Projects / Programmes
Tradition and its re-producers
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 6.04.00 |
Humanities |
Ethnology |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| H400 |
Humanities |
Folklore |
| S220 |
Social sciences |
Cultural anthropology, ethnology |
ethnology, folklore studies, tradition, re-producers, production of tradition, performance, folk culture; qualitative methodology, narrative and expert interview; Slovenia, Estonia
Researchers (7)
Organisations (1)
Abstract
Tradition is a central concept in ethnology and folklore studies. Until the mid-20th century, it was a key dimension in understanding the culture of lower social strata, especially the peasant class (i.e., “folk culture”), whereas now it is connected with the cultural heritage of all social strata. This anthropologically universal phenomenon enables appropriate identification and affiliation for an individual or a group/community. Like other phenomena, tradition is in constant dialogue with culturally innovative, and therefore it is not possible to equate it with the past or with history; it is a historical vestige but also simultaneously a contemporary phenomenon. In Europe and throughout the world “small” traditions have been increasingly becoming an alternative to globalization. In Slovenia, the search for and reliance on tradition became more pronounced after the mid-1980s, when, because of specific circumstances, this first appeared in considerations of the special features of national identity and viability, which contributed to a reevaluation of folk culture or previously marginalized traditional features and practices. Following independence, reference to tradition strengthened in connection with outward recognition of Slovenia, and also increasingly in the multifunctional expression of local, regional, and other collective identifications.
In reflecting on tradition, at least three discourses are important: 1. professional (scholarly, technical), 2. non-professional (amateur and performance practices), and 3. media discourse. This project primarily focuses on the second one; specifically, that of the past thirty years. However, the goal is to investigate the shaping of reflections on tradition, its current vitality, and especially the dynamics of the performing and creative process. The main issues regarding the actual actors with a decisive influence on performance and the image of tradition, are the following: who the individuals and groups are that participate in the performance and creative process; their motives for the planned collection, preservation, performance, and transmission of tradition; the media of transmission; the influence of performance on the transformation of the “traditional;” reflection on the concepts of “authentic” and “immagined” tradition; and the functional and symbolic dimensions of performance.
In order to recognize the relationship toward tradition among its mediators and performers, their motivations, the mechanisms of transmission, the images of tradition that are part of their perception, and the image of the world, on the basis of previous studiesthis project will be based on the qualitative methodology of field research. For a sample of a detailed study designed on the basis of examining performers, performers will be selected from the following areas: folk narrative, customs and ritual practices, and culinary culture. It will especially rely on two types of interviews (narrative and expert). The analysis and interpretation will make it possible to better comprehend individuals’ perceptions and images of the world and the role and significance that tradition holds in it, their self-selection in the triad of professional/lay/popular discourse, and each individual’s creativity and role in re-creating tradition. ---This project will seek to fill this lacuna with a contribution to the theory of tradition and politics of tradition. Through an examination of performance, findings on the mutual influences of discourses, and popularization of findings in general, it is possible to offer material for reflection for cultural policy and for individual, local, and institutional promoters of tradition.
Comparative inisights will be realized through the cooperation with a group of Estonian folklore scholars.
Significance for science
The presented project has been conceived with the objective of empirically verifying the existing theories on the tradition and processes of folklorisation. In the past various factors, to which cultural processes are inseparably linked, were ignored, and so was the creativity of individuals and small groups of performers, who most actively shape the images of tradition and its concrete forms. The present researches focus less on the cultural products, held to be traditions, and more on the individuals, groups and circumstances/ activities, which make it possible for phenomena to live on in the traditional way, i.e. by constantly modified repetitions of variants. They draw attention to individual motivations, looking for connections and harmony with the social circumstances, (de)motivating tradition-based practises. They reveal identity functions, as well as communication links and economic effects. These findings require further ethnological and folkloristic research to establish closer links with other disciplines. In line with the fast changing life styles and communication patterns, similar researches are conducted elsewhere in Europe and around the world. To validate the range of the proposed qualitative methodology (with narrative and expert interviews), which comes closest to individual motivations, requires them to be contrasted with other (written, visual) sources, and this is what the researches constantly verify and document.
The project’s themes belong to the structured classification of modern humanist, culturological researches on the cultural heritage, processes and phenomenology of tradition; in general tradition is much too often treated in relatively stereotype ways or even mythically. Aware of internationally comparable , critically reflective premises and researches, the project has similar ambitions in its treatment of the different phenomena of performing past cultural patterns. It thus contributes: a) to the discussion of the assumption that performing traditional practices and creativity is a universal process, and that some performance strategies are influenced by wider glocalization processes; b) to establishing possible specific aspects in the modern Slovene environment.
Another important contribution is that it reveals the nature of these practices, ranging from the imaginary belief of being “faithful” to tradition to a deliberate break with faithfulness to imaginary authenticity, adapting traditional patterns to modern functions, and relating in particular to the identifications of individuals and groups based on market laws. The project questions the enduring and dynamic dimensions of culture and cultural habituses, the processes of constantly emerging culture, its re-construction and de-construction. It brings to the international humanist sciences both universal insights, as well as such connected with localness, ethnographic specificities of cultural patterns and the inherent features of the discipline’s practices. A critical evaluation of the latter contributes to the international scientific dialogue.
One objective was to reveal the shift from meta-ethnological researches, usually paying attention to concepts spread and asserted by the authoritative voice of researchers and institutions “in the know”, to more recent research trends, paying attention to the many voices creating images of what our cultural past is and what it is like. People, who continue to be heritage »carriers« or performers, had no use for today common terms (culture, tradition) a few decades ago. They are spread by the media, the culture industry and heritage policies. All this essentially changes the research landscape, though it has never been neutral: previously the discipline itself largely took care of “popularising” its findings, but nowadays that knowledge is spread by many voices. Many actors participate in this process of appropriating culture and it is inevitable that their voices are heard too.
Significance for the country
The research theme as a whole and its sub-topics emphasise that tradition is a distinctly socially defined phenomenon, subject to various uses in different social and local settings. In recent years, most ethnological and folklore research has endeavoured to reject the stereotype, often conservative opinions on tradition, and shifted the interpretativeattention to individual and collective creativity in dialogue with the culture of the past. The project aimed to study the mechanisms of this creativity, reflected in the manifold ways in which tradition is appropriated and reinterpreted and which always have known authors and actors. People consider researchers as experts and advisors for their collecting activities or in organising events. In this sense, the results are productive not only to academic circles, but to the wider community as well: in the education at all levels and in settings which are directly or indirectly connected with cultural heritage management (tourism, the Horeca sector, cultural institutions and societies at the local level, in municipal and regional centres, government offices responsible for heritage and culture, and for planning cultural policies and promoting Slovenia).
The research is overall important to cultural development, the protection of the natural and cultural heritage and for the joint establishment of criteria for its safeguarding and popularisation, without being based on occasionally rigid professional or bureaucratic premises, but taking account of its liveliness and relevance to people’s everyday lives.
Given the exceptionally increased interest in the issues of the cultural heritage in various segments of Slovene society – from government institutions to science, civil initiatives in local communities, and among individuals – an adequate evaluation or critical reflection on the phenomenon of tradition and traditional practices, their bearers (performers), mediators, popularisers, and researchers, is a highly topical undertaking. Research of the mechanisms (initiatives, models, strategies or technologies) has to date revealed a great variety of ways in which concrete presentations of traditional elements of culture on the one hand, and professional and lay discussions on them on the other hand, are intertwined and interdependent. Because the latter (discussions) in particular continue to reproduce relatively stereotype ideas on what belongs to tradition and what is truly traditional and as such culturally determining (at the level of the nation, as well as at the other levels of community life), and from these basic assumptions often transforms tradition into an economic category, we see the importance of our findings precisely in demythicising and deconstructing such ideas. In doing so, we are well aware that there can be no immediate or direct effect, but indirect effects are certainly viable, especially in the institutionalised care of the heritage, where the responsible leaders are professional institutions (museums, cultural heritage institutions, living heritage coordination bodies etc.), which are involved in concrete projects of documentation, analysis and preservation of the cultural heritage. These professional findings should be more or less asserted at all levels of education and in all places where the responsible leaders themselves look for such support (various events, collections, catering, tourism, etc. at the local level)and voice their willingness to enter a professional dialogue. In these cases it is useful to have a register of examples of “good practices”, as well as intimate knowledge of local traditions and circumstances, in which researchers can be important sources of information to these people. To the researchers themselves, it is a special and important challenge that requires thorough reflection on heritage policies and management, where we must not overlook the power relations between the actors; this is also a challenge for cultural policy.
Most important scientific results
Annual report
2008,
2009,
final report,
complete report on dLib.si
Most important socioeconomically and culturally relevant results
Annual report
2008,
2009,
final report,
complete report on dLib.si
