Přemysl Mácha
Přemysl Mácha
QUALIFICATIONS
2004 Ph.D., Ethnology, Charles University, Prague
1998 M.A., Political Science, Syracuse University
1997 B.A. Anthropology, Political Science, Spanish, Eastern New Mexico University
PRINCIPAL RESEARCH INTERESTS
Linguistic Anthropology; Landscape Memory; Anthropology of Space and Place; Ethnoecology; Environmental History; Nature Conservation; Cultural Heritage; Ethnic Studies
RESEARCH PROFILE
My current research rests on three interrelated foci. The first area of research is the role of language in perception. I am interested in how language structures our understanding of the world with a special focus on the politics of place-naming and spatial perception in multilingual areas. This research intersects with onomastics, ethnoecology, socio-linguistics, and ethnic studies. The second area of interest concerns landscape memory and the evolution and perception of cultural landscapes in the context of Central Europe and the American Southwest. In addition to memory studies and the anthropology of landscape, I incorporate insights from other disciplines such as geography, forestry and environmental history. The last, closely-related area of research focuses on natural and cultural heritage. In addition to fundamental research on tangible and intangible heritage, I also carry out applied research in collaboration with municipalities, nature conservation authorities, museums and other memory institutions to promote heritage conservation in the Czech Republic.
Books
2022 Stopy lidského umu. Předindustriální technické provozy na území někdejšího panství Rožnov [Traces of Human Ingenuity. Pre-industrial Technical Objects on the Former Rožnov Estate]. Brno: Masarykova univerzita a Etnologický ústav AV ČR, v. v. i. (co-authors Bajer, Vojtěch – Bryol, Radek – Bubík, Miroslav – Červenka, Radim – Drápala, Daniel – Michalička, Václav – Petřeková, Jitka – Španihel, Samuel – Tlapáková, Lenka – Woitsch, Jiří)
2021 Place-Names Politics in Multilingual Areas. A comparative Study of Southern Carinthina (Austria) and the Těšín/Cieszyn Region (Czechia). New York: Palgrave MacMillan. (co-authors Jordan, Peter et al.)
2014 Názvy míst – paměť, identita, kulturní dědictví [Place Names – Memory, Identity, Cultural Heritage]. Brno: Host. (co-author David, Jaroslav)
2003 Plamínek v horách, požár v nížině: indiánské povstání v mexickém Chiapasu [A Small Flame in the Mountains, a Conflagration in the Lowlands: An Indian Uprising in Chiapas]. Brno: Nakladatelství Doplněk.
Edited Volumes and Special Issues
2014 Masks of Identity: Representing and Performing Otherness in Latin America. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishers. (co-editor Gómez-Pellón, Eloy)
2009 Lighting the Bonfire, Rebuilding the Pyramid. Case Studies in Identity, Ethnicity and Nationalism in Indigenous Communities in Mexico. Ostrava: Ostravská univerzita v Ostravě.
Journal Articles
2023 Wherein lies the heritage value of place names? Onoma 58: 19–35.
2023 Urbanonymie malých sídel na příkladu Moravy – explorativní analýza [Urbanonyms in small settlements. An explorative analysis of Moravia]. Acta Onomastica 64(1): 88–103.
2023 The challenges and possibilities in the reconstruction of non-forest woody vegetation: A case study of the hermit beetle microhabitat in the Poodří region, Czechia. Applied Geography 150(1). (co-authors Červenka, Radim – Tlapáková, Lenka)
2021 Small technical heritage objects in the cultural landscape: research possibilities and conservation challenges. Národopisná revue 31(5): 3–20. (co-authors Bryol, Radek – Tlapáková, Lenka – Červenka, Radim – Bajer, Vojtěch)
2021 Jazyk a krajina v antropologickém výzkumu [Language and landscape in anthropological research]. Český lid 108(4): 403–430.
2021 Researching place name politics in multilingual areas: experiences and challenges. Onomàstica 7: 85–111. (co-author Obrusnik, Uršula)
2020 Dvojjazyčné nápisy na Těšínsku aneb těšínský venkov jako experiment s pluralitou [Bilingual signs in the Těšín region or the Těšín countryside as an experiment with plurality]. Národopisná revue 30(3): 191–201.
2020 The Symbolic Power of Place Names: The Case of the River Olše/Olza/Łolza in Northeastern Czechia. Names 68(3): 169–184.
2018 City Divided: Place Names and Nationalism in the Czech-Polish Borderlands. Mitteilungen der Österreichischer Geographischer Gesellschaft 160: 303–329. (co-authors Krtička, Luděk – Lassak, Horst)
2017 Krajinný motiv na lidovém malovaném nábytku [The landscape motive on painted folk furniture]. Národopisný věstník 76(2): 36–62. (co-author Krtička, Luděk)
2015 Geopolitické představy české veřejnosti [Geopolitical imaginations of the Czech public]. Geografie 120(4): 564–584. (co-authors Drobík, Tomáš – Šumberová, Monika – Ženka, Jan – Tenzin, Eva – Špirková, Petronela)
2013 Krajiny. Příspěvek k diskuzi o konceptualizaci krajiny v (české) geografii [Landscapes: a contribution to the discussion about the conceptualization of landscape in (Czech) geography]. Geografie 118(1): 1–15.
2012 Možnosti studia toponym ve vztahu ke krajině, prostoru a identitě [The possibilities of studying toponyms in relation to landscape, space and identity]. Acta Onomastica 53: 28–45. (co-author David, Jaroslav)
2012 Study of the occurrence and distribution of “Iezer” and “Bolătău” – based toponyms in Romania and their counterparts from Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia. Georeview 21(1): 68–79. (co-authors Granidaru, Ionela – Iosep, Ioan – Pociask-Karteczka, Joanna – Brancelj, Anton)
2010 Knowing One's Place in the Era of Globalization: A Case Study of the Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Czech Automobile Plant in Nošovice, Czech Republic. Annual of Language & Politics and Politics of Identity 4(4): 75–90. (co-author Drobík, Tomáš)
2010 Krajiny antropologie a antropologie krajiny [The landscapes of anthropology and the anthropology of landscape]. Český lid 97(3): 225–246.
2008 When Malinche Dances with Montezuma. Religion, Ethnicity and Cultural Change in New Mexico. KIAS Papers Yearbook 2008: 20–27.
2007 Tradition, Democracy, and Radicalism in Indigenous Communities in Mexico. Lessons for the Universalist-Relativist and Individualist-Communitarian Debates. Ethnologia Actualis Slovaca 7: 113–134.
2007 Los Comanches de Nuevo México. Hybridita, autenticita a politika identity v Novém Mexiku [Los Comanches de Nuevo México. Hybridity, Authenticity and Identity Politics in New Mexico]. Český lid 94(2): 141–156.
2006 Los Matachines. Identita a politika v Novém Mexiku na příkladu tance [Los Matachines: Identity and Politics in New Mexico as Exemplified by a Dance]. Český lid 93(2): 179–198.
2003 The Rise of the Purhepechan Nation: Democratization, Economic Restructuring and Ethnic Revival among the Purhepecha Indians of Central Michoacan, Mexico. Journal for the Study of Science and Ideologies 5: 83–102.
Book Chapters
2021 Migrants and migration in the linguistic landscape of Brno, Czechia. In: Dollimore, Allison – Jordan, Peter (eds.): Place Names and Migration. Hamburg: Verlag Dr. Kovač, pp. 239–255.
2016 Před kým, (s) kým, pro koho? Dilemata v ochraně zeměpisných jmen jako kulturního dědictví [From whom, with whom, for whom? Dilemas in the protection of place names as cultural heritage]. In: David, Jaroslav (ed.): Toponyma – kulturní dědictví a paměť míst. Ostrava: Ostravská univerzita, pp. 14–31.
2016 Exonyms as Metaphoric Endonyms: World History and Geography in Local Landscapes. In: Jordan, Peter – Woodman, Paul (eds.): Criteria for the Use of Exonyms. Proceedings of the 17th UNGEGN Working Group on Exonyms Meeting, Zagreb, 14-16 May 2015. Hamburg: Dr. Kovač Verlag, pp. 99–114. (co-author Krtička, Luděk)
2014 The Comanches of New Mexico – Dancing with the Other in the Latin American Borderlands. In: Mácha, Přemysl – Gómez-Pellón, Eloy (eds.): Masks of Identity: Representing and Performing Otherness in Latin America. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 125–143.
2014 Otherness in Latin American History and Anthropology. In: Mácha, Přemysl – Gómez-Pellón, Eloy (eds.): Masks of Identity: Representing and Performing Otherness in Latin America. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 1–14.
2014 Place Names, Landscape, and Identity. In: Bedynski, Wojciech – Povedák, István (eds.): Landscape as a factor in creating identity. Warsaw: Dance House Society, pp. 29–38.
2013 Resistance through Tourism: Identity, Imagery, and Tourism Marketing in New Mexico. In: Sarmento, Joao – Brito-Henriques, Eduardo (eds.): Tourism in the Global South: Heritages, Identities and Development. Lisbon: University of Lisbon, Centre for Geographical Studies, pp. 91–112.
2012 Krajina a krajinomalba – výchozí teze ke studiu krajiny [Landscape and landscaping – some thoughts on the study of landscape]. In: Malura, Jan – Tomášek, Martin (eds.): Krajina. Vytváření prostoru v literatuře a výtvarném umění. Ostrava: Ostravská univerzita v Ostravě, Filozofická fakulta, pp. 40–54.
2010 Mexický paradox? Obraz a realita v proměnách postavení domorodých obyvatel Mexika [The Mexican Paradox? Image and Reality in the Transformation of the Position of Indigenous Communites in Mexico]. In: Hingarová Vendula – Květinová, Sylvie – Eichlová, Gabriela (eds.): Mexiko – 200 let nezávislosti. Červený Kostelec: Pavel Mervart, pp. 113–129.
2009 From an Ethnie to a Nation: The Purhepechas on the Road to National Self-Determination. In: Mácha, Přemysl (ed.): Lighting the Bonfire, Rebuilding the Pyramid: Case Studies in Identity, Ethnicity and Nationalism in Indigenous Communities in Mexico. Ostrava: Ostravská univerzita v Ostravě, pp. 83–123.
Ongoing Projects and Grants
2025–2028 The Land Gone Wild: Archaeology and Transdisciplinary Research of Resilience Strategies in 20th Century, Archaeology of Memory and Cultural Heritage, financed by the Johannes Amos Comenius Programme, Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic. Leader of the work package.
Past Projects and Grants
2020–2022 Traces of Human Ingenuity (program NAKI II, Czech Ministry of Culture, DG20P02OVV004). Principal investigator.
Editorial Work
Ongoing Ethnologia Actualis, Editorial Board
Ongoing Studia lexicographica, Editorial Board
External Reviewing
Project Evaluation: European Research Agency, Horizon Europe, project evaluation (2024); Czech Ministry of Culture, NAKI III, project evaluation (2023)
Journal Articles Manuscript Review: Český lid; Sociologický časopis; Lidé města – Urban people
Teaching Experience
2008–2018 Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Cultural Geography, Department of Social Geography, Faculty of Science, University of Ostrava, Ostrava.
2000–2008 Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Political Science, Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Ostrava, Ostrava.
Invited Talks, Public Lectures or Roundtables
2024 December, 9-11. The Emotional Geography of Home: Place Names, Identity, and Landscape Perception in a Multilingual Czech-Polish Region. Key-note lecture, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Landscape, Society and Cognition 2024, University of Zürich, Switzerland
2024 October, 30. UNESCO Meeting of experts on safeguarding intangible cultural heritage and climate change. Invited lecture, European Networks of Focal Points for the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, on-line
2024 June, 7. Paměť, trauma a smíření – přírodní a kulturní dědictví Ralska jako výzva [Memory, trauma and reconciliation – the natural and cultural heritage of Ralsko as a challenge]. Invited lecture, Czech Commission for UNESCO. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Prague
Conference and Workshop Organisation
2024 May, 16-17. Naming the Community: Identity Reconfiguration in Central and Eastern Europe through the Prism of Official and Unofficial Names. Workshop, Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague.
2024 December, 12. Selský rozum jako výzva [Common sense as a challenge]. Interdisciplinary roundtable, Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague.
2022 September, 10-11. Language and Environmental Perception in Europe. Workshop, Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague.
Consultancy and Expert Advice
Ongoing Commission for Awarding the Title of Bearer of the Tradition of Folk Crafts, Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.
2024 UNESCO, Safeguarding intangible cultural heritage and climate change, France, expert consultation.
2023 International Evaluation of Lithuanian Research Institutions, Lithuanian Research Council, expert evaluator.
