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Tucked away in the Italian Alps, in the town of Oberbozen-Soprabolzano lies the villa that the family of Bronislaw Malinowski and his first wife, Elsie Masson, called home from 1922 to 1935. Yet Malinowski himself never wrote about South Tyrol or the Alps in general. This volume features a series of essays that explicitly ponder Malinowski’s intriguing influence on Alpine anthropology: Despite not having worked directly in or on the Alps, he nonetheless left anthropological traces through the works of others. The Malinowski Forum for Ethnography (MFEA) aims to uncover the ineffable presence in Alpine anthropology of Malinowski, a founder of modern social anthropology.

Comparative studies of mountain areas have long been at the core of the discussion about the relations between nature and culture as well as on environmental and social change. This volume searches for ways to develop further critical comparative perspectives in the study of cultures in mountain areas by drawing inter- and transdisciplinary links amongst anthropology, geography, folklore studies, montology, and global history. Drawing on examples mostly from the Alps and the Andes, but also extending to the global mountains, the authors explore socioecological environments, historical and political processes, borderscapes, demographic dynamics, forms of domestic organization, rituals, religiosities, and human-non-humanrelations., Gli studi comparativi sulle aree montane sono da tempo al centro del dibattito sul rapporto tra natura e cultura e sui cambiamenti ecologici e sociali. Questo volume è alla ricerca di nuovi percorsi per sviluppare ulteriormente prospettive comparative critiche per lo studio delle culture delle aree montane, tracciando collegamenti inter- e transdisciplinari tra antropologia, geografia, studi di folklore, montologia e storia globale. Basandosi su esempi provenienti soprattutto dalle Alpi e dalle Ande, ma estendendo l’orizzonte anche ad altre regioni montane a livello globale, le autrici e gli autori esplorano ambienti socio-ecologici, processi storici e politici, paesaggi di confine, dinamiche demografiche, forme di organizzazione domestica, rituali, religiosità e relazioni tra umani e non-umani., Vergleichende Studien über Bergregionen stehen seit langem im Zentrum der Debatte über das Verhältnis zwischen Natur und Kultur sowie über den ökologischen und sozialen Wandel. Dieser Band sucht nach Wegen, kritische vergleichende Perspektiven in der Erforschung von Kulturen in Bergregionen weiterzuentwickeln, indem er inter- und transdisziplinäre Verbindungen zwischen Anthropologie, Geographie, Volkskunde, Montologie und (Welt-)Geschichte herstellt. Anhand von Beispielen vor allem aus den Alpen und den Anden, aber auch aus anderen Gebirgsregionen der Welt, untersuchen die Autor:innen sozioökologische Umwelten, historische und politische Prozesse, Grenzlandschaften, demografische Dynamiken, Formen der häuslichen Organisation, Rituale, Religiosität und Mensch-/Nicht-Mensch-Beziehungen.