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ANTHROPOLOGIST IN A SYNTHETIC WORLD

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Entering a completely new field of research, such as the research of synthetic worlds, places unique methodological challenges before anthropologists: it would seem that a new medium, which defines a new space and allows creation of new cultures, requires new methodological tools for fieldwork and data collection. However, a careful observation of the conditions of motion through synthetic worlds shows that, in this field, a researcher is faced with the same methodological problems as in any “classical” study of individual, specific culture, opening up even questions of validity of many previous RL researches. Analysis, as well as former practice, shows that observation with participation – as defined by Malinowski back in 1922 – is still a valid fundamental principle of ethnographic field research. Furthermore, with researching in virtual/synthetic worlds, it has become clear that participation is crucial for full understanding of any researched culture – a detail that is consistently neglected in many (primarily domestic) ethnographic researches.

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GENTRIFICATION OF PRAGUE, BUDAPEST AND BELGRADE IN THE CONTEXT OF POST-SOCIALIST TRANSFORMATION AND GLOBALIZATION

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This paper explores the processes of gentrification in post-socialist cities, focusing on the cases of Prague, Budapest and Belgrade. The aim of the paper is to contextualise gentrification as part of a broader process of spatio-social stratification taking place in the post-socialist city. The process of post-socialist transformation resulted in sharp changes in both social and spatial aspects of the post-socialist city. The heterogeneous social structure of the city, which existed as a partially attained goal of the socialist housing policy, changed towards a polarized social structure comprising of the winners and losers of the post-socialist transformation. This induced emergence of gentrified and gated communities. The paper deals with the political, economical, and, most importantly – cultural – factors that influence contemporary urban development and policies. It accentuates a global shift towards more flexible urban policies and democratization of decision making. Multiple urban actors (the local administration, developers, experts and the civil sector) became involved in the negotiation around decisions concerning urban development, which used to be the sole responsibility of the socialist state.

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CULTURE OF REMEMBERANCE OF THE FIGURE OF JOSIP BROZ TITO IN POST-YUGOSLAV DOCUMENARY SERIES

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The aim of this paper was to analyze the policy of representation of the presidential figure of Josip Broz Tito in the most important TV series after 2000. Following a short review of the role which the audio-visual representation (in film and then television) has played in building the cult of his person in the SFRY period, the main part of the paper examines the thematic and narrative content of relevant TV series related to the discourses inherited from the socialist period which have undergone political and social transition. Critically summing up variable meanings of the presentations of Josip Broz Tito in the context of construction and reconstruction of the culture of remembrance, the main part of the paper examines different existing nationalist/patriotic and consumerist approaches.

/ 1968
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NEW AGE SPIRITUALITY AND CULTURAL LOGIC OF LATE CAPITALISM

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Starting with the interrelated notions of globalization, postmodernism and neoliberalism, relying on their theoretical overlap, we suggest possible directions of inquiry that would clarify some aspects of the specific and today omnipresent “New Age” spirituality. Individualistic and eclectic, New Age spirituality arose in the context of countercultural movements of the sixties. It includes various kinds of metaphysical syncretisms combined with elements of modern science and humanistic psychology. We will try to show how this type of spirituality corresponds with the dominant cultural logic of the late capitalism (which we understand as global, postmodern, neoliberal, multicultural, multinational, etc). We proceed from the assumption that there is a number of points of correspondence and that it is possible to create a New Age genealogy that would clarify them. That would create prerequisites for the analysis of transposition of countercultural legacy in the neo-liberal narratives, and enable us to address the role of spirituality as a mediator in this process and as a specific mechanism of interpellation. In this way, we will deal with the reproduction and social functions of specific ideological forms in the dominant motifs of contemporary spirituality. Distributed across the growing market of the mind-body-spirit literature, the New Age worldview appears as a specific technology of the self and as an ideological aggregation point. In this point, the boundaries between market ideology and conception of reality as a hidden order/conscious self-organizing equilibrium disappear. The deification of being as „a market ontology“ results in theodicy and produces self-accusing subjectivity. This opens the door to engaging in political neoliberalism theology within an already wide-ranging discussion that replaces the secularization theory with the idea of history of political societies as a succession of different forms of sacralization.

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CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE DISCOURSE OF FRUGAL MEASURES AND THE CAPITALISTIC HEGEMONY FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF CULTURAL STUDIES

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Basic aim of this text is to try to give a critical analysis of the discourse of austerity measures which is manifested in intensified production of a specific type of media, public and political narratives and symbolic metaphors such as painful cuts, tightening of belts, alleged necessities in enforcement of different social diets etc, as well as similar syntagms like favourable or unfavourable business climates or devastating stormy crisis which, in the end, result in ideological and hegemonic perpetuation of the political enomy of capitalism and its pertaining power. Such discourse is approached as ideologically fabricated naturalistic discursive formations which use seemingly benign metaphors to create an illusion of alleged non-ideological crisis of recent capitalist economy and its political and social aspects. A prevailing disciplinary/case approach in analysis of the given problem motif is in the domain of rich arsenal of conceptual culture studies ie theoretical schools (structuralism, semiotics, neo-Marxism, critical discourse analysis, theory of ideology, critical social theories etc) and authors (Bahtin, Gramsci, Hall, van Dijk, Barthes, Foucault …) that were significantly used in cultural studies both substantially and methodologically. In conclusion, examples of given syntagms provide evidence that hegemony cannot simply remain in the framework of the predictable and controlled language of technocracy, and is therefore unsuccessfully searching for a way out, for an escape into the connotation, symbolic allegory, metaphor, hidden meaning.

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POLITICAL ASPECT OF CULTURE STUDIES – WAYS AND SIDEWAYS

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This paper proceeds from an assumption that culture studies are impregnated with political meaning. It examines basic theoretical presumptions of culture studies whose original role was to discover new means of interpretation and methodologies in order to explain the big changes in the society and culture in the 1960ies. Opposed to the elitist culture concepts, they aim to democratize the understanding of culture by the common man, carry out a multidimensional criticism of the capitalist culture starting from leftist ideas and experiences. The aim was to pave new ways for education of “public intellectuals” outside official institutions. Under strong influence of post modernism and related theories, they have advocated radical culturalism and, paradoxically, became hostage to globalism and neoliberal ideologies. This study examines the concepts and ideas that culture studies relied on, leading to such transformation.

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EDITOR’S NOTE

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TRANSITION

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LOGIC OF THE EMBODIED SUBJECT AND CONTEMPORARY CULTURE

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The body’s emergence from theoretical anonymity offers a possibility for a different rethinking of contemporary culture. A need arises for a polyvalent thinking that follows the logic of the embodied subject of contemporary culture, as opposed to the binary thinking of modernist culture. The text will fuse the post-generic constructions of the body in anthropology and philosophy with the cyborg techno-bodies of digital culture.