To Touch, to Hear, to Feel. Can Ethnography Dissolve the Narrations of Fear?

• Published in: Etnološka tribina Vol. 52; no. 45; pp. 39 - 80
• Main Authors: Jambrešić Kirin, Renata, Borland, Katherine, Jansen, Stef, Marković, Jelena, Lončar, Sanja
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hrvatsko etnološko društvo 2022; Croatian Ethnological Society
• Subjects: Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology; Environmental interactions; Human Ecology; Political Ecology; Sociology; ethnography of disaster; ethnography of senses; narrative democracy; narratives of ruination and revitalization; the Banija earthquake; natural vs social catastrophes
• ISSN: 0351-1944; 1848-9540
• DOI: 10.15378/1848-9540.2022.45.01

This paper deals with the social, cognitive, and affective consequences caused by the devastating earthquake that hit the Banija region on December 29, 2020. The natural disaster is understood not only as a catastrophe but as a kind of catharsis that has exposed layers of political negligence, difficult pasts, and deep connections to the environment. The author interprets (mediatized and face-to-face) personal narratives of natural disaster, ruination and regeneration, solidarity, and mutual understanding as the basis of making new affective communities and triggering processes that resolve national (and nationalistic) narratives and contribute to community empowerment. The paper’s methodological framework embraces participatory ethnography, the theory of folk narratives (Bausinger 2018 [1958]; Borland 2021; Bošković-Stulli 1984; Ranke 2018 [1967]; Rudan 2020, Shuman 2005), the ethnography of the senses (Bendix 2000, 2005), and the “deep implicancy” knowledge of reflecting what makes the “human inseparable from all matter” (da Silva and Neuman 2018). The author concludes that villagers co–habiting with nature (but also depending on it) make sense of their unique experiences of disaster, comparing it with other humans’ suffering and organizing a narrative frame that “makes the allegorical personal, the cosmological local” (Shuman 2005).