Since its start in 1967 Ethnologia Europaea has acquired a central position in the international cooperation between ethnologists in the different European countries. It is, however, a journal of topical interest not only for ethnologists but also for anthropologists, social historians and others studying the social and cultural forms of everyday life in recent and historical European societies. This journal appears twice a year, sometimes as a thematic issue.
The symposium 'Sleepers, Moles, and Martyrs: Secret Identifications, Societal Integration, and the Differing Meanings of Freedom' held in Reinhausen, 2002, formed the basis of this issue of Ethnologia Europaea. Occasioned by the social, political and mass media discourses after the bombings of New York's World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, an interdisciplinary group of scholars came together to explore the connotations and implications of the term 'sleeper'. The biographies of terrorist perpetrators are but one of many permutations of sleeper-like phenomena in late modern polities. Clandestine operatives of the state are sleepers, and both willing and unwilling victims of terrorism are discursively transformed from sleepers into martyrs. Starting with analyses of the discourses about sleepers in Part I-their historical antecedents, narrative emplotment, and semantic differentiation-Part II turns to the hidden or unspoken of aspects of the state, the challenge of fundamentalist terrorism to the modern political project and the tensions between neighbourly discourse, public display and the state. Part III juxtaposes changing depictions of Shiite martyrdom with the violence done to the term 'martyr' within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In Part IV, cultural secrets encoded in memorials and public silences in academic discourse are addressed. The different cases assembled offer comparative materials and perspectives from the USA, France, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Spain, Iran, Israel, Istria and Sweden.
This issue opens with Katarzyna Wolanik Boström and Magnus Öhlander's inquiry into mobile physicians and their pragmatic use of proto-ethnographic insights so as to facilitate their day to day work with culturally diverse patients. Gabriella Nilsson uncovers how school nurses, too, habitually draw on their knowledge of class and family background while implementing normative medical guidelines on childhood obesity. Maria Zackariasson seeks to show how members in a faith-based youth organization experience and handle the pull and push of faith and peer group sociability. Ewa Klekot examines different traces and registers of memorialization of recent Polish history in two districts of Warsaw. Disciplinary memory is augmented through Konrad J. Kuhn's analysis of Swiss scholars' participation in the Europeanization of Volkskunde. With Laura Hirvi's observations among young Finnish artists in Berlin, the issue concludes with another set of transnationally mobile actors.
Disturbing the Nest assesses the future of the family as an institution through an historical and comparative analysis of the nature, causes, and social implications of family change in advanced western societies such as the United States, New Zealand, and Switzerland by focusing on the one society in which family decline is found to be the greatest, Sweden. The founding of the modern Swedish welfare state was based in large part on the belief that it was necessary for the state to intervene in society in order to improve the situation of the family. Of great concern was the low birthrate, which was seen as a threat to the very survival of Swedes as a national population group. The Social Democrats pioneered welfare measures that aimed to strengthen the family, to alleviate its worst trials and tribulations, and to make possible harmonious living. With the Social Democrats remaining in power continuously until 1976, a period of almost forty-five years, Sweden went on to implement governmental "family policies" that are among the most comprehensive (and expensive) in the world. In view of this major policy goal of family improvement, the actual situation of the Swedish family today presents a genuine irony; some have claimed that Swedish welfare state policies have had consequences that are the opposite of those originally intended. Comparing contemporary Swedish family patterns with those of other advanced nations, one finds a very high family dissolution rate, probably the highest in the Western world, and a high percentage of single-parent, female headed families. Even marriage seems to have fallen increasingly out of favor, with Sweden having the lowest marriage rate and latest age of first marriage, and the highest rate of children born out-of-wedlock. The early pronatalist aspirations of the Swedish government have been spectacularly unsuccessful, as Sweden continues to have one of the world's lowest birthrates and smallest average family sizes.
A Companion to theAnthropologyof Europe BLACKWELL COMPANIONS TO ANTHROPOLOGY A Companion to the Anthropology of Europe “The volume also deserves a place on the shelves of academic libraries as well as the larger public library.” Reference Reviews “Summing Up: Highly recommended. All academic levels/libraries.” Choice “This important collection challenges all anthropologists to re-examine the importance of European perspectives on the most provocative debates of our time. It transcends regional interests to highlight the complex intellectual landscape of our field.” Tracey Heatherington, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee “This significant volume critically interrogates assumptions about Europe as an idea and a place for research. It provides fresh perspectives on the past and future of anthropological studies of Europe.” Deborah Reed-Danahay, SUNY at Buffalo, President of the Society for the Anthropology of Europe A Companion to the Anthropology of Europe offers a survey of contemporary Europeanist anthropology and European ethnology, and a guide to emerging trends in this geographical field of research. Utilizing diverse approaches to the anthropological study of Europe, Kockel, Nic Craith, and Frykman provide a synthesis of the different traditions and contemporary practices. Investigating the subject both geographically and thematically, the companion covers key topics such as location, heritage, experience, and cultural practices. Written by leading international scholars in the field, the volume constitutes the first authoritative guide for researchers, instructors, and students of anthropology and European studies.
