Aktuální číslo

The article investigates the contemporary narratives surrounding the Church of St. John of Nepomuk in Vrchní Orlice (Hohen Erlitz), a site marked by displacement, destruction, fragile local memory, and precarious identity since the end of World War II. Drawing primarily on interviews conducted between 2022 and 2024, this qualitative study focuses on the “myths” that emerged, often incidentally but repeatedly, during explorations of the site’s atmosphere, memory, and potential new functions for the church. The concept of “myth” is employed to capture the processes of balancing personal and collective experiences, addressing gaps in memory, and negotiating identities and belonging. Following the participants’ reflections and a comparison of the field data with the existing literature, we propose the concepts of liminality, haunted landscapes, and adopted heritage as key tools for interpretation.

Drawing on ethnographic research carried out in the Indian coastal village of Anjuna in Goa, this article presents an analysis of the process of the contemporary production of a specific type of place, i.e., former colonies which now function as important tourist and migrant hubs. Using the Actor-Network Theory as a methodological frame, I attempt to show how the practices of diverse social actors in Anjuna construct different, partly overlapping versions of the village. I focus on different variants of the village that are performatively produced by Goans under the influence of and in the face of both desirable and unwanted socio-cultural presences. As context, I also show how the village is constructed by other groups crucial for its functioning, namely, lifestyle migrants, labor migrants and tourists.

This article examines the Ukrainian-Slovak border through the conceptual lens of borders as resources, highlighting their economic, social, and cultural significance for borderland communities. Moving beyond traditional views of borders as static demarcations, the study focuses on the dynamic interactions that shape cross-border practices. Our main argument is that borders provide specific resources for local actors. We explore how individuals can make creative use of the border and life in the borderland, turning what may appear to be constraints into personal assets. Drawing on interviews with 24 residents of nearby Ukrainian settlements, the study shows how people turn constraints into opportunities, leveraging the border for economic and social gain. The research also considers broader influences – European integration, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Russian invasion – that have reshaped the border’s function, shifting its perception from economic utility to security concerns.

The nuclear family, consisting of children, mother and father, is often the primary unit of analysis in migration studies. However, this approach has been criticised for its normative context. More recently, scholars have emphasized the relational perspective and multi-layered family ties when debating the notion of family. Based on qualitative anthropological research in Western Ukraine and in the Czech Republic, this article adopts this approach by focusing on how the family practices of young Ukrainians (aged 15–16 at the time of migration) challenge the nuclear family framework. These young people are the first migrants from their nuclear families in the Czech Republic, while their parents have remained in Ukraine. The text focuses on the financial support, emotional support, and practical assistance provided to them by their relatives, demonstrating that parents were still important in all three categories, while cousins were significant in providing emotional support.