Issue 2, Vol. 99 (2012)

Homelessness in the Czech Republic is a relatively new phenomenon. Because of ideological background before 1989, as a result of loos of employment, it could not show up. For that reason, it fully emerged in early 1990s. Under this condition, it has been also unresearched for long time. Moreover, most of the written papers have ignored key studies from abroad, especially from the USA. Therefore, this paper offers an overview of studying the homelessness in USA. It briefl y describes historic and cultural movement from the pre-industrial poor to the urbancentric homeless. Then, in light of distinguished periods of 20th century, it focuses on conditions of emergence and development American skid rows and particularities of their populations. Finally, the paper presents important studies of all these periods. Based on overview of American homelessness the paper articulates four propositions for a research in the Czech Republic. The research should focus on: (1) historic, socio-cultural and polical-economical context related to postsocialism and neoliberalism; (2) searching for less ideological conceptualizations of homelessness; (3) connecting poverty as the main factor of homelessness with other ones; (4) carrying out more ethnographic researches.

The aim of the following text was to intermediate the personal refl ection of migrants of preponderantly Czech origin who were in the years 1991–1993 resettled from the former Soviet Union to the Czech Republic. Better to say, the article focuses on one specifi c group of these displaced persons who came in the year 1993 and have lived since then in the locality Kopidlno. The main aim of the text is to refl ect the way how the refugees themselves at present assess the motivation for their leaving of the land of their forefathers, how they evaluate their adaptation and integration with respect to the locality in which they live, how did they cope with the „resettlement shock“ and how did they succeed in the „competition“ with the majorite society, for example at work. The fi nal part of the text presents the differences in assessment of the return migration process and in evaluation of the locality between the fi rst and second generation of the return migrants. The text was based on repreated guided interviews and observations realized in the locality of Kopidlno during the years 2008–2010.

This article focuses on the establishment and development of a new form of settlements, called “kolonie” [colonies] in southern Slovakia during 1921–1938. These settlements resulted from an extensive land reform when large tracts of land, originally belonging to Hungarian counts, were offered to Czech and Slovakian farmers. This paper, based on the settlers’ writings and on the interviews with the settlers’ children, follows their steps in a new environment, the village of Sülly (Šulany), where they were surrounded mostly by Hungarian neighbours. It also examines the settlers’ attempts to preserve their identity by pursuing and fostering traditions from the regions of their origin as well as their effort to cope with different traditions and customs of their Hungarian neighbours.

The article ponders over the environmental paradoxes of the Bolivian political project. The government of Morales aspires to establish a system based on social justice, environmentally conscious politics and the respect for the indigenous populations of the country. The new Political Constitution was adopted that guarantees the political, cultural and territorial rights of the indigenous groups and delineates a well-developed framework of the environmental protection. As one of the fi rst states of the world Bolivia admitted the legal status of nature and adopted „Law of Mother Earth“. However, to these legislative measures contrasts sharply the economic strategy of the country, based almost exclusively on mining, industrialization and commercialization of the natural resources. The government of Morales intensifi ed the mining of the fossil fuels and prepares the way for a gigantic project of mining and processing of lithium on the Bolivian salt flats. Socio-ecological consequences of these activities might be catastrophic. We think that the ambivalent environmental attitude of the government of Morales is caused, primarily, by its effort to match up two inconsistent principles: on the one hand the anthropocentric concept of economic growth, modernity and progress and on the other the indigenous concept of „good life“ that became the official moral-ethical principle of the Bolivian state.

Notwithstanding lack of detailed and freely accessible data, this paper examines the heavily underresearched issue of ethno-nationalism and separatism amid Iran‘s largest ethnic minority, Azerbaijanis, in an attempt to identify whether they may pose a threat to the territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic. Despite the fact that Azerbaijanis, a predominantly shiite community speaking a Turkic language, have historically been deeply integrated into Iranian society generating numerous élite members, recent decades have seen a gradual rise of nationalistic sentiments among them; sentiments that in some occassions have bordered on claims for secession. The authors claim that this process was instigated by a range of factors including the obtaining of independence by the post-Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan, introduction of Turkish and Azeri satellite TV broadcast to Iran’s Azerbaijani provinces and increasing levels of economic migration from Iranian Azerbaijan to Turkey. The authors conclude by stating that as of yet, the community of Iranian Azerbaijanis is deepy divided between religiously-minded assimilationists advocating for the established status quo and ever radicalized ethno-nationalists whose aim is to at least achieve more ethno- -cultural rights for themselves.