Institute of Ethnology

The text focuses on the theme of health care and amateur treatment in the extreme conditions of increased radiation after the explosion of the nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl power plant. It reconstructs the plight of the population from the accounts of residents living near the Chernobyl power plant, some of whom resettled in the Czech Republic, and analyses the relationship of the new state of affairs for folk healing. The text shows the logic of the adaptation mechanisms of the group of people to the new circumstances and their mobilization of the cognitive potential in the conditions in which professional aid and biomedicine, which they commonly used, failed. Besides the traditional practices of folk treatment, innovations based on scraps of information gathered from the mass media, reading, knowledge of a healthy lifestyle, the application of extreme medical cures devised by doctors through experimentation, assert themselves under extreme conditions. Other than the information on the application of specific methods and procedures, the text shows the process of how 'human wisdom' on health and disease is formed and adapts to a new, in this case extreme, situation. In an individualized, complex society, these ideas are distinctly private, flexible and situational.

The text focuses on the theme of health care and amateur treatment in the extreme conditions of increased radiation after the explosion of the nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl power plant. It reconstructs the plight of the population from the accounts of residents living near the Chernobyl power plant, some of whom resettled in the Czech Republic, and analyses the relationship of the new state of affairs for folk healing. The text shows the logic of the adaptation mechanisms of the group of people to the new circumstances and their mobilization of the cognitive potential in the conditions in which professional aid and biomedicine, which they commonly used, failed. Besides the traditional practices of folk treatment, innovations based on scraps of information gathered from the mass media, reading, knowledge of a healthy lifestyle, the application of extreme medical cures devised by doctors through experimentation, assert themselves under extreme conditions. Other than the information on the application of specific methods and procedures, the text shows the process of how 'human wisdom' on health and disease is formed and adapts to a new, in this case extreme, situation. In an individualized, complex society, these ideas are distinctly private, flexible and situational.

Cupping therapy is an ancient technique of healing used for a whole spectrum of health problems in a wide range of ways, variations and methods. Besides the type of material used, the forms of application and explanation of the mechanism of the effect, the methods of its conduct differ. In addition to medical grasp of the subject, a broader and more comprehensive view of this method is also supported by a comparison of the historical variations and forms across territorial units and time horizon. For this purpose, both the historical context of cupping therapy on the territory of the Czech Republic, its archaic form captured within the community living in emigration in Ukraine and a brief overview of the current situation in the Czech Republic are depicted. The data was collected in 2008-2018 within three waves of resettled Czechs from Ukraine all over the territory of the Czech Republic.

Téma doktorské práce Mgr. Veroniky Beranské je jednak tradiční svým zaměřením na lidové léčitelství, jednak originální vzhledem k výběru specifické skupiny respondentů. Navíc propojuje její farmaceutické a humanitní vzdělání. Autorka rovněž využívá nemalé výhody, kterou má jako spoluřešitelka grantu IAA700580801 – Identita a sociabilita migrantů z bývalého Sovětského svazu: následný výzkum řízených migrací s důrazem na druhou generaci (2008–2011, AV0/IA). Práci ovšem dominuje vlastní výzkum, realizovaný v průběhu několika posledních let v ČR mezi přesídlenými krajany z Ukrajiny a Kazachstánu. Nepochybně nejzajímavější skupinou zkoumaného vzorku jsou „černobylští Češi“. Základní teoretický přístup, který autorka volí, je kritická medicínská antropologie (s. 54). Text je rozdělen na část teoreticko-metodologickou (prvních 25 stran), po které následuje historicko-etnografický exkurs, popisující českou kolonizaci vymezených oblastí na Ukrajině a částečně i v Kazachstánu a Rusku (s margi...

Nowadays, there is a growing interest among anthropologists to do urban research that looks at both the government of the city and the dwellers' representations of the city (Lefebvre). Many ethnographies have thus focused, on the one hand, on urban policies and, on the other hand, on social practices. The Urban Anthropology Series published by Ashgate and the works published in the Journal Urbanities are good examples of this growing trend among anthropologists, which is consistent with the major transformation of cities around the world: gentrification, competition between cities, urban sprawl, mobility, heritagization, etc.. Urbanity is paradoxically claimed as one of the main attributes of Modernity at a time when cities are diluting and disseminating.

The work builds on the scientific production on the theme of the resettled Czechs from areas of the former Soviet Union, which is continued treated on the soil of the Institute of Ethnology of the CAS, v.v.i., and introduces the latest conducted grant project, in which I focused on the area of health and folk medicine. The text deals with a specific group of the Czech populations predominantly from Ukraine and Kazakhstan (partially also Belarus and Russia), whose ancestors set out in the second half of the 19th century to seek a better living in the direction to the east from the borders of then Austro-Hungary. Through the use of commemorative narrations and life trajectories of the participating actors, the work maps the background of the arrival in new destinations, life in the 20th century, the change of the political and social conditions and the subsequent remigration to the Czech Republic. With a few exceptions, all of the actors figuring in this work became part of the resett...

In: New Socialities and Subjectivities in 21st Century Health Care. Hg. Anita Hardon und Bernhard Hadolt. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press: 25-41

Franz Graf examines a new sociality being created by Europeans attracted to curanderismo (the practice of Latin American folk medicine), which he discusses in relation to scholarship on the ‘new animism’. Pursuing a more meaningful relationship with the whole natural world, these students and recipients of indigenous healing seek to combat the alienation of the neoliberal, individualized body.

Zu behaupten, ich hätte diese Arbeit "selbstständig verfasst", kommt mir angesichts der Beteiligung vieler Personen eigenartig vor. Jedenfalls lassen sich die Unterstützung, die Begleitung und auch die Zwänge, die zu der vorliegenden Arbeit geführt haben, mit einer Danksagung nicht ausgleichen. Dennoch möchte mich an dieser Stelle zumindest rituell (oder förmlich) bei jenen bedanken, die mir dieses Projekt nicht nur ermöglicht, sondern substantiell zu dessen Verlauf und Fertigstellung beigetragen haben. Ich bedanke mich bei Manfred Kremser, der mir noch kurz vor seinem Tod versicherte, dass ich diese Dissertation schreiben werde. Mit dem Marietta Blau-Stipendium des Bundesministeriums für Wissenschaft und Forschung unter Karlheinz Töchterle konnte der einjährige Feldaufenthalt in Bristol (zumindest zu einem Großteil) finanziert werden. Für weitere Finanzierung und vor allem für den Glauben an ihre Sinnhaftigkeit danke ich meiner Mutter Rosemarie Graf und ihren Eltern Rosa und Lorenz Steiner. Meinen FreundInnen und GesprächspartnerInnen im Feld danke ich, dass sie mich und Eva Graf an ihrem Leben teilhaben ließen, und dass sie an unserem Leben teilgenommen haben. Dominic Rooney sei hier im speziellen gedankt, weil er uns ein Heim geboten hat, indem auch unser Sohn Jan geboren werden konnte. Für Gespräche und Beratungen bin ich Kathryn Rountree, Tim Ingold und Graham Harvey zu Dank verpflichtet. Elke Mader danke ich, dass sie mich (einen "Kremser-Schüler") bereitwillig als Dissertanten akzeptiert hat und mein Projekt von Beginn an gefördert hat. Des Weiteren danke ich den TeilnehmerInnen der Konferenzen New Socialities and Subjectivities in Health Care in the 21st Century (MAAH -University Feedback, Motivation, Korrekturen und Kommentare. Für die Transkriptionen der Interviews bedanke ich mich bei Dune Johnson und Luke Chamberlain. Für die großartige Unterstützung in der allerletzten Phase dieses Prozesses gilt den fünf Männern Uli Göttke-Krogmann, Evangelos Karagiannis, Mark Kirstätter, Wolfgang Stuchlik und Martin Thalhammer mein Dank, für unglaubliche Leistungen beim Korrigieren, Bibliografieren, Redigieren und Motivieren. Das Schreiben der vorliegenden Arbeit ist mit einem bestimmten Ort auf ganze besondere Weise verbunden. Diese "Umwelt" ist die Wohngemeinschaft (oder der Coworking Space) Taborstraße: mit dem Brendl ums eine Eck, dem Au-BürgerInnen-Garten ums andere; den samstäglichen Blühpflanzen und den frischen Lebensmitteln vom Karmelitermarkt; den Mühlviertler "Fleischaktionen" und der engelshaften Mariana Seritean, die danach wieder für Ordnung sorgt; der immer bis zum Rand gefüllten Tiefkühltruhe; den vorzüglichen Speisen, mit einschlägiger "Prominenz" oder ohne; den Gesprächen mit Vangelis, Muza und Pezi; den materialisierten Erinnerungen an die zahlreichen Arbeiten und Qualifizierungsarbeiten; der formidablen Bibliothek und vor allem anderen mit der gemeinschaftlichen "Arbeits-Freizeit" mit Gerti. Ich danke Dir! Du hast meine Arbeit ins Freie geführt. Diese Dissertation wurde vor allem durch eine Person möglich. Eva hat mich durch diesen sechsjährigen Prozess mit all seinen Höhen und Tiefen begleitet, mich gefördert und unterstützt. Ich danke Dir für die Geduld und die Ausdauer, die Du nicht nur meiner Abwesenheit, sondern auch Jan und Hannah entgegengebracht hast.

Dicen por aquí, que una cosa es saber, otra cosa es hacer, otra cosa es sentir -Lehre in der mexikanischen Heilkunde am Beispiel der Gemeinschaft calpulli cencalli im Valle de México." Verfasser Franz Graf angestrebter akademischer Grad Magister der Philosophie (Mag. phil.) Wien

Und so möchte ich ja mein Leben noch einmal Revue passieren lassen, damit ich sozusagen zweimal gelebt habe. Einmal habe ich IN der Aktion live gelebt, den Körper hineingestellt, dort wo ich gerade war. […] Und das zweite Mal leben heißt, jetzt in der Erinnerung mit den Dokumentationen, die ich heimgebracht habe.« (Manfred Kremser im Gespräch mit Franz Graf, 23. 8. 2012

I send love and thanks to the earth, the soil and the roots, the life that lives in the soil, the rocks, the bones of the earth that shape and form the land, the rich fertility of the soils that grow the plants and the trees and our food. I send love and thanks to the trees, for the air, for your love and companionship, for your wisdom, protection and habitat. I send my love and thanks to all the animals and the birds, for being, for teaching me how to live quietly and naturally, more in tune, to the birds for your songs. (Tanya N., Meditations under Big Ash,

While for some scholars 'sociality' is an explicitly 'human capacity for the social' (Barnard and Spencer, 1996, p. 622), relational approaches have received increasing attention for their promise in overcoming a nature-culture dichotomy by considering all phenomena 'social' if they are 'intrinsically interactive' (Cook et al., quoted in Long and Moore, 2013, p. 13). '[A]ll life would be social life', argues Ingold (1997, p. 249), refusing to distinguish between human and nonhuman sociality. Although Long and Moore (2013, p. 13) have little doubt that we live in a relational world, they warn that relational views 'all too quickly conflate ontological interventions with cryptonormative programmes of how we, as analysts and subjects, should engage with a relational world'. The question is, in what ways do people engage with this relationality, something that is 'always informed by historically and spatially particular practices of ethical imagination' (Long and Moore, 2013, p. 14)? The ethnographic research underlying this paper was conducted with people in Mexico, England, Germany, and Austria who share an interest in magico-therapeutic ways of becoming 'healthy' and producing 'health', and who engage in apprenticeships in groups led by a curandera (practitioner of Latin American folk medicine) (Graf, 2009, 2013). 2 This field of social actors is characterized by a strong desire to push and transform their own concepts of 'sociality' ('real-world sociality') in 'new directions' (see Long and Moore, 2013, p. 3)-and, in particular, in animistic directions. According to Whyte (2009, p. 7), the allegiance to one particular medical subsystem can be seen as 'a kind of medicinal cultural politics that places a person by expressing loyalty to one system in opposition to another'. 1 I thank Gertraud Seiser for helping me to think through some of the issues presented here. I would also like to express my gratitude to Bernhard Hadolt and Elke Mader for constructive criticism and feedback. I am also grateful to Robert Mixan and Dominic Rooney for their valuable comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. 2 What I refer to here as the European appropriation of curanderismo can be academically framed under the term 'neo-Shamanisms' (see Wallis, 2003), which now constitute a part of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) (Reece, 2010).

This paper aims to present field schools as a crucial tool in teaching the anthropology of climate change. Field schools provide students with insight into conducting ethnographic research within real field situations. Students can thereby gain experiences that cannot be replaced by traditional classroom lectures and readings. People learn through experience in practice, and scientific methodology is no exception. For instance, Pierre Bourdieu likens the research dynamics of the groundbreaking study on social suffering in the Parisian Banlieues to the artist’s and craftsman’s workshops of the Quattrocento. In a collaborative setting, a group of learners closely worked together under the guidance of an experienced craftsman.  My argument is that this praxeological approach can also be part of teaching ethnographic fieldwork and the core methods of anthropology.

Cli ord Geertz programja, az értelmező antropológia számos, sokszor eklektikusan összedolgozott lozó ai szöveg alapfeltevéseire épít. Ahhoz, hogy akár kritikát gyakoroljunk Geertz módszertana felett, akár megvizsgáljuk, hogy a kortárs antropológia számára mennyiben és milyen megszorításokkal gondolható tovább a program, érdemes szétválasztani a különböző forrásokat, és rekonstruálni a sokszor kimondatlanul hagyott premisszákat. Jelen esszé Geertz főképpen hermeneutikai forrásait mutatja be, rekonstruálva a köztük fennálló logikai viszonyt. Emellett megpróbál választ adni a kérdésre, hogy a lozó ai hermeneutika szöveg-centrikussága mennyiben menthető át az alkalmazott antropológia heterogén, tapasztalat-központú módszertanának közegébe, végül pedig megkísérli elhelyezni a "sűrű leírás" (thick description) kulcsfogalmát a fentiek által kirajzolt elméleti keretben. "M " 3

After the eight-year-old Victoria Climbié, accused of being a witch, was murdered by close kins in London, February 2000 --and a number of similar cases of child abuse were revealed in the subsequent years --questions of possession, witchcraft and exorcism gained substantial public and scholarly attention. Lying at the intersection of equally prompting applied and theoretical needs of understanding and informed action, these topics can only be meaningfully addressed through a multidisciplinary approach.