Preface. Egidija Ramanauskaitė

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3 Preface Egidija Ramanauskaitė This volume originates from a three-year EU FP6 research project entitled Society and Lifestyles: Towards Enhancing Social Harmonization through Knowledge of Sub-cultural Communities, which started in 2006; see the project website at The overall aim of the project was to extend knowledge about values and religions in Europe through the investigation of the communities which represent a variety of values and religious beliefs in the countries of Europe where radical political changes occurred following the collapse of the communist regime. These changes, which were oriented toward the development of democratic societies, led to social and cultural renewal in these societies. The project is based on an in-depth analysis of a significant number of subcultural communities which disseminate their values and beliefs. The project intended to analyse the challenges to contemporary European society arising from these different communities, to study their dominant values, beliefs, world-views and patterns of communication and to discuss the meanings of freedom and lifestyle as they are understood among the different groups. Another intention was to study the manifestations 1 Contract No: STREP-CT-CIT Start date: 1 January Project coordinator: Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania. Project management: Europarama, Lithuania. Project partners: University of Central Lancashire, UK; University of SS. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, Slovakia; Tallinn University, Estonia; Daugavpils University, Latvia; University of Pécs, Hungary; Warsaw Agricultural University, Poland; Dunarea de Jos University of Galati, Romania; University of Warwick, UK; University of Salford, UK; Centre for Analytic Studies and Development, Russia; Scientific Research Centre Region, Russia; Centre of Sociological, Political and Psychological Analysis and Investigations, Moldova; Institute of Lithuanian Scientific Society, Lithuania.

4 x Egidija Ramanauskaitė of tolerance and intolerance in subcultural communities, as well as the attitudes towards them among institutional spheres of society such as the media, leisure organizations, workplaces and schools (and to disseminate such knowledge to these institutions). Across the project as a whole, partners employed an interdisciplinary approach based on the methodologies of cultural/social anthropology, sociology, linguistics, and to a lesser extent statistical methods. This approach was implemented through fieldwork emphasizing an in-depth integration of researchers into the groups under investigation. The purpose of such integration was to more fully understand the meanings of the values, lifestyles and religious beliefs emerging from these groups and spreading into the society-at-large. Plate 1. Launching the Society and Lifestyles project in 2006, project members participating in a fire ritual together with the members of the Old Balts religious community Romuva on Gediminas Grave Hill, Vilnius, Lithuania. Photographer Gintaras Jaronis

5 Preface xi The scope of the research extended to the investigation of small social groups representing a variety of types of subculture. These include new religious and philosophical movements, style or youth subcultures and ethnic minority cultures. Their origins are related to important values which appeared in post-soviet countries, such as individuality, originality and the authenticity of individuals and groups. Consequently, the investigation of such subcultural communities helped researchers to identify significant socio-cultural demands arising in post-communist societies. The results of the research show that post-communist societies are composed of a variety of cultural groups and communities with diverse values and beliefs which have been manifested from 1989 onwards following the collapse of the communist regimes. The researchers made every endeavour to study the dominant processes leading to the division of the contemporary post-soviet societies into separate social groups with different socio-cultural identities. In addition to studying different cultural groups and movements, the main forms of social powers (involving ability, authority and constraint) stimulating the rise of new cultural groups in the region were analyzed. The project also aimed at enhancing tolerance and at facilitating the joint efforts of diverse social groups with regard to factors such as human values, cultural tastes, religious beliefs, age, gender and ethnicity. Furthermore, the project expected to initiate discussions about emerging social problems. This increased mutual understanding should facilitate the integration of the new countries into the social and cultural sphere of the EU by simultaneously preserving their authenticity. During the three years of the project, an extensive dissemination of activities was undertaken by the researchers. This collection of some of the essays from the project is a key part of that dissemination. Within the scope of the project an electronic data archive was created for the distribution of the research results. The archive contains audio and video recordings, interviews, photographs, group documents, ethnographic descriptions and scholarly articles. The archive secures the privacy of the respondents personal data and safeguards intellectual property rights. The project has also undertaken the dissemination of knowledge through academic conferences,

6 xii Egidija Ramanauskaitė workshops and the joint work by scholars and community members during the workshops and the cultural events of subcultural communities. A unique feature of the project was the establishment of an experimental environment for communication among the groups, the researchers and the members of the society-at-large. Two academic cultural forums (that is, laboratories for communication between academics, subcultural and new religious movement group members and the wider public) were organized in Lithuania both at Vytautas Magnus University and in a series of tents at the Black Horned Moon festival on the island of Lake Zaraso (see Plate 2 in George McKay and Michael Goddard s Subcultures introduction). At these sites, subcultural as well as religious communities (goths, hippies, heavy metal enthusiasts, bikers, punks, devotees of Hare Krishna, neo-pagans, members of the Anastasija religious movement and others) shared their values, subcultural practices and religious beliefs with each other. Also in these experimental public/academic/practitioner spaces, project researchers from different countries delivered academic readings on the findings from their fieldwork. The questions of how groups arise, function and disappear have been the main research questions of this project. These questions relate to topics of high practical concern and applicability as long as they can contribute to solving such crucial problems as social cohesion, inter-group tensions, discord and violence. The present volume presents the results of the first stage of the project where the researchers aimed at revealing the specific features of the behaviour of the different groups under investigation. It is hoped and expected that future collaborative publications will appear that will present a systematic comparative analysis of the various groups.