{"title":"Recording One’s Own Oral Culture: A Case Study of Locals’ Notebooks","authors":"Diana Mihuț","doi":"10.57225/martor.2022.27.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.57225/martor.2022.27.05","url":null,"abstract":"Interest towards communities characterized by oral tradition has taken the form of ethnological and/or anthropological field research on this topic over the past two centuries. With the invention of the tape recorder, the difficulty of recording field information was reduced as it enabled real-time recording of testimonies provided by informants; the process became even more accessible once digital information storage became available. In parallel with the efforts of the researcher—outsider—to document realities considered relevant for the culture of traditional societies, some of the insiders became aware of the need to write down such information, which they recognized to be defining for their own social group. This article thus focuses on a particular practice in writing down ethnographic information, namely the existence of notebooks in which oral texts of different types and with different functions are recorded. To build the argument, I draw on the example of such notebooks held by the Folklore Archive of the West University of Timișoara, namely five manuscripts signed by Gheorghe Andraș, a teacher from Sânnicolau Mare, a small town in western Romania. Written in the first half of the twentieth century, these notebooks are statements of the inner calling their author felt to write down this type of ethnographic information, under the influence of national policies supporting ethnographic field research.","PeriodicalId":324681,"journal":{"name":"Martor. The Museum of the Romanian Peasant Anthropology Review","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130871920","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A. Iuga, Frosa PEJOSKA-BOUCHEREAU, Krassimira Krastanova, Corina Iosif
{"title":"Introduction. From Transcribing Orality to Oral Practices of Writing","authors":"A. Iuga, Frosa PEJOSKA-BOUCHEREAU, Krassimira Krastanova, Corina Iosif","doi":"10.57225/martor.2022.27.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.57225/martor.2022.27.01","url":null,"abstract":"This special issue of Martor problematizes the complex relationship between the written and the oral in the production of meaning that defines “traditions,” community and group relations, in different contexts of change (post-communism, migration, the use of hypermedia, storytelling and so on). It approaches the new ways orality is found in contemporary societies, but also open avenues for methodological discussions in ethnological research regarding the phenomenon of orality in contemporary societies, dominated by history and written texts.","PeriodicalId":324681,"journal":{"name":"Martor. The Museum of the Romanian Peasant Anthropology Review","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121804518","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Heritage-making: Written Texts in the Transmission of Traditional Knowledge of Natural Dyeing","authors":"Anete Karlsone","doi":"10.57225/martor.2022.27.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.57225/martor.2022.27.02","url":null,"abstract":"Natural dyeing is an element of intangible cultural heritage which is gaining new relevance today. Heritage-making as a set of purposeful activities has become an object of interest for researchers relatively recently, and this study is reflective of that. The paper aims to focus on natural dyeing as a component of cultural heritage, its documentation process, and how written texts have influenced the living tradition of natural dyeing. One of the sources for the study was ethnographic material, which provides insight into the little researched tradition of natural dyeing. To understand how the tradition was described and explained, Latvian press publications on natural dyeing were evaluated by applying qualitative and quantitative research methods. In order to study the situation today, a survey was conducted in 2016 and 2017 among dyeing workshop participants in different parts of Latvia. The results of the study indicate that the use of written sources plays an important role in practicing natural dyeing. With various activities organized by professional and amateur ethnographers, artists, handicraft teachers, etc., as well as its coverage in the press, natural dyeing has preserved its relevance. Written texts have documented the activities in the field of natural dyeing and encouraged further development of the tradition. Moreover, various sources have been used to preserve and develop dyeing skills, through both direct observation/oral tradition and written/visual materials. In addition, one’s personal experience as a significant part of the construction of identity was relevant in the past and still is today.","PeriodicalId":324681,"journal":{"name":"Martor. The Museum of the Romanian Peasant Anthropology Review","volume":"72 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124702816","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“We Start Our Lives from Different Positions.” A Dialogue","authors":"A. Șerban, C. Tesăr","doi":"10.57225/martor.2020.25.12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.57225/martor.2020.25.12","url":null,"abstract":"Alina Șerban is an award-winning film and theater actress, playwright, and emerging director of Roma origin. Born in Bucharest in 1987, she overcame poverty and discrimination, becoming the first in her family to graduate from university and to continue her studies abroad. She pioneered Roma feminist political theater in Romania with her one-woman show I Declare at My Own Risk. In cinema, she had leading roles in Marta Bergman’s feature film Alone at My Wedding, which premiered at the Cannes International Film Festival in 2018 and earned her several Best Actress awards, and in Huseyin Tabak’s Gipsy Queen, which had its premiere in 2019 and earned her, among other awards, The Best Actress in Germany in 2020. She has recently debuted in film directing with a short about Roma slavery. In the interview conducted with her, this issue co-editor Cătălina Tesăr followed three lines of inquiry: (1) how ethnicity influenced Alina’s life trajectory and her career, (2) how Alina perceives the representation of Roma in art and public spaces, and (3) how she perceives early age marriages. The interview was conducted on the phone, and Cătălina and Alina had not met in person prior to the interview.","PeriodicalId":324681,"journal":{"name":"Martor. The Museum of the Romanian Peasant Anthropology Review","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114783000","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Parents, Children, Marriage: Bulgarian Courts’ View on Romani Marriage-making","authors":"M. Nikolova","doi":"10.57225/martor.2020.25.09","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.57225/martor.2020.25.09","url":null,"abstract":"This commentary deals with customary early marriages as practiced by some Romani communities in Bulgaria, and the ways in which they are represented in judgments issued by the criminal courts. It traces the legal routes by which this practice is prosecuted, explores who typically faces charges under the relevant criminal texts, and provides examples from case law. The main aims of the text are to demonstrate the value of court records as sources for ethnographic enquiry, to offer examples of the application of these sources to projects of interest to (legal) anthropology, and to encourage their use by both social scientists and lawyers.","PeriodicalId":324681,"journal":{"name":"Martor. The Museum of the Romanian Peasant Anthropology Review","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128549035","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"There is a Love Story in Everything. A Subjective Chronicle of Sentiments and Fear of God in a Romanian Tsiganie","authors":"Jonathan Larcher","doi":"10.57225/martor.2020.25.07","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.57225/martor.2020.25.07","url":null,"abstract":"This text reflects back on my research in a Roma/Gypsy settlement, or țigănie, as my interlocutors called it, in Dițești, a village eighty kilometers north of Bucharest. The main focus lies on field notes and stories that emerged out of my doctoral research. At the center of the analysis, I place my love relationship and marriage to Maria, whom I met during my field research in the țigănie, as I try to account for how love and couple formation are experienced by the youth and how they are apprehended by their parents Deep within the love stories, the affective geography of the village is defined, as well as a moral order where “fear of God” (frica de Dumnezeu) weighs as much on the sexual desires of young couples as it does on the parents’ choices and interventions in their children’s love life.","PeriodicalId":324681,"journal":{"name":"Martor. The Museum of the Romanian Peasant Anthropology Review","volume":"95 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121878907","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction: Roma Marriage-Making, Between the Constraints of “Tradition” and the “Choices” of Liberalization","authors":"A. Chirițoiu, C. Tesăr","doi":"10.57225/martor.2020.25.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.57225/martor.2020.25.01","url":null,"abstract":"The article presents the MARTOR issue, that brings together in-depth accounts and analyses—ethnographic, legal, dialogic, and visual—of marriage-making processes among various Roma populations in Central and Eastern Europe, and accounts for how marriage can be at once a means of change, and a vehicle of continuity. Furthermore, it shows how marriage mediates between affects and social hierarchies, and between individual aspirations and collective moralities, and how it legitimizes such heterogenous, and even contradictory claims to “identity” as those espoused by so-called traditional groups, and by “assimilated” Roma.","PeriodicalId":324681,"journal":{"name":"Martor. The Museum of the Romanian Peasant Anthropology Review","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115593970","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The marriage between our families has ended the enmity]. Genealogy of a Marriage","authors":"Gregoire Cousin","doi":"10.57225/martor.2020.25.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.57225/martor.2020.25.04","url":null,"abstract":"The outcome of an inquiry into a family saga, this article discusses gender relations in a Roma community in eastern Romania. Focusing on the events and negotiations that lead to the establishing of a marriage, I show how the apparent male domination is nuanced by the sometimes victorious struggles of women to impose their own choices. Observing marriages and their structures from the viewpoint of the women involved, this work both provides new empirical knowledge and sheds light on the male bias in anthropological research of kinship structures.","PeriodicalId":324681,"journal":{"name":"Martor. The Museum of the Romanian Peasant Anthropology Review","volume":"427 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126724101","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Roma Women between Romni Status and Sexual Democracy: An Essay in Feminist Anthropology","authors":"Iulia Hașdeu","doi":"10.57225/martor.2020.25.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.57225/martor.2020.25.11","url":null,"abstract":"The article draws on more than fifteen years of ethnographic experience among Romanian Roma in different local and national contexts and on classical anthropological literature on marriage. Its aim is to highlight the importance of women as individual and collective subjects within marriage, deemed to be as much an alliance as it is conjugality, meaning a significant relation and a space “of her own.” This is considered in two main domains: (1) the acknowledgement of the value of women as exchange items by women themselves within a “bride-price-like system,” and (2) the role of women as counter-power to the brotherhood-based masculine domination, as played within the purity symbolic order. Last but not least, the article examines how anthropological research focusing on the Roma women’s perspective and subjectivities, whether feminist or not, can contribute to both an understanding of the Roma marriage outside the new public discourse of “sexual democracy” and to a political “sisterhood” position as “we” women against patriarchy and racism.","PeriodicalId":324681,"journal":{"name":"Martor. The Museum of the Romanian Peasant Anthropology Review","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128634437","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Marriage and Family Life of Romanians and Roma: Aspects Reflected in the First Two Modern Romanian Censuses","authors":"B. Mateescu","doi":"10.57225/martor.2020.25.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.57225/martor.2020.25.03","url":null,"abstract":"This research constitutes a historical and micro-demographic approach to the subject of marriage and family. Despite the expected uniformity of many social behaviors or demographic patterns characteristic of a preindustrial society as the one studied here, the Romanian and Roma communities under scrutiny appear to still have been marked by important differences in terms of urban/rural residence, employment, residential status, social status, freedom or lack thereof, differences that had the potential to influence close ties between individuals. Social stratification in urban Wallachia offers the best examples of how domestic service, employment, and slavery can be framed from the point of view of family and private life. Even so, since the field of micro-demographics is relatively new in Romanian historiography, the goals of this paper are not centered on a particular research question. Instead, they are largely exploratory and overlap with those of my unpublished doctoral thesis. I did, however, incorporate the aforementioned contextual elements into the analysis, but as pathways of interpretation, and not starting points of discussion. I used nineteenth-century population lists to glean as much as I could on marriage, widowhood, the presence of children, and overall belonging to a nuclear family. Next, I translated the data thus gleaned into different indicators, which I then applied in analyzing different population groups, with a focus on Romanians and Roma. The sources I used are the first two general modern censuses in Romanian history, which were conducted in 1838 in Wallachia and 1859 in Moldavia.","PeriodicalId":324681,"journal":{"name":"Martor. The Museum of the Romanian Peasant Anthropology Review","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122956276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}