In addition to fights at particular front-lines, war conflicts influence the otherwise quite calm life in the hinterland areas as well. This manifests itself not only in material poverty of the people living in the hinterland areas, but also by infringements of close and wider family relationship. The young men, who must go fighting, leave at home not only their parents, grand-parents, brothers and sisters and other relatives, but very often also their girl-friends, fiancées, wives as well as children. No one of them knows whether they will meet again. This is a big intrusion into existing and possible future family relations, of course.
On a particular example, the text follows two young people separated by the call-up order during World War I (in spring 1915), their fates, better said how their fates were passed on in family memories within the space of almost one century, namely from the World War I up to the outset of the 21st century. The reflexion of this family story passed down from generation to generation in its basic outlines, showed itself in a quite different light after almost one hundred years, than it was passed on through family gatherings and repeated narrations over a long period.
Contemporary theorists of family and kinship emphasize its fluidness. Processes of mating and becoming parents do not have clear rules and people must explicitly define their partner commitments and family arrangements. I explore the ways surnames are employed in the negotiation of kinship and making it obvious. Focusing on women’s perspective, I analyzed data downloaded from internet chats where (mostly female) participants discussed family-related topics. Findings confirm the the negotiated nature of family relationships and illustrate how social norms are being reinterpreted and accomodated to particular situations. As a result of a number of repartnered families, biological kinship loses its importance in defining close kin relationships, and instead their social and emotional basis is emphasized. The norm of nuclear family sharing a surname is challened and alternatives are prefered by some women, despite being restricted by less flexible codified norms.
Die vorliegende Studie befasst sich mit der Frage der Bedeutung der Verwandschaft im Industriegebiet von Ostrava (Ostrau). Sie ist auf Grund einer in einer ausgewählten Gemeinde unweit des Industriezentrums, in Vřesina, vorgenommenen Forschung bearbeitet. Der Grossteil der Bevölkerung ist in der Industrie tätig, lebt aber trotzdem dauernd in der Geburtsgemeinde, in einem traditionellen Milieu. Das ganze Leben der Dorfbevölkerung wird von vielen traditionellen Momenten beeinflusst. Die Integration der Bevölkerung wird zum Grossteil gerade durch das dichte Netz von Verwandschaftsbeziehungen innerhalb der Gemeinde gefördert. Wir werden darauf schon durch das häufige Vorkommen derselben Familiennamen hingewiesen, in Vřesina sind es die Familiennamen Martiník, Bárta, Hurnik. Die Einzelpersonen und auch die Familien werden durch verschiedene Spitznamen voneinander unterschieden, die den Bewohnern üblich und unerlässlich erscheinen. Nahe Verwandte werden mit dem zusammenfassenden Termin "Familie" bezeichnet. Der Ausdruck "Familie" wird hier also in zweierlei Sinn verwendet. Er bezeichnet einerseits eine individuelle Familie (die individuelle Familie ist hier die einzig existierende Form des Familienzusammenlebens), andererseits den Kreis naher Verwandter. Zur Bezeichnung und Anrede der Verwandten verwendet man häufig die traditionellen lokalen Verwandschaftstermine, nach und nach gelangt aber immer mehr der Gebrauch der aus der Schriftssprache übernommenen allgemein gültigen Termine zur Anwendung. Die Beziehungen gegenüber allen Verwandten sind nicht gleichwertig, sie sind in gewisser Weise abgestuft. Die grösste Ehrerbietung erweist man den Urgrosseltern. Fast ebenso werden die Paten geehrt. Man entnimmt sie gewöhnlich den Reihen der Verwandten, die Patenschaft verschleiert aber in ihrer Bedeutung die ursprüngliche Verwandschaftbeziehung und wird für wichtiger angesehen. and Článek zahrnuje poznámkový aparát
The cooperation and prosociality are among traditional research issues in many scholarly disciplines, whereby they also have received attention in ethnology. In the text I address the complex relationship between forms of cooperation and kinship. My aim is to analyse particular types of cooperation recorded during ethnographic research and to show what mechanisms support its effective functioning. When resolving this research issue I apply the theoretical perspective of evolutionary anthropology, which is a powerful tool to explain how universal characteristics, such as cooperation, manifest themselves in different social and cultural contexts. The treatise is based on empirical data collected during ethnographic research in a rural setting in western Slovakia. Long-term ethnographic research based on the method of ethnographic interviewing and participant observation makes it possible to describe and analyse all the nuances of cooperation in a particular locality. The village in which the research took place is located in the White Carpathians near the border with the Czech Republic, and it features a scattered settlement. The treatise analyses specific mechanisms supporting the functioning and maintenance of cooperation in the locality: kinship, reciprocity (direct and indirect) and reputation. As resulting from the data analysis, the people do not limit cooperation to close or distant relatives. The choice of a cooperation partner depends on many factors, with the degree of kinship being only one of them.
This review article focuses on two aspects of Lévi-Strauss’ ex change theory: temporal dimension and gender. First, we examine its diachronic dimension to argue that Lévi-Strauss’ exchange theory is far from being static. Its primary interest is evolutionary, regardless of how much Lévi-Strauss distances himself from evolutionism of the 19th century as a paradigm. His analyses of kinship that attempt to identify elementary structures are meant to shed light on the origins of human culture. Although Lévi-Strauss uses different methodology than other scholars interested in socio-cultural evolution, his treatment of the term homology, discussions of primatology and origins of culture suggest his deep interest in long-term process. Second, we examine the critiques of Lévi-Strauss’ analytical treatment of women as passive objects of exchange among men. Through the discussion of feminine agency, personhood, sexuality, and other forms of exchange of human beings, we argue that Lévi-Strauss’ exchange of women has to be understood in its historical context. He grants only limited agency to women but his approach is definitely not based on commodification of women. In contrast, the relational nature of persons as signs refutes such logic. We conclude that Lévi-Strauss is still a source of inspiration for anthropology regardless of the decades of post-structuralist criticism. and Daniel Sosna, Jitka Kotalová.
The article, based on the study of a wide scope of literature available on the Minangkabau of West Sumatra, Indonesia, as well as on the author’s own previous ethnographic research, describes the peculiar functional symbiosis of two cultural traditions: social organization based on the principals of matrilineal kinship and institutionalized male migration, viewed from both a structural and a historical perspective. It thus provides a summary of the current state of knowledge about the problem preliminary to further field research planned by the author beginning from July of this year, which will focus on new developments resulting from major socio-political changes in the Indonesian society in the last 10 years since the fall of the regime of President Suharto.
This study aims to analyse the representation of adoption in the novels of contemporary Czech prose writers Tereza Boučková (Rok kohouta, Year of the Rooster, 2007), Viktorie Hanišová (Anežka, 2015) and Dita Táborská (Malinka, 2017) within the context of cultural changes in the perception of kinship. The texts under review are examined from the standpoint of literary anthropology, taking special account of the category of literary representation. This study also reflects the pragmatics of literature, endeavouring to consider any influence of the literary representation of adoption on the creation of a society-wide normative climate for the various forms of socialbehavioural kinship. The basis for this is the finding that Czech literary prose over the last two decades has often sought answers to the issues surrounding the dynamic transformation of kinship and family structures. The old hegemonic model of the heterosexual couple bringing up their biological offspring has been “forced” to give up some of its social and cultural space to newly arising forms of family coexistence. One of the poles of conflict between the high visibility of biologically reproduced kinship and social-behavioural kinship is currently that of adoption. This study attempts to answer the questions over why these prose writers generally paint a negative picture of adoption, and why this subject has for so long been a blank space in Czech literary prose, and not least, whether in this case literature is just another medium that reinforces prejudices against adoption, playing a role in the social stigmatization both of adopted children and adoptive parents. and Studie si klade za cíl provést analýzu reprezentace adopce v románech současných českých prozaiček Terezy Boučkové (Rok kohouta, 2007), Viktorie Hanišové (Anežka, 2015) a Dity Táborské (Malinka, 2017) v kontextu kulturních proměn vnímání příbuzenství. Na zkoumané texty je nahlíženo z perspektivy literární antropologie, a to se zvláštním přihlédnutím ke kategorii literární reprezentace. Studie zohledňuje také pragmatiku literatury, neboť se pokouší o zamyšlení nad případným vlivem literárního ztvárnění adopce na vytváření celospolečenského normativního klimatu pro různé formy sociálně-behaviorálního příbuzenství. Východiskem je zjištění, že česká umělecká próza posledních dvou dekád často hledala odpovědi na dynamickou transformaci příbuzenských a rodinných struktur. Doposud hegemonní model heterosexuálního páru vychovávajícího své biologické potomky byl „donucen“ uvolnit část společenského a kulturního prostoru nově vznikajícím formám rodinného soužití. Jedním z polí, na němž dochází ke střetu mezi očividností reprodukčně-biologického příbuzenství a sociálně-behaviorálním příbuzenstvím, je v současnosti adopce. Studie se snaží odpovědět na otázky, proč prozaičky kreslí vesměs negativní obraz adopce, proč bylo dané téma tak dlouho bílým místem české umělecké prózy a v neposlední řadě, zda je v tom případě literatura dalším médiem posilujícím předsudky vůči adopcím, které se podílí na společenské stigmatizaci jak adoptovaných dětí, tak i adoptivních rodičů.
The article is focused on the social-anthropological studies of kinship and gender with a special attention to the development of this field in the past two decades in the Czech Republic. The text brings an overview of the intellectual history of some crucial problems in kinship and gender studies within the framework of social anthropology and related disciplines. Furthermore, it answers the question to what extent and in which areas the theories, methods and topics of social-anthropological kinship and gender studies have found their place in the contemporary Czech Republic., Lenka J. Budilová., and Obsahuje odkazy pod čarou
The present study focuses on the vertical social mobility in the cities of the Early Modern Era. On the example of the city Slaný it demonstrates the mechanism through which the burghers tried to gain entrance to the elite stratum. On chosen individuals also tries to capture their personal motivations. It also outlines the changes brought by the development after the battle on the White Mountain. and Josef Kadeřábek.
The article presents an ethnographic description of a cycle of marriage rituals as observed by the author in the Minangkabau village of Sulit Air, located in West Sumatra, Indonesia and provides an interpretation of what they tell us about the networks of matrilineal kinship that crisscross the community spanning from the village to the cities where its inhabitants migrate in search of economic betterment, especially some female techniques of maintenance of these networks.