46 / 2017

Codrina Csesznek, Florentina Scârneci Domnişoru

Ethnographic Reflections of Return Migration in a Romanian Rural Community

The objective of the research is to describe the return migration process in a Romanian rural community; we will focus here on the identity changes experienced by community members who recently returned from Italy. We conducted this instrumental case study in Drăguş, Brasov County, where we performed extensive observations. We identified all the persons who have permanently returned from Italy and studied the perceived identity effects of their migration experience. We also collected data through narrative interviews; the data was analyzed by means of coding techniques, and the results are ethnographic reflections of return migration focusing mostly on the way the identity of our participants was shaped by the experience of migration and returning to the original community.
KEY WORDS: return migration, identity crisis, identity conversions, ethnography, qualitative data

46 / 2017

Codrina Csesznek, Florentina Scârneci Domnişoru

Ethnographic Reflections of Return Migration in a Romanian Rural Community

The objective of the research is to describe the return migration process in a Romanian rural community; we will focus here on the identity changes experienced by community members who recently returned from Italy. We conducted this instrumental case study in Drăguş, Brasov County, where we performed extensive observations. We identified all the persons who have permanently returned from Italy and studied the perceived identity effects of their migration experience. We also collected data through narrative interviews; the data was analyzed by means of coding techniques, and the results are ethnographic reflections of return migration focusing mostly on the way the identity of our participants was shaped by the experience of migration and returning to the original community.
KEY WORDS: return migration, identity crisis, identity conversions, ethnography, qualitative data

46 / 2017

Kristina Toplak

Artists’ mobility in the EU: Between Opportunities and Impediments

Mobility, especially labour mobility, is being promoted and highly praised as an economic and political cornerstone of the European Union, essential for its future development and growth. At the same time, people on the move are faced with many impediments to mobility, artists active in transnational art worlds being particularly vulnerable in this respect. Analysing and comparing various written sources (text and hypertext), the author focuses on the international mobility of artists in and to the European Union. The aim of the article is twofold: to outline artists’ mobility as a particular type of mobility, and to highlight the divergences between praising of the mobility concept on the decision-making level and the ‘naturalization’ of mobility in academic discourse on one side and the critical assessment of artists’ mobility and impediments to it by art practitioners and experts on the other.
KEY WORDS: mobility, artists’ mobility, European Union, impediments to mobility

46 / 2017

Kristina Toplak

Artists’ mobility in the EU: Between Opportunities and Impediments

Mobility, especially labour mobility, is being promoted and highly praised as an economic and political cornerstone of the European Union, essential for its future development and growth. At the same time, people on the move are faced with many impediments to mobility, artists active in transnational art worlds being particularly vulnerable in this respect. Analysing and comparing various written sources (text and hypertext), the author focuses on the international mobility of artists in and to the European Union. The aim of the article is twofold: to outline artists’ mobility as a particular type of mobility, and to highlight the divergences between praising of the mobility concept on the decision-making level and the ‘naturalization’ of mobility in academic discourse on one side and the critical assessment of artists’ mobility and impediments to it by art practitioners and experts on the other.
KEY WORDS: mobility, artists’ mobility, European Union, impediments to mobility

46 / 2017

Juan Esteban de Jager, Nadia Molek, Amalia Perez Molek, Juan Carlos Radovich

Representations of Memories through Art: The Artistic Work of Zdravko Dučmelić in Argentina

This article discusses the topic of representations of memories through art using an interdisciplinary approach that connects contributions from the fields of anthropology and art history to the research problems of art and creative processes. Considering the artistic world of the Croatian painter Zdravko Dučmelić in Argentina as a case study, the main aim of the article is to explore how the sum of the acquired artistic/aesthetic habitus that mediated his artistic activities, memories and personal experiences was combined in the artist’s creative process. To this end we will present the formation of Dučmelić’s artistic and aesthetic habitus, and his insertion into the Argentinian sociocultural and artistic context, in order to explore Dučmelić’s creative process, paying special attention to the way that personal experiences, emotional stimuli and memories were resignified into artistic, symbolic and oneiric images.
KEY WORDS: Dučmelić, art, creative process, memories, Croatians in Argentina, interdisciplinary approach

46 / 2017

Juan Esteban de Jager, Nadia Molek, Amalia Perez Molek, Juan Carlos Radovich

Representations of Memories through Art: The Artistic Work of Zdravko Dučmelić in Argentina

This article discusses the topic of representations of memories through art using an interdisciplinary approach that connects contributions from the fields of anthropology and art history to the research problems of art and creative processes. Considering the artistic world of the Croatian painter Zdravko Dučmelić in Argentina as a case study, the main aim of the article is to explore how the sum of the acquired artistic/aesthetic habitus that mediated his artistic activities, memories and personal experiences was combined in the artist’s creative process. To this end we will present the formation of Dučmelić’s artistic and aesthetic habitus, and his insertion into the Argentinian sociocultural and artistic context, in order to explore Dučmelić’s creative process, paying special attention to the way that personal experiences, emotional stimuli and memories were resignified into artistic, symbolic and oneiric images.
KEY WORDS: Dučmelić, art, creative process, memories, Croatians in Argentina, interdisciplinary approach

46 / 2017

Alenka Bartulović, Miha Kozorog

Gender and Music-Making in Exile: Female Bosnian Refugee Musicians in Slovenia

This article explores the role of Bosnian refugee women in the music-making and organisational activities of two refugee bands (Dertum and Vali) in Slovenia in the early 1990s. Endorsing the ideas about the transformative power of art and looking beyond the dominant identitarian doxa that views music-making in exile as simply the preservation of the ethnic/national identity in a new context, the article places particular emphasis on the active role of women as creative agents of social change. It traces their role ethnographically not only in the process of reinvention of a traditional musical genre (the sevdalinka), but also in identity negotiations and transformation of the gender and power relations within and beyond the boundaries of the heterogeneous Bosnian refugee community, which had been shaped by the strict Slovenian migration policy.
KEY WORDS: women refugees, music-making, art and change, gender relations, sevdalinka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia

46 / 2017

Alenka Bartulović, Miha Kozorog

Gender and Music-Making in Exile: Female Bosnian Refugee Musicians in Slovenia

This article explores the role of Bosnian refugee women in the music-making and organisational activities of two refugee bands (Dertum and Vali) in Slovenia in the early 1990s. Endorsing the ideas about the transformative power of art and looking beyond the dominant identitarian doxa that views music-making in exile as simply the preservation of the ethnic/national identity in a new context, the article places particular emphasis on the active role of women as creative agents of social change. It traces their role ethnographically not only in the process of reinvention of a traditional musical genre (the sevdalinka), but also in identity negotiations and transformation of the gender and power relations within and beyond the boundaries of the heterogeneous Bosnian refugee community, which had been shaped by the strict Slovenian migration policy.
KEY WORDS: women refugees, music-making, art and change, gender relations, sevdalinka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia

46 / 2017

Nadia Molek

“Songs from the homeland” – popular music performance among descendants of Slovenian refugees in Argentina: The case of “Slovenski Instrumentalni Ansambel”

The article presents an anthropological perspective on the selection, transformation and invention of Slovenian popular musical forms among the Slovenian expatriate community in Argentina. Among many descendants, the wish to continue their ancestors’ cultural practices created a “homeland-oriented” community in which their members felt committed to preserving their roots and social memories, and thus to “musically” enacting their Slovenianness. To illustrate this, I will particularly explore the case of the Slovenian Alpine ethno-pop band “Slovenski Inštrumentalni Ansambel”, analysing how the migration and memory processes of their antecessors influenced the life of these ethno-pop artists, and how these experiences were appropriated in their music and lyrics.
KEY WORDS: Alpine ethno-pop and popular music, appropriation, diaspora, identity, social memory, Argentina

46 / 2017

Nadia Molek

“Songs from the homeland” – popular music performance among descendants of Slovenian refugees in Argentina: The case of “Slovenski Instrumentalni Ansambel”

The article presents an anthropological perspective on the selection, transformation and invention of Slovenian popular musical forms among the Slovenian expatriate community in Argentina. Among many descendants, the wish to continue their ancestors’ cultural practices created a “homeland-oriented” community in which their members felt committed to preserving their roots and social memories, and thus to “musically” enacting their Slovenianness. To illustrate this, I will particularly explore the case of the Slovenian Alpine ethno-pop band “Slovenski Inštrumentalni Ansambel”, analysing how the migration and memory processes of their antecessors influenced the life of these ethno-pop artists, and how these experiences were appropriated in their music and lyrics.
KEY WORDS: Alpine ethno-pop and popular music, appropriation, diaspora, identity, social memory, Argentina