ANECDOTE AS A SOURCE FOR MUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGY: AN ANALYSIS OF THE SOCIOCULTURAL FUNCTIONS OF MUSEUMS
DOI: 10.23951/2307-6119-2021-1-174-187
The determination of social functions of institute is one of the most difficult issues in social anthropology. This discussion isn’t absolutely theoretical; on the contrary, the issue of the social functionality of the museum is one of the key issues for their further development. Some researchers honestly admit that a lack of understanding of social functions leads to a sharp decline in the effectiveness of museums. The article analyzes the functions of the museum as a sociocultural institution on the basis of such a historical and anthropological source as anecdote. This issue, despite its fundamental importance, has rarely been analyzed in an anthropological vein. In addition, the interconnection between the museum and the culture of laughter has received little attention from researchers, although this topic clearly has great potential. For this research we used block of contemporary Russian anecdotes and the anecdotes of the soviet period (1917–1991) for comparative analysis. Totally more than 500 texts were analyzed. The analysis of the anecdotes associated with the museum shows that, despite the low popularity of this institution, in mass culture and consciousness, in the culture of laughter, its key functions and problems are clearly recorded. This once again confirms the importance of analyzing folklore texts for assessing the role of the museum in communities of any level. This material can be used to solve a variety of problems of museum management, from assessing the effectiveness of the socio-cultural activities of the museum to marketing campaigns.
Keywords: anecdote, museum anthropology, museum work, social functions, laughter culture
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Issue: 1, 2021
Series of issue: Issue 1
Rubric: ANTHROPOLOGY
Pages: 174 — 187
Downloads: 774