On the anthropological (ethnological) description of the past. Prolegomena

Abstract

The article discusses selected issues related to the anthropological notions of the past, sources, history and memory. Focusing on the notion of contrived data as a basis for anthropology, the author describes them as co-created by the researcher in interaction with another human being, and divides them according to the source into data from oral interaction and data from observation. She identifi es the objective of anthropology not as reconstructing the past but as enriching our knowledge about humans as beings shaped by culture. Highlighting the fact that anthropology is focused on traces of the past discernible in the present, she concludes that it is concerned with both the past and the present, aiming at reconstructing the subjective perspective of social actors. Furthermore, she characterizes interfaces between anthropology and other sub-disciplines or fi elds of research, e.g. oral history, historical anthropology, folklore studies and memory studies. She also gives an example of her own research on cultural representations of the past, concerning the phenomenon of ‘contemporary serfdom’ documented in oral narratives in kolkhoz villages in Belarus, a long-lasting factor that determines the collective identity of contemporary kolkhoz workers.