Ethnographic Reality Research Articles

Ethnolinguistics and Folklore Poetics. 4. «A Mother Bewitches her Son into a Snake»

The article is devoted to a comprehensive analysis of the Bulgarian folk songs «Mother turns her son into a snake», which are distinguished by a unique mythological plot and describe the transformation of a person due to the magic activity of the mother into a hybrid creature – half-man, half-snake. The study focuses on the structure of the song and the combination of repeated and unique content blocks. A special place is given to mythological aspects – the description of gypsies as carriers of magical knowledge, herbs that separate spouses, preparation of a witch’s potion, the characteristics of how a demonological character is presented in the songs and in other folklore genres. The explicit didacticism of the song is shown – using the example of reprisals against the mother, the ideas are conveyed that slander, hatred in the family, and black magic are punishable. The conclusion contains the main ideas of the depiction of ethnographic reality with folklore poetic means.

Critical Issues Digital Natives and E-Market Consumption

The Javanese proverb “yen pasar ilang kumandange” describes real market conditions that have been disrupted by technology, such as the internet. In East Java, internet growth has developed rapidly, so that the number of internet users is increasing every year. The internet has become a basic need and cannot be separated from one’s everyday life. This is because the internet makes everything easy for its users, for instance, online shopping. Before the trend of online shopping, shopping activities were usually carried out in physical markets in the sense of conventional markets, between sellers and buyers making transactions offline, but since the advent of the internet, this culture has shifted to online shopping. This research was designed in an exploratory research scheme with an interpretative qualitative approach. Researchers explore information derived from experience, knowledge, understanding, and views using a type of qualitative research. The study uses a realist ethnographic inductive approach. Realist ethnography is an ethnographic approach that describes the situation and conditions of the culture of the informants. Moreover, two analytical methods were used – the Miles & Hubeman model data analysis method and the data analysis model method from Spradley. Based on the data obtained, five themes were found from the motives behind making purchases on the marketplace. These themes include the vast variety of goods that are sold online, effective and efficient use of time, more affordable prices, there is a review feature, and services provided by the marketplace. Besides, the purchase motives made by students can be classified into two – Utilitarian motives and Hedonism motives. Keywords: digital natives, consumption product, existence marketplace

Етнографізм малої прози Богдана Лепкого

The article explores the ethnographic elements in the prose of B. Lepky, a multifaceted Ukrainian poet, novelist, translator, and cultural activist, who authored over 80 books. The purpose of the article to examine the characteristics and significance of ethnography in Lepky's short prose, identifying the methods he employed to incorporate ethnographic details. This analysis seeks to reveal how these elements contribute to creating a distinct national image and reflect the depth of the writer's creative world. The research methodology The main methods of our research are historical and comparative. First of all, we strive to find analogies of the ethnographic realities mentioned in the work of B. Lepkyi, in the scientific literature, published and commented sources describing the life of Podillia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This is connected with the wide use of works containing specific ethnographic materials, historical references, and local history descriptions. For the same purpose, reference books and encyclopedias containing information about the places described by B. Lepkyi are used. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that for the first time an analysis of the artistic works of B. Lepky as an ethnographic source of everyday life in Podillia has been carried out. Conclusions. After analyzing the short prose of B. Lepkyі, we concluded that a literary work can serve as a valuable ethnographic source. In our research, we paid attention to the following ethnographic elements of the writer's short prose: ethnopedagogy, beliefs and worldview of the Ukrainian peasant, celebrating Christmas in Podillya, customs and traditions related to the Easter holidays. Using the example of B. Lepkyi’s short prose, it becomes clear that the object of direct ethnographic descriptions for a realist writer is not only the events that the author perceives as the archaic, but also the description of traditional everyday life, which gives special value to this ethnographic source. The reliability of ethnographic descriptions is confirmed by the research of Ukrainian ethnographers.

Covid -19 and the question of taming compassion fatigue

The present paper underlines the effect of Covid-19 pandemic on the mental health of young adult men. It is a cross- cultural realist ethnography of South Asian natives from Indian sub-continent who immigrated to middle-east Ras-al-khair. Their experience to adversities during the breakdown of pandemic in 2020, was the subject of research. The study reflects the psychological state of the covid infected respondents identified as Compassion fatigue or the negative cost of caring others. It confers to a qualitative research design. Participant observation and focused group discussions were the study tools used on selected case studies. Higher intensity of compassion fatigue was experienced by the adult males who faced lack of social support, loneliness, were married with a child and had either nuclear or solo households in their respective native places.

Crimean realities in F.'s travelogue Remy "Crimea in ethnographic, geographical and historical terms" (1872)

The article is devoted to identifying and structuring realities in the travelogue of the German-speaking traveler Franz Remy, who visited the Crimean peninsula in the 19th century. The features of the realities mentioned in the work of a traveler who visited Crimea in the 19th century are considered. The purpose of the work is to identify, characterize, and establish the features of the realities of Crimea based on the travelogue F. Remy. The relevance of the work is due to both the increased interest in travelogue as a genre, and to the linguocultural aspect of the study of German-speaking travelogues. Of particular interest is how exactly the German-speaking traveler saw Crimea in the 19th century. The methodological basis was the works of S.I. Vlahov, S.P. Florin, L.N. Soboleva, E.R. Ponomareva, A.A. Kretova, N.A. Fenenko. The article clarifies the concepts of “reality” and “travelogue” based on a critical analysis of theoretical sources. A classification of realities is presented. The practical research was based on the material of Franz Remy’s travelogue “Die Krim in ethnographischer, landschaftlicher und hygienischer Beziehung”, published in the 19th century. Particular attention is paid to primary and secondary nominations of the realities of Crimea. The article provides examples of realities from the categories of astyonyms, comonyms, hydronyms, oronyms, urbanonyms, horonyms, highlights personalities, characters for the Crimea of the 19th century, as well as ethnographic realities. The article also discusses the traveler’s use of doublet names of Crimean cities. A conclusion is drawn about which categories of realities were characteristic of the Crimean Peninsula of the 19th century. This article may be of interest to specialists in the field of philology and history.

SOME ASPECTS OF THE TRANSLATION OF MOROCCAN ETHNOGRAPHIC REALITIES FROM FRENCH INTO RUSSIAN

Problem Statement. French is present in a different status in most African states, often serving as an intermediary language between the local culture and the rest of the world and in close linguistic contact with local dialects, their vocabulary and realities. In Morocco it is enriched with neologisms reflecting the country's colorful, diverse and vibrant culture, including cooking traditions. Moroccan cuisine is considered one of the richest and most original in the world. It attracts a huge number of tourists, cooking enthusiasts and professionals. There is a need to consider and analyze the peculiarities of translation from French into Russian of Moroccan culinary content representing cultural and ethnographic realities. Research results. The study showed that when translating reality words, the predominant translation method depends on the format of the content and consideration of the target audience. This approach is relevant for all types of translation, more so for translations of menus or recipes intended for restaurant customers who need to have a choice of dishes. A special approach is required to translate content for novice cooks who must prepare a dish according to a recipe without any problems, with information on weight measures used for dosing ingredients, names of utensils, traditional cooking methods. It is useful to check the composition of the dish and see how it looks and how it is cooked. The difficulty of this type of translation also lies in the understanding that these ethnographic realities are foreign to the Russian and French language. Conclusion. You need to be clear about what the translation is for: a brief menu caption, a detailed recipe, a blog, a cooking show, or it is an ethnographic description or linguistic study. Using different translation strategies and their combinations, original solutions can serve a commercial purpose and will be demanded by the client. Despite the different translation strategies in each case, it is important for a professional translator working with gastronomic content to know the history of the region and the culture, to search specialized websites and cookbooks. The cultural approach to translation is a modern trend, as well as an opportunity to get to know new countries and traditions.

Повесть Джанси Кимонко «Там, где бежит Сукпай» в свете этнологии: взгляд из XXI века

The aim of this study is to identify the features of using ethnographic realities on the thematic and narrative levels in the story “Where Sukpai Runs” by Jansi Kimonko from the standpoint of modern humanistic knowledge. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that the main focus is not on the mythopoetic component of the story, but on a range of ethnographic realities that have not previously attracted the attention of literary scholars. The article emphasizes the important structuring role of the author's poetic monologue about his homeland, the Sukpai River. Special attention is given to the intra-family relationships of the Kimonko clan against the backdrop of the traditional marital arrangements of the Udege people. The study underscores the deliberate nature of the author's positive attitude toward the changes that took place in the life of his people in the first third of the 20th century. As a result, the study showed that the description of the everyday life of the Udege people in the story plays not a secondary role, but serves as a unique artistic technique, allowing for the presentation of the cultural multiplicity of historical time.

The Center of the Universe and its Symbolic by the Georgian Highlanders

Existence of the center of the universe and its symbolic always used to have great importance in general perception of the world, and consequently it is by various models confirmed in religious thinking of the world people. Georgian ethnographic material, in which sacral nature of the center is clearly disclosed, is not an exception insofar. The first example of this is tree. In Georgian ethnographic reality it represents in static (sacral tree, sacral pillar) or mobile (chichilaki, karachka, sacral flags) forms and mostly is considered as symbol of sacral Centre. In our opinion the micro cosmic model of universe, with clearly expressed sacral center represents the Georgian traditional dwelling with its construction and symbolic –religious meaning and main ritual function of central pillar in dwelling exactly is marking out sacral center. The importance of sacral Centre is proved by mythological legends and ethnographic materials concerning the establishment of shrines of mountain areas of Georgia. One of the key symbols of sacral center are Holy Mountain, hearth and their directly connection with religious traditions. Symbolism of the hearth as Centre plays particular role in wedding ritual, relatively seldom, but still the function hearth appears in funeral ceremony. All these give possibility to conclude the following: Symbolization of the center is quite distinguishing event for religious thinking of Georgian mountaineers and is realized in different forms in different cases; The first example of this symbol is holy mountain and tradition of building cultic structures on peaks of mountains, which is generalGeorgian phenomenon; Symbolism of the center of universe is clearly reflected in such traditional type of Georgian dwelling as earth dwelling house with central wooden pillar and hole for light and smoke; Symbolic of the center explains special meaning of hearth in ethnographic reality (traditions of wedding and funeral, reconciliationnear the hearth); Symbolic of the center is declared in Legends concerning establishment of the shrines in mountain areas.

The Journey of Islamic Education in Universities in the Southern Frontier Provinces of Thailand and Their Response to the Global Crisis

This study aims to describe the journey of Islamic education in universities in the border province of southern Thailand and how they respond to the global crisis. Is research with a qualitative approach to ethnographic methods of Realist ethnography, which is an objective view of information learned in the field and usually uses a third-person point of view. Data sources were obtained through interviews, field observations, and sociocultural phenomena. Based on the study of researchers, the results of the study concluded that the journey of Islamic education in ASEAN countries including the Southern Border Province of Thailand both Muslim majority and minority can be divided into four phases sequentially. First phase is the introduction phase. Second phase is when Islamic education faces external and global challenges. The third phase is when Islamic education is strong enough to face challenges and be able to solve problems. Fourth phase, Islamic education will provide all the solutions for the global crisis. By looking at the phases of the Journey of Islamic Education in Higher Education in the Southern Border Province of Thailand, will be able to provide all solutions for the global crisis.
 Keywords: muslim, islamic education, global crisis

Stepfamilies and cultural transmission dynamics in Congo Basin hunter-gatherers

Generally high rates of adult mortality coupled with cultural approval of divorce/remarriage mean that alternatives to the ‘nuclear model’ of the family can be common in contemporary hunter-gatherer communities. While many studies of hunter-gatherer societies have emphasised the flexible, cooperative nature of childcare, research has not specifically considered how step-parents navigate their unique roles in the lives of their own or their partner’s children. Additionally, research has only just begun to investigate the ways in which cooperative caretaking interacts with the dynamics of cultural evolution in hunter-gatherer societies. For instance, vertical cultural transmission (ie learning from parents) has repeatedly been shown as important among hunter-gatherers. Yet, the implications of alternative family forms for the dynamics of cultural transmission are unclear. For instance, step-parents may enhance the spread and longevity of novel cultural traits by moving from a social role associated with oblique cultural transmission to one associated with vertical transmission from the perspective of their stepchildren. In this paper, we 1) present a mathematical model of cultural transmission under conditions where step-parenting is more or less common but step-parents can transmit culture in the same way as parents versus other adults (eg through vertical versus oblique cultural transmission), and then 2) present a preliminary survey of the frequency of alternative families from two BaYaka communities in northern Republic of the Congo. Our modelling shows that remarriage and step-parenting can increase the frequency of a new cultural trait and its eventual mean frequency in a population. Validating the premise of the model, our data confirm that high rates of divorce, adult mortality and remarriage mean that many BaYaka children in our sample live with step-parents. We then discuss how our model and the demographic data can be interpreted considering the ethnographic reality of the study communities and the region, and how this provides the potential for step-parenting to facilitate cultural adaptation. We conclude that the integration of data on family diversity and demography with cultural evolutionary modelling can further our understanding of cultural transmission in hunter-gatherer societies and beyond.

Props and the performance of ethnographic realism in George Catlin's Indian Gallery: Fabrications in hide, paint, and text

AbstractIn the 1830s, George Catlin undertook several journeys to the American West to document, through painting, writing, and collecting, Native North American communities he perceived as vanishing. He later assembled the different media in his Indian Gallery, which he toured through the United States and Europe. In this article, I begin to redocument Catlin's Indian Gallery and his exhibitionary practice by paying attention to its largely overlooked material culture collection. Many items display signs of non‐Native modification, like imitations of Plains pictorial tradition and detachment and reattachment of quillwork. Moving beyond questions of (in)authenticity, I focus on the objects' role in his exhibition, taking them seriously as one of Catlin's material museological practices. Through close‐looking analysis, I identify patterns of alteration and fabrications: replacement, repurposing, creating similarity and types, and emphasis on visual appeal. Based on these patterns, I suggest understanding Catlin's own approach to this material as a collection of props fabricated and employed to authenticate and support claims of cultural realism for his representations of Indigenous life. By studying this collection, we gain a deeper understanding of predisciplinary exhibitionary practices and how later ethnographic display technologies also relying on props, like dioramas, developed.

Pemetaan pola keragaman konten perilaku perundungan daring pada remaja melalui media sosial

The research aims to map the pattern of cyberbullying content diversity produced by adolescents through social media. The netnographic method is used to observe cyberbullying behavior in adolescent communities that are connected through social media. The research is a realist ethnography in nature, describing cyberbullying behavior from the content of youth community conversations. Research participants were adolescents aged 17-22 years who used social media and had been involved in cyberbullying, both as perpetrators and/or victims. Data was collected through participatory observation by being directly involved in the participants' social media activities. The results of the study identify cyberbullying content that is often sent by perpetrators and received by victims. First, flaming - content that contains anger, harsh words and vulgarity. Second, online harassment – ​​teasing, physically insulting and mocking parents' names. In addition, denigration was found - content created by gossiping about something that is not true; impersonation, uploading content that embarrasses the victim; and outing and trickery, sending dark jokes related to religion. The implications of this cyberbullying content mapping are for developing a literacy model for preventing cyberbullying behavior in adolescents who are easily exposed and unknowingly carry out cyberbullying behavior towards their peers.

“Field Journals” of ethnologist R.G. Kuzeev: archaeographic and source-study characteristics

The process of rapid development of the ethnological research, taking place currently, necessitated the search for new sources. Among them, of a great value are the records from expeditions of researchers of the past, which bear witness to the ethnographic realities of the respective time. From this point of view, the field notes (notebooks and journals) of Rail Gumerovich Kuzeev (1929–2005) — an outstanding Russian ethnologist, founder of the ethnographic sciences in Bashkortostan, who greatly contributed to the development of the problems of ethnogenesis and ethnic history of the Bashkirs and other Turkic peoples,— have priceless scientific value. The field records from the expeditions of the scientist in 1953–1982 to all major ethnographic and local groups of the Bashkirs are now reposited in the Scientific Archive of the Ufa Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The notes are made in special notebooks issued by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR for documenting materials of expeditions. In addition to the text (narration of observations, description of ethnographic objects and phenomena, transcripts of conversations with informants, etc.), they also contain many graphic representations (drawings, plans, diagrams). The notes and drawings are made in ink and pencil; in the latest documents, with a ballpoint pen. The aim of the work is to identify their archaeographic features and source-study value (ethnographic and historical evidence, methodology of the scholar's fieldwork). The textual analysis of R.G. Kuzeyev's field notes showed that they captured unique information on the history and ethnography of the Bashkir people, concerning ethnogenesis, migration, tribal structure, ancestral symbols, genealogies, social organization, land ownership, arts and crafts, clothing and ornaments, dwelling, economic activities and trades, traditional festivals and ceremonies, and toponyms. From the source-study perspective, they are of obvious interest to the ethnologists, ethnographers, and socio-cultural anthropologists, as well as to the folklorists (they contain texts of many historical and toponymic legends and tales), archaeologists, especially those dealing with the ‘archaeology of the modern period’ (there is information about old Bashkir settlements, summer camps, abandoned cemeteries), local historians and genealogists (information about history of the settlements, generation lists), etc.

Шаманские нарративы тувинцев: сюжетно-тематический состав

The article is devoted to the study of shamanic narratives – one of the little-studied aspects of the traditional culture of Tuvans. On the basis of folklore and ethnographic materials, the mythological views contained in shamanic stories are summarized, the plot-thematic classification of the fund of shamanic narratives is carried out for the first time, as a result of which eight plot-thematic groups are identified, which includes thirty-three subgroups. It is revealed that the main feature of all the shamanic stories of Tuvinians is their attitude to authenticity. Despite the fantasticism and fictionality of some stories, the bearers of the tradition perceive them as authentic stories confirming the power of shamans as chosen spirits. Each selected thematic group has characteristic features and a certain composition of plot-forming motifs. Their number in the thematic group depends on the development of this topic in the folklore tradition of the Tuvinians. The genre originality of shamanic stories, their compositional structure are considered, as well as the mechanisms of existence of the oral narrative tradition are characterized, the reflection of the main postulates of shamanic mythology is revealed in the stories, the semantic and pragmatic fullness of shamanic narratives in their close connection with ethnographic reality is analyzed. The work is written on the basis of published data and field materials of the author collected in the Republic of Tyva (2020) and the Xinjiang People’s Republic of China (2010–2018).

Автобиография Т. Е. Точилова (1881–1939) в контексте социокультурных практик и этнографических реалий Зимней Золотицы

The article analyzes the autobiography of Tit Egorovich Tochilov (1881-1939), a resident of Zimniaia Zolotitsa. In 1935, Tochilov was heavily taxed and deprived of the right to vote. He wrote the autobiography in 1939, after he was levied once again. In this text, Tochilov intended to describe his hard life, which was characterized by roaming and continuous work. He sought to make his life story public and to present himself as a hard worker who aligned with the ideology of the new Soviet state. Tit Egorovich Tochilov is known to Russian folklorists as a performer of epic poems (byliny). His autobiography contains descriptions of the socio-cultural practices and ethnographic realities of Zimniaia Zolotitsa. The village of Zimniaia Zolotitsa has an economy that is typical for the Pomor’e region. Throughout his life, Tochilov worked on fishing vessels and participated in the hunt of sea animals and in sea fishing. In our analysis of Tochilov’s autobiographical narrative, we consider an autobiography as a complex verbal construction that is not a reflection but a presentation of a person’s life. Tochilov’s narrative strategy strove to display his work biography. Accordingly, Tochilov talks in detail about his professional activities but relates almost nothing about his personal life. Tochilov’s autobiography is of interest to folklorists and anthropologists because it gives a detailed description of many sociocultural and professional practices of the Pomor’e: the structure and relationships in the male cooperative association (artel’), the organization of the hunt of sea animals and fishing trades, etc. In his narrative, Tochilov regularly refers to the hunting and fishing times for the Winter Coast of the White Sea that are contained in the traditional calendar.

Resistant ecologies

AbstractIn South Lebanon, war is lived as landscape, environment, milieu. Those pursuing life in such quarters do what they can to make‐live, and their lifelines are often as vitalizing as they are deadly: tobacco farmers ally themselves with what they call a “bitter crop” that flourishes in an arid war zone, while pastoralists walk in explosive fields with their mine‐evading goats. These multispecies alliances flourish because they can survive the deadly infrastructures of war. Dwelling alongside two steadfast families in the borderlands of South Lebanon, this ethnography of life in war moves away from tropes of trauma to grasp a militarized world from within the lived terrain of its operations. Neither green‐tinged utopia nor total devastation, these resistant ecologies make being possible in an insistently deadly region. Thinking life from disastrous war zones forces anthropological theory to reckon with harsh ethnographic realities while bringing to light unsung alliances of hope for life ongoing.

ПОВАРЕШКА МАРФЫ: АНТРОПОЛОГИЯ РЕЛИГИОЗНОЙ ИНФРАСТРУКТУРЫ

The infrastructural turn in the social sciences comes from a tendency to change the anthropocentric epistemology in social research. This new approach corresponds to the classic program of social anthropology as it makes the known unknown and provides one more perspective which helps reveal the invisible politics, inequalities, and social tensions. Yet, when it comes to the social research in the field of religion, the interest to how infrastructures work has not resulted in new academic discourses and research practices so far. This article outlines some directions and topics in the anthropology of religion which stem from the infrastructural turn. First, it highlights the work of the social imagination of believers when they deal with thick or thin (poor) infrastructural systems. Secondly, it discusses the moments of infrastructural breakdown which provoke believers to generate semiotic ideologies in order to represent their experience of communication with non-human agents, both mundane and divine. The infrastructural approach to understanding religious life does not pretend to become a new research methodology or social theory. Rather, it suggests that thinking infrastructurally on typical topics for anthropology of religion, such as pilgrimage, charity, memory or historical imagination, helps us to better understand the logic which shapes the everyday life of a religious person and community. Furthermore, it helps us remember that religious and secular domains of life are usually not separated in ethnographic reality.

Der schmale Grat zwischen Realismus und Interpretation. Ein rekursiver Dialog zwischen „realistischem“ franko-belgischem Comic und Ethnographie

This article questions and accounts for the collective management of “the relation to reality” among the amateurs – that is, the interpretative community of authors and readers – of so-called “realistic” Franco-Belgian Comics. My analysis aims at asking to what extent and in what ways this collective management, with its conventions and provisional agreements but also its tensions and controversies, can recursively inform ethnographic methods and theories as to their own collective management of “the relation to reality”. To do so, I examine how the narrative conventions of realistic Franco-Belgian Comics are rhetorically maintained through a tension between two dimensions, which are constantly negotiated among the amateurs of comics: a strong expectation that both the drawings and the storyline faithfully represent “reality” in giving a meticulous and meticulously documented account of “it” on one side, and an acceptance of the interpretative dimension inherent in creative and artistic representations on the other. Questioning the tradition of ethnographic realism in the recursive light of this analysis, I argue in conclusion that this tension pertains to an ontological misunderstanding, and plead for an articulation of ontological multiplicity, i.e., multiple relations to multiple realities, and for granting both fictional beings of comics and ethnographic beings their own modes of existence.

Ethnographic Collections of Yuriy and Sophia Marr at Peter the Great Kunstkamera

Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of Russian Academy of Sciences holds four collections of watercolours, photographs and material culture items, related to Persia of the 1920s and gathered there by Yuriy and Sophia Marr. Yuriy Marr (1893—1935), the son of Academician Nikolai Marr (1865—1934), who had an unprecedented impact on the development of the humanities in the early Soviet period, devoted his short life to Iranian studies and was among the best experts in the Persian language, literature and daily life of contemporary Persia. In recent decades, Yuriy Marr gained new recognition as a futurist poet due to a series of publications of his literary heritage, carefully preserved for many years by his wife Sophia Marr (1890—1980). In 1925—1926 Yuriy Marr was on mission in Persia to establish cultural ties and collect data on librarianship and publishing activities. The article briefly highlights the features of three collections representing some ethnographic realities of Persia on the eve of comprehensive modernization of the country. Emphasis is made on the collection that was received from Sophia Marr in 1978. The collection includes a woolen cloak (‘aba’) brought by Yuriy Marr from his student trip to Lebanon and Syria in 1914, and 15 watercolour portraits on plywood sheets, copied from the original photographs that were found in the Archives of Orientalists at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Marshall Sahlins, where are you? From the intellectual to the existential

Marshall Sahlins, where are you? From the intellectual to the existential