T R A D I T I O N E S 53 | 2 | 2 0 24 Traditiones 53 | 2 | 2024 ISSN 0352-0447 (tisk / print) | ISSN 1855-6396 (splet / online) TRADITIONES Zbornik Inštituta za slovensko narodopisje in Glasbenonarodopisnega inštituta Znanstvenoraziskovalnega centra Slovenske akademije znanosti in umetnosti / Journal of the Institute of Slovenian Ethnology and Institute of Ethnomusicology at the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts Glavni in odgovorni urednik / Editor-in-Chief Miha Kozorog Glavni urednici / Chief Editors Tatiana Bajuk Senčar, Rebeka Kunej Gostujoča urednika / Guest Editors Dan Podjed, Lana Peternel Uredniški odbor / Editorial Board Saša Babič, Barbara Ivančič Kutin, Mojca Kovačič, Drago Kunej, Rok Mrvič, Marjeta Pisk, Dan Podjed Mednarodni uredniški svet / International Editorial Council Regina Bendix (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen), Tatiana Bužeková (Univerzita Komenského), Jurij Fikfak (ZRC SAZU), Valentina Gulin Zrnić (Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku), Lojze Lebič (SAZU), Helena Ložar – Podlogar (ZRC SAZU), Maria Małanicz-Przybylska (Uniwersytet Warszawski), Susana Sardo (Universidade de Aveiro), Ingrid Slavec Gradišnik (ZRC SAZU), Jaro Stacul (Memorial University of Newfoundland), Marija Stanonik (SAZU), Kendra Stepputat (Kunstuniversität Graz), Maruška Svašek (Queen’s University Belfast), David Verbuč (Univerzita Karlova) Naslov uredništva / Editorial Address Traditiones, ZRC SAZU, Novi trg 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenija Spletna stran / Website: http://ojs.zrc-sazu.si/traditiones Založnika / Publishers Založba ZRC in / and Slovenska akademija znanosti in umetnosti / Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts Letna naročnina / Annual Subscription Za posameznike 30 €, za ustanove 90 €, za študente 15 €; posamična številka: za posameznike 15 €, za ustanove 40 €. Revija izhaja letno v treh zvezkih. / 30 € for individuals, 90 € for institutions, 15 € for students; Single issue: 15 € for individuals, 40 € for institutions. The journal is published yearly in three issues. Naročila / Orders Založba ZRC, Novi trg 2, SI–1001 Ljubljana, Slovenija, e-pošta / e-mail: narocanje@zrc-sazu.si Tisk / Printed by CICERO, Begunje, d. o. o. Naklada / Print Run 400 Copyright 2024 avtorji Revija Traditiones je vključena v naslednje podatkovne zbirke / The Journal Traditiones is included in the following databases: Anthropological Index Online; ERIH – European Reference Index for the Humanities; FRANCIS – Institut de l’information scientifique et techniques (CNRS); IBZ – International Bibliography of Periodical Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences); MLA International Bibliography; Ulrich’s International Periodical Directory; Scopus. Revija izhaja s pomočjo Javne agencije za znanstvenoraziskovalno in inovacijsko dejavnost Republike Slovenije. / The Journal is published with the support of the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency. Traditiones 53 | 2 | 2024 Traditiones • Letnik / Volume 53 • Številka / Number 2 • 2024 Vsebina / Contents OBRAZI IZOLACIJE THE FACES OF ISOLATION Gostujoča urednika / Guest Editors: Dan Podjed, Lana Peternel 7 Dan Podjed, Lana Peternel The Power of Isolation (Moč izolacije) 19 Špela Ledinek Lozej Isolation and Connectedness in the Bohinj Alps: Experiences of a Majerca (Izolacija in povezljivost v bohinjskih planinah: izkušnje majerce) 37 Nikolina Hazdovac Bajić Floating Homes: Homemaking Practices among Seafarers as Strategies against Isolation (Plavajoči domovi: prakse ustvarjanja doma med pomorščaki kot protiizolacijske strategije) 63 Peter Simonič The Island of Žirje: Challenging Claims of Isolation (Otok Žirje: spodbijanje trditev o izolaciji) 93 Ana Perinić Lewis Connected by Sea, Isolated by Water: Water and Water Supply Infrastructure on Two Croatian Islands (Povezani z vodo, izolirani zaradi vode: voda in oskrba z vodo na dveh hrvaških otokih) 121 Katarina Polajnar Horvat Revitalizing Robidišče: Navigating the Challenges and Opportunities of Marginalized Rural Communities (Revitalizacija Robidišča: premagovanje izzivov in priložnosti obrobnih podeželskih skupnosti) 145 Maruška Svašek Lockdown Friend (Lockdown Friend) OBRAZI IZOLACIJE THE FACES OF ISOLATION The Power of Isolation Dan Podjed ZRC SAZU, Institute of Slovenian Ethnology, Slovenia dan.podjed@zrc-sazu.si ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1914-6053 Lana Peternel Institute for Social Research, Croatia lanapeternel@idi.hr ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7749-3075 This article investigates isolation as a complex physical and symbolic phenomenon. The studies presented in the article and in this special issue explore how isolation impacts identities, social cohesion, and community life – especially in times of ongoing and interconnected crises. The authors examine the multifaceted nature of isolation that in- forms daily practices, emotional wellbeing, and community bonds, offering insights into the challenges and resilience seen in isolated communities. ⬝ Keywords: isolation, crisis, ethnography, community, individual, resilience V članku je predstavljena kompleksnost izolacije kot fizičnega in simbolnega pojava. Povzeta so spoznanja večletnih raziskav, ki so objavljena v zvezku te revije. Raziskovalci so preučevali vpliv izolacije na identitete, družbeno kohezijo in življenje v skupnosti, še posebej v času stalnih in prepletenih kriz, ter razkrili večplastnost izolacije, ki vpliva na vsakdanje prakse, čustveno počutje in vezi v skupnostih ter ponuja vpogled v izzive in odpornost izoliranih skupnosti. ⬝ Ključne besede: izolacija, kriza, etnografija, skupnost, posameznik, odpornost Introduction “You can’t believe it!” This was often the exclamation that rang out when anthro- pologists arrived at one of the remote places where people had created a life out of nothing in complete isolation. Amazement, whether in a positive or negative sense, was almost always the first reaction during the fieldwork, where we focused on the concept of isolation in its actual and physical meaning as well as in its symbolic and cultural sense, and endeavored to explore isolation as a multi-layered and changing phenom- enon. Etymologically, the adjective ‘isolated’ means “standing detached from others of its kind” (OED, 2024). In the 18th century, the word was transferred into English from French isolé, from Italian isolato, and from Latin insulatus (made into an island), and insula (island). However, the contemporary definitions and studies of the term, presented in this article and used to explain the diversity of isolation, encompass new aspects and dimensions, including ethical, aesthetic, and political, which underline the need for a more precise theoretical framework, presented in this text and other articles of the special issue of Traditones. Traditiones 53 (2): 7–17 | COBISS: 1.03 | CC BY 4.0 | DOI: 10.3986/Traditio2024530201 Dan Podjed, Lana Peternel 8 | Traditiones During the three years of ethnographic research, our focus was on isolation and understanding this specific condition as a transformative force of cultural and social change. While carrying out the research, we became more and more convinced that while the ethnological and anthropological literature offers a rich understanding of the term, this concept of isolation has several new meanings and analytical potential in the current era of post-pandemics. Therefore, the project team initially sought to redefine the problem of isolation by focusing on the personal experiences, values and everyday lives of people experiencing isolation beyond the global crisis, and through time it got several new insights and perspectives, which are presented in this issue. What has happened during our research that shifted our perspective? The pandemic that swept the world in 2020 and significantly transformed people’s everyday lives was an important impetus for our research. From a distance of just a few years, that time, which could also be called the meantime or in-between time (Podjed, 2023), seems rather enigmatic, especially from an ethnological and anthropological point of view. In a period when the rule to “stay home” or “keep a social distance” was often in force, and when people avoided contact with each other, new habits, such as greeting friends and acquaintances with a fist bump and a show of hands from a distance, wearing a protective mask, and opening the door with the elbow instead of by hand, were quickly and unexpectedly internalized (see, for example, Podjed, 2020). At that time, we did not seek isolation then, it found us instead. But 2020 also marked the beginning of a “polycrisis” (Henig, Knight, 2023), a “permacrisis” (Collins, 2024), a “catacrisis” (Klepec, 2024) or a “permanent crisis”, i.e., a period in which crisis is no longer an emergency but a regular state of the world and society. After the official cancellation of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022, the media spot- light shifted first to Ukraine, where the war is still raging, and then to another global hotspot, Gaza, where tens of thousands of people have died in a massacre. In Croatia, where the project’s field research commenced in early 2023, a natural disaster had taken place at the end of 2020. A devastating earthquake in the Banija region destroyed tens of thousands of homes, opening old wounds of the war from the nineties, leaving again displaced individuals to seek shelter in temporary container housing and camps (Peternel, Podjed, 2024). In Slovenia, devastation of similar proportions occurred in August 2023, when a storm hit a large part of the country, and floods and landslides caused economic damage that some estimate at almost €10 billion, with social and psychosocial consequences that are certain to last for years or decades to come. During two years of research in remote and devastated areas, we reveal isolation as a central metaphor for a society in a crisis. This starting point resonates deeply with diverse subthemes we grasped in the research project Isolated People and Communities in Slovenia and Croatia granted by the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency and the Croatian Science Foundation. The researches in the project address the real-life experiences of people living in both physical and social isolation, whether in remote The Power of Isolation Traditiones | 9 rural areas or on the fringes of urban centers. In them, the research team has put attention on two dimensions of isolation: the one that stems from geographical remoteness and the decline of communities, and the other that emerges within modern, overcrowded lifestyles, where individuals yearn for a break and withdrawal from daily obligations. However, the project has not only investigated physical isolation but also delved into the cultural, emotional, and social dimensions of the phenomenon, aiming to better understand the challenges faced by isolated communities in Slovenia and Croatia. In short: it has explored how the experiences of isolation shape personal and collective identities and how they influence the sense of belonging and social cohesion in times of ongoing crises. Isolation as a fundamental concept Constant crises have resulted in increased isolation, alienation, and loneliness of the people we visited in the field. At the same time, we have had the opportunity to learn about the other “faces” of isolation, which have always been an important, but apparently somewhat forgotten dimensions of this concept in anthropological and ethnological research. In fact, the term ‘isolation’ actually demarcated and defined the birth of anthropology (Bille et al., 2010; Kottak, 2017). From the beginning of the discipline, the cultural patterns of isolated communities have been analyzed to better understand the social and cultural practices of non-isolated communities (Manners, 1965; Geertz, 1983; Kociatkiewicz, Kostera, 1999; Eriksen, 2001; Horst, Miller, 2006; Dawdy, 2010; Argenti, 2019). From kinship, social structures, economic practices, and mythology to digital communication or social networks, isolated communities and individuals reflected globalization processes (Baldacchino, 2006, 2008; Gössling, Wall, 2007; Royle, 2007; Argenti, 2019; Ma, 2020). Anthropological interpretations determine people’s responses to isolation in empty urban and rural spaces, charac- terized either by the negative experience of loneliness and insularity or by positive inspiration and creative engagement (Sassen, 2005; Carsten, 2007; Kozorog, 2013; Petrović et al., 2020). In addition to isolation, there are some basic concepts that we use in this issue. One is insularity, which defines separation from other communities (Simonič, 2017). The other is emptiness, which often describes depopulated urban and rural areas cre- ated by political, economic, and social changes that significantly alter population and spatial structures (Woolfson, 2010; Dzenovska, 2018, 2020). These terms and others connected to isolation – for example, loneliness, solitude, etc. – are often ambiguous. In some contexts, isolation negatively impacts demographic and spatial changes that are increasingly evident in social and cultural practices in the current global environmental and health crises. On the other hand, in times of digitalization and hyper-consumption, Dan Podjed, Lana Peternel 10 | Traditiones people have often experienced information overload and, more than in the past, have begun to search for a meaningful life in isolated spaces in order to find solitude as a positive “face” of isolation, identify new values and find better prospects for themselves. From an anthropological perspective, emptiness is often defined as desolation or lack of life and activity in space (Munn, 1996). Moreover, it is also a rich source of meanings associated with physical isolation and a distinct sense of withdrawal (Dzenovska, 2011; Driessen, 2018; Dzenovska, De Genova, 2018; Gupta, 2018). Therefore, the next step of our research – beyond the state-of-the-art – is to examine the notions within and between isolated communities in different cultural, historical, and socio-political contexts, and to ask what advantages and disadvantages isolation has or has historically had. Anthropological research on isolation presented in this issue of Traditiones shows that understanding isolated people and communities requires a detailed ethnographic approach that re-examines everyday practices, values, and notions of time, place, and identity – as well as people’s own biases and experiences (Burawoy, Verdery, 1999; Kottak, 2017; Drazin, 2018; Dzenovska, De Genova, 2018). Social science studies have confirmed that isolation is related to mental health, poverty, inequality, marginalization, and shame due to failure to meet personal expectations (Leavey et al., 2007; Tilki et al., 2009). From this perspective, isolation is not about emptiness and seclusion. Rather, it is related to individual perceptions of belonging and passage of time (see Phillip- son et al., 2001; Askham et al., 2007). Drawing on our research into various forms and processes of isolation, from degrading to healing strategies in everyday life, we discuss that isolation represents a significant social challenge. This challenge carries negative implications for the physical, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of daily life, affecting individuals and communities alike, whether in remote mountainous areas or on the outskirts of bustling cities. For us, as anthropologists immersed in this project, isolation manifests in both abandonment and overcrowding, in moments of yearning for rest or inner peace, as well as in the need for understanding and daily connection. On a deeper existential level, crises are not solely tied to external political, demographic, or economic factors; they are also shaped by one’s internal experience of the world and their own sense of place within it. Regardless of whether one is surrounded by the silence of the mountains or the chaos of urban life, the sense of isolation remains omnipresent amid the overwhelming crises of our time. Additionally, isolation takes on a temporal dimension as well, both as a result of recent natural disasters – earthquakes, fires, and floods, which we, unfortunately, witness all too frequently – and as the long- term consequence of wars and the suffering of people in conflict zones. Studies presented in this issue have confirmed that types of isolation differ at in- terpersonal and community levels. However, according to the criteria of non-isolated people, a prosperous life in isolation requires much more sacrifice than in other parts of Slovenia or Croatia. For example, a successful private entrepreneurship in isolated, The Power of Isolation Traditiones | 11 depopulated areas requires an uneven distribution of individual investment and social and political care (Thrift, 2000; Petrović et al., 2020). Various studies also show that economic prosperity in isolation occurs because of extraordinary sacrifice of comforts and conveniences (Howes, 1991; Caruth, 1996; Navaro-Yasin, 2009). In the former socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the emptiness and potential revitalization of isolated spaces are often misunderstood and represented by extreme examples and stereotypes. A positive stereotypical example is a successful individual, usually a better educated man, whose entrepreneurial initiative became a common case of a successful revitalization strategy. At the same time, a negative stereotypical story presents an elderly woman living alone in an empty village or in a remote place in Alpine area. Both presented stereotypes consequently demonstrate feminization and senilization of isolated and rural areas due to the migration patterns (Dzenovska, 2020; Dugački et al., 2021). The range of different interpretations of isola- tion or revitalization is constructed as an exclusively individual choice or a transitional phenomenon where there is no capacity for change, with a lack of focus on the respon- sibility of political elites in the transition period from socialism to capitalism (Kallis, 2011; Castells, 2017). Therefore, to better understand what it means to be isolated, it is crucial to locate and compare the different experiences of individual isolation and develop a new anthropological approach to analysis. Theory of isolation in practice It is this approach, i.e., the presentation of diverse experiences of isolation, that is the focus of this issue of Traditiones, in which the Croatian and Slovenian authors interweave their experiences from different situations and places where they went for field research. The article by Špela Ledinek Lozej (2024), which opens the collection of scientific articles, presents experiences of isolation, solitude, and loneliness in the Alps. Based on the life story and experiences of the woman at the center of the research, it reveals the connectedness of people in geographically isolated mountains. It chal- lenges assumptions about isolation and loneliness and offers a fresh understanding of remoteness. The author emphasizes that perceptions of isolation are usually contextual and relational, and not simply a consequence of remoteness. The same is true for per- ceptions of loneliness, which are not necessarily related to the number of connections, but to the quality of relationships and the dynamics of social inclusion and exclusion in the local community. The article thus indirectly draws attention to a theme that is relevant in the contemporary world, namely the feeling of loneliness in crowded cities that are interconnected by digital links. Despite their remoteness, those who are alone can also be content in their solitude because of the quality of the relationships they establish and maintain. Dan Podjed, Lana Peternel 12 | Traditiones In the following article, Nikolina Hazdovac Bajić (2024) discusses the way of life of seafarers in their “floating homes.” In her analysis, she presents the multilayered practices of home construction, which are expressed through the use and production of artefacts, the preservation of traditions and rituals, the creation of memories, and the representation of homeland. The author also points out that isolation on board of a ship has multiple dimensions, as seafarers are not only isolated from the wider society and distanced from their communities and families; they are also isolated from each other, which is why they seek connection and companionship in many things, even in the little man a seafarer scratched out on the galley floor to keep him company. So he was, at least ostensibly, back in the company of society, even if he was hanging out with a non-existent “friend.” Peter Simonič (2024) also remains in the marine environment, analyzing the rem- nants of the different economic and political systems on the Croatian island of Žirje and describing the changes in the local community from the 16th century to the present day. He concludes his research with a surprising claim that breaks the established and stereotyped notion of isolated islands and their authentic cultures. As Simonič explains, island life and identity are in fact the result of socio-historical processes and constant “negotiations” with the world, but they are by no means an authentic and self-rein- venting social capsule trapped in the middle of the sea. The concept of insularity must therefore be re-evaluated and placed in a local and global context, because only then can it be fully understood. Ana Perinić Lewis (2024) continues Simonič’s starting point on insularity and presents an ethnographic study of the unbuilt water infrastructure on two Croatian islands. She compares Žirje and the eastern part of the island of Hvar in an attempt to shed light on the changing experiences of development in isolated communities. As she explains, the two islands are examples of different forms of isolation, marginalization, and confinement that have persisted throughout history, and are now perpetuated or even reinforced by non-existent or neglected water supply infrastructure. The lack of water as a basic infrastructure, a resource and a fundamental human right, which in Slovenia – unlike Croatia – is even enshrined in the country’s constitution, leaves people at the mercy of various forms of local and state assistance, often making them feel like second-class citizens. As a result of unfulfilled promises and unrealized development plans and strategies, they become paradigmatic examples of “isolates” who become extremely isolated in an otherwise isolated situation. Their isolation is therefore exponential. The set of scientific articles is concluded by Katarina Polajnar Horvat (2024), who presents the multifaceted nature of isolation in the westernmost Slovenian village of Robidišče. Her analysis perhaps most concretely highlights the ambiguity of the concept under discussion, which can be expressed in the form of both positive solitude and negative loneliness, as it presents both the opportunities and the problems that isolation The Power of Isolation Traditiones | 13 brings. The key problems highlighted by the author include economic opportunities, inadequate infrastructure, and cultural diversity. At the same time, isolation also brings important benefits such as peace, close connection to nature, and the development of strong interpersonal relationships that strengthen communities. It is these positive as- pects, which many people miss in urban environments, that are the basis for sustainable development and the revitalization of remote and isolated villages. Conclusion After reading the articles published in this issue of Traditiones, we believe that the initial exclamation of “you can’t believe it” we would hear when arriving in isolated places, lonely villages, deserted areas, and remote islands will sound a little different. Perhaps it will now sound more like the cry that rang out in the former Yugoslavia as it constantly prepared for every possible crisis, from natural disasters to air raids from East and West: “Nothing should surprise us.” That is the essence of isolation: each of its manifestations is unique, but it is certainly a concept that cannot be given only a positive or a negative connotation. In some contexts, isolation negatively affects demographic and spatial changes, becoming ever more profound and visible in social and cultural practices in the current global environment and health crises. On the other hand, people that have experienced information overload in the time of digitalization and hyper-consumption have started to search for a meaningful life in isolated spaces more than ever to identify new values and find better prospects for themselves. To understand and learn about isolation, it is necessary to “be there,” with other people (about the ethnographer’s dilemma of “to be, or not to be there” see Podjed, Muršič, 2021). The ambivalence of isolation cannot be known, understood in all its complexity, only from a distance and through a screen. And this is precisely what Maruška Svašek (2024), whose poem we publish at the end of this issue, has perfectly articulated. In it she writes as follows: “I want you here but / all I can / is draw some lines and scratch the waves / so blue, so whole, one moment.” And these fleeting moments, which can scatter like waves when they crash on the shore, can be captured above all – and sometimes only – by ethnography. We can conclude the thought by the quote from Blade Runner movie, which came out in 1982, in which Roy Batty, a replicant or artificial human, one of the last of his kind, said in one of the concluding scenes: “All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain…” Indeed, all those moments will be lost without us being there, experiencing firsthand the power of isolation. Dan Podjed, Lana Peternel 14 | Traditiones Acknowledgements This article is a result of the research project Isolated People and Communities in Slo- venia and Croatia. Dan Podjed acknowledges the support of the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency (J6–4610, P6–0088). Lana Peternel acknowledges the support of the Croatian Science Foundation (ISOLATION, IPS-2022-02-3741). References Argenti, Nicolas. 2019. Remembering Absence: The Sense of Life in Island Greece. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvfc54vt. Askham, Janet, Dieter Ferring, and Giovanni Lamura. 2007. 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Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 18 (2): 213–255. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1068/d214t. The Power of Isolation Traditiones | 17 Tilki, Mary, Louise Ryan, Alessio D’Angelo, and Rosemary Sales. 2009. The Forgotten Irish. London: Social Policy Research Centre. Woolfson, Charles. 2010. ‘Hard Times’ in Lithuania: Crisis and ‘Discourses of Discontent’ in Postcommunist Society. Ethnography 11 (4): 487–514. DOI: https://doi. org/10.1177/1466138110372586. Moč izolacije Antropološke raziskave o izolaciji, predstavljene v članku in tudi v tem zvezku Traditiones, opozarjajo, da je za razumevanje izoliranih ljudi in skupnosti še vedno izjemno pomemben etnografski pristop, s katerim spoznamo vsakdanje prakse, vrednote in pojmovanje časa, kraja in identitete, hkrati pa analiziramo lastne predsodke in izkušnje drugih ljudi. Na podlagi raziskav o različnih oblikah in procesih izolacije avtorja prispevka razpravljata, zakaj je izolacija pomemben družbeni izziv. Kakor ugotavljata, ima lahko tako negativne kot tudi pozitivne posledice za fizične, čustvene in duhovne razsežnosti vsakdanjika ter vpliva na posameznike in skupnosti, in to tako v odročnih krajih kot tudi v urbanih središčih. Pomembno je še, da se vrste izolacije bistveno razlikujejo tako na intimni in medosebni ravni kot tudi na ravni skupnosti. In prav to je po mnenju avtorjev smisel preučevanja izolacije: vsaka od njenih manifestacij je enkratna, hkrati pa njenim pojavnim oblikam pogosto ni mogoče pripisati zgolj pozitivne ali negativne konotacije. V nekaterih kontekstih nedvomno negativno vpliva na demografske in prostorske spremembe, ki v globalnem okolju in trajnih ter prepletenih krizah postajajo globlje in očitnejše v družbenih in kulturnih praksah. Po drugi strani pa se ljudje v času digitalizacije in hiperporabništva vse pogosteje počutijo preobremenjeni in začenjajo bolj kot v preteklosti iskati zatočišče na izoliranih lokacijah, da bi tam v miru poiskali nove vrednote ter sebi in bližnjim zagotovili boljše in predvsem bolj umirjeno življenje. Isolation and Connectedness in the Bohinj Alps: Experiences of a Majerca Špela Ledinek Lozej ZRC SAZU, Institute of Slovenian Ethnology, Slovenia spela.ledinek@zrc-sazu.si ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0632-1414 This article explores the experiences of iso- lation, solitude, and loneliness in the Bohinj mountain pastures or alps. Based on the life story and experiences of a long-term shepherd- ess (Sln. majerca), it reveals the connectedness of people in geographically isolated alps. The analysis, drawing on long-term ethnographic research, challenges the presupposed assump- tions of loneliness and solitude, proposing a relational understanding of remoteness. ⬝ Keywords: isolation, loneliness, solitude, alps, Bohinj region V članku so podane izkušnje izolacije, samote in osamljenosti v bohinjskih planinah (Julijske Alpe, Slovenija). Na podlagi življenjske zgodbe in izkušenj dolgoletne majerce se razkriva povezanost ljudi v geografsko izoliranih planinah. Ugotovitve spodbijajo domneve o osamljenosti in samoti ter ponujajo relacijsko razumevanje odročnosti. Članek temelji na dolgoletni etnografiji, ki je vključevala opa- zovanje z udeležbo, pogovore in intervjuje. ⬝ Ključne besede: izolacija, osamljenost, samota, planine, Bohinj Cilka1 shares with me her uncertainty about returning to the lower moun- tain pasture. She has eye problems. Or maybe she will go, but probably without cattle. “They need to start caring for the cattle themselves,” she says. Last summer, when I visited her and her sister in the lower alp2 at 1 After a joint review of the Slovenian version of the manuscript, Cilka Mlakar decided that anonymization was not necessary, and so her personal name as well as the geographical names of locations are used in the text. 2 For pieces of land in the mountains consisting of (individual or collective) pastures, hut(s), stall(s), and sometimes even a dairy, which were occupied by animals, herders, and ultimately a dairyman in the summer months (and the lower ones also during spring and autumn), Slovenian uses the term planina. A considerable variety of terms are used in other Alpine languages and dialects, with Roderick Peattie (1936: 129) citing more than fifty expressions, but there is no fixed and standard equivalent in English. Some authors use the English expression mountain pasture or Alpine pasture or, sometimes, also (vertical) transhumance to refer to the activity. In his interdisciplinary and international bibliography Alpine Pasture Farming in the Alps (2021), Werner Bätzing used the phrase alpine pasture farming for the activity; however, his interest was broader. To remain concentrated on the piece of land I decided to use the expression alp, which is less usual in this context. The American geographer Roderick Peattie defined an alp in this sense (i.e., as a unit of a farm in the mountains) as early as 1936 in the chapter ‘What Is an Alp?’ in his Mountain Geography: “Alps are, in the language of those who live amongst them, the grassy slopes above the tree line, the grassy areas in hanging valleys, the pastures on the mountain spurs, and the steppe vegetation of plateaus and about the peaks. The alp is, therefore, not a peak but a mountain pasture. […] The term alp is perhaps the most universally used. Some American physiographers have selected the term alb for use. The writer sees little reason to use other than the widely accepted alm or alp” (1936: 125, 129). Following the example of some other anthropologists (e.g., Netting, 1981; Viazzo, 1989), I decided to translate the Slovenian word planina as alp. Hence, in this article the expression alp, lowercase, is used in this sense—that is, as a mountain pasture composed of buildings, people, animals, and activities; when capitalized (e.g., the Julian Alps), it refers to a mountain range. The etymological explanations of the name Alps, Europe’s highest mountain range, vary; according to one etymology, the entire range was named after the alps in the sense of these pastures. Traditiones 53 (2): 19–36 | COBISS: 1.01 | CC BY 4.0 | DOI: 10.3986/Traditio2024530202 Špela Ledinek Lozej 20 | Traditiones Zajamniki, they were summering for the first time without dairy cows, tending only suckler cows, non-milking cows, and calves. She seems to be afraid; afraid of losing her strength, of no longer being able “to pick up the slack around the house,”3 as she so vividly put it on various occasions; and probably also afraid of not having those summer months of solitude, when she is responsible only for herself and for the livestock. It seems that she is less alone in the alps than during the rest of the year, when she lives with her sister-in-law and nephews or with her siblings.4 (Field notes, March 15th, 2024) Introduction This article deals with the concepts of isolation, solitude, and loneliness from the per- spective of a majerca (plural: majerce). This is a local term for a woman that resides in an alp during the summer months and takes care of the animals.5 It discusses isolated people and communities in Slovenia within the pre- and post-pandemic context of the experiences, perceptions, and understandings of a majerca from the Bohinj region in Slovenia’s Julian Alps, who spent her summers in isolated and remote mountain pastures. Until the mid-twentieth century—and in fragments and modifications sometimes even up to the present—the Bohinj region, like other parts of the Julian Alps and the Alps in general, largely depended on alpine pasture husbandry.6 It was based on the cyclic migration of people and their livestock between permanent winter settlements in the valley and temporary summer settlements in the alpine and subalpine zones. Two or more spatially separated sites of agricultural production developed: arable farming and haymaking in the valleys, and mountain pasturing in the highlands—that is, in (high or low) alps (Sln. planine) with shelters for animals, people, and milk processing.7 3 What is meant by house (Sln. hiša) in this context is not only a house as a physical structure, but especially a household and/or a homestead. 4 Translations of the interviews were made by the author with the aid of AI tools (DeepL Translate and InstaText) and then copyedited. 5 The term majerca for a woman and majer (pl. majerji) for a man in the sense of ‘keeper of cattle in an alp’ originates from German Maier, which comes from Latin maior domus ‘steward of a manor house’. The term was used in German and the local Bohinj dialect in the sense of a ‘steward or keeper of a mountain pasture’ (Cevc, 1992b). For detailed explanations of the roles and responsibilities of a majerca (and a majer), who takes care of the cattle of one or more breeders and helps the cheesemaker in turns, and of the shepherds and cheesemakers in the Bohinj alps, see Novak (2024: 140–174). There are differences between the exact scope of activities of a majer(ca) in other local dialects; for the Solčava region, see, for example Vršnik (2022). Today, the roles of a majer(ca), shepherd, and cheesemaker often overlap due to the decline in and transformation of alpine farming, as is also evident from Cilka’s biography. 6 It is also known as the alpine agro-pastoral system or alpine pasture farming (Bätzing, 2021: 124). 7 Such agricultural production had many advantages, the most evident being able to supply up to one- third of the farm’s fodder (Kirchengast, 2008), thus making the best possible use of different elevations Isolation and Connectedness in the Bohinj Alps: Experiences of a Majerca Traditiones | 21 There were fifty-four alps in the Bohinj region in the first half of the twentieth century (Novak, 2024: 44), and they formed a vital part of animal husbandry and everyday life. The importance of alps did not change immediately after the postwar8 nationalization of land, but only after a general decline in agriculture in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and especially after organized collective dairying stopped being practiced due to the concentration of cooperative dairying in the industrial plant in the valley,9 and probably also due to a lack of sufficient labor force.10 After that, some alps were abandoned and others began transforming into communities of vacation cottages, with vacationers gradually outnumbering those that earned their living in an alp.11 The transformation of entire alps into these vacation communities depended on their accessibility by car. It was not until the 1970s, when forest roads were built for forestry purposes, that the lower alps were connected to the valley by roads. In contrast, the high alps remained accessible only by unpaved tracks or on foot12 until the 1990s and were characterized by their geographical isolation. What does it mean to summer in a remote and isolated place, inaccessible to traffic, from spring to fall? To depend on yourself and be on your own for more than three months? With poor connections to the rest of the world? And at the same time being responsible for forty head of cattle and the seasonal cheese production for the entire village? And then, as in Cilka’s case, having only underaged children to help drive and herd cattle to the daily pastures and to process milk, the eldest being just fourteen years old? How did Cilka experience these cyclical seclusions and isolation, and how did she cope with loneliness and solitude? Various studies indicate that the personal perception of solitude and loneliness varies greatly depending on their cultural meaning and an individual’s background and socialization. Solitude is often a positive, self-sufficient experience, which offers benefits such as freedom, creativity, intimacy, and spirituality (Long, Averill, 2003), whereas loneliness is usually seen as a negative state, a feeling of physical and/or social isolation, with their various growing seasons (Bätzing, 2021; Ledinek Lozej, 2022). In the Bohinj region, cattle were usually driven to the lower mountains at the end of May or in June – and to the high mountains in June, by Midsummer Eve (June 24th) at the latest. Unlike the lower mountains, the high mountains had no meadows and no private land, only collective pastures. In the autumn the cattle returned to the lower mountains in stages (Novak, 2024). 8 Referring to the Second World War. 9 The industrial dairy in Srednja Vas started processing milk from the entire Bohinj region in 1971. That was also the last year of organized collective dairying in the Bohinj alps (Novak, 2024: 189). 10 Due to industrialization, people preferred to look for paid work in nearby factories. In addition, industri- alization and the decline in agriculture coincided with other social changes, such as fewer extended families and children, from among whom majerce and majerji could be recruited. 11 The decrease in agricultural activity was the result of the political and economic policy in force under the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Čepič, 2005). For the Bohinj alps, see the data gathered by Dušan Jović (2016). 12 In these cases, all transport to and from the alps was on foot, with cheese and hay being transported on sleds (Novak, 2024: 73–90). Špela Ledinek Lozej 22 | Traditiones with potentially (negative) psychological and physiological effects. The former is often viewed as a state of being alone without being lonely, as a voluntary condition in which an individual seeks to spend time alone, as beneficial, and a way of achieving personal growth, self-reflection, or spiritual deepening: it is an opportunity for introspection, imagination, and contemplation with yourself. In contrast, loneliness is characterized by a feeling of isolation, nostalgia, sadness, and even depression resulting from being alone; it is an involuntary and negative state in which a person longs for human con- tact but is unable to find it. “If disconnection from others is solitude, loneliness is a disconnection within a desire for connection” (HadžiMuhamedović, 2021 [2018]: 104). The same temporal, spatial, and cultural context can be perceived as loneliness or solitude in terms of feelings and emotional implications. However, as pointed out by Safet HadžiMuhamedović in his poetic book Waiting for Elijah (2021 [2018]: 104), if there were to be an anthropology of solitude and loneliness, it would have to be an anthropology of communication. We would have to dive into the worlds of connections, longed for or rejected. We would have to look into what people are struggling to regain or discard. We would have to trace the spatial and the temporal qualities of solitude and lone- liness and the techniques of coping with them. Even when to be alone is a matter of choice, it is one predicated on the condition of relationships. Of course, the lines between voluntary and involuntary solitude, much like those of displacement, are blurry. The different hermeneutics—the one used in my research proposal13 and the one evident from Cilka’s perceptions and understandings of loneliness—became immedi- ately apparent. When I started to interview her about her experiences of isolation and loneliness, and asked her how she felt about being alone, she explained how it had happened in her life that she had remained alone (i.e., single): “I wasn’t at home, and time passes before you find a good partner. It was the kind of work and the kind of company I had, I wouldn’t have had a partner there. But then time passes, and when you’re that old, you see how good it is to be alone, on your own.”14 Cilka understood the question about how she felt about being alone (Sln. sama) as how she felt about being single (Sln. samska). This initial misunderstanding expanded the original focus on isolation, solitude, and loneliness in mountain pastures and cyclical temporalities to a diachronic perspective, also embracing her experiences of being alone, 13 In the research proposal for the project Isolated People and Communities in Slovenia and Croatia, loneli- ness was defined as the result of geographical isolation, remoteness, or the COVID-19 pandemic (see Podjed 2023, 2024). 14 Various interviews were carried out with Cilka Mlakar. All the interviews were conducted by the author, except for one in 2018 that was conducted together with Saša Roškar. Isolation and Connectedness in the Bohinj Alps: Experiences of a Majerca Traditiones | 23 her feelings of loneliness and solitude at various stages of life, and her perceptions of isolation and remoteness in various contexts and social situations. “Ethnographers begin with a set of questions, revise them throughout the course of inquiry, and at the end emerge with different questions than they started with” (Rosaldo, 1989: 7). This research is based on numerous conversations with Cilka and long-term eth- nographic observations in the high alp at Krstenica and the lower alp at Zajamniki, where she has been summering since 1969: participant observation during the entire 1998 summer season in the Krstenica alp and further targeted or sporadic revisits to both alps.15 The long-term observation and biographical method (Ramšak, 2000; Rogelja, 2014) were combined with the findings from the other alps as well as from the considerable amount of literature on Bohinj mountain pastures.16 These diachronic and synchronic extensions made it possible to outline a sense of loneliness, solitude, isolation, and connectivity, or draw a situational17 “anthropological silhouette” (Zeitlyn, 2008) composed of Cilka’s life story and sporadic zooming out. The detail is used to paint the general picture; the small scales—the intimate, the local, the vernacular, and the idiosyncratic—are given as a substance on which synthesis and abstractions might be built. Or not, because we, ethnographically informed researchers and writers, “are not only critical observers of collective meanings; we are participants in their creation and perpetuation” (HadžiMuhamedović, 2021 [2018]: 38). Over fifty summers in the alps Cilka was born in 1935 and has spent more than fifty summers looking after cattle in the Krstenica and Zajamniki alps in the heart of the Julian Alps. From the end of June (the Saturday around June 29th, or the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul) to the beginning of September (the Sunday after September 8th, or the Nativity of Mary), she tended the animals of various owners on the communal high alp of Krstenica. Before (from mid-May to the end of June) and after the peak summer season in the Krstenica alp, 15 I revisited the alps in 1999, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2023, and 2024. The last two visits, conducted as part of the project Isolated People and Communities in Slovenia and Croatia, included observations and a narrative interview focused on Cilka’s experiences of loneliness and solitude. All materials are held by the author and some are accessible in the Audiovisual Laboratory Archive and the documentation of the Institute of Slovenian Ethnology at ZRC SAZU. 16 There is a considerable amount of ethnological literature on the former alpine pasture economy in the Bohinj region (e.g., Novak, 1955, 1969, 1987, 1989, 2024; Cevc, 1984, 1992a, 1992b), as well as on current issues, strategies, and perspectives (Ledinek Lozej, 2002, 2013; Repič, 2014; Ledinek Lozej, Roškar, 2018a, 2018b), its heritagization (Habinc, 2013), and tourism (Bajuk Senčar, 2005). However, alpine pastures and alps have not yet been considered from the perspective of isolation and remoteness, such as, for example, the Trenta Valley (Simonič, 2017) and the Natisone Valley (Kozorog, 2013, 2014) have been. 17 “The source of light, the positions of observer and the observed, and the reflecting surfaces all change the way a silhouette is perceived” (HadžiMuhamedović, 2021 [2018]: x). Špela Ledinek Lozej 24 | Traditiones Cilka herded cattle in the lower alp at Zajamniki. In contrast to the high alp, she took care of fewer cattle there or, over the past two decades, exclusively “her own cattle.”18 How did it happen that Cilka spent so many summers in the alps? And how did she come to take this work in the late 1960s, after she had already moved from the village of Bohinjska Češnjica to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia? How did it happen that among all the opportunities that came her way, from working in a factory to a hospital, she chose to spend summers tending the cattle and combine this with other jobs and occupations for the rest of the year? For example, she has performed various forms of care work, such as looking after children, caring for the elderly, doing housework for her brothers, or working on the family farm. Her answer to these inquiries is simple and straightforward: “Don’t know, that’s just how it happened.” Cilka was already involved in livestock farming and other agricultural activities as a child because it was common for children to help with the various farm chores from an early age.19 From 1946 onward, she was in the Krstenica alp helping her older sister: “As a child of eleven, thirteen, I spent a lot of time here with my sister. And I learned everything … It was normal that you went [to help and work], you accepted the work and did it, it didn’t even occur to you not to do it, you had to be there.” During the first decades after the Second World War, despite the political changes and the nationalization of land, the management of the alps remained more or less the same as under previous regimes: livestock owners had to provide the herdsmen, usually a member of the extended family or hired workers, who took care of the livestock and alternately helped the professional cheesemaker provided by the cooperative (Ledinek Lozej, 2002; Novak, 2024). Cilka has fond memories of this part of her life because, as she says, she “was simply there” with her sister and was well received by the other majerce. This was not always the case. Some of them also had bad memories of their childhood in the alps, either because they were homesick and missed their families and peers, or because they were teased and tricked into doing more work by older majerce. As Anka Novak (2024: 150) documented, not all of them were able to cope with the hard work and life in the alps. In her early twenties, Cilka found work elsewhere, first as a housewife in Bled, and then she had various jobs in Ljubljana. She said: “I just had to get away from home.” Her favorite job was as a nurse. She still regrets that she could not stay at the hospital because her mother fell ill and she had to return home. Her older sister married, and the other sisters had other jobs and commitments or were in school, and so she, as the 18 “Her” meaning the cattle of her family farm and close relatives. For more on the rotation of people and livestock between the valley and the low and high mountain pastures in the Bohinj region, see Novak (2024). 19 Children played an important role not only in the Bohinj region, but also in other Alpine regions until the 1960s and, in some places, even up to the 1970s. In the Bohinj region, some children became independent shepherds as early as age twelve or fourteen (Novak, 1989, 2024). For more on child labor, see Turk Niskač (2021). Isolation and Connectedness in the Bohinj Alps: Experiences of a Majerca Traditiones | 25 youngest, was forced to return home at the peak of farming activities. “It was just taken for granted; you just had to do it.” Instead of taking on the housework at the farm, she went to the alp, where she replaced her sister. After a few years of taking turns with her sister, it was just taken for granted both by her and the rest of the family that she would take over the work in the alp during summer. To be able to spend the whole summer in the alp, she also changed her job and worked as a nanny and housewife for the rest of the year. This made it easier for her to combine summer work in the alp with a more flexible winter job; eventually she could even take the children she looked after with her to the alp. Because she had to look after small children, the place had to be acces- sible by car. As a result, she spent her first five seasons in the lower alp at Zajamniki, which—unlike the Krstenica alp, which remained inaccessible to motorized vehicles until the early 1990s20—could already be accessed by car in the 1970s. She was there with her brother-in-law, who had his own animals. But they actually looked after the animals together and made cheese together: “We did that together. We each had our own cows; I had ours, he had his and maybe a few others [from other owners]. We each milked our own cows. That hundred-liter cauldron was always full of milk, we did that [made cheese] together, and ate together, too. Actually, we did everything together.”21 The Zajamniki alp was not only easily accessible by car for cattle owners and herd- ers but also for tourists and vacation cottage owners, who were slowly transforming the seasonal agricultural settlement into a vacation community. The overcrowding of visitors and vacationers starting in the late 1970s and, at the same time, the fear of losing the collective cheese dairy in the Krstenica alp,22 prompted the return to the high alp for the peak summer season. First, it was her brother-in-law that returned, but Cilka soon joined him because he was getting old and could no longer be alone. Initially, they only looked after the cattle owned by their families and some relatives, the same as in the Zajamniki alp. Over time, other local cattle owners, who recognized the value of grazing rights, mountain pastures, and dairying, also began to bring their cattle to the alp and asked Cilka to take them over. The circle of owners interested in getting their cattle to the alp gradually expanded to include other farmers that were once members of the grazing association and held a share of the grazing rights. Those paid her a small fee for grazing their cattle, which was subsidized by the state and the EEC, later EU agricultural policy. In addition, they were required to provide Cilka with 20 In the early 1990s, a makeshift road was built that can be used by off-road vehicles, tractors, motorcycles, and, more recently, quad bikes. At the same time, the alp was connected to phone lines, and since 1998 people have been able to use cell phones there. Previously, the only connection with the rest of the world was on foot; it took at least an hour’s walk to get to the lower mountain pasture, which could be reached by car (Ledinek Lozej, 1999, 2002). 21 Majerce and majeri helped each other with the grazing and milking if necessary, but they always cooked for themselves, each on their own hearth (Novak, 2024). The fact that Cilka and her brother-in-law cooked and ate together indicates that they shared the housekeeping and management of activities in the alp. 22 As it happened in the neighboring Jezero mountain pasture. Špela Ledinek Lozej 26 | Traditiones a week’s food supply. At the end of the season, the owners received dairy products in proportion to the milk yield of their cows or the monetary equivalent. Despite the hard work and great responsibility due to the large number of cattle to be taken care of23 and the enormous quantity of milk to be processed into cheese, ricotta, and butter, she has always enjoyed going to the alp. As she expressively put it: “I was on my own there.” Being on her own in the alp and a cheese maker and a shepherdess in one person was not an easy task. She was able to manage all the chores because her nephews and great-nephews—and later also children from all over the Upper Bohinj Valley and else- where—helped her. “Well, after he [her brother-in-law] passed away, I was left alone. But I couldn’t do anything without the assistants, without the children. I must admit that I couldn’t have done anything alone.” During the last weeks of the alpine pasture season in September, when the older children were already in school, she remained only with the preschool children. However, as she said, “it worked out.” Through her engagement with children, she raised many of them: she taught them how to milk, handle the cattle, process the milk, and perform other work in the alp. The children gradually proved to be excellent helpers in milking, driving the cattle, churning curd, making butter, and so on. Occasionally, the children of friends, acquaintances, and others from across the Bohinj region came to help. Sometimes, there were fifteen of them, between two and twenty-two years old. The older ones cared for the younger ones and trained them in various skills and tasks. As they grew up, the younger ones took over the tasks. Over the years, some of them became independent in various areas of work. Cilka explained that having children in the alp was a big responsibility, but at the same time it was easier to work with children than with adults. This is because she knew that the children would obey when necessary: “The children have their tasks, they help when they have to, and then they have free time. And we get on well together.” At the end of the twentieth century, many alps became the scene of older or unemployed marginalized individuals, but the Krstenica alp was full of young people (Ledinek Lozej, Roškar, 2018a, 2018b). In addition to the children that helped Cilka, there was always a large inflow of people, especially on the weekends, ranging from the cattle owners that brought the weekly supply of food and checked their cows and heifers, the owners and tenants of the huts that had been converted into vacation cottages, and the parents of the children that helped Cilka to a large number of mountaineers and visitors. Hence, despite the remoteness and supposed geographical isolation, Cilka was never alone in the alp. Due to the high level of responsibility, the volume of work, and the many people coming to the alp, she sometimes even missed the solitude and could hardly wait for the cattle to be taken away at the end of the season. “There was so much to do!” So, after the 23 The number varied, but there were usually around thirty milking cows and around twenty non-milking cows (heifers and calves). Isolation and Connectedness in the Bohinj Alps: Experiences of a Majerca Traditiones | 27 end of the grazing season in the high alp, when the owners took away the cattle, she stayed an extra week each year to tidy everything up, pick lingonberries, and be by herself for a while before going to the lower alp at Zajamniki. In the lower alp, where she only had “her own” cattle, there were other duties: in the spring, for example, the cattle had to be kept in the communal pasture, away from the private meadows intended for mowing; in the fall, on the other hand, the cows were allowed to graze all around, but when the days become shorter and winter approach- es, they head down into the valley, especially in bad weather. She often had to go to the lower meadows, more than an hour’s walk away, or to the neighboring mountain pastures to drive them back. In addition, she still had to process a hundred liters of milk into cheese every day. Cilka usually stayed at Zajamniki until well into the fall, when the cattle ate all the hay cut in the mountain meadows and stored in the haylofts above the stables. After that, the cattle were driven into the stables of the farm in the valley, but Cilka remained in the alp for a few more weeks without the cattle, resting, reading, and enjoying her solitude. Cilka: After the cows went home, I was here for another month or two … That means that the cows went home sometime in October. [I was here until] November, December, and once it even snowed already … the first snowfall lasted so long that a firm crust didn’t form so that some- one would’ve been able to come [up from the valley]. I had gas, books, and enough to eat. And the radio. I was never bored. After the fuss, the tensions, the children, and getting everything in order … I needed a vacation, some peace and quiet, and to be alone! Not alone, because they came [to bring her what she needed], I was lucky to be here. I had wood to burn, I lay around and read ... Author: So that means you actually enjoyed this solitude? Cilka: Yes, I did. I needed it. Sometimes, I really extended it a bit too much [laughter] But as long as my mother was still alive, she made sure I had everything, that I wasn’t alone, and that they brought me food. Author: So, you weren’t lonely, just alone? Cilka: Yes, alone. You need it. Mentally you have to detach yourself from it. Then [after returning from the alp to the valley] there was a different life ... And she went on about her work for the rest of the year. When she stopped working as a nanny and housekeeper for a family with two children because they were already grown up, she either looked after older relatives and friends, kept house for her brother, who was a priest among the Slovenian emigrants in Germany, or helped her sister-in-law run the farm. The last was necessary after her brother’s death, who inherited the family farm. She was always, as she says expressively, “picking up the slack around the house.” Špela Ledinek Lozej 28 | Traditiones In 2016, she retired from managing the Krstenica alp, and since then she has only taken care of her family farm’s cattle in the Zajamniki alp. When I visited her that year, she seemed somewhat ambivalent about her retirement. On the one hand, she was happy to be relieved of all the work and responsibility and, above all, that her niece, whom she raised herself, was taking over the management of the alp. On the other hand, after more than forty seasons, she could still have a place in the alp as a, so to speak, honorary majerca. When I revisited her and her sister in 2023 at Zajamniki, they were summering there without dairy cattle for the first time in over half a century, herding only suckler cows, non-milking cows, and calves. She said it was fine and about time, and she seemed satisfied with the situation. “I’m just with our cows and resting, and I don’t have to make cheese anymore this year. You know how much work that takes all morning, plus milking!” In the spring of 2024, after over fifty grazing seasons spent in the alps, she seemed afraid of the coming summer and told me about her uncertainty about whether she should return to the Zajamniki alp and look after the animals. She said it was time for her family to find another solution for the cattle. However, at the same time it seemed she would also like to spend another summer in the lower alp with her sister. I visited the Zajamniki alp again during the summer that year. After a long period of seasonal vivacity, laughter, and occasional arguments between the two sisters, evening masses on the radio, and the sounds of cow bells, mooing, and the electric power generator, the Mlakar cottage and stall were lonely. When I visited her at the end of the summer, which Cilka spent with her sister, taking care of and housekeeping for her retired broth- ers, she said it was best like this: “I can do this [housekeeping for her siblings] easily!” Figure 1: Milking in the Krstenica alp. Photo: Špela Ledinek Lozej, 1998. Isolation and Connectedness in the Bohinj Alps: Experiences of a Majerca Traditiones | 29 “Being on your own” versus “picking up the slack around the house” Two phrases were repeated several times in our conversations. The first one, to pick up the slack, referred to Cilka’s role in the household, when necessary, and the second, to be on your own, referred to her longing. Their intensity becomes even clearer consid- ering that Cilka has actually survived into the twenty-first century as a representative of a dying social group of unmarried aunts and uncles that were part of the extended or stem family. They were an important part of the family farm economy until the second half of the twentieth century. “I was expected to do everything around the house, … pick up all the slack … and I just figured it out.” Cilka is aware of the importance of these single members of society for the farms, households, and families: “A priest once said: ‘My goodness, how much good single people can do and married people cannot!’ … Even though I don’t have a family [of my own], I’ve never been bored.” However, it seems that this was not her initial choice because she wanted “to be on her own,” to emancipate herself. So she went to Ljubljana, found a steady job, and gradually bought an apartment. Nevertheless, in her later decisions, she prioritized the needs of the family farm, which was first run by her father, then by her brother and, after his death, by her nephew. Although she managed to build up a wide range of relationships, her family remained the decisive authority in structuring her social life and when it came to making decisions.24 She mentioned several times in our conversation that her family “would not let her”—the same family that made her not feel alone by bringing her food and making sure that she had everything after the end of the pasture season. As in other mountain regions, here, too, “winter required a well-organized household and a community to get through your hard times” (HadžiMuhamedović, 2021 [2018]: 86). You were expected to be loyal to the family because outside the family there was emptiness and loneliness. Referring to the various ideologies that structure social life in Alpine communities, as described by John Cole and Eric Wolf in The Hidden Frontier (1999 [1974]), Cilka’s disposition is closer to an “exclusive lineage of homesteaders,” which the authors attributed to the German-speaking village of St. Felix in South Tyrol, than to an “open and interlaced network of relations,” attributed to the Italian-speaking village of Trent (Cole, Wolf, 1999 [1974]: 245). The aforementioned “lineage of home- steaders”25 is linked to the assumed predominance of a stem family household structure in Alpine society (see Burns, 1963). This assumption was questioned by Robert Netting (1981) and Pier Paolo Viazzo (1989, 2014). In the book Balancing on an Alp, based on the ethnography of the Alpine village of Törbel in Valais (Switzerland), Netting (1981: 220) emphasizes that the “household extension was frequent, but apparently the 24 The importance of family and household was also mentioned for the Trenta community (Simonič, 2017: 170). 25 This lineage also resonates in the work by Robert Minnich (1998), dealing with the homesteaders in the Canale Valley. Špela Ledinek Lozej 30 | Traditiones result of a duty and necessity, rather than preference” (Netting, 1981: 220). This duty and necessity to support the economic structure of the family farm is evident from Cilka’s decision and expressed in the metaphor of “picking up the slack around the house.” Cilka’s biography reveals that, despite the geographical isolation, she was par- adoxically less socially isolated in the alps than in other places and at other times (e.g., in the village, with her brother in Germany, or in the apartment in Ljubljana during winter). This could be a site-specific rejection of the representations of upland communities and highlanders as isolated, marginal, inward-looking, and immobile.26 Her summers in the Krstenica alp with its grassroots management model were indeed quite different from the assumption of isolated and closed collaborative communities. This was instead an open collaborative community composed of several more or less experienced helpers of various age, cattle owners bringing food and other necessities from the valley and carrying back cheese and ricotta, grazing-rights holders, long-term hut renters, all kinds of occasional visitors, tourists, and potential buyers of Cilka’s dairy products, and Cilka at the heart of this complex of relationships. Furthermore, she had an important and responsible role beyond her family farm because she also tended the livestock of farmers from the entire Upper Bohinj Valley. Her availability and dedication proved to be crucial in facilitating the continuity of grazing and milk processing in the communal high alp in the 1980s and 1990s, when there was a ma- jor decline in alpine pasture farming in the Bohinj region (Novak, 2024). Due to her availability and zeal, the cattle owners managed to reorganize themselves; first in an unofficial form and, after denationalization, in the form of a restituted agrarian commu- nities. Her inclusion of children as helpers also had a profound influence on the younger generation: by combining childcare with herding, milking, and dairying, she passed on very specific skills and local knowledge. This intergenerational transfer preserved skills and knowledge, and it fostered a strong sense of community and attachment to alpine work and lifestyle. The alp became a vibrant hub for young people, reversing the trend of aging and isolation in rural areas. That was also proved by the fact that, when she retired, the communal high alp was taken over by her great-niece, who was only nineteen at the time. This transition, celebrated by the local and national media, underscored a successful generational passage of traditional knowledge and skills, challenging the narratives of decline often associated with rural youth engagement (Ledinek Lozej, Roškar, 2018a, 2018b).27 Cilka has never felt isolated, lonely, or bored in the alp. On the contrary, she even looked forward to the relief and solitude in late autumn, when the cows were brought down into the valley and she remained alone for a few weeks or even longer: “I needed 26 The rejection of these presumptions was clearly elaborated by Pier Paolo Viazzo in his seminal work Upland Communities (1989); see also Bojan Baskar’s accompanying text in the Slovenian edition (Baskar, 2014). 27 For more on the generational transfer in the Krstenica alp, see Ledinek Lozej (in press). Isolation and Connectedness in the Bohinj Alps: Experiences of a Majerca Traditiones | 31 a vacation, some peace and quiet, and to be alone!” The family took care of her, bringing her everything she needed, and by reading, solving crosswords, and listening to the radio, she managed to find her way to a solitary existence without feeling lonely. Loneliness, as already mentioned above, is not simply the absence of contacts, but a discrepancy between one’s desired and achieved levels of social relations. It is not about the quantity but the quality of relations and connections. In this regard, Cilka mentioned several times that she was not feeling lonely because she was alone and that, with only the children there to help her out, there were no relational hierarchies: You know what, because I was my own boss, I didn’t feel isolated [in the alp]. There was nobody telling me what to do. If there had been more of us, and let’s say, some had been more important and had hung out more with one another, and I had just had to stand there and listen … because I was the one that was in charge … That would be different if there had been more of them, and some had been more important. Then you wouldn’t have felt like you belonged so much. Here she pointed to another form of isolation or exclusion from society—the feelings of social marginalization and inferiority in the local community due to various factors, such as the ascribed ideological orientation of the farm, the number of siblings in the household, and personal physiological, social, and psychological dispositions. These feelings of marginalization dissipated in the alp, where she was able to stand “on her own,” “to be the one in charge,” and to take on an important and responsible role, not only in the alp and the family, but also in the local community as a whole and—due to various tenants, vacationers, and visitors—also beyond. Nevertheless, these feelings of social exclusion also came to the fore when she mentioned that she was never actually thanked by the cattle owners.28 She was referring to an earlier custom when the farmers invited the majerce to lunch and a dance at the village inn, and presented them with gifts on St. Martin’s Day (Novak, 2024: 159). This was a type of public and social recognition of the responsibilities of the (sometimes left out and socially marginalized) majerce. Cilka was also longing for such recognition of her efforts and work, of her care for the cheese, animals, and land. For the social and symbolic recognition within the local community and by the local cattle owners. On the other hand, she received this symbolic recognition from the outside—the municipality and several other insti- tutions (e.g., the regional museum), professionals, and the media; they all praised her role in preserving alpine husbandry. For example, she received a municipal award for her many years of commitment to the alpine pasture. “The mayor himself brought me 28 “We had so many cows, so much livestock … but I can’t remember anyone inviting me anywhere … Wouldn’t it be appropriate, if I had so many cows, to be honored somehow and get a meal?” Špela Ledinek Lozej 32 | Traditiones the award because he wanted to get to know me. Because I couldn’t attend the event at the end of August, he brought it to me personally here in the alp!” Cilka’s experiences and perceptions of solitude in the alps challenge conventional assumptions about remoteness and isolation. Remoteness is not topographical but topo- logical; its perception is relational to other places; its experience results from interaction with the outside world (Ardener, 2007; Kozorog, 2013). Connectivity with the outside world, which is based on infrastructure,29 such as roads or at least trails accessible by motorized vehicles, landline and cell phone connections,30 and social and economic interdependencies, was decisive for her perception. This dense network of relation- ships in the alp made it possible to balance between “picking up the slack around the house” and “being on her own.” She could simultaneously perform productive work for her farm and important paid work for other members of the community, as well as maintaining vital connections beyond her family and the local community. Through “picking up the slack around the house,” she has never been lonely; however, she remained alone, single. Or was it perhaps the other way around: that she was required to remain alone to “pick up the slack” as free labor for the farm? In her late eighties, Cilka still continues to pick up the slack where needed. This summer she was housekeeping for her retired brothers. Because she was not in the 29 Infrastructure is “material forms that allow for the possibility of exchange over space” (Larkin, 2013: 327). 30 The poor infrastructure was decisive only when she was simultaneously working as a professional nanny and majerca, and then she opted for the more accessible lower alp instead of higher alp. Figure 2: Milking preparations in the Zajamniki alp. Photo: Špela Ledinek Lozej, 2021. Isolation and Connectedness in the Bohinj Alps: Experiences of a Majerca Traditiones | 33 alp anymore, her past experiences, roles, social relationships, and connections in the alps and beyond have become a “repository of meaning” (Cohen, 1985) and hence a resource for the present day-to-day meaning-making. Conclusion The life story of a long-term majerca in the Bohinj alps challenges the conventional notions of isolation, solitude, and loneliness in remote mountain communities. Rather than experiencing the alps as a place of isolation, Cilka’s summers in the high alps were filled with social connection, responsibility, and autonomy. Her life illustrates that remoteness is not simply a matter of geography but that it is shaped by social relationships, infrastructure, and relational ties that connect individuals to their fam- ilies, communities, and the wider world. Her experiences reveal the ambiguity of solitude in the alps: while physically isolated, she found a profound sense of purpose and connections through her work with the cattle, her engagement with children, and her ongoing interaction with tourists and visitors. For her, solitude was empowering, offering relief from societal pressures and allowing her to manage her responsibilities with independence and authority. At the same time, the dense web of relationships in the alp—whether through family support, work with children, an important role in the community, or occasional visitors—ensured that she was never truly alone. This article underscores that the perception of remoteness is contextual and rela- tional rather than simply a product of distance. The same applies to the perception of loneliness: it is not necessarily based on the condition of solitude, which was benevolent and welcomed by Cilka; loneliness is not connected with the number of connections but with the quality of relations and with the dynamics of social inclusion and exclusion within the local community. In addition, it also shows the capacity of an individual to reimagine how to be on one’s own in different spaces and times, her resistance to being overwhelmed by family and other dominant structures, and her strategies and tactics of dealing with solitude and loneliness. 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O igri in delu: antropologija zgodnjega otroštva. Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, ZRC SAZU. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3986/9789610505181. Špela Ledinek Lozej 36 | Traditiones Viazzo, Pier Paolo. 1989. Upland Communities: Environment, Population and Social Structure in the Alps since the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Viazzo, Pier Paolo. 2014. Alpske skupnosti: Okolje, prebivalstvo in družbena struktura. Ljubljana: Studia humanitatis. Vršnik, Elizabeta. 2022. Local Perception and Knowledge of Changing Alpine Pastures. Anthropological Notebooks 28 (3): 136–158. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7463559. Zeitlyn, David. 2008. Life-History Writing and the Anthropological Silhouette. Social Anthropology 16 (2): 154–171. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8676.2008.00028.x. Izolacija in povezljivost v bohinjskih planinah: izkušnje majerce V članku so obravnavane izkušnje izolacije, samote in osamljenosti v bohinjskih planinah v Julijskih Alpah (Slovenija). Življenjska zgodba majerce Cilke Mlakar, ki je več kot petdeset poletij preživela v visokogorski planini Krstenici in nižji planini Zajamniki, ponuja pogled v kompleksno dinamiko družbenih odnosov v geografsko odmaknjenih okoljih. Primer razkriva, da v planinah kljub fizični oddaljenosti, nikoli ni bila zares izolirana ali osamljena, mnogo manj kot npr. v zimskih mesecih, ki jih je preživljala s sorojenci v Bohinjski Češnjici, Ljubljani ali Münchnu. Nasprotno, z dolgoletnim delom je v planini stkala gosto mrežo povezav, najprej s člani družinskega kmetijskega gospodarstva in nekaterimi bližnjimi sorodniki oziroma sorodnicami, poročenih na kmetije v sosedstvu, s člani agrarne skupnosti Bohinjska Češnjica, Podjelje, Koprivnik in drugimi lastniki živine iz Zgornje bohinjske doline, predvsem pa s (pra)nečaki in (pra) nečakinjami ter otroki rejcev, ki so ji v planini pomagali pri delu, kot tudi z najemniki in lastniki v počitniške hiše preurejenih stanov in drugimi (ne)nak- ljučnimi obiskovalci. Avtorica spodbija domnevo, da življenje na odročnih gorskih območjih vodi v izolacijo in osamljenost. Čeprav je bila planina Krstenica do sredine 90. let 20. stoletja dostopna le peš in brez telefonske in drugih sodobnih komunikacijskih povezav, je bila Cilka tam intenzivneje vpeta v skupnost kakor v dolini, kjer so bili družbeni stiki drugače strukturirani in bolj omejeni. Z dolgoletnim delom in angažmajem je prispevala k ohranjanju planinskega paše in predelave mleka ter skrbela za prenos znanja in veščin mladim, ki so kot pomočniki poletja preživ- ljali v planini. Poleg tega samota ni negativno stanje – po koncu pašne sezone, ko so rejci odpeljali živino, je ostala še nekaj časa sama v planini. Po obdobju odgovornosti in dela je napočil čas težko pričakovane samote, počitka, branja in miru. Kot pravi, v planini ni bila nikoli osamljena; osamljenost namreč ni odvisna od števila stikov, temveč od njihove kakovosti. Floating Homes: Homemaking Practices among Seafarers as Strategies against Isolation Nikolina Hazdovac Bajić University of Dubrovnik, Croatia nhazdovacbajic@unidu.hr ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6469-8290 This article analyzes the multilayered practices of homemaking among the seafarers from a theoretical perspective on the polysemic nature of home, space, and masculinity. In addition, distinction is made between involuntary and involuntary types of isolation at sea (whereby professional sailors belong to the former and adventurous sailors to the latter). The research is based on remote ethnography that included semi-structured interviews, virtual “walks”, informal conversations, and photos. ⬝ Keywords: seafarers, homemaking, (in) voluntary isolation, masculinity Avtorica je preučila večplastne prakse ustvar- janja doma ed pomorščaki s teoretičnega vidika polisemičnosti doma, prostora in mo- škosti. Poleg tega razlikuje neprostovoljne in prostovoljne izolacije na morju (pri čemer med prve spadajo poklicni pomorščaki, med druge pa pustolovski mornarji oz. jadralci). Raziskava temelji na etnografiji na daljavo, ki je vključevala polstrukturirane intervjuje, »virtualne sprehode«, neformalne pogovore in fotografije. ⬝ Ključne besede: pomorščaki, ustvarjanje doma, (ne)prostovoljna izoliranost, moškost Četiri noći kroz oluje, Olupina dok izranja Svako svoju toplu kuću sanja. Pomorac sam, majko, na bijelome brodu, Pomorac sam, majko, u modrome grobu. (Pomorac sam, majko, Atomsko sklonište, 2007)1 Introduction Social isolation, as one of central concepts in the social sciences, has captured the attention of many classic sociologists, from Durkheim, Marx, Simmel, Tönnies, and Sorokin to more contemporary authors such as Giddens, Bauman, and Castells, to name a few. Multiple and diverse forms of social isolation occur at various levels (individual, group, and social), with various intensity and duration (situational or permanent), in different dimensions (spatial and/or social; urban and rural), and among various social groups and categories (migrants, the elderly, the disabled, the poor, the unemployed, 1 Four nights through the storms, / As the wreck emerges, / We all dream of our own warm house. / Mother, I’m a seaman on a white ship, / Mother, I’m a seaman in a blue grave (“Mother, I’m a Seaman,” Atomsko sklonište, 2007). Traditiones 53 (2): 37–62 | COBISS: 1.01 | CC BY 4.0 | DOI: 10.3986/Traditio2024530203 Nikolina Hazdovac Bajić 38 | Traditiones remote communities, minority communities, urban dwellers, members of the underclass, and so forth). This points to the fact that, although certain social groups and situational circumstances are more often associated with social isolation, the concept itself should be grasped theoretically primarily as an emic phenomenon that is fluid and dynamic in nature—a process rather than a fixed category. It is thus carried out as a lived reality in everyday lives and in the formation of individual identities and life narratives, but it also has a significant influence on the physical environment, health and psychological wellbeing, loss of social capital, restructuring of political relations and ideas, economic relations, and economic and cultural global processes. In sociological theory, social isolation is associated with categories of age, sex, race, ethnicity, education level, work, income, health, migrant status, and personality characteristics (de Jong-Gierveld et al., 2018) and thus often involves an ethical di- mension (Bauman, 1990, 2004; Cortina, 2022) and the critique of liberal capitalism (Barry, 1998; Gallie et al., 2003; Salerno, 2003). Social isolation, as the inadequate quality and/or quantity of the social relationships a person has (Kelly, 2019), can re- fer to the micro-level or lack of individual social ties with (close) people and groups and the macro-level or a lack of inclusion on the broader society and nonexistent or weakened ties to social institutions or social entities beyond the level of individuals (Cacioppo et al., 2014). Seeman (1959) connects social isolation with feelings of powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, and alienation. Other authors asso- ciate it with loss, feelings of invisibility, and marginality (Luskin Biordi, Nicholson, 2009), and loneliness (Cacioppo et al., 2014). Although these feelings are intimate and personal, they are “embedded in given forms of social organization and cultural fabrics” (de Jong-Gierveld et al., 2018: 397). In other words, building on Giddens’s structuration theory (Giddens, 1984, 1990), social isolation can be seen as a process that takes place between agency (individual expressions of will activity) and structure (external forces such as social systems, institutions, resources; de Jong-Gierveld et al., 2018; Machielse, 2017; Machielse, Duyndam, 2020), which are deeply connected, mutually dependent, and reinforce each other. In addition to the structuration theory approach to social isolation, micro-level isolation is usually sociologically studied from the network theory approach (Hortulanus et al., 2006).2 Another vital aspect is the (in)voluntary nature of social isolation. Whereas volun- tarily isolated individuals seek disengagement and actively choose isolation, involuntary isolation is more or less imposed or coercive, meaning that “an individual’s demand for social contacts or communications exceeds the human or situational capability of others” (Luskin Biordi, Nicholson, 2009: 85–86). Although being a seafarer is a career 2 The network theory approach to social isolation involves analyzing the size, scope, and strength of an individual’s networks of meaningful personal contacts. Hortulanus et al. (2006) formulate a definition of social isolation based on network approaches oriented toward various aspects of person’s network, and loneliness approaches that emphasize the subjective evaluation of the network. Floating Homes: Homemaking Practices among Seafarers as Strategies against Isolation Traditiones | 39 choice and, as such, it does not conform entirely to the notion of involuntary isolation (as in the case of imprisonment, human trafficking, or concentration camps), it still includes a number of elements that are extremely limiting for an individual: one cannot leave the vessel or leave the job if one wishes to at any given time; the companies’ rules and regulations determine seafarers’ living conditions; their social contacts are restricted; they cannot freely manage their leisure time (there are no days off during time on board and one is never entirely off duty), company, diet choices, movements, or accommodation; and their access to medical assistance or participation in politics is greatly limited and often impossible. “Involuntary” aspects of seafaring are in line with Erving Goffman’s view (2011), which states that a ship can be classified as a to- tal institution, a concept that refers to a place of residence and work in which a large number of like-situated individuals, cut off from wider society for an appreciable period of time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life. In addition, in the emic sense, seafarers often experience their time on board as forced and obligatory. Namely, economic reasons (most seafarers are primary economic providers for their families) that intertwine with the specific type of hegemonic masculinity (as a man and a breadwinner, one needs to endure and overcome any harsh conditions) create the root of this perception. Hence, following an emic perspective as well as the fact that invol- untary isolation at least partly “occurs for reasons that are beyond the control of those subject to it” (Barry, 1998: iv), through the text this type of isolation is conceptualized as an “involuntary” isolation. Voluntary isolation at sea, on the other hand, although it may involve confinement or loneliness, includes a range of possibilities that are not available to professional seafarers. Popović et al. (2022), following Rodríguez-Martos Dauer (2009), point out that voluntary isolation at sea includes the ability to choose one’s company and to manage the trip itinerary and leisure time, and the freedom not to follow any rules because there are no repercussions for those that do not conform. Starting from the idea that professional seafarers experience their profession and time on board as isolating and somehow inevitable, this article focuses on their attempts to mitigate the feeling of isolation and liminality by employing various homemaking practices onboard. In contrast to this, the analysis also includes an example of voluntary isolation at sea as a separate part, which provides another perspective not only in relation to the feeling of isolation but also in terms of homemaking practices and the notion of home. After the short introductory part with a very brief sociological perspective on so- cial isolation, the second part offers an overview the sociological and anthropological body of literature on seafarers and the conceptual framework on the polysemic nature of space, home, and masculinity in the seafaring setting. The third part describes the methodological approach, and the fourth focuses on the subjective feelings of isolation, the multilayered practices of homemaking, and the significance of creating domestic spaces in the predominantly masculine constitution of seafarers’ lives. The final part of the paper presents some concluding remarks. Nikolina Hazdovac Bajić 40 | Traditiones Theoretical perspective(s) Popović et al. (2022) argue that maritime sociology is insufficiently visible within the broader field of sociology due to the fragmented nature of research and the absence of clear sub-disciplinary perspectives. However, there is a growing interest in seafaring in both sociology and anthropology. The literature regards social isolation as a signif- icant problem when spending long periods on a vessel (Acejo, 2012; Esposito, 2013; Fajardo, 2011; Forsyth, Bakston, 1983; Pauksztat, 2023; Penezić et al., 2013; Thomas, 2003). Some authors describe dramatic changes in the shipping industry since the mid-1970s; it became more global, competition grew, and productivity increased, all to the detriment of workload, stress, working hours, the length of time spent in ports, and the general comfort of seafarers (Das, 2018). The seafarer’s job is precarious: it is insecure, with no permanent contracts, and highly susceptible to the global market situation and crisis. Seafarers can also sometimes face high costs for identification documents, and shipping companies may violate their contracts, including delayed payment or repatriation (Amante, 2003). In addition, the work environment includes frequent night work, significant challenges in the form of (unsafe) working conditions, exposure to extreme temperatures and weather, inadequate food and accommodation, constant noise and motion, limited movement, and few possibilities for social contact. Life on board occurs in multinational, multilingual, multicultural, primarily male communities, characterized by inequalities in jobs, pay, and rank (Borovnik, 2012). The literature most often presents ethnographic studies of seafarers’ lives on board (Acejo, 2012; Baum-Talmor, 2014; Borovnik, 2012, 2019; Markkula, 2022; Oyaro Gekara, Sampson, 2021) and their family life ashore (Forsyth, Gramling, 1990; Samp- son, 2005) analyzing the temporal duality it invokes (Forsyth, Bakston, 1983; Lamvik, 2012; Thomas, 2003), seafarers’ performance of masculinity (Mannov, 2021; Thomas, Bailey, 2006; Turgo, 2021), and their mobility through transnational spaces (Acejo, Abila, 2016; Markkula, 2021; McKay, 2021; Sampson, 2003), often criticizing globali- zation, technocratic practices, exclusivism, capitalism, neoliberalism, neocolonialism, and nationalism (Das, 2018; Dua, 2019; Fajardo, 2011; Kremakova, 2019; McCall Howard, 2012), which this process reveals. Some of these studies indirectly touch upon homemaking practices (Pauksztat, 2023; Thomas, 2003), but only a few of them analyze it in greater detail (Kermakova, 2018; Turgo, 2023). The issue of space and the imaginary of the ship as a spatial entity are extremely interesting in the context of homemaking practices. On the one hand, ships represent vessels of the global economy, symbols of modernity, fully utilized limited spaces that transport goods and people in which seafarers are only part of the invisible ma- chinery. On the other hand, ships are characterized by mobility, floating, liminality, and borderlessness, and this symbolic discursive representation makes them almost ephemeral phenomena, unreal, placeless, or “hyperspace” (Sampson, 2003). The duality Floating Homes: Homemaking Practices among Seafarers as Strategies against Isolation Traditiones | 41 of freedom and constraint (Borovnik, 2019) associated with ships, however, makes them heterotopias (Foucault, 1986), which can still “hold and transport oppression and resistance, multiple subjectivities, and racialized and classed gender realities” (Fajardo, 2011: 19). This view is different from the imaginary of a ship as a non-place (Augé, 1995) or a non-space that is “without meaning, abolition of a place” (Smithson, 2013: 296). Turgo (2023) argues that ships are predisposed to be non-places because the temporary residents of non-places are irrelevant, following the same patterns or behavior hints during their stay in a non-place. Nevertheless, designed non-places can be enhanced with layers of meanings if complex everyday practices occur in them and if there is an intention to leave an imprint on the space (Turgo, 2023). In a highly mobile and hectic environment, “people desperately need a bit of peace and quiet—and […] a strong sense of place, of locality, can form one kind of refuge from the hubbub” (Massey, 1994: 151). The clean base of the vessel as a non-place makes it susceptible to constant changes and the creation of temporal and symbolic “moorings” (Borovnik, 2012) with the notion of home. Seafaring, as a male-dominated industry, and homemaking practices on board can draw on studies on migrant masculinities’ relationship with domestic home space and “mutuality between domesticity and masculinity, where meanings of home and men’s identities are co-constitutive and interrelational” (Walsh, 2011: 517). Seamen usual- ly associate masculinity with their status as workers and providers (Mannov, 2021; Thomas, Bailey, 2006; Turgo, 2021) or “hegemonic masculinity” (Connell, 2005) characterized by endurance, firmness, inflexibility, resourcefulness, and bravery, which are “broadly considered to be ‘macho,’ i.e., being (to at least some extent) assertive and aggressive, courageous, almost invulnerable to threats and problems, and stoic in the face of adversity. It is thereby viewed as associated with behaviors that display courage and strength and that include refusal to acknowledge weakness or to be overcome by adverse events, while discouraging other behaviors such as the expression of emotions or the need to seek the help of others” (McVittie et al., 2017). However, a closer examination of the daily activities and homemaking practices of seafarers underscores the necessity for a more comprehensive understanding of mascu- linities, which are far more nuanced and diverse than commonly perceived (Connell, 2005; Turgo, 2021). Furthermore, this study also builds on the theoretical perspectives on homemaking that stem from studies on displaced people (Brun, Fábos, 2015). In both cases, among the displaced people, as well as among seafarers, a home presents “a spatial imaginary, a set of intersecting and variable ideas and feelings, which are related to context, and which construct places, extend across spaces and scales, and connect places” (Blunt, Dowling, cited in Brun, Fábos, 2015: 6–7). Making a home “in-between”—neither there nor here, in multiethnic, multinational, and multilanguage environments for a limited duration, where important factors are policy definitions, displacement experiences, waiting, and the “duration of temporality”—can benefit from Nikolina Hazdovac Bajić 42 | Traditiones the analysis of home given by Brun and Fábos (2015). These authors differentiate home at three levels: 1) home as the everyday materialities and practices of homemaking that make a space significant; 2) home as a set of values, traditions, memories, and feelings of home; and 3) home as a homeland that exists as a political entity in a global perspective. This study uses the proposed conceptual framework for the interpretation of homemaking practices and the imaginary of home among seafarers. Methodology This article offers insight into the variety of emic concepts of isolation and homemaking practices and materialities that provide a semblance of domesticity for people isolated on board for a long period. Research questions included the following topics: subjec- tive feelings of isolation; objects and practices that seafarers miss the most; contents of their suitcases; cabin decoration; spending leisure time, traditions, and routines on board; and symbolism of the home(land). The qualitative methodology used in this research was multifaceted. I tried to be as resourceful as I could because of the peculiar character of the seafarers’ profession. My primary methodological approach was remote ethnography (Podjed, Muršič, 2021). I used online communication tools (mainly WhatsApp, Viber, and Zoom) to talk to the interlocutors on ships worldwide. This approach made it possible not only to cover such large geographical distances but also to include different types of ships and crews and to take virtual walks with the seafarers as they took their phones with them and showed me around their vessels (their mess rooms, cabins, engine rooms, bridges, and decks). Remote walks by video still carried “sensorial elements of human experience and placemaking” (Pink, 2007: 240). I did not video record these walks, but I took notes as the seaman showed me their “material, immaterial and social environments in personally, socially and culturally specific ways” (Pink, 2007: 240). I conducted and recorded twenty-two semi-structured interviews. In some cases, I noticed that the interlocutors were more cooperative and talkative when they were not recorded as part of a formal interview, and so I used informal conversations as well. They also shared with me some photos they had taken on the vessels because they thought I would find them interesting.3 Furthermore, I interviewed an interlocutor that, on several occasions, spent over forty days on his ship, a duration almost equivalent to the contract length of some of the seafarers I spoke with, navigating around Europe. His experience, driven by a desire for adventure, represents a unique perspective on the concept of voluntary isolation. This experience, added in a separate part of the article, provides a valuable contrast and a different emic perspective on loneliness and the notion of home. 3 Authors of the photos gave the permission to the researcher to publish the photos as a part of this study. Floating Homes: Homemaking Practices among Seafarers as Strategies against Isolation Traditiones | 43 This study also incorporated an auto-ethnographic element. With my husband’s extensive experience as a seafarer and the longstanding tradition of the maritime pro- fession in our local community, many interlocutors felt more comfortable sharing their experiences with me, still preferring a relaxed, informal, and friendly setting. The snowball method proved to be the best means of gathering data. Data were collected from June 2023 to June 2024. The interviews were loosely structured, allowing respondents to discuss their views and experiences in their own words and emphasize some important aspects of the topic. Given that the interview structure was relaxed, the duration was from ten minutes to an hour, mostly lasting around twenty-five to thirty minutes. The recorded interviews were transcribed and coded for key themes using NVivo software. In the data analysis part of the paper, the quotations are pseudo-an- onymized using identifiers, which include codes for each interlocutor and their age. The sample consisted of eighteen Croatian seafarers, one Pole, one Lithuanian, and two Filipinos. All interviewees were male, except one female cook.4 The materials were collected while the interlocutors were on board. They were part of crews from four different vessels: two small merchant ships (three interlocutors on one and five on the other), one large passenger ship (eight interlocutors), and one large merchant vessel (six interlocutors). The youngest participant was twenty-five and the oldest sixty-one, and the majority of them were in their forties. Most of the interlocutors were Croats because my initial contacts on all four vessels were Croats, and I assume they were more comfortable talking to me in their native language and were more relaxed because I come from a similar social setting (given my family situation). On the other hand, migrant workers were somewhat reluctant, and some of them refused to be interviewed. Some of my interviewees shared that the reason for rejection in some cases was that seafarers (espe- cially migrant workers) felt unprepared and as though they had nothing to contribute, and perhaps were even frightened to participate. In terms of profession, thirteen interlocutors were officers and nine were lower crew members. Although it would be intriguing to explore in greater depth how different groups (based on rank, country of origin, and sex) experience isolation, this was only briefly touched upon due to space limitations. Howev- er, these findings suggest intriguing possibilities for further research in these directions. Isolation on board and taking roots in the open sea Subjective feelings of isolation: Being away from home One of my interlocutors told me, quoting Samuel Johnson, that “being on a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned” (DC, 36). Seafarers often use the 4 Although the study focuses on masculinity in the seafaring setting, a female cook was included to explore a female perspective and possible other isolating factors that sex can invoke. Nikolina Hazdovac Bajić 44 | Traditiones prison metaphor when speaking of their time on board. Because life on the vessel is limited in terms of space, social contacts, and choices of activities, it is no wonder that one might experience time on board as incarceration. In addition, some seafarers do not perceive their job as a voluntary choice, but as a necessary obligation or constraint that they must endure. Hence, they concentrate on counting the days until the end of the contract: “I keep counting, twenty days left, fifteen days left […]” (RM, 47) and experience long periods spent on the ship as non-time: “Basically, I’m throwing my life to the wind just to live the time when I’m at home” (RM, 47). SG (48) also mentions his fixation on counting the days in non-time: SG, 48: I‘ve been counting the days since the beginning, and I already know exactly where I’ll be on the next Christmas day, New Year’s Eve, and next summer. Researcher: But what about this time in between? SG, 48: I won’t live for those 183 days, just count the days so I can live at home for another 183 days. Seafaring is a very masculine setting, whether it is voluntary or “involuntary.” Seafarers perceive their masculinity primarily through the role of breadwinner or the leading provider for the household: “I need to feed the family, so I have to endure it while the contract lasts” (MD, 32). The high salary is a factor that they point out as one of the few positive sides of the job. In addition, it is a source of pride and self-worth to endure such a harsh, dangerous, and sometimes cruel job: “Life on the ship makes you a little stronger, hardens you, makes a man out of you” (TP, 58). ML (48) said: “You have to complete the contract as a man and move on. Then you return home happy.” Having and building self-resilience is one aspect of masculinity, and another is reliability: “I must know my job, I must be good at it, so others can trust me because this is teamwork” (SP, 61). Although the setting at seafaring is masculine, my interlocutors still expressed various emotions related to the experience of isolation. They recounted life situations when they were not there for important events; they said that they missed their family, that they had missed their children growing up, and that they were sometimes frightened in dan- gerous situations and stressed because of their demanding responsibilities. They named their feelings, albeit tersely, saying things like “I can be a little depressed” (RM, 47), “Sometimes I have a lump in my throat” (JB, 45), “It can be difficult” (MM, 25), “Sad situations will happen” (PL, 52), “I get sad” (FP, 31), and “It was emotional” (DC, 36). Isolation on board has several dimensions. Seamen are not only isolated from wider society, from their communities and families, but also among themselves. “Depending on the shift, we can be isolated in the sense that we don’t even see the people we’re on board with, except at handovers,” said MB (42) in his interview. He only worked Floating Homes: Homemaking Practices among Seafarers as Strategies against Isolation Traditiones | 45 night shifts and felt lonely. Communication with his family was also difficult because of the work schedule. Later, he sent me a picture of a scratch on the kitchen floor in the form of a little man “who keeps me company during my shifts” (Figure 1). Daily life on board differs depending on the type of vessel and the rank of the seafarer. The hierarchy is stringent on passenger ships. Officers and crew are separated; they rarely communicate other than about work-related matters, and they have separate mess halls and lounges. Officers also have various privileges, such as shop discounts, the possibility of socializing with guests, moving about freely, and dining in restaurants for the guests as long as they wear their uniforms and nametags. Lower-ranking crew can eat only in crew mess rooms with other employees, and they are not allowed to go to the guest area during their free time. On merchant ships, there is also hierarchy and separation, but, because the crew is limited to twenty-five to thirty people, the atmosphere on board is much different, and people are closer to each other. Even though one might expect the feeling of isolation to be less pronounced on passenger ships, some of my interviewees that worked on different types of vessels recount that they always feel isolated and lonely, even more so on passenger ships: “I worked as a second engineer on a passenger ship, and I never felt more alone. All those people that are on vacation, having fun with their families, while I am missing mine. Other than that, I had to pay for internet services to call home, and it wasn’t cheap” (MB, 42). Because the crews on the vessels are usually multiethnic and multilingual, language can be a significant barrier to communication, further isolating individuals on board. JL (34) shared: “I’m surrounded by a crew of the same nationality, and they talk in their language, forgetting that I don’t understand them. Then I’m looking at my cell phone and trying to understand something [trying to translate]. Even during the day, I’m alone in the kitchen and don’t have time to sit with them during breaks. So, I feel slightly excluded from the rest of the crew.”5 The internet and modern means of communication are seen as a welcome change that reduces isolation and loneliness.6 On the other hand, it has increased the isolation 5 Although this is a statement from an interview with the female participant, some male interviewees stated similar experiences regarding language barriers. 6 Seafarers use smartphones, laptops, tablets, e-readers, and gaming consoles for communication and entertainment. Figure 1: Scratch on the floor. Photo: MB. Nikolina Hazdovac Bajić 46 | Traditiones among the people on board: “Basically the internet ruined the companionship on the ship. Before, we played cards, we talked, joked, and had fun. And now, after dinner, already at 6 pm everyone is in their cabins, like rabbits in holes [in front of their screens]” (RM, 47). When asked what they missed, seafarers put their families in first place, as expected. As the song from the beginning of the text says, on these lonely, remote “white ships,” everybody dreams of their warm homes. In general, my interlocutors missed everything that reminded them of home: certain types of food and “Mom’s cooking” (MM, 25); spending time at home and “My home, it’s funny to say, but I’m really a homebody” (SG, 48); some personal things “I miss my bed” (MB, 42), and usual daily activities “taking a walk, going to the woods, to the beach, to the cinema” (FP, 31), “having a meaningful conversation” (JL, 34), “the everyday life of my family” (MM, 25). GB (44) explained: “My family and friends, fun, normal life […]. It’s like the army here, you have a strict routine, getting up, sleeping, working, coffee breaks […]. This type of military life is a hindrance.” For some, this type of daily structure is welcomed and appreciated because it organizes their days and leaves little time for contemplating the things they are missing. Nevertheless, by the prison metaphor or “blue grave” metaphor from the song above, interviewees emphasize freedom as something they immensely miss. Homemaking: Instant homes from a suitcase Seafarers have a suitcase half ready even during their time home, half packed with things they always carry on board. Among these, personal medicines stand out as one of the most crucial items: “I carry a lot of medicine. That is what I do not go without. My suitcase is always ready with things I don’t go without. We’ve got medicines on board, but usually the instructions are in another language, so you don’t even know what they’re for. I’m skeptical about it” (IK, 58). Another essential thing seafarers carry is work clothes: “I bring work clothes, some- times even shoes, because when you go on a ship for the first time you never know what’s in store for you” (SP, 61). Bringing medicines and work clothes indicates the need to be self-sufficient and able to take care of oneself as part of a masculine identity. Other things that they carry fall slightly out of the essentialized masculinity concept: certain types of food (sweets, instant food, and drinks)7 and all kinds of random things that make their living spaces more comfortable, domestic, and familiar: pillows, bedding, coffee cups, calendars, humidifiers, clocks, kitchen utensils, cleaning products, books, and so on. The older generation still carries framed family photos. 7 My interlocutors from Croatia mention Čokolino instant cereal and Cedevita juice powder, which are popular in Croatia and are signature tastes and smells that were already mass produced by food industries in the former Yugoslavia. Floating Homes: Homemaking Practices among Seafarers as Strategies against Isolation Traditiones | 47 SG (48) told me: “I like to rest my head on my own pillow. I’m not too fond of those on the vessels—you never know what you’ll get. Moreover, I have my pillowcase. I also have a clock, and I feel at home when I look at it at night.” Seafarers that are on the same vessel for a long time are more relaxed, and so they leave their belongings in their cabins when they go home, although they put them away because another person resides in the same space during that time: “A few times, I unexpectedly got transferred to other ships, and then you realize how you settled in and how much you feel like the vessel is ‘yours.’ I leave lots of personal stuff here, so I don’t have to carry it all the time, and I can travel with a small suitcase” (AR, 59). For some seafarers, the struggle with constant uncertainty about returning to the same vessel makes it difficult to relax and leave their personal belongings behind, and so they carry everything with them all the time: “I come with a suitcase that looks like I’m taking half the house with me. I carry everything, including pillows. I bought the biggest suitcase I could find. When I get on the ship, people ask me if I ever intend to return home” (SG, 48). For women on board, the situation is more complicated due to efforts to protect privacy and avoid unpleasant situations, especially in the context of sex differences and excessive intrusion into the intimacy of the opposite sex. My interlocutor said: “I try not to leave anything. I share a cabin, so there’s that. Besides, I never know if I’m coming back. The previous cook, a woman, left plenty of her personal belongings, and she never came back. Her underwear and other very personal stuff remained. That’s not nice. Some things are private. So that’s why I’m careful. I don’t want somebody to access my privacy at this level” (JL, 34). The private domain of a cabin If there is a semblance of privacy on board, it is a cabin space. It was endearing to learn from some of my interlocutors that showed me their cabins that they cleaned and tidied them up beforehand. The cabins are quite small, usually furnished with essential items (a bed, a table and chair, and a wardrobe) and sometimes with additional items for comfort (a refrigerator, armchair, or sofa). Most of them have a bathroom, but on some older vessels they do not. Officers’ cabins on passenger vessels are similar to guest cabins, whereas lower crew cabins are much more modest. The vessel staff maintains the cleanliness of the officers’ cabins. On merchant vessels, the crew clean the cabins themselves, and the captain or chief mate checks the state of the cabins every week. During our video walks, I felt a sense of pride and homeliness when the seafarers showed me around. They showed me some things they made themselves: corners with shelves, freshly painted floors in common areas, and decorations in social areas. The photos they sent me depicted the storage areas where they stow their belongings when they disembark, the furniture they skillfully made, and the corners of their cabins (Figures 2–4). Nikolina Hazdovac Bajić 48 | Traditiones Figure 2: Cabin on a bulk carrier. Photo: IK. Most pictures show objects that, although they speak about the person’s individuality and express the narrative of self, remain in the domain of simple, useful objects. There are almost no decorations in the private areas of the cabins. Somewhat different from that is a very unusual cabin. It belongs to the captain of a smaller merchant ship, RM (47). In his interview, he told me that he insists that his space be clean and tidy, “may- be even excessively so.” It is not easy, he stated, when a colleague you are changing with has somewhat different habits (during his time off, his colleague uses this cabin). Because he likes to keep himself busy, he redecorated his entire cabin with material he could find during his last contract. He put up some new flowery wallpaper, which was “a bit feminine, so the crew teased me a little, but also they liked it” (Figure 5). His involvement in decorating the cabin partly stems from his officer position because he has somewhat greater security and permanence on board. However, his initiative and desire to invest work and time in his space are greater factors. ML (48) has been a chief engineer on the same vessel for over eight years, and so he has settled in the specific space of “his” ship. He said about his cabin: “Since I have been here for so long, I’ve adapted it to myself. I see it as my space … Your cabin is everything that’s ‘yours’ on a vessel, like a bedroom at home—a very intimate space.” Some of my interlocutors shared that they find it challenging to sleep in the cabins. The environment can be noisy and uncomfortable, and during rough seas seamen some- times secure themselves to the bed to keep from falling out. Despite these conditions, seafarers make significant efforts to personalize their cabins, incorporating a variety Floating Homes: Homemaking Practices among Seafarers as Strategies against Isolation Traditiones | 49 Figure 3: Cabin on a merchant vessel. Photo: JL. Figure 4: DIY corner. Photo: MB. Nikolina Hazdovac Bajić 50 | Traditiones Figure 5: Captain’s cabin on a small merchant ship. Photo: RM. of practices and materialities to make them as comfortable and as much “their own” as possible. This process of personalization is a way for seafarers to express their own conceptions of masculinity, revealing it as a multidimensional phenomenon that can encompass practices and materialities not typically associated with its essentialized concept. For seafarers, cabins are one of the few outlets that allow them to create a sem- blance of domesticity and comfort, as well as a venue to express their individuality and personal interests. Nevertheless, this is a very temporal occurrence. They do not become attached to the space; they are ready to leave it at any moment and do not remember it when they leave it: “I have changed many vessels so far. All those cabins are mixed up in my memory. I remember some in which I tried to adapt something to myself because I invested some time and effort and spent more time there, maybe. But, no, in general, these were all transit stations” (IK, 58). Traditions and routines Depending on the vessel’s type and size and the seafarer’s rank, the duration of work shifts can vary. Hence, leisure time may be split between the shifts or rather short. Most vessels are equipped with a gym or a crew bar, depending on the size of the vessel and the company it belongs to. Passenger ships have many additional features that are not available to the lower crew but only to the officers. Floating Homes: Homemaking Practices among Seafarers as Strategies against Isolation Traditiones | 51 Spending leisure time varies significantly depending on all the factors mentioned. Among the most usual ways of spending leisure time are watching movies and TV series, reading and listening to audiobooks, listening to music, talking to one’s family and friends, surfing on the internet and reading news, playing video games, and working out in the gym. Crews that can watch TV do not miss significant sports events (games and matches). Some interlocutors mentioned that they liked to shop online: “I buy various things, tools, some stuff for the house, but also clothes and things that I think my family would like. I feel like I’m more involved in their lives this way. I like the idea that my children wear the clothes I chose for them” (DC, 36). Most of the leisure practices mentioned relate to the outside world, life on the land, or staying in touch with daily events. Depending on the crew and their sociability, they can more or less hang out together by playing cards, darts, or table football. Filipinos have routines such as singing karaoke: “I love karaoke. That’s when we have the best time. I’m glad when the rest of the crew joins in, not only Filipinos” (JS, 28). Some crews set up bands so there is singing and fun at weekend parties (Figure 6). If there is an opportunity, seafarers can get off the vessel or take a walk. Again, depending on the vessel, they can take walks along the deck, fish, play sports, and so on. Crews that have been together longer “begin to look like small dysfunctional fam- ilies or henhouses with gossiping and all” (ML, 48). All those masculine activities are thus imbued with some practices that are not usually associated with masculinity, such Figure 6: Crew band on a merchant vessel. Photo: JS. Nikolina Hazdovac Bajić 52 | Traditiones as gossiping or opening up about one’s problems and sharing thoughts and feelings: “When I’m good with some of my colleagues, we talk, we share experiences. That helps me. You can hear what’s bothering the other person and share the troubles.” Masculinity on board also means that one needs to make compromises and sometimes give up and let others overpower you: “You have to be smart on board and make many compromises. You’re closed in with others and need to know when to give in to win later, when to stand up for yourself, and when to withdraw. This is a male environment, and you can’t allow yourself to be trampled on, but you also have to be adaptable in some situations” (MM, 25). Other significant traditions and rituals are weekly cookouts, especially popular on merchant vessels. They bring together the entire crew in an informal gathering. Other than that, celebrations for major holidays such as Christmas and New Year have their own rituals, which include decorating the space, decorating the Christmas tree, and preparing special food in a relaxed and festive atmosphere (Figures 7 and 8). Symbolism of the home(land) The notion of a home includes a homeland dimension, which refers to the country of origin from a global perspective. Because most of my interlocutors were Croats, this section focuses on representing Croatia in the context of the vessels I had access to. The most visible notion of a country is through national emblems such as a flag and coat of arms. These can be found scattered on walls around the merchant vessels. Often, they are in a sports context associated with sports clubs and fan props (Figures 9 and 10). Figure 7: Cookout on a merchant vessel. Photo: DC. Floating Homes: Homemaking Practices among Seafarers as Strategies against Isolation Traditiones | 53 Figure 8: Christmas on board. Photo: MB. Figure 9: Croatian symbols on a merchant vessel. Photo: ML. Nikolina Hazdovac Bajić 54 | Traditiones On passenger vessels, every officer must wear a name tag, which includes his or her name, rank, and country of origin (Figure 11). Creating an image of a traditional Croatian seafarer that is respected and good at his job is some- thing that my interlocutors stressed as important for them. Because they work in a globalized, multinational environment, some of them feel like they are representatives of a nation and maritime tradition they inherited from their ancestors: “Both my father and grandfather were seafarers. My son is a seafarer, too. Croats in this branch have always been recognized as good and capable workers. It’s our tradition” (RM, 47). Younger seafarers I talked to prefer to work with a multinational crew, but with a specific hierarchy: “I prefer to work in a multinational crew when officers are ours [Croats], and the lower crew is mixed. Then the situation on board is more serious, and there is more respect” (MLJ, 29). This brings to the fore underlying racial, national, and class prejudices. Figure 10: Croatian symbols on a merchant vessel. Photo: MM. Figure 11: Name tag of a Croatian officer on a passenger vessel. Photo: GB. Floating Homes: Homemaking Practices among Seafarers as Strategies against Isolation Traditiones | 55 Voluntary isolation at sea: Isolation, homemaking, and masculinity DR’s experience is an example of voluntary isolation at sea. He was almost sixty when he decided to sail around Europe in his seven-and-a-half-meter-long, 120-year-old wooden boat: “I sat in my small boat, and I got it into my head that I would go all over Europe on that ship.” This act was somewhat out of character for him as a respectable family man with a well-established business. In contrast with the “involuntary” nature of isolation that other seafarers in this study experience, DR chose the direction and time of the journeys by himself, same as the routes and the length of the voyages, whether and when he would have company on board, who it would be, and when he would finally go home. He isolated himself at sea out of a desire for adventure. His budget was not large, and he often found himself without funds. He lived a modest lifestyle, trying to get by as inexpensively as possible: “It was all very modest; it could not be more modest. I did not pay anything anywhere that I did not have to.” When he first set out, he was inexperienced with sailing and lacked equipment. Because of this, he got into various perilous situations. Nonetheless, he kept returning to sailing and long periods of isolation at sea. In his interview, he describes his time in isolation as sometimes challenging, lonely, and demanding. During his time alone, he experienced complete isolation and separation from the world, but he did not always associate it with negative feelings. Although being alone at some moments was not easy—“Being alone is the worst thing sometimes. You have no one to talk to, no one to consult with”—he argued that solitude was sometimes easier than the responsibility of making difficult decisions for somebody else or being in bad company. In addition, he did not feel fear but excitement and adventure in dangerous situations. DR associates his time on board with “freedom, solitude, decision-making, relying on oneself and managing as best you know in impossible situations.” He rarely communicated with his family and friends at home. Regarding his feeling of home and homemaking practices, quite contrary to the seafarers that are “involuntarily” isolated, he took only a few things with him, mostly those that were useful such as food, clothes, a few utensils, some equipment, and a first aid kit. There were no personal things or artifacts that would make him more at home. He had no comforts and lived in modest conditions, without things that would create a semblance of home or coziness: “What do I even need? I learned how little a person needs.” Moreover, he had no artifact reminiscent of home in his daily life. He had no recurring practices, routines, or traditions that would create familiarity or homeliness: “Every day was different. If I could call it a routine, then the only routine I had was to get off the ship and drink something strong in every port I arrived in.” He did not engage in many conversations or make contacts while he was in ports. He did not observe much of the local life, scenery, or cultural heritage; “my only goal was to sail away as soon as possible.” However, he recounted: “When I got to Istanbul, Nikolina Hazdovac Bajić 56 | Traditiones I rented a beautiful apartment in a hotel overlooking the Bosphorus. Nevertheless, I couldn’t sleep. In the middle of the night, I left, returned to my ship, and slept there like a baby.” In contrast to other seafarers, he saw his boat as a means of isolation and adventure rather than a home. So he preferred to stay on it during his trips, isolated from the land life. Speaking of the conceptualization of home from a global perspective, as a homeland, he said that during his voyages he had a Croatian flag only because it is a prerequisite for sailing on international seas. He never felt like a representative of a nation, even more so because just a few people recognized it. Hence, the act of voluntary isolation, in this case, is mainly associated with individuality and an act of personal freedom while rejecting collective connotations. DR recounts his voyages as a memorable time: “I will remember that time forever. I experienced so many things and learned a lot about myself.” He claimed that he did not feel fear, even in some life-threatening situations, but only excitement and adventure. Various aspects of his experience that came up during his interview—such as scarcity, discomfort, survival in difficult living conditions, endurance, courage, and facing fears in harsh and dangerous situations—are in alliance with a specific concept of mascu- linity. Similar to other seafarers I talked to, he stressed these masculine concepts of self-resilience and resourcefulness as something positive he gained from life on board. Conclusion: Connecting the dots One can conceive of a home as a place that includes familiarity and intimacy, common frames of reference across space and time with close people, and an immediate and broader community. The seafarers leave their homes for long periods. This experience affects their perception of isolation and marginality and of life as floating on the fringes of their significant groups. The conceptual framework of a home by Brun and Fábos (2015) identifies three distinct layers: home as the everyday materialities and practices of homemaking that make a space significant; home as a set of values, traditions, memories, and feelings of home; and home as a homeland in a global perspective. These three perspectives can be traced in the seafarers’ homemaking practices in time- and space-mobile settings. Regarding the first layer, my interlocutors showed me the rich body of practices and significant artifacts instrumental in their everyday lives, giving character and a stamp of personality to the spaces they inhabit. Homemaking is a strategy that is an “affective, embodied response to an assessment of a place as ‘like home / not like home’” (Butch- er, 2010: 33). In this regard, time is of particular interest because, although objects and practices of homemaking can be and are diverse, meaningful, and essential, they are still temporal and take place in time-limited sections of contract duration for each seafarer. Although this time is sometimes perceived as a waste of life or non-life, or Floating Homes: Homemaking Practices among Seafarers as Strategies against Isolation Traditiones | 57 non-time (whereas the “real” home on land represents time), nevertheless the practices and materialities they have shown me testify to awareness of duration of temporality, which is then filled with feelings, traditions, rituals, values, and memories. These are constitutive of the second layer of the home proposed by Brun and Fábos (2015). Finally, the third layer of home relates to positioning a home(land) in the global perspective, calling upon national traditions and successes, the significance of seafaring tradition, and the need to represent it all or to be “the ambassador” of the home(land) by leaving the material marks or behaving in a certain way. Homemaking is generally still a gendered area associated primarily with femininity (Turgo, 2023). However, as some previous research has already shown, masculinity in the context of seafaring is a much broader and variable phenomenon (Mannov, 2021; Thomas, Bailey, 2006; Turgo, 2021). Furthermore, masculinity and homemaking are proven to be not mutually exclusive but interrelated and congruent (Walsh, 2011). Specific settings (as vessels are) can challenge not only the essentialized hegemonic concept of masculinity but also one of home, which, as was shown above, can be made in precisely determined time sections, in isolation, and in perceived non-time and designed non-space. Even though seafaring is a highly masculine context, seemingly feeding into a singular “macho” type of masculinity, observed practices and activities point to multifaceted, diverse, and complex connections between masculinity and homemaking. Occurrences of expressing emotions, decorating a space and keeping it clean, buying clothes and household items online, choosing more understated reactions in certain situations, entertaining gossip or confiding one’s problems and feelings, and creating close relationships with others all show a richness of practices connoted with home and domesticity that at the same time question the singular concept of masculinity, as well as the gendered notion of homemaking. However, despite the observed nuances of masculinity, in the context of seafarers’ life on board they still remain locked within a heteronormative, class, and racial framework. Regarding voluntary isolation at sea and homemaking, it is significantly different compared to the “involuntary” experience. First, time spent at sea is regarded as sub- stantially rich, memorable, and essential, and isolation is desirable and implies freedom and life-changing adventure. In the face of these premises, homemaking is virtually non-existent; space is ascetic, with very few useful things, without specific routines or rituals, without a notion that a boat represents some national entity or a homeland. The ship is seen instrumentally as a means or symbol of adventure. Voluntary isolation at sea is thus a very intimate and individual act, mainly associated with the expression of separation from the world (and home) and personal freedom while rejecting collective connotations. In contrast, the “involuntarily” isolated mostly yearn for a collective that they are forced to stay away from and that they try to connect with in every possible way. Hence, in this context, voluntary isolation has no common ground with “invol- untary” isolation apart from general notions of endurance, firmness, resourcefulness, Nikolina Hazdovac Bajić 58 | Traditiones and bravery that feed into the concept of hegemonic masculinity commonly connoted with the sea and navigation. Reflecting on seafaring and homemaking, I argue that seafarers are not simply invis- ible wheels in the globalized machinery of capitalism or short-term inhabitants of the non-spaces. Even though they disregard and belittle their time on board, the life they lead there is substantive and significant, despite its liminality and transience. Rooting is performed through practices, spaces, relationships, memory, traditions, and habits, even though it requires creating a home anew every time, for some, with each new contract. The analysis of homemaking in, what seems for some of my interlocutors, a permanent “duration of temporalities”8 (Brun, Fábos, 2015) has the potential to sig- nificantly extend the understanding of how ideas, experiences, and feelings of home are manifested, challenged, and changing. This is particularly relevant in the context of hegemonic masculinity, which is usually connected with the notion of navigation and the sea, whether voluntary or “involuntary.” Furthermore, it can provide profound insight into the emic experiences of isolation, resilience, and struggle to create meaning and take root, even when floating in the open sea. 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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5661.2011.00442.x. Nikolina Hazdovac Bajić 62 | Traditiones Plavajoči domovi: prakse ustvarjanja doma med pomorščaki kot protiizolacijske strategije Ko govorimo o pomorščakih in njihovem načinu življenja, se skoraj ni mogoče izogniti konceptu izolacije. V članku so analizirane večplastne prakse ustvarjanja doma s teoretičnega vidika polisemičnosti doma, prostora in moškosti. Gospo- dinjske prakse med pomorščaki se izražajo v uporabi in izdelavi artefaktov, ohranjanju tradicij in ritualov, ustvarjanju spominov in predstavljanju domovine. Opazovane prakse in dejavnosti kažejo na kompleksne povezave med moškostjo in gospodinjstvom. Izražanje čustev, okrasitev prostora in vzdrževanje čistoče, spletno nakupovanje oblačil in gospodinjskih predmetov, izbira skromnejših odzivov v določenih okoliščinah, opravljanje, zaupanje težav in občutkov ter ustvarjanje tesnih razmerij z drugimi, vse to kaže na bogastvo praks, povezanih z domom in domačnostjo. Omenjeno hkrati prinaša pomislek o singularnem konceptu moškosti, pa tudi o spolno opredeljeni podobi gospodinjstva. V tem članku je izolacija razumljena predvsem kot emski konstrukt. Zato ločimo pro- stovoljno in neprostovoljno izolacijo, pri čemer poklicni pomorščaki spadajo med neprostovoljno izolirane, prva pa se nanaša bolj na pustolovsko in zabavno, sproščenejšo vrsto jadranja. Ugotovitve kažejo, da se ti perspektivi bistveno ločita po gospodinjskih praksah in doživljanju prostora. Raziskava temelji na oddaljeni etnografiji, ki je vključevala polstrukturirane spletne intervjuje z 22 profesionalnimi pomorščaki (18 je bilo Hrvatov) in enim avanturistom, fotogra- fije, video in avdio virtualne »sprehode« po plovilih ter neformalne pogovore s pomorščaki. The Island of Žirje: Challenging Claims of Isolation Peter Simonič Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia peter.simonic@ff.uni-lj.si ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7003-0668 The article examines the influence and rem- nants of economic and political systems as layers of time on the remote island of Žirje in Croatia, focusing on developments from the sixteenth century onwards. The author explores changes in local economic, political, legal, religious, spatial, and kinship arrangements to shed light on contemporary ethnographic realities. By adopting a relational approach to studying Žirje, the author challenges the notion of islands and cultures as isolated entities. ⬝ Keywords: Dalmatia, Šibenik archipelago, agriculture, pasture, industry, tourism, in- heritance, world systems, relational analysis V članku so analizirani učinki in ostanki ekonomskih in političnih sistemov kot plasti časa na odmaknjenem otoku Žirje na Hrva- škem, s poudarkom na razvoju od 16. stoletja do danes. Avtor je raziskoval spremembe v lokalnih gospodarskih, političnih, pravnih, verskih, prostorskih in sorodstvenih uredi- tvah, da bi pojasnil sodobno etnografsko realnost. Z relacijskim pristopom raziskave Žirja v časovnem, prostorskem in družbenem kontekstu avtor spodbija dojemanje otokov in kultur kot izoliranih entitet. ⬝ Ključne besede: Dalmacija, Šibeniško oto- čje, kmetijstvo, pašništvo, industrija, turizem, nasledstvo, svetovni sistemi, relacijska analiza Introduction In more than ten years of research in Dalmatia, I have visited the islands of Zlarin, Ml- jet, Hvar, Šolta, Silba, and Žirje. I have visited many other Adriatic islands as a tourist or participant in various conferences. Whereas other ethnographic surveys and visits were mainly aimed at collecting comparative Dalmatian material, I stayed on Zlarin and Žirje and systematically gathered research material for over a year: at different times of the year, with different emphases, and with different interlocutors (thirty in Žirje). The fact that I carried out the most work in the Šibenik archipelago and on the island of Žirje is the result of some insights discussed below. First, a great deal of historical, ethnological, geographical, demographic, and folklore research has been carried out in the Šibenik archipelago, but contemporary social and ecological processes are rarely recorded and evaluated (in ethnology). The sources on Žirje go back to Pliny, quoted by the naturalist and geologist Abbe Alberto Fortis in his 1774 travelogue Viaggo in Dalmazia (published in English as Travels into Dalmatia in 1778). English travel writers from the nineteenth century wrote more often about the town of Šibenik than about its islands (see Šišak, 2019). Several important texts were written in the twentieth century: Ćiril Metod Iveković’s article ‘Otok Žirje’ (The Island of Žirje) in the journal Starohrvatska prosvjeta (1927); the book Sela šibenskoga kotara Traditiones 53 (2): 63–91 | COBISS: 1.01 | CC BY 4.0 | DOI: 10.3986/Traditio2024530204 Peter Simonič 64 | Traditiones (Villages of the Šibenik Region) by Don Krst Stošić (1941; two chapters are devoted to the history, institutions, traditional economy, and culture of Žirje); and the volume Agrarni odnosi na otoku Žirju (od XVII–XIX stoljeća) (Agricultural Relations on the Island of Žirje, Seventeenth to Nineteenth Century) by Josip Ante Soldo (1973; an excellent overview of Žirje’s agriculture based on archival monastic sources). The work of the Zagreb Institute of Ethnology and Folklore on Zlarin in the early 1980s is worth mentioning (Bezić, 1981; Muraj, 1981a, 1981b; Rajković, 1981). One contemporary ethnological researcher of the Šibenik region is the professor and museum curator Jadran Kale (1994, 1995–1996, 2019, 2023; Fuerst-Bjeliš, Kale, 2018). The Zagreb Institute for Migration Research and the Zadar Centre for Adriatic Onomastic Research have also analyzed data from the Šibenik archipelago (Lajić et al., 2001; Lončar, Klempić Bogadi, 2016). The most important project on the ethnological history of Žirje is the anthology Žirajski libar (The Žirje Book, 1994), edited by Eduard Kale, a sociologist and cultural studies specialist born on the island. The anthology contains some of the aforementioned works about Žirje and other basic studies, as well as some more recent and original reflections on the island, visions of tourism, and the Croatian War of In- dependence. Most of the above references offer a temporally, spatially, or thematically limited insight into Žirje—an integrated and comparative socio-ecological and historical overview of the island has not yet been written. By juxtaposing the references, one can identify socio-ecological processes on and around the island of Žirje and evaluate some general observations about Dalmatian society and the environment on the island. Most importantly, an attempt can be made to explain its ethnographic contemporaneity based on available historiographic, linguistic, geographical, demographic, and other sources. The Šibenik archipelago is one of the last areas on the Croatian coast (including Istria, the Kvarner Gulf, and Dalmatia) that has been subject to the general and inevitable trend of tourism. This process of tourism development in the eastern Adriatic in the second half of the twentieth century can be traced through economic, infrastructural, demographic, and other statistical indicators, but it overlooks the fact that the numerous coastal and island settlements lost their population, cultural continuity, and traditional environmental knowledge in this process, and that the tourist transition requires a different organization of time, space and interpersonal relationships. Among the inhab- ited islands of Šibenik, Žirje is the most distant from the mainland and is considered the least developed. These regional and insular characteristics allowed me to closely examine the transformation process of its (post)agrarian and industrial society and the creation of a tourist destination (cf. Kozorog, 2009). I am particularly interested in the “backstage” of tourism (Goffman, 2014); that is, the social and cultural processes that take place among the locals. In any case, social relations in the Šibenik archipelago must certainly also become an important framework for data analysis (cf. Baldacchino, 2015; Young, 1983). The Island of Žirje: Challenging Claims of Isolation Traditiones | 65 Finally, the reason for my special interest in Žirje is its once very important agri- culture. The Žirje Plain (Žirajsko polje) is the largest and most fertile area; the terra rossa soil here is by far the deepest.1 These agricultural conditions led to the specific property relations that emerged at the end of the nineteenth century and strongly in- fluence social relations today. A special feature of Žirje is also the long history of the presence of various armies, which were attracted by the island’s remoteness and its unobstructed view of the Adriatic. The problem of isolation I am intrigued by the influence that the Massim archipelago had on British social anthropology (Young, 1983). In the anthropology of Charles Seligman and Bronisław Malinowski (and later E. E. Evans-Pritchard and Meyer Fortes in Africa, etc.), the study of cultures meant the study of interactive (cultural, social) islands, consequently with a protracted and structured ethnographic approach (Simonič, 2017, 2020). A broader political, economic, and scientific contextualization of the Massim archipelago or any other region was not needed and not undertaken. Globalization has since found its way into ethnology, but the idea of an island as a cultural and social isolate still has strong appeal. 1 The plain lies in the center of the island, and they both extend from southeast to northwest. The plain is about 4 to 5 km long and a maximum of 350 m wide, whereas the island is 12 km long and an average of 1.2 km wide (Friganović, 1994: 63). It is bordered lengthwise by two ridges. On the northeastern ridge (in a sunny position) is the village of Žirje. Figure 1: Šibenik archipelago. Source: Google Maps, 2024. Peter Simonič 66 | Traditiones The island of Žirje has always been contextualized according to its position in re- gional or world systems (cf. Braudel, 1996; Pitt-Rivers, 1954; Wallerstein, 1980; Wolf, 1998–1999). Although it is an island, one cannot speak of isolation at any level of social life. Some may feel or seek solitude and contact with nature, and the idealized image of isolation may also bring certain economic (tourist) benefits, but all these strategies are in turn linked to political and economic centers, or civilization (Saxer, Andersson, 2019; cf. Simonič, 2017; Scott, 2009). The people of Žirje lived on the periphery of various centralized political and economic systems. I am particularly interested in the adaptations of societies and communities in the face of profound changes in political systems, property relations, basic modes of production, and environmental conditions. In ecological anthropology, such rapid breakthroughs or paradigmatic social changes are associated with increased stress and adaptation (Moran, 2018: 3). They can be located in the temporal flow of the respective community as caesuras or transitions that bring old and new forms of everyday life— and different adaptive strategies—into consciousness. In other words, my interest in political and economic systems and ecology is always also historical (archival), never only synchronous (ethnographic). Political economies and ideologies that have shaped and utilized the (peripheral) island at different times are a reminder that (world) history is important for (local) ethnography (Schneider, Schneider, 1976). Of course, the geographical distance of the local society from the mainland is an essential part of its “insularity.” However, an island is both a spatial and a metaphor- ical marker (Shell, 2014), neither of which says much about the functioning of the local community. In literary studies, insularity has been defined as the representation and construction of small worlds (Dautel, Schödel, 2016). Geographical and poetic aspects cannot determine the phenomena and anthropological interest in social rela- tions and meanings, at least since the 1960s (Ma, 2020). This fact is also recognized in interdisciplinary island studies (Baldacchino, 2018; Hay, 2006). In this aspect, this study differs, for example, from Lopašić’s authentistic anthropological approach to the Mediterranean islands (2001). A (small) island is an anthropological laboratory: it allows a microanalysis of social relationships, influences, and changes and their position in a larger social and natural space. In the book Anthropology, Islands, and the Search for Meaning in the Anthropo- cene (2023), Armstrong generalizes the thinking about the island of Yap in Micronesia: “This island, like all islands, is layered deeper than it is wide” (2023: 15). These layers or sediments of time (Koselleck, 2018) are both historical and contemporary. They have emerged over the course of history, they have overlapped, strengthened, or weakened each other, and they refer to each other.2 They continue to shape the framework and 2 Compare this with the cultural layers in Vilko Novak’s 1958 work Struktura slovenske ljudske kulture (The Structure of Slovenian Folk Culture), in which he refers extensively to the Croatian ethnologist Milovan Gavizzi. The Island of Žirje: Challenging Claims of Isolation Traditiones | 67 imagination of the legal, economic, religious, political, scientific, and kinship life on the island. Layers are divided by “unexpected events” that change the course of history and announce a new set of social and legal rules and values (ibid.). Their contemporary (individual or collectively codified) interpretations come from within and without. It is in this interplay of circumstances and traditions that modern local memories, identities, and survival strategies emerge. Identities are always related to the self and the (timely and spatially) other; they are therefore not isolated (cf. Barth, 1969). For this reason, I prefer to speak of different degrees of integration or distance— or, better still, remoteness from urban, economic, informational, and administrative centers (Saxer, Andersson, 2019). A connection to the mainland has also been the maxim of the residents of Žirje in all historical political and economic structures. The island was, of course, always dependent on the navigation technology available and other infrastructure. During the twentieth century, with motorized ships, postal service, radio, telephone, and internet, the spatial remoteness and temporal delay of Žirje weakened. The locals are proud of this; they want more public boats or cata- marans traveling between the island and Šibenik, and they are already globalized in terms of information. Only in times of crisis, with systemic stresses such as military conflicts (with pi- rates, or with German, Italian or Yugoslav armies, etc.), times of illness (plague in the sixteenth century and COVID-19 in 2020–2021), or the choice of spiritual hermitage (in the Middle Ages and forms of modern escapism), did the perspective reverse, and isolation determined the human meaning of life on the island. Otherwise, all social endeavors were always marked by maintaining and building connections within the community, with the town of Šibenik, and with the state. Therefore, it is not possible to write about the Šibenik archipelago the way Malinowski wrote about the people of the Trobriand Islands. This does not mean that I neglect the local perspective, but that I insist on its relational and contextual interpretation. I have arranged available data on Žirje into five historical layers with regard to political and economic structures and the consequent position of the island: Byzantine, Venetian, Austrian, Yugoslav, and Croatian. The last two layers include local oral his- tories and finally some personal observations. The result is an ethnological, ecological, and historical overview of a dynamic and open society. The Byzantine layer In the southeastern part of the island are the remains of two fortresses: Gradina on the west coast and Gusterna on the east coast. Researchers do not agree why they were built. Some believe that these were merely refuges where locals could hide in case of danger. No one is ever believed to have lived there (in contrast to the local myth of the Peter Simonič 68 | Traditiones Illyrian queen Teuta; Iveković, 1927: 52). Zlatko Gunjača, on the other hand, believes that the fortresses of Gradina and Gusterna (also Gušterna, Gušterne) could have been built in the sixth century AD as part of Justinian’s Byzantine defense system on the Adriatic against the Goths. This hypothesis is supported by the massive construction of the walls, the fact that the fortresses were built in pairs for better observation, and the presence of cisterns (Gunjača, 1994).3 Another ruin, Kućišta, higher to the northwest, at the beginning of the plain, provides information about the medieval social integration of this remote island. The question arises as to whether it is the remains of an eleventh- to twelfth-century monastery founded after the Benedictines received the island as a gift from Croatian King Krešimir IV in 1059 (Stošić, 1941: 197). Alternatively, it could be the ruins of a residence that belonged to the monastery of Saint Lucy of Šibenik; in that case, the Benedictine monastery must have stood even higher to the northwest, at the site of today’s Saint Mary’s Church and cemetery (Stošić, 1941: 199). However, it is also possible that the Benedictine monastery was located somewhere on the slope of the highest peak on the island, Kapić (Iveković, 1927: 55). Today, all these ruins are located outside the central areas of the settlement: the old village and the bays on the northern half of the island. The remains of large or even mighty stone buildings remind the locals of the island’s mediaeval military and ecclesiastical role. They also offer opportunities for tourism. Gradina is often the only 3 Justinian’s Code (529), which marks the beginning of his reign, is now a primary source for the study of the colonate laws in the Eastern Roman Empire (Sirks, 2024). There are no records of the existence of the colonate system on the island of Žirje at that time. Figure 2: The remains of mediaeval stone buildings. Top left and right: Gradina. Bottom left: Gusterna. Bottom right: Kućišta. Photos: Peter Simonič, 2018, 2023. The Island of Žirje: Challenging Claims of Isolation Traditiones | 69 place visited by tourists—hikers, cyclists, or sailors—on a short visit to or vacation on the island. What is less well known, as two locals told me, is that after the Second World War the bodies of political and military opponents, allegedly from the Trieste area, were thrown into Gradina Cave. The Venetian layer Venice controlled the Adriatic from the twelfth century onward. The turning point for Dalmatia and Žirje was the year 1409, when Croatian King Ladislav sold Dalmatia to the Venetians for 100,000 ducats. Disgruntled Šibenik was militarily subjugated by the Venetians in 1412. The entire Adriatic became the “Sea of Venice.” Their rule lasted almost four hundred years, until the dissolution of the Republic of Venice in 1797. The Venetians supported the colonate system and levied high taxes on the tenants. The maritime republic (or thalassocracy), on the other hand, took very little interest in the development of the mainland, the Dalmatian archipelago, or its other overseas possessions (Bek, 1998; Internet 1; Wolff, 1997). In the eighteenth century, the Venetian attitude toward Dalmatia changed somewhat, as can be concluded from the 1778 travelogue of the Enlightenment philosopher and seeker of new economic opportunities Abbe Alberto Fortis. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Republic of Venice was confronted on the one hand with the shift of European trade to the Atlantic and on the other with the territorial ambitions of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans and the eastern Mediterranean Figure 3: Left: Signpost to the sacred buildings (Muna Bay). Right: The church of St. Marija. Photos: Peter Simonič, 2023 Peter Simonič 70 | Traditiones (Bek, 1998). Therefore, Venice was interested not only in taxes in Dalmatia but also in its defensive position. The control over the spiritual life of the Dalmatian population was just as important as the navy, the rowers on the galleys, local defense, or the con- script groups under bandit leaders (harambaše). Žirje became an independent parish as early as 1460 (Stošić, 1941: 195). Its ratio of eleven priests to a thousand believers in Dalmatia was later the highest in Europe (Peričić, 1980: 55). There are many churches on Žirje today, all of which were built during the Venetian period. The ecclesiastical brotherhood of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary (bratóvščina Velike Gospe) was founded on the island in 1484, and from 1809, for example, there are records of regular masses of the Brotherhood of the Spirit of the Purifier (bratóvščina Duha Čistilista) and its twenty memorial services for deceased members (Stošić, 1941: 196). During the Ottoman-Venetian war in Crete (1645–1669), the conflicts in the Balkans, in the Dalmatian hinterland, and around Šibenik also intensified (Internet 2; Soldo, 1973: 9). After 1645, Žirje was further populated with refugees from the Dalmatian and the Šibenik hinterland. In gratitude for supporting the resistance of the Catholic population and their conversion to the Venetian side, the Franciscans received the island of Žirje with all tax revenues from the Republic of Venice in 1650.4 Their representatives on the island more or less successfully levied a tax on agricultural land (teratik), a tax on building land (livel or kućevina), a twenty percent tax on all crops, olive oil, and wine (petine), and a tax on pasture land (herbatik), and they also demanded various services. The fishing warehouses on Muna Bay, which were intended for storing equipment and salted sardines or mackerel, were built in the sixteenth century but were owned by fishermen from Šibenik itself and other islands in the Šibenik archipelago, Zlarin and Prvić (Soldo, 1973: 16–46, 55; 2022). Another legacy of the island’s landscape presumably dates to the Venetian period, but now refers to its absence and as a precondition for later environmental interven- tion. According to the locals, the name of the island derives from the word for ‘acorn’ (žir, plural žirje), which refers to the composition of the former forests on the island (Stošić, 1941: 194).5 Today there is no black oak left on the island. What happened to this forest? Was it deforested by the Venetians for their construction projects and trade in the Mediterranean (cf. Bek, 1998)? Or was it cut down for firewood and to expand agricultural and grazing land (Tekić et al., 2015)? Or was it really burned by the “Turks” (1570–1573; Furčić, 1994: 139), as some locals say? Some old forests were certainly 4 The Franciscans planned to build a new monastery on the island to replace the monastery on Lake Visovac (1445–1648; in today’s Krka National Park), from which they had fled. For the same reason, they had settled in Visovac after fleeing Bosnia (Soldo, 1973: 14–15). The Franciscans finally decided to build Saint Lawrence’s Monastery in Šibenik. 5 Another etymology is based on the external essentialization of the island. It refers to Pliny’s mention of the island of Sirium. According to this interpretation, the root Zuri is said to be of Greek origin and refers to the turn or circle that ships made around this island. Various other variants of this name also appear (Friganović, 1994a, 1994b). The Island of Žirje: Challenging Claims of Isolation Traditiones | 71 cut down for lime burning (Fuerst-Bjeliš, Kale, 2018: 549–550): in Žirje there were many coastal sites for this economic activity, and the toponym Japlenišće (literally, ‘limekiln’) still exists. Lime was needed for the modern transition from wooden to stone house construction. The answer to deforestation is probably a combination of all these factors and not only Venetian. Among the enduring Venetian layer of Žirje society and culture, mention must be made of viticulture, which has become especially important over the centuries. The economy was also based on the production of olive oil, as in many other Dalmatian places. By law, the Venetians determined the planting of olive trees between vineyards and the distance between them (Stulli, 1980: 52–53). Agricultural products were com- pulsorily collected in Šibenik and then in Venice, and only from there could they go to the international market (Stulli, 1980; Wolff, 1997). The development of Dalmatian and Žirje viticulture was part of the mercantilist organization of the Venetians, which did not change much over the centuries. The institution of posoba can also be placed within the framework of balancing between local and state aspects. This was the communal self-government recognized by the Republic of Venice and at the same time the place where the assembly of the villagers met. “In the Early Modern Age use of posoba was documented by Venetian authorities because they recognized commoners’ councils as the best way for recruiting armed bands and whole communities for borderland military duties” (Kale, 2019: 21). The posoba area in Žirje is built over today, and it houses an important village institu- tion: a health center and above it an apartment for a nurse in residence. The center of the village’s events had already moved earlier, probably in the nineteenth century, to nearby Srcela (the center or heart of the village), another crossroads of village paths and new collective memories (gatherings, dances, later the agricultural cooperative, etc.). The Austrian layer The occupation of Venice by Napoleon in 1797 meant the end of the maritime oli- garchy and its control over Dalmatia. The administration was soon taken over by the Austrians (1797–1805), who, after a brief French period, ruled it until the First World War (1813–1918). In 1815, they founded the Kingdom of Dalmatia with its seat in Zadar, which was subordinate to Vienna. During this period of modernization, the less developed conditions of Dalmatia compared to many other parts of Austria (and Hungary) becomes clear: farming with hoes and pasturing, no industry, simple infra- structure (donkeys and boats), no education, and widespread disease (Foretić, 1969; Ravlić, 1969; Wolff, 1997). The most important administrative intervention of the Austrian Empire in the Šibe- nik archipelago was the decision to make the island of Zlarin the center of most of the Peter Simonič 72 | Traditiones surrounding islets in 1826.6 Zlarin was made the seat of the municipality and given a post office, captain’s office, school, and doctor. In Žirje, for example, ten miles away, a primary school was only opened in 1908, eighty years after Zlarin. The inhabitants of Zlarin were able to read and write, and they sent their children to schools outside earlier than others. The proximity of Zlarin to Šibenik (two miles) and the early strong ties to the town, the shipbuilding and trading families, and the administrative center strengthened the power of Zlarin and aroused respect and at the same time envy among the inhabitants of the other inhabited islands. In Prvić, I even heard that the inhabit- ants of Zlarin “once” had their own saloon on the barge that brought the islanders to Šibenik. In any case, the Austrian administration introduced micro-centralization and a hierarchy to the Šibenik islands. For all administrative matters, it was necessary to row or sail from Žirje to Zlarin. One enduring element of the Austrian Monarchy on Žirje was certainly the loca- tion known as Straža (literally, ‘guard’), which only appears on the maps of the Third Military Survey between 1869 and 1887 (Internet 3), shortly after the foundation of Italy in 1861. Straža was also associated with military activities during the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Today, the observatory, which offers a good view of the sea and the entire island, is used by a small unit of the Croatian army. 6 Even today, only six of the 249 small islands and islets of the Šibenik archipelago are inhabited: Murter (connected to the mainland by a drawbridge in Tisno since 1832), Krapanj, Prvić, Zlarin, Kaprije, and Žirje. On the uninhabited islands and islets, people grazed sheep, gathered wood and herbs, set up fishing camps, and the like. Some of them are leased today. The large number of Šibenik islands, their sparse population, and the neighboring Kornati islands provide an ideal setting for nautical tourism. Figure 4: Žirje in the 3rd Austrian military survey (1869–1887). Source: Mapire, 2023. The Island of Žirje: Challenging Claims of Isolation Traditiones | 73 The Austrians also built two artillery batteries: one on the northwestern edge of the island (known as Vela Glava) and the other on the southeastern edge (known as Zvizdulje).7 These batteries were later also used by the Yugoslav army. Zvizdulje was last known for the artillery defense of Šibenik during the Croatian War of Independ- ence in September 1991. After the war, there were several initiatives to establish a memorial site there. The population of the island grew considerably from the middle of the eighteenth century until the beginning of the twentieth century, which according to Josip Ante Soldo (1973: 9) indicates a strengthening of the economic power of the peasants. In the middle of the nineteenth century, the locals became the owners of all the land in the plain (Polje), and some also concluded lease agreements with each other. For the citizens of Šibenik, the nobility, and the Franciscans, the collection of taxes on a remote island became an ever-increasing burden. However, the land—be it for vineyards, olive groves, gardens, or orchards—was the key to the survival of the agricultural community in Žirje. The landowners were therefore happy if they could sell and then find work in administration or trade, and the islanders were happy if they could buy. However, as the population grew and needs increased, the land was divided into smaller and smaller plots due to the egalitarian rules of inheritance (Sirovica, 1994; Soldo, 1973: 66–115; Todd, 1985). In principle, property was divided equally among all children. These social rules eventually made it difficult for individual families to make a living, which led to the economic emigration of their younger male members. Protracted legal disputes with the Franciscans over taxes, especially their right to levy the one-fifth tax (i.e., petine) on the karst land outside the plain, which the locals had cultivated for centuries as pasture and for olive trees or grapevines, and where most drystone walls were built, led to an official agreement in 1876 on the final sale of the entire island (and its surrounding islets). This agreement was signed and paid by sixty-six island families. The areas outside the plain became village property, and the locals now owned the entire island in either private or communal form (Kale, 2019; Soldo, 1973). Simultaneously with the growing administrative, travel, and scientific interest in new acquisitions on the Adriatic, Austria developed its transport infrastructure on land and water (Baskar, 2010; Šišak, 2019). The construction of the railway line from Oštarije to Split via Knin, which runs for several dozen kilometers through the Šibenik hinterland, was only started in 1912 but completed under the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (Internet 4). Žirje has long been a producer of grapes and olives. The farmers’ considerations to buy the island in the second half of the nineteenth century must have been based on these crops and sheep. Agriculture and pastoralism were their worlds, in which they 7 The southern edge of the island, where Zvizdulje is located, was excluded from the common village pasture for the needs of the army (Kale, 2019: 25). Peter Simonič 74 | Traditiones invested all their knowledge, time, and money (cf. Geertz, 1963: 82). The wine boom and territorial sovereignty were soon interrupted by the Austro-Italian trade agreement (the wine clause of 1892), which encouraged Austrian (and German) merchants to buy Italian wines instead of those produced domestically. The prices for Dalmatian wines fell. A few years later, around 1894, phylloxera (an aphid that attacks the vine) destroyed viticulture, an important branch of Dalmatian foreign trade (Edinost, 1892; Lajić et al., 2001: 34). This was followed by a large emigration of (overpopulated) mainlanders and islanders from Dalmatia throughout Europe and the world. However, statistics show that the high number of residents of the island of Žirje continued until the middle of the twentieth century and even increased significantly after the phylloxera plague.8 Some local farmers found at least partial relief in fishing. At the end of the nine- teenth century, an Italian named Conte (or Conti) from the region of Corsica came to the island, settled on Muna Bay, and promoted his fishing and lobstering techniques. This story from historical literature (Friganović, Šterc, 1994: 84; Stošić, 1941: 195) is repeated by the locals. It is unlikely that the islanders had no idea about fishing. The greater problem was poverty and the inability to buy larger nets and boats. At the time of his death, Conte owned four different fishing boats, several longlines, and lobster traps (Friganović, Šterc, 1994: 84). The people of Žirje, who were organized into fishing associations (ribarske drúžine), worked on his boats within the framework of a certain hierarchy with certain duties and a corresponding share of the catch. In any case, the Žirje fishermen also began to take over the fishing warehouses in Muna Bay at this time (Kale, 2019: 25; Soldo, 2022). The historical placement of this narrative is interesting information for understanding the essential importance and longevity of agriculture and animal husbandry on the island, as well as the late shift to marine resources and labor among the locals—although the sea near Žirje was always considered one of the richest in fisheries and corals (see Soldo, 1973). There is no source of water on the island, the humidity is low, and droughts are frequent. Just as the plain was formed over millennia by rainwater draining from the nearby shores, a pond formed at its lowest point. People widened and deepened it, and walled it in. Until the beginning of the twentieth century, it was used for drinking water by all the villagers, sheep, and donkeys. Some of the water was carried by women with buckets on their heads or with donkeys to the houses for the household and the goats, as well as to the fields for irrigation and spraying with blue vitriol.9 The people collected 8 Approximate population development: 1298 (103 inhabitants), 1667 (183), 1742 (178), 1841 (355), 1901 (634), 1928 (750), 1951 (751), 1991 (130) (Sirovica, 1994; Soldo, 1973: 8–9; Stošić, 1941: 194). In comparison, the population of Zlarin began to shrink significantly as early as the 1920s (Korenčić, 1979), and male emigration occurred earlier and to a greater extent, so that women took over most of the island’s economy, education, and culture (Simonič, 2017; Sremac, 2010). Patriarchal relationships (in the sense of “the woman on foot, the man on the donkey behind her”) are said to have existed in Žirje for a long time. 9 The height of the drystone wall around the pond was therefore at the height of a woman’s head for easier loading (Bilan, 2021: 2). The Island of Žirje: Challenging Claims of Isolation Traditiones | 75 the water on the east side of the pond (known as Gornje žalo ‘upper shore’), and the animals were allowed on the west side (known as Donje žalo ‘lower shore’) (Bilan, 2021: 2). Although Bilan writes that there were no digestive diseases and people on Žirje died more often from tuberculosis, which affects the malnourished (Bilan, 2021: 2, 6), on the other hand, poor hygienic conditions due to stagnant water and the simultaneous feeding of animals, frequent malaria, and the death of many children are reported.10 At the beginning of the twentieth century, the royal authorities of Zadar sent a reporter to Žirje, where there was a malaria epidemic. Based on a joint assessment by reporters from various places in Dalmatia, the reporters suggested that the state should tackle the problem by treating and eliminating the causes of the development of this disease: unclean water sources and the large number of infected mosquito species (Sirovica, 1994). It is not known to what extent the state later contributed to the construction, but before the First World War the villagers built a central village cistern above the village, and after the war they extended it further down the slope.11 The development of medicine naturally also contributed to the disappearance of malaria. The origins of the modern island landscape can also be traced back to Austrian times. In the Kingdom of Dalmatia, as elsewhere in the Mediterranean, “undemanding” Aleppo pines were systematically planted from the middle of the nineteenth century onward 10 In my opinion, the difference in interpretation stems from the fact that Bilan wrote the book in 2021 based on conversations with local women born in the twentieth century: Ljubica Konti (née Šižgorić) and Mileno Grguričin (née Šižgorić). In the middle of the twentieth century, people are said to have drunk water from the pond. Nowadays, people no longer do this. The pond and the canals connected to it are likewise no longer maintained. 11 If the pond and cistern dried up, people relied on a thin layer of brackish water in a deep cave at Gradina (Bilan, 2021: 3; interlocutors). Figure 5: Pond (Lokva). Photo: Peter Simonič, 2023. Peter Simonič 76 | Traditiones to stop soil erosion after the devastating deforestation of the oaks. Planting continued into the twentieth century, with the pine spreading by itself in some places (Tekić et al., 2015).12 A comparison of a black-and-white photo from 1905 with a contemporary color photo illustrates the spatial changes at Muna Bay and the new “natural state” that defines modern life (cf. Fuerst-Bjeliš, Kale, 2018). The Austrian period ends with the monument to Jerko Šižgorić (1889-1918), which stands near the old village center. It preserves the memory of a local naval officer that was involved in organizing an ethnic rebellion on Austrian ships in the Bay of Kotor at the end of the First World War and was shot after a swift verdict by an Austrian military court (Internet 6; Stošić, 1941: 195). The Yugoslav layer After the First World War, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia completed the Dalmatian rail- way. Industry developed in Šibenik. In the 1930s, this region was also affected by the global economic crisis and the harsh reaction of political parties. As a collective remnant of the Second World War, the memory of the Sloveni- an priest Ferdinand Kolednik lives on in Žirje, where he has been commemorated by a memorial plaque in the village for the last few years. After the Partisans fired inaccurately at German ships in October 1943, the Germans invaded the island and gathered the entire population at Srcela, where they were threatened with execution. 12 In Zlarin, I heard that people would boil the seeds the evening before the officially ordered pine planting campaign so that they would not germinate. Figure 6: One hundred years apart. Left: Muna in 1905 (anon.). Right: Muna, Donja Banda in 2023. Photo: Peter Simonič, 2023. The Island of Žirje: Challenging Claims of Isolation Traditiones | 77 In the meantime, the few Partisans that had carried out the attack hid in Little Stupica Bay (Mala Stupica). According to sources and oral tradition, Kolednik knelt before a German military unit and begged them for mercy in German. He saved 630 inhabitants of Žirje, an entire village, but he ended up in a German concentration camp (Savez boraca NOR otoka Žirja, 1952: 54–57).13 Despite the historical changes, agriculture, growing fruit, and pasture farming continued until the mid-twentieth century. This predominant local economic model began to disintegrate at the end of the nineteenth century, but the final collapse of agriculture on the island occurred in the mid-twentieth century, when Šibenik became an industrial center. Life in communist Yugoslavia and its institutional consequences can already be reconstructed with the help of local interlocutors. Because they witnessed the disinte- gration of the traditional island society and culture during their lifetime, these narratives are always emotional. Even after the Second World War, daily work in the vineyards and gardens, work in the olive groves (involving people of all ages and both sexes), collecting wood for cooking, and grazing sheep (women’s and children’s work) were part of village life. In the 1950s and 1960s, each family owned twenty sheep, which they grazed together (the animals were marked). Each family also owned a goat for the children’s milk. After the day’s labor in the fields, some went fishing in the evening or at night (the work of men and widows). In the morning, they often rowed to Šibenik to sell the fish, often unsuccessfully. “There used to be a lot of fish, but hardly anyone wanted to buy it. Today, everyone would like to eat fish, but the waters around Žirje have been decimated by industrial, tourist, and local fishing,” said an islander. For a long time, the only way to store the catch (before canning and freezing) was salted fish, which was stacked in barrels (at Muna Bay). According to another man, salt was too expen- sive for his family after the Second World War, and so they poured seawater onto the terrace and then collected the salt. After the Second World War, they hoped to build a fish canning factory, but perhaps because of “better political connections” the factory was then built on the island of Prvić.14 Patrilocality prevailed in the founding of new families, and the wedding ceremony re-enacted the transition of the bride to her husband’s house (Furčić, 1994). Several fraternal-patrilocal families lived in manors: compound buildings with courtyards that were sometimes shared. It made sense to extend the manor houses because only three walls had to be built for each additional family house, which saved time and money by conserving stone. 13 After the war, Kolednik established himself internationally as a translator (Internet 5). 14 The factory in Prvić was short-lived. For the broader economic and social potential and consequences of the fish-canning industry in (northern) Dalmatia, see Kosmos et al. (2020). Peter Simonič 78 | Traditiones The fraternal arrangement did not entail a common household; instead, each family worked their fields and looked after their animals separately. Mutual help also included the education of children. Joint labor was expected for construction work, the most important seasonal tasks (hoeing and harvesting), and pasture work, in which other villagers also helped. The emotional framework of nostalgia encountered in people today has its roots not in the former quality and ease of subsistence, but in the diversity of social life that developed in the densely populated village; it was vibrant and alive. When Yugoslavia wanted to catch up economically with the developed European countries, industrialization also became increasingly important in Dalmatia. After the Second World War, industry supported the development of infrastructure in transport, business, education, culture, sports, and tourism. After the 1950s, state or social enter- prises in Šibenik, Split, and Zadar employed many island and mainland farmers and provided them with housing, leisure facilities, education, and so on. The need for labor on the coast also attracted people from Žirje.15 This had devastating consequences for economic and social life on Žirje, but individual families saw and seized the opportunity to escape chronic poverty and overpopulation.16 As early as 1963 or 1965, the primary school in Žirje was closed, forcing the parents of school-age children that remained to quickly move away with their families. The population of the island has thus aged statistically, which is why today it is also referred to as the “home of pensioners at sea” (Sirovica, 1994: 98). The average age of the approximately one hundred inhabitants is over sixty, and only one or two families with children of preschool age still live in Žirje. Due to the abandonment of vineyards, orchards, gardens, and pastures in the postwar period, the island was increasingly overgrown with pines and maquis in the following decades, an ecologically reversed process compared to the previous centuries of oak deforestation, clearing, and intensive cultivation (cf. Oelschlaeger, 1991). Staying in the village in the interior of the island near the plain eventually became unnecessary 15 Some went abroad, especially to the United States. According to one local, at least part of the emigration after the Second World War was political and not only economic. It would be necessary to investigate more closely what connections and influences the emigrants and their descendants have on the island today. The property relations also suggest that social relations can be explained not only from the perspective of the locals on the island, but also from the perspective of distant, often invisible, but present actors (from Šibenik, Zagreb, New York, etc.). Today, they occasionally appear on Facebook as admirers of the island’s (family) traditions, and they come to the island more or less regularly to take care of apartments and olive groves, or for vacations. Regardless of their physical distance, they are always relatives and co-owners that have the right to shape the social and spatial processes on the island. 16 Braudel emphasized the precarious existence of most Mediterranean islands in the sixteenth century because the question was always how to survive with their own resources, land, orchards, and poultry (and other small animals; author’s note), and, if this was not possible, they looked outward (Braudel, 1972: 152). I would like to add that research on the Dalmatian islands shows that today this problem increases with the smallness of the island and its distance from the mainland and its urban centers (Lajić et al., 2001; Podgore- lec, 2015), whereas Braudel noted a stronger integration of the outer islands into the international shipping flows of the time. Although the large plain was a great comparative advantage, it became a modernization trap for the islanders of Žirje. The Island of Žirje: Challenging Claims of Isolation Traditiones | 79 and unpromising.17 Others began to look around the coast of the island, especially in the nearby harbor at Muna Bay. In this way they would be closer to the daily shipping connection with Šibenik, their fishing warehouses, and boats. In the 1970s and 1980s, most of the social weight and investment shifted to Muna Bay.18 As far as the relationship between the Yugoslav communist political economy and Žirje is concerned, the longer episode with the Žirje cooperative is very interesting. It was a local cell of the planned economy and at the same time an attempt at collective market participation by the villagers. It was also an extension of the island’s patriar- chal-egalitarian families (cf. Todd, 1985). For a time after the Second World War, the cooperative managed to slow the trend of declining population and economic activity, or so it seemed. The Žirje Fisheries Production and Processing Cooperative (Ribarska proizvođačka i prerađivačka zadruga Žirje) is associated with many local memories, and many see it as one of the last great community endeavors that cannot be repeated, 17 The islanders’ orientation toward the plain had not only ecological and political-economic reasons (land as a basic resource in colonate agriculture), but also local defense reasons: away from the coast meant away from the pirates: “On October 9th, 1808, English pirates stole goods worth 890 lire from the house of Jakov Požarev and Kuratova” (Stošić, 1941: 199). Such a settlement model was therefore common on the Dalmatian islands. 18 The island is very exposed to the winds (Friganović, 1994a). The only news one can read about the island in winter is the temporary suspension of shipping traffic due to strong winds. A retired fisherman that lives in the village, because it is on the leeward side, told me that the name Muna comes from the word for ‘mad’ (from munjena ‘struck by lightning’); the bay is open to the northeast, against the bora wind. The same applies to Mikavica Bay, and to Tratinska and Pečena Bays, whereas Big and Little Stupica Bays (Vela Stupica, Mala Stupica) on the east coast are exposed to south winds. Figure 7: Abandoned dvori in the old village (Selo). Photo: Peter Simonič, 2023. Peter Simonič 80 | Traditiones although it would be good if it were. At the regional office of the Croatian State Archives in Šibenik, I examined the material on fishing, agricultural, and consumer cooperatives in the Šibenik area in the twentieth century. The Žirje cooperative was founded in its final form in 1947, was fully functional for about thirty years, and was finally closed in the 1980s. As far as my interlocutors can remember, the cooperative owned three or four fishing boats in the 1960s, which were organized into fishing associations. They also traveled to Šibenik and Vodice to sell prized sweet green plums, which no longer exist today. The locals say that the climate has probably changed or that nobody took care of the plums, and so they have become overgrown. The house of the main coop- erative was located at Srcela. This is where people sang, drank, played cards, talked about politics, danced, and, of course, bought agricultural equipment. In the 1980s there was a discotheque, which also attracted visitors from Šibenik and other islands. The cooperative also owned an oil mill and a shop with a restaurant on Muna Bay. Today they transport small olive harvests to the oil mill on the neighboring island of Kaprije. After the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the cooperative dissolved and its facilities were abandoned. They were then sold to an entrepreneur from the mainland that did not fulfil his investment promises, and so they are still slowly deteriorating. The communal agreements on the economy, space, and future of the village em- phasized so far should not lead one to believe that there was complete political and economic equality. I am referring to the built-in social inequality through property and class relations at settlement, as well as local political and informal inequalities. As already mentioned, during the conquest of Dalmatia, the Venetians, in search of local allies, granted land in Žirje to some deserving orders, the inhabitants of Šibenik, and their families. Among them, the Šižgorić family, who came from Skradin on the Krka River, stands out. “In the first half of the fourteenth century (1323), the noble families Figure 8: Sold socialist co-operative buildings. Left: In the old village, Srcela. Right: In the Muna bay, Donja Banda. Photos: Peter Simonič, 2023. The Island of Žirje: Challenging Claims of Isolation Traditiones | 81 of Šibenik—Šižgorić, Jurin, and De Saracenis—acquired estates on the island, and the coloni became more closely associated with the town” (Friganović, 1994c: 76). “The numerous and old Šižgorić family from Šibenik owned a lot of land on Žirje since the fifteenth century, when they received property on the island from Venice as a reward for their loyalty. Over time, this property was divided among many branches of the family” (Soldo, 1973: 69). “In 1914, the Šibenik chronicler Vincenzo Miagostovich compiled a family tree of the Šižgorić family, listing more than three hundred mem- bers. Today, the descendants of the family live mainly in Žirje and Šibenik” (Hrvatska enciklopedija, 2013–2024). Among the members of this family was a bishop of Šibenik, Juraj Šižgorić (1398- 1453/54), who had a vacation residence on the island; later, a ship captain with the same surname was also rewarded with land on Žirje (Hrvatska enciklopedija, 2013–2024; Stošić, 1941: 198–199). In the agricultural study by Soldo (1973), the surname fre- quently appears among tax (non-)payers. One should also remember the monument to the insurgent naval officer Jerko Šižgorič. One of the members of this highly branched family is now a leaseholder (maritime concessionaire) at Big Stupica Bay (Vela Stupica) and is considered the most entrepreneurial and wealthiest islander. As far as inequity is concerned, I have already mentioned the preindustrial patriarchy and the varying success of farmers and families in accumulating arable land in the plain, fishing boats, and so on. Participation in various municipal bodies in Šibenik and other political and economic connections outside the island have always brought some benefit to members of the local community. The following story from the decline of Yugoslavia can be interpreted in the con- text of internal political relations. The controlled or institutionalized littoralization of Žirje was represented by the division of the coastal land in the late 1970s and early 1980s. According to an agreement adopted by the village council, the authorized committee divided the land on Muna Bay (especially on the northern edge of the bay, known as Gornja banda), Koromašn(j)a Bay, and Tratinska/Pečena Bay, all of which were owned by the village community according to the purchase agreement of 1876. This measure was intended to stop the depopulation of the island, but instead vacation homes were soon built on most of the plots, to which apartments were later added by the descendants living on the mainland. Only a handful of these houses are permanently inhabited in winter. The stories about building houses on Muna Bay at that time revolve around transporting building materials, excavating the solid rock, and the lack of water: they are full of doubt, renunciation, perseverance, and mutual help in the village when this was still taken for granted. There are also stories about growing up on the gravel by the sea. Today, anyone that appropriates part of the coast (especially on Tratinska Bay or Big Stupica Bay) without consulting the other villagers is frowned upon, which is why the representatives of the local community go to court to defend their common property. Peter Simonič 82 | Traditiones During the Yugoslav era, a unit of the Yugoslav People’s Army was stationed on the island. The social life at that time cannot be understood without the army, which had men and facilities all over the island. The locals formed many bonds with them: they arranged joint communal projects and parties, and some soldiers married women from Žirje. Due to the constant presence of the army and poor connections with Šibenik, Žirje was unable to participate in the first wave of tourism in Dalmatia, which began after the construction of the Adriatic highway in the 1960s, attracting tourists from across Europe and irrevocably changing the character of the coastal villages and towns that had been difficult to access until then, previously only accessible by donkeys and boats, and by railway in the remote hinterland. Žirje only became a tourist destination in the late 1980s. It was the last island in this wave that spread from the mainland: with boats and passengers, electricity, internet, state and municipal development programs, EU funds, and the like. The strongest effect was in Zlarin, which published its first tourism brochure as early as 1936 (Simonič, 2017). Žirje only opened to foreigners after the withdrawal of the Yugoslav army in 1991 and the Croatian War of Independence (1991–1995). The contemporary Croatian layer Žirje played an important role in the defense of Šibenik against the tanks of the Yu- goslav Army in September 1991. Shelling from the artillery platform in Zvizdulje was possible, it is said, because relations between the army and the population were Figure 9: Bays of Žirje. Top left: Mikavica. Bottom left: Tratinska. Centre: Muna, Gornja Banda. Top right: Vela Stupica. Bottom right: Koromašnja. Photos: Peter Simonič, 2023 (except Vela Stupica, 2018). The Island of Žirje: Challenging Claims of Isolation Traditiones | 83 so good. The commander of the Yugoslav army unit on the island decided to switch to the Croatian side, to Žirje. This gave him the right to remain on the island after the war as a highly respected member of the community. He reversed the balance of power in the conflict because the Yugoslav army did not initially realize that the base on Žirje was now hostile. The artillery, which included several men from Žirje, managed to stop the tanks at the Šibenik Bridge twelve miles away, which was at the limit of what was possible given the type of artillery at their disposal (Alić, 1994; Miškić, 1994). This was the heroic era of the island. According to some locals, this is not sufficiently appreciated in Šibenik, and they would like to erect a memorial to the Croatian army at Zvizdulje, whereas others are fed up with the repetition of this history and distrust its national mythologization. The period after the war saw the collapse of communist-era industry, shipbuilding, and shipping. The locals name several factories in Šibenik that went under during the war, denationalization, and privatization after 1991: the Lozovac aluminum factory, the Ražine aluminum factory, the iron alloy factory in Crnica, the Dane Rončevič factory, the Elemes aluminum factory, the Poliplast plastic products factory, and so on. The opening of Žirje after the war of independence and the post-Yugoslav economic crisis on the mainland have rapidly driven the tourist commercialization of land, houses, and services. The restrictions are already well known: a woman at Muna Bay told me that to release her sole ownership she had to negotiate with 250 people—that is, all the living heirs of the sixty-six families that purchased the island in the nineteenth century, many of whom live all over the world. Only so-called 1/1 plots (jedan kroz jedan; i.e., one owner per one plot) can be now taken seriously, purchased, or sold. Despite the restrictions, domestic and foreign purchases of houses and plots are slowly increasing (with buyers including Slovenians, Italians, and Germans). In 2022, the majority of tourists to the island were Slovenians (40%), Croats (23%), Germans (6%), Czechs, and Austrians. In total, the island was visited by almost a thousand tourists (more than ten times the number of permanent residents), who spent around 9,500 nights on the island (Amaterska kulturna udruga Žirje, 2022: 18). Every winter is now a potential missed opportunity to expand or improve the tourism capacity at home. There is no shortage of construction work, and so laborers from Šibenik or Bosnia can work on the island almost all year round. I was invited to a celebration to mark the completion of a new apartment block, where I met almost all the locals. Two musicians from Šibenik were invited. The Croatian flag ceremonially fluttered on the roof of the new extension. Parallel to the tourist development of Žirje, the presentation of the island’s cultural heritage has also evolved. It consists of fragments of the past that are important for the internal identification of the islanders and at the same time for the tourist presentation of the local culture and past. For example, there is Saint Mary’s Church, where a group of keepers of the island’s religious heritage meet, thus going beyond religious motives Peter Simonič 84 | Traditiones and socializing. The artefacts are mainly various relics donated by the locals after being acquired over many years from various Venetian masters. Under communism (1945–1991), religious life declined sharply due to depopulation and political ideol- ogy. The modern Croatian state favors relations with the Vatican. In summer, Saint Nicholas’s Church at nearby Muna Bay is transformed into a venue for concerts and theater performances of the “tourist summer.” The Gradina Fortress is open to tourists. There are also two large dry-stone huts, known as Stari stan ‘old house’ and Novi stan ‘new house’ (Kale, 1994). An attempt is being made to build a tourist-ecological board next to the pond. The history of viticulture, the colonate system, and the cooperative has not been documented and presented, and the remnants of a former olive press are deteriorating in the mouth of Muna Bay. The pedigrees of several families have recently been displayed next to the remnants of the press, and data collection is still in progress. These genealogies emphasize the importance of the individual island families and their affiliation to the area, and at the same time serve as a kind of distinguishing marker of the old local families in their relationship to all newcomers at the public space of the harbor, the entry point to the island. Genealogies are also an important form of recording local history because most of the accessible records of the island’s past up to the end of the twentieth century come from the outside, from various land registers, court records, and chronicles. Today Žirje is a municipality of the town of Šibenik, as are most of the inhabited islands of the Šibenik archipelago.19 Along this line, there have been political strug- gles between the long-dominant HDZ party and occasional local groups supported by other parties. In the last ten years, two independent local parties have successfully participated in local elections. One of the most important recent achievements of the island was opening a perma- nent grocery shop at Muna Bay in 2022. After the cooperative was dissolved, people only had a shop available in the summer; otherwise they had to travel to Šibenik, two hours away, to the market, the hospital, the municipal office, and other services. The plain is almost overgrown with pine trees on all sides. There are only a few cultivated vineyards here and there. The last donkey left in the 1980s, and the last sheep about ten years ago. The olive trees remain tended by the families because they require less care, and their fruit is always valuable. After the Second World War, some people began to build domestic cisterns, which later became the general standard. Today, water is delivered by boat tanker (holding 500,000 liters), which fills the old village cistern, from where the water is distributed to various (but not all) locations on the island, where people can fill their household cisterns (10,000 or 20,000 liters) by connecting them to a hydrant. In the summer 19 Today, Šepurine on the island of Prvić administratively belongs to the municipality of Vodice, whereas Murter is divided into two municipalities: Murter (with Kornati) and Tisno. The Island of Žirje: Challenging Claims of Isolation Traditiones | 85 months, this amount of water lasts for ten days. Currently, the construction of a public water supply system linking Kopno, Prvić, Obonjan, Kaprije, and Žirje is underway, which will significantly ease people’s worries and at the same time change the current (no longer so modest, but still more conscious) attitude toward drinking water. Fluidity and relationality of the island of Žirje The historical aspect and the integration into various “world systems” make it possible to read the layers of place, organization, and meaning of the island of Žirje, making it dynamic and flexible and removing the fiction of isolation. A better term to describe island life would be remoteness, and until the twentieth century also time delay and today even slowness (ageing). A distinction must be made among the spatial, metaphorical, and ethnographic or cultural isolation of the place. The culture of Žirje was originally authentic in the way the rural inhabitants and immigrants from the mainland—farmers and shepherds—adapted to the broader military, political, economic, technological, and, of course, natural environmental conditions of the island. Most of them were allowed to settle. Later, the technological, economic, political, and social conditions changed, and with them the positioning and social and environmental arrangements on the island of Žirje. The fundamental difference between the description of the Trobriand Islands and the Šibenik archipelago is that Malinowski was not dealing with an external constraint, with an urban center that would connect and subordinate the islands: small or large kula ‘gifts’ and gimwali ‘barter’ were the result of self-initiated integration between the Trobriand people—a mechanism to avoid armed conflict between clans and tribes. This changed considerably for the Trobriand people in the twentieth century precisely because of the commercialization of bracelets and necklaces and the centralization of the Papuan state. The name Šibenik Islands, on the other hand, implies hierarchical administrative relations, and the modern history of island colonization, its economy, and culture. The identities of the Šibenik Islands were always more connected to Šibenik (and the world) than to each other (cf. Barth, 1969; Malinowski, 2017; Simonič, 2020). Island life and identity are the result of sociohistorical processes and negotiations with the world, not an “authentic” social capsule trapped in the sea. I would like to draw attention to the historical changes in the manmade environ- ments on the island: from defense (Byzantine fortresses) in the southeast of the island to agriculture and pasture in or from the center of the island, to fishing and tourism in the bays of the northern part. Each era utilized a specific niche, and these niches determine the history of the landscape and other features of Žirje’s cultural heritage, identity, and imagination. Peter Simonič 86 | Traditiones Economic value has shifted from fertile land to rocky shores. The once unpopular and worthless coast, especially in the partially sheltered bays, have become the most sought-after places where the descendants of the people of Žirje (with all those that live elsewhere), Croatian citizens or foreigners, set up a vacation home. In the meantime, the old village has largely fallen into disrepair. The desire of locals and foreigners for tourism on the coast has clashed with the common ownership of the island. Only small modifications are allowed. The complete ownership of the island by old families still makes large investments in vacation resorts and hotels impossible because they would require negotiations with many people to acquire large plots of land. The presence of the Yugoslav army also prevented adaptation to tourism for a time, although it helped modernize the island’s roads and other infrastructure and integrate it into the Yugoslav state. Tourism promises similar integration today, in a different sociopolitical context and with different goals. The hard or poor life in Žirje until the middle of the twentieth century can be explained not only by environmental conditions (climate, vegetation, and water), remoteness, or the army, but also by the long colonial and colonate extraction of wealth. In addition, the inheritance system and population growth from the eighteenth to the twentieth century led to fragmentation of agricultural property and undermined the economic basis of families. These are all social constraints that influence island life. Industrialization on the mainland and emigration abroad were devastating for the island community, but they were largely successful for many of the nuclear families. Associations of all kinds (extended family, fishing, cooperatives) did not survive but are fondly remembered. The family capital acquired elsewhere is now returning to the island in the form of new or partially restored family homes and new tourist accommodation. The development of tourism facilities has transformed many small families into active, state-registered market entities that are promoted on influential tourism platforms on the internet. Tourism has become an important part of owners’ livelihoods and a social front stage: social status on the island is measured by it. The political economy contributes to community and personal identity. Industrialization, tourism, and the sale of property have changed the structure of society on Žirje. The family genealogies are being revived publicly today, serving as an important source of rights and status among the locals in this newly emerging multinational island community. 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