Anthropological Journal of European Cultures

As I settle down to put together this issue, it occurs to me that the development of AJEC in its various phases displays an uncanny correspondence with my personal professional trajectory so far. Its inception and first volume happened during my postdoctoral fellowship when I was happy to place one of my first (coauthored) academic articles in its inaugural issue. The remainder of AJEC’s first approximate decade coincides with my time as a lecturer. At the time I took up my first chair, the format of AJEC changed, eventually turning it, for a while, into a Yearbook rather than a journal. And in the year I moved to my second chair, I was invited to take on the editorship of AJEC, which would now be published by Berghahn and returning to the format of two issues per year. This correspondence raises a curious question: What significant turning point for the journal will correspond with my own as I am becoming an emeritus professor?

AJEC @ 21: A Perspective from the Société Internationale d’Ethnologie et de Folklore (SIEF)

AJEC @ 21: A Perspective from the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA)

AJEC @ 21: A Perspective from the Society for the Anthropology of Europe (SAE)

The history of the Anthropological Journal of European Cultures is told here as stories of boundary crossings between cultures of Europe and their overseas relationships: from the outset through developments and 'shifting grounds', to the present day. These stories have ranged from the Wall that divided nations to the vision and reality of European Unity. At the same time, the journal has sought to transcend boundaries between disciplines that, especially in Europe, have often remained attached to national and colonial traditions of monographic description of regions and tribes.

Ethnography needs transnational and transdisciplinary discourses and comparison, without losing sight of fieldwork in situ and multiple sites, including from the perspective of the Other.

'Anthropologising Europe' has been a key concern of the journal, as have the 'shifting grounds' of 'doing ethnography' in the context of globalisation that sediments places and spaces. Separations received much attention: of nations by the wall between capitalism and communism, in gender relations, or through national and regional bordering processes. But there were also the boundary transgressing utopias of a collage of hybrid society as poetic spark, in which the hybrid anthropologist, too, might feel at home in his or her various hermeneutic endeavours.

This article analyses the difficult relation between anthropology and history. The point, therefore, is to show how anthropology conceptualises the past differently from history as a discipline. Beginning with the differences between anthropology and history in terms of the concept of time, the article highlights that while for history time is concrete, objective and exogenous to human beings, for anthropology it is characterised by its being condensed, collectively subjective and endogenous. By analyzing actual examples, the article shows that the anthropologist is not interested in the past per se, but rather in the past as a dimension of the present. Accordingly, actualised, revised and manipulated history as well as the role of the past in the present need to be taken into account. Consequently, history and the past have their own specific efficiency because they are also a form of knowledge and social resource mobilised by single individuals or groups to find their bearings and act accordingly in the present and likewise to plan the future.

Classic conditions of fieldwork research, to which anthropology remains committed, are difficult to establish today within far-reaching projects of neoliberal economy, governance and philanthropy. The forms of collaboration on which these projects insist, and those that ethnography encourages for its own research purposes, must be reconciled. On the bargains or adjustments that anthropology makes with neoliberal projects, within which it establishes scenes of fieldwork, depends its capacity to produce critique - its primary agenda since the 1980s. These issues are what are at stake in the widespread current discussions of, and hopes for, an 'engaged' anthropology.

Taking Park's postulate of a 'marginal man' as its starting point, this essay reviews some of the key ideas and approaches that have underpinned the development of the Anthropological Journal of European Cultures from its inception. It concentrates on a discussion of the concept of 'cultures' - liminal, hybrid or otherwise - in different contexts and from different perspectives - boundaries and frontiers, places and spaces, migrants and memory - before turning towards the question of what and where Europe is, and what anthropology might have to say on it, concluding with reflections on AJEC's past, present and future contribution. An appendix provides details of the first twenty-one volumes of the journal.

Elisabeth Katschnig-Fasch died on 4 February 2012. Many people, including the present and past editors of AJEC, are mourning the loss of this very special, indeed unique woman. However, she remains in dialogue with us through her numerous publications.

This article analyses the phenomenon of urban regeneration and development in the context of globalisation and processes of Europeanisation with a focus on culture and creativity. It asks how the process of negotiating EU-rope is being reflected in places situated at the 'edge' of the European Union and which actors are involved in these processes of negotiating EU-rope, its culture, values and urban regeneration. The author presents an empirical example from Ljubljana, Slovenia. The focus lies on negotiating the usage and development of an abandoned industrial site. Here, different ideas of negotiating and developing the city in the context of globalisation and Europeanisation come to the fore: top-down approaches that follow the image of a creative city as well as bottom-up initiatives that develop anti-global and anti-capitalistic criticism with the help of social-spatial and cultural practices.

In Portugal, terms such as 'modernisation', 'progress' and 'development' are continually invoked by a wide range of social actors, representing the right path and ultimate goal of all political and social change, but on the other hand conceal the actual truth that, to use Latour's expression: 'We have never been modern'. The result is that the demand for modernisation is accompanied by the parallel reification of 'backwardness'. Alluding to Portugal's peripheral condition, to its distance from the rest of Europe and so forth, is part of common everyday discourse, and the country is typically portrayed as a kind of European backwater, forever lagging behind more advanced states. This article aims to present and discuss how backwardness and modernisation are recurrently present in political discourse as a leitmotiv for social, economic and cultural change and the way it is incorporated into a broader and rooted self-representation of the Portuguese modus vivendi and national features.

This article sets out the results of research which aims to determine the characteristics of fishing development in the province of Tarragona, from the social, territorial and economic point of view, as well as the perspective of the public policies implemented for this sector. It considers the role played by the various social, economic and institutional agents, and the importance of sustainable and responsible management of fishing. The research method we have chosen is the case study. The comparative analysis of the seven fishing ports in the south of Catalonia is even more significant in that each one has different sales volumes. The techniques used for gathering information were: the semi-structured interview, non-participant observation and the use of secondary statistical and documentary sources.

Esin Bozkurt (2009), Conceptualising 'Home': The Question of Belonging Among Turkish Families in Germany (Frankfurt/M. and New York: Campus), 243 pp., Pb: €32.90, ISBN: 978-3593387918.

Brigitte Bönisch-Brednich and Catherine Trundle (eds) (2010), Local Lives: Migration and the Politics of Place (Aldershot: Ashgate), 218 pp., Hb: £55.00, ISBN: 978-1-4094-0103-2.

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