Between the Marvellous and the Mundane: Everyday Life in the Socialist City and the Politics of the Environment

10.1068/d372t ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Whitehead

In a recent essay on modernisation and ecology, Latour claimed that the environmental movement had lost important ground within political debate. He argued that this reversal in political fortunes had in part emerged out of an internal tension within the environmental movement itself—a tension between overinflation and banalisation. In this paper I analyse the nature of the purported processes of overinflation and banalisation within contemporary ecological politics, and explore ways in which it is possible to image a reinvention of environmental politics, forged between the socioecological marvellous and the mundane. Focusing on struggles over the treatment of nature and the urban environment in the socialist city of Katowice in Poland, I reveal a brand of environmental politics emerging out of communist Eastern Europe which appears to have important implications for a reinvented environmentalism. Considering the particular utilisation of the everyday environment which was forced on environmental groups in Katowice by political circumstances, I claim that the quotidian could provide a new ground upon which to perceive and connect social and ecological politics at a variety of different spatial scales and in a powerful array of different socionatural contexts.

2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 473-489 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Dawson

Ethnicity is found in real-world contexts where non-ethnic forms of identification are available. This conclusion is drawn from an empirical study carried out in the multiethnic town of Kurdzhali in Southern Bulgaria, where members of the Bulgarian majority live alongside the Turkish minority. Drawing on the “everyday nationhood” agenda that aims to provide a methodological toolkit for the study of ethnicity/nationhood without overpredicting its importance, the study involved the collection of survey, interview, and ethnographic data. Against the expectations of some experienced scholars of the Central and Eastern Europe region, ethnic identity was found to be more salient for the majority Bulgarians than for the minority Turks. However, the ethnographic data revealed the importance of a rural–urban cleavage that was not predicted by the research design. On the basis of this finding, I argue that the “everyday nationhood” approach could be improved by including a complementary focus on non-ethnic attachments that have been emphasized by scholarship or journalism relevant to the given context. Rather than assuming the centrality of ethnicity, such an “everyday identifications” approach would start from the assumption that ethnic narratives of identity always have to compete with non-ethnic ones.


Author(s):  
Khaled Hassan

To identify changes in the everyday life of hepatitis subjects, we conducted a descriptive, exploratory, and qualitative analysis. Data from 12 hepatitis B and/or C patients were collected in October 2011 through a semi-structured interview and subjected to thematic content review. Most subjects have been diagnosed with hepatitis B. The diagnosis period ranged from less than 6 months to 12 years, and the diagnosis was made predominantly through the donation of blood. Interferon was used in only two patients. The findings were divided into two groups that define the interviewees' feelings and responses, as well as some lifestyle changes. It was concluded that the magnitude of phenomena about the disease process and life with hepatitis must be understood to health professionals. Keywords: Hepatitis; Nursing; Communicable diseases; Diagnosis; Life change events; Nursing care.


2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Highmore

From a remarkably innovative point of departure, Ben Highmore (University of Sussex) suggests that modernist literature and art were not the only cultural practices concerned with reclaiming the everyday and imbuing it with significance. At the same time, Roger Caillois was studying the spontaneous interactions involved in games such as hopscotch, while other small scale institutions such as the Pioneer Health Centre in Peckham, London attempted to reconcile systematic study and knowledge with the non-systematic exchanges in games and play. Highmore suggests that such experiments comprise a less-often recognised ‘modernist heritage’, and argues powerfully for their importance within early-twentieth century anthropology and the newly-emerged field of cultural studies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 146 (2) ◽  
pp. 472-480
Author(s):  
Oksana Hodovanska
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Aleksei S. Gulin ◽  

The article deals with actually little studied questions about the ways and methods of transporting political exiles to Siberia by rail, about the everyday life of that category of exiles in the new conditions of deporting in the 60–70s of the 19th century.


Author(s):  
Arto Penttinen ◽  
Dimitra Mylona

The section below contains reports on bioarchaeological remains recovered in the excavations in Areas D and C in the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Kalaureia, Poros, between 2003 and 2005. The excavations were directed by the late Berit Wells within a research project named Physical Environment and Daily Life in the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Kalaureia (Poros). The main objective of the project was to study what changed and what remained constant over time in the everyday life and in both the built and physical environment in an important sanctuary of the ancient Greeks. The bioarchaeological remains, of a crucial importance for this type of study, were collected both by means of traditional archaeological excavation and by processing extensively collected soil samples. This text aims to providing the theoretical and archaeological background for the analyses that follow.


Author(s):  
Admink Admink

Прослідковуються урбанізаційні та дезурбанізаційні процеси в моді ХХ ст. Звернено увагу на недостатню вивченість питань естетичних та культурологічних аспектів формування моди як видовища в контексті образного простору культури повсякдення. Визначено видовищні виміри модної діяльності як комунікативної сцени. Наголошено на необхідності актуалізації народних мотивів свята, творчості в гурті, певної стилізації у митців та дизайнерів моди мистецтва ностальгійного, втраченого світу з метою осягнення фольклорної, глибинної стихії моди як екомунікативного простору культури повсякдення. Ключові слова: міф, мода, етнокультура, етнос, свято, площа Ключові слова: міф, мода, етнокультура, етнос, свято, площа. According to E. Moren ethnic cultural influences take place in urbanized environment and turn it into "island ontology".Everyday life ethnic culture is differentiated, specified as a certain type of spectacle. However, all that powerful cosmologism, which used to exist as an open-air theater in settlements, near rivers, grasslands, roads, is disappearing. The everyday life culture loses imperatives, patterns, and cosmological designs, where, for example, the “plahta” contains rhombuses, squares, and rectangles - images of the earth, and the top of the costume symbolizes the sky. Yes, the symbolic marriage of earth and sky was a prerequisite for marrying young people. The article deals with traces of the urbanization and deurbanization processes in the twentieth century fashion.Key words: ethnic culture, culture of everyday life, ethnics, holidays, variety show, knockabout comedy, square.


Author(s):  
Yekaterina Babeiko

The article is devoted to the study of the dialect language worldview based on the material of «Smolensk ethnographic collection» by Vladimir Nikolayevich Dobrovolsky (1856–1920) who was an ethnographer, local historian,folklorist, and lexicographer. The article presents general characteristics of proverbs and sayings included in the collection, describes the ways of recording and distribution of the material collected by the researcher, provides examples of proverbs and sayings, dialogues and poems, sentences and superstitious beliefs that the ethnographer, for various reasons, included in the collection. There are not many works on the study of dialect phraseology, not all Russian territories have this priceless heritage like records of phraseological material compiled at the time of their live functioning. V. N. Dobrovolsky included these phraseological units into the collection after his trips to the Smolensk region. The article proves necessity and prospects of further study of ethnographic material and formulates tasks that modern researchers of V.N. Dobrovolsky’s heritage are facing. The description of phraseological material of the collection makes it possible not only recreate the everyday life of the Smolensk peasant of the XIXth century, his life and cultural attitudes, but also to identify the features of the Smolensk dialect language worldview, to characterize paroemiological units based on national and cultural stereotypes of the Smolensk region people’s behavior.


Author(s):  
П. В. Капустин ◽  
А. И. Гаврилов

Состояние проблемы. Проблематика городской среды заявила о себе в 1960-е годы как протест против модернистских методов урбанизма и других видов проектирования. Средовое движение не случайно тогда именовали «антипрофессиональным» - оно было направлено против устоявшихся и недейственных методов работы с городом - от исследования до управления. За прошедшие десятилетия в рамках самого средового движения и его идейных наследников наработано немало методов и приемов работы, однако они до сих не подвергались анализу как пребывающая в исторической динамике целостная совокупность инструментария, альтернативного традиционному градостроительству. Результаты. Рассмотрены особенности и проблемы анализа методологического «арсенала» средового движения и урбанистики. Методы работы с городской средой впервые структурированы по типам знания. Показана близость методов исследовательского и проектного подходов в отношении городской среды. Выводы. В ближайшее время можно ожидать появления новых синтетических знаний и частных методологий, связанных как с обострением средовой проблематики, с расширением круга средовых акторов, так и с процессом профессионализации урбанистики. Statement of the problem. The urban environment paradigm emerged in the 1960s as a protest against the modernist methods of urbanism and other types of design. It was no coincidence that the environmental movement was back then called "anti-professional" as it was directed against the established and ineffective methods of working with the city, i. e., from research to management. Over the past decades, within the framework of the environmental movement and its ideological heirs, a lot of methods and have been developed. However, they have not yet been analyzed as an integral set of tools in the historical dynamics which is an alternative to traditional urban planning. Results. The features and problems of the analysis of the methodological “arsenal” of environmental movement and urban studies are considered. The methods of working with the urban environment are first structured according to the types of knowledge. The proximity of research and design approaches in the case when the urban environment is dealt with is shown. Conclusions. In the nearest future, we can expect new synthetic knowledge and particular methodologies related to both the exacerbation of environmental problems to emerge as well as the expansion of the circle of environmental actors and the process of professionalization of urbanstics.


Author(s):  
Detlef Pollack ◽  
Gergely Rosta

The most important conclusions of this summarizing chapter are the following: The religious landscape of Eastern Europe is more diverse than that of Western Europe. The cases of Poland and the GDR confirm the hypothesis that there is a link between the diffusion of functions and the growth in the importance of religion. The strong processes of biographical individualization that occurred in the post-communist states did not necessarily intensify individual religiosity. The economic market model cannot be confirmed for Eastern Europe. There is in Eastern and Central Europe a demonstrable link between economic prosperity and the loosening of religious and church ties. What can act as a bulwark against the eroding effects of modernization is church activity on the one hand, and the everyday proximity, visibility, and concreteness of religious practices and rituals, symbols, images, and objects on the other.


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