Category: Blog

@article{JEF, author = {Alexandr Pashkov}, title = { Studies of Local Lore as a Form of Ethnic Consciousness: The Karelians of Olonets Province in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries}, journal = {Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics}, volume = {3}, number = {1}, year = {2011}, keywords = {Russian Karelia; Karelians; local lore; ethnic consciousness; ethnic mobilization}, abstract = {Author deals with 19th century intellectuals of Olonets Karelian origin who started to be interested in local language, culture and ways of life. They started to compile and publish corresponding texts and it meant the beginning of ethnic mobilization of Karelians. Author starts with a brief overview of local historical background and continues with activities of three intellectuals of Karelian origin (I. V. Kondratyev, M. N. Smirnov, N. F. Leskov).}, issn = {2228-0987}, pages = {21–34}, url = {https://jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/19} }

@article{JEF, author = {Stein Mathisen}, title = { Festivalising Heritage in the Borderlands: Constituting Ethnic Histories and Heritages under the Rule of the Finn Forest Republic}, journal = {Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics}, volume = {3}, number = {2}, year = {2011}, keywords = {cultural heritage; Finn Forest; border; festival; everyday life}, abstract = {The Finn Forest Republic is a three-day celebration of cultural heritage and local identity among the Finn Forest population, a people living in small rural communities on both sides of the border between Sweden and Norway. This festival has been celebrated since 1970, and has been an important element in the revitalisation and constitution of a Finn Forest identity. The article investigates how elements of the cultural heritage of the area have been used during the days of the Republic to constitute the idea of a common ethnic identity and a shared past, through a wide range of public displays and performances. The Finn Forest Museum plays an important role in the festival, both with collections manifesting a genuine material culture, as an arena for the performance of intangible heritages, and as a venue for telling narratives about the historic background of this culture. The character of the festival and the cultural heritage it celebrates implies historical references to the immigrant border culture, as well as to conflicts with the other dominant national majority cultures of the area. These cultural relations are presented in sincere as well as humorous ways, and allows for a wide range of identifications with the project of building a Finn Forest cultural heritage.}, issn = {2228-0987}, pages = {13–31}, url = {https://jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/10} }

@article{JEF, author = {Kristin Kuutma}, title = { Cultural Heritage: An Introduction to Entanglements of Knowledge, Politics and Property}, journal = {Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics}, volume = {3}, number = {2}, year = {2011}, keywords = {heritage theorisation; critical assessment; knowledge production}, abstract = {Heritage is today actively implemented in policies globally, and yet the categorisation and instrumentalisation of the realm of cultural heritage entails rather contradictory aspects. In the discourse of culture, heritage is an abstraction, and what it signifies is subject to interpretation. This contribution gives a brief overview of the contemporary discussion of the epistemological and ontological premises of cultural heritage. It has been stated that heritage is a social construction, and a mode of cultural production that emanates from a metacultural relationship. The critical assessment and theorisation of heritage includes an enquiry into tangible and intangible heritagisation, knowledge production, heritage politics, and the question of ownership.}, issn = {2228-0987}, pages = {5–12}, url = {https://jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/9} }

@article{JEF, author = {Toomas Gross}, title = { Farewell to Fiestas and Saints? Changing Catholic Practices in Contemporary Rural Oaxaca}, journal = {Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics}, volume = {3}, number = {1}, year = {2011}, keywords = {fiesta; patron saint; folk Catholicism; Mexico; Oaxaca}, abstract = {This article discusses recent changes in Catholic festivities, especially the system of fiestas in rural Mexico. The ethnographic focus of the discussion is on indigenous Zapotec communities of the State of Oaxaca. Collective religious practices in Mexican villages contribute to social cohesion. Fiestas commemorating patron saints of the villages play a particularly important role in (re)constructing communal identity and the feeling of collective belongingness. Various global processes like secularisation, integration of local economies into the capitalist market system, increasing out-migration from villages, and the rise of Protestantism have undermined the position of the Catholic Church in the region. The article scrutinises the changing organisation and role of fiestas in the communities, concluding that the impact of secularisation, migration and Protestantism in particular is not simple and always negative – these changes can actually invigorate certain dimensions of the fiestas.}, issn = {2228-0987}, pages = {3–19}, url = {https://jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/18} }

@article{JEF, author = {Anu Kannike}, title = { Refuge or Resource: Home and Nostalgia in Postsocialist Estonia}, journal = {Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics}, volume = {3}, number = {1}, year = {2011}, keywords = {home; postsocialism; nostalgia; consumption; heritage}, abstract = {The focus of this article is on nostalgia as it appears in the representations of home-decoration in postsocialist Estonia. This theme is explored, describing a dialogue and conflict between different versions of relating to the past. The empirical material comprises qualitatively analysed in-depth interviews and articles in home-decoration journals from 1997–2008. Examining some dimensions and mechanisms of nostalgia in this specific context enables to demonstrate how is transformation from Soviet everyday culture into Western consumer culture conceptualised through ideas about the home. I will suggest that in Estonian everyday life nostalgia is not only a form of escapism into the past from the uncertain present and identity problems, but it also works as a resource to cope with the traumatic past, negotiate and forge new identities.}, issn = {2228-0987}, pages = {57–72}, url = {https://jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/21} }

@article{JEF, author = {Arnika Peselmann}, title = { Creating and Dealing with Cultural Heritage in the Erzgebirge Region – A Field Report}, journal = {Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics}, volume = {3}, number = {2}, year = {2011}, keywords = {cultural heritage; folk art; property claims; UNESCO cultural landscape; Erzgebirge}, abstract = {In summer 2009 I carried out initial field research for my dissertation project in the Erzgebirge, a mountain range divided by the Czech-German border – which separates it into a Saxon and Bohemian side – and which is famous for handmade wood arts. Initially my research concerned the question if, and if so how, property claims on wood arts are negotiated in international, national, and local contexts. The ongoing preparation for Montanregion Erzgebirge (the Erzgebirge Mining Region) to be nominated as a UNESCO Cultural Landscape widened my interest. Using this example of World Heritage in the making I enquire who the initiators are, what possible resistance there is, how the selection processes for entry onto the preliminary list of artefacts unfolds, and how the selected elements are interpreted.}, issn = {2228-0987}, pages = {65–74}, url = {https://jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/13} }

@article{JEF, author = {Konrad Vanja and Elisabeth Tietmeyer}, title = { The Museum of European Cultures of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin as a Platform of Intercultural Dialogue}, journal = {Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics}, volume = {3}, number = {1}, year = {2011}, keywords = {museums; exhibitions; cultural contacts}, abstract = {Presentation at the Centenary of the Estonian National Museum, Tartu, 13 April 2009.}, issn = {2228-0987}, pages = {129–133}, url = {https://jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/25} }

@article{JEF, author = {Taive Särg}, title = { Context-Related Melodies in Oral Culture: An Attempt to Describe Words-and-Music Relationships in Local Singing Tradition}, journal = {Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics}, volume = {3}, number = {1}, year = {2011}, keywords = {ethnomusicology; regilaul; formula melody; folk song improvisation; folk singer}, abstract = {In oral folk song traditions we often find many lyrics, but not nearly as many melodies. The terms “polyfunctionalism”, “group melodies” or “general melodies” have been used by Estonian researches to indicate the phenomenon that many lyrics were sung to only one, or a small handful, of tunes. The scarcity of melodies is supposed to be one of several related phenomena characteristic to an oral, text-centred singing culture.In this article the Estonian folk song tradition will be analysed against a quantity of melodies and their usage in the following aspects: word-and-melody relationships and context-and-melody relationships in Karksi parish (south Estonia); a singer; and native musical terms and the process of singing and (re)creation.}, issn = {2228-0987}, pages = {35–56}, url = {https://jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/20} }

@article{JEF, author = {Katriina Siivonen}, title = { Local Culture as a Resource in Regional Development in the Southwest-Finland Archipelago}, journal = {Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics}, volume = {3}, number = {2}, year = {2011}, keywords = {cultural sustainability; regional development; Southwest-Finland Archipelago; everyday culture; production of cultural heritage}, abstract = {In cultural and regional politics in the European Union, and in practice for instance in the Southwest-Finland Archipelago, local culture and cultural heritage are considered resources. Global boundlessness, heterogeneity and change are basic qualities of culture. However, in regional development, culture is seen and used as a number of different local cultures with their own essential cultural heritage. The culture of local everyday life is opposite to, and in tension with, the construct of cultures used in regional development. Accordingly, culture should primarily be safeguarded as a heterogenic, dynamic and interactive process of everyday life. This process is the most important resource of local culture. In addition, culture should be safeguarded as value-based cultural constructions, such as brands or common identities of certain cultures, with for instance cultural heritage as a part of it. In the latter case, a common, transparent definition of these brands, identities and cultural heritages with their different values, is needed.}, issn = {2228-0987}, pages = {47–64}, url = {https://jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/12} }

The Concept of Work in Yupik Eskimo Society Before and After the Russian Influx: A Linguist’s Perspective | Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/jef-2017-0010 The Yupik language has a word to signify ‘work’ derived from the stem qepgha(gh)- (qepghaq ‘work’ [noun], qepghaghtuq ‘he works’, qepghaghta ‘worker’, etc.) The scope of the meaning of this word changed drastically after the Russians came to Chukotka to stay in the 1930s. While in the pre-(intensive) contact times the word mainly meant ‘house work’ or ‘processing the carcass of a killed animal’, in mid-20th century it acquired new meanings, borrowing them from Russian. The usage of the word also became a replica of Russian usage: the concept acquired new dependent words, like evaluative adverbs and adjectives, or inanimate agents. This change of meaning reflected social changes that took place in the Yupik world as a result of the modernisation process of the 1950s and 1960s, and is an indicator of the deep transformation the society underwent under Russian (Soviet) influence. The paper analyses this process using two sources from two different epochs: Yupik texts recorded by Yekaterina Rubtsova in the 1940s, that is, in the pre-(intensive) contact period, and a modern Russian-Yupik dictionary compiled by Natalia Rodionova, a teacher of Yupik Eskimo at the Anadyr college, and published 70 years later, in 2014. 

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.