Establishing Perimeters for Ethnomusicological Field Research in Canada: On-Going Projects and Future Possibilities at the Canadian Centre for Folk Culture Studies

1972 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 329
Author(s):  
Kenneth Peacock
Author(s):  
Jasmine Day

This lecture presents the major findings of the first anthropological study of British and American “mummymania”, the public fascination with ancient Egyptian mummies, and its associated myth, the mummy’s curse: a belief that those who interfere with Egyptian tombs will be punished. The study incorporates museum-based field research, textual sources, film analysis and material culture studies. Originally lay critiques of archaeological ethics, curses were appropriated by the mass media, which reduced public sympathy for them by associating them with evil living mummy characters. Fictional mummies? abject traits later came to symbolise old age, decay, pollution, death and differencenegative concepts with which museum visitors now associate real mummies. Museum displays inadvertently remind visitors of stereotypes and museums may exploit stereotypes for profit or employ staff who elaborate curse myths. In my view, museums could do more to counter stereotyping by addressing visitors? predisposition to regard mummies with abhorrence and derision.


2021 ◽  
pp. 310-328
Author(s):  
Sergej A. Borisov

The article provides an overview of a field study conducted among Czechs in Serbia, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2019. The first results are presented, samples of transcribed texts are given. The purpose of the expedition was to collect narratives for the proper linguistic study of contact elements, conversations were conducted, among other things, about the history of the resettlement of Czechs to the Balkans, about folk culture, and interaction with other Slavic and non-Slavic ethnic groups. In the three regions studied, the Czech language remains unevenly due to a number of linguistic and extralinguistic factors. There are very few Czechs left in Bosnia and Herzegovina; Czech is the mother tongue only for elder people living in rural areas. In Serbia, there are several schools where Czech language and culture are taught, and in Romania there are schools where in the primary grades all subjects are taught in Czech. The collected language data is a valuable source for studying local Czech dialects and contact phenomena (borrowings, code-switching). The metalinguistic comments used by informants when they have difficulties in their Czech language during a conversation with a researcher are of particular interest to sociolinguistics.


2020 ◽  
pp. 272-274
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Frolovа

The article discusses the results of the 2020 field research conducted by the author in the Russian North. Special attention is paid to the specifics of the region. The Russian North is a special historical and cul-tural zone, on the territory of which a peculiar complex of folk culture has developed, United primarily by historical and socio-economic factors. This formed a certain type of worldview of the Northern Russian population. The study revealed an increase in the adaptive resource of the population, activation of col-lective memory. While preserving the holiday calendar as a whole, traditional elements of everyday and ritual culture, the local traditions of mutual fasting, intra-family and kinship ties have become more active. During extreme situations, there was an increased appeal to local Orthodox saints and shrines, as well as to traditional methods of treatment, nutrition, and sacred protection.


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