SIEF president

President Čarna Brković

Letter of the President

Dear SIEF Members,

It is my distinct pleasure to greet you this autumn, during which SIEF is engaged in a broad range of exciting activities.

SIEF’s relevance as an international platform for practicing ethnology and folklore across and beyond various hierarchically ordered differences – including (ethno-)national, linguistic, class- and resource based, racialized, gendered, and generational (…) – has always been significant. The same holds true in this difficult historical moment, marked by polarization, fragmentation, armed conflicts and ethnic cleansing, disappointment, and uncertainty. In these conditions, SIEF continues to provide a platform for its members to come together and reflect on our role as ethnologists and folklorists in a rapidly changing world.

In this Newsletter, you will find a report on the 17th biennial SIEF Congress in Aberdeen, which brought the SIEF community together around the theme of Unwriting. Our deepest gratitude and congratulations go to the Aberdeen team and their partners for organizing such an inspiring event, which sparked conversations, connections, and initiatives that will resonate for years to come. We are already looking ahead to the 2027 SIEF Congress in Bolzano, preparations for which are well underway!

The Newsletter also features an open call for applications for the 2026 SIEF Summer School, which will take place in Athens under the theme “Living Things, Lasting Forms, Narratives: Co-creating Heritages”. The Hellenic Folklore Research Centre, Academy of Athens and the Museum of Modern Greek Culture are preparing an outstanding program that reconceives heritage as an ongoing, co-creative process in which material forms, narrative genres, and living practices mutually sustain one another. As always, the SIEF Summer School welcomes applications from early career researchers and graduate students – both doctoral and Master’s level. I warmly encourage early-career SIEF members to apply and take part!

There is another exciting opportunity for SIEF’s early-career members: the call for the SIEF Young Scholar Prize has now been published.

Furthermore, all who are interested in internationalizing teaching curricula are invited to join The European Ethnology Transnational Syllabus Collective. Through this initiative, SIEF encourages its members to critically reflect on how the national canons of ethnology and folklore are taught, while developing syllabi and teaching plans from non-national, more-than-national, transnational, and/or European perspectives, in collaboration with colleagues across countries. If you are interested in joining, please get in touch with us at .

Since this is my first SIEF Newsletter address as incoming president, and I am stepping into very large shoes, I wish to express my sincere gratitude to the outgoing Board and Presidency, who have done remarkable work since 2021 under the stellar leadership of Marie Sandberg.

Thanks to the dedicated work of the previous Board and Presidency, our Society has launched a book series, “New Directions in the Study of Everyday Life, Past and Present”, edited by Hande Birkalan-Gedik and Anthony Bak Buccitelli, and published by Berghahn. If you have a book manuscript ready for submission, please do not hesitate to contact them!

I am also delighted to extend a very warm welcome to our new Board members – Tom DuBois (Vice President), Ioana Baskerville, Nicolas Le Bigre, Susanne Österlund-Pötzsch, Saša Poljak Istenič and Kinga Povedák – who, together with our continuing Board members in their second term – Daniela Salvucci and Hande Birkalan-Gedik – and our Executive Vice-President Sophie Elpers, will serve our community. Together, we will continue SIEF’s longstanding expertise and commitment to fostering consensus and collaboration across hierarchically ordered differences.

Sincerely,
Čarna Brković, SIEF President


Former SIEF president Marie Sandberg (2021-2025) hands over the SIEF baton to current president Čarna Brković.