Editorial Impressions: On a Non-War

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This article* situates folklore studies in relation to the approach to social research known as world-systems analysis. In doing so, the work also serves as an evocation of world-systems analysis of potential usefulness for the practice of folklore research and for further thinking about the articulation of the field with others in the human or social sciences. Even if folklorists choose not to embrace a world-systems framework, it is valuable to position folklore studies within the matrix of social science disciplines that this perspective sees as important to the rise of the modern capitalist world-system. This positioning relates to interpretations of world history, but also to debates about the future status of the disciplines. While world-systems analysis is only one among several approaches to exploring the human experience in broad greater-than-local contexts, it offers a useful instance for a larger effort to work out more far-reaching modes of work in folkloristics.
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Towards Wider Framings: World-Systems Analysis and Folklore Studies

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In this case study* I offer an insight into the activity of an association for local traditions in a Hungarian village. In addition, I provide some general analytical frames for the examination of such tradition-based locality projects. The field of the observation is Kóny, a village in north-west Hungary. Its peasant traditions – especially the famous male dance, Kóny <italic>verbunk</italic> – were re-contextualised from time to time in the 20th century. The latest, recent, wave of re-construction concentrates on the systematic (re-)valorisation of locality by highlighting its former peasant traditions and the vernacularisation of the concept of heritage. While the organising work means a new, shared everyday practice for the association’s members, performing the traditions in the public space offers the villagers an occasion to reinforce local identity and identify with the locality.
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Towards the Analysis of Tradition-based Projects of Locality: A Case Study from Rural Hungary

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In this essay, I describe and discuss the ways in which tradition is demonstrated, staged and understood in Kosova restaurants. After the 1999 war in Kosova, restaurants emerged as new places, privately public and publicly private, that display local aspirations and intentions to re-invent the roots of tradition and construct routes to Europe. In addition, they illustrate the intention to modernise, and provide routines for social life and conviviality. Within the context of gastronationalism and culinary diversity, I use local language derived concepts such as <italic>katunopia</italic> and <italic>sofraisation</italic> to argue that Kosova gastronomy is undergoing continuous change and transformation characterised by a process of searching, combining, inventing and re-vitalising ‘tradition’ to build a new culinary identity.
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Staging and Performing Tradition in Kosova Restaurants

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This article examines the changing meaning and status of colostrum in Estonian food culture, relying on data drawn from ethnographic archives and historical sources, cookbooks, and the media. From seasonal food consumed by both Estonian peasants and the Baltic German elite it has been transformed into a modern functional food. The study provides a lens through which to examine the economic, social, and cultural factors that have shaped the modernisation of food culture in Estonia as well as contemporary interpretations of food heritage.
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Delicious or Disgusting? The Winding Journey of Colostrum in Estonian Food Culture

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Folklore has been linked to national identity formation. In this article, informed by Johann Gottfried Herder’s romantic nationalism and following Alan Dundes’s (1965) method of folklore studies, it is argued that Indonesia has historically followed this trail, and its recent movement of collecting and disseminating Indonesian folk narratives from across the archipelago is a culminating point in this endeavour. Although the move was claimed to support the national literacy and character building movement, the rigorous endeavour of the government in garnering folktales from all 34 provinces can also be read as part of the national political agenda of strengthening the national integrity, promoting unity in diversity and disseminating so-called national values. Examining further the contexts and procedures of how the narratives were collected and selected for publication, the study reveals an effort to inculcate national values targeted at students in formal education, but more particularly young children as the future harbingers of national values.
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Indonesian Folk Narratives: On the Interstices of National Identity, National Values, and Character Education

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This article analyses Finnish Roma experiences of interaction with Roma in Estonia, in the period after the historic fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 through to the present. The research data rely on semi-structured interviews and informal conversations, as well as indirect observations of Finnish Roma missionising activities. The results show that Roma identity was seen as a unifying factor and a source of a feeling of belonging, but not as the major factor driving mission. The driving force of the mission stems from the urge to evangelise, inherent in how Pentecostal teaching is lived and directed. This study contributes to the understanding of the interplay of ethnic identity and spirituality in Roma communities in the context of missionising, as well as the role of missionising for the missionaries themselves.
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“Rebuilding Ties that Existed Long Ago”: Experiences of Finnish Roma During Missionary Work in Estonia

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The article* presents the results of textual studies of the early recordings of the Yakut heroic epic Olonkho, recorded from the second half of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century. The relevance of the study is due to the fact that scientific research of the texts of the early recordings of Olonkho with full broadcasts of the plot is most widely, systematically carried out. At the same time, researchers today continue to pay less attention to early recordings of Olonkho, producing brief or incomplete schematic statements of content. A review of early texts on Olonkho shows that these reviews have incomplete, overly concise, summaries of the plot, although they do confirm the stability of the ancient thematic content, plot structure, motifs, and image system. The richness of the poetic language and the beauty of the style, and the surprisingly artistic content and archaic motifs, which can be seen even in translations, are of considerable value for establishing a full picture of the unique oral creativity of the Yakut people. This study attempts for the first time to systematise transcriptions of early recordings of Olonkho using a summary of the plot in Russian compared with a summary of the plot in the original language. The systematised texts will be used in a comparative study of Olonkho texts recorded in the 19th and 20th centuries. This analysis shows that there has been a transfer of plot with epic texts of the late period in order to maintain a degree of continuity, using both common and specific features to bridge between traditional and modern forms of Olonkho, taking into account regional and local features.
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A Systematisation of Transcriptions of Early Olonkho Recordings According to Plot Peculiarity

Notes and Reviews: Book Review: Voices of Weavers

AHEAD OF PRINT

Volume 18 (2024): Issue 1 (June 2024)

Volume 17 (2023): Issue 2 (December 2023)

Volume 17 (2023): Issue 1 (June 2023) The Divine, the Demonic and the Beyond in Belief, Narrative and Practice of Central and East Asia

Volume 16 (2022): Issue 2 (December 2022) Hybrid Beliefs and Identities

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Volume 10 (2016): Issue 1 (June 2016)

Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics

The Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics (JEF) is the joint publication of the Estonian Literary Museum, the Estonian National Museum and the University of Tartu. JEF is an international, double-blind peer reviewed multidisciplinary forum for creative, inspiring and cutting-edge academic contributions. Addressed to an international scholarly audience, JEF is open to contributions from researchers all over the world. We aim to encourage discussion of the socio-cultural diversity of the whole world in a thought-provoking, imaginative and experimental scholarly spirit. JEF publishes articles in the research areas including but not limited to ethnology, folkloristics, museology, cultural and social anthropology, sociology, semiotics, history, human geography, cultural studies, heritage studies, and critical theory. JEF aims to offer both theoretical and empirical insights to deepen and advance our understanding of society and culture. The journal encourages contributions that use various disciplinary perspectives and theoretical and methodological approaches. JEF welcomes contributions analysing empirical data as well as theoretical and methodological contributions, critical literature reviews of current research as well as papers engaging in creative or applied practice. In addition to full-length articles the journal also welcomes research notes and book reviews.  Rejection Rate:   69%   Plagiarism Policy  The editorial board is participating in a growing community of Similarity Check System's users in order to ensure that the content published is original and trustworthy. Similarity Check is a medium that allows for comprehensive manuscripts screening, aimed to eliminate plagiarism and provide a high standard and quality peer-review process.  Open Access Statement  JEF is issued two times per year, both in print format and online. The journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.　  Description of the review process:　  Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics is a peer-reviewed journal. All submissions are initially evaluated by the editors and can be desk-rejected at this stage. Submitted research articles that meet the academic and journal’s editorial standards will be read and reviewed by at least two anonymous referees. JEF is using double-blind review, meaning that the author and reviewer identities are concealed from each other throughout the process. Based on the reviewers’ written reports, the Editor-in-Chief and the Editors can accept, reject, or request minor or major modifications to the manuscript.  JEF has neither article submission nor article processing charges.  Archiving  Sciendo archives the contents of this journal in Portico - digital long-term preservation service of scholarly books, journals and collections. 

Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics

Volume 16 (2022): Issue 1 (June 2022)

Editorial

Editorial Impressions: On a Non-War

Inspirational Insights

Towards Wider Framings: World-Systems Analysis and Folklore Studies

Articles