Cover -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction to the English-Language Edition -- Introduction -- Part I: Concepts, Research Problems, the Field, and Method -- The Borderland, Ethnicity, Multiculturalism -- What is Culture on the Ethnic and Cultural Borderland? -- The Concept of Ethnicity in the Context of the "Cultural Distinctiveness of Ethnic Groups" -- Multiculturalism on the Borderland -- Borderland Anthropology -- The Socio-Historical Background of Field Research -- The Mythization of the Borderland World -- Information about Localities -- On Methodology and Field Work -- Establishing "Human" Relationships -- Conversation -- Technological "Extensions" -- Part II: The Cemetery and Forms of Memory: The Dynamics of Denominational Borders -- "There would be graves, and they would remember, yes…" - Or the Materiality of Memory -- Cemetery Boundaries - Community Boundaries? -- Collective Memory -- The Individualization of Memory -- "Uniformly, but we in our way and they in theirs" - Or the Relativity of Differences -- Practicalism and Metaphysics: The Traditions of the Western and Eastern Churches -- Structural Community - Religious Community -- Peasant Death -- Denomination as a Family Trait -- Prestige Asymmetry: Catholic Villages vs. Orthodox Villages -- Denominational Equivalence - Mixed Villages -- The Difference between Polish and Belarusian Areas -- "But why divide things here?" - Or About Annulling Borders -- About the Cemetery's Family Structure -- The Rules of Burial - Crossing Borders -- Cyrillic Dialogue with the Latin Alphabet -- Binominality, Duality -- Conclusions -- Part III: The Community of the Table: The Integrative Properties of Food -- Food as a Research Topic -- The Differentiating and Integrating Properties of Food -- Food as a Topic of Conversation and an Element of Ethnographic Experience.

Food as an Element of the Peasant Ethos -- The Earth-Provider -- "Consumption Minimalism" -- Family: A Sharing Community -- The Experience of Hunger - Memory of Taste -- Food as a Metonymy for Life -- Everyday Life and Holidays -- Generational Change - Breaking Tradition -- Food as a Material Sign of Social Ties -- The Family Circle and the Domestic Sphere -- The Family-Neighborhood Community -- Divisions and Borders - Nobility and Peasants -- Food and Denominational Differences -- Vodka and the Priest's Authority -- Double Time - "First" and "Second" Holidays -- Mixed Families - Blurring Borders -- Conclusions -- Recapitulation: The Transitivity, Situationality and Graduability of the Borderland -- Bibliography -- Index of names -- Illustrations.

The ethnographic research into death rituals and food practices in the Polish-Belarusian borderland shows that the symbolic boundaries between the Catholic and Orthodox believers are dynamic and situational. The religious identity of the residents is shaped by social relations and norms more than by the institutional frames of both churches.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2023. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.