EKM Teaduskirjastus

The 14th Annual Conference of the Centre of Excellence in Estonian Studies and The 5th International Conference in the series Balkan and Baltic States in United Europe: History, Religion, and Culture

Nature and Culture in the Rituals, Narratives and Beliefs

Koostaja: Sergey Troitskiy, Mare Kõiva

ISBN: 978-9916-659-42-7 (pdf); 978-9916-659-41-0 (print)

Ilmumisaeg: 2022

On behalf of the Centre of Excellence in Estonian Studies we warmly welcome you to Tartu, both in person and online. We hope that your stay in Tartu will be a success and that you will take back many inspiring ideas and colourful memories.
Because of the increasingly acute challenges of climate change, and corresponding cultural attitudes towards nature, action and debate related to development and sustainability stand at the centre of contemporary rhetoric. Let us look at the more-than-human geography, multispecies ethnography, archaeology of fullness, etc., based on the theoretical visions of the world (J. Igoe, W. Dressler, E. Kohn, E. Marris, B. Büscher and R. Fletcher, S. Toncheva and others). The study of nature and culture relationships became a broad interdisciplinary field the humanities and social sciences cooperate with Earth and environmental sciences, economics, health and food security, etc.
Meanwhile, our conference marks fourteen years of our meetings and discussions on the Balkans and the Baltic region. We can ask What has changed in the Balkan and Baltic regions during that period? How is history being interpreted and re-written? What is the situation with ethnic
and religious communities? What new problems and topics have emerged in the Balkan and Baltic (and European and World) research areas?
The main topics will be:
• The Balkan and Baltic regions in the context of the nature–culture dichotomy: local and traditional ecological knowledge, environmental movements, European mechanisms for nature conservation,
• Economics and political economy, and human–nature coexistence,
• Traditional beliefs and practices and nature–culture correlation,
• Nature and culture in religion, festive rituals and everyday life,
• COVID-19 and art
• Climate, ecology and climate change in public and individual discourse. We invite you to participate in the various conference events and attend the Ecology of Nature and Ecology of Culture preconference seminar.
https://www.folklore.ee/rl/fo/bbs/2022/