Towards an Ethnology Beyond Self, Other and Third: Toposophical Explorations

Ethnology has long been seen as concerned with, as one would nowadays say, ‘constructing the nation’, thus invariably lending support to the nationalist project. In the nineteenth century, this was a matter of consolidating the emerging nation states primarily, but not only in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe. Whereas in the twentieth-century some Western European states have experienced regional nationalism (e.g. in Catalonia or Scotland) as a significant political force that draws on more or less spurious distinctions of Self and Other, in Central Europe – especially in Germany – there has been a greater reluctance to use any discourse of indigeneity, due to its past and present ideological abuse, making appropriate contextualisation of cultural heritage in terms of place and memory, necessary for any nationalist project, rather difficult. Key words: European ethnology, ‘salvage ethnology’, Cultural anthropology, Self, Other, Third

Chapter 13 Commemorating vanished ‘homelands’

The twentieth century has been described (e.g., Piskorski 2015 ) as a century of displacement. While globally the comparative scale of involuntary population movement may not have diff ered signifi cantly from earlier centuries, its perception has changed radically, leading in the early twenty- fi rst century to the dramatic resurgence of xenophobic populism across Europe and beyond (see Kaya 2017 ; De Cesari and Kaya 2019). Throughout the ‘refugee crisis’ of the 2010s, the German government’s moderate policy towards new migrants was widely criticised. The ideological foundation for that policy was, arguably, the country’s experience of integrating millions of ethnic German expellees and refugees from Central and Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War

On the carrying stream into the European mountain: Roots and routes of creative (Scottish) ethnology

Since 2016, a diverse network of academic researchers, creative practitioners and cultural activists has emerged in Scotland, keen to explore the potential of a “creative ethnology”. This is in part a response to the politico-cultural and wider intellectual climate in the aftermath of the referendum on Scottish independence in 2014, and to ongoing debates in the arts and academia. As activists in this network, and ethnologists at almost opposite ends of our respective academic journeys, but who share similar perspectives and concerns, we reflect in this article on the margins and intersections of (European) ethnology in Scotland through mapping our personal trajectories in terms of geographical location, institutional contexts, research foci and methodological experimentation. Given limitations of space, we concentrate on aspects highlighting the specific contexts we have found ourselves living and working in, thus illustrating the positionality of (European) ethnology in Scotland through our individual trajectories in their relationality, rather than attempting a comprehensive account of the field. Our focus here is on that emerging “creative ethnology” and its potential contribution as non-hegemonic anthropologies are becoming increasingly recognized.Dal 2016 è emersa in Scozia una rete variegata di ricercatori accademici, professionisti creativi e attivisti culturali, mossi dal desiderio di esplorare il potenziale di una “etnologia creativa”. Ciò è in parte una risposta al clima politico-culturale e, in senso lato, intellettuale seguito al referendum sull’indipendenza scozzese del 2014 e ai dibattiti in corso nel campo delle arti e del mondo accademico. Come attivisti in questa rete ed etnologi collocati quasi all’estremità opposta dei nostri rispettivi percorsi accademici, ma che condividono prospettive e preoccupazioni simili, in questo articolo riflettiamo sui margini e le intersezioni dell’etnologia (europea) in Scozia attraverso la mappatura delle nostre traiettorie personali in termini di posizione geografica, ambienti istituzionali, focus di ricerca e sperimentazione metodologica. Piuttosto che tentare un resoconto completo del campo, dati i limiti dello spazio, ci concentriamo sugli aspetti che evidenziano i contesti specifici in cui ci siamo trovati a vivere e lavorare, illustrando in tal modo la posizionalità dell’etnologia (europea) in Scozia attraverso i nostri percorsi individuali nella loro relazionalità. Il nostro focus qui è che l’emergente “etnologia creativa” e il suo potenziale contributo alle antropologie non egemoniche stia diventando sempre più riconoscibile

Every entangled stuff has its own avatar

During the last century, entanglement was the bone of contention between the two main pillars of Physics: General Relativity (GR) and Quantum Mechanics (QM). This began in 1935 with the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox (EPR paradox) which concluded that although QuantumMechanics is not wrong, it is an incomplete theory to represent physical reality. In this paper it is demonstrated that some byproducts resulting from entanglement, which we will call avatars, act as a hinge that link both theories making the completeness of QM clear. Moreover, a thorough analysis of the non-locality of this effect will be carried out while demonstrating that entanglement is an instantaneous phenomenon, and that it does not require the use of a superluminal signaling for this purpose. Finally, the avatars will also appear in each wormhole resulting from an entanglement process (WREP) demonstrating that they are traversable with an equivalent path of null length which can be crossed in a null time with all that this implies in Quantum Communications

The future starts in the past:embedding learning for sustainability through culture and community in Scotland

Introduction: If sustainability is about imagining and pursuing desired futures, our past history, heritage, and culture will influence the kind of futures we seek and our chosen routes towards them. In Scotland, there is a strong connection between culture, land, and identity; a sense of community; and a perception of work ethic that derive from our biogeography and socio-political journey. Concepts and practises of education have been influenced by the ideas of key thinkers such as the Scot Sir Patrick Geddes, who introduced approaches to education and community through concepts such as “heart, hand, and head”, “think global, act local,” and “place, work, and folk”. This background influenced us in establishing Scotland's United Nations University-recognised Regional Centre of Expertise (RCE) in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), known locally as “Learning for Sustainability Scotland”. Its initial development ten years ago and subsequent evolution have been built on engaging collaboratively across Scotland and linking formal, non-formal, and informal modes of learning for sustainability. In this paper, we explore how culture and context have influenced the emergence, governance, and activities of RCE Scotland over the past decade.Methods: We developed an analytical framework of possible cultural and contextual influences on Scottish education. We used a Delphi approach to develop a novel and locally relevant definition of ESD when the RCE was established.Results: Analysis of purposively selected RCE Scotland activities against our cultural framework illustrated how they had been influenced by culture or context. We propose that democratic intellect, local and global, and nature-culture connections have informed our initiative.Discussion: We conclude that connection to people, place, and nature influences engagement and action on sustainability, and we suggest that additional sustainability competencies should include physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects of nature connection