Editorial

9 pages, 254 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Introduction: The History of the “Balkan Family”

by Maria Todorova

Genealogy 2023, 7(1), 18; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy7010018 - 03 Mar 2023

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In 1996, the freshly created journal “The History of the Family” devoted its fourth issue to the Balkan Family [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Balkan Family in the 20th Century)

Research

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24 pages, 1390 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Women Physicians and Their Careers: Athens—1900–1950: A Contribution to Understanding Women’s History

by Eugenia Bournova and Myrto Dimitropoulou

Genealogy 2023, 7(1), 7; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy7010007 - 12 Jan 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3934

Abstract

This article combines history of the family with women’s and gender history and the history of women’s education; it is based on an extensive range of archives and aims at highlighting the attitude of society and families towards women who wanted to attend [...] Read more.

This article combines history of the family with women’s and gender history and the history of women’s education; it is based on an extensive range of archives and aims at highlighting the attitude of society and families towards women who wanted to attend University studies in the beginning of the 20th century. The matter of women’s university education is directly related to the emergence of the feminist movement in Greece. The strong preference of female university students for the exact sciences at that time was justified by contemporary scholars as a choice reflecting women’s nature. This article highlights the role played by family and social class background. To this effect, the life course of three ‘heroines’ is followed from their initial desire to undertake further studies to their participation in the social and cultural life of the capital of Greece, as a contribution to current literature on gender studies. Despite the limited number of cases discussed, we strongly believe that these women’s upbringing enhances our understanding of women’s scientific pursuits and their place in Athenian elite families. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Balkan Family in the 20th Century)

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19 pages, 283 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Everyday Practices of Gender in the Serbian Community of Post-War South-East Kosovo

by Sanja Zlatanović

Genealogy 2022, 6(4), 78; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy6040078 - 23 Sep 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1694

Abstract

This article aims to explore the everyday practices of gender in the Serbian community of south-east Kosovo, in a post-war context marked by sudden and radical political and social changes that deeply altered everyday life after 1999 and the establishment of the UN [...] Read more.

This article aims to explore the everyday practices of gender in the Serbian community of south-east Kosovo, in a post-war context marked by sudden and radical political and social changes that deeply altered everyday life after 1999 and the establishment of the UN administration. As family and kinship ties are strongly expressed in the researched community, gender practices have been considered within that framework. This article is based on extensive multi-sited fieldwork conducted with members of the Serbian community in south-east Kosovo, and with displaced people from this region in several towns in Serbia. The field research focuses on everyday interactions and perspectives ‘from below’. The sudden and complex social and political changes that occurred after 1999 resulted in the transformation of the family structure and family roles, and thus to changes in gender practices. With the establishment of the international administration, influences linked to globalisation intensified. The migration of part of the community to Serbia, and the life of many of its members as ‘both here and there’, played an important role. Influences from Serbia, community guidance from the Serbian Orthodox Church, and changes in the ethnic and social landscape because of the war all combined to create opposing processes within the family. In family and gender relations, intensive, oppositional processes unfolded. These generated tensions within the community: the nuclearisation of the family and, for certain aspects, the liberalisation of relations in it and, at the same time, repatriarchalisation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Balkan Family in the 20th Century)

19 pages, 1149 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Labor Mobility, Gender Order and Family: Illustrated by the Example of the Karakachans in Bulgaria

by Nacho Dimitrov

Genealogy 2022, 6(3), 77; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy6030077 - 13 Sep 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1721

Abstract

The political changes in Bulgaria of November 1989 related to the fall of the totalitarian regime and the democratization of the country were accompanied by a severe economic crisis, a high level of unemployment and the rise of strong social inequality, which led [...] Read more.

The political changes in Bulgaria of November 1989 related to the fall of the totalitarian regime and the democratization of the country were accompanied by a severe economic crisis, a high level of unemployment and the rise of strong social inequality, which led to intensive migratory processes. The opening of the borders was followed by various forms of cross-border and transnational mobility affecting a significant part of the Bulgarian population. Since the very beginning of the 1990s, the Karakachans, due to the protectionist Greek policy with regards to them, as opposed to that regarding other Bulgarian citizens, acquired easy access to Greece visas. This enabled labor mobility which in only a few years spread across a significant number of the members of this community. For most of them, labor mobility turned out to be more than just a supplementary opportunity; it became a main strategy for realization in life. A direct result of the Karakachani’s labor mobility is periodic family separation for a certain time, which causes particular transformations in their social structures, and hence in the family life of labor migrants. It is this relationship between labor mobility and their life as lived, and its direct consequences on the family, that is the focus of the present study. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Balkan Family in the 20th Century)

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22 pages, 735 KiB

Open AccessArticle

On Honor and Palimpsest Patriarchal Coloniality in Greece, the Western Balkans, and the Caucasus: Anthropological Comparative Accounts from a Post-Ottoman Decolonial Perspective

by Fotini Tsibiridou

Genealogy 2022, 6(3), 73; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy6030073 - 31 Aug 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2870

Abstract

This study introduces a comparative framework to understand patriarchal genealogies and technologies, with reference to an anthropological commentary concerning the broader forms of coloniality of power between dominant male and dominated female bodies in Greece, the Balkans, and the Caucasus. It argues that [...] Read more.

This study introduces a comparative framework to understand patriarchal genealogies and technologies, with reference to an anthropological commentary concerning the broader forms of coloniality of power between dominant male and dominated female bodies in Greece, the Balkans, and the Caucasus. It argues that the patterns of patrilineality, practices and representations of male honor, and female exclusion from the native family are literally and symbolically feeding on the matrix of patriarchal coloniality in the regions. The analysis is based on representative ethnographic research and historical approaches. Patrilineal kin structures, customs of captivity (i.e., bride kidnapping, sworn virgins, and honor crimes), and generalized practices of young virgin exogamy seem responsible for women’s minor status in the social stratification. Traditional hierarchies and modern social inequalities seem to motivate dispositions and regulate behaviors for female, minor, subordinate, and dispossessed bodies, as well as dominant male protectors and patriarchs. The text adopts a postcolonial and decolonial black feminist critique. It argues that in a longue durée process, a palimpsest pattern of patriarchy emerges, made upon the habitus of gendered ideology. Shaped by patriarchalism, paternalism, and patronage, patriarchy motivates a generalized pattern of coloniality within post-Ottoman geographies, thus regulating multiple material and symbolic inequalities, and even multiplying antagonistic hierarchies among family units, communities, central nation/state, periphery, and borders. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Balkan Family in the 20th Century)

15 pages, 270 KiB

Open AccessCommunication

Managing the Aging Present and Perceiving the Aging Futures: (In)Formal Systems of Care in (Pre-)Pandemic Croatia

by Tihana Rubić and Ana-Marija Vukušić

Genealogy 2022, 6(3), 66; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy6030066 - 01 Aug 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1671

Abstract

The article is an ethnographic account of recent and contemporary narratives and practices of care and aging in Croatia in the pre-pandemic and COVID-19 pandemic period, within the framework of formal, informal, and “hybrid” systems of care. Its theoretical basis lies in the [...] Read more.

The article is an ethnographic account of recent and contemporary narratives and practices of care and aging in Croatia in the pre-pandemic and COVID-19 pandemic period, within the framework of formal, informal, and “hybrid” systems of care. Its theoretical basis lies in the fields of the anthropology of family, and the anthropology of aging and care, as well as in the concepts of dignity and the conceptions of futures. The ethnographic data were gathered from 2018–2021, in four locations/regions, both in rural and urban settings. The aim of the paper is to initiate a discussion about the qualitative, socio-cultural aspects of aging and everyday life of the elderly, of its transformations and continuities, both in the spatial and temporal dimension, in urban and rural contexts, in crisis, and in “times of peace”. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Balkan Family in the 20th Century)

9 pages, 240 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Retirement Is a Foreign Country: Work beyond Retirement and Elder Care in Socialist Bulgaria

by Ilia Iliev

Genealogy 2022, 6(3), 65; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy6030065 - 17 Jul 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1765

Abstract

In this article, I investigate state policies in socialist rule in Bulgaria, encouraging pensioners to work beyond retirement and their impact on eldercare. First, I argue that in the 1970s, Bulgarian pensioners began occupying economic niches similar to those of labor migrants in [...] Read more.

In this article, I investigate state policies in socialist rule in Bulgaria, encouraging pensioners to work beyond retirement and their impact on eldercare. First, I argue that in the 1970s, Bulgarian pensioners began occupying economic niches similar to those of labor migrants in Western Europe. The policies actively promoting work after retirement were introduced in parallel with legislation encouraging older people to distribute their property among potential heirs as a donation instead of their last will. I argue that this combination of work beyond retirement and inheritance patterns had a negative impact on eldercare and should be taken into consideration when designing new policies addressed at working pensioners. The research is based on letters of complaint or denunciation from the 1970s, available in the Bulgarian State Archives. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Balkan Family in the 20th Century)

9 pages, 278 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Imaginary Historical Pattern of Family and a Model for Construction of Political and Social Organizations—Extended Family (Zadruga) in Bulgaria

by Petko Hristov

Genealogy 2022, 6(3), 59; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy6030059 - 27 Jun 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1715

Abstract

The notion of “zadruga” (named by Vuk Karadjić in 1818) was introduced in the scientific research literature, as well as in the social and political discourse, of the then young Balkan countries in the 19th century to mark the multitude of historical forms [...] Read more.

The notion of “zadruga” (named by Vuk Karadjić in 1818) was introduced in the scientific research literature, as well as in the social and political discourse, of the then young Balkan countries in the 19th century to mark the multitude of historical forms under which the “complex family organization” was known among the South-Slavic people in the region. The young Bulgarian science adopted this term in ethnographic studies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Bulgarian scientists, lawyers, and researchers of customary law norms attempted to implement some of the features of this family model in modern Bulgarian legislation. In the period between the two world wars, the nascent cooperative movement in the agrarian sector also used the model of the “partnership” to justify its organization. This paper analyzes similar attempts to use scientific descriptions of the zadruga in the construction of various social and economic associations in Bulgaria during the interwar period. It also analyses the attempts of the new communist leaders to use the traditions of the pre-modern society in terms of communal living in zadruga through the imposition of a cooperative system, and the nationalization of the arable land in the first years under the totalitarian system following the Second World War. Part of the Bulgarian scientific community and Bulgarian ethnography has been involved in these attempts since the early 1950s. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Balkan Family in the 20th Century)

14 pages, 286 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Croatian Migrant Families: Local Incorporation, Culture, and Identity

by Jasna Čapo

Genealogy 2022, 6(2), 51; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy6020051 - 06 Jun 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2040

Abstract

So far, Croatian migrant families have been predominantly studied within the scope of theoretical questions oriented toward ethnicity and their role as the guardians of ethnic/national identity. Going beyond the ethnic lens of those studies, the article focuses on an exploration of family [...] Read more.

So far, Croatian migrant families have been predominantly studied within the scope of theoretical questions oriented toward ethnicity and their role as the guardians of ethnic/national identity. Going beyond the ethnic lens of those studies, the article focuses on an exploration of family structures and the social functioning of wider kinship networks in the migration context as well as an understanding of how migrants conceive of ethnic/national identity. By highlighting the complex entanglements of traditional family patterns (patrilocality, seniority, and gender roles), transnational kinship networks and “a little tradition of ethnic/national identity” held by migrants, this article seeks to establish autonomous research into family processes among Croatian migrants and to make a rapprochement between classical anthropological research of family and kinship and migration studies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Balkan Family in the 20th Century)

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