Csaba Mészáros

Since the 1990s in Hungarian ethnographic and anthropological scholarship debates on the relationship of the two disciplines, or, rather, research traditions have every now and then arisen. In course of this debate, several researchers have tackled questions concerning the methodological and epistemological differences between anthropology and ethnography. Despite the heated start of this debate, in the last decade it became highly unproductive, oscillating around the same questions and problems. This present paper argues that the theoretical ramification of this debate hindered participants from unfolding several relevant methodological problems, because the Kuhnian concept of scientific paradigms focuses predominantly on scientific sociological questions rather than on methodology. To push forward the discourse on the relationship between anthropology and ethnography, the author recommends another scientific methodological frame for discussion. The
concept of Scientific Research Program created by Imre Lakatos puts the debate into a new perspective. With the help of this conceptual tool, not only the differences and disruptions, but also the similarities and commonalities between anthropology and ethnography show up. A further consequence of this approach is that methodological and epistemological differences between schools of anthropology and ethnography do not necessarily result in disciplinary separation.

The notion of “landscape” is one of the most often discussed and permanently renegotiated concepts of Hungarian anthropological and ethnographical scholarship. Landscape is not only frequently used, but also often overused in ethnographical literature, and it is interpreted in various, and sometimes incongruent ways. Firstly, this current article endeavors to summarize the historical development of the concept in anthropology by putting it in interdisciplinary context, than, by relying on recent phenomenological and ontological anthropological discourse I will offer new perspectives on what landscape is. I will argue that the Cartesian epistemological dichotomy between humans (understood as society) and non-humans (interpreted as nature) is no longer productive in having insight on environmental issues. Especially because today, in the Anthropocene era we have to face ecological challenges that are difficult to tackle in the frames of traditional ecological anthropology.

2005 nyarán Küörümében, Tobuluk falutól 40 kilométerre délre, egy nyári szálláson készítettem interjút Jura Gotovcevvel 1 , egy helyi fejőlegénnyel. Egy kicsi, boronafalú, csak nyáron használt kunyhó előtt üldögéltünk, és vártuk, hogy megérkezzenek a tehenek a közeli legelőkről az esti behajtás idején. Mint minden interjú kezdetén, most is felmondtam a diktafonra a felvétel alapadatait, és Jurát is megkértem, hogy mutatkozzon be, és mondja el, hol született. Meglepetésemre egy távoli, nyugat-jakutiai megyét jelölt meg születési helyeként, ami több mint ezer kilométerre volt beszélgetésünk helyétől. A 650 lakosú Tobuluk ugyanis Közép-Jakutiában fekszik. Az önmagában nem volt különös, hogy Jura egy másik, távoli településen született (hiszen Jakutiában, sőt Tobulukon belül sem ritka eset a távoli megyék szülöttei közötti házasság), ám az, hogy Gotovcevnek hívták, meglepett. A Gotovcev vezetéknév 2 ugyanis rendkívül ritka Jakutiában, és az olyan, széles körben elterjedt, általánosan használt vezetéknevekkel ellentétben, mint például a Petrov, a Pavlov vagy például az Alekseev, ezt a vezetéknevet Tobulukban helyi vezetéknévként tartják számon, és Jakutia más területein nem ismert. Ha valakit Gotovcevnek hívnak Jakutiában, akkor minden bizonnyal valamilyen (elsősorban rokoni jellegű) kapcsolatban áll vagy állt Tobulukkal. Rögtön rá is kérdeztem, hogy ha nem itt született, akkor hogyan hívhatják Gotovcevnek. Hát úgy-tette hozzá nevetve egy másik, mellettünk várakozó fejőlegény-, hogy a Gotovcev igazából Jura feleségének a vezetékneve; Jura csak felvette azt. Amikor megkérdeztem Jura (általam igazinak vélt) születési vezetéknevét, ő azt mondta, hogy annak már nincsen jelentősége: ő itt Tobulukban Gotovcevként él, akként is ismert, így aztán nekem se legyen fontos az, korábban hogy hívták. A beszélgetés során egyik-másik mellettünk üldögélő marhapásztor azt mondta, hogy őket igazából nem érdekli az, hogy mi is volt Jura eredeti vezetékneve. Számukra Jura ma már Gotovcev. A közös beszélgetés egy pontján azonban még hozzátette azt is, hogy azért alkalmanként észre lehet venni, hogy Jura személyisége magán viseli születési megyéjének jegyeit. Hogy még bonyolultabb legyen a helyzet, a beszélgetés folyamán az is kiderült, hogy Jura felesége sem "igazi" Gotovcev, legalábbis a helyi emlékezet szerint az ő nagyapja is csak megvásárolta ezt a vezetéknevet a pópától. A beszélgetés e pontján zavarba jöttem. Nem tudtam megérteni, mi teszi, mi teheti a helyiek számára Gotovcevvé Jurát-ha sem ő, sem a felesége nincsen vérrokoni kapcsolatban a helyi Gotovcevekkel.

Economic transition of rural Siberia in the past two decades can be generally characterised with the demise of state control and decollectivisation. In the course of this process rural citizens of Siberia, on the peripheries of the Russian state normally have received very few economically effective resources as private properties after the collapse of local state farms. The withdrawal of the state from its peripheries resulted in declining state services, degradation of infrastructure and lack of economic guidance in Siberia, therefore rural citizens could hardly benefit from the opening market either. As a result, among the last remaining sources of income for peripheral communities are the meagre state subsidies, assistances and salaries distributed by local leaders. These leaders (school directors, village-heads, leaders of cooperatives etc.) use their informal connections with state administrators, and high rank bureaucrats in order to supply their community with cash, petrol and goods. Therefore investment in the “weak ties” bond with state administrators working in the regional centres has been an efficient strategy for local leaders in villages, enabling local leaders to act as brokers of information, resources and influence in their communities. This resulted in a “parafeudal” or “microfeudal” socio-economic system in the post-soviet landscape of peripheral rural areas far from the markets.
As a consequence, in villages of Yakutia (Northeastern Siberia), where the accumulation of other types of economically effective capital is nearly impossible, social capital has immense importance in the formation of power relations and local economic strategies, and influences the functioning of local administration. In an economic environment, in which incomes come predominantly from the state, personal connections are especially useful if they bridge between actors within state institutions.  Therefore social capital is not independent from local state institutions and administrators in rural Yakutia. It is no surprise that one of the culturally defined peculiarities of postsocialist social capital resides in its statist nature, i.e. social capital works most effectively within state institutions, bridging administrators and villagers. Social capital accumulated and employed by local leaders not only determined the degree of success of the socio-economic transitions in the first few years of decollectivisation  but keeps on influencing local patterns of contact with state authorities in villages, and tailors the functioning of state-dependent local organizations of local civil society. At local level the functioning of the state distributive system is however pervaded by local values making leadership available and suitable only for those who accept them. Thus, authorities and leaders in the two villages to be examined in this paper are both empowered and legitimised by local social units (in a way that conforms to the rules of the value system of Russian public administration) and by state supported corporations (requiring bureauccrats to accept the local system of values).
In my paper I endeavour to describe patterns of accepting leaders and obeying authority in two village-communities in Yakutia. Next I contextualize these patterns with emic concepts on personhood. I argue that this analysis of local concepts about the possibility of inheriting personal character and skills from ancestors may contribute to a better understanding of local systems of reputation and indirectly of the possible economic strategies in the villages.  Systems of authorities in Yakutia are based on two factors; one that can be called the internal factor (how the community creates and supports its authoritative members) and the external factor (the Russian state creates and empowers leaders through a system of salaried jobs and bureaucratic positions). The two factors are mutually interdependent, providing hybrid organisational forms, and thus in reality making it impossible to seperate them.
In these commnuities personal authority and the acts of an individual can always be evaluated according to his or her surname and character traits associated with it. The local concept of personhood and inherited personal character traits in the two village communities under survey imbue local discourse on the competences, skills of individuals, and have a say in selecting the local leaders and state employees as well as in supporting or attacking them at the fora of local public sphere. This draft paper has two aims. First I would like to describe what strategies local leaders use in handling local disputes and conflicts, and how they act as mediators between their communities and the regional leaders. Secondly I examine how inherited personal character traits associated with surnames provide authority for individuals enabling them to accumulate social capital within and outside the village-community.

With the help of ethnographic data collected in Central-Yakutia, I intend to contribute to ongoing discussions about names and naming as well as to provide a new insight on Sakha (Yakut) kinship. Contemporary anthropological works on Sakhas have been engaged with questions concerning kinship, however, researchers have been silent on local practices of obtaining surnames and given names among Sakhas.
Fieldwork data presented in this paper was collected exclusively in a village I call here Tobuluk. However, during my subsequent stays in Yakutia I have visited several other villages as well, conducted fieldwork in various communities, and I have realized that the change of  surnames – especially in Central-Yakutia – is a fairly common phenomenon.
First, I am going to describe the system of names and naming among Sakhas, then I will provide a short ethnography about the community under survey, next I will describe different local strategies of obtaining surnames inconsistent with descent lines, and at last I will encounter these data with an analysis of local ideas about personhood and kinship.

This book aims to examine the functioning of community life in two villages of Yakutia (I use the pseudonyms K. and T. here) on the basis of fieldwork conducted between 2002–2011. I endeavour to involve the concept of social capital in anthropological analysis sensitive to the cultural embeddedness of social relations. This problem emerged in course of the examination of the economic strategies and locally available resources of the marginalized village communities. Generally speaking, social capital is a resource generated by individuals embedded in social networks and it is potentially obtainable for the individuals to achieve their own purposes. I argue that the investigation of the accumulation and employment of social capital as a local resource may contribute to a better understanding of the functioning of interpersonal relations and social groups in marginalized communities. The concept of social capital concentrates on the obtainability and the functioning of social relationships, rather than on defining relationship types (kinship, friendship, neighbourhood). Therefore discussing the locally meaningful types of social relations, I focus on how these relations can put into effect, and what values provide foundation for the maintenance of these relations.
I define the position of K. and T. within the power relations of Russia and then I examine the emic system of coordination and self-positioning. Then I introduce the economic determinants and administrative status of the two research locations and make an account on the subsequent socio-economic transitions of village communities. I illuminate the continuity in the local economy and society during the years of collectivisation, centralisation and decollectivisation. I describe how the heritage of the colonial tsarist taxation system and economy determined the aims and means of Soviet time collectivisation, and how the local processes of privatisation stemmed from the Soviet time collective and state farms. I conclude that the geographical and ecological determinants along with ethnically defined “traditional lifestyle” have only minor role in understanding these communities, because it is the state policies that primarily determine the economy of K. and T. rather than lifestyle and ethnicity. The chapter therefore concentrates on the major socio-economic transitions: the collectivisation, the centralisation and the decollectivisation. I deliberately avoid the popular term “privatisation” when describing the changes during and after the perestroika, because the villagers actually did not receive any economically effective resources as private properties.
Later I discuss the kinship, the neighbourhood, the friendship and the patron-client relationships. Instead of focusing on local social structure, I examine the functioning and everyday life of social relations. First I scrutinize the notions of kinship, friendship and neighbourhood and define the specific local interpretations of these concepts. By examining the ways these relationship-types are embedded in the local culture, I do not intend to create an emic system of socially defined relationships, I would rather illuminate the fact that these relationship types are only possibilities for establishing cooperation and emotional ties, and normally not all of these possibilities are exploited. Only the evocative and effective relations accumulate social capital and create local resources in the two village communities. Social relations are usually not balanced in K. and T. and thus individuals are positioned in a local web of patron-client relations. Patron-client relations not only form dyadic connections, but also establish a thickly interwoven fabric of trust, collaboration and dependency. This hierarchic network of patrons and clients depends heavily on and is enhanced by a local model of assessing human values and character traits.
Then I discuss the local concepts of personhood and theories on the formation of personality. In the villages under survey human character traits can be inherited from the ascendants and handed down to the descendants. Although the inherited human character traits do not mechanically and entirely determine the individual’s actual personality, yet they are indelible. Consequently, local discourses about the acts of the ancestors have a significant role in the legitimisation of one’s good or bad reputation, and the narrative assessment of one’s current actions and behaviour is compared with narratives about the ancestors. The relation between the ancestors’ characters and the present evaluation and reputation of a person depends largely on the position, on the economic situation, and on the amount of accumulated social capital of the individual. This interdependency between the current status and the reputation works in rather different manner in the two village communities.
In K. only the descendants of the six largest descent groups possess such characterisation. Here the characterisation expresses complex human characters and can only be obtained by descent. These characteristics are not fixed, and the more representatives of a descent group become influential and powerful in the community by having access to local resources and occupying leading positions in the community, the more the character’s negative features are emphasised. In K., consequently, the relative balance in the authority system between descent groups is guaranteed by an evaluative social talk about the human values of the descent groups. Discourses about descent-group character are always aware of a multiple audience (since villagers are affiliated to more then one descent group), and therefore it only rumples, but normally does not denigrate other people in public.
In T. the network of nuclear families forms a more uniform context of the characterisation of descent groups, which in this village equals roughly the assessment of the symbolic value of surnames. In this context (where the genealogies of descent groups are not obviously observable for villagers) the characterisation is restricted to the mere fact whether bearers of the same surname are talented, gifted people or not. It occurs therefore that a man takes on the surname of his wife, or in the past, people paid to get baptised to have a different surname. This system does not strive for balance, and each family intends only to support his surname’s good reputation regardless of the actual changes in the distribution of the local leading positions. This system is imbalanced, since leaders have better chances and means to propagate the good reputation of their descent-groups, and therefore discarding weak minority opinion is a common phenomenon in local social talk. In compliance with the descent group character, one can inherit in the two village communities the character of his or her ethnic and local group as well, but these characters are of minor importance in the villages.
Local community life can be described with ineffectual state services, which contributes to the construction of strong informal networks. These networks (based on kinship, friendship and neighbourhood) provide social capital, which is the most important effective local resource for the villagers. The way social capital is managed in the two village communities is different. In T. social capital is more institutionalized, and informal relations are well embedded in the local institutions of the Russian state, leading to the hierarchization of relations. In K. the institutions of the state play only minor role in managing interpersonal relations, and therefore intra-community relations are more equal.
The examination of the use of social capital contributes to the understanding of patron-client relationships in small scale communities. Social capital (in a context where the accumulation of other types of economically effective capital is hardly possible) has an immense importance in the formation of local economic strategies. I argue that bonding social capital does not obviously equal low social capital and it does not necessarily reproduce marginalization or deepen social inequality. Furthermore, the example of K. shows also that the dominance of bonding social capital does not inevitably constrain the community in obtaining economic resources, and is not a disadvantage for the villagers. Bonding (or exclusionary) social capital creates in K. isolate social identity and preserves mutuality and reciprocity within the community. This feature of K.’s community strengthens trust and creates solidarity between villagers, but keeps out outsiders from the mobilizable interpersonal networks.
In T. the dominance of the bridging (or inclusionary) social capital generates vertical social relations and steady patron-client ties. It opens up the community, because villagers strive to create connections and solidarity with non-villager outsiders as well. Thus villagers do not only need to legitimise their authority within the community but outside of the community as well. Local leaders (and potential patrons at the same time) are created by their ability to mediate between the villagers and external state bureaucrats. This way of accumulating social capital and functioning of patron-client relations entails the openness of information flow as well. In T. the state institutions have an immense role in building social capital; therefore it is necessary to take into consideration the presence of statist social capital. In this community the social capital is deeply embedded in the local state institutions, and effective economic resources are nearly exclusively controlled by the state. Therefore patron-client relations have an outstanding importance within the state institutions and villagers can deserve authority and legitimisation in this realm. In these marginal state institutions one can perceive how hybridity and mimicry are present in a postsocialist context.

On the basis of fieldwork data collected in Central Yakutia this article contributes to ongoing discussions on the human process of dwelling in various environments. In current anthropological discourse, it has become increasingly emphasised that environment and physical space cannot be alienated from local communities as a neutral container of human activities, but it is rather a lived-in world imbued with everyday activities, memories, and meanings. The perception of the immediate environment of continuous interaction is often interpreted within the macro-frame of the outside world. Sakhas in Central Yakutia localise themselves and define their immediate environment with respect to other regions of Yakutia, of which they often do not have any direct sensory knowledge. They do so by applying a richly contextualised system of cardinal directions. Due to subsequent Soviet and Russian state modernisation efforts of the last 100 years (collectivisation, centralisation and decollectivisation) the way rural Sakha communities perceive their surroundings and contextualise cardinal directions has transformed radically within the past four generations. This article discusses what profound differences one can detect in the way generations relate to, understand, and evaluate landscapes and assess cardinal directions as a result of these changes.

Debates on the epistemology and hermeneutics of anthropology/ethnography have frequently infused scholarly discussions on the commensurability of concepts, ideas and knowledge in emic and etic discourses. Challenged by János Szulovszky’s proposal about the possibility of applying a Christian paradigm in the ethnology of religion, the author provides a close reading of recent works in the hermeneutics of anthropology. After reflecting on modernist approaches toward emic epistemological systems, he draws attention to Wittgenstein’s ideas on “common behaviour” (gemeinsame menschliche Handlungsweise) and on the transferability of messages between two distinct language games. Based on Wittgenstein’s understanding of language games, the author presents a few instructive methods for conveying messages between emic and etic discourses (just as anthropological perspectivism, diatopical and pluritopical hermeneutics).

Abstract: The article demonstrates that similar actions and lifestyles of two individuals living in two villages of Yakutia (in Northeastern Siberia) evoke different attitudes in their own communities in accordance with the dissimilar social structures and communicative systems of the ...