Ethnological Culture Research on Slovenian EthnicTerritory

Our program comprises ethnological research throughout the Slovene ethnic territory, history of Slovene ethnology, visual ethnology, ethnological theory and methodology, and central document collection. Research work is centered in the following sections: teh section for material culture (economy, architecture, food culture, clothing culture), the section for social culture (yearly and life cycle customs, masks and masquerading, work customs, family and kinship relations, neighborhood, inter-settlement and interethnic relations), and the section for spiritual culture ( narrative and folk literature,beliefs, mythology, toponymics). The Audiovisual Laboratory conducts filming and visual research projects as well as summer visual workshops. Our most imminent team project is the completion of the Slovene Ethnological Lexicon (see ed. A. Baš) which involves most Slovene ethnologists. Valuable research material from the field is kept at our central document collection. Work is being done on multimedia presentations of Slovene cultural heritage. Our library contains basic Slovene literature as well as comparative studies from other European nations.The so-called young research fellows, who participate in our research projects, prepare their M.A. and Ph. D. theses. We have established contacts with numerous domestic and foreign research institutions, university departments, museums, and individuals. We publish two yearly publications, Traditiones (a collection of scientific papers), and Studia mythologica Slavica which is a joint publication of our institute and the Udine University from Italy.