Rules and Norms, Freedom, and Regulation: The 15th Congress of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF)

The review of the 15th Congress of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF), one of the first virtual events of such a scale, highlights modern tendencies in anthropology, ethnology, and folklore. The authors of the review observe the growing interdisciplinarity, the use of adjacent disciplines, and the politization and socialization of the traditional academic research. The Congress’s eighteen streams included topics customary for the SIEF congresses (“Archives & Sources”, “Narratives”, “Food”, “Material Culture and Museums”, etc.) as well as new ones (“Posthumanism”, “Intersectionality”), with over 1000 presentations in total. There is a detailed overview of several panels and streams, including those dedicated to the new folklore and changes in rituals due to the pandemic. The authors note the broadening geography of the participants and, as a result, the increasing number of academic traditions covered at the Congress, which was possible partly thanks to the virtual format.