Krakow as an intercultural environment: a photoessay

The photograph shows me and a friend toasting drinks. It was taken on the 6th of November. That night, a few friends and I were watching football while having some drinks in a bar. After we received our drinks, we toasted. The toast in the photograph above is staged, as I did not think of taking a picture the first time. The issue with the eye-contact came up later and that is when I asked my friend to pose his drink for me. I noticed that two of the Slovak guys who were sitting on our table looked the person they were toasting in the eyes, while the Romanian guy with us did not. In Macedonian drinking culture, not looking the person you are toasting in the eye is seen as insulting, or more specifically, as far as I know, is insulting towards your mother. I asked the guys if looking people in the eyes while toasting is common in their culture. The Slovak guys replied yes, while the Romanian was confused. We explained to him how eye contact is very important when toasting. The Romanian found this act of nonverbal communication amusing and pointless. It was interesting to see his reaction to an act that seems very normal and commonly known in my culture. Although, there is no real use of the act, in Macedonian culture it is seen as necessary to show your respect for your companion. The act is usually seen as common sense in Macedonia, and apparently in Slovakia as well. Yet, common sense differs across culture, as it is formed through experiences. Specifically, through experiences within a certain culture. For the Romanian in our group, eye contact seemed silly, and he jokingly asked us what he would have to do if several people toast at once. Would he frantically try to look everybody in the eye?

While explaining the act, the Slovak guys and I realized we were giving different meanings. Although, eye contact while toasting is present in their culture, it was for a different reason than in my culture. In other words, avoiding eye contact in Macedonian culture is an insult, while in Slovak it means bad luck. The different interpretations of this act show a glimpse of the two cultures which are embedded in our unconsciousness. Various assumptions can be made on a person’s culture concerning his interpretation of an act. For example, I may assume that because the act in Macedonia is done to avoid insulting my companion that respect is a valued factor where I come from. Being shown a glimpse of Slovak culture, such as acting to avoid personal misfortune, can lead to an assumption that it is a more individualistic society. Certainly, these assumptions can be debated and argued, they are simply examples of how one can gain a glimpse of another person’s culture through communication.

I have also noticed some differences in verbal communication concerning cultural frameworks. The same friends as before and I had been telling each other jokes about various nationalities and ethnicities (of course, none of us taking the jokes seriously). Nationality and culture-based humor is one that is hard to grasp and understand, because the line of what is allowed and what is not is very thin. It also is very closely tied to a person’s own culture and cultural contact. I told a common joke in Macedonia about an ethnic minority (to which I belong to, in my defense as an anthropology student). The guys did not find it funny, and did not understand the joke. The fact that the joke was funny to me, yet not for the guys turned out to be a funnier situation rather than the joke itself. I tried to explain the meaning of the joke, which is tied to stereotypes about that ethnicity in Macedonia, yet the joke still was not funny. This minor miscommunication struck me as very interesting. Here, the common language of discussion between my friends and I is English. All of us speak the language quiet well, so we have no problem of understanding each other. However, the cultural frameworks of the way we communicate are different.

The “translation” of communication in languages can be difficult. Translating the phrases or explaining them structurally may be easy; however the ability to translate the cultural reference and meaning can be quite difficult. Our native language is interwoven with our native culture, and it affects our way of thinking on a high level. Thinking in a certain language means thinking through a certain cultural background. English was a second language for all of my friends in this case, thus we all had to take the effort of translating whatever we were saying into what we deemed would be understandable and in return translating the communicated messages according to our own way of thinking. People are not always conscious of their culture and differences, especially when they seem to have found a common language. Taking into account that a certain message may not have been communicated or understood exactly the way we would assume it to have been is certainly helpful in such situations. Understanding a new language and culture completely is a long task, and one that certainly cannot be accomplished in one night.

Source used: Lewis, Richard D., When Cultures Collide: Leading Across Cultures, Nicholas Brealey International, 2006.

Gutterman, Alan S. , Trompernaars’ and Hampden-Turner’s Seven Dimensions of Culture, Organizational Management and Administration: A Guide for Managers and Professionals, Thompson Reuters/West, 2010.

Eda Starova

On Colonialism and the Birth of Anthropology

The beginning of the 16th century was marked by Europe’s first big expansion in its history. The political and economic situation in Europe sent the two Iberian kingdoms across the Atlantic, in a race for wealth in which they first witnessed the existence of a new, up to that point unknown civilization. In those moments of initial contact, two different worldviews slowly built over long years of history, collided. The collision caused the spread of countless particles; two cultures broken into their deepest, most hidden aspects of existence were now a subject to a constant comparison and wonder among their members, each of them trying to define itself and the myth that it lives in, through the other. To stare in the eyes of the “Other” meant to transcend beyond the boundaries of one’s “Own world” and face the challenges that lay within this newly born connection. If we try to grasp each culture and society, in Eric Wolf’s sense, as a result of historically interwoven processes, this initial contact between two different societies, in our example between the Iberians and the Native Americans, represented just one of the many interconnected niches between cultures that form the fabric of one world history, in which everything is connected. No human society is left isolated, but is directly or indirectly influenced by the sole existence of other societies. The Indians and the Westerners started building a “common world” by merging the cultural characteristics together. When Europe conquered the world, following Europe’s ideological patterns, its inhabitants helped transforming the world of the non-Europeans in a “modern” direction. The natives or the “peoples without history” in turn, were not passive as it would be expected, but they resisted, adapted to, cooperated with or challenged their new masters and ultimately, although in a subtle way, changed them.  (Wolf, 2010)

It was in a world like this, a world of interchangeable destruction and invention, that anthropology was born. The new contact with the “other” required new ways of thinking in order to fully understand the “new” culture and was also an endless inspiration of a romanticized curiosity and exploration, that has lead the humankind forward ever since the beginning of its existence. In this text, I will try to present the viewpoints of a few influential anthropologists concerning the birth and transformation of anthropology in a close relationship with colonialism and the problems that today’s scientists are facing due to anthropology’s Eurocentric# nature.

2. The Quest to Civilize the Savages#

Being aware of the devastating consequences of the many centuries-long colonization processes on non-European grounds and following the logically developed negative view on colonialism, I believe that it is in each anthropologist’s nature to cringe on the thought of the conditions in which anthropology was born as a science. Today, it is hard to deny the fact that anthropology is a product of Europe’s imperialism and its provider – colonialism.  “Anthropology is an outcome of an historical process, which has made the larger part of mankind subservient to the other, and during which millions of innocent human beings have had their resources plundered, their institutions and beliefs destroyed while they themselves were ruthlessly killed, thrown into bondage, and contaminated by diseases they were unable to resist. Anthropology is the daughter to this era of violence” (Lévi-Strauss, 1966).  At the time of Europe’s internal race for larger portion of the rest of the world, in the occidental# world reigned the concept of social evolution – the idea that human societies are developed in a particular direction. Inspired by Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, what once referred only to the Natural, now found its application in the Social, under the leitmotif: “from lower, to higher; from Indians to Westerners”. This clearly put the West European societies on the pinnacle of human development, giving them the right to civilize their “lower” fellow human beings and show them the path to modernization. This claim was used to justify the colonization process when it was morally and scientifically questioned, but instead lead to devastating results and an enormous loss on cultural diversity (Kröll, 2009, pp. 12-17).

Knowing this and having in mind the very essence of anthropology as a study of humankind by humans makes the discipline be a target of various negative claims about its function and its crucial role in the imperialistic politics during the colonizing process. Anthropology developed itself as a study of the “Unknown” or the “Other#”, placing the anthropologists in a position of direct mediums and informers about the particularities of the new cultures they were studying. Unlike the devastating consequences of the application of the social evolutionism in the physical anthropology, which lead to genocides all over the European colonies, the function that social and cultural anthropologists had during the colonization, receives a milder criticism. Despite the logical remark of Godfrey Wilson that „It is the scientists’ business to undertake (…) patient and objective study, it is the business of government and industry to make use of their results in fashioning out in the present whatever future they desire.”, emphasizing that even if the anthropologists had no direct impact on the administration, the information they produced could be easily taken advantage of for purely political goals. Talal Asad argues, however, that the “knowledge produced by anthropologists was often too esoteric for government use, and even where it was usable it was marginal in comparison to the vast body of information routinely accumulated by merchants, missionaries, and administrators.” (Asad, 1995, p.18) He doesn’t completely reject the possibility of such interactions between the anthropologists and the imperial power, however states that “it is a mistake to view social anthropology in the colonial era as primarily an aid to colonial administration, or as the simple reflection of colonial ideology.“(Asad, 1995, p.18)

3. Anthropology – Decolonized?

Even though the question of whether anthropology had a (direct or indirect) role in politics is disputable, it would be completely wrong to overthrow anthropology’s Eurocentric nature. The self proclamation of the “Westerner” as a pinnacle of human development, made him, seen through his occidental scope, the only one capable of scientific praxis. Anthropology was made by the Europeans in order to be able to testify for the existence of the people that were living in the newly discovered land, which inevitably makes the science Eurocentric. However, ever since the decolonization process has started, the object of anthropological research has slowly begun to shift from “the Other” to “Ourselves”. This has given a chance to the once colonized societies to contribute to the anthropological research, with increasingly gaining literacy and building a middle class capable of doing anthropology. It would be only fair to add though, that despite all the efforts, the anthropological dogmatized Eurocentrism is hard to root out. In her text “The Anthropological Discourse on India: Reason and Its Other”, Veena Das clearly states: “The possibility of transcending their own ideology through an intellectual appropriation of other values is open to the Western anthropologists. But Indian anthropologists have no legitimate way of applying the same method to the ideology of their own culture. The knowledge categories of non-Western cultures are simply unanchored beliefs, whereas the Western categories acquire the status of scientific and objective truths”(Das in: Borofsky 1994, 136.) Speaking about her homeland India, which was once the largest British colony, she brings up the importance of the contribution of Indian anthropologists when it comes to an anthropological research on their culture and society, pointing out the need of representing their country “not as if it were absent and silent”, but quite in the contrary “insert their voices within a plurality of voices in which all kinds of statements- prescriptive, normative, descriptive, indicative – are waging a virtual battle about the nature of Indian society and the legitimate space for social sciences in this society” (Das in: Borofsky 1994, p. 143)

However, Thomas Hylland Eriksen doesn’t ignore the problems that a decentralized anthropology would bring to the field: “This decentralization (and some would say decolonization) of the discipline, although admittedly still modest, has led to new challenges for anthropologists in bringing us closer to our objects of study and, in some cases, engaging in a theoretical dialogue with them”(Eriksen, 2010, p.273).  Roberto Damatta, a Brazilian anthropologist has written exactly on this problem. In “Some Biased Remarks on Interpretivism: A View from Brazil”, he speaks of two different anthropologies; one whose objects are far-away, curious tribes and one whose object is the anthropologist’s own society. He then adds that in both of the cases, there is a certain blindness that has to be taken in account. In traditional anthropology we have the needed distance that has to be kept in order to attain objectivity in the fieldwork on the one hand, but on the other hand we also have the somewhat totemic association between the researcher and the object studied, giving the researcher a certain “authority”, despite the descriptive nature of the ethnography. In the other case, when one is speaking of one’s own culture there is the tendency to replace description with interpretive narration which quickly becomes an “opinion”, but there is also the fact that, unlike in the traditional anthropology, the researcher has to deal with varieties of people in order to do justice to the object investigated. Combining the two different approaches would lead us to a mutual “truth”, in which both the foreign and the domestic anthropologists would have their own say. (Das in: Borofsky 1994, pp.19-34)

4. Epilogue

Despite the numerous (and only rightfully so) prescribed criticisms on early anthropology, I want to believe that there was science done just for the sake of science – that there existed people who undergone through the explorer’s endeavor just to feel the joy of being one of the few who were given the chance to testify for the existence of one other way of being a human. And to learn. Learn from the “Other”. Beside this maybe poetically romanticized view on anthropology as an outcome of pure curiosity and thirst for knowledge, what I believe to be more important is to learn from the mistakes of the anthropologists in the past. Unfortunately, the damage done is irreversible. The only thing left to do is try to destroy the Eurocentric dogma and overcome all the difficulties that lay ahead, by opening the way to all the anthropologists, disregarding of their nationality, to contribute in creating mutual truths about what it actually means to be human and help this unique science develop in the right direction.  

References

Asad, Talal (1995), Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter, London (Neuaufl. 1995); DaMatta, Robert (1994): Some Biased Remarks on Interpretivism: A View from Brazil. In: Robert Borofsky (ed., 1994): Assessing Cultural Anthropology, New York: McGraw-Hill. 119–131.

Das, Veena (1994): The Anthropological Discourse on India: Reason and Its Other. In: Robert  Borofsky (ed.,1994): Assessing Cultural Anthropology, New York: McGraw-Hill. 134-144.

Eriksen, Hylland Thomas (1995): Small Places, Large Issues (2010), Pluto Press. 270-274.

Kröll, Friedhelm (2009): Grundlagen sozialwissenschaftlicher Denkweisen, Wilhelm Braumüller, Universitäts – Verlagbuchhandlung, Wien. 12-17

Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1966): Anthropology: Its Achievement and Future, Current Anthropology

Wolf, Eric Robert (1923): Europe and the People without History, Univ. of California Press, 2010

Marija Grujovska

Етнологија на Власи - Челниците и тајфата

Челниците и тајфата

МИЛЕНИУМСКАТА ИНСТИТУЦИЈА КАЈ АРОМАНЦИТЕ НОМАДИ

(Објавена во  Sociologia Romaneasca, Anul 3, nr. 1-3, lanuarie-Martie 1938, str. 18-23)

Првите историски споменувања за Ароманците датираат од крајот на 10-от век. Најстариот византиски хроничар кој ги споменува е Кедрен. Првиот документ, со сигурна дата (980), во кој се споменати Ароманците, е грамотата на царот Василие 2 Бугароубиецот, зачувана од византискиот хроничар Кекавменос, во својата хроница озаглавена ”Стратегикон”.

Уште од таквите први пројавувања во историјата, тие се представени се две карактеристики, кои, некои од групите ги задржале се до денес:                                              
            1. Тие се претставени како номади “vlahon oditon”, Власи патрици, вели Кедрен, кога зборува за Ароманците, кои како да го убиле, некаде во 976 год., Давид, братот на царот Самоил, зборува за Ароманците, од кои нејзиниот татко, Алексис Комнен, мобилизирал извесен број во својата војска, таа вели:”Тие кои водат номадски живот се нарекуваат со заедничкиот јазик Власи(vlorhos toutous e koini kalein oide dialektos)”.

            2.Тие се прикажани дека имаат задачи кои се нарекуваат,челници. Овие две карактеристики, инаку, се неразделни едната од другата. Институцијата челништво е неразделно поврзана од номадската состојба. Таа се срекава и опстојува се до ден денес само кај номадските групи на Ароманците. Седентарните Ароманци, тие кои се занимаваат со трговија, со занаетчиштво или земјоделство,немаше како да зачуваат толку специфични форми. Тие требаше да се интергрираат во општите норми на општествениот живот на градот или областа каде живеат.

            Што беа, што се челници?

I.                    Што беа во минатот можеме да се замислиме преку составување на мозаикот од она што уште останало од оваа институција и преку аналогија, затоа што детали и податоци не се задржани.

II.                  Зборот челник произлегува од словенскиот збор Чело. Би било, значи, поглавар. Всушност значењето на зборот опфаќа многу повеќе. Кекавмен го прикажува како византиски еквивалент на институцијата Strateg, “strategos” = командант. Ова значи, дека во негово време, во 11-от век, челниците ја имале функијата и на воени команданти. 

Челништвото значи, било слично на кнешевството кај Романците, во времето на процутот на оваа институција, пред формирањето на романските држави. Двета институции, како кнежевството така и челништвото, со текот на времето претрпеле трансформации. Кнежевството најпосле требало да исчезне затоа што било побиено, по планините, со зајакнувањето на Унгарската доминација, а во принципатите беше апсорбирано од влијателната моќ на владетелите. Челништвото, благодарение на помалку приврзаните форми на управувањето на турската администрација, успеало да опстане со векови, задржувајќи се , кај одредени племиња, се до наши дни. Дури последните населби кои произлегоа по одстранувањето на турската власт од областите населени од Ароманците, ќе му стават крај. Еве како изгледаше оваа институција пред 2-3 децении кога го доживеавме ние.

Челникот е водачот на една група фамилии чии што број може да варира од случај во случај, достигнувајќи некаде до 100. Групата се нарекува “falcare”(тајфа). Застанувањето на челникот на чело на групата не е поврзано со формални норми. Богатството, славата, престижот, содредувачките фактори во изградувањето на власта на челникот врз тајфата. Јадрото на тајфата го чини фамилијата, браќата, роднините, потоа луѓето во служба на Челникот : овчарите од неговите стада и мандраџиите на бачилата; најпосле, другите фамилии, кои решиле да се придружат на првичната група. Треба да се забележи, воопшто земено и посбно кај номадите, семејното чуство и роднинската се многу развиени. По правило, синот или братот на ченикот го наследува челникот во раководењето на тајфата, доколку ги поседува неопходните елементи, што ќе го наметнат: богатство, слава, престиж. Односот на послушноста не се засновува врз никаков законски текст. Нема ништо принудно. Власта на челникот е факт што прифаќаат неговите, а за кој водат сметка и властите, без да биде вграден во некако закон или официјална одредба.

Значи, кои би биле обрските на челникот како водач на тајфата ? Челникот е исто времено управител на стопанските интереси на групата, мудрец, родетел и силен заштитник на сите членови од својата тајфа како и на секој поединечно. Челникот застапува, брани и интервенира за целата тајфа, во сите случки кои се јавуваат во односите со надворешниот свет. Тој ги решава сите проблеми на групата во врска со данокот. За членовите на групата данокчија не постои. Работата со данокот е работа на челникот. Целата стоко, овцо, коњи, маски, и така натаму кои го представуваат имотот на секое семејство кое ја чини групата, се смета, во поглед на данокот, дека му припаѓаат на челникот. Значи, нему ќе му се обраќаат сите тие кои имаат нешто во врска со овој имот.

Тајфата ја гледаме, како совршена стопанска и општествена целина. Таа е еден вид идеална кооперативна, без статути и правилници, без сложените книговодствени регистри, но од друга страна кој има субстрат на неуништувачко братство, солидарност, кои произлегуваат од неограничената доверба на членови на групата во својот челник, од несомнена власт врз членовите на групата.

И уште нешто: не треба да изумиме дека животот на тајфата и на стадата се одвивал во планините, кои за целото време колку што траеше турската доминација, беа населени, покрај од стадата на романците, и од ајдутските банди, комити или од обични шумски арамии. Најприродната заштита на ваквите банди беа ароманските мандри. Тие ниту помислуваат да одбијат да ги заштитуваат. Затоа што овчарите можеле да бидат убиени а стадата уништени. Прибирањето на ваквите банди од кои некои се бореа против власта преставуваше еден од најделикатните проблеми. Да бидеш добар и со револуционерната банда и со турската власт, се чинеше невозможно. Сепак челниците знаеа да се извлечат од тоа служејќи им на едните и благодарејќи им на другите.

Исчезнувањето на челништвото со се што беше убаво во тој архаичен живот, живеен со слобода и јунаштво е последица која не може да се одстани со една фатална состојба. Сепак, пред негото исчезнување нешто што си го знаел во времињата кога било во развој, не можело а да не бидеш без чусвство на длабока меланхолија, и покрај тоа што знаеш дека и поинаку не се може, како што не можеш да останеш рамнодушен пред исчезнувањето на некој кој ти бил мил па макар и да знаеш дека бил осуден без можноста за спасување од медицинската наука.

Со ваквиот комплекс на принадлежности, средства и постапки, челниците и челништвото минале векови и се задржаа, како што веќе рековме, кај некои племиња се до денес.

10th International “Border and Crossings” Student’s Conference (Re) Searching Europe: Narrating the Past, Making the Present and Imagining the Future

Istanbul, 2012

Tolerance: solution or a bomb ready to explode

When two or more minorities live on the territory of some ethnic majority, people tend to build their own micro or sub countries, and they just tend to keep to their own. They are usually afraid of not being accepted from the majority, and of the possibility of their own assimilation and loss of ethnic identity. This is the reason why they seem more sensitive which in turn makes them aggressively protective of their culture. The response of the dominant ethnic group within the country is not any better. Even if they try to accept the minority groups without any stereotyping, they tend to play the role of welcoming host for “the guests”. No one really comes out of their shell. In time, living under such conditions people start being suspicious, prejudice, with low tolerance of the ways of the other ethnic group. And that’s how we are coming to the level: US and THEM. Feeling jeopardy from “them”, in turn the group unites and begins a strong collective spirit which might become as strong for people that they will be willing to die to save and defend their group. 

And this actually happens in reality, today in the 21st century, in many countries. 
In Macedonia except Macedonians as majority ethnic group, are living Albanians, Turks, Gypsies, Vlachs and a few other ethnic minorities. Albanians are the biggest minority group which made them equal with the Macedonians. Fighting for being more and more equal they’ve got equal rights, places in the parliament, their language became second official, they’ve got their own university and so on. But still, these things are just pulling them away as minority from the majority. After years living together instead of assimilation between both groups, came to distance which led to strengthening the groups that I’ve mentioned: US and THEM. In the past few years there have been many ethnical incidents provoked from the eagerness between these groups. Both sides are furious , but then comes an advice or warning from the West that we have to tolerate each other cause the future of Europe lays in tolerance. But in reality, tolerating each other led to creating country in country, creating closed circles for US and for THEM, going on school in different shifts, leaving in fear from the possible actions of the other group and creating an image of an enemy.

The Image of the Enemy

The images of the enemy are making people pay selective attention and remember only or mostly the negative aspects and actions of their enemy. 
When the nations or the ethnic groups who are seen like enemies are taking actions which are marked as hostile actions, people tend to underestimate or ignore the pressure of the situation in which their enemy actually is. This just helps of forming the opinion that those actions are proof that the enemy is Fiend or barbarian.
When the nations or the ethnic groups who are seen like enemies are taking actions which are seen as peaceable, people tend to overestimate the process which their enemy is passing through. As a result of this they reckon that the enemy is taking these actions under pressure of the circumstances and not like proof that the enemy wants peace. Thus, it is obvious that the hostile actions strengthen more the image of the enemy than peaceful actions can remove it.

The images of the enemy are making people pay attention and remember the critics much more than the statements which their enemy supports.
The images of the enemy are making people overemphasizes the level of their enemy’s actions compared with similar actions made by their non-enemies. 
The images of the enemies encourage the lack of knowledge about them.
When people are not familiar of their enemy’s peaceful actions in the past or with the history of the present conflict is hard to understand that the hostile actions made by their enemy might be motivated of defensive reasons. It is hard to get over their enemy images and to get open to the peaceful gestures of the “hostile” group. The lack of knowledge can result not only with the prejudges which are inseparable from the enemy images but also it might make them stronger. 
When the enemy image is powerful enough, the fiend’s obvious peaceful actions are attributed like hostile motives. Thus, the proposal for peace might be understood like rough propaganda, like try to increase the tension between the groups or the nations or like trick of the enemy to increase his superiority.
Having an image of our enemies makes us understand their hostile actions as part of their spirit and their peaceful actions as product of the circumstances they’ve been in. In the same time, standing against our enemy, we describe our hostile actions as product of the circumstances and our peaceful actions as part of our personality and our spirit. 
Before we create enemy images, first we have to see our own image in the mirror. Cause not only we have an image of our enemy but also our enemy has an image of us as an enemy. 

US and THEM

When it comes to the question of Macedonia and the ethnical groups, there is a big line between us and them. No one is passing this line without prejudges and fear. When both groups will learn more about themselves and about the Others they will find out that the Others have the same fears and prejudges.
We have to learn why we are different and what those differences are. Not in a way that they are going to make us ethnocentric but to get aware of how we are different from the others and the others from us. And also this must not lead to strengthening of US and THEM because of the differences but both groups to get know each other better. Not on the level of tolerance but on the level of understanding. Tolerance leads only to the level of dialogue. Understanding leads to the level of a real relationship. For this relationship to be functional the understanding has to be mutually. 

Tijana Radeska

Ss. Cyril and Methodius University

Institute of ethnology and anthropology