Anthropological Journal of European Cultures

Welcome to issue one of AJEC’s volume 21. In German, a ‘volume’ of a journal is referred to as a Jahrgang – a year (group), a cohort; when I was in my teens, a cohort still used to achieve ‘majority’ – and be considered ‘grown up’, ‘mature’ – with the completion of its 21st year. So as AJEC approached the completion of its second decade and ideas for marking the occasion were considered, I suggested to the board that we might celebrate the journal’s coming-of-age (as it would have been counted when its founders and subsequent editors were growing up) instead of the more common round figure jubilees. Unlike governments the world over, who decided for pop-cultural or other reasons that 1999 years make two complete lots of 1,000, we at AJEC know that the 21st year is completed at its end, not at its beginning, and so the special issue reflecting on the journey so far will be issue two, published at the end of this year.

The article addresses the question of local identification, proposing that local identification in the contemporary world can be linked to locals' imagining 'their place' as inscribed within wider contexts outlined by symbols with supra-local references, whereby place-centric imaginary geographies emerge. Locals are active producers of symbols linking a place to such geographies. The author discusses the case of Dante Alighieri's alleged stay in the town of Tolmin in 1319, which failed as a possible symbol for inscribing the town into the imaginary geography of Western literature because in this part of Slovenia Dante was also associated with Italian fascism.

This article contrasts the Finnish-Russian and Polish-Ukrainian borderlands situated at the external border of the EU. Based on multi-sited fieldwork, it observes how such EU level development concepts as sustainability and multiculturalism address cultural sharing as well as engage communities. Here everyday border crossings are limited, but the policies and practices of cross-border co-operation seek to produce sustainable border crossings in terms of projects and networking. The negotiations of the EU border by local Polish and Finnish actors reflect co-existing and alternative imaginations of borderland heritage. These heritages seem to suggest the 'right' ways not only for border crossings, but also for addressing the continuity and experience of cultural diversity. It is argued that recollections of borderland materiality in these ceded lands become a means for negotiating cultural borders, and verify the difference between European borderlands and borders.

The Caucasus was a zone of encounters for centuries, generating images of regional cosmopolitanism in the past. This vision creates expectations for the present, when it is included in the wider discussion about the meanings of cosmopolitanism today, its relation to modern geopolitics, and issues of social and political co-existence and recognition. This essay focuses on two different photographs that belong to different Greek families in Georgia. These photographs represent two different historical experiences of migration and pinpoint different understandings of cosmopolitanism. However, they both seem to stem from specific discourses about diasporas and their cosmopolitan character. The role of language in the construction of these discourses is fundamental. The essay compares photographic representations of the 'Greek Diaspora' in order to trace the perceptions of cosmopolitanism they generate, the cultural capital they carry, and its outcome in relation to Greek diaspora politics.

This article reflects on the place of emotionally arousing ex- periences within religious organisations. Using data obtained through participant observation and interviews, it outlines a research approach for investigations of the interrelationships between particular features of religious practices. Those features have been pointed out in many previous anthropo- logical and sociological works, but few works attempted to analyse connections and interdependencies between con- crete features of religious traditions. The present article takes inspiration from contemporary 'modes of religiosity' theory to explore further the relationships between highly emotion- ally arousing religious experiences and centralised religious authority. Going beyond Whitehouse's theory, it is argued that centralised religious organisations can influence the so- cial features of a religious movement through management of emotionality in ritual practice.

What do people make of places? In the present article, I pursue this question from the perspective of a peculiar polysemy in the definition of places found among the inhabitants of the small Romanian industrial town of Copşa Mică. Copşa Mică suffers conditions so extreme that, analytically speaking, the town can be described as a zone - that is, as a limited area in which the conditions are such that normal limitations do not apply; thus, zone refers to a line that in a way effaces all lines, a boundary that negates all pronounced boundaries. What do we find instead? The local construction of safe ground reaches deeply into various cultural spheres, particularly into a moral order, by which the questions of where to stay and who is where are replaced to a certain extent by who is places - who is entitled to make them count as so different that it makes a difference? As a result, the local surroundings place themselves, so to speak, as contradictions brought to light in polysemous definitions such as: wherever it is safe, it is also exceptionally unsafe.

This study is based on participant observation of a protest against the Mafia that occurred in Rome on 26 September 2009. First, this essay offers an analysis by using symbols and their meanings, which are illustrated through the 'pyramid of social protest'. Second, the framing and process of the protest are analysed. Two new concepts are presented: the culture of lawfulness frame and the implicit contested process. Third, this essay shows that defying the Mafia begins with individual motivation but ends with the collective motivation behind the decision to be an activist. This decision includes ethically oriented reasons rather than being based on a materialistically calculated reasoning. Finally, the struggle of anti-Mafia movement illuminates cultural anthropology through its desire for a progressive society in which strong symbolic interactionism among the activists play an important role.

This article explores the miracles and ex-votos (votive offerings) associated with the Ta' Pinu shrine on Gozo, Malta's northernmost island. Drawing from ethnographic data, analysis of various personal accounts, and observations of people's interactions with the bricolage of Ta' Pinu ex-votos, I seek to show that Gozitans perform a highly personal yet ritualised form of empathy in the context of miracle worship. The miracles associated with Ta' Pinu are thus seemingly 'contagious' and meaningful, because they elicit existential connections and reflections on the nature of supplication and Gozitan social relations.

William Logan and Keir Reeves (eds), Places of Pain and Shame: Dealing with 'Difficult Heritage' (London: Routledge), 290 pp., Hb: £80.00, ISBN: 978-0-415-45449-0; Pb: £25.99, ISBN: 978-0-415-45450-6.

Liam D. Murphy, Believing in Belfast: Charismatic Christianity after the Troubles (Durham, North Carolina: Carolina Academic Press), 352 pp., Pb: US$42.00, ISBN: 978-1-59460-728-8.