Writing ethnography from local to regional and backward (revisiting): Practices commemorating the dead through dancing in Romanian Banat villages

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The observation of the custom of dedicating a dance to the dead (joc/ora/hora de pomană) was the focus of the Sub-Study Group on Field Research Theory and Methods fieldwork experience at Easter 2013 in Svinița (Serbian: Svinica), southwest Romania. This paper discusses how the authors’ narrative of this event was influenced by post fieldwork contextualisation that revealed that this practice is known by a broader range of names and terminologies in an area that covers both sides of the Danube. It concludes that this fieldwork experience showed the benefit of cross border team work, and has resulted in the development of new avenues connected to the authors’ previous research.

Mellish, Liz; Green, Nick (2015). “Writing ethnography from local to regional and backward (revisiting) : Practices commemorating the dead through dancing in Romanian Banat villages.” Elsie Ivancich Dunin (editor), Dance, narratives, heritage: 28th symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Ethochoreology, 7–17 July 2014, Korčula Croatia: pages 9–14. Zagreb, Croatia: Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research; ICTM Study Group on Ethnochoreology. ISBN 978–953–6020–98–0.