Search

Copyright of Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnography of the Serbian Academy of Sciences & Arts / Glasnik Etnografskog Instituta SANU is the property of Institute of Ethnography, SASA and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper we present the results of preliminary research into children’s birthday celebrations in public green spaces in Belgrade during the second decade of the 21st century. This period is characterized by the widespread practice of celebrating children’s birthdays in commercial children’s playrooms. Birthday celebrations “in nature” were very rare in comparison. Thus we decided to focus on birthday celebrations held in public green spaces. This social practice is analyzed in the context of utilizing urban public space, public greens for organizing private events with the intent to consider the reasons for its appearance at a time when children’s birthdays were becoming part of the processes of the institutionalization and commercialization of childhood. The analysis is based on empirical material gathered through informal conversations with parents who organized birthday parties “in the open”, “in nature”. Children’s birthday parties we attended were organized at the Sava quay, in Košutnjak and at Ada Ciganlija. The fieldwork was conducted periodically from 2014 to 2018, and entailed the application of classical fieldwork methods in ethnology and anthropology (participant observation and interviews with the participants of the events).

The paper presents the results of our research on the social and cultural practices of celebrating children’s birthdays in Belgrade, the capital of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Children’s birthday parties are examined as a social construct with functions which are developed and modified according to their social and cultural significance. The research on this cultural and social phenomenon is based on the analysis and interpretation of the narratives (empirical material) of our interlocutors. The chronological frame extends from 1945 until 1991, i.e. over the period of the socialist social system. Since the majority of our interlocutors spoke about the way birthday parties were celebrated in the 70s and the 80s, i.e. at the time of their childhood, the research is focused on that period of time. In Yugoslav and Serbian socialist society this was a social and cultural practice with multiple functions: it served as a substitute for the religious customs related to childbirth and the baptizing of children; it homogenized the family and kinship structure; it was a channel for exteriorizing parental affection towards the children; side by side with the transformation into the consumerist society it became the instrument for creating and consolidating the complex net of social relationships which informed the broader social environment about the level of financial and social power of the organizers.

Copyright of Issues in Ethnology Anthropology is the property of Issues in Ethnology Anthropology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Children's birthday parties, and related consumption, form an integral part of the social process of mothering in contemporary consumer culture. From the choosing of the 'right' present to the arrangement of the 'appropriate' party theme, an enormous pressure is exerted upon mothers to maintain social equilibrium through the circulation of their children and gifts amongst and across households. Ethnographic research in Britain suggests that the economic growth of children's party provision and services is coupled with a popular discourse that laments the loss of 'authentic' kinship-based birthday parties and home-made provisioning. In contrast to this spoken discourse, this article reveals how women in fact avidly embrace market goods and services; as a means of generating a culture of sameness that avoids the risks (to the motherhood as a collective, localised phenomenon) of exceptional or overtly accomplished mothering. Commercialised, mass produced goods and birthday services are used as a means of limiting expressive gift relations and hospitality. In this sense, the search for sameness, through the cultural practice of making children's parties, is at once liberating and potentially oppressive in its strive for the normative and its inadvertent exclusion of 'other' care-givers. Furthermore, children and their related material culture are consumed, through the birthday party circuit, as a means of generating specific types of mothering.Festas de aniversário infantil, e o consumo ligado a elas, formam uma parte integral do processo social da criação dos filhos na cultura de consumo contemporânea. Da escolha do presente "certo" à preparação do tema "apropriado" para a festa, uma grande pressão é exercida sobre as mães para manter um equilíbrio através da circulação de suas crianças e seus presentes entre e além das famílias. Uma pesquisa etnográfica na Grã-Bretanha sugere que o crescimento econômico dos preparativos e serviços para festas infantis está ligado a um discurso popular que lamenta a perda da festa de aniversário "autêntica", baseada na relação familiar e nos preparativos feitos em casa. Em contraste a este discurso falado, este artigo revela como as mulheres, na verdade, adotam com avidez produtos e serviços do mercado, como uma forma de gerar uma cultura da mesmice que evita os riscos (à maternidade, como um fenômeno coletivo e localizado) de uma criação dos filhos incomum ou declaradamente realizada. Os produtos e serviços para aniversários comercializados e produzidos em massa são usados como um meio de limitar as relações expressivas de presentes e hospitalidade. Neste sentido, a busca pela mesmice, através da prática cultural de fazer festas infantis, é ao mesmo tempo libertadora e potencialmente opressiva em seu esforço pela exclusão normativa e inadvertida de "outros" cuidadores. Além disso, as crianças, e a cultura material relacionada a elas, são consumidas através do circuito de festas de aniversário, como um meio de gerar tipos específicos de criação dos filhos.