Projects - The Institute of Ethnology CAS

MEMPOP – Memory and Populism from Below

Memory and Populism from Below (MEMPOP)

ERC 2022 Starting Grant, Horizont Europe, European Commisssion

101076092; 1.1.2024 – 31.12.2028

Principal Investigator: MSc. Johana Wyss D.Phil.

Team members: Franz Graf, Ioana Brunet, Diána Vonnák, Laura Mafizzoli, Astrea Nikolovska, Jitka Králová

Political polarisation with rising support for populist movements is one of the most pressing global issues that we are facing worldwide. Yet, it is usually Central and Eastern Europe that are singled out for examples of unprecedented resurgences of populism, illiberal nationalism, and increasingly authoritarian forms of government. However, considering how divergent the so-called populist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe are, as well as the types of mnemonic populism they employ, ‘populism’ has become a label that is as empty as it is fashionable. To scrutinise the notion of Central and Eastern European populism and provide a novel perspective on this phenomenon, the project proposes a radical shift from the two units of analysis that are taken for granted in populism studies: the temporal unit that presumes Central and Eastern European populism is a post-socialist consequence; and the geographical unit that essentialises contemporary nation-states of Central and Eastern Europe. By adopting a bottom-up approach and investigating the everyday mnemonic practices and populist sentiments of ordinary people living in the transnational borderland periphery, namely, Burgenland, Galicia, Istria, and Silesia, this pioneering study moves away from the elite, top-down investigation of populism as well as the tendency to treat the state as the primary unit of analysis. Instead, it shifts the centre of focus to the postimperial transnational borderlands where, in fact, both antagonistic memories and support for populist movements are arguably the strongest.

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 101076092).

BOAR – Veterinarization of Europe? Hunting for Wild Boar Futures in the Time of African Swine Fever

Veterinarization of Europe? Hunting for Wild Boar Futures in the Time of African Swine Fever (BOAR)
ERC Consolidator Grant, Horizon 2020, European Commission
Grant agreement ID: 866350; 2020-2025

Principal Investigator: Luděk Brož
Team members: Aníbal G. Arregui, Erica von Essen, Thorsten Gieser, Paul G. Keil, Laura J. Kuen, Kieran O’Mahony, Garry Marvin, Marianna Szczygielska, Virginie Vaté, André Thiemann

African Swine Fever is a fatal porcine virus infecting Europe’s prolific wild boar. Human conflict with wild boar has intensified over fears that exposure to a diseased population will contaminate domestic pig farms. Veterinarians play an important role in European State management of the viral threat. The BOAR project is an EU-funded, anthropological study of veterinary knowledge and practice beyond animal health, examining how veterinary science increasingly mediates human-wildlife interactions, and serves to structure and govern society through biosecurity measures. As self-appointed stewards of wild boar, recreational hunting communities are key subjects for researching veterinary interventions. The BOAR project will deliver innovative insights for the anthropology of hunting, the future of human-porcine relations, and the emerging subfield of 'veterinary anthropology'.

This project proposes a collaborative, ethnographic investigation of the relationship between three understudied subjects in anthropology: veterinary medicine, European hunting and wild boars. In recent decades, the wild boar has proliferated, (re)conquering the natural, rural and urban landscapes of Europe, and increasingly clashing with human practices and worlds. Classified as a game animal, the boar is primarily killed and managed by recreational hunters. Yet, hunters are proving incapable of stemming the tide of this intelligent, adaptable being, an interspecies relation that challenges hunting’s value and legitimacy in European society. This tension has amplified with the arrival of African Swine Fever (ASF) to the continent: a fatal virus that travels between wild boar and domestic pig, forest and farm, and threatens to infect and ruin the pig industry. In the name of biosecurity, and informed by veterinary knowledge, some States have intervened and conducted mass culls, erected dividing fences across Schengen space, or instituted no-go zones. During this crisis we witnessed how veterinary medicine’s role can extend beyond mediating human-animal relations, and work to structure and govern human lives in general. At the intersection of boars, hunting, ASF and veterinary medicine, this project has two main objectives: first, to examine how European hunting and porcine futures are intertwined, and the role of veterinarians in shaping these futures, and; second, through human-boar relations, study how society is becoming increasingly veterinarized and thus shape the conceptual and methodological development of the emerging field of veterinary anthropology. This project will further contribute to anthropology by opening a novel empirical and theoretical niche for the anthropology of hunting, and experiment with ethnography as a tool of engagement with near futures. The emerging and uncertain impact of ASF in Europe is an excellent moment to conduct such a project.

http://www.wildboar.cz/

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 866350).

Network for forest by-products charcoal, resin, tar, potash (EU-PoTaRCh)

European Swine Influenza Network

COST Action, COST: European Cooperation in Science & Technology

CA21132

Start date: Autumn 2022

Principal investigator: CEVA Animal Health – Dr. Gwenaëlle Dauphin

Partners: Etnologický ústav AV ČR

Project participants from the Institute: Dr. Luděk Brož

Swine influenza is a highly contagious respiratory disease in pigs caused by influenza A viruses (swIAV) which leads to production losses. The intensification of pork production systems and free livestock movement across borders fosters the spread of the virus in Europe. New variants, some with zoonotic potential, constantly emerge. Recent human pandemics have highlighted the zoonotic and reverse zoonotic potential of swine influenza and its risks for both animal and public health. Despite the burdens caused by swine influenza, surveillance across Europe is scanty and fragmented. Disease awareness is low in some European countries, diagnostic protocols are not harmonized, most countries lack standardised procedures and vaccine coverage is inconsistent. An interdisciplinary expert network is needed to develop a comprehensive view of the disease and its impacts to better manage swine influenza in Europe. ESFLU will:

● Facilitate data sharing and analysis for swIAV surveillance with national and international agencies

● Establish the network as the European OFFLU counterpart and support global surveillance and pandemic preparedness

● Strengthen capability in Europe to detect, identify and characterize swIAV virus

● Establish guidelines for swIAV management and control in pig herds

● Promote dialog between stakeholders and inform policymakers and the general public on swine flu disease burden and the risks to public health.

ESFLU gathers 76 experts in an interdisciplinary One Health approach. The Action will advance scientific knowledge concerning swIAV, improve disease surveillance and management capabilities, benefit pork production and reduce risks to both animal and human health.

https://www.cost.eu/actions/CA21132/

Slow Memory: Transformative Practices for Times of Uneven and Accelerated Change

Slow Memory: Transformative Practices for Times of Uneven and Accelerated Change

COST Action, COST: European Cooperation in Science & Technology

CA20105; 2021-2025

Principal Investigator: Nottingham Trent University – Prof. Jenny Wüstenberg

Partners: Etnologický ústav AV ČR
Project participants from the Institute: Dr. Johana Wyss

We are living in times of deep contradictions. While our world accelerates and grows smaller through superfast digital networks, it is also marked by widening socio-economic disparities. We face viral pandemics, rapid species extinction, increased automation of work, quick fixes for mental health, political upheavals and displacements of old certainties. Adaptation and resilience to these challenges must draw on past experiences and cultural resources – this can only happen if we slow down and take time to remember well. This Action addresses the need for increased interdisciplinarity in our understanding of how societies confront their past to contend with environmental, economic and social changes brought on by sudden events and by slow and creeping transformations. The future of peace, prosperity, politics, work and climate will depend upon how we remember socio-cultural and political changes. Transformative practices of remembrance – as objects of study and as critical interventions – will be shared collaboratively across Arts and Sciences in order to reveal the ways in which humans confront large-scale processes of change. This Action will uniquely focus the attention of scholars, policymakers and cultural professionals on alternative paths to build resilience in the face of contemporary rapid-response culture. Through transnational and interdisciplinary discussions, we will address urgency, emergency, crisis and acceleration by drawing together the ‘multi-sited’, ‘eventless’ and slow-moving phenomena that can best be studied by ‘slowing down’ our research methods, to afford capacity building, knowledge generation and impact activities. Inspired by ‘slow science’ (Stengers 2018), we seek an alternative kind of social remembering.

https://www.cost.eu/cost-action/slow-memory-transformative-practices-for-times-of-uneven-and-accelerating-change/#tabs+Name:Description

Twitter: @slowmemo

Migration and Us: Mobility, Refugees, and Borders from the Perspective of the Humanities

The Land Gone Wild: Archaeological and Transdisciplinary Research on Resilience Strategies in the 20th Century

Christological Broadside Ballads in Oral tradition

Unequal citizenship and transnational mobilisation of Polish, Czech, and Ukrainian Roma in the face of war in Ukraine

Between “East” and “West” – border experiences and narratives on the Czech-Slovak and Slovak-Ukrainian state borders

Folklore revival in post-socialist countries: politics, memory, heritization and sustainability

Transformation of Silesia 1945-1948

Minutes between life and death: Changes in emergency medical service and the professional identity of its employees in the Czech lands 1952−2003

Romani Atlantic: Transcontinental Logic of Ethno-Racial Identities

Research on Environmental Sustainability and on the Use of Resources in Central European Households (RESOURCE)

Research on Environmental Sustainability and on the Use of Resources in Central European Households (RESOURCE).

Praemium Academiae/Akademická prémie 2023, Akademie věd České republiky

2024 - 2029

Principal Investigator: Petr Jehlička

Team Members: Daniel Sosna, Maike Melles, Kateřina Joštová, Michaela Jaterková

Research Associates: Evelien de Hoop (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), Lucie Sovová (Wageningen University & Research), Esther Veen (Aeres University of Applied Sciences)

The rationale for this project is the realisation that Czech (and other Central European) households harbour a range of everyday practices that are significant in terms of key insights into the efficient and sustainable use of resources. The RESOURCE Project looks at two everyday practices – the production of food waste and consumption of tap water by Czech households – that are at per capita levels considerably below European Union averages. For comparative reasons, it investigates these practices also in the Netherlands. At the same time, both in academic and public policy circles the fact that Czech households master these frugal and thrifty practices is rarely reflected upon. Consequently, little is known about how these remarkable successes are achieved.

Most research projects concerned with efficient resource management on the household level seek to identify ways of reducing or minimising the use of resources while relying, explicitly or implicitly, on the adoption of knowledge and know-how transferred from Western contexts. In contrast, the originality of this Project stems from a reversed logic of questioning. How can the already low, thrifty and frugal use of resources in society be understood and this knowledge made transferrable to other societies? Answering these questions is not only an enticing scholarly challenge but, more importantly, a source of valuable knowledge and practical know-how. If this know-how on household frugal resource use were adopted at the European level, some of the European Union’s key targets concerning reductions in resource use would have been not only met but significantly exceeded.

https://resourceeurope.cz/

Preparation and electronic edition of the annual reports of the Jesuit residence a place of pilgrimage in Bohosudov

Interrupted Memory – Vanished and Vanishing Form of the Czech Countryside

Digital preservation and publication of the funds of the "Survey project of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts - Ethnographic Commission"

Czechs abroad - series

Database of broadsheet and old prints in the collections of the Institute of Ethnology

Database of German broadsheet and old prints in the collections of the Institute of Ethnology

Digitalization of KSVI newsletters

Folk culture - Ethnographic encyclopedia of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia

City as a Laboratory of Change

Hlavní koordinátorka projektu Město jako laboratoř změny: PhDr. Adéla Gjuričová, Ph.D., Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR, v. v. i.
Koordinátor výzkumných aktivit za Etnologický ústav: PhDr. Přemysl Mácha, Ph.D.
Web projektu Město jako laboratoř změny

Každodenní život v Brně v první polovině 20. století

Investigator: Jana Nosková

Doba řešení: 2020

Edice autobiografických pramenů ze sbírek Etnologického ústavu AV ČR Edition of autobiographic sources from the archive of The Institute of Ethnology.

The urbanonyms of Ostrava in time and space
Strategy AV21, Czech Academy of Sciences, 2020
Investigator: Přemysl Mácha
Team members: Luděk Krtička, Jaroslav David
Partners: University of Ostrava, City of Ostrava

The goal is to build upon, and expand, previous research on Ostrava urbanonyms in order to create an interactive public on-line database with the possibility of visualizing information about street names and the history of individual places. Additional outputs include a peer-reviewed article and a paper presented at an international conference.

Protests in post/socialist countries (workshop)

Investigator: Eva Šipöczová

Year: 2020

Cieľom workshopu bude kultúrne-historický pohľad na podobu protestov, demonštrácií a manifestácií v postsocialistických krajinách. Vedecká perspektíva bude rozšírená o prístupy aktérov a aktérok z oblasti umenia a aktivizmu. Počas workshopu bude snahou zbúrať hranice postavené vzťahom výskumník/čka – informátor/ka. Aktéri a aktérky s priamou skúsenosťou s realizáciou protestov budú počas workshopu v pozícii expert with experience. Sami pri svoje práci často siahajú po odbornej literatúre (historická, sociologická, umenovedná) a ich praktické skúsenosti prekračujú hranice odborníkov/čiek vymedzené základným výskumom.

Otvorenie diskusie mimo akademické prostredie predstavuje možnosť popularizácie vedy, a zároveň možnosť naviazania rovnocenného dialógu medzi zástupcami a zástupkyňami rôznych perspektív uchopovania kultúry protestu.

City festivities: music and dance as a means of forming the identity of place.

Investigator: Daniela Stavělová

Years: 2020-2021

The goal of this project is the reasearch of festivities in which music and dance becomes a part of so called ritual language, capable of transfering shared symbols in public communication. The results will include a documentary movie.

HERA + CHANSE

Times of Crisis, Times in Crisis: The Temporalities of Europe in Polycrisis (TiCToC)

Call: Crisis – Perspectives from the Humanities; The Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) Network in collaboration with CHANSE (Collaboration of Humanities and Social Sciences in Europe)

CHANSE; 03/2025-02/2028

Coordinator: University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Partners: University of St Andrews, United Kingdom; University of Bergen, Norway; Znanstvenoraziskovalni center Slovenske akademije znanosti in umetnosti (ZRC SAZU), Slovenia; Central European University, Austria; Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences
Project participants from the Institute: Jana Nosková (PI), Kateřina Králová, Michal Pavlásek, Kateřina Fuksová

Abstract: Europe is in polycrisis: Climate, economy, migration, democracy, armed conflict and academia are pertinent fields where crisis abounds. This project explores the temporal registers of crisis, the vernacular articulation of life in turmoil, and the cultural dynamics expressed in crisis contexts. The central contention is the need to unravel what we term ‘times of crisis’. Centered in anthropology and working across art, history, ethnology and philosophy, this project critically places time at the heart of crisis work, asking what it means to live in times of crisis, how crisis changes over time, and how crisis is perceived in hindsight. Critically, what distinguishes ‘crisis time’ from ‘normal time’? Framing current conditions as ‘crisis’ or projecting time itself as being ‘in crisis’ are prevailing sensibilities in much discourse about polycrisis in Europe and beyond. This project offers empirical, methodological and theoretical apparatuses to better analyze what such crisis attentiveness effects, interrogating what the diverse yet now common category of ‘crisis’ accomplishes. Offering ethnographic takes on philosophical questions concerning ‘times of crisis’, each work package addresses three temporal pins – past, present, and future. The work packages focus on individual nodes of polycrisis in three regional settings: Eastern Europe (war and conflict), Mediterranean (economy), Scandinavia (migration), with shared research questions designed to aid comparison and comprehension. Empirically, the project highlights the diverse ways times of crisis are inhabited, methodologically it shows how times of crisis are expressed in art and literature, and theoretically it poses socio-philosophical questions concerning the temporal coordinates of crisis. Beyond the academy, activities will engage partners at the National Museum of Denmark, EthnoFest Athens, Open Society Archives Budapest, Post Bellum NGO Prague, and the Slovene Ethnological Association.

Digitisation of Records of Folk Songs and Dances by Leoš Janáček, Hynek Bím, and Františka Kyselková

The National Institute for Research on the Socioeconomic Impact of Diseases and Systemic Risks (SYRI)