The ethnic and non-ethnic politics of everyday life in Bulgaria's southern borderland

2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 473-489 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Dawson
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Real World ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Ethnic Politics ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
The Given

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.

scholarly journals Necrocartography: Topographies and topologies of non-sites of memory

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 13-24
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Szczepan ◽  
Kinga Siewior
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Research Material ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Everyday Experiences ◽  
The 1960S

Based on the experience of spatial confusion and inadequacy common during visits to uncommemorated sites of violence, the authors propose expanding the topological reflection in the research on the spatialities of the Holocaust, as well as to introduce topology into the analysis of the everyday experiences of users of the postgenocidal space of Central and Eastern Europe. The research material is composed of hand-drawn maps by Holocaust eyewitnesses – documents created both in the 1960s and in recent years. The authors begin by summarizing the significance of topology for cultural studies, and provides a state-of-the-art reflection on cartography in the context of the Holocaust. They then proceed to interpret several of the maps as particular topological testimonies. The authors conclude by proposing a multi-faceted method of researching these maps, “necrocartography”, oriented by their testimonial, topological and performative aspects.

Campus Networks and Agitations

2018 ◽  
pp. 109-145
Author(s):  
Gaurav J. Pathania
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
The Past ◽  
Campus Networks ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
The University ◽  
Movement Activist

With ethnographic data, this chapter demonstrates the everyday life of a movement activist. It highlights how different spaces of the university contribute in changing students’ way of thinking and discusses how a student is inducted, trained, and made part of the movement bandwagon. The university has been evolving over the past five decades of struggle of inside and outside the campus through its students’ activism. This chapter focuses on the inside mechanism of this activism and demonstrates what motives a student to choose the path of activism and how their networks are rooted around Telangana cultural ethos.

Popular Participation and Governance in the Kirchners' Argentina and Chávez's Venezuela: Recognition, Incorporation and Supportive Mobilisation

2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
REBECCA HANSON ◽  
PABLO LAPEGNA
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Social Mechanisms ◽  
Popular Participation ◽  
Call Recognition ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Path Dependent

AbstractHow did governance in Kirchner's Argentina and Chávez's Venezuela interact with popular mobilisation? How have popular sectors engaged with and participated in Left-of-centre governance? Using ethnographic data, we argue that the answers to these questions lie in three social mechanisms that we call recognition, incorporation and selective mobilisation. We analyse how activists and participants interpreted and contested these mechanisms, paying attention to how they informed the everyday life of activism and the situated actions of participants. Underscoring their socially embedded and path-dependent nature, we argue that these mechanisms shaped mobilisation differently in each country.

Atheism and Unbelief among Indian Scientists: Towards an Anthropology of Atheism(s)

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renny Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Ethnographic Data

Taking into account the specific contexts and cultural specificities lends different meanings to categories like ‘atheists’, ‘agnostics’ and ‘materialists’, this ethnographic discussion of scientists shows the limitations of Western atheism to capture the everyday life of Indian scientists. The article argues that Indian atheism(s) need not be, nor is it actually, identical with the brands of Western atheism. By trusting ethnographic data, we see that atheistic scientists called themselves atheists even while accepting that their lifestyle is very much a part of tradition and religion. For them, following the lifestyle of a religion is not antithetical to atheism. The study of atheism and rationality should not be just a simple-minded attempt to find Western parallels. We need to acknowledge the locations while studying atheism(s) and unbelief.

Orthodox monasteries in the socio-political and spiritual context of national liberation competitions of the Ukrainian people. Orthodox monasticism and the Pereyaslav council

2008 ◽  
pp. 105-114
Author(s):  
Valeriy Volodymyrovych Klymov
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
National Liberation ◽  
Scientific Objective ◽  
Profound Change ◽  
European Continent ◽  
Black Clergy ◽  
The Given

Position, values, activity of the highest Orthodox (black) clergy, monasteries, monasticism in the era of numerous interstate wars, Cossack uprisings of the 20 - 30s of the 18th century, National Liberation War of 1648 - 1654, Pereyaslav council, and its succession that coincided with dramatic transformations on the European continent, a profound change of borders in Central and Eastern Europe, in the light of the present factual completeness and the possibility of scientific objective assessments, prove to be complex, multi-vector, and often synchronous with many sociopolitical processes and diplomatic movements and, in general, far from the given unambiguous, straightforward or spiral "procedural", which the position of the Orthodox Church, monasteries or monks in the national liberation competitions in the Ukrainian lands. until recently.

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