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This is a review of classic publications, mainly English and Polish, written in the course of 130 years (from 1871 to 2001) on the mutual relations between the concepts in question. At the beginning (more or less until the mid 20th century) anthropology believed that religion (mainly Christian, but not only) is superior to magic. However, in light of new anthropological studies, religious and magical...
Settlement of emigrants from Bamberg in villages near Poznan started in 1719 and continued until the 1860s. The colonists became the permanent feature of the cultural landscape of Poznan and its outskirts. They have contributed new elements and have strengthened those, which have been dominant here for a long time - diligence, frugality, and religiousness. The similarity of Bamberg colonists to the...
The word 'skansen' (an open air museum) belongs to words that have been assimilated and are well known in the Polish language. In museology it has a theoretical and practical meaning, which for over a century has been used in the study and institutional protection of historical wooden buildings. When the idea of A. Hazelius was popularized in Poland and when favourable conditions for the development...
Mirosława Zakrzewska-Dubasowa's publication of all the witch trials found in the Lublin town records (1947) remains one of the best and most complete sources for the study of witchcraft in Poland. However, a 17th century court book returned to the Lublin archives as late as the 1960s, and thus unavailable to Zakrzewska-Dubasowa includes one trial for witchcraft and theft of the Eucharist. In this...
The inhabitants of present day Malaysia form a deeply divided community, with respect to social status and socio-economic position. The factors, which lead to the strongest divisions, are of ethnic and racial nature. Malaysia is a country, which is inhabited by at least three separate communities – Malayan, Chinese and Indian. Ethnicity, as is shown by Zakaria Haji Ahmad, a Malayan sociologist, is...
The article attempts to reconstruct the views of Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) about the nation and nationalism and their influence on modern research. Durkheim did not create any cohesive and systematic theory of the nation. These problems were not the most important of his interests and have poor connection with the main line of his theory. Moreover, Durkheim seemed to associate modern societies with...
In Japan, tradition is constantly interspersed with modernity. Despite the fact that in the past this country evolved into an economic power, the traditional culture is still cultivated. The Japanese tradition of today is a mixture of samurai and bourgeois tradition (which derives from the chonin movement). Despite its origins in the past ages, the tradition as it is today has mostly been shaped by...
Sport is a very effective and striking phenomenon, which helps to create the impression of belonging to a certain community. Football in Scotland not only links supporters but also divides them by maintaining local disputes and aversions. It is especially visible in Glasgow, where two football clubs have been immersed in bitter rivalry since the end of the 19th century. 'Sectarianism' in Scotland...
The authoress makes an anthropological analysis of the ethnographic material based on the interviews on the 'small motherland' of the Lemkos. The ideas about their private motherland are interpreted using the topos of the Paradise Lost. In this text this concept is understood more broadly than literary scholars understand it. The definition of the topos of the Paradise Lost is connected with the search...
The article analyses the problems of sacrum as discussed by a few modern scholars - Walter Burkert, René Girard and Hyam Macoby, who link the reflection on religions (mainly Old Greek, Judaism and Christianity) to the data from anthropological and ethological studies. The text also relates on the discussion of the interrelation between sacrum and profanum as analysed by classical scholars, and promotes...
The article discusses Fijian Hindi, a group little known in Poland. It is the second largest ethnic group of Fiji, which constitutes 43.7% of the country's population. The Indian Diaspora appeared in Fiji as late as 130 years ago as a result of colonization by the British. The text presents the historical aspects of the functioning of the British indenture work and discusses problems related to the...
The article describes a research problem, which relates to the modern ethnological understanding of the concept of 'area', using the Mediterranean Basin as an example. The Basin is one of the more distinct cultural territories, present in the research tradition of ethnology, mainly western ethnology. The contemporary political and economic changes affect the ideas of the European cultural identity,...
A testimony is a special genre of religious literature used in the circles connected with the Evangelical churches (Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal, etc.) or with some groups active in the Catholic Church. Testimonies can be delivered during religious meetings or they can exist as texts. The article discusses testimonies as texts. The author of the testimony tells about his life. Prior to conversion...
A few dozen years after Marxist-Leninist atheism in the form of 'political religion', Islam has got a new place in the social space, considered to be an element of the 'national heritage'. Completely new phenomena and processes observed in a Muslim community, help make a claim about a new stage of islamization in Kazakhstan. The process of re-islamization assumes different forms, expressed, e.g. by...
In the article the author briefly explains what 'game' and 'play' are and how games were played by the three generations of some families. The discussion is based on the material collected during classes with the students of pedagogy at the University of Opole. He did not impose any specific form of expression upon his students. He has collected 45 accounts and got more or less insightful information...
At the end of December 2002 rumour was spread in Poland that dog and cat meat was available. It was offered mainly in Oriental snack bars. This information triggered a violent response in the society and heated debate in the media, full of emotion and containing xenophobic elements. As a result many customers, once satisfied, gave up on eating in such establishments. What is interesting is that this...
The aim of this article is to define the status and scope of research topics pursued by the sociology of the body as a new research area within the sociology of medicine. The authors describe its relations with the achievement of sociology as such. The sociology of the body continues research trends in sociology, which considered biological elements as significant variables for the explanation of...
This article addresses questions of ethnic and national identity concerning the Buryat minority in Mongolia. This group was formed in the first three decades of the twentieth century as a result of mass Buryat migration from their homeland plagued by revolutions and civil war. Despite repressions and ethnic purges in 1930s, this group managed to survive. Their present population numbers over 40,000...
Islam categorises reality into two clearly separated spheres; lay and sacred. This division determines nearly every sphere of the Muslim's life. Because of the importance of this division, sanctified by religion and custom, borderline places, which both link and separate both worlds, become particularly important. The author discusses the problem of border as one of the most basic issues of the culture...
The Matsigenka Indians live in the basins of the Urubamba and Madre de Dios rivers in Peru. Individualism, which finds expression in their living in small family hamlets scattered all over the forest, is the characteristic feature of their ethos. In the course of the 20th c. the majority of Matsigenka Indians began to live in larger settlements, which in 1974 were officially recognised as 'comunidades...
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