Anthropological keys to the past - discovering, descrition, method

Abstract

The metaphor of the key used in the tile of this article is not just a rhetorical figure; it is actually a creed of many practicing anthropologists, which the author tries to explain and motivate. To do that, she refers to her own research on how the past is experienced by interlocutors. Examples are given to argue that the key issue is to understand present phenomena and people’s motifs as well as explain their genesis. Discovering history and the important events of interlocutors’ past becomes a way to understand the present. Providing a short overview of research on the past, the author proves that its uniting factor is “a humanist dimension of experiencing the past”, in the sense of coping with diffi cult experiences that stigmatize, leave their imprint on the life of individuals and societies, lead to existential crises and induce fundamental changes in the functioning of individuals. Examples of such experiences are mass deportations, migrations, humanitarian disasters, wars and political confl icts. Discovering the past, especially its aspects directly relevant to individual life stories, makes it possible to capture a wider context of many vital events. It also helps to understand the motifs of the present actions of individuals and groups and to explain how such actions are causally related. The author argues that ethnological studies of the past differ from other disciplines in the content, kind and way of posing its questions. The key question is “what for?” — what is the knowledge of past events needed for, how can it help in understanding the past and present context of the functioning of individuals, groups and cultural (material, social and religious) artefacts? Studies on the past undertaken by ethnographers are primarily concerned with the social and cultural consequences of human experiences resonating on various levels of individual and communal life: personal, familial, religious, professional, public, local, etc. Anthropological keys to the past will not open every door. It would be good if they helped to open some of them slightly.