Ladislav Holy and Ernest Gellner: Representatives of Two Incompatible Approaches to the Study of Central European Society?

This study aims to compare the method of work employed in the Central European region by two outstanding British social anthropologists of Czech origin. Ernest Gellner & Ladislav Holy, the two personalities who are the focus of this study, were in terms of their opinions very different from one another. Central Europe had a distinct significance for each of them, & they addressed it with different questions. The purpose of this text is not merely to outline what it was that divided them, but also to seek points in which their thoughts converged; to determine whether the common field left any traces in the subject of their interest, & whether the results of their research corresponded in any way at all. Given that both Ladislav Holy & his ideas received much less attention after his death than the views of Ernest Gellner did, the article devotes more space to the theoretical viewpoints of the former. The ideas Holy presented in the Czech academic press during the early 1990s, which are poorly accessible to the international academic community, are especially highlighted

Všední den v Jablonci roku 1994. Od novoosídleneckého pohraničí k euroregionu. Sociálně antropologické studie z českého města Jablonec nad Nisou

V této publikaci předkládá Internationale Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften (IFK) ve Vídni výsledky Letní školy terénního výzkumu v sociální antropologii, která. se konala od 12.zá ří do 2. Ríjna 1994 v Jabloní nad Nisou. Letní školu inicioval Verbund für die Sozialanthropologie von Industńegesellschaften při Centre Marc Bloch v Berlín ě společně s IFK ve Vídni, Ústavem pro etnografii a folkloristiku AV ČR v Praze a Centre francais de recherches en sciences sociales v Praze. Sedmnáct badatelů z České republiky, z Rakouska, Německa, Francie, Slovenské republiky, Ruska a Spojených států ameńckých uskutečnilo společně terénní výzkum v českém městě, diskutovalo o výsledciÅLch a metodách a napsalo následující výzkumneÅL zprávy. Letní škola byla z největší částí financována z prostředků IFK ve Vídni. Další finanční příspěvky poskytlo Centre Marc Bloch v Berlíně a CEFRES v Praze. Organizátoři a účastníci děkují za jejich zájem a velkorysou podporu. Zvláště děkujeme také Emmanuelovi Terray a Gabriele Rasuly- Paleczek za jejich poutavé p řednášky během viÅLkendových seminářů a za účast pří diskusích s badateli o jejich práci. Andrea May nám pomohla při přípravě textu, Milena Bursíková a Daniela Uherková s překlady. I jím je třeba poděkovat.Sozialanthropologie ; Internationale Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften ; etnografii ; folkloristiku

L'ethnologie urbaine en pays tchèques

Zdenek Uherek: Urban Ethnology in Czech Lands From its first appearance at the end of the 19th century until 1948, Czech ethnology was exclusively devoted to studying the people of the countryside. There were, however, works by historians of culture and sociologists dealing with the traditions of urban groups with a view to reviving them and the study of cities was developed in the inter-war period, mostly by architects and rationalist town planners. Although the Communist regime put an end to sociology, an ethnology of the working class was begun in the 1950s along with historical research on working class culture before World War I starting in 1970. Since 1989, these research traditions have been maintained, but their objects have shifted towards the study of everyday life and inter-ethnic relations in the city, particularly in old, deteriorated city centres and the large housing estates in outlying areas.■ Zdenek Uherek: L'ethnologie urbaine en pays tchèques Depuis son apparition à la fin du xixe siècle jusqu'à 1948, l'ethnologie tchèque s'intéressait exclusivement au peuple des campagnes. Des travaux d'historiens de la culture et de sociologues portaient toutefois sur les traditions des groupes urbains en vue de les revivifier et, dans rentre-deux-guerres, l'étude des villes était développée surtout par des architectes et urbanistes rationalistes. Si le régime communiste a fait disparaître la sociologie, une ethnologie de la classe ouvrière s'est développée dès les années 1950 et, à partir des années 1970, des recherches historiques sur la culture ouvrière avant la Première Guerre mondiale. Depuis 1989, ces traditions de recherche se poursuivent, mais leurs objets se déplacent vers l'étude de la vie quotidienne et des relations inter-ethniques en ville, notamment dans les centres anciens dégradés et dans les grands ensembles périphériques.Uherek Zdenek, Formanek Carole. L'ethnologie urbaine en pays tchèques. In: Genèses, 28, 1997. Étatisations, sous la direction de Jean Leroy. pp. 111-127

The Council of Europe after Enlargement: an Anthropological Enquiry

Document de travail du CEFRES n°18The Council of Europe after enlargement is characterised by the tension between - the pursuit of geopolitical or pragmatic interests on the one side and - the defence of supranational humanitarian values on the other. This tension runs through all the sections of the Council dividing the employees into idealists and pragmatists - into those who wish to work towards a greater understanding among the people of Europe - and those who want to get on with their job and make sure that they keep it. The political representatives of the member states are split - into those who claim a certain moral supremacy because the countries they represent have been democracies for some time - and those who claim an egalitarian status in the Council because their countries as new democracies and members of the Council are entitled to it. The main controversy which is hardly openly discussed, is about who should learn and who should teach in the Council of Europe. A clear difference in attitude can be seen between the political bodies of the Council and the administrative bodies charged with educational programs. - In the political bodies where all countries are theoretically exercising their influence on an egalitarian basis, the discourse about values becomes part of the strive for power and influence. The idea, that representatives from post-communist countries have to learn democracy from the representatives of Western European countries, has been present in many interviews with ambassadors and delegates from Western Europe. Among Eastern European representatives emphasis is put on the fact, that they are already democracies, which is proved by the fact that they have become members of the Council. Their main concern now is how to make their voices heard in the Council. In spite of formal equality, proposals of Eastern European representatives do not carry the same weight. They are not listened to in the same way. This could be observed, for instance, when East European suggestions for conflict solution in Kosovo were ignored in the Committee of Ministers in the summer of 1998.- The administrative bodies of the council are confronted with the fact that the new member countries refuse openly the concept of assistance and assume that the transfer of democratic values towards their societies is unnecessary. At the same time the certainty of European values, such as democracy, plurality and the rule of law, can be observed to dissolve when confronted with concrete social practice.The sections of the Council most prominently involved in educational programmes also towards Eastern European societies, such as the Section for the Education in Democratic Citizenship and the Youth Centre, have been loosing track of the model that they are supposed to promote. - The section for the Education in Democratic Citizenship tries to avoid the dilemma by encouraging examples for good democratic practice that already exist in the member countries. - Employees of the Youth Centre who organise training courses for the youth elite from Eastern and Western Europe try to do so without imposing any model. The people they train, however, are keen on finding out how these Western European societies function and happily hear about their models in order to use them in their own dealings with European institutions. The educational practice of the Council clearly reinforces an already existing elite that can use the know-how about the West acquired in the Council to reinforce its position back home. A concept of diversity advocated by the Council, for instance in the Roma Network fixes and simplifies images of the Others, whose reality is far more complex. An elite of young Roma leaders from all over Europe is brought together under the auspices of the Council, thereby creating a European Roma discourse that has never previously existed and that covers up the heterogeneity of the Roma societies.The Council of Europe still has a long way to go before becoming a forum in which communication on an egalitarian basis can take place. It still has to confront itself with the complex social and economic reality of its post-communist member states. 1. To name only one of the taboo subjects of the Council: a thorough debate without prejudice is needed on the socialist past of the new member states, its values, achievements and shortcomings. 2. Another taboo subject of the Council - the critical evaluation of liberal market economy - has recently been broken by delegates of the Parliamentary Assembly who came to the conclusion that democratic social control cannot stop short from the economy and that a thoroughly new debate on democracy and economy is needed in post-communist Europe, in the East and in the Wes