Maria GROSU_Folklore Archives and Constructions of the Positivist Paradigm. EN.pdf (original) (raw)
Related papers
Folklore Archives and the Methodological Reconfigurations of Romanian Ethnology.pdf
Revista de etnografie și folclor/ Journal of Ethnography and Folklore, 2017
This study proposes a rereading of the folklore archives in Romania, starting from an analysis of the documentary fund preserved in the Archive of the Folklore Society from the Faculty of Letters, “Babes-Bolyai” University, in Cluj. The study shows that, in addition to being realms of memory (Pierre Nora ) or collections of traditions (in the terms of classical folklore studies), these archives actually document the research methodology, serving as witnesses to the history of the discipline – ethnology, in this case. Keywords: folklore archive, methodology, fieldwork, archiving, history of Romanian ethnology.
Ethnographic Archives in Different Epistemological Paradigms
Gheorghe Manolache (Ed.), Intercultural Exchanges in the Age of Globalization, 2015
This study interrogates two cultural projects that correspond to different epistemological paradigms: the Folklore Archive of the Romanian Academy in Cluj-Napoca, which was set up beginning with the interwar period in the twentieth century, and the ethnographic archive from the Eric-de-Dampierre Library in Paris, which was established in the 1980s. This approach demonstrates that the archival project from Romania is dominated by the principles of the positivist paradigm, national identity representing the central concept here. By contrast, the project for an ethnographic archive in the Western cultural space is dominated by the principles of the postmodern paradigm, the central concept being the identity of the discipline.
Cultural Identities and the Research of Recent Romanian Past_2002
Published in Southeastern Europe = L'Europe du Sud-Est, Nº 29, 2002 , pags. 1-16. ISSN 0094-4467. The new direction in the field of both history and cultural studies, in the sense of their greater mutual influence is briefly expressed by Lynn Hunt, as "... the more cultural the historical studies will become, and the more historical the cultural studies will become, the better for both." 2 I argue here for establishing new areas in inquiring the recent Romanian history, beyond the event-centred, political history, proposing also a case-study elaborated on the borderline between cultural and historical studies. The core approach consists in analysing the reconstruction of the subjects" relationships with their identities through their narratives and their self-representations, as reflected in their life stories. I chose the identity as a topic for reconstruction because of the centrality it had in the oral history accounts, as well as because identity is the widespread new obsession of the (post)postmodern world. This assumes the intertwining of history with cultural studies (since the past is reconstructed through stories about identities, and the relationship between identities is reconstructed through self-narratives). However, the context of inquiry should be broaden by of changing of the perspective in inquiring identities, and culture itself, from fixed polarisation through a view of interconnecting and developing partial cultures. It ultimately induces a new methodology in representing the recent past, through assuming the cultural dimension of a historical inquiry and using as a vehicle of inquiry the negotiations of identity. For the time-being, the research is limited to members of the Hungarian minority, considering that the negotiations of identities were more visible and stronger, due to the nationalist peculiarities of the Romanian state-socialism.
Romanian journal of society and politics, 2003
The aim of this paper is to propose a line of analysis of Romanian historical writings from1970s and 1980s, and especially of its master narratives. The hypothesis of the article is that the reconstruction of the past performed in this period was mainly supervised by the state with the aim of offering an "usable past" for the regime. The present paper analyses how this reconstruction was performed, through a combination of previous existing invented traditions and historical myths, how these components were refashioned and then combined into a final historical discourse that took the form of a historical "heritage."
In recent years the Romanian cultural heritage has been gaining more and more interest from European scholars. It is understandable, since the turn of the 20th and 21th century is regarded as the moment of the explosion of interest in the subject of heritage and collective memory. Romania, which in the time of Communist regime was a “stronghold” on the border of the East and West, can still boast unknown and unresearched monuments, which provide a lot of new information on Byzantine and post-Byzantine culture, as well as on the cultures of ethnic and religious minorities living in this country. This article presents the characteristics of cultural heritage management in Romania, as well as the most important institutions dealing with this. Tangible cultural heritage listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites are presented, e.g. the painted orthodox churches and monasteries of Bukovina, the wooden churches of Maramureș, the Dacian Fortresses of the Orăștie Mountains, and the fortified churches in Transylvania. The discourse around these monuments in the Romanian culture is also briefly commented on. It revolves around the ancient settlement myth referring to the Dacian heritage, the orthodox faith understood as fidelity to original Christianity and, gradually, the multicultural heritage of other ethnicities so strongly inhabiting the Romanian territory. It shows that Romania, just like other European countries, has the need to present its history through tangible heritage and emphasizing the Dacian-Roman and Orthodox identity, as well as the need to create new narrative and new post-communist countenance, with a clearly emphasized aspect of a multicultural country inhabited by various ethnicities and religions.
THE CONCEPT OF TRADITION AND THE MODES OF SCHOLARSHIP IN SLOVAK ETHNOLOGY 1
Tradition is one of the key concepts and subjects of ethnological and anthropological research, but it is also a frequent topic of public discourse. The aim of this study is to contribute to the debates on tradition and the functioning of human memory. The author focuses on the approach to the concept of tradition in Slovak ethnology and folkloristics in the period of the second half of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century and refers to the conception of tradition in works of cognitive anthropologists, in particular Pascal Boyer. The author concludes that there are two types of approaches to the concept of tradition in ethnology in Slovakia. One of them, the erudition mode of research, has roots in the first half of the twentieth century and remains prevalent, with certain changes, even today. The second approach has its beginnings at the end of the nineties of the twentieth century and is characterized by the scientific mode of scholarship.
DiVa, 2020
The present thesis aims at identifying the historical and traditional potential within two elements of Romanian folklore, namely colind and descântec. Analysis of the text and narrative of these phenomena shows their high potential in preserving cults, celebrations, myths and practices that pre-date the arrival of Christianity within Romanian lands. This analysis in turn relies extensively on parallels with three Eddic Poems: Völuspá, Hávamál and Skírnismál.By exploring notions of performance and orality the paper displays the unaltered character of the Romanian materials in question in contrast to Old Norse material. This in turn reinforces the analysis of cults, mythology and practices identified in colinde and descântece, contributing to the viability of the epistemological inquiries undertaken.Influences are explored-with preponderance Christian influence-in order to strengthen the analysis of their history and tradition. By exploring the ways in which Christianity could exert its influence on the Romanian material, the number of possible objections towards the authenticity of the history and tradition are reduced to a minimum. Comparisons with Eddic Poems will confirm the analysis of Christian influence in colind and descântec.
Opening Archives to Society: the Experience from the Folklore Archive at Rovira i Virgili University
Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore, 2023
The Folklore Archive at the Rovira i Virgili University (URV) is a university archive. The materials it stores are products of the fieldwork conducted by students on the Catalan Studies programme and the work done by professors researching into folk literature. From the year of its creation to the present, the Archive has adapted to the needs of the society of which it is a part. The present article discusses two issues. First, it explains how the results from our university research are transferred from the Archive to society (web, specialized digital resources, social networks, etc.). And second, it describes a specific activity entitled La ciutat a cau d'orella (The whispering city), which focuses on legends and involves several entities in Tarragona (city hall, public library, schools, youth organizations, writing workshops, etc.). This activity can be regarded as a way of developing mutual relations between the academic world and the general public.