Original scientific paper
WEDDING CUSTOMS BETWEEN THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL
Zorica Vitez
; Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The sense of the importance of research into the interaction of the global and the local, as a process that shapes contemporary culture, is examined in this article on the example of contemporary Croatian wedding customs. Analysis of current weddings in Croatia shows the existence of two types of wedding customs: one type is connected with earlier local wedding tradition of rural origins, while the second type is newer, more widely disseminated, and has been adopted from customs existing outside the local community, usually of urban origin, and often imported by way of the mass media and/or by migration. It would seem that the first type of customs meet the need to express local identity, while the second rely on a feeling of belonging to the contemporary world and broader human communities, including the global community. The example of contemporary Croatian wedding customs confirms the assumption regarding the twofold effects of globalisation processes and/or the interaction of the local and the global as being, simultaneously, both
stimulating to and suppressive of local cultures: stimulation and the intensive new life of the local occur in wedding specifics, while the wedding overall takes place according to widely accepted models that also include certain almost globally disseminated content.
Keywords
wedding; contemporary nature; global; local
Hrčak ID:
26065
URI
Publication date:
15.12.2004.
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