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PROJECTS
MIDDLE EAST
LOCALITY AND PIETY IN ISLAMIC NORTH AFRICA AND WEST ASIA
(1) Gebhard Fartacek
| Zones of Uncertainty: Ritual and Taboo in the Near East from the Perspectives of Space and Time.
(2) Gebhard Fartacek
| Pilgrimage Cities in the Syrian Periphery. An Ethnographic Study of the Cognitive Construction of Sacred Places and their Practical Relevance.
(3) Günther
Windhager | From Lemberg to Mecca (1900-1927).The early biography of Leopold Weiss, alias Muhammad Asad.
(4) Barbara Danczul
| “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?” Local Strategies for Conflict Resolution of Violence and Revenge in Egypt.
(5) Ines Kohl
| Identities between Boundaries: Strategies of Belonging among the Imajeghen (Tuareg) of Libya.
(6) Gudrun Kroner
| Beyond the Ties of Home. A Comparison of Female Refugees in the Arabic-Islamic world.
(7) Johann Heiss
| Anthropological Interpretations in Southwest Arabia.
GEBHARD FARTACEK | ZONES OF UNCERTAINTY
Ritual and Taboo in the Near East from the Perspectives of Space and Time.
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This research project examined the questions concerning the conditions of space, time, and situations of daily life when dangerous spirits and demons (Djinn/Genies) appear to do harm to people, and what types of meaning are attached to these events. The basis of the project involved orally transmitted stories of “encounters with demons” in the Arabic Republic of Syria as the topics of ethnographic research through the method of case-reconstruction. On one hand, the investigation permitted Gebhard Fartacek to reconstruct and elaborate the structural categories in which demons and other metaphysical beings are believed to exist in space and time. |
On the other hand Fartacek was able to consider how encounters with the dschinn primarily appear when “the uncertainties of life”, or the vagaries of the human condition, are especially pronounced: in particular uncertainties connected to ethical and moral dilemmas, or crises of sexuality, identity, and social-cultural change. In addition to the ways that demonic encounters occur and are given meaning in a local context (locally determined conceptions of space and time, morality, sexuality, and identity), these encounters are also meaningful strategies for controlling life’s uncertainties and working through negative experiences.
Finally the research results made clear how taboos and rituals associated with spirits and demons are closely related to problems and issues in the here and now. In this close relationship to daily life the more recent representations of spirits and demons are concepts that serve the living, and these representations will continue to exist in competition with other models of reality well into the future.
Fartacek, Gebhard (2007, in print): Unheil durch Dämonen? Geschichten und Diskurse über das Wirken der Djinn. Eine ethnologische Spurensuche in Syrien.
Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.
Fartacek, Gebhard (2005): Feinde des Fortschritts und
Hüter der Moral? Lokalkulturelle Konzeptionen über
das Wirken der Djinn in Zeiten der Globalisierung.
In: Heiss, Johann (ed.): Veränderung und Stabilität.
Normen und Werte in islamischen Gesellschaften, Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, S.53-90.
-> see publications
Fartacek, Gebhard (2004): Monate des Übergangs. Was man über Februar, März und April so zu erzählen weiß.
In: Mathis, Angelika (ed.): 365 Damaskuswien. bilingual (german, arabic) with illustrations. Hohenems: Hämmerle Verlag.
Fartacek, Gebhard (2004):
Zonen der Ungewissheit: Lokalkulturelle Konzeptionen über
Dämonen und deren Relevanz für das Leben in
der syrischen Peripherie. Dissertation.
University of Vienna.
Fartacek, Gebhard (2002): Begegnungen mit Djinn. Lokale
Konzeptionen über Geister und Dämonen in der
syrischen Peripherie. In: Anthropos
97.2002: 469-486
->
Anthropos |
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Wittgenstein-Preis 2000
Kommission für Sozialanthropologie
Schwindgasse 14/6
A-1040 Wien
Tel.: 0043/1/515 81 - 6677
Fax: 0043/1/503 68 73 - 6680
wittgenstein2000@oeaw.ac.at
Notice:
We want to inform you that the research program will come to an end on the 31st of March 2007. Since that time this homepage will not be updated anymore.
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