Leonard Norman Primiano

New issues of the SIEF Journals ‘Cultural Analysis’ and ‘Ethnologia Europaea’

Cultural Analysis vol. 21.1 (2023) and Ethnologia Europaea vol. 52, issue 1 (2022) have been published. In addition, Cultural Analysis has started the Forum Series: Cultural Analysis Forum Series 1: Pandemics & Politics.

Cultural Analysis

Cover image by David Peinado.

Cultural Analysis is proud to release Cultural Analysis Forum Series 1: Pandemics & Politics.

Cultural Analysis 2023 (berkeley.edu)

For this inaugural first series rollout Cultural Analysis releases the following articles and essays. The first essay, Becoming Folkwise: Sustaining Digital Community While Socially Distant, introduces us to a group of self-proclaimed "early-career" folkorists who take the lead in analyzing digital engagement and community. Making Sense of the Pandemic of Racism: From the Asian Exclusion Act in 1924 to the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act in 2021 by Juwen Zhang places the pandemic in the context of historical racial injustices against Asian-Americans (with a response by Fariha I. Khan). Lucy Long's essay, Refrigerators, cupboards, and canning jars: Emergent meanings and subversive practices in food preservation and storage during the Covid-19 Pandemic (with a response by Janet C. Gilmore, Emeritus Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison) takes us to the United States and foodways. God is My Vaccine: Religious Belief and COVID in the United States by Andrea Kitta explores those who are vaccine hesitant, vaccine refusers, or vaccine hostile in the context of religion and freedom. Levi Bochantin and James I. Deutsch, in their essay, The Folkloric Roots and Pandemic Popularity of the QAnon Conspiracy Theory, explores some of the troubling folk beliefs and conspiracies that arose due to the events of 2020. Malay Bera's Interrogating Social Distancing: Pandemic and Farmer's Protest in India explores the complicated relationship of protesting, social distances, and the pandemic. Finally, Adam Hinden, Ziying You and Zhen Guo illustrate the continuities and transformations of online activism and grassroots memorialization during the COVID-19 pandemic in China in their contribution on Dr. Li Wenliang's Virtual Wailing Wall.

As the first inaugural open series, Cultural Analysis will be accepting rolling submissions, whether they be articles, essays, reviews, or responses, relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. Future submissions are planned to be published in waves. Cultural Analysis will expand this series as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to have a meaningful impact in our future and our lives. The pandemic landscape may no longer be changing rapidly, but nonetheless it will continue to change, for better or for worse. Cultural Analysis is looking forward to hearing from you: caforum1(at)gmail.com

Cover image by Cecilia Fredriksson.

Vol. 21:1 (2023): Creative Ethnographic Methodologies

The special issue is co-edited with guest editors Jenni Rinne (Turku University, Finland) and Kim Silow Kallenberg (Södertörn University, Sweden).

Creativity is an integral part of ethnographic practice. In this theme issue, however, you will find examples of research that in different ways is creative in ways that pushes the boundaries of traditional research further. Research that not only recognizes how the researcher is a co-producer of all ethnography but also actively seeks out collaborations with, for example, artistic research practices or creative writing. The articles in this issue all describe and analyze how creativity take place in ethnographic research, both in the research process and in research dissemination, and how that can influence the ethnographic work.

The articles in this issue are linked to themes of ethnographic creativity such as creative writing practices, poetic inquiry, and visual and sensory ethnography. In different ways do these articles address and show that creativity is essential both for gaining knowledge about a field of research and for communicating research results, both in- and outside of academia. This collection of articles can hopefully invoke interest and curiosity in other researchers to try out more creative approaches to ethnography and to think about in what ways ethnography is intertwined with creative practices.

Cultural Analysis 2023 (berkeley.edu)
vol21_1.pdf (berkeley.edu)

Ethnologia Europaea

Vol. 52(2) 2022: Intersections and Transformations in Medical Humanities: Defining and Conceptualising New Paths

The special theme issue on "Intersections and Transformations in Medical Humanities: Defining and Conceptualising New Paths", guest-edited by Kristofer Hansson and Rachel Irwin, seeks to explore new avenues for European ethnology, cultural anthropology, and folklore studies in the expanding field of medical humanities.

Kristofer Hansson and Rachel Irwin's article "Intersections and Transformations in Medical Humanities: Defining and Conceptualising New Paths" introduces us to this Special Issue.

In "Intercultural Mediation and its Conflicting Allegiances in Slovenia", Uršula Lipovec Čebron and Juš Škraban analyze the power relations that arise in the triadic interactions of healthcare worker–patient–intercultural mediator relationships.

Tanja Bukovcan's article "Expensive Health: Health-seeking Behaviours in Diversified Medical Markets" analyzes how the metamorphosis of a state-funded healthcare system into a market-oriented system in Croatia since the 1990s has influenced the health-seeking behaviour of patients.

In their article, Katre Koppel and Marko Uibu "From Witch-Doctoring to Holistic Well-Being: Journalistic Representations of Three Influential Estonian CAM Doctors" focus on the complex relations between complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and biomedicine.

In "I'm not a jukebox where you push a button and then I sing": Negotiating Medicine Access in Physician–Patient Encounters", Rui Liu, Susanne Maria Lundin, Talieh Mirsalehi and Margareta Troein show how diverging views on medicine access held by physicians and patients do not necessarily position medical professional knowledge as opposed to lay knowledge. They are reflective of a shifting healthcare landscape and evolving expectations on provision and experiences of care services.

Finally, Kristofer Hansson and Rachel Irwin in "Controlling Bacteria in a Post-antibiotic Era: Popular Ideas about Bacteria, Antibiotics, and the Immune System" seek to better understand the societal challenges of antibiotic resistance in the advent of a so-called post-antibiotic era.

Please visit the Open Library of Humanities website for more information about the journal.