a considerable part of underwater objects in Estonia that are protected by the state. A wide range of challenges – protection, ownership, value – is illustrated by the study of the history and present state of the battleship Schleswig-Holstein.}, issn = {2228-0987}, pages = {93–104}, url = {https://jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/15} }