
Premysl MachaThe Czech Academy of Sciences | AVCR · Institute of Ethnology
Premysl Macha
Doctor of Philosophy
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58
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Introduction
Fundamentally, I am interested in how we make sense of, and relate to, the world, ourselves and others. Specifically, I am interested in the intersection of language, politics, space, and identity. My research has focused on democratization, nationalism and identity politics in indigenous communities in Mexico, landscape and place making in New Mexico, and toponymy and heritage conservation in the Czech Republic. I am also interested in environmental history, sustainability and utopia.
Publications
Publications (58)
There is a growing academic consensus that place names represent a valuable form of intangible cultural heritage of humanity and therefore they deserve systematic recognition and protection. However, when we attempt to put this idea into practice, we run into many problems. First, we have to define the heritage value of place names and establish th...
Non-forest woody vegetation such as copses, orchards, hedges, alleys, riparian vegetation, and isolated trees is a key-stone ecological, economic, and cultural landscape feature of agricultural landscapes. The analysis of its history is a precondition for the understanding of local management, traditional knowledge and practices, as well as human-n...
Language is a key element in the perception, formation, and reproduction of landscapes and group boundaries. It is effective in at least three dimensions, namely, the inner/cognitive, the outward/appropriative, and the collective/identitarian. The inner dimension refers to the fact that our perception of landscape and our spatial cognition are dete...
Place names have always been studied by several disciplines and for diverse reasons (Taylor 1998). Until recently, however, they were approached predominantly as ‘windows into the past’. Research in these areas has been very productive and continues to be developed by several investigators (see, e.g., Conedera et al. 2007; Kathrein 2009).
In this chapter we would like to offer a brief description and a critical reflection of our research approach. The international and multidisciplinary nature of our project, together with the politically sensitive character of the research topic and the geographical setting of the research in a complex border situation, generated numerous challenge...
In this chapter we present the principal findings from our research in southern Carinthia and the Těšín/Cieszyn region. Since we already provided the general methodological context in Chap. 3, we will now focus on the results. The three-year investigation yielded a wealth of data, and it unfortunately goes well beyond the scope of this chapter to r...
Carinthia [Kärnten] is the southernmost federal state of Austria. By area it is the fifth largest (9538 sq.km) and by population the sixth (560,931 as of 1 January 2019). However, it is the component of modern Austria with the longest tradition as a political entity. It borders on Italy and Slovenia in the South and has boundaries with three other...
In addition to a long common history as parts of the Habsburg empire, striking similarities such as place-name conflicts and historical burdens such as military occupations by the mother country of the minority had been a major motivation for comparing the two minority situations. The longer, however, the research proceeded, the more it became obvi...
The current cultural landscape and structure of Austria are the result of several cultural layers accumulated throughout history. These layers can very well be traced and documented by toponymy confirming the value of place names as keys to cultural and settlement history.
The linguistic landscape – i.e. language and discourse in the material world - is an expression of social, cultural, economic, and political forces operating in a given locality. As migrants integrate into the host society, they gradually become visible in the linguistic landscape, as well. However, their incorporation into the local linguistic lan...
This book explores the role of place names in the formation and maintenance of individual and group identities in multilingual and multi-ethnic situations. Using examples from Austria and Czechia as case studies, the authors examine the power of place names through an interdisciplinary and multi-methods approach that draws from the fields of anthro...
Článek pojednává o konfliktech ve venkovských obcích Těšínska, které v posledních patnácti letech vyvolalo zavádění dvojjazyčných, česko-polských nápisů. Téma je analyzováno v kontextu politiky toponymie a diskuzí o modelech soužití v multikulturních společnostech. Text stručně představuje vybrané výsledky mnohaletého výzkumu opírajícího se o analý...
It is not uncommon for place names to become symbols of national identity. Once in that position, such names often play a significant symbolic role in national and local politics. It is less common, however, for actual place name usage to significantly contradict declared place name preferences such that for official purposes people prefer a name v...
In our article we analyse the role of place names in the construction of national identities in the Czech-Polish borderlands. The analysed cities are Český Těšín, Czechia, and
Cieszyn, Poland, cities which were created after the division of the original Austrian Silesian city of Těšín/Cieszyn/Teschen between the newly established states of Czechosl...
This material contains links to the maps accompanying the article City Divided: Place Names and Nationalism in the Czech-Polish Borderlands published in Mitteilungen der Österreichischen Geographischen Gesellschaft – Band 160 (Annals of the Austrian Geographical Society – Volume 160).
Online page with maps can be accessed at http://tesinsko.osu.cz/...
Map No. 2 accompanying the article City Divided: Place Names and Nationalism in the Czech-Polish Borderlands published in Mitteilungen der Österreichischen Geographischen Gesellschaft – Band 160 (Annals of the Austrian Geographical Society – Volume 160).
Zoom-and-pan viewing version of the map and sources used to create the place name database for...
Map No. 5 accompanying the article City Divided: Place Names and Nationalism in the Czech-Polish Borderlands published in Mitteilungen der Österreichischen Geographischen Gesellschaft – Band 160 (Annals of the Austrian Geographical Society – Volume 160). Zoom-and-pan viewing version of the map and sources used to create the place name database for...
Map No. 3 accompanying the article City Divided: Place Names and Nationalism in the Czech-Polish Borderlands published in Mitteilungen der Österreichischen Geographischen Gesellschaft – Band 160 (Annals of the Austrian Geographical Society – Volume 160). Zoom-and-pan viewing version of the map and sources used to create the place name database for...
Map No. 4 accompanying the article City Divided: Place Names and Nationalism in the Czech-Polish Borderlands published in Mitteilungen der Österreichischen Geographischen Gesellschaft – Band 160 (Annals of the Austrian Geographical Society – Volume 160). Zoom-and-pan viewing version of the map and sources used to create the place name database for...
Map No. 9 accompanying the article City Divided: Place Names and Nationalism in the Czech-Polish Borderlands published in Mitteilungen der Österreichischen Geographischen Gesellschaft – Band 160 (Annals of the Austrian Geographical Society – Volume 160). Zoom-and-pan viewing version of the map and sources used to create the place name database for...
Map No. 10 accompanying the article City Divided: Place Names and Nationalism in the Czech-Polish Borderlands published in Mitteilungen der Österreichischen Geographischen Gesellschaft – Band 160 (Annals of the Austrian Geographical Society – Volume 160). Zoom-and-pan viewing version of the map and sources used to create the place name database for...
Map No. 7 accompanying the article City Divided: Place Names and Nationalism in the Czech-Polish Borderlands published in Mitteilungen der Österreichischen Geographischen Gesellschaft – Band 160 (Annals of the Austrian Geographical Society – Volume 160). Zoom-and-pan viewing version of the map and sources used to create the place name database for...
Map No. 8 accompanying the article City Divided: Place Names and Nationalism in the Czech-Polish Borderlands published in Mitteilungen der Österreichischen Geographischen Gesellschaft – Band 160 (Annals of the Austrian Geographical Society – Volume 160). Zoom-and-pan viewing version of the map and sources used to create the place name database for...
Map No. 6 accompanying the article City Divided: Place Names and Nationalism in the Czech-Polish Borderlands published in Mitteilungen der Österreichischen Geographischen Gesellschaft – Band 160 (Annals of the Austrian Geographical Society – Volume 160). Zoom-and-pan viewing version of the map and sources used to create the place name database for...
Map No. 11 accompanying the article City Divided: Place Names and Nationalism in the Czech-Polish Borderlands published in Mitteilungen der Österreichischen Geographischen Gesellschaft – Band 160 (Annals of the Austrian Geographical Society – Volume 160). Zoom-and-pan viewing version of the map and sources used to create the place name database for...
The book of studies, written by 14 authors, presents both the texts dealing with common problems, and the studies aimed at the place name materials. Place names are presented in specific situations where the crucial role is played by their cultural and place-memory-creating values. The important focus is also given to interdisciplinarity and applica...
Studies of ethnicity have emphasized ethnicity’s social, processual and event-like character. While they have been very successful in explaining change, they have failed to account for the durability and renewed importance of many group identities. We argue that taking into account spatial and embodied dimensions of ethnicity, we can explain contin...
The goal of this article is to identify basic characteristics of Czech geographical and geopolitical imaginations. The analysis is based on own research and the results of repeated public opinion surveys carried out in the past several years. A particular emphasis is placed on NATO as a key reference point and mediator of geographical and geopoliti...
Article examines the occurrence of place names derived from exonyms such as Amerika, Korea and Balkán.
The goal of this article is to identify basic characteristics of Czech geographical and geopolitical imaginations. The analysis is based on own research and the results of repeated public opinion surveys carried out in the past several years. A particular emphasis is placed on NATO as a key reference point and mediator of geographical and geopoliti...
This article analyses geographical and geopolitical ideas of the Czech public. Geographical ideas have become one of the basic conceptual instruments of contemporary human geography for the research into the influence of “spatial discourse” on political decision-making processes. The analysis is based on public opinion surveys and original research...
The goal of this article is to identify key reasons for the continuing confusion about the meaning of landscape in human geography and other social sciences. It seeks to offer a new perspective on landscape as a socially relevant environment, which can be productively applied within human geography to better understand human spatial behavior. The a...
MACHA, P. (2013): Landscapes: a contribution to the discussion about the conceptualization of landscape in (Czech) geography. Geografie, 118, No. 1, pp. 1-15. - The goal of this article is to identify key reasons for the continuing confusion about the meaning of landscape in human geography and other social sciences. It seeks to offer a new perspec...
The paper aims to investigate the distribution and evolution of toponyms derivative of the words „iezer” and “bolătău” (Romanian) and their counterparts in the neighboring countries, where such homologous words/toponyms exist, i.e. Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia. We documented that at present the terms where the toponyms originated (“iezer...
Place names have been systematically studied by various disciplines, including linguistics, history, geography, and anthropology. Most of these studies have, however, focused on the historical value of place names in documenting language change, the spread of human settlement, distribution of geomorphological objects and the evolution of legal prac...
Place names have been systematically studied by various disciplines, including linguistics, history, geography, and anthropology. Most of these studies have, however, focused on the historical value of place names in documenting language change, the spread of human settlement, distribution of geomorphological objects and the evolution of legal prac...
While anthropologists have always studied spatial aspects of cultural practices, space, place and landscape were rarely the central topics of their re-search and writing. Space was considered as passive, secondary background to cultural processes rather than their integral component, shaping force and pro-duct. It may be argued that for a long time...
While anthropologists have always studied spatial aspects of cultural practices, space, place and landscape were rarely the central topics of their research and writing. Space was considered as passive, secondary background to cultural processes rather than their integral component, shaping force and product. It may be argued that for a long time s...
One of the principal themes in the study of Latin American catholicism is the question of the authenticity versus the syncretism of particular religious traditions. In our opinion, the dichotomy between the authentic and the syncretic is false and does not correspond with the meaning of those traditions as they are lived and experienced. Using as o...
Vyd. 1. 30 výt. Nad názvem: Ostravská univerzita v Ostravě, Filozofická fakulta, Katedra filozofie
Vyd. 1. 20 výt. Určeno pro kurzy Celoživotního vzdělávání Moravskoslezska