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In September-October 2023 in the Hermitage-Siberia center of the Omsk Region Museum of Fine Arts. M. A. Vrubel hosted the exhibition «Siberian Seasons of the Leningrad Philharmonic. To the 80th anniversary of the 1943 tour»; the project had great public outcry. The exhibition featured unique documents, restored at the St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, related to the stay and creative activities of the Philharmonic in the Siberian rear. A conversation with Yu. Z. Kantor, the curator of this museum project, that took place in October 2023, is devoted to its significance and substantive features.

This article is based on research conducted in rural areas of the Polish Jurassic Highland by first-year ethnology and cultural anthropology students as part of their first field exercises. One of their tasks was to keep fieldnotes, which provided an insight into the young anthropologists’ experiences. Based on an analysis of these notes, I decided to inscribe the process of becoming an anthropologist into the pattern of the rite of passage according to the model proposed by Arnold van Gennep. The purpose of the article is to analyze and interpret the students’ notes and present the point of view of a young researcher – including myself, the author of this article, who participated in this research – on the Polish countryside and the role of the field in the “anthropological initiation.” Making fieldnotes is not only a technique or method of producing anthropological knowledge, but also a source of information about the researcher’s inner experiences during their professional initiation. The article investigates how the specificity of the rural areas of the Polish Jurassic Highland (as the first research field) influenced the process of the symbolic transformation of a student into an anthropologist.

Trying to answer the challenges proposed by the Laudato si’ encyclical letter and its proposed “integral ecology,” this essay deals with the possible interactions between ecotheology, ecophenomenology, and cultural anthropology, outlining an interdisciplinary approach to Incarnation. In the first part, the core ideas of the aforementioned encyclical are discussed. In the second part, ecotheology is discussed as an answer to the critiques that see in Christianism a hindrance against a deeper ecological thought. The third part discusses ecophenomenology, while proposing to integrate within the debate some new theoretical proposals. The fourth part discusses how to “cross the Rubicon” between ecotheology and ecophenomenology, while also describing both limits and opportunities for such crossings. In the conclusions, some ideas for further research are proposed, in the sense of a layered theory of Incarnation.

The term in the title is intended to suggest that today’s increasingly diverse, alternative forms of belief related to religion are less easily captured by the terms religion and spirituality. In addition to explaining the difficulty of defining these two terms and discussing similar, previously proposed, and useful concepts to overcome this difficulty, I present the process of creating of the term “religionesque” and its proposed use in empirical research. During my empirical fieldwork, I experienced the need for the missing term, which I believe should be introduced not only because of the analysis of certain alternative forms, but also because it nicely translates a term that already exists to some extent in the Hungarian language.

In conjunction with other research methods, cultural anthropology is employed to investigate social and cultural transformations. It involves examining the ideological aspects of texts and speeches and the vocabulary and elements that imbue them with meaning. The selection and usage of specific words and phrases in proverbs reflect people's perspectives, attitudes, and thoughts toward various events, phenomena, situations, and social issues. In orally transmitted stories, the geographical and environmental culture of the narrator and the primary storyteller, whether known or anonymous, play a pivotal role in shaping the narrative's structure. This article compares two versions of the Sheikh San'Aan story (the Kurdish narrative by Mam Ahmad Lotfi Mahabadi and the Persian narrative by Attar) from a cultural anthropological standpoint to explore the cultural similarities and differences between the two works. The analysis reveals that both narratives feature Sheikh San'Aan and his daughter as the main characters, with disciples playing subordinate roles. Customs and traditions are mentioned in both works; however, a distinction lies in the presence of a character named Hazrat Ghaws, rooted in mystical and regional beliefs concerning spiritual leaders. The role of the father figure is also significant, reflecting the influence of fathers on the institution of the family and patriarchy, particularly evident in the Kurdish narrative where the Christian daughter introduces herself and Sheikh to her father. Both narratives contain customs related to Christianity, which Sheikh San'Aan must adhere to for conversion. Nevertheless, there are variations in customs and traditions between the Kurdish and Persian narratives, such as the Khanqah ceremony and wedding rituals. Clothing is another cultural element featured in both works, described as Kurdish attire in the Kurdish narrative and Sufi clothing in the Persian narrative due to its literary nature.

The transformation due to climate change of the high Alpine mountains is intensifying. A real disruption in the perception of this milieu and in the ways of interacting with it is ongoing, as evidenced by recent funeral ceremonies organised for disappearing glaciers. The investigation and documentation of the alternative interactions with mountain entities, such as glaciers, is challenging the very existence of the “Great Divide” that modernity has supposedly created between humans and non-humans. Through ethnographic observations and semi-directed interviews, the conducted study uncovers in the Valais Alps and in the Mont Blanc massif the hidden relationships developed with their environment by high-mountain people, such as glaciologists, mountain guides, or crystal hunters. It shows how they relate with specific glaciers or rock walls, listen to them, see them as living and dying, and build up new attention schemes and forms of attachments. It, therefore, allows a first characterisation of what may be akin to a form of animism in a Western context, reputedly naturalistic.

Based on the analysis of unpublished sources (documentation of military institutions, public organizations) and materials of the regional periodical press, the charitable activities of the military in the cities of Western Siberia in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries are characterized, which, despite the great attention of the scientific community to the phenomenon of charity, did not has become the subject of special research. From the standpoint of cultural anthropology, the main directions, forms, motives of army charity are defined and characterized. The study emphasizes that the activities of the military in the field of charity are active, diverse, it is dominated by gratuitous labor and a lot of organizational work, which drew public attention to topical social problems and the development of urban culture.

Understanding past and present relationships of traditional cultures with biodiversity through biocultural research can help inform inclusive conservation policy and planning in a country seeking to undo past injustices such as South Africa. This review of 326 articles published between 1990 and 2019 maps the methodology employed in biocultural research, the focus of this research niche, ethical conduct and research recommendations to understand the state of biocultural research and make recommendations for biocultural research that is representative of South Africa’s diverse cultural landscape. This systematic review of original research articles indexed on the Scopus database found South African biocultural research to exclude Swati and Ndebele cultures while having an unevenly strong focus on plants, human health sciences, rural areas, and three of the country’s nine provinces. Some of this unevenness is likely because of utility of plants in human health and association of traditional practices with rural areas. Using a systematic review approach for this study not only ensured replicability but it also introduced a limitation of the results only being applicable to peer-reviewed articles indexed on the Scopus database. Conservation implications: Biocultural research’s strong focus on utilitarian use could encourage conservation policy that favours utilitarian use of wildlife. An even focus in biocultural research is recommended to avoid the knowledge pool for conservation policy being mostly focussed on utilitarian value.

Purpose of the Study: This research aims to investigate the intricate relationship between communal identity, rituals, and dreams within the Festino di San Silvestro rite in Troina, Sicily. It focuses on understanding how shared dreaming, facilitated by the Social Dreaming Matrix (SDM), reflects and shapes communal engagement with cultural myths and collective identity during a traditional rite of passage. Methodology: Employing a qualitative approach, the study integrates participant observation, thematic analysis of dreams collected through SDM sessions, and semi-structured interviews with participants of the rite. This methodology allows for an in-depth exploration of the symbolic and metaphorical content of dreams and their relevance to the community's cultural practices and identity. Main Findings: The research uncovers that dreams shared during the rite act as semiophores, mediating the dialogue between individual and communal psyches, thus reinforcing communal bonds and cultural heritage. The liminal phase is identified as crucial for communal transformation, wherein rituals and shared dreams catalyze the redefinition of communal identity and the reinforcement of ties to cultural and spiritual roots. Applications of This Study: The findings have broad implications for cultural anthropology, community psychology, and ritual studies, offering a novel perspective on using shared dreaming as a mechanism for community building and identity formation. This study suggests practical applications for SDM in fostering community cohesion and understanding the dynamic process of anthropopoiesis in various communal settings. Novelty/Originality of This Study: This research contributes a novel perspective by integrating SDM with rites of passage, offering fresh insights into communal uses of dreams for navigating identity and heritage. Its exploration of dreams as semiophores in a communal ritual context marks a unique contribution to the fields of cultural and psychological studies, highlighting the SDM's potential in uncovering collective unconscious processes and supporting the dynamic construction of communal identity.

After an introduction to FRA Project NORISC-19 on Third Sector in Campania, the authors illustrate some aspects of the anthropological methodology used in a part of it, then focusing on the analysis of the materials from 21 interviews with representatives of associations in the 5 provincies of Naples, Caserta, Salerno, Avellino and Benevento. The themes analyzed in an anthropological perspective, showing old problems and new opportunities, concern collaborative networks with institutions and other associations and the impact of exogenous events such as the Third Sector Reform and the Covid-19 pandemic. The discussed results also allow reflecting on the potential of an anthropological approach to the study of these contemporary issues within an original mixed methods perspective, which, in NORISC-19, combines and integrates multiple disciplinary fields.

The state policy in the Soviet Union regarding the formation of historical memory and commemorative practices is currently one of the most popular research areas for Russian scholars in the development of cultural and anthropological knowledge. In this context, the present study is of significant interest. Its purpose is to provide an analytical survey of the preparation and implementation of official jubilee events in 1929, which were organized on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Soviet power restoration in Siberia, based on unpublished materials from Soviet power bodies' paperwork and regional periodicals, using the Omsk district as an example. This study is presented for the first time in scientific circles. The theoretical basis of the research was the anthropological approach, the principle of systematicity, and the problem-chronological method. This methodological framework made it possible to analyze these regional celebrations as a reflection of state policy and the new common culture that was actively forming in the early Soviet society. In conclusion, the study emphasizes that the 1920s were a time for creating a pantheon of Heroes of the Revolution, establishing places of historical memory, and accumulating experience in organizing new public holidays closely related to the strengthening of communist ideology. This study is aimed at a broad audience of specialists interested in Soviet culture, society, the history of official holidays and commemorations in the USSR, and Soviet everyday life.

Cultures in Mediterranean climate zones (MCZs) around the world have long been reliant on groundwater and springs as freshwater sources. While their ecology and cultural sustainability are recognized as critically important, inter-relationships between springs and culture in MCZs have received less attention. Here we augmented a global literature review with case studies in MCZ cultural landscapes to examine the diversity and intensity of cultural and socio-economic relationships on spring ecohydrogeology. MCZs are often oriented on western and southern coasts in tectonically active landscapes which control aquifer structure, the prevalence of westerly winds, and aridity, and generally expose associated habitats and cultures to harsh afternoon sunlight. Cultural appreciation and appropriation of springs ranges widely, from their use as subsistence water supplies to their roles in profound traditions such as Greco-Roman nymphalea as well as Asian and Abrahamic spiritual cleansing and baptism. The abandonment of traditional ways of life, such as rural livestock production, for urban ones has shifted impacts on aquifers from local to regional groundwater exploitation. The commoditization of water resources for regional agricultural, industrial (e.g., mining, water bottling, geothermal resorts), and urban uses is placing ever-increasing unsustainable demands on aquifers and spring ecosystems. When the regional economic value of springs approaches or exceeds local cultural values, these irreplaceable aquatic ecosystems are often degraded, over-looked, and lost. Sustainable stewardship of springs and the aquifers that support them is a poorly recognized but central conservation challenge for modern Mediterranean societies as they face impending impacts of global climate change. Solutions to this crisis require education, societal dialogue, and improved policy and implementation.

This article theoretically frames the issue of obstetric violence as epistemic injustice, drawing heavily from feminist phenomenological philosophy, within the general framework of narrative bioethics and the fight for sexual-reproductive rights. The first section deals with the concept of obstetric violence, emphasizing Latin America’s pioneering role in its coinage and recognition, as well as its empirical-hermeneutical applications. In the second section, consideration is given to how the concept of obstetric violence has been analyzed through the lens of epistemic injustice (in its two versions: testimonial and hermeneutic), which has signified major progress in its systemic understanding and its biopolitical nature. The article’s conclusions highlight the full empirical-theoretical relevance of the term, as a thick philosophical concept, despite existing tensions between the biosanitary (especially medical) sector and citizen demands.

This article argues that the concept of the “barbarian” is inapplicable to the Chinese tradition. By contrasting the Greek and later European view on what it means to be human with the image of the authentic human in Chinese philosophy, this paper argues that the Chinese tradition did not have a conception of what the Greeks understood as “barbarian”. In the former, the ideal of the human is understood through an investigation of the concept of ousia, which is characterized by a dualistic hierarchy between “form” and “matter”. The same dualism and hierarchy that distinguishes ousia, can be mapped onto the Greek distinction between the human and barbarian. Chinese metaphysics is not consistent with the Greek idea that reality is constituted by unchanging forms that are self-identical and keep within their own boundaries. Relatedly, the idea that there is a static hierarchy among the myriad things of the world is also foreign to Chinese metaphysics. Instead, the Chinese metaphysical tradition assumes that nothing will stay the same forever as all “things” are a function of how they relate to an ever-changing environment. One important consequence of this view is that the human and non-human distinction is much more dynamic. Related to this dynamic view of self is the (Confucian) view that the human being only becomes authentically human through their acculturation. This acculturation is the process of a person’s growth through public symbolic media such as li (礼), yue (乐) and wen (文). This process of growth shapes the person into an other-regarding social being (ren 仁). Importantly, no one is born a fully-realized human; human-ness is not an essence that is possessed but is always a result of the process of acculturation.

The article is one of the first attempts to generalize the accumulated experience in the research literature on the history of the Imperial Russian Military Historical Society. The author analyzed the key works of pre-revolutionary, Soviet, postSoviet historiography. The presented historiographic review is built according to the chronological principle. The author comes to the conclusion that the first attempts to comprehend the activities of the Imperial Russian Military Historical Society were carried out even before the revolution of 1917, but only from the 1940s. laid the foundation for studying its history. It is concluded that the interest of modern researchers is fragmentary and is more focused on studying the activities of local departments and the organizational structure of society. A promising direction for further research is the study of the history of this association of military historians in the context of the interdisciplinary paradigm «Memory studies», which allows us to consider the Imperial Russian Military Historical Society as one of the most important actors influencing the formation of historical memory at the beginning of the 20th century.

The reference to this topic is due to necessity to create the most complete image of the region, as well as to expand ideas about the channels and methods of its formation in the official Soviet culture. The present scientific work describes the participation of Omsk region in the «Great Review», a unique propaganda and cultural and educational Soviet project of the 1930s which aroused great interest not only in the USSR but throughout the world. Special attention is paid to the self-presentation of Omsk region in such pavilions as «Siberia», «Grain», «Cattle breeding», «Rabbit breeding», «Veterinary medicine», «Gardening», «Printing», «Young naturalists». It is shown that the present and future of Omsk village was clearly associated with the scientific achievements: selection work of triticum-agropyrum hybrids carried out by the Siberian Research Institute of Grain Economy led by the Academician N. P. Tsitsin, the method of growing fruit trees in Siberian conditions developed by the doctor of agricultural sciences A. D. Kizyurin. Infotainment, sciencetainment, visualization and media technologies are noted as the main methods and ways of presenting information. Guidebooks on the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition of 1939–1941 are introduced into scientific circulation. They have not been involved in domestic research on the history of Siberia of the Soviet period.

The paper is devoted to a historiographical review of the literature dedicated to the study of the history of the Russian necropolis in Japan and the prospects for further research on this topic. The external conditions of increasing interest in the topic of the history of the Russian necropolis abroad are characterized. The definition of the historical necropolis is given. The review is structured according to the chronological principle. The main studies of Japanese and Russian historians are revealed. The authors identified the primary studies in Russian and Japanese and concluded that is not much research on the history of the Russian necropolis in Japan until the end of the twentieth century, but the relevance of this topic in the past three decades. The paper shows the predominant exhaustion of the subject within the framework of traditional necropolistics. The paper proposes possible options for further study of the history of the Russian necropolis in Japan within discipline Memory studies and also with the use of cultural anthropology, social history and political sciences approaches.

Abstract Background In faculty development, understanding each participant’s cultural context is important. However, there is scarce evidence on how to improve cultural understanding in faculty development. Cultural anthropology is a discipline that focuses on developing cultural self-awareness by understanding different cultures. Professionals from this field can be crucial to the goal of cultivating cultural awareness among medical educators. The aims of this study are to 1) develop and modify cultural anthropology sessions in faculty development and 2) evaluate the effectiveness of these sessions, including their long-term impacts. Methods The cultural anthropology sessions were organized as part of a longitudinal faculty development program—Foundation Course for Medical Education—at Kyoto University in Japan. The study included 47 medical educators participating in faculty development and three lecturers: two cultural anthropologists and a medical educator. We developed the cultural anthropology sessions and implemented them in the longitudinal faculty development program. In these sessions, cultural anthropologists used inquiry-guided reflection. An action research methodology was employed and repeated in four cycles from 2015 to 2018. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected during the action research cycles. The qualitative data were thematically analyzed. Results The cultural anthropologists’ inquiries fostered learning during the sessions, and three themes—cultural relativism, attention to context, and reframing—were synthesized. As a long-term impact of the sessions, the learners reported becoming more aware of the cultural contexts in their daily educational and clinical activities. Conclusions The cultural anthropology sessions in the faculty development program were shown to have enhanced the participants’ awareness of cultural contexts. The concept and format of these sessions may be used more widely in faculty development programs.

The article is devoted to the overview of the main stages of formation and development of the memorial space of small towns in the Novosibirsk region in the second half of XIX–XX centuries. The contexts of the memory politics that influenced the memorial processes in these towns are revealed. The distinctive specificity of developing memorial space of small towns in comparison with Novosibirsk and other big cities of the region is defined. The research is based on published and unpublished works by local historians and specialists in the protection of monuments. The documentation from museums, the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Monuments of History and Culture and its Novosibirsk branch is used in this article. The result of the research reveals the general specificity of the memorial space of small towns in the Novosibirsk region in the XIX–XX centuries, as well as the peculiarities of its development in the seven historical stages identified by the authors.

As an introduction to the thematic issue of Hungarian Studies Yearbook, dedicated to Regionalism in culture – cultural regionalism, the article offers an overview of current research interests in the field. Within the domain of Hungarian studies, regional approaches and the idea of cultural areas as an important frame for cultural analysis and comparison was present in research work from the 19th century. After a general introduction, the article presents the current methodological approaches to regionalism studies and the main topics debated in the fields of literary studies, linguistics, and cultural anthropology.

The article discusses the problem of identification of prehistoric elites on the example of the Usatovo culture. Archaeological evidence allows us to discern in the culture three separate strata or classes which are conditionally designated as the Nobles, the Honoured, and the Commoners. Social elite represented a core within the noble class. It is distinguished by specific attributes which illustrate its attempts to resolve one of the most complex problems of any elite – to reconcile tension between “universalism” and “particularism”. The first quality is realized in ritual performance through manipulation of material objects whereas the second one is realized by means of sumptuary customs along with other methods. The emergence of the elites in the Usatovo culture became possible due to specific combination of objective factors which were successfully utilized by new social leaders.

Cultural anthropologists acknowledge the primacy of the spectator’s gaze in assigning hierarchical space to performances within the public sphere. Equations of power and transactions between agents of performance and the consumer or between the language of the entitled spectator and subject performers determine the category assigned to a given performance: folk or elite, classic or popular, high or subaltern. The late eighteenth – early nineteenth century in Bengal was a period of political and social transition and of realignment along religious, spatial and intellectual lines. The birth and growth of the metropolitan urban centre (Calcutta), an increasing presence of European residents of both genders in Calcutta and Bengal and the shift of power and influence from Muslim military aristocracy to an European merchant company (The British East India Company), meant that traditional indigenous performances were often thrown open for commentary and judgment to an audience who were largely outsiders and to whom the nuances of language, caste, class, region, ritual signification were matters of academic interest only occasioning descriptive commentaries on the practices in an alien country. In the travelogues and memoirs of Maria Nugent or Fanny Parkes, for instance, rituals, customs or performances were viewed as exemplifying the picturesque ‘otherness’ of an alien race. This paper will focus on evidences within British colonial writings of the early nineteenth century describing what appeared to observers as performances, with which they attempt to conceptualize the native ‘other’ as a cultural trope.

Cultural anthropologists acknowledge the primacy of the spectator’s gaze in assigning hierarchical space to performances within the public sphere. Equations of power and transactions between agents of performance and the consumer or between the language of the entitled spectator and subject performers determine the category assigned to a given performance: folk or elite, classic or popular, high or subaltern. The late eighteenth – early nineteenth century in Bengal was a period of political and social transition and of realignment along religious, spatial and intellectual lines. The birth and growth of the metropolitan urban centre (Calcutta), an increasing presence of European residents of both genders in Calcutta and Bengal and the shift of power and influence from Muslim military aristocracy to an European merchant company (The British East India Company), meant that traditional indigenous performances were often thrown open for commentary and judgment to an audience who were largely outsiders and to whom the nuances of language, caste, class, region, ritual signification were matters of academic interest only occasioning descriptive commentaries on the practices in an alien country. In the travelogues and memoirs of Maria Nugent or Fanny Parkes, for instance, rituals, customs or performances were viewed as exemplifying the picturesque ‘otherness’ of an alien race. This paper will focus on evidences within British colonial writings of the early nineteenth century describing what appeared to observers as performances, with which they attempt to conceptualize the native ‘other’ as a cultural trope.

In recent years, with the widespread use of gender approaches in the literature of social sciences, the phenomenon of masculinity has become one of the central issues of the disciplines of sociology and cultural anthropology. In addition, in studies within the sociology of literature and literature, analyzes have gained momentum via conceptualizations such as patriarchy, gender inequality, masculine domination, and masculinity. Considering that novels, which can work on social reality around cultural, political and economic conditions, are a serious object of study for the sociology of literature, it can be understood why these conceptualizations come to the fore front. Eventually, literature does not correspond to an autonomous field outside of social history, and the reality of masculinity is not external to this history. Yaşar Kemal, one of the important representatives of modern Turkish literature, presents the social and cultural structure and relations of production of the period to the reader in his own unique style. The phenomenon of masculinity emerges as the junction point of socio-economic, cultural and political structure and human relations, which it analyzes especially through the Çukurova region. From this point of view, in this study, his novel Akçasazın Ağaları, in which consists of two volumes as Demirciler Çarşısı Cinayeti and Yusufçuk Yusuf, opens to a discussion within the framework of hegemonic masculinity.

Development, in a new purport, requires its own special culture; in a way that it arises from within a particular culture and the same is its backer and supporter. Based on this statement, any state that pursues one of the forms of this development, it must inevitably also provide its cultural context otherwise; development turns into its antithesis. But development-oriented cultural transformation is sometimes accompanied by the omission of some of the pre-existing cultural variables. Cultural anthropology - a study of culture in general meaning – is in the process to recognize, on the one hand, the plurality of cultures by accepting the principle of cultural relativism, and the other hand, consider cultural necessities of development based on a new wave of development and requirement with a value-based approach. With a new branch of anthropology called developmental anthropology, this study with the help of the logic of the lower natives, tries to challenge the developmental elites and make them aware of the consequences of their hasty decisions. In other words, this article intends to analyze the challenge of cultural anthropology and propose some solutions. Today, anthropology seeks to bridge multiple realities of the human world on the one hand, and preserve cultural pluralism as a source of cultural creativity on the other.

The article is devoted to the fight against historical myth-making. The reason for writing the material is the «world discovery» — the time when the Ashevan yurts appeared in the taiga Irtysh region. This became known to «all knowing Wikipedia», indicating the year 1226. A «more modest» date (1296) was mentioned in August 2020 in the Muslim-info newspaper published in Tyumen. The purpose of this article is to refute these historical myths on the basis of scientific and historical facts of the history of Muslims of the Ust-Ishim district of the Omsk region. The author comes to the conclusion that the legend of the birth of the Ashevan yurts in 1226 bears little resemblance to the true «biography» of the village. The described case testifies that in the future, the creation of scientifically grounded «Histories of Siberian villages» is an urgent task for scientists and local historians

The article uses the example of everyday life of Omsk children to study the main leisure practices during the Great Patriotic War. The study examines both personal sources and archival sources. The author examines the leisure time of children in the process of becoming a person. When devoting almost all the time to work, children still found the opportunity to communicate with their peers, develop and devote time to games

Abstract Objectives: to understand the experiences of women from Brazilian northeastern semi-arid in accessing obstetric care. Methods: qualitative research conducted by the methodological framework of ethnonursing, carried out with 13 key informants in a public maternity hospital located in the Cariri region of Ceará in the Brazilian Northeast semiarid. The Observation-Participation-Reflection enablers was adopted for data collection, with observations recorded in a field diary and individual interviews, such as "tell me about". The immersion process in the field lasted five months. The empirical material was submitted to procedures of the data analysis guide for ethno-nursing. Results: from the patterns that emerged empirically, three cultural themes became evident: "It has to be delivered in the hands of God": discursive constructions about prenatal care; "We stay in this endless coming and going": antepartum pilgrimage; "If I were rich, I wouldn't be here": attention received in accessing maternity. Conclusions: in the cultural scenario analyzed, women were inserted in the context of clinical and social weaknesses, violation of rights and dignity, resorting to divine designs in the face of difficulties in accessing obstetric services and pilgrimage to guarantee consultations, exams, and hospitalization for childbirth.

Based on the author’s numerous previous works on the transition from analog to digital music, this paper discusses the notion of the “digital shift”: indeed, in comparison with the analog era of cultural production, digital technologies and their generalization seem to have broken down a number of economic, practical and symbolic barriers. In particular, they seem to encourage an increase in the number of artists by reducing the costs of entering the art market and maximizing the possibilities of access to fame through social networks. They appear to heighten the social well-being of audiences by improving access to a larger number and variety of pieces. They may erase the hierarchy of artistic works by favouring the aesthetics of hybridization and decontextualization. So how can this paradigm shift be integrated into the framework of art theory and art history? How can we think about the anthropological scope of the transformations induced by technical mutations?

In this paper the authors introduce the monographic section on cultural anthropology, social media and web edited by them, presenting some preliminary reflections on these issues in the digital age and discussing briefly the five essays composing the section. Taken together, these essays propose a review of the studies on the topic, deepening some methodological issues relating to digital ethnography, explore strategies and methods of adaptation in different contexts with respect to the use of social media and more generally the web, provide interpretations on the multiple dimensions of change, think of social media as the content that people post, and discuss the political and relational uses of social media.

In this paper the authors introduce the monographic section on cultural anthropology, social media and web edited by them, presenting some preliminary reflections on these issues in the digital age and discussing briefly the five essays composing the section. Taken together, these essays propose a review of the studies on the topic, deepening some methodological issues relating to digital ethnography, explore strategies and methods of adaptation in different contexts with respect to the use of social media and more generally the web, provide interpretations on the multiple dimensions of change, think of social media as the content that people post, and discuss the political and relational uses of social media.

In this work, from the point of view of historical and cultural studies, the issue of memorialization in Omsk in memory of Admiral A. V. Kolchak is analyzed. This question is considered from the standpoint of modern political history of the national and local levels in relation to the development of history as a science and the process of forming the historical memory of the Civil War. The role of specific people who influenced the course of these phenomena in Omsk is highlighted. According to the authors, the example of Omsk clearly shows that sharp controversy and an ambiguous assessment of the events of the Civil War remains in modern Russian society

he purpose of the article is to identify historical and ideological implications of the shift from the traditional Russian sequence: name — middle name — surname to an inverted one: surname — name — middle name. The shift began in 1930–1940s in the Soviet official communication (first of all, in passport data and other documents) and later extended to informal communication. Apart from the spread of multiple rosters and lists, the change in the official naming standard was also caused by the cardinal shift in attitude to a person, a sharp decrease of the status of individuality with the associated decline of respect. Presently, in the informal sphere both naming expressions co-exist (name — middle name — surname and surname — name — middle name), which induces spontaneous norm-setting rules for their use. The current study is based on the related discussions in social media. The common semantics is the same: name — middle name — surname formula is used for the respectful treatment, while the surname — name — middle name formula is regarded as belonging to bureaucratic style. At the same time, it is generally thought that name — middle name — surname sequence should be applied to the living, friends, esteemed persons with high profile, people with no criminal record. The surname — name — middle name sequence is more suitable for the dead, foreigners, people of low status or with a criminal record. These unwritten “conventions” may be regarded as “friend or foe” identity markers in different social contexts. The opposition of the official and unofficial persists, but it is not as acute as before. The rules are “elaborated” through specification and concretization of this opposition. Supposedly, such constructions are aimed further than preventing possible communication failures when choosing a particular naming formula; ultimately, these are a means of identity policies delimitation in various social settings.

The subject of the paper is dissonant heritage exemplified by former German villages in Central Poland. The agrarian reform (1944) transformed the local social and cultural landscape by removing its German inhabitants. Today, former German farmsteads are occupied by families of the reform beneficiaries – Polish peasants. The paper is personal as it is based on the postmemory of the author, who used archival sources (including vital records and peasants’ letters of application for the post-German land) and information from his grandmother, who remembers her German neighbours, in an attempt to ‘revive’ the multi-cultural past and those who used to be a part of this landscape. The author outlines the concept of ethnoarchaeological research into the dissonant heritage being a by-product of the agrarian reform (1944) in Poland.

The concept of sacred power exists from the early time to contemporary and obviously causes a great influence upon the medieval concept of power. Assumption of the Church domination during the Middle Ages leads criticists to interpretation King’s power rituals as a secondary to the same of Church. So the Church was assumed as a keeper and inspirator of coronation rituals and distributor of symbols and images to it. In the article author argues that investigation of coronation ritual’s practice can create more complex and multi-dimensional view. Even so evident church ritual as an anointment can became a pattern, filled with actual political events, power conceptions and personal qualities of monarch and other senses. The Church remains a distributor of the pattern, but their interpretation reflected a complex game of different social groups with their interests and ideologies.

This paper highlights the cultural anthropological significance of mountain areas in the context of the linguistic theory of semiotic landscapes. It introduces some key points of cultural anthropology and its European tradition, the main insights of which are owed to French anthropologists. Although these anthropologists include some rural related phenomena in their work, they predominantly focus on urban structures when speaking about landscape. Therefore, the present paper addresses the question of the role of uninhabited areas, such as mountains, and their significance for cultural anthropological research. This is linked to the semiotic ground of linguistic relevance in space. Structures are identified, which can explain the cultural anthropological meaning of certain mountain areas by the inclusion of semiotic landscapes. Thus, the interaction of language and environment is brought into focus. Selected examples are used to illustrate what function places perform through the interplay of language and space.

In Memory of Professor Wojciech Józef Burszta The text is dedicated to the memory of Professor Wojciech J. Burszta. Pamięci Profesora Wojciecha Józefa Burszty Tekst poświęcony pamięci Profesora Wojciecha J. Burszty.

Wojciech J. Burszta (22 March 1957 – 5 February 2021) The text is dedicated to the memory of Professor Wojciech J. Burszta. Wojciech J. Burszta (22 marca 1957 – 5 lutego 2021) Tekst poświęcony pamięci Profesora Wojciecha J. Burszty.

In this Article, I have analyzed the philosophical grounds on which stands the conception of law implied in legal transplants. On the one hand, behind the idea of legal transplants lurks the misleading assumption that two different legal cultures share common epistemological accounts of what is meant by law; on the other, the idea that a certain legal institution verbally framed may be exported to another culture and touch off similar interpretations and conceptual performances reflects, at its core, a conception of language based on an isomorphic correspondence between legal words and the meanings those words are to stand for. My goal has been to critically expose the philosophical backdrop that lies behind the conception of law implied in the idea of a legal transplant with an eye to the cultural perspective. To this end, I have availed myself of different but convergent perspectives gathered from Wittgenstein’s pragmatic philosophy of language, Geertz’s cultural anthropology, Eco’s semiology, Harris’ integrational epistemology, and Rosen’s cultural theory of law, as a methodological strategy to spotlight different facets of the problem in three dimensions: Language, knowledge, and law.