Writing Culture for Nature Conservation
Peter Simonič
Writing Culture for Nature Conservation
Collective Regional Network Analysis
Anthropologists and researchers from other social sciences have for long time missed the fact that there is no place which has not already been represented by some other interest. Post-modern ethnographic field is no longer homogenous and isolated space waiting to be discovered. Researchers try to consider different groups of interest. Also in rural studies, peasants (and their half-industrial successors) are no longer the only relevant subjects of analysis. Interests of state government, international market and politics, and subjects of civil society are also taken into consideration. Those groups of interest are usually institutionalised and perceived as external or internal factors of the ethnographic field.
Partiality of truth, as Clifford and Marcus described it (1986), doesn’t mean that each of those factors (individuals and institutions) consider only one part of the territory or reality. Even pre-scientific knowledge tries to incorporate the whole; it is actually built in relation to whole. It is therefore not the objective of anthropological analysis to find separated truths and unite them in the bigger, holistic and more relevant story but to detect their positioning, interrelations and overlapping (person can be a man or a woman, family member, hunter, hiker, peasant, skier, etc.) in whatever whole they perceive. Modern ethnographers are the integral, inseparable part of such representation processes (Marcus 1998: 12). They see the totality of socio-ecological relations from different perspective and use specific vocabulary.
In such multiplied perception of space and its times, locality presumable still exits but it is now theoretically more a matter of identification processes – variable relations and negotiations among people (Gupta and Ferguson 1997), influenced by global market and mass media (McLuhan 1995; Appadurai 2003). So, applied anthropology should first identify “interest groups” and “opinion makers” as-if they were different “stakeholders” and describe their specific definitions (awareness) of time and space. Then we can define assess their needs ( Ervin 2000) and assist them by formulation of their policies. Decision about the selected point of view, that is about which stakeholder will be in the centre of anthropological analysis and project management (application) usually depends on anthropologist working in the field and his or her worldview. It is also a question of ones ethics and survivor.
5th World Parks Congress in Durban 2003 emphasised the importance of involving different “stakeholders” in the park management (policy). Its declarations should be read as a new start for acknowledging dispersed socio-cultural not just biological reality. This orientation is quite resent. Because the interest of the congress organizer ― IUCN (resident in Switzerland) ― has always been mainly in protected areas in “underdeveloped countries” of Africa, Asia and South America, this recent advice for fairness between stakeholders must be waged in relation to increased importance of human rights on one side and still asymmetric economic and political relations of (global) society on the other.
United Nations Declaration on Human Rights from 1948 initiated and legalized independence movements among peoples in “peripheries” who were formerly caught in colonial enterprise. Today, even though they are declared as “equal”, indigenous peoples can hardly compete with international foundations and corporations (“capital”) or central government (“polity”) of nation-state, so it is a bit overoptimistic to expect that their involvement in park management will be as strong as of parties being actually “distant from the project site” (Nolan 2002: 120-27). This is also true in European context where democratisation is older and stronger. In my opinion, it is methodologically not productive to separate foreign or internal politics of nation-state agents: they both reflect aspirations for centralised (accumulated) ideational or tangible resources (Kurtz 2001), or as Bourdieu (2003) put it ― they need to gaining social, cultural and economic capital. The sole idea of protected areas is strongly connected to these efforts, which are permanently increasing pressure on national or global periphery and their inhabitants (Colchester 2003).
This article is not so much about poetics but rather politics of ethnographic involvement in existing or planned protected areas (in Slovenia). It is not my prime intention to discuss writing stiles or metaphors of ethnographer ― that is, how one should construct or position him-self literary. It is far more interesting for me to understand how ethnographers should enter and position them-selves in the “real world” of park’s social relations (litarally). I wish to do so by questioning the established students workshops or field researches (slov.: “tabori”) organised by the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology which I have been organising for the last four years. Politics, science, education and management are in the centre of interest here. And advocacy of the weakest in established power relations of parks is important, too.
My discussion on doing ethnography is directly connected to changes in cultural policy in Eastern (transitional) Europe (Dragićević-Šešić and Stojković 2000). During 1990’s, democratisation and private enterprising raised questions about the organisation and financing of cultural and scientific sector. State began to withdrew, forcing cultural and scientific institutions to look for vertical connection (partnerships, sponsorships etc). Project suggestions were now to depend mainly on financial support from civil society it-self. (Čopič and Tomc 1997)
So, contemporary objectivity of ethnographic work can be questioned at the level of observation, participation, interrogation (Stocking 1983), description (Clifford and Marcus 1986) ― and financing. All these factors shape the procedures and outcomes of anthropology. Experimental project, which I will suggest at the end of the paper, hopes to retain advantages and resolve some methodological discrepancies of collective field research in Slovenia.
On Nature and Culture of Slovenian Protected Areas
Degradation of the environment in Slovenia presumable cannot be compared to some regions in formal eastern block. Still, fast and loosely controlled industrialisation and urbanisation have brought “modernisation” to almost every part of Slovene territory. National economic development strategy estimates that today yearly damage is approximately 4-6 % (Černe and Turk 1999: 10). I refuse to believe that west-European societies were more careful with (their) environment as eastern block, and I also doubt it is possible to measure environmental cost of economic development in exact figures or percents. But no matter what the reason, biologists say that Slovenia has a reputation of European “hot spot”. Slovenia can be ranked among biologically richest countries in Europe and in the World. (Mršič 1997: 9)
In 1996 Slovenia ratified the Convention on biological diversity signed in Rio de Jeneiro 1992. Even though Slovenia already had some protected areas following United Nations and UNESCO conventions (few landscapes, regional parks Kozjansko and Škocjanske caves, and Triglav National Park), new convention was important for shaping the common (national) sense of space because of its specific emphasis on the protection of biodiversity in situ. Three years later, in 1999 new paradigm was integrated in the Law on protection of nature (Hlade and Skoberne 2002). Many experts and green politicians saw this as an opportunity for the protection of bigger sites of Slovene territory, and possibility to fulfil some conservation plans made long time ago.
As a candidate state for the European Union, Slovenia has had to adopt European legislative and respect the ongoing European programs. Major program concerning European natural resources, species and habitats at the beginning of the new Millennium is Natura 2000 ― European network of special protected areas.
Slovenia is “culturally” also very diverse. Slovene ethnologists have specified four ethnical regions with common characteristics or influences on social life and culture: Mediterranean, Alpine, Pannonian and central Slovenian (Novak 1960; Baš 1980). Another important classification was made in accordance to administrative division of Slovenia: villages, cities and their districts were described as micro-regions (ethnological topography; Kremenšek 1974). The last attempt to regionalise Slovene ethnic territory has identified 96 units (Bogataj and Hazler 1996: 148), which can of course be further divided into smaller units or unified into bigger regions of “life styles”.
The result of biological and cultural diversity in Slovenia is not just something to be proud of (“hot spot of Europe”), but it also evokes problems when different and centralised representations of larger territories should be brought together ― as synergetic as possible (Nolan 2002: 93). For example, what we today understand as cultural landscape and heritage is usually a result of strong environmental degradations; that is why representatives of nature protection programs refuse any further urbanization, agricultural intensification etc. This synergy is especially distant after the former Institute for the protection of natural and cultural heritage of Slovenia split in two parts in 2001: one dealing exclusively with natural and other with cultural aspects of national heritage. Both parties nowadays start the discussions with assumption that their subject matter is endangered and it must therefore be preserved or conserved.1 And all governmental administrations for the protection of cultural heritage have been basically interested in material aspect of culture (monuments, houses, settlements and cultural landscapes), ignoring social, linguistic and other non-material values or traditions.2
This kind of separateness seems to be in contrast with contemporary need for holistic approaches and it makes research, financing and management of protected areas very difficult or even impossible. Anthropologist can easily get lost, used or obstructed in this forest of interests.
Ethnological involvement in Protected Areas in Slovenia
In the year 2000 Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology started a program called Heritage for the Future with the goal to incorporate domestic point of view in the development plans of rural (and urban) areas in Slovenia. It was not the sole idea of the protection of nature that stimulated our involvement in the parks, but the assumption about the endangerment and marginalisation of domestic culture and society in this new environmentalist paradigm. And experts from natural sciences and state administration also complained they are unable to establish a constructive dialog with (future) park inhabitants.
Field research was conducted as students’ workshops, as practical part of curriculum at the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology. Students were divided into groups under the tutorship of assistants or professors. During approximately one week stay in the spring or summer each group collected data about specific topic. I shell describe my experiences which are only a part of much wider analyses made during those workshops.
In Regional park Kozjansko, south-eastern part of Slovenia (summer 2000) I was interested in the “Forms of social life / sociability”. I’ve suspected that analyzing management of public events (a combination of human, technological and natural resources) will give a picture of the sorts or levels of regional common ground. I was able to define local opinion-makers (activists), micro-identities and power relations inside the existed park, which were actually not connected to the park management at all. It seemed to me that there are at least two separated levels of social life in regional park Kozjansko: one in the perspective of governance and the other as the way of life or event management of local/regional population. Since park has been working for almost twenty years (since 1981), it was fascinating to see how the state can influence local communities for so long by supporting park administration without even consider them.3 That is why inhabitants didn’t identify them-selves with the park and why their participation in park management was almost zero. But the importance of (inter)national image of protected area was much stronger then its relevance to inhabitants and its rentability. Research was conducted by 8 students (of 25). Methods used were interview, photography and observation. At the end we have invited the informants to visit our final presentation, which came out to be a good idea because collected information could be checked right away and we managed to provoke a discussion about their vision on regional development. Students also got sense of social responsibility.
One year later I wanted to learn more about Food and culture in local taverns. I hoped to understand the economy of taverns through the analysis of material, informational and human inputs and outputs (who, what, how, when and by whom goes in and out the tavern). I thought this economised subject would be of bigger interest to park management, because findings of the previous year seemed to be over academic and to critical. But it came out again that small enterprises (taverns) are suspicious about our intentions and their cooperation with park administration. Students were also quite “disappointed” because owners and their cooks didn’t know much about “traditional” food of the region which could become a part of marketing planes for tourists. They were serving food which can be found almost everywhere in Slovenia and Central Europe and owners did not feel any need to invent or advertise something “autochthon”. Since their customers were mainly the local workers and not tourists, they kept serving average, small meals.4 The taverns them-selves were rather small and “underdeveloped”, comparing to some other tourist resorts in Slovenia. This can of course be of advantage, since tourists might find this underdevelopment to be interesting, unspoiled.
I have encouraged 5 participating students in my group to combine collected data (interview, photo, observation) and try to describe an average and prescribe and ideal innkeeper of Kozjansko. Outputs were very amusing, combining ethnography with students perception of development. Final presentation for the locals was again quite successful and meaningful.
It is important to notice that Kozjansko Regional Park was never the main subject of our discussions with innkeepers during the workshop, but as we have been sleeping and eating in arrangement of park management (and have made the final presentation in its head quarters), it was obvious for the locals that we represent natural protection (park) policy. So, even thou we have been basically interested in cultural phenomena and domestic point of view, we ― ethnologist unwillingly became agents of park policy, which means that we lost further part of our “objectivity” and “credibility”.
Few moths later I received an invitation from the municipality of Ljubljana to make an economic-anthropological evaluation of the project proposal to buy a “Tomaževa hiša” (Tomaževa house) in Ljubljansko barje ― swampland near Ljubljana. This cottage of 19th Century farmers was partly a property of pensioned economist, who, after he had found out that municipality wishes to buy this house as an entrance point to future Landscape Park, raised its prize “unreasonably”. The house was falling apart but he insisted that state and society should pay if they want to benefit. Park planes and natural conservation doctrine didn’t impress him much. Economy, ecology and cultural heritage didn’t meet. But again I was working on the “field” as an agent of city administration having difficulties to persuade him to even talk to me. At the and, my conclusion was that Tomaževa hiša is of great cultural value but it has no sense to give such an amount of money for an old pile. Employing again the research of sociability (public events, places and identifications), I found out that people of the swamp didn’t know much about the planes for Landscape Park. Some mayors of municipalities around the swamp also refused to be involved in the project, seeing it as a tool for establishing even stronger hegemony of the municipality of Ljubljana. Ethnographic field was contested and separated into many official and domestic levels.
Ljubljansko barje nowadays is an important spot for protection of wetland and birds but its cultivation started a long time ago with prehistoric crannogs and latter peat-cutters, etc. Economisation and urbanisation was especially strong at the time of melioration enterprise of Austro-Hungarian Empire and socialist industrialisation. These processes have changed the landscape and social equilibrium drastically. Routs of cultivation are now important for genealogy of regional and national identity and potential “story providers” for tourism industry. Since the swamp is right next to Slovene capitol, it is obvious that population and economic pressure on “free” and “unspoiled nature” for recreation and building is strong and persistent.
Pohorje
In 2002 I started a long-term research on Pohorje, because it has been mapped by the state as one of the future regional park. I saw this as a chance for the development of a more systematic approach oriented directly toward nature protection and its influences on social structures in local frame. At the same time this was still a “virgin territory” in a sense that park has not been declared yet, so it seemed useful to get ethnologists involved right from the start.
Pohorje is classified as a sub-alpine region, laying in the most eastern part of Alps (extended to Panonic region). In comparison to other “protected areas” I have had been working in until then, this was a big mountain territory (length 47 km from city of Dravograd on the east to the city of Maribor on the west; width to 25 km), 66 percent covered with forests, and with more then 1000 highland farms at the altitude of 600 metres and more (Natek 1992: 294).
The region was of course not so virgin at all. It is important to notice that ecology as a state (common ground, ideological) doctrine ― coming through global, national and regional (distant) scientific, spiritual, economic and political centres ― is quite new to this region. Modernisation after 16 Century usually encouraged people to intensify their production in agriculture, forestry and craft. The big (centralised) stories have had various influences on the mountain of Pohorje at least since the middle ages. The latest transition in 1990’s has also restructured society and its nature (Guille-Escuret 1998).
Regional integration processes in bigger social frames can also be noticed in the discourse of nature protection or conservation, where concrete plans date back in the beginning of 1980’s. According to these planes (following World Conservation Union guidelines), Pohorje should have been divided into three zones: central or the most restricted zones (with virgin forest and endangered animal and plant species), second zone with natural values of special importance (natural monuments) and the third ― outside ring area ― called buffer zone with specific cultural landscape. Most population is located in the surrounding buffer zone.
In more then twenty years these planes were not fulfilled, but discussions about the protection appeared sporadically. All these years we can follow more or less intensive and pragmatic crashes and alliances among environmentalists, half-rural inhabitants (half-peasants) mainly scared for their existence and old way of life5, separated economic policies of the municipalities (enforcing polycentric deagrarisation and depopulation) and all kinds of external users/exploiters of Pohorje (forestry, skiing tourism, food industry, political parties, etc.).
So far “anthropologisation” of Pohorje was minor. Ecological anthropology as a subfield is even more marginal, since cultural-evolutionism of Slovene ethnology has in principle emphasised aspect of human (ethnical, national) development and in has never considered a nature and ecological equilibrium to be a priority. Classical Slovene ethnological encyclopaedias and manuals (Breznik, Ložar, Grafenauer, Orel 1944; Novak 1960; Baš 1980) emphasized most important economic strategy of Slovene population which was agriculture (peasant society). Somewhere at the end of these writings we can find notes on curiosities such as hunting and gathering. This was ideologically connected to shaping ethnic identity and the process of its national emancipation. Economic or ecologic anthropology text books, on the other side, follow evolutionist paradigm, so they usually open with most distant adaptation strategies. They put agriculture (domestication of animal and plants) somewhere in the middle between hunters and industrial or post-industrial societies (Plattner 2000; Descola and Palsson 1996). It is the concept of adaptation which deserves our intention in contrast to ethnological defence of national substance.6
In that sense I wanted to check how people on Pohorje, mostly farmers, were connected to the surrounding political, economic and ecological strategies. Research with 6 students in 2002 focused on Migrations. We were not interest just in daily, seasonal or permanent movement of people but also in material exchange (trades, commodities) and informational exchange (education, media). All these informational and tangible “migrations” are of course interrelated. We provided a strong proof that Pohorje has never been an isolated place but always in all kinds of exchange with other political and economic units. We divided Pohorje into northern and southern part, first appropriate mainly for forestry and the second with limited potentials for highland farming and with more diverse cultural landscape. We also noticed that Pohorje is separated into many administrative units (municipalities) and that orchestration among their “development plans” toward Pohorje has never been very successful. This should be useful lesson to the representatives of ministry of environment and spatial planning and all other organisations who wish to promote one strategy for all. And again, most of the Pohorje inhabitants didn’t know anything about nature protection plans or they were misinformed and frightened for their rights.7
The following year I did research on Economy and Ecology. One of the major concerns of Slovene negotiators for EU membership was the protection of agriculture, which has been perceived as a cornerstone of national independence and identity. One of the solutions to accommodate was the concept of eco-farming, coming as a model mainly from Austria and adopted by the ministry of agriculture and food. We have visited some of those farms to check how this doctrine was working in real life. We were also trying to indicate some sustainable practices of economic, social and environmental “equilibrium” existent on Pohorje before post-modern ecological awareness. We found different motivations for joining state eco-farming programme and discrepancies in fulfilment of this programme as a result of educational, familiar and other cultural forces in the region and its surroundings. Again diversity of social practices was much bigger as one might assume by reading state reports. Eco-farming showed to be just one of many strategies inhabitants may choose to survive, to assure their continuity (sustainability).8
Evaluation of introduced methodology
Ten years after co-editing an influential book “Writing Culture” Marcus (1998: 9) reviewed, that it was much more the textual side which has been taking into account by ethnographic writing. “Actual practices of fieldwork … have not changed much at all.” As I have mentioned at the beginning, politics or organisational problems of ethnographer’s research is the most important to me here.
Collective field research in Slovenian ethnology was launched after the Second World War (1948-1961) by the Slovene Ethnographic Museum under the leadership of its director Boris Orel. Research groups of approximately 15 senior ethnographers, 18 teams all together, have been working mostly in the southern and western part of Slovenia and were basically interested in “material culture”. They described and collected “artefacts of folk culture” for Ethnographic museum in Ljubljana and some regional museums. As Orel has put it, the researchers have been working separately but “hitting together”, which meant they stayed in the same locality, where they successively and separately visited informants. Sometimes they also slept in their houses (Simikič 1983, 2003). They have never been to Pohorje.
Later collective field research known as ethnological research workshops employed students during their summer vacations. Initiators and organisers came from Slovene regional museums, Institutes for the protection of natural and cultural heritage in Slovenia, local communities, etc. ― and from the Department of ethnology it-self of course. Students (junior researchers) were divided into groups, working under tutorship of mentors. Each group collected information on one aspect of folk life, i.e. one group for the culture of food, another for architecture, third worked on the subject of craft, fourth on folklore etc. Topics changed due to the interest of clients and mentors. This sub-groups could have visited the “informants” collectively or individually ― going “door to door”. Students and their mentors usually lived, eat and wrote together in one place, i.e. students’ house, local house of culture, apartments, country lodge etc.
This kind of field work has become an informal part of curriculum and herewith an important (guided) field experience for Slovene students of ethnology.9 They can learn how to approach to people and make an interview. They test a combination of different techniques, i.e. audio recordings, photography, writing, transcribing and interpreting field notes, evening discussions (public presentations), etc. Students also get to know each other better. These experiences were useful as a preparation for their diploma which was mostly an exercise in combination of theoretical frame and an ethnographic experience. I think such an approach has a limited range and is alienated. Let me list some reasons:
Visits of researchers at informant’s house or flat lasted from a few minutes to a few hours ― depending on personal and objective circumstances ― which reduced the possibility for a relevant interview. It was either superficial or exhausting. Of course some of the researchers were skilled or lucky enough to “pull out of the informants” as much as possible;
Their field work usually took only one or two members of a household into consideration; others were out to work, at school etc. so they were out of the picture;
Interpretations were based mainly on interviews; observation of the analysed phenomena in the social context was occasional. Such an approach had the only limited credibility within the analysis (evidence, indexation) of material culture and historical data. Observation of social life and participation in it were minor ― depending on interrogation only;
Even though Slovene hospitality urges people to serve food and drinks to visitor, this kind of research was still quite expensive. Organiser had to raise money for the accommodation, food etc. for a (large) number of students and mentors.10 The bigger the group of students, bigger the amount of money needed.
It was therefore very difficult to fulfil all the conditions: anthropological, educational, political and financial. If I really wanted to a) get regional, comparative information (park as an imagined, redefined region), b) employ a bigger group of student researchers, and c) work in accordance to transitional cultural (market) policies, I have had to look for alternative financial resources. Since municipalities, and not the state, have been contributing money, they expected to get something in return. Pohorje got enormous when I have tried to involve (“investigate”) residents from all the municipalities in the buffer zone. Beside that, municipalities expected some “concrete results”: the research should therefore not be academic (as a “basic research”). In opinion of some mayors and municipality councils, their money should not be wasted on something that doesn’t affect local economy or wellbeing directly: traditional house building and equipment, culture of drink and food, rituals, etc. can be sold and they reversibly make research of them useful, meaningful.11 Other municipality decision-makers simply wanted to justify the money spent by proving the research was made on their territory: it was their contribution to common good, to historical record of the neighbourhood; it was their cultural and social capital.
So, as soon as I’ve had addressed municipalities for financial assistance, this meant that students would have to travel all around Pohorje and collect information which will satisfy my ethnographic curiosity (goals) and at the same time meet the expectation of mayors and councils. Of course this evoked a major logistic problems ― travelling long distances, high gasoline and amortisation costs, irregular meals, tired collaborators etc. After a week the students were exhausted and they have hardly waited to get back home. It was not just driving and working that made them dizzy, but also knight life in the common residence: some students have been dancing and drinking almost every night until late/early hours. So they were actually exhausted when they got up in the morning. The quality of field work, already limited to interviews, felt drastically. If practical experience and amusement of the students is not the only reason for the workshops ― if I want to do “serious” collective field research with students ― this pattern has to be changed. Collective Regional Network Analysis
We have heard briefly how municipalities look at the issue, we know about the conventions and state centralisation, but we still know little about the inhabitants. We still face the problem touching them, because so far we (tutors and students) have always entered “social arena” for only short periods of time. This is why students could collect only stories (interrogation), and they had no clue about informants’ “real life”.
My intention in the nearest future is to get in touch with members of households much more intensively. I would like to know, how have households on Pohorje influenced and adopt the construction of their life (identity, locality) to assure and satisfy economical, environmental and social needs as individual, family, community and region? What kind of strategies do they use to manage and continue their existence in the mountain region where depopulation was always strong? Which ways and meanings did modernisation get on Pohorje? What are farmers’ individual and social memories, needs and visions? How could they become integrated into the regional park policies (protected area)? Do they wish so at all? I need to learn about primary and secondary socialisation: relations between individuals and their primary social unites (families), and relations between individual and societies at large.12
Individual personality is the result of his or her childhood experiences, kinship norms, needs, benefits, as-if personality example, personal integration, etc (Sapir 2002). If I take the individual is the basic unite of interest, then civil society will also become the result of his/her intentions and capabilities in time perspective. In my opinion this is the best way to understand how personal and social identities are constructed or negotiated from the bottom-up (grassroots) ― by people resident in the region! I see this as a shift from material to social and psychological interpretation. It is also a shift from centralised (institutional) to dispersed (diverse, individual) perception of local and regional life and culture.
To be able to fulfil this goal, student researchers must have long-term and indirect contact with individuals and their families/households. Each student must live and work with the family who is willing to except one. During ten days stay at the farm, student can get to know spatial organisation of the household, its equipments, menus, dresses, personal histories and social networks, visions, motivations etc. Field notes should be combined with personal diary. This is of course nothing new to anthropology (Stocking 1983) but it is new to collective fieldwork with students (ethnological workshops). If I manage to pay off student accommodation at the farm by providing work assistance than he or she will not be excepted just as curious or superfluous visitor but he/she will give something useful in return. Participation will be much better, and organizer of the workshop can save a huge amount of money for accommodation, food and transportation. Students also need not to be supervised by many tutors whereby organiser can save some extra money. One tutor also has more students on disposal to deal with specific subject which can probable increase the credibility of the research sample and its interpretations.
Territorial network analysis made by junior researchers (students) is a methodological reaction to contemporary theoretical discussions in anthropology (networks; Rapport and Overing 2000: 290-291). Network social analysis is a combination of qualitative and quantitative ethnographic analysis. It gives us the opportunity for random assignment of informants (Bernard 1995: 52) to illustrate social commonalities and differences.
Basically, relevance of the sample and the outputs of such a collective research is depending on informants (willingness and material capability to except the guest for a specific period of time). It also depends on the number and knowledge of researchers available for the comparative study. And finally, it depends on the skills of project leader to persuade both sides about the importance of such a relatively intensive collaboration (different values, assumptions, perceptions, expectations, needs, goals and concerns; Nolan 2002: 92-93).
Such an approach is an applied version of the regional vertical exchanges, which is essential for the integration and political positions of social micro-units ― local residents (see Plattner 1991b: 194-195). Of course search for regional crosscutting references might produce or even invent regional identity not existed before, since people from distant part of Pohorje will be brought together into the same frame (ethnographical wholeness of the region). As I have already mentioned, current identity is polycentric; people think of them-selves as members of 15 to 16 different municipalities: being “Pohorc” (resident of Pohorje) actually has an awkward (mountain, distant) connotation and many people from the region try to avoid it.13
My suggestion could be associated with network analysis used in (applied) anthropological research in 60’s (Ervin 2000: 21) and revitalised in 90’s of the 20 Century (see i.e. Scott 1991; Schweizer and White 1998) with social structure/networks and even mathematical anthropology. It is not my intention to “measure” kinship and other socio-cultural relations (trade partnerships, alliances) mathematically ― and establish some kind of new structuralism or model for computer science. “Our network” is a practical (pragmatic) solution for doing the best with a large number of researchers due to anthropological educational process (students ethnographic experiences), and in relation with regional approach of those who are committed to establish protected area or develop regional tourism paradise. Our network is actually double: one of students (simultaneously accommodated on different location on Pohorje) and the other of their hosts (involved in the construction of social reality – social capital - on Pohorje) ― with other contemporary forces, like media or global economy in mind.
Anyway, traditional and reinforced network analyses in anthropology described above share an important aspect: they are based on “methodological individualism” (Rapport and Overing 2003: 252-53) which, in my opinion, is scientific companion of modernity and globalisation. Focusing only on families and households would mean that we think of family as a basic or given social structure (Taylor 1871) and of household as a basic economic structure (microeconomics; Sahlins 1972).14 Therefore I insist to complete the information on social (kinship, local, generational, regional) structures with informant’s life stories and their discursive analysis. This kind of “emic” information can provide historical background to those “etic” structures ― and can clarify individual influences and behaviours in relations with their “social contexts”.
Suggested collective network research should also be combined with previous and later visits of individual researchers. Time perspective of ethnography is missing, not just in historical sense of informants lives, because group of students can not stay out of classroom for the whole year and follow the seasonal change. Later individual researchers can visit people in different occasions, to specify interest, fill the gaps, or just to keep in touch.
By doing so ― combining network and individual (quantitative and qualitative) research ― the speed of collecting ethnographical data will probably increase. Of course, we will always be to slow for some administrators and development agencies. However, knowing personal and social histories, networks and motivations on household level is of major importance to describe the forces of modernisation and to the relevance of anthropological applications (regional development). And we don’t even need the state, municipalities or private enterprises to bless our “non-material interest”.
Research and Project Implementation
Development, practicing or applied anthropology in my opinion is defined with four major and interrelated tensions: goal (ideology-vision), anthropological analysis (methodology-ethnography), development plans (methodology-ideology) and implementation (praxis-ethnography). Our focus here was on the methodology and ethnography of protected areas. Ethnography of nature protected area, or any other region as well, must include the reflections of the way of doing fieldwork (objectification of objective view; Bourdieu 2002). Transforming collected data into a readable and applied text or behaviour is yet another but related story.
My involvement in protected areas started immediately with applied anthropology. That is why at the beginning in Kozjansko and Ljubljansko barje, I have preferred analysis of social life and public events, food culture and taverns, that is aspect of “local culture” through which the level of knowledge and social cohesiveness (human resources), and technological and environmental conditions (material resources) of the protected region can be evaluated (collective enterprise). These are at the same time the events which can assumable be sold (marketed).
But more I got into the subject more it was clear to me, that act or process of protection of special (sacred) spaces and their interpretations are very heterogeneous. It seemed logical that practicing anthropology (Nolan 2002) is possible and allowed only after a longer period of field studies; it is not possible or even ethical to give suggestions and write projects on “regional development” after superficial visit to the region and its inhabitants. When one is able to do so, one doesn’t have to live office at all because one already knows what the outcome should be like. To be able to understand what is happening and to take an “objective” position, one must analyse historical and social forces working on that specific territory. So, even if Slovene anthropology is not reaching the level of management or developmental suggestions in protected areas fast enough, I will continue to make a series of thematic researches about the strategies of different interest groups (stakeholders) considering adaptation to (new) ecological framework. Local residents and their diversity will always have the priority. Question whether the protected area will be declared or is it already functioning well is not most important any more. It becomes merely one of the possible and sustainable strategies.
Answers to this kind of questions should be essential in regional development planning. Since development in economical sense is something much more evident (evolution as material accumulation and well-being) than in biological or anthropological sense (evolution as adaptation; Gould 1991; Moran 2000), one must be precocious with implementation of “progress strategies” and their influences on families, households, and all other structural transitions between stakeholders of local or regional network of civil society. So anthropological analysis of modernisation is not important just at the beginning of the project (i.e. constructing socio-cultural database for establishing a protected area or in management of human resources) but it should become partner in management plans, having also the right to reflect management practices as well. This is very much in accordance with the outcomes of the 5th World Park Congress.
References:
Appadurai, Arjun (2003) Modernity at Large. Cultural Dimensions of Globalisation. University of Minnesota Press
Baš, Angelos (ed.)
(1980) Slovensko ljudsko izročilo. Pregled etnologije Slovencev. Ljubljana:
Cankarjeva založba
Bogataj, Janez; Hazler, Vito (1996) Regionalizacija. Enciklopedija Slovenije (10. knjiga). Ljubljana:
Mladinska knjiga, str. 147-49
Bourdieu, Pierre
(2003) Praktični čut (prvi zvezek). Ljubljana: SH ― Zavod za založniško dejavnost. Breznik, Anton; Ložar, Rajko; Grafenauer, Ivan; Orel, Boris (ur.) (1944-1952) Narodopisje Slovencev. Ljubljana: Klas
Clifford, James; Marcus, George E. (ur.)
(1986) Writing culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley
[itd.]: University of California Press
Colchester, Marcus
(2003) Salvaging Nature. Indigenous Peoples, Protected Areas and
Biodiversity Conservation. Montevideo: World Rainforest Movement; Moreton-in-Marsh: Forest Peoples Programme
Čopič, Vesna; Tomc, Gregor, etc. (1997) Kulturna politika v Sloveniji. Ljubljana: Fakulteta za družbene vede
Černe, Fedor; Turk, Inga (1999) Nacionalni program varstva okolja. Ljubljana: Ministrstvo za okolje in prostor, Uprava Republike Slovenije za varstvo okolja
Ervin, Alexander
(2000) Applied Anthropology : Tools nad Perspectives for Contemporary Practice. Boston etc.: Allyn and Bacon
Guile, Escuret, George
(1998) Družbe in njihove narave. Ljubljana: SH ― Zavod za založniško dejavnost Gupta, Akhil; Ferguson, James (ed.) (1997) Culture, Power, Place. Explorations in Critical Anthropology. Durham,
London: Duke University Press
Hlad, Branka; Skoberne, Peter (ed.) (2002) Pregled stanja biotske raznovrstnosti in krajinske pestrosti v Sloveniji.
Ljubljana: Ministrstvo za okolje in prostor, Agencija Republike Slovenije za okolje
Holy, Ladislav (1996) Anthropological Perspectives on Kinship. London, Chicago: Pluto Press
Kremenšek, Slavko
(1974) Etnološka topografija slovenskega etničnega prostora. Traditiones št. 3, str. 189-191
Kurtz, Donald V.
(2001) Political Anthropology: Paradigms and Power. Colorado: Westview
Press
Law on the Protection of Cultural Heritage. Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia,
URL RS 7/99, 5 February 1999
Marcus, George E.
(1998) “That Damn Book”: Ten years after Writing Culture. Etnografica. Revista do Centro de Estudos de Antropologia Social. Vol 2, no 1., pp. 5-14
McLuhan, Marshall
(1995) Understanding Media. The Extensions of Man. London: Routledge
Moran, Emilio F.
(2000) Human Adaptability. An Introduction to Ecological Anthropology. Westview Press
Mršič, Narcis
(1997) Biotska raznovrstnost Slovenije. Slovenija ― “vroča točka” Evrope. Ljubljana: Ministrstvo za okolje in prostor, Uprava Republike Slovenije za varstvo narave.
Natek, Milan (1992) Prebivalstvo hribovskih kmetij na Pohorju. Socialna geografija v teoriji in praksi (Geographica Slovenica No. 23). Ljubljana: Institute for
Geography, University of Ljubljana, pp. 279-296
Nolan, Rial W.
(2002) Development Anthropology. Encounters in the Real World. Westview Press
Novak, Vilko
(1960) Slovenska ljudska kultura: oris. Ljubljana: Državna založba Slovenije
Descola, P.; Palsson (ed.)
(1996) Nature and Society. London, New York: Routledge
Plattner Stuart (ed.)
(1991a) Economic Anthropology. Stanford: Stanford University Press
(1991b) Markets and Marketplaces. Economic Anthropology. Stanford: Stanford University Press, str. 171-208
Rapport, Nigel; Overing, Joanna
(2000) Social and Cultural Anthropology. The Key Concepts. London, New
York: Routledge
Sahlins, Marshall (1972) Stone Age Economics. New York: Aldine de Gruyter
Sapir, Edward
(2002) The Psychology of Culture. A Course of Lectures (Judith T. Irvine; ed.)
Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter
Schweizer, Thomas; White Douglas R. (eds.)
(1998) Kinship, Networks, and Exchange. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press
Scott, John
(1997) Social network analysis : a handbook. London, Thousand Oaks (CA), New Delhi : Sage Publications
Simikič, Alenka
(1983) Pomen Orlovih ekip za muzejski dokumentacijski fond. Zbornik 1. kongresa jugoslovanskih etnologov in folkloristov. Rogaška Slatina 5.-
9. 10. 1983. (Bogataj, Janez etc. – ed.) Ljubljana: Slovensko etnološko društvo, pp. 466-476 (2003) “Jaz sem pa mislila, da je kakšen vohun”: ob stoletnici rojstva dr.
Borisa Orla in petinpetdesetletnici odhoda prve t.i. Orlove ekipe na teren. Etnolog, let. 13, (64). Ljubljana: Slovenski etnografski muzej, pp
109-131
Simonič, Peter (ed.) (2002) Integralno poročilo …
Stocking, George W. (ed.) (1983) Observers Observed: Esseys on Ethnographic Fieldwork. Madison: The
University of Winsconsin Press
Dragićević Šešić, Milena; Stojkovič, Branimir
(2000) Kultura, menadžment, animacija, marketing. Beograd: Clio
References: Appadurai, Arjun (2003) Modernity at Large (1980) Slovensko ljudsko izročilo. Pregled etnologije Slovencev. Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba Bogataj, Janez; Hazler, Vito (1996) Regionalizacija (2003) Praktični čut (prvi zvezek). Ljubljana: SH ― Zavod za založniško dejavnost. Breznik, Anton; Ložar, Rajko; Grafenauer, Ivan; Orel, Boris (ur.) (1944-1952) Narodopisje Slovencev Clifford, James; Marcus, George E. (ur.) (1986) Writing culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (2003) Salvaging Nature. Indigenous Peoples, Protected Areas and Biodiversity Conservation (1997) Kulturna politika v Sloveniji. Ljubljana: Fakulteta za družbene vede Černe, Fedor; Turk, Inga (1999) Nacionalni program varstva okolja. Ljubljana: Ministrstvo za okolje in prostor, Uprava Republike Slovenije za varstvo okolja Ervin, Alexander (2000) Applied Anthropology : Tools nad Perspectives for Contemporary Practice Guile, Escuret, George (1998) Družbe in njihove narave (1997) Culture, Power, Place. Explorations in Critical Anthropology. Durham, London: Duke University Press Hlad, Branka; Skoberne, Peter (ed.) (2002) Pregled stanja biotske raznovrstnosti in krajinske pestrosti v Sloveniji (1996) Anthropological Perspectives on Kinship. London, Chicago: Pluto Press Kremenšek, Slavko (1974) Etnološka topografija slovenskega etničnega prostora. Traditiones št. 3, str. 189-191 Kurtz, Donald V (2001) Political Anthropology: Paradigms and Power. Colorado: Westview Press Marcus, George E. (1998) “That Damn Book”: Ten years after Writing Culture McLuhan, Marshall (1995) Understanding Media (2000) Human Adaptability. An Introduction to Ecological Anthropology. Westview Press Mršič, Narcis (1997) Biotska raznovrstnost Slovenije. Slovenija ― “vroča točka” Evrope. Ljubljana: Ministrstvo za okolje in prostor, Uprava Republike Slovenije za varstvo narave. Natek, Milan (1992) Prebivalstvo hribovskih kmetij na Pohorju (2002) Development Anthropology. Encounters in the Real World. Westview Press Novak, Vilko (1960) Slovenska ljudska kultura: oris. Ljubljana: Državna založba Slovenije Descola, P.; Palsson (ed.) (1996) Nature and Society. London, New York: Routledge Plattner Stuart (ed.) Rapport, Nigel; Overing, Joanna (2000) Social and Cultural Anthropology York: Routledge Sahlins, Marshall (1972) Stone Age Economics Sapir, Edward (2002) The Psychology of Culture (1998) Kinship, Networks, and Exchange. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press Scott, John (1997) Social network analysis : a handbook. London, Thousand Oaks (CA), New Delhi : Sage Publications Simikič, Alenka (1983) Pomen Orlovih ekip za muzejski dokumentacijski fond. Zbornik 1. kongresa jugoslovanskih etnologov in folkloristov 9. 10. 1983. (Bogataj, Janez etc. – ed.) Ljubljana: Slovensko etnološko društvo, pp (2003) “Jaz sem pa mislila, da je kakšen vohun”: ob stoletnici rojstva dr. Borisa Orla in petinpetdesetletnici odhoda prve t.i Simonič, Peter (ed.) (2002) Integralno poročilo … Stocking, George W. (ed.) (1983) Observers Observed: Esseys on Ethnographic Fieldwork (2000) Kultura, menadžment, animacija, marketing. Beograd: Clio
Writing Culture for Nature Conservation
Collective Regional Network Analysis
Anthropologists and researchers from other social sciences have for long time missed the fact that there is no place which has not already been represented by some other interest. Post-modern ethnographic field is no longer homogenous and isolated space waiting to be discovered. Researchers try to consider different groups of interest. Also in rural studies, peasants (and their half-industrial successors) are no longer the only relevant subjects of analysis. Interests of state government, international market and politics, and subjects of civil society are also taken into consideration. Those groups of interest are usually institutionalised and perceived as external or internal factors of the ethnographic field.
Partiality of truth, as Clifford and Marcus described it (1986), doesn’t mean that each of those factors (individuals and institutions) consider only one part of the territory or reality. Even pre-scientific knowledge tries to incorporate the whole; it is actually built in relation to whole. It is therefore not the objective of anthropological analysis to find separated truths and unite them in the bigger, holistic and more relevant story but to detect their positioning, interrelations and overlapping (person can be a man or a woman, family member, hunter, hiker, peasant, skier, etc.) in whatever whole they perceive. Modern ethnographers are the integral, inseparable part of such representation processes (Marcus 1998: 12). They see the totality of socio-ecological relations from different perspective and use specific vocabulary.
In such multiplied perception of space and its times, locality presumable still exits but it is now theoretically more a matter of identification processes – variable relations and negotiations among people (Gupta and Ferguson 1997), influenced by global market and mass media (McLuhan 1995; Appadurai 2003). So, applied anthropology should first identify “interest groups” and “opinion makers” as-if they were different “stakeholders” and describe their specific definitions (awareness) of time and space. Then we can define assess their needs ( Ervin 2000) and assist them by formulation of their policies. Decision about the selected point of view, that is about which stakeholder will be in the centre of anthropological analysis and project management (application) usually depends on anthropologist working in the field and his or her worldview. It is also a question of ones ethics and survivor.
5th World Parks Congress in Durban 2003 emphasised the importance of involving different “stakeholders” in the park management (policy). Its declarations should be read as a new start for acknowledging dispersed socio-cultural not just biological reality. This orientation is quite resent. Because the interest of the congress organizer ― IUCN (resident in Switzerland) ― has always been mainly in protected areas in “underdeveloped countries” of Africa, Asia and South America, this recent advice for fairness between stakeholders must be waged in relation to increased importance of human rights on one side and still asymmetric economic and political relations of (global) society on the other.
United Nations Declaration on Human Rights from 1948 initiated and legalized independence movements among peoples in “peripheries” who were formerly caught in colonial enterprise. Today, even though they are declared as “equal”, indigenous peoples can hardly compete with international foundations and corporations (“capital”) or central government (“polity”) of nation-state, so it is a bit overoptimistic to expect that their involvement in park management will be as strong as of parties being actually “distant from the project site” (Nolan 2002: 120-27). This is also true in European context where democratisation is older and stronger. In my opinion, it is methodologically not productive to separate foreign or internal politics of nation-state agents: they both reflect aspirations for centralised (accumulated) ideational or tangible resources (Kurtz 2001), or as Bourdieu (2003) put it ― they need to gaining social, cultural and economic capital. The sole idea of protected areas is strongly connected to these efforts, which are permanently increasing pressure on national or global periphery and their inhabitants (Colchester 2003).
This article is not so much about poetics but rather politics of ethnographic involvement in existing or planned protected areas (in Slovenia). It is not my prime intention to discuss writing stiles or metaphors of ethnographer ― that is, how one should construct or position him-self literary. It is far more interesting for me to understand how ethnographers should enter and position them-selves in the “real world” of park’s social relations (litarally). I wish to do so by questioning the established students workshops or field researches (slov.: “tabori”) organised by the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology which I have been organising for the last four years. Politics, science, education and management are in the centre of interest here. And advocacy of the weakest in established power relations of parks is important, too.
My discussion on doing ethnography is directly connected to changes in cultural policy in Eastern (transitional) Europe (Dragićević-Šešić and Stojković 2000). During 1990’s, democratisation and private enterprising raised questions about the organisation and financing of cultural and scientific sector. State began to withdrew, forcing cultural and scientific institutions to look for vertical connection (partnerships, sponsorships etc). Project suggestions were now to depend mainly on financial support from civil society it-self. (Čopič and Tomc 1997)
So, contemporary objectivity of ethnographic work can be questioned at the level of observation, participation, interrogation (Stocking 1983), description (Clifford and Marcus 1986) ― and financing. All these factors shape the procedures and outcomes of anthropology. Experimental project, which I will suggest at the end of the paper, hopes to retain advantages and resolve some methodological discrepancies of collective field research in Slovenia.
On Nature and Culture of Slovenian Protected Areas
Degradation of the environment in Slovenia presumable cannot be compared to some regions in formal eastern block. Still, fast and loosely controlled industrialisation and urbanisation have brought “modernisation” to almost every part of Slovene territory. National economic development strategy estimates that today yearly damage is approximately 4-6 % (Černe and Turk 1999: 10). I refuse to believe that west-European societies were more careful with (their) environment as eastern block, and I also doubt it is possible to measure environmental cost of economic development in exact figures or percents. But no matter what the reason, biologists say that Slovenia has a reputation of European “hot spot”. Slovenia can be ranked among biologically richest countries in Europe and in the World. (Mršič 1997: 9)
In 1996 Slovenia ratified the Convention on biological diversity signed in Rio de Jeneiro 1992. Even though Slovenia already had some protected areas following United Nations and UNESCO conventions (few landscapes, regional parks Kozjansko and Škocjanske caves, and Triglav National Park), new convention was important for shaping the common (national) sense of space because of its specific emphasis on the protection of biodiversity in situ. Three years later, in 1999 new paradigm was integrated in the Law on protection of nature (Hlade and Skoberne 2002). Many experts and green politicians saw this as an opportunity for the protection of bigger sites of Slovene territory, and possibility to fulfil some conservation plans made long time ago.
As a candidate state for the European Union, Slovenia has had to adopt European legislative and respect the ongoing European programs. Major program concerning European natural resources, species and habitats at the beginning of the new Millennium is Natura 2000 ― European network of special protected areas.
Slovenia is “culturally” also very diverse. Slovene ethnologists have specified four ethnical regions with common characteristics or influences on social life and culture: Mediterranean, Alpine, Pannonian and central Slovenian (Novak 1960; Baš 1980). Another important classification was made in accordance to administrative division of Slovenia: villages, cities and their districts were described as micro-regions (ethnological topography; Kremenšek 1974). The last attempt to regionalise Slovene ethnic territory has identified 96 units (Bogataj and Hazler 1996: 148), which can of course be further divided into smaller units or unified into bigger regions of “life styles”.
The result of biological and cultural diversity in Slovenia is not just something to be proud of (“hot spot of Europe”), but it also evokes problems when different and centralised representations of larger territories should be brought together ― as synergetic as possible (Nolan 2002: 93). For example, what we today understand as cultural landscape and heritage is usually a result of strong environmental degradations; that is why representatives of nature protection programs refuse any further urbanization, agricultural intensification etc. This synergy is especially distant after the former Institute for the protection of natural and cultural heritage of Slovenia split in two parts in 2001: one dealing exclusively with natural and other with cultural aspects of national heritage. Both parties nowadays start the discussions with assumption that their subject matter is endangered and it must therefore be preserved or conserved.1 And all governmental administrations for the protection of cultural heritage have been basically interested in material aspect of culture (monuments, houses, settlements and cultural landscapes), ignoring social, linguistic and other non-material values or traditions.2
This kind of separateness seems to be in contrast with contemporary need for holistic approaches and it makes research, financing and management of protected areas very difficult or even impossible. Anthropologist can easily get lost, used or obstructed in this forest of interests.
Ethnological involvement in Protected Areas in Slovenia
In the year 2000 Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology started a program called Heritage for the Future with the goal to incorporate domestic point of view in the development plans of rural (and urban) areas in Slovenia. It was not the sole idea of the protection of nature that stimulated our involvement in the parks, but the assumption about the endangerment and marginalisation of domestic culture and society in this new environmentalist paradigm. And experts from natural sciences and state administration also complained they are unable to establish a constructive dialog with (future) park inhabitants.
Field research was conducted as students’ workshops, as practical part of curriculum at the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology. Students were divided into groups under the tutorship of assistants or professors. During approximately one week stay in the spring or summer each group collected data about specific topic. I shell describe my experiences which are only a part of much wider analyses made during those workshops.
In Regional park Kozjansko, south-eastern part of Slovenia (summer 2000) I was interested in the “Forms of social life / sociability”. I’ve suspected that analyzing management of public events (a combination of human, technological and natural resources) will give a picture of the sorts or levels of regional common ground. I was able to define local opinion-makers (activists), micro-identities and power relations inside the existed park, which were actually not connected to the park management at all. It seemed to me that there are at least two separated levels of social life in regional park Kozjansko: one in the perspective of governance and the other as the way of life or event management of local/regional population. Since park has been working for almost twenty years (since 1981), it was fascinating to see how the state can influence local communities for so long by supporting park administration without even consider them.3 That is why inhabitants didn’t identify them-selves with the park and why their participation in park management was almost zero. But the importance of (inter)national image of protected area was much stronger then its relevance to inhabitants and its rentability. Research was conducted by 8 students (of 25). Methods used were interview, photography and observation. At the end we have invited the informants to visit our final presentation, which came out to be a good idea because collected information could be checked right away and we managed to provoke a discussion about their vision on regional development. Students also got sense of social responsibility.
One year later I wanted to learn more about Food and culture in local taverns. I hoped to understand the economy of taverns through the analysis of material, informational and human inputs and outputs (who, what, how, when and by whom goes in and out the tavern). I thought this economised subject would be of bigger interest to park management, because findings of the previous year seemed to be over academic and to critical. But it came out again that small enterprises (taverns) are suspicious about our intentions and their cooperation with park administration. Students were also quite “disappointed” because owners and their cooks didn’t know much about “traditional” food of the region which could become a part of marketing planes for tourists. They were serving food which can be found almost everywhere in Slovenia and Central Europe and owners did not feel any need to invent or advertise something “autochthon”. Since their customers were mainly the local workers and not tourists, they kept serving average, small meals.4 The taverns them-selves were rather small and “underdeveloped”, comparing to some other tourist resorts in Slovenia. This can of course be of advantage, since tourists might find this underdevelopment to be interesting, unspoiled.
I have encouraged 5 participating students in my group to combine collected data (interview, photo, observation) and try to describe an average and prescribe and ideal innkeeper of Kozjansko. Outputs were very amusing, combining ethnography with students perception of development. Final presentation for the locals was again quite successful and meaningful.
It is important to notice that Kozjansko Regional Park was never the main subject of our discussions with innkeepers during the workshop, but as we have been sleeping and eating in arrangement of park management (and have made the final presentation in its head quarters), it was obvious for the locals that we represent natural protection (park) policy. So, even thou we have been basically interested in cultural phenomena and domestic point of view, we ― ethnologist unwillingly became agents of park policy, which means that we lost further part of our “objectivity” and “credibility”.
Few moths later I received an invitation from the municipality of Ljubljana to make an economic-anthropological evaluation of the project proposal to buy a “Tomaževa hiša” (Tomaževa house) in Ljubljansko barje ― swampland near Ljubljana. This cottage of 19th Century farmers was partly a property of pensioned economist, who, after he had found out that municipality wishes to buy this house as an entrance point to future Landscape Park, raised its prize “unreasonably”. The house was falling apart but he insisted that state and society should pay if they want to benefit. Park planes and natural conservation doctrine didn’t impress him much. Economy, ecology and cultural heritage didn’t meet. But again I was working on the “field” as an agent of city administration having difficulties to persuade him to even talk to me. At the and, my conclusion was that Tomaževa hiša is of great cultural value but it has no sense to give such an amount of money for an old pile. Employing again the research of sociability (public events, places and identifications), I found out that people of the swamp didn’t know much about the planes for Landscape Park. Some mayors of municipalities around the swamp also refused to be involved in the project, seeing it as a tool for establishing even stronger hegemony of the municipality of Ljubljana. Ethnographic field was contested and separated into many official and domestic levels.
Ljubljansko barje nowadays is an important spot for protection of wetland and birds but its cultivation started a long time ago with prehistoric crannogs and latter peat-cutters, etc. Economisation and urbanisation was especially strong at the time of melioration enterprise of Austro-Hungarian Empire and socialist industrialisation. These processes have changed the landscape and social equilibrium drastically. Routs of cultivation are now important for genealogy of regional and national identity and potential “story providers” for tourism industry. Since the swamp is right next to Slovene capitol, it is obvious that population and economic pressure on “free” and “unspoiled nature” for recreation and building is strong and persistent.
Pohorje
In 2002 I started a long-term research on Pohorje, because it has been mapped by the state as one of the future regional park. I saw this as a chance for the development of a more systematic approach oriented directly toward nature protection and its influences on social structures in local frame. At the same time this was still a “virgin territory” in a sense that park has not been declared yet, so it seemed useful to get ethnologists involved right from the start.
Pohorje is classified as a sub-alpine region, laying in the most eastern part of Alps (extended to Panonic region). In comparison to other “protected areas” I have had been working in until then, this was a big mountain territory (length 47 km from city of Dravograd on the east to the city of Maribor on the west; width to 25 km), 66 percent covered with forests, and with more then 1000 highland farms at the altitude of 600 metres and more (Natek 1992: 294).
The region was of course not so virgin at all. It is important to notice that ecology as a state (common ground, ideological) doctrine ― coming through global, national and regional (distant) scientific, spiritual, economic and political centres ― is quite new to this region. Modernisation after 16 Century usually encouraged people to intensify their production in agriculture, forestry and craft. The big (centralised) stories have had various influences on the mountain of Pohorje at least since the middle ages. The latest transition in 1990’s has also restructured society and its nature (Guille-Escuret 1998).
Regional integration processes in bigger social frames can also be noticed in the discourse of nature protection or conservation, where concrete plans date back in the beginning of 1980’s. According to these planes (following World Conservation Union guidelines), Pohorje should have been divided into three zones: central or the most restricted zones (with virgin forest and endangered animal and plant species), second zone with natural values of special importance (natural monuments) and the third ― outside ring area ― called buffer zone with specific cultural landscape. Most population is located in the surrounding buffer zone.
In more then twenty years these planes were not fulfilled, but discussions about the protection appeared sporadically. All these years we can follow more or less intensive and pragmatic crashes and alliances among environmentalists, half-rural inhabitants (half-peasants) mainly scared for their existence and old way of life5, separated economic policies of the municipalities (enforcing polycentric deagrarisation and depopulation) and all kinds of external users/exploiters of Pohorje (forestry, skiing tourism, food industry, political parties, etc.).
So far “anthropologisation” of Pohorje was minor. Ecological anthropology as a subfield is even more marginal, since cultural-evolutionism of Slovene ethnology has in principle emphasised aspect of human (ethnical, national) development and in has never considered a nature and ecological equilibrium to be a priority. Classical Slovene ethnological encyclopaedias and manuals (Breznik, Ložar, Grafenauer, Orel 1944; Novak 1960; Baš 1980) emphasized most important economic strategy of Slovene population which was agriculture (peasant society). Somewhere at the end of these writings we can find notes on curiosities such as hunting and gathering. This was ideologically connected to shaping ethnic identity and the process of its national emancipation. Economic or ecologic anthropology text books, on the other side, follow evolutionist paradigm, so they usually open with most distant adaptation strategies. They put agriculture (domestication of animal and plants) somewhere in the middle between hunters and industrial or post-industrial societies (Plattner 2000; Descola and Palsson 1996). It is the concept of adaptation which deserves our intention in contrast to ethnological defence of national substance.6
In that sense I wanted to check how people on Pohorje, mostly farmers, were connected to the surrounding political, economic and ecological strategies. Research with 6 students in 2002 focused on Migrations. We were not interest just in daily, seasonal or permanent movement of people but also in material exchange (trades, commodities) and informational exchange (education, media). All these informational and tangible “migrations” are of course interrelated. We provided a strong proof that Pohorje has never been an isolated place but always in all kinds of exchange with other political and economic units. We divided Pohorje into northern and southern part, first appropriate mainly for forestry and the second with limited potentials for highland farming and with more diverse cultural landscape. We also noticed that Pohorje is separated into many administrative units (municipalities) and that orchestration among their “development plans” toward Pohorje has never been very successful. This should be useful lesson to the representatives of ministry of environment and spatial planning and all other organisations who wish to promote one strategy for all. And again, most of the Pohorje inhabitants didn’t know anything about nature protection plans or they were misinformed and frightened for their rights.7
The following year I did research on Economy and Ecology. One of the major concerns of Slovene negotiators for EU membership was the protection of agriculture, which has been perceived as a cornerstone of national independence and identity. One of the solutions to accommodate was the concept of eco-farming, coming as a model mainly from Austria and adopted by the ministry of agriculture and food. We have visited some of those farms to check how this doctrine was working in real life. We were also trying to indicate some sustainable practices of economic, social and environmental “equilibrium” existent on Pohorje before post-modern ecological awareness. We found different motivations for joining state eco-farming programme and discrepancies in fulfilment of this programme as a result of educational, familiar and other cultural forces in the region and its surroundings. Again diversity of social practices was much bigger as one might assume by reading state reports. Eco-farming showed to be just one of many strategies inhabitants may choose to survive, to assure their continuity (sustainability).8
Evaluation of introduced methodology
Ten years after co-editing an influential book “Writing Culture” Marcus (1998: 9) reviewed, that it was much more the textual side which has been taking into account by ethnographic writing. “Actual practices of fieldwork … have not changed much at all.” As I have mentioned at the beginning, politics or organisational problems of ethnographer’s research is the most important to me here.
Collective field research in Slovenian ethnology was launched after the Second World War (1948-1961) by the Slovene Ethnographic Museum under the leadership of its director Boris Orel. Research groups of approximately 15 senior ethnographers, 18 teams all together, have been working mostly in the southern and western part of Slovenia and were basically interested in “material culture”. They described and collected “artefacts of folk culture” for Ethnographic museum in Ljubljana and some regional museums. As Orel has put it, the researchers have been working separately but “hitting together”, which meant they stayed in the same locality, where they successively and separately visited informants. Sometimes they also slept in their houses (Simikič 1983, 2003). They have never been to Pohorje.
Later collective field research known as ethnological research workshops employed students during their summer vacations. Initiators and organisers came from Slovene regional museums, Institutes for the protection of natural and cultural heritage in Slovenia, local communities, etc. ― and from the Department of ethnology it-self of course. Students (junior researchers) were divided into groups, working under tutorship of mentors. Each group collected information on one aspect of folk life, i.e. one group for the culture of food, another for architecture, third worked on the subject of craft, fourth on folklore etc. Topics changed due to the interest of clients and mentors. This sub-groups could have visited the “informants” collectively or individually ― going “door to door”. Students and their mentors usually lived, eat and wrote together in one place, i.e. students’ house, local house of culture, apartments, country lodge etc.
This kind of field work has become an informal part of curriculum and herewith an important (guided) field experience for Slovene students of ethnology.9 They can learn how to approach to people and make an interview. They test a combination of different techniques, i.e. audio recordings, photography, writing, transcribing and interpreting field notes, evening discussions (public presentations), etc. Students also get to know each other better. These experiences were useful as a preparation for their diploma which was mostly an exercise in combination of theoretical frame and an ethnographic experience. I think such an approach has a limited range and is alienated. Let me list some reasons:
Visits of researchers at informant’s house or flat lasted from a few minutes to a few hours ― depending on personal and objective circumstances ― which reduced the possibility for a relevant interview. It was either superficial or exhausting. Of course some of the researchers were skilled or lucky enough to “pull out of the informants” as much as possible;
Their field work usually took only one or two members of a household into consideration; others were out to work, at school etc. so they were out of the picture;
Interpretations were based mainly on interviews; observation of the analysed phenomena in the social context was occasional. Such an approach had the only limited credibility within the analysis (evidence, indexation) of material culture and historical data. Observation of social life and participation in it were minor ― depending on interrogation only;
Even though Slovene hospitality urges people to serve food and drinks to visitor, this kind of research was still quite expensive. Organiser had to raise money for the accommodation, food etc. for a (large) number of students and mentors.10 The bigger the group of students, bigger the amount of money needed.
It was therefore very difficult to fulfil all the conditions: anthropological, educational, political and financial. If I really wanted to a) get regional, comparative information (park as an imagined, redefined region), b) employ a bigger group of student researchers, and c) work in accordance to transitional cultural (market) policies, I have had to look for alternative financial resources. Since municipalities, and not the state, have been contributing money, they expected to get something in return. Pohorje got enormous when I have tried to involve (“investigate”) residents from all the municipalities in the buffer zone. Beside that, municipalities expected some “concrete results”: the research should therefore not be academic (as a “basic research”). In opinion of some mayors and municipality councils, their money should not be wasted on something that doesn’t affect local economy or wellbeing directly: traditional house building and equipment, culture of drink and food, rituals, etc. can be sold and they reversibly make research of them useful, meaningful.11 Other municipality decision-makers simply wanted to justify the money spent by proving the research was made on their territory: it was their contribution to common good, to historical record of the neighbourhood; it was their cultural and social capital.
So, as soon as I’ve had addressed municipalities for financial assistance, this meant that students would have to travel all around Pohorje and collect information which will satisfy my ethnographic curiosity (goals) and at the same time meet the expectation of mayors and councils. Of course this evoked a major logistic problems ― travelling long distances, high gasoline and amortisation costs, irregular meals, tired collaborators etc. After a week the students were exhausted and they have hardly waited to get back home. It was not just driving and working that made them dizzy, but also knight life in the common residence: some students have been dancing and drinking almost every night until late/early hours. So they were actually exhausted when they got up in the morning. The quality of field work, already limited to interviews, felt drastically. If practical experience and amusement of the students is not the only reason for the workshops ― if I want to do “serious” collective field research with students ― this pattern has to be changed. Collective Regional Network Analysis
We have heard briefly how municipalities look at the issue, we know about the conventions and state centralisation, but we still know little about the inhabitants. We still face the problem touching them, because so far we (tutors and students) have always entered “social arena” for only short periods of time. This is why students could collect only stories (interrogation), and they had no clue about informants’ “real life”.
My intention in the nearest future is to get in touch with members of households much more intensively. I would like to know, how have households on Pohorje influenced and adopt the construction of their life (identity, locality) to assure and satisfy economical, environmental and social needs as individual, family, community and region? What kind of strategies do they use to manage and continue their existence in the mountain region where depopulation was always strong? Which ways and meanings did modernisation get on Pohorje? What are farmers’ individual and social memories, needs and visions? How could they become integrated into the regional park policies (protected area)? Do they wish so at all? I need to learn about primary and secondary socialisation: relations between individuals and their primary social unites (families), and relations between individual and societies at large.12
Individual personality is the result of his or her childhood experiences, kinship norms, needs, benefits, as-if personality example, personal integration, etc (Sapir 2002). If I take the individual is the basic unite of interest, then civil society will also become the result of his/her intentions and capabilities in time perspective. In my opinion this is the best way to understand how personal and social identities are constructed or negotiated from the bottom-up (grassroots) ― by people resident in the region! I see this as a shift from material to social and psychological interpretation. It is also a shift from centralised (institutional) to dispersed (diverse, individual) perception of local and regional life and culture.
To be able to fulfil this goal, student researchers must have long-term and indirect contact with individuals and their families/households. Each student must live and work with the family who is willing to except one. During ten days stay at the farm, student can get to know spatial organisation of the household, its equipments, menus, dresses, personal histories and social networks, visions, motivations etc. Field notes should be combined with personal diary. This is of course nothing new to anthropology (Stocking 1983) but it is new to collective fieldwork with students (ethnological workshops). If I manage to pay off student accommodation at the farm by providing work assistance than he or she will not be excepted just as curious or superfluous visitor but he/she will give something useful in return. Participation will be much better, and organizer of the workshop can save a huge amount of money for accommodation, food and transportation. Students also need not to be supervised by many tutors whereby organiser can save some extra money. One tutor also has more students on disposal to deal with specific subject which can probable increase the credibility of the research sample and its interpretations.
Territorial network analysis made by junior researchers (students) is a methodological reaction to contemporary theoretical discussions in anthropology (networks; Rapport and Overing 2000: 290-291). Network social analysis is a combination of qualitative and quantitative ethnographic analysis. It gives us the opportunity for random assignment of informants (Bernard 1995: 52) to illustrate social commonalities and differences.
Basically, relevance of the sample and the outputs of such a collective research is depending on informants (willingness and material capability to except the guest for a specific period of time). It also depends on the number and knowledge of researchers available for the comparative study. And finally, it depends on the skills of project leader to persuade both sides about the importance of such a relatively intensive collaboration (different values, assumptions, perceptions, expectations, needs, goals and concerns; Nolan 2002: 92-93).
Such an approach is an applied version of the regional vertical exchanges, which is essential for the integration and political positions of social micro-units ― local residents (see Plattner 1991b: 194-195). Of course search for regional crosscutting references might produce or even invent regional identity not existed before, since people from distant part of Pohorje will be brought together into the same frame (ethnographical wholeness of the region). As I have already mentioned, current identity is polycentric; people think of them-selves as members of 15 to 16 different municipalities: being “Pohorc” (resident of Pohorje) actually has an awkward (mountain, distant) connotation and many people from the region try to avoid it.13
My suggestion could be associated with network analysis used in (applied) anthropological research in 60’s (Ervin 2000: 21) and revitalised in 90’s of the 20 Century (see i.e. Scott 1991; Schweizer and White 1998) with social structure/networks and even mathematical anthropology. It is not my intention to “measure” kinship and other socio-cultural relations (trade partnerships, alliances) mathematically ― and establish some kind of new structuralism or model for computer science. “Our network” is a practical (pragmatic) solution for doing the best with a large number of researchers due to anthropological educational process (students ethnographic experiences), and in relation with regional approach of those who are committed to establish protected area or develop regional tourism paradise. Our network is actually double: one of students (simultaneously accommodated on different location on Pohorje) and the other of their hosts (involved in the construction of social reality – social capital - on Pohorje) ― with other contemporary forces, like media or global economy in mind.
Anyway, traditional and reinforced network analyses in anthropology described above share an important aspect: they are based on “methodological individualism” (Rapport and Overing 2003: 252-53) which, in my opinion, is scientific companion of modernity and globalisation. Focusing only on families and households would mean that we think of family as a basic or given social structure (Taylor 1871) and of household as a basic economic structure (microeconomics; Sahlins 1972).14 Therefore I insist to complete the information on social (kinship, local, generational, regional) structures with informant’s life stories and their discursive analysis. This kind of “emic” information can provide historical background to those “etic” structures ― and can clarify individual influences and behaviours in relations with their “social contexts”.
Suggested collective network research should also be combined with previous and later visits of individual researchers. Time perspective of ethnography is missing, not just in historical sense of informants lives, because group of students can not stay out of classroom for the whole year and follow the seasonal change. Later individual researchers can visit people in different occasions, to specify interest, fill the gaps, or just to keep in touch.
By doing so ― combining network and individual (quantitative and qualitative) research ― the speed of collecting ethnographical data will probably increase. Of course, we will always be to slow for some administrators and development agencies. However, knowing personal and social histories, networks and motivations on household level is of major importance to describe the forces of modernisation and to the relevance of anthropological applications (regional development). And we don’t even need the state, municipalities or private enterprises to bless our “non-material interest”.
Research and Project Implementation
Development, practicing or applied anthropology in my opinion is defined with four major and interrelated tensions: goal (ideology-vision), anthropological analysis (methodology-ethnography), development plans (methodology-ideology) and implementation (praxis-ethnography). Our focus here was on the methodology and ethnography of protected areas. Ethnography of nature protected area, or any other region as well, must include the reflections of the way of doing fieldwork (objectification of objective view; Bourdieu 2002). Transforming collected data into a readable and applied text or behaviour is yet another but related story.
My involvement in protected areas started immediately with applied anthropology. That is why at the beginning in Kozjansko and Ljubljansko barje, I have preferred analysis of social life and public events, food culture and taverns, that is aspect of “local culture” through which the level of knowledge and social cohesiveness (human resources), and technological and environmental conditions (material resources) of the protected region can be evaluated (collective enterprise). These are at the same time the events which can assumable be sold (marketed).
But more I got into the subject more it was clear to me, that act or process of protection of special (sacred) spaces and their interpretations are very heterogeneous. It seemed logical that practicing anthropology (Nolan 2002) is possible and allowed only after a longer period of field studies; it is not possible or even ethical to give suggestions and write projects on “regional development” after superficial visit to the region and its inhabitants. When one is able to do so, one doesn’t have to live office at all because one already knows what the outcome should be like. To be able to understand what is happening and to take an “objective” position, one must analyse historical and social forces working on that specific territory. So, even if Slovene anthropology is not reaching the level of management or developmental suggestions in protected areas fast enough, I will continue to make a series of thematic researches about the strategies of different interest groups (stakeholders) considering adaptation to (new) ecological framework. Local residents and their diversity will always have the priority. Question whether the protected area will be declared or is it already functioning well is not most important any more. It becomes merely one of the possible and sustainable strategies.
Answers to this kind of questions should be essential in regional development planning. Since development in economical sense is something much more evident (evolution as material accumulation and well-being) than in biological or anthropological sense (evolution as adaptation; Gould 1991; Moran 2000), one must be precocious with implementation of “progress strategies” and their influences on families, households, and all other structural transitions between stakeholders of local or regional network of civil society. So anthropological analysis of modernisation is not important just at the beginning of the project (i.e. constructing socio-cultural database for establishing a protected area or in management of human resources) but it should become partner in management plans, having also the right to reflect management practices as well. This is very much in accordance with the outcomes of the 5th World Park Congress.
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