Technological and sociocultural contexts of material culture innovations: an ethnological perspective

Even in the postmodern globalized society of Slovakia, innovation is one of the key factors of economic development. At the same time, individuals and groups are defined here through their own traditions. They consider their immutability important and protect some as cultural heritage (Representative List). In this context, they also perceive innovation as an undesirable process. Ethnology reflects the transformations of the material and social sphere of everyday life in their concrete manifestations and looks for possibilities of their study. The project here proposes to use the concept of innovation. He understands it as a constant process of entering and applying new things and knowledge in the material world associated with everyday life. Through this oriented research of processes in the technological and sociocultural level, we want to get closer to a more complex understanding of the dynamics of cultural phenomena and their connections with the functioning of communities in the contemporary world. The project will also serve to verify the procedures of digital processing of text documents in the Scientific Collections at the IESA SAS.