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The article discusses the Tibetan bon religion, which is becoming popular in the West. Differences and similarities of two bon communities established by Tenzin Wangyal from Tibet are discussed – the Ligmincha Institute in the United States of America and Garuda Association in Poland. They are the result of the globalisation of the bon religion and different processes of its glocalisation in different...
In this article the author deals with the issue of creating an Internet identity, paying particular attention to the profiles created on social networking site – Facebook. The analysis is based on two theoretical foundations, Marxism on the one hand, and on the other – the theory of artificial intelligence which was developed by computer science. Concepts formed on the basis of artificial intelligence...
There is a clear rift between actual aims and the potential of cultural anthropology, as the discipline directed at critical and reflexive study of contemporaneity, and its place in university structures and state institutions in Poland. This phenomenon is accompanied by the stereotype of ethnology and anthropology in common sense, inherited from ethnography, which in the past time was entangled in...
In this article I describe the convoluted history of Polish cultural and/or social ethnography/ethnology/anthropology in the period under the rule of “really existing” socialism. In the intellectual history of ethnology just after World War II, methodological pluralism, inherited from the interwar period, made its mark. Soon it was superseded by a specific orthodoxy, named here "ethnographism",...
As many long lasting conflicts in Africa have come to an end the continent is developing very rapidly. These processes are mostly seen in urbanized post-war centres. The war past and the modernisation changes are responsible for the specific ephemeral climate of these places. Juba is a “liminal” city, torn between crisis and stabilisation, war and peace, chaos and order. This situation is intensified...
This paper discusses the tensions between empirical and theoretical analyses of the city. It argues that a distinction between "anthropology of the city" and "anthropology in the city" ought to be made. The former aims at understanding the city as a whole, while the latter is based upon participant observation and classic fieldwork wherein the "urban experience" is studied...
Nowadays the encounter between researcher and participant in research takes place more frequently on the Internet – in a new space, which on the one hand is a complex construct of words, sounds and images, and which on the other hand is created by people interacting in various ways. This new domain, explored in many ways by anthropologists and other qualitative researchers, is taken into account,...
The article is about the knowledge of the oldest generation of the rural population about witches and related magical beliefs. The text is based on ethnographic-linguistic fieldwork conducted by the author in 2005-2011 in the Ciezkowicko-Roznowskie Foothills (Malopolska). In the past it was believed that witches could cast spells and, primarily, spoil cow’s milk. The article focuses on the latter...
This article contrasts and discusses two views about pharmaceuticals. On the one hand there is a wide popularity of pharmaceuticals in both high income and poor societies. At the same time, however, a more sceptical and reluctant attitude towards pharmaceuticals occurs. The article reviews the reasons for the worldwide trust in drugs, and then suggests that some of the same factors may help to understand...
This article aims to reconstruct individual female biography as a way of manifesting late-modern spirituality. The case of contemporary myth creation is an example showing how individual religious experience in a specific social context helps build biographic cohesion and how it transforms into metaphorical narration. The authors used the data collected in Rybno in Mazovia as material for analysis...
The author describes a phenomenon present in contemporary culture, namely stories of heroes who survived their death and live somewhere awaiting “the right time to come back” to fight for freedom, faith and justice. The article has been inspired by the words of historian Manuel Rosa that Columbus’ father was Vladislav III, who was not killed in 1444 as thought. Instead, he went into exile to Madeira,...
The paper discusses the role of print cloth in the life of West Africans, especially in Lomé, the capital of Togo. First, it describes the Asian and European origins of print cloth and its expansion in West Africa. While the technical production is European in origin, the symbols and ornaments are entirely African. This kind of cloth is of major importance for social life in Togo and it is highly...
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