Projects / Programmes
Researching the bearers of folk and cultural phenomena
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 6.04.00 |
Humanities |
Ethnology |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| H400 |
Humanities |
Folklore |
| H100 |
Humanities |
Documentation, information, library science, archivistics |
bearers - informants, data bases, folklore, sound archive, ethnomusicology, folkloristics, archiving, ethnology
Researchers (9)
Organisations (1)
Abstract
The basic point of departure of the project is the recognition that, in addition to research on established and spontaneous folk culture, research on the bearers of this culture (i.e., its creators, performers, listeners, and watchers) is also of exceptional importance, and the issue of the mutual relations between the individual and social groups, as well as the entire ethnos, has been an important issue for folklore studies for a long time already. The focus of the project will be in illuminating the role of the bearer (informer) in individual cultural environments, studying his social status, specific creativity and creative perspective (or aesthetic horizon), the manner in which he selects folklore elements, and how he includes them in his social and cultural environment. To carry out the research, a comprehensive information system of informers (i.e., bearers) will be established, which will provide scholars with access to important information about these bearers. This system will be part of the digital archive at the Institute of Ethnomusicology, which will make use of a modern metadata plan, will be based on established folklore descriptions of material, and will connect local metadata plans in the field of a CIDOC CRM reference model.
The project will be based on material already received and archived, such as oral tradition collected by scholars and researchers, manuscript collections (from the institute's archive), field recordings, notes (from the institute's archive), sound recordings (from the institute's archive), visual material (photographs, super 8 and video from the institute's archive), and other publications. The following goals will be based on this material and the basic scholarly points of departure: (A) building upon and optimizing the part of the information system of the Institute of Ethnomusicology's digital archive dedicated to informers; application of an internationally established reference model and ISO standard CIDOC CRM to the data model of the information system of the institute's digital archive and the use of other standards for information transfer, integration into national and international networks of digital collections and the archives of other research institutions on the basis of CIDOC CRM and, using this, the possibility of interdisciplinary studies of cultural heritage and information exchange; (B) researching the role and significance of creators and performers in a specific community or group or in a specific territory, study, and analysis of how the bearer's creativity, adaptation, reception, and behavior is dependent on the evaluation of the bearers themselves and others; to determine how the social status of an individual (with regard to property or profession) influences creativity and perception in folk song heritage, how it has stimulated and hindered it; and to what extent the individual as part of the community has an influence on the transformation of the activity of folk song (repertoire, participation by sex, the aesthetic aspect, composition, etc.). The project will examine and analyze the continuity and transformation of tradition in various social contexts (in individual ceremonies and customs) in which the bearer still had an especially important role in the transmission of folk phenomena in collective traditional practice. The studies will follow special methodological approaches (interviews, observation, genetic-structural methods, historical-sociological methods, and the comparative method) and will use a special computer technique to process material such as a specific data model of informers, optimize the use of the information system with the building of a thesaurus and the use of glossaries and dictionaries of informers, and application of a CIDOC CRM reference model.
More detailed ethnomusicological, textological, ethnological and ethnochoreological analysis of the field material obtained about various bearers of folk culture, and its systematizatio...
