Ethnologia Europaea

Straddling the divide between tradition and modernity, European ethnologists feel most comfortable with explaining how the present became what it is today. We are more reluctant to forecast which ones of the cultural phenomena we can observe today will still be with us tomorrow. Globalization and the cultural transformations it entails challenge European ethnology to distinguish the durable from the transitory and also, to highlight the emergence of novel cultural practices. Using ethnographic findings from the economic culture of tourism in Cyprus as a case in point, the article explores the usefulness of explanatory models engaging either tradition or modernity.

This paper presents and analyzes the “encounter” of a multinational corporation, Coca-Cola, and the local environment as a typical example of contemporary cultural processes. It does not directly concern itself with advertising and marketing methods or with the various contemporary strategies of increasing market shares although the case to be analyzed is of interest largely due to these strategies. Advertising, or more precisely the debate that took place in Hungary around a 1996 advertising initiative put forth by Coca-Cola, is only of interest as much as it provides the setting in which the “global” and the “local” encounter each other. The debate has unequivocally demonstrated that this terrain is full of land mines and approaching it is especially perilous if we imagine ourselves to be witnessing the clash of “good” and “evil”. The text presents the case through the analysis of three relationships based on the following nodal points: a) summary of the main components of the event and of the main views and passions that surfaced in the ensuing controversy; b) the question of the relationship of the urban landscape and identity; and c) the problematic of exerting control over meaning and taste.

The birthday is one of the most important celebrations in Russia yet neglected as a topic of scholarly study. The article will focus on the birthday as a nexus of social interaction by analyzing structured diaries of twenty-seven teachers from St. Petersburg, Russia. The birthday is a highly valued celebration time with important ritual events (birthday presents, a sumptuous table, bottles and toasting, singing and dancing etc.). Celebrating the birthday, however, constitutes only one part of the myriad meanings of birthdays. In fact, birthdays mirror a distinct type of Russian sociability, molded by larger social and economic constraints and opportunities. Thus, the birthday has a significant role in building and maintaining social networks that can be further explained by the context of trust. Birthdays also illustrate the importance of informal exchange relations for daily survival in contemporary Russia and show how celebrations are connected to networks, sociability and exchange.

The story of industrial paternalism typically is a tale of a declining managerial system, finally getting its death blow at the turn of the century 1900. The author questions this view by concluding that characteristic features of industrial paternalism actually are brand new in the final decades of the 19th century. A claiming of ‘caring’ for the welfare of the workers is generally a new thing, in most countries ‘founded’ around 1870, in England some twenty years earlier. It is argued that this shift in paternal management mainly is caused by the increased threat of workers turning socialists. The conclusions are reached through a detailed historical ‘field study’ on a large Danish industrial plant in the period 1850-1920, and by comparison with other studies of industrial paternalism.

In 1995 the Dutch ethnologist J.J. Voskuil caused quite a stir with the first volume of the massive narrative about the life at a scientific institute entitled Het Bureau. In this contribution we will elaborate on the role foreign ethnologists play in this roman à clef, since Voskuil among other things reports by way of ethnographic fiction quite some details of international atlas conferences which he attended as staff member of the Amsterdam (P.J.) Meertens-Institute. In order to situate author and book we firstly introduce Dutch ethnology and Voskuil’s position as scientist and novelist. The literary evocation of the atlas conferences concludes with some observations on the relation between fiction and faction and the ethics of writing about colleagues.