Art Practices and Urban Promenades: Belgrade's Knez Mihailova Street vs. Dionysius the Areopagite Promenade in Athens

The year 2017 marked the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Institute of Ethnography of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Among many successful celebratory activities organized throughout the year, the roundtable titled Art practices and urban promenades: Belgrade's KnezMihailova Street vs. Dionysius the Areopagite Promenade in Athensstands out. The roundtable was held on October 6th 2017 at the Institute of Ethnography SASA, its organization a cooperative effort between the Institute and the Laboratory for Folklore and Social Anthropology, of the Department of History and Ethnology of the Democritus University of Thrace (the Republic of Greece), respectively. The aim of the roundtable was to present the results of the international research project “Art practices and urban promenades (pedestrian zones).Art Practices and Urban Promenades: Belgrade's Knez Mihailova Street vs. Dionysius the Areopagite Promenade in Athens. Roundtable Held at the Institute of Ethnography SAS

The city as multispecies space: a preliminary look at dog walking in downtown Belgrade during the COVID-19 lockdown

This presentation is an autoethnographic account of dog walking in a residential area of downtown Belgrade during the COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020. It is also an attempt at, or rather, a result, of the largely experimental practice of canine-as- sisted ethnography, as my dogs Dita and Ripley were instrumen- tal during fieldwork. The lockdown, with its ill-thought-out and constantly changing rules about dog walking underlined three basic issues: 1) in a city with a huge dog owning population, pub- lic policy with regard to this issue is virtually non-existent; 2) the city lacks public green spaces, and 3) the movement patterns of dog walkers tend to converge due to the fact that the needs of the canines (both biological and social) are embedded into the archi- tecture and planning of local neighborhoods. In this sense, the city emerges as a multispecies space, and the social patterns and walking routs of its residents who keep dogs are influenced if not completely determined by the human-ani- mal bond at play. This became especially visible during lockdown at times when dog walkers were the only people allowed outside. Thus, this presentation analyzes how interspecies (in this case human-dog) relationships shape the functions of urban space in Belgrade

Epistemology of Canid Behavior and Domestication

The epistemology of canid behavior and domesticatio

(Mis)Understanding Darwin: Evolution and Cultural Conceptualization of the Human-Animal Boundary in Anthropological Perspective

У раду ће бити речи о фолклорним интерпретацијама теорије еволуције путем природне селекције, коју је формулисао Чарлс Дарвин, o начинима на које те интерпретације рефлектују раније европске концепције света које су до 18. века садржане у тзв. scala naturae, и импликацијама које су такве интерпретације имале по концептуализацију разлика између људи и животиња и граница између њих.The social sciences in general and anthropology in particular have a long and complicated relationship with Darwin’s theory of evolution. The ways in which biological evolution came to be understood from the 19th century onward had direct implications on ways in which social scientists, for their part, understood and explained human cultures and societies. The topic of this presentation will be, firstly, parallels between folk interpretations of evolution and earlier notions about ‘the order of things’ which were based on Christian theology and existed in European society prior to the Enlightenment. I will argue that it is these very folk interpretations that, by becoming part of the discourse of social scientists created, on the one hand dangerous ideas like attempts at “scientific” legitimization of racism, and on the other a complete separation of natural and social sciences. The basis of the flawed logic that went first into understanding the process of biological evolution and then into applying Darwinism to human societies was that evolution (even since Darwin's time) tended to be understood in terms of chains and ladders, terms which implied value and moral judgment – in short – in terms usually reserved for origin myths. Evolution had put human beings squarely and undeniably in the realm of what was (up until then) “brute creation”, and by doing so practically destroyed the ideological boundary between nature and culture. By doing so it endowed people with a ‘brute’ rather than a ‘divine’ nature, and hence it became important to construct a new kind of boundary between humans and animals. This confusion between moral and natural order, the implicit belief that nature is somehow endowed with intent and that evolution has a goal had serious consequences for the social sciences. It is in the place where the misunderstanding of biological evolution brought about the moral imperative to invent a way by which human kind could be “scientifically” distanced from the animal kingdom that the modern concept of culture was born. And what occurred then was a subtle switch: the uncomfortable idea about the brute nature of mankind was replaced by the story of the evolution of culture. The animals meanwhile became the passive objects of natural histories. To paraphrase Barbara Noske (1993), the social sciences became sciences of discontinuity between humans and animals. This discontinuity however isn’t (nor was it ever) a static set of traits, and the more we learn about ‘the animal kingdom’, the more the boundaries grow fuzzy and unclear. If we were to factor in contemporary technological achievements – hybrids, animals grown with human genes and xenotransplantation (among other things), boundaries, not just conceptual but biological, visceral are challenged. These new situations and practices pose new questions to which social scientists should supply answers. However, in order for these questions to be recognized as valid in the first place, we must comprehend the ways in which and reasons why such boundaries were set up in the first place. For this I believe it is imperative for us to understand why we misunderstood Darwin.Зборник радова Етнографског института САНУ 28 / Collection of Papers of the Institute of Ethnography SASA 2

Narrativisation d’un événement hors du commun dans le Jardin zoologique de Belgrade: analyse sémiotique du récit sur la chienne Gabi et le jaguar

U radu ću ponuditi semiotičku analizu narativa o keruši Gabi i jaguaru u obliku u kojem je dostupan na veb prezentaciji Beogradskog zoološkog vrta, budući da mislim da je opravdano ustvrditi da se iz ovog narativa mogu iščitati načini na koje se u kontekstu ove institucije artikulišu značenja koncepata poput ’divljine’ i ’pitomosti’, ’slobode’ i ’zatočeništva’ i na koncu, ’prirode’ i ’kulture’. U radu ću se s jedne strane osloniti na pisanje autora i autorki koji pripadaju polju studija ljudsko-životinjskih odnosa, a s druge strane na metodološke postavke semiotičke analize koje je uveo Alžirdas Žilijen Gremas, a razvila Dragana Antonijević. Osnovni cilj rada je da semiotičkom analizom načina na koji je narativizovan jedan nesvakidašnji događaj u vrtu razotkrije osnovna značenja i kulturne preokupacije koje su u igri, i dopre do dubinske strukture mišljenja koja se krije ispod ove priče i oslikava i oblikuje ne samo diskurs Beogradskog zoološkog vrta, već i implicitno razumevanje uloge i funkcije zooloških vrtova u Srbiji do danas.The paper offers a semiotic analysis of the narrative of Gabi the dog and the jaguar in the form in which the story appears on the website of the Belgrade zoo. I believe that it is valid to assume that an analysis of this narrative can provide a window into the ways in which meanings of concepts such as ‘wildness’, ‘domesticity’, ‘freedom’, ‘captivity’ and ultimately, ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ are articulated within the context of this institution. On the one hand, I will base the paper on ideas articulated in the field of human-animal relations, and on the other on the methodological postulates of semiotic analysis introduced by Algirdas Julien Greimas and further developed by Dragana Antonijević. The aim of the paper is to, by applying semiotic analysis to the way in which an unusual event at the zoo was narrativized, uncover the deeper structure of thought which underlies the story and reflects and shapes not just the discourse of the Belgrade zoo, but the implicit understanding of the role and function of zoos in Serbia up until the present day.Dans cet article je propose une analyse sémiotique du récit sur la chienne Gaba et le jaguar, basée sur sa forme disponible sur le site du Jardin zoologique de Belgrade ; je pense qu’il est justifié d’affirmer que dans ce récit il est possible de relever les manières dont, dans le contexte de cette institution, s’articulent les significations des concepts tels que ’sauvagerie’ et ’domesticité’, ’liberté’ et ’captivité’ et enfin, ’nature’ et ’culture’. Je m’appuie ici d’une part sur l’écriture des auteur/e/s qui appartiennent au domaine des études sur les rapports humain-animal, et de l’autre sur les principes méthodologiques de l’analyse sémiotique introduite par Algirdas Julien Greimas, puis développé par Dragana Antonijević. Le principal objectif de cet article est de dévoiler, par l’analyse sémiotique des manières dont est narrativisé un événement hors du commun dans le zoo, les principales significations et les préoccupations culturelles en jeu, pour atteindre la structure profonde de la pensée qui se cache sous ce récit et reflète et façonne non seulement le discours du Jardin zoologique de Belgrade, mais aussi implicitement la compréhension du rôle et de la fonction des jardins zoologiques en Serbie jusqu’à nos jours

Les rapports entre les humains et les animaux au centre d’intérêt: jeu/étude de cas en Serbie

U Beogradu su krajem 2018. i početkom 2019. godine održane čak četiri izložbe sa tematikom ljudsko-životinjskih1 odnosa. Ovaj tekst ima dva osnovna cilja: da kroz analizu sadržaja tih izložbi, a u kontekstu trenutne globalne pandemije COVID-19, ukaže na značaj koji proučavanje ljudsko-životinjskih odnosa u društvenim i humanističkim disciplinama može imati za razumevanje različitih (ekonomskih, političkih ali i ideoloških) ustrojenja antropocena koja ljudska društva, naizgled odvojena od prirode, čine ranjivim na katastrofe poput ove; i da ukaže na (dobrodošao) porast interesovanja za problematiku ljudsko-životinjskih odnosa kako u laičkoj, tako i u akademskoj javnosti u Srbiji.In late 2018 and early 2019, the city of Belgrade was host to as many as four different exhibitions with the topic of human-animal relations. The fact that these exhibitions were held in such a short time in a city the size of Belgrade is in itself interesting, seeing as the topic of human-animal relations is still not part of the academic and artistic mainstream globally, let alone in Serbia. The themes and messages of these exhibitions seem even more relevant with regard to the current global situation. Thus, the two main goals of this paper are: 1. to point out the importance studying human-animal relations in the social sciences and the humanities can have for the understanding of different economic, political and ideological assemblages of the anthropocene that make human civilization, seemingly apart from nature, susceptible to catastrophes such as the current COVID-19 global pandemic – through the analysis of the contents of the exhibitions and the panel discussions that accompanied them; 2. to indicate the welcome rise in interest in issues of human-animal relations evident in both the general public and academic and artistic contexts in Serbia. The paper offers an analytical overview of the contents of the Of Animals and Humans, Covoyagers, Instinct and Terrain and Emil/Specimen B5044 exhibitions, the ensuing discussions with the public and some of the main issues raised within these discussions such as the issue of responsibility humans have toward other species we share the planet with, as well as the issue of the accountability of big polluters, which is often swept under the rug through the utilization of discourse on the impact of Man – with a capital m – on the environment. The paper also emphasizes the importance of these topics for life in the anthropocene, and calls attention to the emergent interest in human-animal relations and innovative theoretical approaches to them in Serbian academia, especially in ethnology and anthropology and archaeology.C’est à la fin de 2018 et au début de 2019 que se sont tenues non moins de quatre expositions ayant pour thématique les rapports entre les hommes et les animaux. Ce texte a deux objectifs principaux: de rendre compte à travers l’analyse des contenus de ces expositions et dans le contexte de la pandémie globale actuelle de la COVID-19, de l’importance que l’étude des rapports entre les humains et les animaux dans les disciplines humaines et sociales peut avoir pour la compréhension des différentes organisations anthropocènes (économiques, politiques mais aussi idéologiques) qui rendent les sociétés humaines, en apparence séparées de la nature, vulnérables aux catastrophes comme celle-ci; puis de rendre compte de l’accroissement (bienvenu) d’intérêt pour la problématique des rapports entre les hommes et les animaux aussi bien auprès du public non professionnel, que le public académique en Serbie

Kao epizoda Black mirror-a: kako je internet postao kapitalistička pustopaklina

This paper represents a largely autoethnographic account of how the World Wide Web has changed overthe last, roughly, ten years, from the perspective of a digital native who also happens to be an anthropologist. It is a kind of freeze frame of the current state of affairs online that aims to point out how the revolutionary dream of Web 2.0 was hijacked for corporate profit through the monetization of user data. It considers concerns about privacy and surveillance as well as some of the bodily aspects of the relationship between humans and technology, and ultimately offers some suggestions for a way out of our current predicament.Ovaj rad predstavlja mahom autoetnografski prikaz promena kroz koje je World Wide Web prošao u poslednjih, ugrubo, deset godina, iz perspe- ctive digitalne domorotkinje koja je igrom slučaja i antropološkinja. On je zamrznuti isečak trenutnog stanja stvari online koji za cilj ima da ukase na to kako je revolucionarni san Web-a 2.0 kooptiran zarad korporativnog profita kroz monetizaciju korisničkih podataka. U radu se razmatraju pro- blem privatnosti i nadzora, kao i neki telesni aspekti odnosa između ljudi i tehnologije. Na koncu, rad nudi neke predloge za izlazak iz situacije u kojoj smo se našli

Inactivation of human melanoma cells by carbon ion radiation: evaluation of radiobiological parameters and analysis of cell death signaling pathways

Zraĉenje jonima ugljenika se koristi u terapiji razliĉitih malignih oboljenja poput tumora glave i vrata, baze lobanje, kancera pluća, jetre, prostate itd. Zahvaljujući fiziĉkim svojstvima jona ugljenika ova vrsta zraĉenja ima niz prednosti u poreĊenju sa konvencionalnom, kao i protonskom terapijom. Pokazala je efikasnost ĉak i u eliminaciji radio-rezistentnih tumora. Za razliku od konvencionalnog zraĉenja, zraĉenje jonima ugljenika karakteriše blagi porast relativne doze u funkciji dubine prostiranja, koji se završava naglim rastom do maksimuma doze, oznaĉenom kao Bragg-ov vrh. Dosadašnja in vitro istraţivanja na HTB140 ćelijskoj liniji melanoma ĉoveka su pokazala da su ove ćelije visoko radio-rezistentne na γ i protonsko zraĉenje. Iz tog razloga je ova ćelijska linija odabrana kao model sistem za praćenje anti-tumorskog efekta jona ugljenika. Ćelije u eksponencijalnoj fazi rasta su ozraĉene u tri pozicije duţ Bragg-ove krive, koje karakterišu vrednosti linearnog transfera energije (LET) od 84.7 (pozicija A), 197.2 (pozicija B) i 382.4 keV/μm (pozicija C). Primenjene su doze od 2, 4, 8, 12 i 16 Gy. Radio-osetljivost HTB140 ćelija na jone ugljenika je odreĊena pomoću radiobioloških parametara, preţivljavanja za dozu od 2 Gy (SF2) i relativne biološke efektivnosti za 2 Gy u odnosu na γ-zraĉenje (RBE(2 Gy, γ)). Antitumorski efekat jona ugljenika je praćen i na nivou ćelijske vijabilnosti i proliferativnog kapaciteta 48 h i 7 dana nakon ozraĉivanja ćelija. U cilju boljeg razumevanja naĉina delovanja zraĉenja jonima ugljenika, u pozicijama B i C je ispitivana indukcija procesa apoptoze i promena u propagaciji ćelija kroz faze ćelijskog ciklusa 48 h nakon ozraĉivanja. U istim eksperimentalnim uslovima su praćene i promene na nivou molekula ukljuĉenih u proces apoptoze. Vrednosti SF2 u svim pozicijama zraĉenja jonima ugljenika ukazuju na veoma visok nivo radio-rezistentnosti HTB140 ćelija melanoma ĉoveka. Vrednosti RBE(2Gy, γ) ukazuju na jaĉu inaktivaciju jonima ugljenika u sve tri pozicije zraĉenja u odnosu na efekat γ zraka, kao i u odnosu na protonsko zraĉenje...Carbon ion radiation is used in the treatment of various malignancies such as tumors of head and neck, skull base, lung cancer, liver, prostate, etc. This type of radiation has many advantages as compared to conventional, as well as to proton therapy, due to its physical properties. It is efficient even in the elimination of radio-resistant tumors. In contrast to conventional radiation, carbon ion radiation is characterized by a slow increase of relative dose with depth, followed by a rise to the dose maximum at the Bragg peak. Previous in vitro studies on HTB140 human melanoma cell line showed that these cells are highly radio-resistant to the γ and proton radiation. For this reason, this cell line was chosen as a model system for the monitoring of the antitumor effect of carbon ions. Exponentialy growing cells were irradiated at three positions along the Bragg curve, characterised by the linear energy transfer (LET) of 84.7 (position A), 197.2 (position B) and 382.4 keV/μm (position C). The applied doses were 2, 4, 8, 12 and 16 Gy. The radio-sensitivity of the HTB140 cells after carbon ion irradiation was estimated by the radiobiological parameters, the surviving fraction at 2 Gy (SF2), and the relative biological effectiveness at 2 Gy with respect to γ-rays (RBE(2Gy, γ)). The anti-tumor effect of carbon ions was analysed by cell viability and proliferative capacity 48 h and 7 days after irradiation. In order to better understand the carbon ion action, induction of apoptosis and analysis of cell cycle arrests 48 h after irradiation were studied in the positions B and C. Changes in the expression of molecules involved in the regulation of apoptosis were analysed under the same experimental conditions. The obtained values of SF2 in all irradiation positions reveal rather high level of radio-resistance of HTB140 melanoma cells. RBE(2Gy, γ) values indicate significant level of carbon ion induced cell inactivation, throughout the whole Bragg curve, compared to γ rays, as well as to protons. Significant decrease of cell viability and proliferation capacity of HTB140 human melanoma cells is also shown 48 h and 7 days after irradiation..

It's like an episode of Black Mirror: cyborg bodies, dystopian capitalist business plans and changing human-internet relationships in the Anthropocene

У августу 1999. The Sunday Times је објавио чланак великог Дагласа Адамса под називом „Како да престанете да бринете и научите да волите интернет“. У њему, Адамс тврди да интернет није само пролазна мода и предвиђа да ће постајати све важнији и важнији и све интерактивнији и интерактивнији како технологија буде појефтињавала и више људи се укључивало у онлине комуникацију. Скок на октобар 2021., када је Марк Цукерберг, милијардер и извршни директор Facebook корпорације објавио настанак „Мета“ – новог бренда компаније, који обједињује све апликације и производе које Фацебоок прави, али укључује и будуће „друштвене технологије“ попут виртуелне и аугментоване стварности и уређаја који чине приступ овим новим врстама реалности могућим. Оно што је заједничко Адамсовом есеју и Цукерберговом оснивачком писму компаније „Мета“ је идеја да ће интернет постати друштвненији, имерзивнији и колаборативнији у будућности. Ипак, између 1999. и 2021. се догодило много историје – или много будућности – интернет и начини на које се са њим повезујемо су се трансформисали и постали мобилнији, а ове промене су поставиле темеље за наивне капиталистичке техно-сањарије које Цукерберг пропагира у свом писму. Постоји подмукла сличност између ова два виђења теме: иако и један и други аутор инсистирају на комуникацији и повезивању међу људима, Адамсов есеј је био сатиричан, грасрутс одговор на нелагоду коју људи генерално имају када прихватају нове технологије (нпр. телевизију, телефон, штампарију, а вероватно и точак). Био је то миг и моздрав младости, иновативности и моћи људске имагинације. С друге стране, Цукербергов урадак звучи као пословни план (што, на крају крајева, и јесте) какав би написала Skynet вештачка интелигенција из Филмова о Терминатору, и прилично подсећа на дистопијску стварност филмова из Матрикс франшизе. Реч је о једном тоталитарном, капиталистичком апсолутном негирању потребе за физичком повезаношћу; текст представља застрашујућу визију људи који стагнирају у својим домовима, утопљени у виртуелне стварности, који се констатнто повезују и константно деле, али заправо не иду нигде – ово је наводно добро зато што смањује њихов угљенични отисак – а свеједно све време купују и троше. Док Адамс пореди употребу комуникацијских технологија са пиџин и креолским језицима, Цукерберг све своди на конзумацију корпоративних производа. Како смо стигли довде? У чланку из 2012. сковала сам термин хиперреалност 2.0 како бих означила свет у којем онлине и оффлине више нису одвојени, већ чине саставне делове стварности у којој су људима потребне направе које имају приступ интернету како би могли у потпуности да учествују у друштву. Такође сам прилагодила концепт који користи Харавеј како бих устврдила да су многи од нас већ постали киборзи, без да су морали да гурну технологију под кожу. У овој презентацији намеравам да проширим ову идеју и истражим социо- техно-економске процесе који су се одигравали од како сам се последњи пут бавила овом темом, како бих мапирала еволуцију нашег односа према друштвеним мрежама и променљиву улогу тела у дискурсима о технологији. Такође се надам да ћу успети да предложим неке егалитарније техно- будућности.In August 1999 The Sunday Times published an article by the late, great Douglas Adams entitled “How to stop worrying and learn to love the Internet”. In it, Adams argues that the Internet is not just a passing fad and predicts that it will become more and more important and more and more interactive as tech becomes cheaper and more people join in the online chatter. Cut to October 2021, when Mark Zuckerberg, tech billionaire and CEO of the Facebook Corporation announces “Meta” – a new company brand that encapsulates all the apps and products FB makes, as well as future “social technologies” including virtual reality and augmented reality and devices that make access to these new kinds of realities possible. What Adams’ essay and Zuckerberg’s founder’s letter for “Meta” have in common is the idea that the internet will become more social, more immersive and more collaborative in the future. However, in the time between 1999 and 2021, a lot of history – or a lot of future – took place, the Internet and our ways of connecting to it transformed, became more mobile, and these changes laid the groundwork for the kind of rose colored, capitalist techno-dreaming Zuckerberg purports in his letter. There is a sinister similarity between the two takes on the topic: while both insist on communication and connection between people, Adams’ essay was a sort of grass roots, satirical poke at the unease with which humans generally take to new technologies (e.g. television, the telephone, the printing press and, probably, the wheel), a wink and a nod to youth and innovation and the power of human imagination. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg’s take reads like a business plan (which it ultimately is) written by Skynet (from the Terminator movies), and is more than a little evocative of the dystopian reality of the Matrix films. It’s a kind of totalitarian capitalist rejection of the need for physical connection, a frightening vision of people stagnant in their homes, immersed in virtual realities, always sharing always connecting, but not really going anywhere – this is supposedly good because it reduces their carbon footprints – and yet always buying and consuming. While Adams compares the use of communication technologies to pidgin and creole languages, Zuckerberg reduces it to consuming corporate products. How did we get here? In a paper in 2012 I coined the term hyperreality 2.0 to designate a world in which the online and the offline are no longer separate, but integral parts of a reality in which humans need devices that allow access to the Internet in order to fully participate in society. I also adapted Haraway’s concept to argue that most of us have become cyborgs, without even breaking the skin. In this presentation I intend to expand on this notion and explore the socio-techno-economic processes that took place since I last dealt with the topic, in order to map out the evolution of our relationship to social networking and the changing role of the body in discourses on technology. I also hope to suggest some more egalitarian techno-futures