Introduction

Authors

  • Bogomir Novak

Abstract

The Slovene Anthropological Society was established in the year 1992. Last year it organized already the third days of Škerlj - 28 - 29 September 2001, with the title Anthropology at the beginning of the new millenium (»Antropologija na pragu novega tisočletja«). The representers of different anthropological disciplines i. e. biological-physical, medical, cultural, philosophical, sociological, pedagogical and political were there and also the representers who use anthropology interdisciplinarily. Short abstracts of their new knowledge are included in the Anthology of the abstracts (Ljubljana, DAS, 2001). The present number of Antropological Notebooks consists of some of the contributions to this symposium of the Slovene Anthropological Society such as: Kolenc, J.: The Transition of political culture to Democracy Slovenian case study, D. Štrajn: Culture and Difference, B. Novak - M. lvanuš Grmek: Anthropological and didactical evaluation of the implementation of the new nine-year school in the context of Slovene school development, B. Artnik: Revščina - najpomembnejsi rizični dejavnik za neenakost zdravja - medicinska antropologija (celostni pristop) and Jerman, I., - Ružič, R.: Man in the ocean of energies, and Juhant: Globalization and Anthropology .
Juhant in his contribution Globalization and anthropology said that postmodernism orients us towards transcending one-dimensional imperialistic globalisation and it demands considering special marginalised and handicapped groups. Such a strategy also requires of all partners that they consider (every) man as person, solidarity and subsidiarity: it is necessary to work locally and to be oriented globally.
The contribution of J. Kolenc The Transition of political culture to Democracy: Slovenian case study concerns the political anthropological level. He advocates the thesis that arising complexity of Slovene societies is hindering the development of stable democracy. There remains the open question of how to empower the agents which accelerate it.
Jerman and Ružic in the contribution Man in the ocean of energies emphasise the thesis that man has never before been more to exposed radiated energies than today. This become unhealthy, because more and more indicators show that man should limit the artificial sources of energy which influence his body.
D . Štrajn in his contribution Culture and Difference shows several aspects for the working of mechanisms of cultural, societal and political environment in the time of globalisation. Štrajn's theoretical starting point in his paper was found in the work of B. Anderson, Imagined Communities. He shows how nationalism is built within nations as "imagined communities''. Special attention is paid to some phenomena informer socialist countries and their coping with the challenges of interculturalism and the demands of free market economy. Štrajn's thesis is that globalization is also, with the widespreading mass media, an imagined process.
Additional contributions was sent from D. Rutar, (Pedagogy of the other Or, the critical pedagogy and the impossible exchange), B. Telban (Medical ethics and the body across cultures), B. Žalec, (Meanings of Identity), I. Ž. Žagar (Argumentation, cognition, and context: can we know that we know what we (seem to) know?) and J. Kolenc, D. Kobal, N. Lebarič: Motivation in school from social - anthropological point of view.
In the paper of J. Kolenc, D. Kobal, N. Lebarič: Motivation in school from social - anthropological point of view the theory of motivation of Abraham Maslow and systems model of human behavior are shortly presented. This is represented the theoretical framework to evaluate the hypothesis, that self-concept and self-esteem are decisive factors of motivation of students in Slovenian upper secondary schools.
B. Žalec in his contribution Meanings of Identity presents a critical survey of modern views on topics which are marked by such words as identity, self, I, person and similar. The conceptions are classified into several groups and subgroups (psychological, historical, sociological, culturological, anthropological and akin reflections on identity, a philosophical class) .
I. Ž. Žagar in his contribution Argumentation, cognition, and context: can we know that we know what we (seem to) know? shows that agumentation may well be cognitive in its origin, but it is only when we  «inject« it into discourse that we can recognize, understand and describe it as argumentation, analyze it into argument(s) and conclusion(s), and evaluate it. This article is about some of the problems of this »transition« into words.
B. Telban, in his contribution Medical ethics and the body across cultures presents several different examples from different societies and cultures (Western and non Western) to show how historical changes, cultural values and social relations shape the experience of the human body, health and sickness, and how they situate suffering in local moral worlds.
The intention of the published contributions in this number of Anthropological Notebooks is to show the readers the progress of different branches of anthropology, openness of dialogue among them, and their presentation in the international space.

Bogomir Novak

Additional Files

Published

2002-06-30