{"title":"The Role of Place-Lore in Environmental Conflict Discourse: The Case of Paluküla Sacred Hill in Estonia","authors":"Lona Päll","doi":"10.2478/jef-2021-0024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2021-0024","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article is a critical study of how local place-related narratives, i.e. place-lore, is integrated into environmental discussion and how it has significant potential to illustrate local and public, as well as vernacular and institutional, meanings concerned with the environment. Combining the frameworks of ecosemiotics, environmental communication studies, and place-lore research, the article explores how a new storytelling context, ideological selection, and the logic of conflict communication influence the re-contextualisation and interpretation of place-lore. The theory is applied to an empirical examination of public discussion of Paluküla sacred hill in Central Estonia. Tracking references to previous place-lore about Paluküla Hill in the media coverage of the conflict allows a demonstration of how the contextuality and referentiality towards an extra-narrative environment that are originally present in place-lore are often overlooked or ignored in conflict discourse. This, in turn, leads to socially and ecologically disconnected discussion.","PeriodicalId":37405,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics","volume":"15 1","pages":"198 - 220"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44353804","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":"Book Review: Landscape, Ritual, and Identity Among the Hyolmo of Nepal: Vitality of Indigenous Religions","authors":"K. D. Bhutia","doi":"10.2478/jef-2021-0029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2021-0029","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37405,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics","volume":"15 1","pages":"262 - 264"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47202375","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":"Ossetian Ritual Feasts and Transpersonal Experience: Re-Description of a Religion as a Religious Practice","authors":"Sergei Shtyrkov","doi":"10.2478/jef-2021-0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2021-0018","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The protest of the North Ossetian nativist religious movement against discourses of dominant institutions in the public sphere involves as its necessary component ‘re-description’ of religion in general and ‘re-constructed’ religious systems in particular. Usually, this means revealing allegedly forgotten ancient meanings of indigenous customs, rituals and folklore texts through the use of various concepts taken from esotericism and/or practical psychology. The language for this re-description is provided by conceptual apparatus developed by New Age movements. Of particular interest in this respect is the language of ‘new science’, ‘alternative history’, ‘transpersonal psychology’, etc., employed as a tool for criticising the established system of Christian-centric understanding of what religion is and what its social functions are.","PeriodicalId":37405,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics","volume":"15 1","pages":"74 - 88"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47265588","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":"Digesting the Finnish Nature and Past: Food, Pastness, and the Naturalness of the National in the Wiki-Inventory for Living Heritage","authors":"Heidi Henriikka Mäkelä","doi":"10.2478/jef-2021-0019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2021-0019","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article examines the inventorying of Finnish intangible cultural heritage with regard to UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. I analyse the participatory Wiki-inventory for Living Heritage, concentrating on entries that discuss food and foodways to study how food, materiality, and the national intertwine with practices of producing intangible cultural heritage. The article’s theoretical background draws from the fields of banal nationalism and critical heritage studies. Food is eminently important in narratives of Finnishness: by using the concepts of naturalness and pastness, I show how Finnish food becomes interpreted as ‘authentic’ Finnish heritage. The concepts illuminate the complex processes in which the materiality of food, the Finnish terroir and landscape, narratives of the past, and the consumer who prepares, eats, and digests the heritagised food are tied to each other. These processes reinforce the banality of Finnishness, although the practices of inventorying paradoxically strive for the ideal of cultural diversity that UNESCO promotes.","PeriodicalId":37405,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics","volume":"15 1","pages":"89 - 111"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48073143","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":"Book Review: Folklore in Baltic History: Resistance and Resurgence","authors":"Kaisa Langer","doi":"10.2478/jef-2021-0027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2021-0027","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37405,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics","volume":"15 1","pages":"257 - 259"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44920582","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 Cannot Pray Without Kumyshka”: Alcohol in Udmurt Ritual Life","authors":"E. Toulouze, Laur Vallikivi","doi":"10.2478/jef-2021-0025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2021-0025","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract We trace the history of the uses of the alcoholic drink known as kumyshka among the Udmurt. Our focus is on kumyshka’s ritual uses both in public and domestic contexts in the second half of the 19th century, the early 20th century as well as the early 21st century. We suggest that kumyshka not only represents a site of resistance to the dominant religious regime, i.e. Russian Orthodoxy, but is also a tool for self-enhancement and identity making for this indigenous people in the Volga River basin in Central Russia. The consumption of kumyshka has been a frequent object of criticism in the accounts of Orthodox clergy, scholars, doctors, travellers and administrators. Most accounts show a moralising stance, which only occasionally reflects the local understandings behind its uses. As anthropologists working in the region, we compare these historical sources with the current practices. We discuss changes in the religious sphere as well as in gender roles related to the uses of kumyshka.","PeriodicalId":37405,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics","volume":"15 1","pages":"221 - 239"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69219255","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":"“You Have No Story, Yet!” The Role of the Online Community in Shaping Women’s ‘My Stories’ About the Journey to Motherhood","authors":"Maili Pilt","doi":"10.2478/jef-2021-0021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2021-0021","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article offers a folkloristic analysis of telling personal experience stories in the Estonian Midwives Association’s Family School discussion forum (www.perekool.ee), focusing on the Conception, Pregnancy and Childbirth sub-forums. In the article women’s My Stories about their journey to motherhood are under discussion. The central question is how the practice of telling these stories is shaped and affected by the peculiarities of the online community, its communication space, traditions, and daily operation. The article seeks to answer this question in relation to the following topics: accepted and non-accepted topics and experiences; the message of the stories; the structure of the stories; vocabulary competence; and the style of storytelling. From the theoretical perspective, the focus is on participatory storytelling, that is, on the interplay of the specific online environment, narrator, story, and group, as well as the process by which the teller and the audience co-create the stories.","PeriodicalId":37405,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics","volume":"15 1","pages":"135 - 158"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48897230","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":"Ancient Wisdom, Stigmatised Knowledge, and Sacred Landscapes: Ontologies and Epistemologies of New Age Culture in Post-Soviet Russia","authors":"A. Panchenko","doi":"10.2478/jef-2021-0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2021-0014","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The four articles in this section deal with anthropological study of New Age beliefs and practices in post-Soviet Russia. They are in part the result of a joint German–Russian research project titled New Religious Cultures in Late Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia: Ideology, Social Networks, Discourses, supported by the German Research Foundation and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research. In this introductory paper I will briefly discuss the principal outcomes of this research as well as general analytical issues related to the field of New Age studies both in global and local (post-Soviet) contexts.","PeriodicalId":37405,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics","volume":"15 1","pages":"19 - 24"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43226849","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":"Alternative Archaeology and New Age Traditionalism in Contemporary Russia","authors":"Andrei Tiukhtiaev","doi":"10.2478/jef-2021-0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2021-0017","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article examines how esoteric traditionalism in contemporary Russia searches for legitimisation using alternative archaeology. Although New Age spirituality is often considered a private religion, some of its manifestations have a significant impact on the public sphere. The author demonstrates that the New Age in Russia contributes to redefining of categories of religion, science, and cultural heritage through the construction of sacred sites and discursive opposition to academic knowledge. The research is based on analysis of media products that present esoteric interpretations of archaeological sites in southern Russia and ethnographic data collected in a pilgrimage to the dolmens of the Krasnodar region.","PeriodicalId":37405,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics","volume":"15 1","pages":"63 - 73"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49519950","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":"Book Review: Orthodox Revivalism in Russia: Driving Forces and Moral Quests","authors":"Irina Paert","doi":"10.2478/jef-2021-0028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2021-0028","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37405,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics","volume":"15 1","pages":"260 - 261"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42187813","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}