Original scientific paper

https://doi.org/10.15378/1848-9540.2022.45.01

To Touch, to Hear, to Feel. Can Ethnography Dissolve the Narrations of Fear?

Renata Jambrešić Kirin ; Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku, Zagreb
Katherine Borland orcid.org/0000-0002-5073-0429 ; The Ohio State University
Stef Jansen orcid.org/0000-0001-5729-5952 ; Odsjek za sociologiju Filozofski fakultet Sveučilište u Sarajevu
Jelena Marković orcid.org/0000-0002-7436-6190 ; Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku, Zagreb
Sanja Lončar ; Odsjek za etnologiju i kulturnu antropologiju Filozofski fakultet Sveučilište u Zagrebu

Abstract

This paper deals with the social, cognitive, and affective consequences caused by the devastating
earthquake that hit the Banija region on December 29, 2020. The natural disaster
is understood not only as a catastrophe but as a kind of catharsis that has exposed layers of
political negligence, difficult pasts, and deep connections to the environment. The author
interprets (mediatized and face-to-face) personal narratives of natural disaster, ruination
and regeneration, solidarity, and mutual understanding as the basis of making new affective
communities and triggering processes that resolve national (and nationalistic) narratives
and contribute to community empowerment. The paper’s methodological framework
embraces participatory ethnography, the theory of folk narratives (Bausinger 2018 [1958];
Borland 2021; Bošković-Stulli 1984; Ranke 2018 [1967]; Rudan 2020, Shuman 2005),
the ethnography of the senses (Bendix 2000, 2005), and the “deep implicancy” knowledge
of reflecting what makes the “human inseparable from all matter” (da Silva and Neuman
2018). The author concludes that villagers co–habiting with nature (but also depending on
it) make sense of their unique experiences of disaster, comparing it with other humans’ suffering
and organizing a narrative frame that “makes the allegorical personal, the cosmological
local” (Shuman 2005).

Keywords

the Banija earthquake; ethnography of disaster, natural vs. social catastrophes; narratives of ruination and revitalization; ethnography of senses; narrative democracy

Hrčak ID:

287940

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/287940

Publication date:

21.12.2022.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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