The ethnographic research into death rituals and food practices in the Polish-Belarusian borderland shows that the symbolic boundaries between the Catholic and Orthodox believers are dynamic and situational. The religious identity of the residents is shaped by social relations and norms more than by the institutional frames of both churches.
The book is based on long-term ethnographic research in the Polish-Belarusian borderland. It examines the dynamics of symbolic boundaries between the Catholic and Orthodox believers in their everyday lives. By analyzing the space of local cemeteries, rituals, and attitudes related to death, eating practices, and food sharing, the author points to the changing sense of ethnic identity and the feeling of familiarity and otherness. Confessionally mixed neighborhoods and families enable different forms of religious bivalency and become a crucial factor in bridging and crossing ethnic boundaries. Socio-cultural norms and social relations shape the ethnic identity of the borderland's residents more than the institutional frames of both churches.
multicultural borderland - cultural and religious diversity - ethnic identity - Poland - Belarus - Orthodox and Catholic religiousness - peasant culture - funeral rituals - dead remembering - peasant cemeteries - food practices and sharing - religiously mixed families and neighborhood - village communities
Justyna Straczuk is a professor of sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences and the author and co-author of four books and several articles on borderland issues, sociology of food and anthropology of emotions. She has conducted ethnographic research in Belarus, Lithuania and Poland for over twenty-five years.
