Filozofska istraživanja, Vol. 27 No. 1, 2007.
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
Publication date:
2.4.2007.
Visits: 1.927 *