Call for papers to the special issue of Slovak Ethnology/Slovenský národopis, volume 72, number 4/2024

Slow Memory. Perspectives from Central and Eastern Europe

This special issue of Slovak Ethnology is thematically focused on the concept of slow memory, which relates to transformative practices and processes of uneven and accelerating change in society. We invite authors from various disciplines, such as ethnology, sociology and anthropology, history, political science, communication and media, literary studies, etc., to submit contributions that discuss and give empirical examples of the emerging concept of slow memory.

Guest editors:

Monika Vrzgulová, Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology SAS, Bratislava, monika.vrzgulova@savba.sk                                                                                                               Barbara Törnquist-Plewa, Lund University, Barbara.Tornquist-Plewa@slav.lu.se                                                  

Violeta Davoliūtė, Vilnius University, violeta.davoliute@tspmi.vu.lt

This special issue of Slovak Ethnology is thematically related to the Cost Action CA 20105 Slow Memory: Transformative Practices for Times of Uneven and Accelerating Change (SlowMemo)

Memory studies, which emerged at the end of the 20th century, brought a new way of thinking about past events into academia. Scholars within the interdisciplinary field concentrate primarily on significant or extreme past events (e.g., wars and genocides) and the meaning given to them in the present. Moreover, during the last two decades, the focus has been on emphasizing the dynamics of memories and analysing current struggles over how to remember specific events. 

Consequently, memory studies as a scholarly field has been much less concerned with “slow-moving”, diffused, and symptomless events that cannot simply be attributed to a particular date or place but which significantly affect peoples’ present and future. Furthermore, there has been much less attention on “la longue durée” of memory and studies of collective memories’ resilience to fast changes. Thus, the purpose of this special issue is to fill this void. We are interested in the change in slow memory processes, for example, across the generations, in educational policies, media representations or public discourse. It is essential to consider the problematic “dark past” as well as slow transformations that bring improvements in people’s lives.

We invite the contributions that conceptualize slow memory and look from new angles at how societies and individuals remember the past. The regional focus is on Eastern, Central and South-Eastern Europe, but we are also interested in contributions providing comparisons across Europe or other regions worldwide. We welcome case studies as well as theoretical or methodological articles and essays about the memories of “slow changes”, in relation to such phenomena as for example

• images and narratives (e.g., stereotypes of “the Others” or self-images of the own group as victims);
• remembering the significant or extreme past events (e.g., WWII and the Holocaust, the era of communist regimes, and war in the former Yugoslavia);
• deindustrialization;
• changes in gender relations, intergenerational relations and others;
• the hollowing out of welfare states;
• gentrification;
• climate change and environmental destruction;
• the creeping rise of misinformation.

Authors can submit their abstracts and keywords no later than 31^st March 2024 through the journal Slovak Ethnology editorial system to: https://journals.savba.sk/index.php/slovenskynarodopis/login.

Please send the final manuscripts by 31st July 2024 and submit them through the same editorial system. They should be at most 5,000 words or 36,000 characters, including spaces, notes, and references, and should follow the journal’s guidelines for contributors accessible HERE.

Call for the special issue of Slovak Ethnology/Slovenský národopis, volume 72, number 3/2024, on the topic “Family as a safe haven? Families in social practice and narratives in times of crises”

Guest editors:
Adriana Zaharijević (University of Belgrade, Serbia)
Soňa G. Lutherová (Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovakia)

This special issue of Slovak Ethnology is supported by the VEGA project 2/0053/22 “Intergenerational relationships in families and communities: an ethnological perspective” and will also feature collaborative work of the COST “Who cares in Europe?” CA18119. 

In uncertain times, as individuals and societies, we attempt to make sense of crises. Living in a risk society (Beck, 1986), we are searching for stability, trying to understand what constitutes threats and for whom (Adam & Jost, 2004). Often, we turn to our families as the anchor in the tempestuous times, as it provides us with ties to the past but also with a promise of the future. Home and its idealized notions of intimacy and security are at the center of family life (Clarke, 2001). However, uncertain times may introduce particular tensions to the family lives or enhance those that are already present. How do we experience our family lives during crisis? What is the role of the family in our everyday practices when coping with uncertainties? How do we reflect on this narratively?

Today, the narratives on families abound, and various actors feed on our tendency to turn to family in times of crisis. Family is at the center stage of many far-right political movements, which forcefully push for a particular “natural” order of things. Hence, narratives on families clash in the fluster of meanings and perspectives, and the gap between social practices and public discourse widens. How does the crises-induced narrativization of families restrict the lived forms of familial life? How are individuals affected by the political attempts to reduce the family to a single legitimate form? How does such politicization of family further the crisis through polarizations, erasures, and devaluations of everyday practices deemed “unnatural”?

This special issue of Slovak Ethnology invites authors to contribute to the topic by addressing various aspects of this interrelation, such as: 

• Everyday practices and experiences in the families during the uncertain times;
• Tensions and changing dynamics in the family relationships from the perspective of social sciences and humanities;
• Changing intergenerational relationships and their role in families;
• Individual and social narratives on families – between the discourse and practice;
• Politicization of the family lives.

Contributors are kindly requested to submit their abstracts and keywords directly through the editorial system of Slovak Ethnology (https://journals.savba.sk/index.php/slovenskynarodopis/login) no later than 15 February 2024.

The final manuscripts will be expected no later than 15 May 2024 through the same editorial system. They should not exceed 6,250 words or 45,000 characters, including spaces, notes, and references, and should follow the journal’s guidelines for authors accessible (HERE). 

Call for the special issue of Slovak Ethnology/Slovenský národopis, volume 72, number 2/2024, on the topic Issues of Uncertainty: Insecurity and Precarisation as a Life Experience 

Guest editors:

Ana Luleva (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences – BAS, Institute for Ethnology and Folklore Studies, Sofia, Bulgaria)

Milena Benovska-Sabkova (South-West University of Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria)

In the late twentieth century, social theorists described late modernity as an age and world of “risk and uncertainty” (Beck, 1999; Sennett, 1998), and the subsequent decades confirmed this conclusion. The COVID-19 pandemic, which paralyzed the lives of people around the world in 2020, has also affected Europeans, increasing their sense of insecurity. In fact, the crisis caused by the pandemic has deepened and made visible trends that existed in previous years, provoked by and become characteristic features of the global neoliberal market order: loss of status or property (dispossession), increasing share of work with reduced employment time and use of telework, rising poverty and inequalities, – processes which are described by the term precarization. Shortly after this crisis, wars in Ukraine and in the Middle East have not only caused new catastrophes and insecurity for the people in these countries, destroying their lives, but have also increased the sense of insecurity globally.

From the beginning of the new millennium, there has been a theoretical turn to precarity as a generalized condition of human interaction (Butler, 2004; Kallenberg, 2009; Berlant, 2011; Standing, 2011; Stewart, 2012). The various dimensions of uncertainty, insecurity and precarisation have been a subject of anthropological investigation (Eriksen, 2010; Allison, 2013; Millar, 2014; Narotzky, Besnier, 2014). How do people tackle crisis-related conditions of uncertainty and precarisation? What are the cultural frameworks and resources that help them to navigate?

In this special issue we would like to invite contributions that address the following issues:

• crisis and insecurity,
• social mis/trust and uncertainty,
• collective identities and uncertainty,
• precarity as a personal experience – perceptions and narratives about precarisation,
• consequences of precarity,
• strategies (individual, family, group, institutions) for coping with precarity and uncertainty,
• family, generations and precarity,
• comparative studies of the issues of precarisation,
• political choices (culture) and uncertainty.

Contributors are kindly requested to submit their abstracts and keywords to: https://journals.savba.sk/index.php/slovenskynarodopis/about/submissions no later than 1 December 2023.

The final manuscripts will be expected no later than 28 February 2024.

They should not exceed 6,250 words or 45,000 characters, including spaces, notes, and references, and should follow the journal’s guidelines for authors accessible HERE. Final manuscripts should be submitted through the editorial system of Slovak Ethnology.

Slovenský národopis/Slovak Ethnology vyzýva na zaslanie príspevkov do pripravovaného čísla 1/2024, ročník 72, zameraného na tému Revitalizácia a fungovanie kultúrneho dedičstva vo verejnom priestore

Hosťujúca editorka: Zuzana Beňušková (ÚESA SAV, v. v. i.)

Kultúrne dedičstvo, a v rámci neho prvky tradičnej ľudovej kultúry, ale aj historické hodnoty mestského prostredia sa často stávajú nástrojom a inšpiráciou pre časť rozvojových aktivít regiónov a obcí Slovenska. Pri týchto aktivitách sú využívané rozličné formy podporných schém na rôznych úrovniach správy (od lokálnej až po svetovú úroveň), ktoré vytvárajú pre vybrané prvky kultúrneho dedičstva špecifické podmienky. Niektoré prvky zo štruktúry živého dedičstva (nehmotného kultúrneho dedičstva, tradičnej ľudovej kultúry) sa v dôsledku regulácií zvýraznia, čo môže mať pozitívne, ale aj negatívne dopady na ich ďalší vývin. Zároveň existuje riziko zmeny vnímania menej zvýrazňovaných prvkov tradičnej kultúry, ktorých hodnotu však nemôžeme považovať za nižšiu.

K novým výzvam etnológie patrí na konkrétnych príkladoch vývinu lokálnych/regionálnych/etnických tradícií analyzovať a kriticky interpretovať ich transformácie a objasniť vplyv a efektívnosť rôznych podporných programov pre ich odolnosť a využitie v rozvoji lokalít, regiónov a komunít. Prebiehajúce procesy formujúce kultúrne dedičstvo je treba skúmať ako vzťah globálnych podmienok a procesov a aktivít na úrovni jednotlivých štátov. Pozornosť by mala byť sústredená tiež na aktivizmus na úrovni mestských aj vidieckych komunít, snažiaci sa o udržateľnosť prvkov živého dedičstva.

V súčasnosti je rovnako aktuálnou aj vzájomná súvislosť medzi ochranou nehmotného kultúrneho dedičstva a cieľmi udržateľného rozvoja (https://ich.unesco.org/en/sustainable-development-and-living-heritage). V tomto rámci sa diskusie sústreďujú na vzťah medzi ochranou nehmotného kultúrneho dedičstva a príslušnými oblasťami udržateľnosti, ako sú rodová rovnosť, kultúrna rozmanitosť a tvorivosť, vzdelávanie, zdravie, tvorba príjmov, prírodné katastrofy a udržiavanie mieru. Skúsenosti samotných nositeľov tradícií s ochranou ich živého dedičstva v záujme udržateľnosti z rôznych kultúrnych kontextoch sú neopomenuteľné (Kimball et al., 2013; Luther, 2015; Bitušíková, 2022).

Redakcia uvíta okrem iných najmä príspevky s témami sústredenými na:

1. Terminologické vymedzenie: nehmotné kultúrne dedičstvo, živé dedičstvo, tradičná kultúra;
2. Kultúrne inžinierstvo (Kuutma, 2012), procesy zviditeľňovania, stabilizačné a destabilizačné momenty;
3. Prístupy rôznych generácií k tradičnej kultúre a živému kultúrnemu dedičstvu – transmisia, inovatívnosť, významy, ciele;
4. Stereotypy vo vnímaní tradičného spôsobu života v procesoch dynamických zmien – tradícia ako pozitívna hodnota, ako retardačný faktor, ako inšpirácia pre vznik nových javov;
5. Tradičná kultúra v kontexte lokálneho a regionálneho rozvoja;
6. Zoznamy UNESCO – kritická reflexia, existencia prvkov po zápise na niektorý zo zoznamov UNESCO na rôznych úrovniach;
7. Úloha jednotlivca v kontexte tradičnej kultúry: komunity a osobnosti;
8. Prepojenie medzi hmotným a nehmotným kultúrnym dedičstvom – napr. vernakulárna architektúra, remeslo, dizajn, odev;
9. Tradičná kultúra a politika.

Termín pre zaslanie abstraktov: 15. 11. 2023

Prosíme prispievateľov, aby abstrakty v slovenčine a v češtine posielali priamo do redakčného systému Slovenského národopisu na adresu: https://journals.savba.sk/index.php/slovenskynarodopis/about/submissions

Termín dodania príspevkov: 15. 1. 2024

Prosíme prispievateľov, aby príspevky posielali priamo do redakčného systému Slovenského národopisu na adresu: https://journals.savba.sk/index.php/slovenskynarodopis/about/submissions

Informácie pre autorov: text príspevku by nemal presiahnuť 6,250 slov alebo 45,000 znakov s medzerami, vrátane poznámok a zoznamu literatúry a mal by rešpektovať pokyny pre prispievateľov. Podrobnosti nájdete TU.

Zoznam literatúry a zdrojov:

Bitušíková, A. (2022). Kultúrne dedičstvo a turizmus v 21. storočí. UMB: Signis.

Kimball, M., Brunswig, R., McBeth, S., Thomas, D. (2013). Giving Placekeepers and Old Places a Local Future: Place Building Theory and the Living Heritage Paradigm. The Applied Anthropologist, 33(2), 3–15.

Kuutma, K. (2012). ‘Between Arbitration and Engineering: Concepts and Contingencies in the Shaping of Heritage Regimes’. In: R. Bendix, A. Eggert, A. Peselmann (Eds.), Heritage Regimes and the State (pp. 21–36 ). Göttingen: Universitätsverlag.

Luther, D. (2015). Nehmotné kultúrne dedičstvo z pohľadu etnológie. Etnologické rozpravy, 22(1), 15–23.

https://ich.unesco.org/en/sustainable-development-and-living-heritage, navštívené 1. októbra 2023