In the period between the summer of 2007 and the summer of 2010, I worked with dervishes, members of the Rifai and Sadi Sufi orders that form a vestige of the Ottoman heritage in the now independent nation-state of North Macedonia. Although not
A Ritual Demystified
The Work of Anti-wonder among Sufi Reformists and Traditionalists in a Macedonian Roma Neighborhood
Galina Oustinova-Stjepanovic
Jeremy F. Walton and Piro Rexhepi
specific successor nation-states: Kosovo, Macedonia, Croatia, and Slovenia. We have chosen this constellation of post-Yugoslav states strategically. 2 In general, treatments of Islam in the western Balkans privilege Bosnia, and Sarajevo in particular
Vasiliki P. Neofotistos
Using the Republic of North Macedonia as a case study, this article analyzes the processes through which national sports teams’ losing performance acquires a broad social and political significance. I explore claims to sporting victory as a direct product of political forces in countries located at the bottom of the global hierarchy that participate in a wider system of coercive rule, frequently referred to as empire. I also analyze how public celebrations of claimed sporting victories are intertwined with nation-building efforts, especially toward the global legitimization of a particular version of national history and heritage. The North Macedonia case provides a fruitful lens through which we can better understand unfolding sociopolitical developments, whereby imaginings of the global interlock with local interests and needs, in the Balkans and beyond.
Galina Oustinova-Stjepanovic
Drawing on my experience of a Muslim version of exorcism in urban Macedonia, this article continues a methodological discussion of the implications of being an atheist anthropologist when researching religion, a situation known as 'methodological atheism'. Methodological atheism is often linked to the problem of suspending one's intellectual disregard of people's religions as delusions. This article will argue instead that there are barriers to participation in religious rituals that are not covered by questions of disbelief. The notion of 'dispositional atheism' is discussed against the backdrop of the anxieties, uncertainties, and inhibitions experienced by an atheist anthropologist caught up in a moment of religious intensity.
Militarization via Education
A 1945 Primer from Socialist Macedonia
Darko Leitner-Stojanov
This article examines the textual and visual content of the first postwar primer in socialist Yugoslav Macedonia in order to understand the messages that it contains relating to techniques of militarization. After outlining the historical context in which this primer was developed, with reference to teachers’ memories and archival sources, the article analyzes the role of teaching materials in connection with the experience of the Second World War and the politics of the new communist state. This content analysis identifies six militaristic messages and values communicated to the pupils, who are addressed as future soldiers.
In Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2019
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 35–52
Between Ordinary Pain and Extraordinary Knowledge
The Seer Vanga in the Everyday Life of Bulgarians during Socialism (1960s-1970s)
Galia Valtchinova
This article focuses on a little-known aspect of everyday life in socialist Bulgaria: the act of consulting a clairvoyant for health issues, thereby dealing with the broader process of medicalisation of healing. It is grounded on files from consultations with the renowned Bulgarian seer, prophetess and healer baba Vanga, which were collected between 1966 and 1974. These highly specifi c historical sources allow me to analyse late twentieth-century ideas and notions of health and disease, of pain and suffering, and thus to access social realities, cultural practices and representations of healing under socialism. By scrutinising the categories used in these records, the article delineates the relationship between the seer-healer, her patients, and the state institutions involved in the regulation of this process.
Laurie Kain Hart
effects made visible in the material-infrastructural world. The presence of scores of abandoned but architecturally impressive buildings in the border zone landscape of the Prespa Lakes in northwest Greek Macedonia puzzled me on my first visit in 1993. The
Uriel Abulof
Israeli Arabs' "future vision" documents are an ethical-political manifesto, contextualized in academic discourse and informed by socio-historical parallels. Hence, this article examines their political ethics in a comparative perspective, by referencing the case of Israeli Arabs along with two other distinct intra-state conflicts: the strife between Anglophones and Francophones in Canada and the struggle between Macedonians and Albanians in Macedonia. These cases illuminate two main ethical-political alternatives to the present pattern of relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel. Although the Canadian case indicates a renunciation of ethno-nationalism in favor of civic and linguistic patriotism, the Macedonian case presents an attempt to reconcile ethno-national affiliation with democratic principles. Projecting the ethical discussion of the Canadian and Macedonian cases onto Israel, I contend that normative acceptance of the mutual and dual right of self-determination, regarding both the individual's collective identity and the collective's polity, is a precondition for reconciliation between Jews and Arabs.
'I Am Muslim but I Am the European One'
Contextual Identities among Muslims from Western Macedonia in Everyday Practices and Narratives
Anna Zadrozna
Muslims have been present in the Republic of Macedonia for more than five hundred years, yet they remain constantly under discussion. Contemporary Muslims negotiate various ethnic or national identifications and differently evaluate their past. Moreover, while many Macedonian Muslims migrate to Western Europe and thus engage in transnational practices, many of them are trying to place themselves between what they conceive of as 'modern-European' and 'religious-traditional'. In this essay I present some of the everyday practices and narratives in which Muslims from the western part of the Republic of Macedonia discuss their religious identities. Based on my ethnographic fieldwork, I describe vernacular perspectives on 'Muslim identity' in relation to nationality, ethnicity, gender and local tradition, and I analyse the ways in which different modes of identifications are being performed and presented. By illustrating various contexts in which Muslim belonging is being emphasised and labelled by social actors, I envisage its symbolic meanings in perspective of local and global hegemonies.
In Anthropological Journal of European Cultures
- Published (Print):
- 01 Sep 2013
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 35–52
Preface
JEMMS Relaunch
Editorial Committee
Ten years after launching the Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society (JEMMS) in 2009, it seems appropriate to look back and assess the journal’s achievements, review its purpose, and address prospects for the coming years. As the only journal of its kind dedicated to the dissemination of international educational media research in the humanities, JEMMS has provided a platform for authors from sixteen countries on seven continents, including Chile, South Africa, Macedonia, and China.
In Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2019
- Article Type:
- Preface
- Pages:
- v–vii