Review article

Ethnology, Ethnography and Post-Political Witnessing

Borislav Mikulić

Abstract

The paper reviews and comments on an anthology of ten analyses of cultural studies, semiology and ethnography, all centring on the different forms and levels of discursive representation and reproduction of the reality of the »domestic« socialist way of life both in former Yugoslavia and Croatia, in its most diverse historical phases, in its both official and unofficial forms of discursive procedures (documents, concepts, customs, myths, commercials, pop icons). In addition to the introductory comparison with thematically or methodologically similar publications, the paper also reviews the themes and types of the contributions, while particularly focusing on two papers: the anthology’s programmatic text tackling the idea of socialism’s ethnography in relation to the legacy of ethnology, in respect of its both explicit and implicit scientific theoretical presuppositions. Furthermore, in respect of the theorem of the arbitrariness of signs, the paper also comments on the contribution dealing with the rhetorical analysis of the discourse of the so-called liberal political dissidence of socialism in Belgrade during the 1980s, proving the responsibility of intelligence for the social catastrophe of former Yugoslavia through the analysis of the relation between »words and deeds«.

Keywords

socialism; everyday life; cultural sciences; ethnology; phenomenology; political dissidence; arbitrariness of signs; responsibility

Hrčak ID:

15759

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/15759

Publication date:

2.4.2007.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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