The article presents a suggestion for a new approach towards ritual, one of the key anthropological concepts. Generations of anthropologists have used the term to describe and interpret cultural practices related to different types of liminality and transgression (social relations, religious beliefs, theatrical practices, etc.) in a rigid meaning limited to describing a formalized scenario of symbolic behavior, sanctioned with ancient beliefs and values cherished by a given community. This case makes room for similar symbolic practices, thinned down and scattered among the whole cultural reality (e.g. in fashion, politics, ways of spending free time, etc.), which serve the same purpose, but are deprived of formalized scenarios and boundaries of tradition. Because of all this, a new term – rituality – needs to be used to better convey the essence of the numerous modern-day rituals. This advance in terminology helps to interpret and understand several cultural practices, and to create new terms, necessary for describing the fast-changing modern cultural landscape. Accepting a broad meaning of rituality requires an interdisciplinary approach, in which classic anthropological theories by Malinowski, Redcliff-Brown or Geertz are equally important as Goffman’s symbolic interactionism, Austin’s speech acts philosophy, Rothenbuhler’s social communication, or Csikszentmihalyi’s emotional flow psychology.

In recent years, interest in the cultural heritage of the Carpathian region has intensified. Projects from different countries offer new solutions that may contribute to the revival of this particular sphere of cultural heritage in Central and Eastern Europe. These projects are carried out by local communities and institutions (museums). Tangible and intangible cultural heritage of minorities has become a focus of increasingly strong identity narratives referring to old and new ideas and ideologies. These narratives often bring back former conflicts existing in local communities, thus becoming the symbols of these conflicts on the one hand, and on the other hand – allowing for new solutions in line with modern culture trends.
Objective: The following article presents the preliminary results of the pilot study conducted in 2015 on the minority cultural heritage and heritage management in the Carpathians. The goal of the study was to explore cultural codes and contemporary narratives related to the cultural heritage of minorities as well as to investigate the reception of the management of UNESCO sites present in the minds and notions of local communities and in institutional management. In addition, the study focused on traditional arts and crafts in the context of local entrepreneurship and on the strategies of minority heritage presentation in Carpathian museums.
Methodology: The article uses qualitative methods of scientific research applied from the emic (from within the group) and etic (from outside the group) perspectives. The following research techniques were used: standardized and free interviews, explicit and implicit participatory observation, analysis of legal and archival documents, storytelling, and visual material analysis.
Conclusions: The study showed, that there are more and more discussions on the minority cultural heritage in the Carpathians, which focus on the hidden agenda of UNESCO list entries, including on the reasonableness and related commercialization of such entries as well as on the consequences they have for local communities. The preliminary pilot study revealed, that it is necessary to explore the local community in depth as part of an interdisciplinary grant, which could help develop modern heritage management based on the local and cross-cultural perspective.

The intention of this article amounts to articulate one of the major dilemmas of modern science, and therefore this also applies to the humanities – specialization and integration. Pointing to the limitations of specialization knowledge of humanistic type, which inevitably leads to the trivialization of knowledge of man as a social being by defining culture, the author presents the main benefits flowing from the application of the sciences of culture perspectives integrated. Thus, such that, on the one hand enable the production of comprehensive knowledge about man, on the other hand contribute to bridging the differences between institutional singled teachings of the culture, allowing humanists cooperation and communication.

The presented sketch is only to be a concise message about the condition of ethnographic mate­rials, that have undeservedly remained beyond the academic circulation for at least a dozen years. The object of the author’s interest is a part of Professor Leszek Dzięgiel’s photographic heritage not included in the inventory and stored in the Archives of the JU Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology – the part documenting the research expeditions to the Middle East organised in the years 1977–1980 by the University of Agriculture in Krakow. The author’s intention is to pose a question about the potential value of the resource on the basis of the preliminary examination of its content. Professor Dzięgiel’s publications and publicly available selection of his private correspondence constitute the source basis that supports its description. This synthetic and reorganising survey should be treated particularly as an invitation to a professional verification, completion and integration of information on the fragments of dispersed heritage of the recognised researcher of the Kurdish culture.

This paper presents selected discourses on pilgrimage which shaped both historical approaches and contemporary anthropological research. The relatively modest presence of studies on pilgrimages in the “traditional” anthropological domain is discussed and leads on to a discussion of Polish pilgrimage, research during the 19th and first half of the 20th century. This discourse is analyzed as an example of a national perspective. I then consider the central anthropological debate concerning pilgrimage which was mainly shaped by the Turnerian communitas paradigm (1978) and Eade and Sallnow’s contestation discourse (1991). Examples of more recent studies are presented with their emphasis on pilgrimage as a polymorphic and polyphonic phenomenon. The concepts of multivocality and relativity of space as well as a focus on the kinetic aspect of pilgrimage are significant topics in contemporary anthropological studies. These cross-cutting itineraries of anthropological thinking and pilgrims’ practices are depicted within the framework of the changing perspectives in studies on pilgrimage. These perspectives have significantly turned away from understanding a “pilgrimage” as an ideal and definable concept towards revealing the complexity and plurality of “pilgrimages” as well as focusing on “pilgrimaging”.