RELIGION, GENDER AND ETHNIC ORGANIZATION
The focus of this article is on the mutual relations between the feminine orientation, the every-day character of traditional culture (including religion), marginality and possibilities of women's traditions to be transformed into a part of an ethnic cultural movement. I shall concretize the pr...
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| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.610.4211 http://www.cisr.ru/files/publ/wp3/wp3_en_Heikkinen.pdf |
| Summary: | The focus of this article is on the mutual relations between the feminine orientation, the every-day character of traditional culture (including religion), marginality and possibilities of women's traditions to be transformed into a part of an ethnic cultural movement. I shall concretize the problems by means of Vepsian feasts, which are called 'avowed feasts ' (zavetni praznikad in the Veps language). My approach to civil society is to emphasize civil activism. As Т.Н. Rigby puts it: "the most central component in understandings of civil society is the salience of socially relevant activity and relationships which are more or less autonomous of the state", (Rigby 1991, 107). But later on I will explore what this 'socially relevant activity and relationships ' could be. It is a question of value and concerns the visibility of the activity; therefore it is also a question of gender. Organizations like trade unions, organizations of the intelligentsia, new political parties, etc., have been studied. It seems to me that Western researchers tend to overestimate civil activity like 'green ' eco-campaigns. The campaigns of these groups have been visible, they have been quite popular in the Western mass media. Paradoxically, when small Siberian nations have been fighting for their lives (for the right to fish or hunt on their ancient land and when they try to protect their rivers from pollution, etc.) this does not seem to interest the Western media very much. Only people like Lennart Meri and other |
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