engleski

Engaged Anthropology and Public Presence. Meandrings of Croatian Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology

I have discussed diverse attempts by Croatian ethnologists to engage with the current social reality in the context in which they live and do research. Under Socialism, engagement and public presence were circumscribed to the presentation and revival of folklore and customs. In the 1990s, the priorities were the state and nation-building. Starting with the new century areas and forms of engagement have diversified. One form, the applied anthropology as is known in other European countries in sectors such as medicine, business or design, is practically inexistent. Anthropologists are mostly assisting in identity projects and tourist industries (in particular cultural tourism, which is also an aspect of identity work). More pronounced are other forms of engaged anthropology—critical social and cultural analyses with two approaches: a restrained kind of critical writing and militant critical writing. The dilemma of representation is present in both, with authoritative ethnographies alternating with multivocal collaborative ethnographies. I have argued that militant anthropology has not managed to reconcile research with advocacy without reproducing asymmetries between the researcher and the researched and that it has failed to offer more complex accounts of social reality.

ethnology and cultural anthropology ; Croatia ; history ; public anthropology

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