Anthropology of Space and Sense of Place: Peculiarities of an Academic Discipline and the Research Intrinsics

Interinstitutional Methodological seminar was jointly organized by the Department of Social Anthropology of the Institute of Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences and the Center for Urban History.

The speaker was Maryna Hrymych, Doctor of History, professor, coordinator of the research projects at the Research Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the Ministry for Education and Research of Ukraine. Moderated by Natalia Otrishchenko, a Candidate of Sociology, a researcher at the Center for Urban History, coordinator of the project "Urban Stories."

In her lecture, prof. M.Hrymych focused on the space which is one of the main subjects of ethnological, historical, and ethnographic research. As a new subject area, the anthropology of space and place relies upon experience of these humanities and tries to avoid selectiveness in the choice of study subjects. In addition, it takes an inventory of the space through the interrelation of natural and anthropogenic factors while not avoiding the topic of comfortable and ugly space, etc. Anthropologists of space and place consider "immovables" through the prism of human practices and determine models for interaction between a human being and a space, paying special attention to individual and collective manifestations of the sense of place and the place attachment. Major focus is also laid by scientists on the study of commercialization and glamorization of the space, its modification in individual or collective memory, expressed particularly in amateur history, in literature and in folklore (the so called imaginary space).

The Methodological seminar also included a workshop by the speaker where she presented the methodological "intrinsics" and her own research tools in the context of autoethnographic research: "A Pedestrian and a Driver in the Big City. Case Study: Kyiv – Edmonton – Beirut."

Workshop Participants: PhDs, research fellows of the Research Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the Ministry for Education of Ukraine Tina Polek, Olena Soboleva, and Oksana Ovsiyuk.

The event also had a presentation of the collection of academic and popular research works "Anthropology of Space. V. 1: Cultural Landscape of Kyiv and the Area."