ANTHROPOLOGY OF EUROPE AND COMMUNITY RE-STUDIES: 


PROPOSAL FOR A NEW CONCERTED RESEARCH INITIATIVE 


Peter Skalnik, University ofPardubice 

Community studies and re-studies have been a 2000). What is the point in multiplying the 
hallmark of sociocultural anthropology for literature on Europe, this time by 
several decades of the 20 th century. They anthropologists? The answer is simple: 
were, however, criticized for their lack of anthropologists study themes and aspects that 
representativeness and low degree of the related disciplines do not or cannot study. 
comparability (Bell and Newby 1971; Maho The anthropological method par excellence, 
1974; Mihailescu 1977; Skalnik 1982). This i.e. long-term fieldwork, is usually not used 
paper intends to rehabilitate the community by sociologists or historians unless they in 
studies with a special emphasis on re-studies fact tum into anthropologists. The legitimacy 
because they appear to me as the best and authority of the contribution of the 
anthropology can offer to the understanding fieldwork approach is obvious. 
of Europe, both in the historical perspective Anthropologists gain reliable but also very I 
and in the present time when the European rich data where the related disciplines come 
Union expands towards the East and South­ out only with too sober statistics or sources. 
East of the continent. After a review of re­ IRural sociology, a discipline that today seems 
studies thus far undertaken in Europe and 

to be dying out together with the peasant 
elsewhere, I shall characterize the intricacies 

phenomenon (Mendras 1967), was for a while 
of a particular re-study which a team of 

more active than anthropology. Under the J
colleagues and students under my leadership influence of the Chicago School, sociologists 
undertook recently in eastern Bohemia in the 

worked in various northern American and 
Czech Republic (2002-2004). Then in the 

European settings. Actually, the study of the Ithird part of the paper I argue for a sustained 
peasantry in developing areas such as Latin 

new wave of comparative re-studies which 
America was at one time undertaken by both

would reveal the trends of development in the 
sociologists and anthropologists. Robert IEuropean and non-European smaller 
Redfield, who pioneered the folk-life studies 

settlements or urban areas at the beginning of 
along the rural-urban continuum, was 

the third millennium. To an extent tllls 
appropriated by both sociologists and 

contribution reflects the general concern of Ianthropologists. It was also Redfield who 
anthropology with community as a theoretical 

came first with a re-study of one of the
problem, because we continue weighing the villages he studied in Mexico in the 1930s 
importance of approaches and wondering I(Redfield and Villa Rojas 1934, Redfield 
about the explanatory power of reflection in 1950)1. A new aspect emerged when his first 
comparison with scientific analysis (cf. 

Mexican community study, of the Maya 
Bradfield 1973; Skalnik 1981). 

village of Tepoztlan (Redfield 1930), was I 
I. First, let us look at anthropology as a critically re-studied by a younger colleague 
tool for a better understanding of the (Lewis 1951). It appeared that Redfield's 
European continent (and the world at large). I 
As anthropologists, we know that 
philosophers, historians, and sociologists have 

J Redfield, however, was not the very first to undertake 
analyzed Europe from their respective a re-study of an American community. The Lynds who I
methodological standpoints. Thus Europe published their path-finding study of an American town 

(Lynd and Lynd 1929) returned soon to 'Middletown' seems to exist and work as an idea, as a 
and did their own re-study there (Lynd and Lynd 1937). function of various historical moments, or as a 
Rightly, the authors of a book evaluating community Inetwork of social characteristics (cf. articles studies 'WTote that "Middletown is for the sociologist of 

from the journal Ethnologia Europaea the community what Durkheim's Suicide is for 
collected in Niedermiiller and Stocklund sociology as a whole" (Bell and Newby 1971: 82). 

178 



image of Tepoztl<in as an isolated, fairly 
homogeneous, and well-functioning village 
community contrasted with Lewis's portrait of 
a village full of individualism and tension 
combined with envy, fear, and lack of trust. 
Although Lewis quoted extensively from 
Redfield, he found Redfield's analysis 
'schematic' and 'unreal.' The explanation of 
such incongruence is to be related to the 
personal factor so typical for social science 
research methodolob'Y. But it is also to be 
explained by Lewis's broader scope of 
research which included interpersonal 
relations, power structure, and land tenure 
questions. According to Wierzbicki, 
Redfield's folk-urban continuum (Redfield 
1955) must have been responsible for his 
obsessive search for tradition and the failure 
to account for contrasts and conflicts in 
Tepotztlan (Wierzbicki 1982: 197; cf. Lewis 
1953). Of course, the re-studies undertaken by 
a colleague from a generation or two later 
cannot be built along similar lines. The 
interests and emphases differ, and the task of 
contrasting the two social situations seems to 
be easier if one is primarily interested in 
methodology. Redfield's own re-study of 
Chan Kom had to struggle with the 
discrepancy of methodology. While the first 
monograph, written in the early 1930s, uses 
traditional ethnographic method including 
description of material and spiritual culture, 
the re-study, undertaken only 17 years later, 
concentrates on the mechanisms of change, 
explanation of their absorption by the 
villagers, and their view of the changes. 
Redfield used the same informants whom he 
knew in the 1930s, but he elaborates more on 
method and thereby in effect "corrects" 
inadequacies of the original study. 

Malinowski's revolutionizing data collected 
in the Trobriand Islands in western Melanesia 
durinQ: World War I (Malinowski 1922) were 
submitted to re-studies many years after his 
death. One of the re-studies was carried out by 
Annette Weiner who found out that, not 
surprisingly, Malinowski suffered from a 
male-centered bias. She discovered that 
women and their activities were equally if not 
more important for the cohesion of the 

Kiriwina society than the enterprising 
seafaring men described by Malinowski in his 
first monograph (Weiner 1976). 

While for Redfield the main source of change 
in Mexico was coming from the cities, in the 
case of the historically first community re­
study in the world, that of the southern Polish 
village of Maszkienice (then part ofAustria), 
carried out by the ethnographer Franciszek 
Bujak (Bujak 1901,1915), it was migration to 
America that brought about change. Of 
course, this influence is also of the urban kind 
because the level of development in the 
United States was accompanied by, if not due 
to, the higher level ofurbanization there. 
Wierzbicki, who discussed both Polish and 
Mexican re-studies, shows that there is 
considerable similarity between the two rural 
and peasant situations (Wierzbicki 1982: 
196). However, it seems that Mexican 
villagers, especially their pro-development 
leaders, felt the potential for the destruction of 
their 'traditional' way of life more than the 
Maszkienice peasants. Redfield's bias in favor 
of the 'little tradition' may have been 
responsible as well for the fear of spoiling the 
tradition. Therefore, he welcomed the 
incorporation of urban lifestyles into the value 
system and ethos inherited from the past. ill 
Bujak's case, there emerged a cultural gap 
that could not be bridged: the have-been Poles 
from Maszkienice contrasted what they called 
'American work' with 'Polish work' where 
the former was 'good for bulls' while the 
latter for peasant humans. 

Wierzbicki cites three other monographic re­
studies of Polish villages which all raised 
serious methodological problems. Let us look 
at two of them. The village ofDobrzeii 
Wielki, studied comprehensively by 
Nowakowski (1960) was soon studied again 
by Olszewska (1969). It could hardly be 
called a proper re-study because the time gap 
was too short and the scope too different. The 
re-study was dealing with only some aspects 
of the community and if the data from the 
original monograph were referred to it was 
done only to support the views of the re­
studier. Wierzbicki calls this case "two 
complementary monographs" without seeing 

179 



in them really a re-study twin. Wierzbicki 
himself undertook a re-study of Zmiqca fifty 
years after Bujak worked there in the 
beginning of the 20th century (Bujak 1903; 
Wierzbicki 1963). Bujak was accused of a 
positivist approach because he wrote an 
inventory of village life. Therefore Wierzbicki 
concentrated on only two main problems of 
social change that occurred during the period 
just preceding his re-study: the growth of 
egalitarianism in interpersonal relations and 
the growth of national consciousness among 
the villagers. However, while these two 
processes guided the inquiry, Wierzbicki did 
not allow his monograph to become unrelated 
to Bujak's work. At the same time Wierzbicki 
used the up-to-date methodology without 
slavishly following the then-outdated methods 
of Bujak. The Zmiqca re-study remains till 
this very day one of the best examples of the 
method. 

Another famous student of communities, this 
time in Ireland, was Conrad Arensberg, who 
considered himself a social anthropologist 
when executing his pioneering study of Irish 
countrymen in County Clare (Arens berg 
1937). However he was labeled a sociologist 
for his comparative work on the research of 
communities in the same country and county 
which he executed with Solon Kimball at 
practically the same time (Arensberg and 
Kimball 1968, 2002). Arensberg was inspired 
by his teacher at Harvard, the social 
anthropologist W. Lloyd Warner whose first 
book was about the Australian Aborigines 
(Warner 1929) and later became famous for 
his study of what became dubbed as the 
Yankee City (Warner 1963). In effect it was a 
long-term and collective research project 
concerning Newburyport in New England, 
U.S.A. (Warner et al. 1941-1959) which still 
remains unsurpassed among community 
studies for its breadth and scope. Warner was 
eager to test his methods developed in 
Australia on European data. He chose Ireland, 
and after surveying all twenty-six Irish 
counties settled for County Clare on the 
central-western edge of the island. Warner 
and Arensberg started their research in 1932, 
but Warner, who had duties back home, was 

soon replaced by Solon Kimball, who also 
worked with Warner in the Yankee City 
project. The two, Arensberg and Kimball, 
worked for two years in rural Clare and then 
moved to the capital of the county, Ennis. The 
Ennis study was never completed because of 
the outbreak of war, but the Ennis data were 
added to the rural research volume in the 
second edition of Family and Community in 
Ireland (Arensberg and Kimball 1968). This 
famous volume inspired the French 
anthropologist Robert Cresswell, who 
produced a large volume some thirty years 
after Arensberg and Kimball (Cresswell 
1969). Still later, Fox did an original study of 
a small island off Donegal (Fox 1978). 

Another study in a Celtic environment was 
carried out by Edgar Morin, in the Breton 
village of Plozevet which he dubbed Plodemet 
(Morin 1967). There he sparked off the 
establishment of a youth club and speculated 
that generation gap replaced class struggle. 
However, the myth of modernity versus 
tradition exploded once Morin left the village. 
His book was not well received; he and his 
creation of youth culture were not 
remembered (Maho 1982: 224). The same 
happened to Maho who also knew Plozevet 
from earlier times. When he arrived there 
after some years he was not recognized by the 
fonner informant in whose house he used to 
stay. Initially Maho also got friendly with one 
particular neighbor not realizing that another 
neighbor was a sworn enemy of the fonner. 
The entry into the village by way of particular 
informants may mar one's fieldwork 
irreparably. The researcher also may fail to 
recognize the social divisions if he or she 
happens to be friendly with the most willing 
villager. That villager may be the least 
suitable ifhe is rejected by all (i.e. a local 
vagrant or a local strongman whom many fear 
and hate). 

The European Mediterranean has been the 
area most frequented by American, British, 
and Dutch anthropologists and sociologists, 
who worked in various communities known 
for their attractive landscape and climate. 
Some of them became anthropological 
classics. The first and perhaps most classical 

180 



has been Banfield's The Moral Basis ofa 
Backward Society (1956). The south Italian 
village ofMontegrano was presented as a case 
of 'amoral familism,' responsible for 
conservatism and poverty. There are no 
voluntary associations to speak of in the 
village, no esprit de corps. Nothing is done to 
resolve considerable community problems 
there. Banfield found the folk explanations: 
desperate poverty leading to non-action, 
ignorance, no collaboration between gentry 
and the peasants, disunity among the 
'oppressed,' distrust ofthe state, fatalism. But 
in fact, according to Banfield, it is the 
concentration on family that should improve 
its position at the cost of the other families. 
Communal interests are thus ignored. The 
rather static and hopeless image of 
Montegrano has attracted criticism by other 
non-Italian Mediterraneanists, John Davis and 
Johan Galtung. They suggested that Banfield 
suffered from 'communocentrism,' believing 
that the path towards modernity leads via 
village associations. Instead, argues Galtung, 
it is regional cooperation that is needed. 
According to him, Montegrano is opposed to 
change because of' amoral village-ism.' 
Actually, continued Galtung, the above­
mentioned folk explanations were dismissed 
by Banfield too facilely because they may be 
valid, for example the class antagonisms in 
the village. According to Davis, Banfield 
failed to study the long history of class 
relations in southern Italy (Davis 1970; 
Galtung 1971; cf. Silverman 1968). This was 
done properly by Lopreato in his research on 
the effects on emigration on the south Italian 
village of Franza around 1960 (Lopreato 
1967). There were other well-known studies 
such as People ofthe Sierra (Pitt-Rivers 
1954) or Village in the Vaucluse (Wylie 
1957). The latter suffered from naivety and 
little insight of the researcher who came from 
a quite different cultural background. As 
Maho describes it, Wylie came to the locality 
Peage du Roussillon with the "American idea 
of the 'Community'" which "would welcome 
him with open arms" and provide him 
voluntarily with data about its social life. 
Then he returned 20 years later and was 
barely recognized and often rejected. When he 

insisted, he was told to his astonishment that 
he was duped and lot of information about 
conflicts and divisions within community 
remained hidden from him. Therefore he 
decided not to do his intended re-study in the 
village (Maho 1982: 224). 

There was also another school of rural 
sociology and ethnography in Europe, that of 
Romania. The school of Dimitrie Gusti and 
Henri Stahl managed to do re-studies of two 
villages, Rouncou and Dragu~ (the latter even 
three times, cf. Stah11972). Both villages, 
studied before the war and after it when 
socialist influence prevailed, showed "the 
decisive influence of the global society" but 
also that "with each restudy one is faced with 
a quite different social 'problematique'" 
(Stahl 1982: 240). Stahl stresses that repeating 
the same analysis schema would be a mistake; 
rather it is important to understand "how the 
social changes that occurred are in fact a 
social solution of a problem with its roots 
going well beyond the village" (Stahl 1982: 
240). Unfortunately, none of the studies 
undertaken by American anthropologists in 
Romania were re-studies (the team of John 
Cole and the research in Transylvania by 
Verdery). To an extent Salzmann's study of 
Czech-speaking villages in Romanian Banat 
(Salzmarm 1983) could be viewed as a re­
study of the research undertaken by a team of 
Czech ethnographers in the 1960s (Scheufler 
and Skalnikova 1962; Skalnikova and 
Scheufler 1963; Jech et a1. 1992). 

In East-Central Europe, with the major 
exception of Poland mentioned above, re­
studies of communities have thus far been 
fairly rare. What is instead taking place are 
either repeated visits to the studied 
communities-thus adding new knowledge to 
the basic data from the major initial research 
(Salzmann and Scheufler 1974, 1986; 
Salzmann 1995; Skalnik 1979, 1993}-or 
comparative research of communities in one 
or more regions (Kandert 1969,2004; Skalnik 
1982, 1986). Skalnik compared three pairs of 
communities, of which he personally studied 
four (two in Slovakia and two in the 
Caucasus) and used data on the remaining 
two, Tret and St-Felix in northern Italy, 

181 



contained in Cole and Wolf (1972). Salzmann 
did his research in the southern Bohemian 
community of KOffi<lrov intermittently during 
his teaching-free time, revised the data for the 
second edition, and finally went to the village 
after the "Velvet Revolution." Skalmk worked 
in 1970-76 in the northern Slovak community 
of Sunava comparing two neighboring 
villages which eventually merged and he 
came back repeatedly after 1990 (Skalmk 
2001). Kandert did his initial research of a 
central Slovak community of Sihla in the late 
1960s and then returned in 1994 while also 
embarking upon comparative research in 
another two communities not far away. In 
Hungary, the initial research in Varsill1Y by 
Bodrogi and his team, led in the field by 
Sarkill1Y (Bodrogi 1978; Hollos and Maday 
1983), paralleled by the study ofHann in 
Tazlar (Hann 1980) which is currently being 
repeated in both localities by the same 
researchers, this time in coordination 
(Sarkany 2005; Hann and Sarkill1Y 2004). 

II. When the re-study of Dolm Roven in 
eastern Bohemia (120 kilometers east of 
Prague) began in 2002 I and my team had no 
intention of copying the 'analysis schema' of 
the pre-war monograph by the rural 
sociologist Karel Galla (Galla 1939). It was, 
however, evident that my choice to work in 
Dolm Roven was not haphazard. By the year 
2000 there were in the Czech Republic few 
villages studied in the past by either rural 
sociologists or anthropologists/ 
nationographers (narodopisci) as 
communities. Out of those very few, Dolni 
Roven was closest to Pardubice, my new 
university. Besides, Galla's study was 
evidently the best as Dolm Roven was studied 
by him in much detail, the size of the book 
exceeding 400 pages. The other community 
studies are of much smaller size and detail 
(Chotek 1912; Galla 1936 and 1937; 
Salzmann 1974, 1995). 

When making the proposal to carry out this 
re-study, I wanted first of all to capture the 
village commune as it was or at least as it 
presented itself at the beginning of the 21 st 

century to researchers who had been trained in 
completely different theoretical thinking (i.e. 

in social anthropology) than in that prevailing 
in the 1930s, i.e. some 70 years earlier (rural 
sociology). The changes and the contrast with 
the fairly distant past would come out by 
themselves to those who would bother to read 
both Galla and books and articles by the 
members of our team. But of course some 
themes do occur in both the original research 
and in the re-study. By comparing data 
relating to these common themes one can 
grasp more explicitly the changes even ifthe 
very processes whereby they happened would 
not be easily visible or known. For example, 
Galla's monograph quite justifiably spent 
quite a few pages on the description of 
agriculture (90 pages out of360 of the total 
text, i.e. one fourth). Dolm Roven in the time 
of his research was a "predOlninantly 
agricultural village" in which 295 out of 577 
economically active persons were engaged in 
agriculture (Galla 1939: 58). 

Additional reasons for studying precisely 
Dolm Roven were the facts that the village 
was studied by Galla because it was a 
stronghold of agrarianism of the Udd:al 
famil;? and the village was considered 
successful evidence for the modernized 
traditional ideology that the basis of the nation 
is land and agriculture which feeds the whole 
population of the country. Dolni Roven (the 
original village, much smaller than today's 
commune, which besides Dolm Roven proper 
comprises Homi Roven, Komarov and 
Litetiny), was considered an exemplary 
village in the pre-WWII period, boasting all 
up to date public amenities (paved road, 

2 The Udrial family, landowners in Dolni Roven for five 
hundred years, have given the community several 
generations of leaders, the most famous but also last 
being Frantisek Udrial 1866-1938 and Vaclav Udrzal 
(1870-1938). The former was elected member of the 
Vienna Reichstag between 1897 and 1918, then member 
of the Czechoslovak parliament until his death. He was 
one ofthe leaders of the Agrarian party (founded 1904), 
in 1922 renamed as Republican party of the agricultural 
and smallholder peDple. This party was the strongest 
Czech-speaking party in pre-war Czechoslovakia. 
Udrzal was Czechoslovak minister of defense during the 
1920s and finally served as Prime Minister (1929-1932). 
His brother Vaclav was the founder of Czech 
cooperative movement. 

182 



electricity, telephone, pipe-bome water, 
modem schools, commune office, and Sokol 
gymnastics building). 

Unlike Galla, for me the main motivation for 
the re-study at the tum of the 21 st century has 
been the opposite: I wanted to study a 
commune in which the potential for 
agriculture ceases to be important and that has 
hardly kept any of the attributes of excellence 
that it enjoyed before WWII. In other words, 
the purpose of the present research is to reveal 
what has stepped into the place of agriculture 
as the leading raison d 'etre of rural existence 
and what keeps people living in the village 
today when there is nobody powerful keeping 
a protective eye over it. One could suppose 
that it would be fairly logical to live in a 
village if one has found employment there. 
But this is the case of a mere 30 percent of the 
economically active. A full two thirds of 
economically active Roven residents have to 
travel outside of the village in order to eam 
their living. But they continue living in the 
village. If one continues searching for rational 
reasons for continued living in the village, one 
could put forward the ownership of a house 
and adjacent land inherited from ancestors. 
But that does not explain why people do not 
sell these and move to Pardubice, Holice, or 
more remote urban centers. 

Actually there are two reasons behind the 
relative stability of residence, or even a very 
slow increase in Roven population. One is the 
rural character of living combined with the 
availability of all modem amenities. The other 
is the relatively lower cost of living in the 
village even if one does not own a house and 
rents instead. That means that what is most 
~mportant for people is the character of living 
111 the countryside, which attracts them to 
residence in the village. The quantitative 
research showed that Roven residents trust 
that their village has a reasonably good 
prospect for the future. Tills contrasts with the 
much less optimistic, almost gloomy, prospect 
the same people ascribe to the Czech Republic 
as a whole. However when people were asked 
what they do expect from membership in the 
European Union, their opinion was optimistic 
for the Czech Republic but less enthusiastic as 

far as Roven is concemed. Galla did not ask 
these questions in the 1930s. The age-old 
structure of land tenure and the decisively 
a!:,'Ticultural character of the community were 
not questioned at that time. Nobody could 
envisage expropriations, the egalitarian 
character of the post-war economic 
development, nor could Galla or his 
respondents predict the war and the post-war 
communist industrialization and the 
marginalization of Roven in both the regional 
and national frameworks. If the Roven 
inhabitants today believe in a political center­
left orientation (the social democratic and 
socialist program is supported by almost 44 
percent of them) it contrasts with Galla's 
finding a predominantly agrarian orientation 
of the villagers (cf. Subrt 2004). The most 
~nfluential political force in the village today 
IS the People's Party also known as the 
Christian Democratic Union, which at the 
moment holds 8 out of 15 seats in the 
communal representation. This contrasts with 
the pre-war dominance of the Republican or 
Agrarian Party. As to national and regional 
politics, Roven dwellers are much less 
politically motivated, which can be 
demonstrated by low election participation 
and if they go to the polls they appear 
~ndecided as to which party to support (cf. 
Rechkova 2005). 

Thus we have to face the fact of an enormous 
shift from an agricultural, highly productive 
but stratified pre-war conununity to a 
basically egalitarian post-war community with 
predominantly outside industrial employment. 
Another aspect that is quite different today 
from the pre-war era, when Galla carried out 
his rural sociological study, is the non­
agricultural enterprise in the village. Whereas 
before the war, by far most employment 
within the community was assured by 
agriculture and related activities, it is petty 
production, repair, and wholesale and retail 
commerce that dominate today. Mutual help 
has diminished and is ever more of a 
monetary type (e.g. neighbors and friends 
helping out for remuneration during the 
planting of seedlings for a commercial 
vegetable farmer). 

183

L____________~~_ 




WWII and the forty years of communist rule 
that followed did not destroy the community 
ethos in Roven; rather it seems that this ethos 
was strengthened through the collective self­
help construction activities of the communist 
times. The voluntary firemen, at least in two 
composite parts of Roven, intensified their 
cultural activities after the social 
regimentation of the communist period ended 
(cf. Salanda 2004). Before WW II, this kind 
of intensity of communal life was almost 
entirely in the hands of those who organized 
theater and musical perfornlances in the 
village (cf. Vaiikova 2005). It would be unjust 
to dismiss the communal character of life in 
Doln! Roven of the post-communist period, 
but one has to admit that the contents and 
form of the community have changed 
considerably. There are many more organized 
community activities than before the war, 
when it was more spontaneous and public. 
Today people spend far more time at home or 
in their garden and much less time with 
neighbors outdoors. The importance of the 
private sphere (house and garden) has . 
increased and seems to be comparable WIth 
the meaning ofprivacy in the city (it is almost 
equally high). Only relatives and good friends 
or neighbors visit each other at home, the rest 
of unorganized contact is limited to the pub 
and daily errands. 

III. The importance of comparative 
research of communities by way of re-studies 
is not easy to be overestimated. The detailed 
knowledge, which anthropologists and . 
sociologists of communities gain through theIr 
particular research methods, serve their 
societies and the international sphere. For 
these studies reveal what is really happening 
on the ground, both institutionally and among 
the people of the studied community. In that 
sense they complement statistical and 
demographic knowledge, they are an 
indispensable supplement for macro­
economic and macro-political analyses. The 
usual complaints that community studies are 
not representative of a region or country are 
weak because the wealth of detail, if 
replicated by a number of such studies per 
given territory, is not matched by any other 

data sets. Besides, these studies are based on 
relationships rather than cool objectification. 
The point is that anthropologists generate 
their data from long-term residence with the 
researched collectivity and the testimonies 
from such prolonged rapport between the 
researcher and the researched guarantees a 
depth of information and its reliability. I! 
complemented by quantitative data obtamed 
from sociological questionnaires and 
interviews, the picture is indeed not only very 
detailed but also both inter-subjective and 
objective. 

Re-studies, as they were thus far undertaken 
and as I tried to characterize them in Part I of 
this essay, are an even more welcome tool for 
gaining our knowledge of face-to-face 
communities, for they supply the decision 
makers and the broader public with time­
depth perspective thus depicting various 
communities as they change while passing 
through various external economic, political, 
and cultural climates. The veracity of the data 
is enhanced by critical re-studies by other than 
the original researchers but also,ifundertaken 
by the same researcher(s), as it was done by 
the Lynds, Redfield, or Sarkany. These re­
studies can be critical by the virtue of the fact 
that the researcher(s) try to supplement the 
originally collected data, make up for the 
missing sections, etc. 

For these obvious reasons, I would like to 
propose here an all-European and eventually 
worldwide concerted project of re-studies, 
starting from Central Europe where the first 
re-studies took place. As the new wave of re­
studies would catch on, re-studies of some 
well-known anthropological monographs 
undertaken by American and British 
researchers in Europe should follow. Finally, 
but perhaps concurrently, some 
anthropologically or sociologically famous 
communities worldwide should be re-studied. 
This major initiative would bring in data that 
will not only be rich for each re-studied 
community but also provide us with 
comparative material for an all-European and 
worldwide explanation of processes that have 
happened as part of the transition from 

184 



agrarian isolation towards modernity, 
integration, and globalization. 

In the Czech Republic, after the Dolni Roven 
re-study come two communities: Sfmy a~d 
Komarov (the South Bohemian commumty, 
by chance carrying the same name as the 
Komarov village, since 1976 part of expanded 
Dolni Roven). This does not mean that further 
monitoring of Dolni Roven should be 
discontinued. On the contrary, the vicinity of 
the University of Par dub ice which carried out 
the re-study of Dolni Roven, makes possible 
continuous research of developments and 
changes in the village. However, S{my, also 
studied by Galla in the 1930s, is well suited 
for a re-study as it is a small village (450 
inhabitants in 2001) some fifty kilometers to 
the west-northwest of Pardubice. Salanda 
(2005), who carried out a preliminary survey 
there, registered a 50 percent drop in 
population in 70 years. From a prosperous, . 
exemplary cooperative village of the 1930s, It 
has now lost momentum and its inhabitants 
are skeptical about prospects for the future. 
However, the economic and social influence 
of the presently-undertaken constmction of 
motorway D 11 nearby might resuscitate this 
decaying community. 

The southern Bohemian village ofKomarov, 
on the other hand, had its heyday some 150 
years ago when it was a prosperous farming 
village. During the communist era (1948­
1989) when Salzmann (with Scheufler's 
library and archival inquiries) carried out his 
resea;ch there, the village was eventually 
economically incorporated into a larger unit 
and lost its official identity. The agricultural 
cooperati\'e that was fairly successful during 
the 1970s and 1980s, survived the first wave 
of deregulations after the Velvet Revolution 
(Salzm;nn 1995). However, we have no idea 
about further developments in Komarov after 
most Czech cooperatives dissolved and were 
transfomled into limited liability companies 
or had their property bought by private 
companies, some of them foreign. One 
wonders whether its decline continued in the 
later 1990s and beyond. 

A bit more complicated is the case of SirokY 
Dill which is situated on the Bohemian­
Moravian divide near the town of Po lick a 
(some 50 km southeast of Pardubice). The 
founder of modern Czech nationography 
(narodopis) Karel Chotek wrote a longer. 
paper on this village (Chotek 1912). Dunng 
the early 1970s a team of communist 
nationographers from the Institute of 
Ethnography and Folklore of the 
Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences returned 
to SirokY Dill in order to study a 'socialist 
village.' However, their methods were 
antiquated as was most of the communist era 
narodopis (cf. Lozoviuk 2005; Skalnik 
200Sc), and they happened to study the pre­
communist past (topics such as the ram­
beheading festival, craft production, folklore 
awareness, the only quasi-anthropological 
theme being the selection of marriage 
partners). Moreover, this research was not 
completed. Starting from 2003, a new re­
study is being undertaken by a team of 
Pardubice students of social anthropology 
under the leadership ofBohuslav Sa1anda, the 
youngest member of the team of the 1970s. It 
is too early to draw any conclusions from this 
re-study. The Norwegian anthropologist 
Haldis Haukanes studied two Czech village 
communities (one South Bohemian and one 
South Moravian) during the process of post­
communist transfonnation. To submit her 
study (Haukanes 2004) to the scmtiny of a 
follow-up re-study by a Czech researcher or a 
team could prove to be a thrilling enterprise. 

In Slovakia the social worker Iva Smakalova 
carried out an interesting monographic study 
of the Protestant gentry village of Horne 
Jaseno (today called Turcianske Jaseno since 
it was merged with Dolne Jaseno situated few 
hundred meters to the west). Unaware ofthe 
holistic functionalism of her days she called it 
presciently Integral Village, not knowing 
either about the comprehensive 
anthropological studies of communities in 
Europe that were then just started in Ireland 
by the Harvard team led by Lloyd Warner 
(Smakalova 1936). I visited the village on 
Easter 2004 and discussed a future re-study 
with the village mayor and pastor (both 

185

1_____________S~t__~ 



women, which is fascinating in this 
community offew hundred inhabitants). The 
Protestant (Lutheran) creed very much 
preserved village endogamy, and kinship 
strengthened by religion seems to continue to 
be the main organizing principle there. 

My own research in Sunava (originally the 
adjacent villages of Nima Sunava and Vysna 
Sunava) started during the politically uneasy 
first half of the 1970s (Skalnik 1979) and 
continued after the fall of communism in the 
1990s (Skalnik 1993). Both villages with their 
agricultural cooperatives merged under the 
central Czechoslovak government's pressure 
in 1974, but the cooperative has survived 
under changed conditions to this very day, 
mainly thanks to a high degree of 
specialization. However, the post-1998 
stringent economic measures of the central­
right Slovak government have imprinted 
themselves in this village at the foot of the 
mountains with increasing acuteness. Much 
depends on the survival and development of 
nearby industries since specialized agriculture 
no longer offers employment to many. 
Whereas the first years of the demise of 
communist rule were marked by inertia, later 
years are likely to tell the story of adjustment 
to new conditions. But this will have to be 
studied in the field. In both the Czech and 
Slovak cases, accession to the European 
Union is bound to bring innovations, both in 
job creation and development of new 
branches (highly specialized industry 
employment, tourist services, and new vistas 
in agriculture as well). 

Other possibilities for community re-studies 
in Slovakia could be the village of Sihla in 
central Slovakia studied by Kandert in the late 
1960s (Kandert 2004) and perhaps Latky 
where he worked in the 1980s. Also suitable 
candidates for re-study are the two south­
central villages of Sebechleby (studied by a 
team of nationographers of the socialist 
village - Pranda 1984; Kandert 1988), and 
Cerovo, studied by Chotek in a traditional 
way 100 years ago (Chotek 1906). Sihla, 
according to Kandert who returned to this 
village briefly in 1994 (2004: 246), lost most 
of its population within thirty years (from 435 

in 1961 to some 150 in 1994) and it would be 
fascinating to find out what has caused such a 
demographic demise. Kandert (2004: 247) 
mentioned an impoverished cooperative 
(founded only in 1984!) and only one person 
interested in privatized agriculture. The 
reasons will perhaps be much more complex. 
Sebechleby was an 'exemplary' socialist 
cooperative village and it would be very 
interesting if inertia wins over rupture or the 
other way around. 

In Poland, where several strings of 
ethnographic, anthropological, and 
sociological re-studies took place from the 
end of 19th century, new re-studies should 
bring a very rich harvest. The two above­
mentioned quasi-parallel studies ofDobrzen 
Wielki in the Opole region are an opportunity 
for tracing changes from the communist 
period until 'late post-communism.' If 
undertaken they could create a possibility for 
comparison with a nearby case study of 
Dziekanowice (Buchowski 1997) and 
research by British social anthropologists 
Hann and Pine in Little Poland (Malopolska). 
The famous re-study of the village of Zmi'lca 
(Wierzbicki 1963) could be repeated after 
another 50 years. 

I have already mentioned the current re­
studies ofVarsany and Tazlar in Hungary. 
However, the most famous community study 
of the neprajz type was that by Fel and Hofer 
in Atany carried out in the 1940s and early 
1950s (Feland Hofer 1969). I believe that a 
re-study of Atany could be a real challenge 
for the new generation of Hungarian social 
and cultural anthropologists. 

Elsewhere in central Europe I would suggest 
that Obernberg am Brenner, studied by 
PospiSil since the 1960s (Pospisil 1995) is ripe 
for continuation. I discussed this possibility 
with Leopold PospiSil some years ago when I 
visited him in the village and he welcomed 
the idea. Thus it is a question of deciding 
whether to study topics not touched by 
PospiSil or to "check" those areas analyzed so 
meticulously in his two monographs. I do not 
doubt that other villages or urban 
communities studied earlier by overseas 

186 



anthropologists in Germany, Hungary, Serbia 
(cf. Halpern 1957), Romania (Cole 1977; 
Kideckel1993; Verdery 1983), and Bulgaria 
(Sanders 1949) would be very suitable for re­
studies. What I suggest here is to start with a 
few re-studies and gradually expand the scope 
all over Europe and beyond. 

Beyond Central Europe there are several 
clusters of European communities with high 
potential for rewarding re-study. Some of 
them are famous monographs, others are case 
study handbooks published in the U.S. in 
uniform fonnat by Holt, Rinehart, and 
Winston, and Waveland Press. I have 
mentioned above the Arensberg and Kimball 
research in the Irish county of Clare. Today, it 
seems highly appropriate to submit rural and 
urban Clare to another re-study which would 
show the booming Ireland far away from 
Dublin. there where rural life is not 
completely dead.3 Meanwhile the Introduction 
to the third edition of Family and Community 
in Ireland has raised questions of the 
methodology used by the Harvard team. There 
is a potential tension between the foreign­
conceiyed original research and the future re­
study. which should primarily be carried out 
by Irish anthropologists and sociologists. 

The next region that had been studied fairly 
intensiyely by both anthropologists and 
sociologists is Great Britain (cf. Bell and 
Newby 1971: 137-146). There are classical 
studies such as Frankenberg's Village on the 
Border (Frankenberg 1957) or Family and 
Kinship in East London by Wilmot and Jones 
(1957) which both deserve to be re-shldied. 
Further north we could name the monograph 
by Fox (1978) of the tiny island of Tory. 

The most classical area of community studies 
mostly carried out by non-natives is the 
Mediterranean, from Spain to Greece. Starting 
from People ofthe Sierra by Pitt-Rivers and 
ending with Friedl's Vassilika, there is string 

3 A fieldtrip that I undertook with a colleague in Clare in 
2002 showed reasonable potential for such a restudy 
both because people who remembered pre-war Ireland 
were still around to render their reading of the changes, 
and some of their descendants continued in rural 
activities including farming. 

of monographs that beg for re-study by native 
anthropologists (and sociologists). In meeting 
colleagues from these countries I have gained 
an impression that they were not altogether 
enthusiastic for the approaches and 
interpretations of foreign anthropologists. 
Therefore it would be intriguing to read 
findings by local anthropologists who have 
the advantage of life-long experience of living 
within the societies of which the re-studied 
communities form a part. This said, I trust it 
would be equally thrilling to carry out re­
study of the classical community 'home 
sociology' by Lis6n-Tolosana (1966) or 
Gross's study of Bonagente carried out in 
1957-1958 (Gross 1974). 

Portugal stands somewhat apart from this 
Mediterranean mosaic. Dias (1948), Cutileiro 
(1971), and Pina-Cabral (1986), to name the 
most important authors, were all native 
ethnographers who studied home 
communities. The latter two, however, were 
trained in the British social anthropological 
tradition. No doubt, enough time has elapsed 
since these studies were executed so that well­
prepared re-studies4 would be an adequate 
response to the inquisitive queries about the 
changes that are supposed to have taken place 
since the country became member of the 
European Union almost twenty years ago. 

Similarly, the Netherlands is a country with a 
long tradition of community studies, both 
sociological and anthropological, 
predominantly carried out by Dutch 
researchers themselves. However, foreign 
anthropologists produced good monographs, 
such as the Sassenheim social health Shldy by 
Gadourek (1956) or other Dutch communities 
studied by Baron, Brunt, and Verrips. Perhaps 

4 In 2001 I visited two sites in southem Alentejo where 
Jose Cutileiro worked in the 1960s. The idea was to 
check about the feasibility of a re-study with special 
emphasis on political culture. The romantic looking hill 
community of Reguengos de Monsaraz became a ghost 
town where nobody lives anymore and where people 
come to work to serve the tourists who come there to 
buy souvenirs, eat, or even spend a night in a hotel there. 
I was discouraged by this drastic change and finally 
decided to study a community that had not been studied 
before. 

187 



a through re-study of Sassenheim near Leiden 
after fifty years could prove rewarding. 

Europe's northern and eastern regions were 
less studied holistically with the help of the 
community study method. The monographic 
study of workers ofNizhnyi Tagil carried out 
by a group of Soviet researchers in the 1960s 
(Krupianskaya 1968) could be a challenge for 
those modem Russian anthropologists who 
would attempt are-study. 

Conclusion 

While urging early 21 st_century 
anthropologists to give priority to make a new 
and concerted thrust towards community re­
studies, I at the same time argue strongly for 
the decisive role of "native" researchers in 
this proposed new wave. The new re-studies 
should symbolize the repossession of the 
terrain by home ethnographers. Surely, 
foreign researchers could and should be 
involved in these re-studies as well, but I 
would contend that they should not dominate 
and especially should not impose their 
viewpoints as the only correct ones. The re­
studies will create conditions for time-depth 
comparisons. Thus the often-repeated 
accusation of presentism in anthropological 
community studies would be removed. 

Similarly, the thickening network of 
community studies and re-studies within 
Europe and elsewhere in the world should 
create conditions that would increase the 
representativeness ofthese studies. However, 
even if this does not satisfy the critics of 
community studies and if the methodology 
used by various researchers would not be 
unified and enhancing comparison, the very 
fact of rich detailed studies of social fields 
limited in size should make these studies an 
indispensable source of knowledge for all 
who want to know how people live or lived in 
face-to-face groups and what were their 
relations to the wider world beyond the 
intimate circle of community. 

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