Migration and culture: concepts and precepts

The course objective is to activate a student's wider insight into a complex link between migrations and culture, and a critical distance towards a selected problem field. Relying on fundamental social and humanistic insights and knowledge, the course aims to open up a specific perspective; on one hand, the migrational perspective into the field of theoretical dicussions on culture, and on the other hand, the cultural perspective into the field of migrational studies. A special emphasis will be given to diverse case studies – to their methodology as well as their thematical diversity.

Students considering the Migration and culture: concepts and precepts course are expected to have gained appropriate knowledge in the fields of humanities and social sciences, with an emphasis on cultural and social theories related to sociological, anthropological, historical and cultural themes. Students are expected to have a good and active command of English.

The link between migration and culture presupposes many life stories which inherently contain an enormous number of issues. For example, the story about the space-shuttle kranjska klobasa (a well-known, traditionally made sausage from Kranj, a place in Slovenia), which was taken to space by an astronaut lady of Slovene origin, poses not only the question about the ethical and national identity of the story's object and subject, about peace, lack of peace, pride and enthusiasm, material culture and the media, but it also forces upon us some essential migration and cultural issues: what it is that is in this story truly migrational? What is in the story truly cultural? It is such cultural-migrational dispersed stories and issues (with those more essential as well as those less ambitious) that this course will concerned. The course aims to show to which extent migration is a cultural phenomenon and conversely, to which extent culture is a migrational phenomenon. In revealing these issues, a number of theoretical, conceptual and terminological difficulties contained in the culture – migration link will be encountered (for example, transculturalism, multiculturalism, global culture, transmigrations, ethnicity, nationality, transnationality, diaspora issues, and others).

Students will acquire the type of knowledge succinctly presented in the paragraph on objectives and competences; the knowledge will be expressed and tested through students' active participation, such as oral presentation, written reflections, and written examination. The newly acquired knowledge will enable students to have a critical reflection on fundamental cultural-migrational notions, concepts and theories. A special emphasis will be given to epistemological horizons and a critical approach to methodological issues.

• Papastergiadis, Nikos (2000). The turbulence of migration. Globalization, deterrirization and hybridity. Cambridge, Polity press. Catalogue
• Vojnović, Goran (2008):Čefurji raus!.Beletrina, Ljubljana. Catalogue
• Mlekuž, Jernej (2011): Burek.si!? Koncepti / recepti. Studia Humanitatis, Ljubljana. Catalogue
• Mlekuž, Jernej (2011): ABC migracij. Založba ZRC, Ljubljana.

• final written examination (up to 5000 words) = 70% of the final grade, - active participation in the studying process = 30% of the final grade.

Jernej Mlekuž has had (not always by his fault) a few issues with his disciplinary identity throughout his career. That is why you’ll find him dressed differently: sometimes as an ethnologist, geographer, anthropologist, culturologist, historian or even hydrologist... He tends to associate migration research with the more banal aspects of life such as food and drink (e.g. burek, Carniolan sausage, slivovitz) or news printing! Of course, he is interested in several other things. In addition to (and about this), he lectures at the ERUDIO School of Sustainable Tourism, is part of the editorship of Migracije, and is the former editor of Dve Domovini / Two Homelands, as well as is the chair of the Research Committee at the Slovenian Migration Institute. Most of all, he enjoys river rapids.

His research focus is on migration theory and methodology, cultural aspects of migration processes, material culture, epistemology, epiphenomena and water levels and gauges.

Selected publications

Slivovitz and Everyday Nationalism: The Analysis of Slovene Newspapers in Interwar Yugoslavia. Nationalities Papers, 2023: 1-16. doi:10.1017/nps.2023.20, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/nationalities-papers/article/slivovitz-and-everyday-nationalism-the-analysis-of-slovene-newspapers-in-interwar-yugoslavia/4BE15C2A0FD0A785118D0BE13EA2D9D1
Kalorien und Nationalstolz. Oder wie die Krainer Wurst zur Entstehung der slowenischen Nation beitrug. Wien: LIT Verlag, 2022. https://www.lit-verlag.de/isbn/978-3-643-91226-8
ABCČĆ migracij. Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, 2021. https://isim.zrc-sazu.si/en/publikacije/abccc-migracij#v
The renaissance of sausage: the role of Kranjska sausage in the contemporary process of reconstructing the Slovenian nation. Nations and nationalism, 2020, 26/2: 407–423 (selected as exceptional scientific achievements by Slovenian Research Agency). doi: 10.1111/nana.12572, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/nana.12572
The sausage that awakened a nation: the Carniolan sausage in the Slovenian national imagination, 1849–1918. Rethinking history, 2020, 24/3–4: 503–522. doi: 10.1080/13642529.2020.1831352, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13642529.2020.1831352?needAccess=true
Pijača z zaslugami za narod: slivovka in banalni nacionalizem v izbranem časopisju socialistične Jugoslavije. Traditiones, 2020, 49/3: 115-134. doi: 10.3986/Traditio2020490306, https://ojs.zrc-sazu.si/traditiones/article/view/9432/8537
I feel Kranjska klobasa: Kako je kranjska kobasica podignula slovensku naciju. Zagreb: Srednja Evropa, 2018 (Murko award 2018 by Slovene Ethnological Society for outstanding achievement in ethnology in the previous year). https://srednja-europa.hr/proizvod/i-feel-kranjska-kobasica/
Kranjsko klobasanje: Slovenska zgodovina, kot jo pišejo packe kranjske klobase na časopisnem papirju. Ljubljana: Beletrina, 2017 (awarded by Gourmand International as the best book in the category Culinary History, 2018). https://beletrina.si/knjiga/kranjsko-klobasanje
»We asked for workers. We got bureks instead.« The Meanings and Significance of the Burek in Slovenia. Ethnologia Europaea 2017, 47/2: 72–86. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346319176_WE_ASKED_FOR_WORKERS_WE_GOT_BUREKS_INSTEAD_Meanings_and_Material_Significance_of_the_Burek_in_Slovenia
When the grease runs through the paper: On the consumption of ultragreasy bureks. Food, power, and agency (eds. Jürgen Martschukat, Bryant Simon). London: Bloomsbury, 2017, 169–190. https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/food-power-and-agency/ch8-when-the-grease-runs-through-the-paper-on-the-consumption-of-ultragreasy-bureks
Bosanci, čefurji, čapci and other burekalised creatures: Images of immigrants and their descendants in Slovenian media and popular culture. Citizens at heart? Perspectives on integration of refugees in the EU after the Yugoslav wars of succession (eds. Li Bennich-Björkman et al. ). Uppsala: Uppsala University. 2016, 69–85. http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:987355/FULLTEXT01.pdf
Burek: A culinary metaphor. Budapest; New York: Central European University Press, 2015 (translated in Slovenian, Serbian and Albanian, awarded by Gourmand International as the best book in the category Culinary History Best food writing, 2016). https://www.ceu.edu/article/2015-09-22/burek-culinary-metaphor