Issue 2, Vol. 100 (2013)

The article analyses how the so called “inner refugees”, dispersed in Bosnia and Herzegovina as a result of the civic confl ict in the 1990s, view “home”. The principal aim of the study rests in answering the question of how, as a result of prolongation of the period of stay of the refugees in other places, their longing for returning to their home changed (the so called “myth of return”). The article at the same time discusses the differences in the perception of “home” among the various constitutive nations, analyzes the differences in perception of refugees who found asylum in larger or, by contrast, middle-sized and small settlements; outlines the differences in perception of “home” by members of various age categories and its changes as a result of social confl ict between urban and rural refugees. The concluding part of the text is dedicated to the problem if it is possible at all to rejuvenate the original concept of “home” in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The text serves as an example of the multi-sited ethnography within the frame of the migration processes from Central Europe to the Balcans throughout the nineteenth century. It focused on the settlement Clopodia (in Czech, Klopotín) in Rumanian Banat, settled in the middle of the nineteenth century by numerous population from the Czech Lands. Even though the migration processes to the historical territory of Banat (contemporary Serbia and Rumania) have already been surveyed, this specifi c migration within the frame of the Habsburg Empire has until now stood aloof from the interest of historians and ethnologists. Therefore, the author of the article denominates it “forgotten” and the point of departure of the migration designates as “Moravian”, as the Czech--speaking population came mostly from that region of the contemporary Czech Republic. To Moravian origin refers the present-day language as well as the historical memory of the descendants of the fi rst colonists. This, together with the chosen analyzed manifestations of social praxis serves the author to indicate the identifi cation framework of the community.

Large migratory movements that followed after Satumarský peace (1711) in Hungary signifi cantly changed the ethnic structure of its population. They included also migration of Slovaks to present-day Romania Bihor area. This colonization process took place in several waves since the late 18th to 19th century, supported by the Hungarian aristocracy. In contrast to the settlement of fertile lowlands in “Dolná zem” (Lower Country) the motivation of migration were land use of mountain Plopiş, located in Bihor in northwestern Romania. Article deals with the problem of the origin of the Slovak population in Romania Bihor in the context of the work of Romanian linguist and Slovakist – Grigore Benedek, with respect to the language (previous linguistic analysis of Slovak dialects) as well as from a historical perspective (research of relevant literature, respectively from archives and church registers). We noticed how the original Benedek´s linguistic analysis of Slovak dialects in Bihor and Sălaj underwent considerable change in his later research. The newer linguistic work, infl uence by this research, in an important way contributed to the clarifi cation of the issues of primary and secondary colonization outbreaks (Orava, Kysuce, respectively Gemer and Novohrad region), which was launched by the immigration of Slovak people to the Bihor localities.

The changes in funeral practices in Czech society which occurred during the 20th century were more signifi cant than those that took place during the whole of the second millennium. Traditional Roman Catholic Christian funerals which were performed at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries are described as a starting point from which the focus moves to a study of the major changes which took place from then onwards. The fi rst half of the 20th century was specific in the emergence of cremation. The Communist era (1948–1989) was characterized by a huge expansion in the popularity of cremation (the cremation rate in Czechoslovakia had reached 55 % by 1988) as well as by a signifi cant increase in the proportion of secular funerals which, by the end of the 1980s, were being conducted for around three-fi fths of the deceased. Contemporary Czech funeral practices can be seen as a direct continuation of those of previous generations and are noteworthy in terms both of having one of the highest cremation rates in Europe (80 %) and, even more strikingly, the extraordinarily high rate of cases (around one quarter to one third) in which no funeral ceremony is held at all for the deceased.

The paper discusses the history of the relation between feminist scholarship and cultural anthropology as two ways of thinking about culture and social relationships. It focuses in particular on the feminist critique of the anthropological theory and ethnographic research. It points out the different epistemological and political standpoints of feminism and anthropology as the resource of the tensioned relationship between these two traditions of thinking about culture. The paper maps the current practice of feminist anthropology in the context of its evolvement from the anthropology of women to anthropology of gender and feminist anthropology and outlines the impact of feminist scholarship on the development of anthropological theory and the epistemology and methodology of ethnographic research. Its aim is to map the changes that the idea of what it means to “do” feminist anthropology came through since the 70s.