Pregledni rad
Children's Orality and Orality on Childhood in Croatian Ethnology and Folkloristics
Jelena Marković
orcid.org/0000-0002-7436-6190
; Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku, Šubićeva 42, 10000 Zagreb
Sažetak
Questioning of ‘meeting points’, scientifically often left unnoticed, ‘chance’ meetings, intertwining and intermingling of key concepts which are relevant for the research of orality on childhood by the children and adults alike, and these are childhood and orality, frequently presents a dialogue with and in between gaps which form a part of relatively independent and often autonomous interests in: children orality in folkloristics and orality on childhood in ethnology, as well as the interest of folkloristics in life stories, or rarely the other way around. The above mentioned folkloristic interest is usually focused on adult story tellers and stories on adult age.
The focus of, especially, ethnology, has been and has partly remained centered around generic, nonspecific, general personal memory and hence from that memory derived personal stories on childhood which then served as the basis for the transformation of ethnographic material into ethnological knowledge. Ethnology has also been focused on autobiographical knowledge (though less than on nonspecific memories) and up to recent period very rarely on specific personal memories on childhood. Only due to the broadening of the competencies of folklorists and to the interest of folkloristics and literary theory in life stories at the end of 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, specific personal memories and stories have become the objects of interest.
Generally speaking, folklorists were firstly interested in children’s orality and only later, through their interest in life stories, in orality on childhood. Ethnologists were interested in orality on childhood (but not as a form of oral tradition, but only as one aspect of the ethnological knowledge on childhood) and only exceptionally children’s experience or experience of childhood.
This aim of this article is to analyze causes and consequences of (non)interest in children’s orality and orality on childhood in Croatian ethnology and folkloristics and is on one hand following the tradition of folkloristic research of children’s folklore in Croatia, especially the changes in the attitude of folklorists towards children informants, the changes in the (non)aestheticized folklore genres and hence accounts on specific personal memories. On the other hand, the article discusses the fragments inside specific ethnological research in Croatia which could only sporadically be called the ethnography of childhood or which could, eventually, lead to one, including the research attempts interested in children’s experience and experience of childhood.
Ključne riječi
children; childhood; children’s folklore; children orality; orality on childhood; life stories; stories on childhood; Croatian ethnology and folkloristics
Hrčak ID:
45122
URI
Datum izdavanja:
18.12.2009.
Posjeta: 3.414 *