Barbara Turk Niskač

Drawing on the educational role ascribed to work in children's upbringing, the article analyzes children's work and its many ambiguities as presented in children's magazine Pionirski list [Pioneers magazine] in socialist Yugoslavia. The magazine featured content for children, about children, as well as contributions produced by children themselves, telling how they experienced different forms of work in their everyday lives. Most notably, Pionirski list addressed children as self-managing pioneers actively participating in shaping social reality, and at the same time it was only yet building and reproducing a construct of the child as a self-managing pioneer and future self-managing worker in line with Yugoslavia's third way of socialism. Although Yugoslavia was consolidating schooling as the child's main obligation and breaking with exploitative child labor, it promoted a social organization centered on productive and socially useful work that included children as well. It built on Marxist notions of self-determined work, yet the understanding of work as inseparable from life also related to the ethos of the agricultural society's domestic economy. After breaking with the USSR, Yugoslavia embraced worker self-management as a so-called third way to socialism. All these various aspects of work fed into the educational value ascribed to work in childhood and placed it in a mutually constructive relationship with play and leisure rather than as their opposite.

This article examines the back-to-the-land movement in Slovenia over the past decade through a case study of five families who decided to move from urban centres to the countryside and make subsistence agriculture central to their lifestyle. By going beyond the rural idyll as a pull factor, the article is being situated within scholarship on ethical food production and consumption. Three main reasons were identified for research participants' decision to move to the countryside, linked in the triad of food, land, and work. These include a specific lifestyle that includes work as meaningful occupation, and concern for human and more-than-human well-being in daily life.

Développement du caractère des enfants d'âge préscolaire par la participation au travail domestique : une étude de cas de quatre garçons en Slovénie rurale. En Slovénie, l'idée que le travail soit éducatif en ayant des répercussions sur le développement du caractère a une longue histoire qui remonte au moins aussi loin que la pédagogie de la période des Lumières. L'introduction du concept de travail éducatif-une valeur culturelle attribuée à la participation des enfants au travail-met en lumière la manière dont les enfants d'âge préscolaire s'engagent dans le travail domestique par la participation active, l'apprentissage, l'observation et le jeu. L'étude ethnographique examine comment la valeur éducative du travail se manifeste dans un cadre rural contemporain en Slovénie où les enfants sont exposés à différents types de travail dans la vie quotidienne. Compte tenu de la motivation des enfants à participer et apprendre à travers les interactions sociales, ainsi que les pratiques d'éducation des enfants, et les significations qui sont attribuées au travail dans différents contextes politiques, sociaux et économiques, le travail peut être considéré simultanément comme un puissant agent de socialisation, un instrument disciplinaire potentiel et une occupation significative inhérente à l'existence humaine.

Play and work are usually perceived as opposed to each other. While play is understood as fun and as an intrinsically motivated process with the experience itself as the end product of the activity, work is understood as goal-oriented and confined to the adult world. This article presents an intersection of work, play and idleness in the everyday experiences of children and young adolescents in Slovenia. With a focus on sociality, it proposes a reassessment of the concept of work as inherently embedded in human relationships.

In the 19 th century, compulsory education was introduced as a means of discipline within a new work ethic formed in the moral discourse of productivity and the state's preoccupation with increasing profits. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the compulsory schooling of children in Slovenia moved into the homes with the help of distance learning and technological solutions made possible by the digital revolution. As managing the shift to distance learning was left largely up to schools with little support from state structures and since much of the responsibility fell on parents, especially those with younger children, the Minister of Education publicly proclaimed students the corona winners of knowledge, winners of our and future times. Distance learning, however, cannot be considered in isolation as the pandemic changed how we organise all of our daily life. Each in their own way, families were confronted with coordinating their children's distance learning, family obligations, work, and leisure. By analysing the reorganization of family daily life, the issues of protecting the privacy of students and their families, and the functioning of online market mechanisms, the paper presents distance learning as a new form of disciplining children between entrepreneurial work ethics, digitalisation, and biopolitics.

The paper draws on ethnographic study and goes beyond dualistic understanding of work and play to investigate the complex world of social interactions among preschoolers. While adults viewed work as an educational process through which children's personalities are shaped in a desired way, the children perceived work as a means of social interactions. Building on the theoretical framework of sociality and intersubjectivity, the paper suggests that work, play and learning can represent complementary aspects of human existence and living.

Avtorica v prispevku poda pregled etnoloških in antropoloških del na Slovenskem in v svetu, ki obravnavajo otroke in otroštvo. Ob tem problematizira relativno odsotnost sodobnih smernic v raziskovanju otrok in otroštva pri nas. Te namreč narekujejo, da raziskovalci otroke obravnavajo kot primarne soudeležence v raziskavi oziroma kot subjekte raziskav. V nadaljevanju predstavi antropologijo otroštva, kot se je razvijala v anglosaškem svetu. Ob tem bralca seznani tudi s potencialom, ki ga imajo alternativne metode raziskovanja z otroki, predvsem participatorne vizualne metode.

The author presents contemporary anthropological slovene and anglosaxon research
about socialisation. She questions the understanding of socialisation and presents how this
understanding was changing from the middle of 20th century until nowadays. Socialisation
was primarly understood as a process, through which the child enters from the domain of
nature to the domain of culture and thus becomes social being. The process of socialisation
was supposed to end when the child became competent adult member of society. In
this process the child was understood to be passive recipient. On the contrary current
understanding of socialisation acknowledges the active role of the child in the process of
learning. It sees socialisation as an open process without the end – it continues through the
whole life circle. Current theories also strive to overcome the dichotomy between nature
and culture, as they perceive the child as a social being from birth on. The child immediately
enters the intersubjective relationship with other people and enters the process of learning
which follows both continuity and change.

The paper analyses ethnographic studies of childhood in Slovenian agrarian society in the first half of the 20th century. It shows how children were organically integrated into the daily life, work and interactions, allowing them to directly learn through observation and gradual participation. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork from 2011/2012 in southern Slovenia, it presents a case study on children's learning through observation and participation in domestic chores and thus questions the dichotomy between 'traditional' societies where children could learn through observation and the 'information society' where it is said that childhoods are becoming institutionalised and more formal learning strategies are needed in order to socialise them into current society. Theoretically, the paper draws on current anthropological theories on children's learning and socialisation

The visual anthropology approach In the field of ethnology and cultural and social anthropology in Slovenia, children, and especially preschool children, are for the most part still left out of research.
In this article, the author examines the role of preschool children as co-participants in ethnographic research with an emphasis on the use of visual methods.
She problematises current trends in research with children which focus on their activeness and on presenting the perspectives and voices of children.

Na področju slovenske etnologije in kulturne ter socialne antropologije so otroci, predvsem pa predšolski otroci, še vedno v precejšnji meri izvzeti iz raziskovanja. Avtorica v prispevku preizpraša vlogo predšolskih otrok kot soudeležencev v etnografski raziskavi s poudarkom na uporabi vizualnih metod. Pri tem problematizira sodobne trende v raziskovanju z otroki, ki se osredotočajo na njihovo delovalnost ter predstavljanje perspektiv in glasov otrok.

Studies on heritage as a social construct are usually focused on adults. However, we were interested in children's perception of natural and cultural heritage in their local environment. We asked primary school pupils to take photographies of their surroundings, which was followed by interviews, in which they explained what they captured. We were interested in how children perceieve heritage and what meanings do they attribute to it. The article attempts to shed an alternative light on the understanding of heritage through children's perspective.

Drawing on the existing documenting parallels between ethnographic fieldwork and photography, the paper discusses dilemmas connected to the relationship between the ethnographer and his research participants. The paper argues that the ideas of sensory ethnography and arts practices, as well as a reflexive approach to visual anthropology, especially collaborative and participatory methods, could prove useful in transcending boundaries between the researcher and research participants. Furthermore, the experience of taking pictures might help us towards a better understanding of ethnographic fieldwork. For this purpose, the paper offers an analysis of a number of photographs.

The monograph introduces the concept of work, which is inherent in human being as is play. This concept of work can be understood simultaneously as a powerful means of socialisation and as a disciplining instrument. The author problematizes the dichotomy between play and work as a construct that emerged in the specific historical and geographical context of early industrialization. She introduces the educational value attributed to work and presents how this understanding of work has historically changed through different political and socio-economic circumstances. Drawing on ethnographic studies and theorising from the fields of psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology, and social anthropology, the author analyses why and how preschool children participate in everyday work at home and in kindergarten. The author draws connections between children's participation in work and children's sociality and intersubjectivity as core human capacities as social beings. Preschool children are included as research participants along with adults, and by presenting their perspectives, this volume demonstrates the complexity of social life from an early age. Additionally, it provides new insights into how cultural understandings of work and play are shaped and how the relationship between work and play unfolds in children's everyday lives.

Monografija predstavi koncept dela, ki je tako kot igra lasten človeškemu bitju ter ima hkrati močan socializacijski naboj in lahko predstavlja sredstvo discipliniranja. Ob tem, da problematizira dihotomijo med igro in delom kot konstruktom, ki je plod določenega zgodovinskega in geografskega konteksta, ki izhaja iz zgodnje industrializacije, uvede tudi koncept dela kot vzgojnega ter predstavi, kako se je spreminjal skozi čas glede na različne politične, družbene in ekonomske okoliščine. Na podlagi etnografske raziskave in sodobnih znanstvenih dognanj s področja psihologije, sociologije in kulturne ter socialne antropologije avtorica podaja analizo, zakaj in kako se v vsakdanjem življenju predšolski otroci vključujejo v delovna opravila v okviru družine ter vrtčevske skupine. Vključevanje v delo avtorica naveže na otrokovo sposobnost družbenosti in intersubjektivnosti – ključni komponenti človeka kot družbenega bitja. Monografija ob bok odraslim sogovornikom postavi predšolske otroke ter s tem, ko vključi njihove perspektive, predstavi kompleksnost družbenega življenja v najzgodnejši dobi in podaja nov pogled na to, kako se oblikuje kulturno pogojeno razumevanje dela in igre ter kako se vzpostavlja odnos med njima.

The litter-raking stands of Bela Krajina in Slovenia are taken as a reference point to examine the entanglements of human and more-than-human worlds through the concept of work as an activity that places humans in a relationship with other living beings. In the domestic agricultural economy of the past, the litter-raking stands were used as pastures for livestock in the spring and summer. In the fall, people gathered litter and cut bracken for bedding the livestock that returned to the barns before winter. The practice led to soil degradation and acidification, so that only sparsely growing birch, pine, and undergrowth of bracken, spring heath, and common heather grew on these lands. In the process of modernization and de-agrarization these activities have been abandoned since the 1960s, and the most litter-raking stands have since become overgrown. Today, some of these stands are protected as natural heritage under Natura 2000. They are home to various birds, butterflies, insects, fungi and orchids and are cut only to preserve biotic diversity. Fast reforestation in this context thus points to the importance of moderate human disturbances for biodiversity conservation. Based on a case study of litter-raking stands, this paper acknowledges the ethic of care as inherent to work as a life-sustaining practice where human and non-human well-being are entangled (Krzywoszynska 2020). Furthermore, it explores whether it is possible to consider work as a life-sustaining practice embedded in a more-than-human relationality, reciprocity, and care that recognizes “work of nature” (Battistoni 2017) for ecosystem maintenance as well.