Projects
Projects
ERC projects
Memory and Populism from Below (MEMPOP)
ERC 2022 Starting Grant, Horizont Europe, European Commisssion
101076092; 1.1.2024 – 31.12.2028
Principal Investigator: MSc. Johana Wyss D.Phil.
Political polarisation with rising support for populist movements is one of the most pressing global issues that we are facing worldwide. Yet, it is usually Central and Eastern Europe that are singled out for examples of unprecedented resurgences of populism, illiberal nationalism, and increasingly authoritarian forms of government. However, considering how divergent the so-called populist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe are, as well as the types of mnemonic populism they employ, ‘populism’ has become a label that is as empty as it is fashionable. To scrutinise the notion of Central and Eastern European populism and provide a novel perspective on this phenomenon, the project proposes a radical shift from the two units of analysis that are taken for granted in populism studies: the temporal unit that presumes Central and Eastern European populism is a post-socialist consequence; and the geographical unit that essentialises contemporary nation-states of Central and Eastern Europe. By adopting a bottom-up approach and investigating the everyday mnemonic practices and populist sentiments of ordinary people living in the transnational borderland periphery, namely, Burgenland, Galicia, Istria, and Silesia, this pioneering study moves away from the elite, top-down investigation of populism as well as the tendency to treat the state as the primary unit of analysis. Instead, it shifts the centre of focus to the postimperial transnational borderlands where, in fact, both antagonistic memories and support for populist movements are arguably the strongest.
This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 101076092).
Veterinarization of Europe? Hunting for Wild Boar Futures in the Time of African Swine Fever (BOAR)
ERC Consolidator Grant, Horizon 2020, European Commission
Grant agreement ID: 866350; 2020-2025
Principal Investigator: Luděk Brož
Team members: Aníbal G. Arregui, Erica von Essen, Thorsten Gieser, Paul G. Keil, Laura J. Kuen, Kieran O’Mahony, Garry Marvin, Marianna Szczygielska, Virginie Vaté, André Thiemann
African Swine Fever is a fatal porcine virus infecting Europe’s prolific wild boar. Human conflict with wild boar has intensified over fears that exposure to a diseased population will contaminate domestic pig farms. Veterinarians play an important role in European State management of the viral threat. The BOAR project is an EU-funded, anthropological study of veterinary knowledge and practice beyond animal health, examining how veterinary science increasingly mediates human-wildlife interactions, and serves to structure and govern society through biosecurity measures. As self-appointed stewards of wild boar, recreational hunting communities are key subjects for researching veterinary interventions. The BOAR project will deliver innovative insights for the anthropology of hunting, the future of human-porcine relations, and the emerging subfield of 'veterinary anthropology'.
This project proposes a collaborative, ethnographic investigation of the relationship between three understudied subjects in anthropology: veterinary medicine, European hunting and wild boars. In recent decades, the wild boar has proliferated, (re)conquering the natural, rural and urban landscapes of Europe, and increasingly clashing with human practices and worlds. Classified as a game animal, the boar is primarily killed and managed by recreational hunters. Yet, hunters are proving incapable of stemming the tide of this intelligent, adaptable being, an interspecies relation that challenges hunting’s value and legitimacy in European society. This tension has amplified with the arrival of African Swine Fever (ASF) to the continent: a fatal virus that travels between wild boar and domestic pig, forest and farm, and threatens to infect and ruin the pig industry. In the name of biosecurity, and informed by veterinary knowledge, some States have intervened and conducted mass culls, erected dividing fences across Schengen space, or instituted no-go zones. During this crisis we witnessed how veterinary medicine’s role can extend beyond mediating human-animal relations, and work to structure and govern human lives in general. At the intersection of boars, hunting, ASF and veterinary medicine, this project has two main objectives: first, to examine how European hunting and porcine futures are intertwined, and the role of veterinarians in shaping these futures, and; second, through human-boar relations, study how society is becoming increasingly veterinarized and thus shape the conceptual and methodological development of the emerging field of veterinary anthropology. This project will further contribute to anthropology by opening a novel empirical and theoretical niche for the anthropology of hunting, and experiment with ethnography as a tool of engagement with near futures. The emerging and uncertain impact of ASF in Europe is an excellent moment to conduct such a project.
This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 866350).
European projects (other)
Network for forest by-products charcoal, resin, tar, potash (EU-PoTaRCh)
COST Action, COST: European Cooperation in Science & Technology
CA22155
Start date: October 2023
Principal investigator: Poznań University of Life Sciences – Prof Magdalena ZBOROWSKA
Partners: Etnologický ústav AV ČR, Botanický ústav AV ČR
Project participants from the Institute: Dr. Jiří Woitsch (člen CA22155 Management Committee a WG1 co-coordinator)
EU-PoTaRCh-establishes a network for the past, present and future of use of major non-timber forest raw materials and products in Europe. Whilst it will focus on forest by-products mainly Potash Tar Resin Charcoal (PoTaRCh)–as representatives of traditional forest exploitation heritage, it will touch upon other forest by-products (tannins, pitches). The scholarly vision is to enlighten the relevance of these products in history, especially their role in industrialization. The goal is to identify and assess production changes and their social and environmental impacts on sustainable development, and based on their heritage, to draw lessons for the future. The Action will support stakeholders who know these products and are interested in them, as they use them in the production, education, and promotion of heritage. Due to the participation of stakeholders with significantly different activity profiles (museums, state forests, associations, etc.), hence high diversity of needs will have to be answered by this Action.
The Action will put emphasis on ITCs participation, which have a rich history of producing PoTaRCh, and also special attention to Gender balance mobilizing in particular women to act as leaders of WG, STMS and workshop organizers. The Action will help to find ways to sustainable forest use and transfer knowledge to better methods and products in the bioeconomy.
https://www.cost.eu/actions/CA22155/#tabs+Name:Description
Project flyer here.
COST Action, COST: European Cooperation in Science & Technology
CA21132
Start date: Autumn 2022
Principal investigator: CEVA Animal Health – Dr. Gwenaëlle Dauphin
Partners: Etnologický ústav AV ČR
Project participants from the Institute: Dr. Luděk Brož
Swine influenza is a highly contagious respiratory disease in pigs caused by influenza A viruses (swIAV) which leads to production losses. The intensification of pork production systems and free livestock movement across borders fosters the spread of the virus in Europe. New variants, some with zoonotic potential, constantly emerge. Recent human pandemics have highlighted the zoonotic and reverse zoonotic potential of swine influenza and its risks for both animal and public health. Despite the burdens caused by swine influenza, surveillance across Europe is scanty and fragmented. Disease awareness is low in some European countries, diagnostic protocols are not harmonized, most countries lack standardised procedures and vaccine coverage is inconsistent. An interdisciplinary expert network is needed to develop a comprehensive view of the disease and its impacts to better manage swine influenza in Europe. ESFLU will:
● Facilitate data sharing and analysis for swIAV surveillance with national and international agencies
● Establish the network as the European OFFLU counterpart and support global surveillance and pandemic preparedness
● Strengthen capability in Europe to detect, identify and characterize swIAV virus
● Establish guidelines for swIAV management and control in pig herds
● Promote dialog between stakeholders and inform policymakers and the general public on swine flu disease burden and the risks to public health.
ESFLU gathers 76 experts in an interdisciplinary One Health approach. The Action will advance scientific knowledge concerning swIAV, improve disease surveillance and management capabilities, benefit pork production and reduce risks to both animal and human health.
https://www.cost.eu/actions/CA21132/
Slow Memory: Transformative Practices for Times of Uneven and Accelerated Change
COST Action, COST: European Cooperation in Science & Technology
CA20105; 2021-2025
Principal Investigator: Nottingham Trent University – Prof. Jenny Wüstenberg
Partners: Etnologický ústav AV ČR
Project participants from the Institute: Dr. Johana Wyss
We are living in times of deep contradictions. While our world accelerates and grows smaller through superfast digital networks, it is also marked by widening socio-economic disparities. We face viral pandemics, rapid species extinction, increased automation of work, quick fixes for mental health, political upheavals and displacements of old certainties. Adaptation and resilience to these challenges must draw on past experiences and cultural resources – this can only happen if we slow down and take time to remember well. This Action addresses the need for increased interdisciplinarity in our understanding of how societies confront their past to contend with environmental, economic and social changes brought on by sudden events and by slow and creeping transformations. The future of peace, prosperity, politics, work and climate will depend upon how we remember socio-cultural and political changes. Transformative practices of remembrance – as objects of study and as critical interventions – will be shared collaboratively across Arts and Sciences in order to reveal the ways in which humans confront large-scale processes of change. This Action will uniquely focus the attention of scholars, policymakers and cultural professionals on alternative paths to build resilience in the face of contemporary rapid-response culture. Through transnational and interdisciplinary discussions, we will address urgency, emergency, crisis and acceleration by drawing together the ‘multi-sited’, ‘eventless’ and slow-moving phenomena that can best be studied by ‘slowing down’ our research methods, to afford capacity building, knowledge generation and impact activities. Inspired by ‘slow science’ (Stengers 2018), we seek an alternative kind of social remembering.
Twitter: @slowmemo
Projects funded by The Czech Science Foundation
Between “East” and “West” – border experiences and narratives on the Czech-Slovak and Slovak-Ukrainian state borders
Standard Projects, Czech Science Foundation, 23-05924S, 2023–2025
Principal Investigator: Institute of Ethnology CAS – Mgr. Jana Nosková, Ph.D.
Partners: Institute of Ethnology, Faculty of Arts, Charles University Prague
Project participants from the Institute: PhDr. Katarína Popelková, CSc., Dr. Natalia Zaitseva-Chipak
The interdisciplinary project deals with border experiences and their changes in times of crises. The subject of its empirical research is the Czech-Slovak and Slovak-Ukrainian borders. The project focuses on the following areas: (1) identifying how borders are perceived, experienced and narrated by local actors; (2) analysing how borders are (re)produced in and through practices and discourses; (3) exploring the strategies and ways for “creating” and “using” borders as resources at the local and national levels; (4) questioning the role of communicative and cultural memory in thematizing state borders and analysing the politics of memory. The research results will be synthesized; will elucidate how borders are (re)constructed from both the micro- and macro-perspectives; and will significantly expand knowledge about border experiences in contemporary, glocalized society. The research uses qualitative methods; its theoretical framework is based on concepts and approaches related to border studies, memory studies, and narrative studies.
Folklore revival in post-socialist countries: politics, memory, heritization and sustainability
Mezinárodní project Lead Agency, Grantová agentura ČR
P410 - Moderní dějiny (od roku 1780) a etnologie
GAČR 22-31474K; 2022–2024
Principal Investigator: Etnologický ústav AV ČR, v. v. i.
Partners: The Institute of Ethnomusicology, Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Project participants from the Institute: doc. Mgr. Daniela Stavělová CSc., Matěj Kratochví, Ph.D., PhDr. Zdeněk Vejvoda, Ph.D., Zita Skořepová, Ph.D., Lucie Uhlíková, Ph.D.
The project will focus on monitoring the folklore activities in contemporary society, which are associated with making music and dance with elements of traditional folk culture without an obvious intention to cultivate, care for or further disseminate. Unlike the ideologically conceived folklore movement of the second half of the 20th century, there is a shift from presentational to participatory. There is a change in the environment of these activities, which take place not only in the activities of folklore ensembles and associated events, but in connection with emerging events. Important is the process of adopting images of the folklore movement in cultural memory, it is also a shift from local to global: folklore as a reflection of local or regional identity versus folklore as a field of hybrid and multi-genre musical dance expression using bricolage and appropriation of deterritorialized traditions. The theoretical frameworks will provide ethnomusicology and ethnochoreology focused on the study of music and dance in everyday life, their performativity and ways of communication.
Standardní projekt 2022, Grantová agentura České republiky
22-05263S; 2022–2024
Principal Investigator: Slezské zemské muzeum – Dr. Ondřej Kolář
Partners: Etnologický ústav AV ČR
Project participants from the Institute: Dr. Johana Wyss, Mgr. Anežka Brožová
This interdisciplinary project focuses on social transformations and their impact in the region of Czech Silesia and the surrounding North Moravian territories (within the purview of the Provincial National Committee located in Ostrava) during the period between the end of World War II in Europe and the rise of communist regime in Czechoslovakia in February 1948. During the stated period, officially dubbed the Third Republic, the region was affected by the forced expulsion of the majority of German population, as well as by massive industrialisation. This period was also significant due to the re-shaping of Czech-Polish relations and ongoing debates about the role of Silesia in the Czech Lands. Demographic, economic, administrative, and social changes were also accompanied by policies of "czechisation" regarding cultural and academic life. This project focuses on four research themes: Administration, Identity, Migration, and Urbanism. To satisfactorily cover these multidisciplinary topics, the research team is comprised of historians, art historians, and social anthropologists.
Text structure of the Czech folk songs from the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries
Standard Projects, Czech Science foundation
GAČR 21-04973S 2021–2023
Coordinator: Czech Language Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences
Partners: Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences
Project participants from the Institute: PhDr. Zdeněk Vejvoda, Ph.D.
The analysis of the linguistic component of pre-Erben Czech folk songs, the basis for which is the song as a distinctive musical-verbal genre that absorbs elements of both artificial and nonartificial art. The tectonics and style of the folk song are examined in the material of the oldest song collections from the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries untouched by the romanticising interference of adapters. The analysis also takes into account the melodic component. The language of the songs reflects both the older stage of Czech, in particular the Czech of the Baroque era, and the period language of the emerging "long" 19th century. The project includes a critical edition of two as yet unpublished collections (A. Francl, V. Hanka Sr) that provides, among other things, comparative melodic material obtained from other song collections.
Waste Regime at a Crossroad: Divergent Trajectories of Things, Cars, and Electronics (Czech Science Foundation, 2020-2022)
Grant no.: GA20-06759S
Principal Investigator: Daniel Sosna
Team Members: Pavel Mašek, Barbora Stehlíková
The project aims at studying the contemporary waste regime associated with the Czech Republic. This regime faces dramatic changes such as a shift from landfilling to incineration, increasing mobility of waste, and reconceptualization of the linear model of resource management. Zsuzsa Gille’s concept of waste regime enables us to analyse how materiality, social practices, classification, asymmetries in power, and economic processes related to waste co-constitute the social. In this perspective disposal is imagined as a door that opens various ways for the transformation of value. It is not just a final solution responsible for the disappearance of the unwanted. Three ethnographers will examine divergent waste trajectories constructed along the three different analytical axes: 1. landfilling and incineration of municipal solid waste, 2. disposal of cars, and 3. disposal of electronics. The research will generate a reflection of the contemporary waste management and contribute to the understanding of the internal dynamics of waste regimes and their social effects.
Minutes between life and death: Changes in emergency medical service and the professional identity of its employees in the Czech lands 1952−2003
Grant no.: GA23-05753S; 2023−2025
Coordinator: Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences, Mgr. Jiří Hlaváček, Ph.D.
Partners: Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences
Project participant from the Institute: Mgr. Olga Nešporová, Ph.D
The project focuses on the analysis and identification of processes in the development of emergency medical service (EMS) and the professional identity of its employees in the Czech
lands from 1952, when professional pre-hospital emergency care was taken over by the state, to 2003 when EMS transformed into regional contributory organizations. The aim is to describe EMS institutionalization, professionalization and modernization by comparing the official discourse (legislation and departmental documents) and actors’ perspectives (witnesses’ reflections) through regional micro-historical surveys. Interdisciplinary research combines history of medical science, contemporary history, memory and identity studies. The data will be collected and processed using the methods of classical historiography (archival research), historical anthropology (discursive, narrative and symbolic analysis) and social anthropology (qualitatively focused narrative and semi-structured interviews). A published collective monograph and six partial studies on the issue will be the main output of the project.
Projects funded by NAKI (Ministry of Culture)
Traces of human ingenuity
Program for the support of applied research and experimental development of national and cultural identity for the years 2016-2022, Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic DG20P02OVV00; 2020-2022
Principal Investigator: Přemysl Mácha
Team members: Daniel Drápala, Jiří Woitsch, Radim Červenka, Lenka Tlapáková, Luděk Krtička, Vojtěch Bajer, Václav Michalička, Radek Bryol, Miroslav Bubík, Samuel Španihel
Partners: Institute of European ethnology, Masaryk University
The goal of the project is 1) to locate and document endangered small technical, proto-industrial and agricultural heritage sites in open landscapes including the associated infrastructure and the necessary knowledge for their operation with regards to their role in the formation of local culture, history, landscape, and identity; 2) to raise public awareness about the importance of these heritage sites for local culture, history, landscape and identity and promote a greater interest among the general public in their conservation.
The research will be carried out in the former Rožnov estate as an example of a relatively compact economic and productive unit encompassing lowland and highland villages representing different stages and types of settlement formation with numerous handcrafts and valuable heritage sites. Thanks to the activities of the National traditional culture and Open-Air Museum in Rožnov p. R., this area is also characterized by a strong support for traditional cultural forms and practices which are reflected in the identity of the local population and the perception of the region by visitors. The results of the project will bring new information about the region but also offer more general conclusions for the protection, renewal and presentation of this type of cultural heritage elsewhere.
The principal project outputs include:
- exhibit,
- exhibit catalgoue (book),
- specialized map with expert content,
- peer-reviewed articles,
- international conference.
www.stopyumu.cz
VISKALIA – Virtual open air museum of the vernacular architecture
NAKI II, Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic
DG20P02OVV003; 2020-2022
Coordinator: National museum (Klára Woitschová)
Partners: Czech Technical University in Prague, Institute of Ethnology of the CAS
Project participants from the Institute: Dana Motyčková (PI), Kateřina Sedlická, Barbora Gergelová, Jiří Woitsch, Klára Ondrigová
The project aims to (1) rescue the resource of plans, drawings and photographs of vernacular architecture in the Czech Republic which contains original ethnological data about the form, function and identity importance of vernacular architecture before its transformation into museum buildings, and (2) enable innovative access to this source by the public within a single platform, which will contribute to more relevant social perception of vernacular architecture and folk culture in general, will be useable in the educational process and in the future documentation and identification of cultural values of folk architecture and its marketing as well as economic utilisation. Vernacular architecture can be yet regarded as one of the cornerstones of a regional and national identity. The implementation of the stated general objectives of the project will achieve the following: (a) through the creation of the Virtual Open-air Museum of Vernacular Architecture (VISKALIA) which will cover basic thematic, typological and geographic variabilities of this architecture in the Czech Republic. The VISKALIA will fundamentally and innovatively document and present cultural heritage through new technologies – particularly 3D modelling and software applications. It will also become a basic tool for studies and popularisation of folk architecture in the online environment and electronic media, will be useable in education and training focused on issues related to cultural heritage; (b) creation of a specialised public database and map outputs including plans and photographs and other documentation of vernacular architecture at the level of the Czechia, complemented by a maximum of ethnographic, historic and spatial metadata; (c) access to the information on vernacular architecture by the public through exhibition and publications; (d) preservation and digitization of specific collection and archive sources of The Institute of Ethnology of the CAS and National Museum.
More information here: http://viskalia.fsv.cvut.cz/projekt/index.html
Key outputs:
- A – audiovisual creation: Virtual open-air museum of vernacular architecture
Available at: https://skansen.fsv.cvut.cz
- S – specialized public database: Database of visual sources of vernacular architecture
Available at: http://viskalia.fsv.cvut.cz/viskalia/
- Nmap – specialized map with expert content: Basic structural-typological characteristics of folk architecture in the territory of the Czech Republic and their ethnographic documentation (certified, no. MK 53218/2022 OVV),
Available at: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/a226c8728ab44c3a84c4beb4d7771044
- Ekrit – organization of the exhibition with a critical catalogue:
Paper village exhibition, Ethnographic Museum of the National Museum, Kinského zahrada 98, Prague 5; 9/29/2022 – 6/1/2023; catalog: Paper village (editor: Klára Woitschová), 152 pages, ISBN 978-80-7036-720-9.
Folk song and dance of the Czech lands - digital system for presentation and preservation
Program for the support of applied research and experimental development of national and cultural identity for the years 2016-2022, Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic
DG18P02OVV053; 2018-2022
Principal Investigator: Matěj Kratochvíl
Team members: Lubomír Tyllner, Daniela Stavělová, Zdeněk Vejvoda, Lucie Uhlíková, Marta Toncrová, Klára Císaríková, Marek Janata
Partners: The National Folk Culture Institute
The main goal of the project is to create an effective instrument for making available traditional folk song and dance as an important part of cultural heritage and national cultural identity. It will provide the public with an access to the material, which until now remains largely unused, because major part of field records (written or audio) has never been published or the access to them is limited.
The project aims to enable a broad circuit of users to get detailed and comprehensible information about folk song and dance. This information will be delivered through an electronic application based on the latest knowledge aboutprotection and preservation of data carriers.
The goal will be achieved through several partial goals:
a) Creation of an internet portal, which enables its users to get information about specific sources of the folk songs and about the songs themselves. In the core of the portal, there will be a newly developed software connecting several layers of information: melodic and text incipits, localities, genres, dances, time of collection, the collector etc. The portal will allow search for the data and their comparison.
b) Preparing a system that will be able to overcome dialectological inconsistencies of song texts, which makes it hard to use current database or search systems. The system will also show melodic variants of songs.
c) Formulating a certified methodic for digitalization and normalization of melodic and text incipits, which will make possible future adding of new data to the system.
d) Creation of a database containing digitized sources for the folk songs from the collections of the Institute of Ethnology (approx. 150 000 units) as well as the data from the principal printed editions. The digitalization will make the online access to those sources possible and will also prevent the loss of an important part of cultural heritage stored on endangered media (magnetic tapes, older written records).
e) Creation specialized maps enabling visualization of information from the database
NAKI II, Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic
NAKI II: DG18P02OVV021; 2018–2022
Coordinator: Masaryk University – Faculty of Arts
Partners: Institute of Ethnology Czech Academy of Sciences, Moravian Library, Moravian Museum
Project participants from the Institute: Věra Frolcová, co-researcher, Markéta Holubová, researcher, Tomáš Slavický, researcher
The aim of the project is to create tools contributing to preservation, scholarly registration, presentation and accessibility of broadside ballads. In the centre of the attention are funds in Moravian Library in Brno, in the Brno’s department of the Institute of Ethnology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, v. v. i., and in Ethnographic Institute in Moravian Museum. In total the funds contain about 17 000 broadside ballads from the period of the 17th to 19th century.
The instrument to achieve mentioned goals is the methodology for the creation of bibliographic records of broadside ballads, which will be possible to be used by other institutions managing artefacts of similar type, and the preparation of the broad-based exhibitions, which will present broadside ballads from the collections of institutions in Brno as a specific type of cultural heritage. The presentation on the user-friendly level will be guaranteed also by the specialized map, focused on the presentation of the regionally-geographic origin of the collections. Involvement of researchers from different fields allows to present the broadside ballads in the complex way, with emphasis on the textual, musical and also visual side. Broadside ballads are unique artefacts, genre and thematically various. It is possible to demonstrate on them the understanding of the contemporary mentality (sacred discourse and profane interests of the recipient in the researched period) and their significance for preservation of continuity of the standard language in the period between the Baroque epoch and the National revival period.
Among other outcomes of the project are several monographs of interdisciplinary character, conference and workshop concerning the problematic of broadside ballads. Above mentioned will be presented as the outcomes of the team of experts from different fields.
OP VVV
International mobility of researchers, technical and administrative staff of the Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences (EUMOB)
Call No. 02_18_053 International Mobility of Researchers, Technical and Administrative staff of research organizations in the priority axis 2 OP, Operation Program Research, Development and Education, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports
CZ.02.2.69/0.0/0.0/18_053/0017842; 1.9.2021 – 30.6.2023
Principal Investigator: PhDr. Jiří WOITSCH, Ph.D.
The project is aimed at increasing the mobility of research, technical and administrative staff of the Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences. The project aims to increase and improve the professional and other competencies of employees, strengthen the internationalization of research, and the general improvement of the HR environment at the Institute towards research and organizational excellence in the national and, especially, international environment.
Lumina quaeruntur (Czech Academy of Sciences)
2022-2027
Principal Investigator: Martin Fotta
Team Members: Mária Málková, Anna Clara Viana de Oliveira, Tina Magazzini
This project recasts Roma from ‘the largest European minority’ to a pan-Atlantic diaspora shaped by the processes and relationships that structure the globalized world. It advances our understanding of the relational nature of identity formation and social classifications. Despite the centuries-long presence of Roma in America and Africa, scholarship remains methodologically Eurocentric. Romani identities are commonly treated in isolation from global connections that shape how they view themselves and are viewed relative to other ethno-racial communities. Alternatively, the project proposes to investigate Romani identity within comparative, transnational, and intercultural frameworks. The team will conduct ethnographic and archival research in the South Atlantic and examine Romani social position in relation to other ethno-racial projects (e.g., Atlantic slavery). This will generate insights into how different racial contexts impact their belonging and interethnic interactions.
Strategy AV21
Strategy AV21, Czech Academy of Sciences; 2020–2021
Investigator: Markéta Holubová
The aim of the project is to create and launch a model e-edition of the annual reports of the Jesuit residence a place of pilgrimage in Bohosudov near Teplice. Electronic access to the annual reports of the Jesuit residence will emable very effective work with them with the help of quality registration and other aids.
Researcher: Jaroslav Otčenášek
This project focused on selected areas of the Czech countryside, where the traditional cultural landscape and the associated cultural memory have either completely disappeared or been significantly interrupted, and efforts to reconnect with older traditions are so difficult, if not sometimes impossible. Specifically, these are military areas, areas of dam construction and regions affected by opencast minning, especially brown coal after 1945. Numerous documents are stored in the collections of the Institute of Ethnology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic v. v. i., on the basis of which the study of collective memory, cultural landscape memory etc., can be studied very well. Areas flooded by dams and devastated by opencast coal minning are captured relatively well, but military areas and the border zone are unfortunately insufficiently captured, mainly due to practical inaccessibility at the time.
Selected locations with relevant photos and details can be found here.
Zpřístupnění a uchování fondu Zaměřovací akce České akademie věd a umění – Národopisné komise pomocí digitalizace
Team members: PhDr. Dana Motyčková, CSc. a PhDr. Kateřina Sedlická
Cílem aktivity je zpřístupnění a uchování fondu Zaměřovací akce současnými neinvazivními prostředky, dále revize a doplnění databáze a především digitalizace plánové dokumentace a fotografií, v první fázi z lokalit ve Středočeském kraji. Fond byl protektorátním projektem Národopisné komise (1940–1946), za cíl si kladl především dokumentaci vesnické roubené architektury s jejími regionálními specifiky a vytvoření stavebně-technických výkresů tradičního lidového stavitelství. Vzniklý jedinečný soubor plánů a kreseb (2000 jednotek formátu A0 - A2), fotografií (10 000 jednotek) a písemných materiálů má nevyčíslitelnou historicko-oborovou dokumentační hodnotou pro poznání jeho tradičních forem.
Ediční řada Češi v cizině (project website, Czech only)
Databáze Kramářských a starých tisků Etnologického ústavu AV ČR, v. v. i. (project website, Czech only)
Databáze německých kramářských tisků, jednolistů a kupletů Etnologického ústavu AV ČR, v. v. i. (project website, Czech only)
Digitalizace Zpravodajů KSVI 2017 (project website, Czech only)
Lidová kultura - Národopisná encyklopedie Čech, Moravy a Slezska (elektronická verze) (project website, Czech only)
Hlavní koordinátorka projektu Město jako laboratoř změny: PhDr. Adéla Gjuričová, Ph.D., Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR, v. v. i.
Koordinátor výzkumných aktivit za Etnologický ústav: PhDr. Přemysl Mácha, Ph.D.
Web projektu Město jako laboratoř změny
Každodenní život v Brně v první polovině 20. století
Investigator: Jana Nosková
Doba řešení: 2020
Edice autobiografických pramenů ze sbírek Etnologického ústavu AV ČR Edition of autobiographic sources from the archive of The Institute of Ethnology.
The urbanonyms of Ostrava in time and space
Strategy AV21, Czech Academy of Sciences, 2020
Investigator: Přemysl Mácha
Team members: Luděk Krtička, Jaroslav David
Partners: University of Ostrava, City of Ostrava
The goal is to build upon, and expand, previous research on Ostrava urbanonyms in order to create an interactive public on-line database with the possibility of visualizing information about street names and the history of individual places. Additional outputs include a peer-reviewed article and a paper presented at an international conference.
Protests in post/socialist countries (workshop)
Investigator: Eva Šipöczová
Year: 2020
Cieľom workshopu bude kultúrne-historický pohľad na podobu protestov, demonštrácií a manifestácií v postsocialistických krajinách. Vedecká perspektíva bude rozšírená o prístupy aktérov a aktérok z oblasti umenia a aktivizmu. Počas workshopu bude snahou zbúrať hranice postavené vzťahom výskumník/čka – informátor/ka. Aktéri a aktérky s priamou skúsenosťou s realizáciou protestov budú počas workshopu v pozícii expert with experience. Sami pri svoje práci často siahajú po odbornej literatúre (historická, sociologická, umenovedná) a ich praktické skúsenosti prekračujú hranice odborníkov/čiek vymedzené základným výskumom.
Otvorenie diskusie mimo akademické prostredie predstavuje možnosť popularizácie vedy, a zároveň možnosť naviazania rovnocenného dialógu medzi zástupcami a zástupkyňami rôznych perspektív uchopovania kultúry protestu.
City festivities: music and dance as a means of forming the identity of place.
Investigator: Daniela Stavělová
Years: 2020-2021
The goal of this project is the reasearch of festivities in which music and dance becomes a part of so called ritual language, capable of transfering shared symbols in public communication. The results will include a documentary movie.
Other projects
Prosaic Folklore and The Post-Socialist Memory
Programme for research and mobility support of starting researchers, CAS MSM300582101; 2021
Principal Investigator: Mgr. Eva Šipöczová, Ph.D.
Partners: The Estonian Literary Museum, The Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica
The submitted project focuses on folkloristic research on collectively shared ideas of the past, transmitted orally and through contemporary prosaic folklore. The project addresses how society creates images of the past by means of jokes, anecdotes, rumours, surmises, unverified information, conspiracy theories, and urban legends. Attention will be paid to the reflection on twentieth-century history with regard to the Second World War and the era of Socialism. The folkloristic approach will be combined with theoretical knowledge about the memory as a cultural phenomenon. During the research stay, materials will be collected by means of interviews and questionnaires distributed among young generation, which creates their relation to the twentieth-century historical events primarily in a way different from their own experience (family narrations, education, pop culture etc.). The research in Estonia and Slovakia will offer an opportunity of comparing the collected materiál and the interpretation thereof to the backdrop of a different post-war development of the countries.
Giľora, Archive of Living Romani Songs
The Giľora Project ("giľora" means "songs" in Romani) records, archives, and makes available the songs of Romani singers who like to sing, ideally with other singers and musicians they often sing with. We record and study songs in the culture of Czech Roma, the current form of Romani song folklore in the Czech Republic. The project focuses on singers and their songs –i.e. not on bands –, and "unplugged" recording sessions are preferred. The goal is not perfect recordings in studio quality, but documentation of the role of songs and singing in the culture of the Czech Roma today. From this documentation and semi-structured interviews stems ethnomusicological research of songs within the Roma culture in Czechia.
Project coordinator: Ondřej Skovajsa, Ph.D.,
Principal investigator and supervision: doc. PhDr. Lubomír Tyllner, CSc.
Supported by Bader Philanthropies, Inc.
2021-2024
National recovery plan
Programme of support for excellent research in priority areas of public interest in health care - EXCELES, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports.
LX22NPO5101, 2022–2025
Research group leader Social Resilience: Alice Koubová, Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences
Principal investigator from IE CAS: Michal Šípoš
Team members from IE CAS: Luděk Brož, Martin Fotta, Mária Málková
SYRI is a scientific platform that brings together experts from Masaryk University, Charles University, and Czech Academy of Sciences. Its aim is to examine risks and mitigate social issues triggered by dramatic events such as the global health crisis, the war between Russia and Ukraine, and environmental crises.
