This article provides a comparison of roadside memorials in two European post-communist countries, namely the Czech Republic and Romania. The number of memorials, dedicated to the victims of sudden death, often resulting from traffic accidents, has seen a significant increase in both countries over the last two decades. As the phenomenon appears to be assuming worldwide proportions, the authors have chosen to focus on a comparison of two societies which have widely different approaches towards death and religion. Whereas in the Czech Republic roadside memorials have more to do with the memory of the dead in the here and now, in Romania they are closely interlinked with religious practices and beliefs regarding the soul and the afterlife. Roadside memorials thus reflect the progressive secularisation of Czech society and a religious revival in Romania.
Using longitudinal qualitative research, the study focuses on the transition to fatherhood and the life changes which fatherhood effects in men’s everyday lives. Comparative thematic analysis was used in the study of data provided by two waves of research focusing on 16 dual-earner Czech parental couples. The first wave of interviews took place during pregnancy and the second on the child reaching 18 months. The expectant fathers evinced vague plans concerning approaching fatherhood; some stressed involvement in childcare while others emphasized the provider role. The concept of a “hazy” transition to fatherhood evolved based on the narratives of first-time fathers and is used to describe the indistinct character of the transition to fatherhood. Identity theory is used as the explanatory framework. I suggest that the hazy transition to fatherhood involves the low social appraisal of fatherhood, the breadwinner role, and the central worker identity.
The Czech Republic is widely known as 'the least religious' country in the world and most Czechs are quite proud of that fact. The authors, however, challenge both of these characteristics. Czechs might better be considered unchurched than atheist, with various forms of modern New Age spirituality steadily gaining in popularity. Moreover, their reputation for irreligiosity is somewhat questionable, since it is most often based upon communist (and other more historically deep-rooted) anticlerical notions, while people have little real knowledge of the ideas which they so readily reject. These assertions are based both on quantitative data, provided by census returns and ISSP surveys on religion, and on qualitative data, collected in local ethnographic research in the town of Česká Lípa in northern Bohemia, designed along the lines of the Lancaster University Kendal Project in Great Britain. The Czech population can be divided into three 'blocks', religionists, spiritualists, and atheists/unbelievers, none of which, however, can be considered uniform in terms of membership or truly mutually exclusive. The authors conclude that traditional religionists of various denominations, the followers of New Age movements, and the 'rest' of the population can be seen as three distinctive groups within society and that mutual understanding and acceptance are by no means the norm.
This study provides an outline of plans and norms regarding the first years of fatherhoodand motherhood and focuses on the division of care and paid work between Czech parents. It is basedon 32 interviews conducted with expectant parents from dual-earner heterosexual couples. The ideals andplans of the expectant parents embedded in real life options were studied and analysed in order to identifyvarious care models to be employed over the first three years of parenthood. In all three principal caremodels revealed by the study sample, the fathers continued to work full time while the plans of the motherswere more varied. The models were classified as 1) the long-term full-time mother care model, 2) the longtermpart-time mother care model, and 3) the short-term mother care model. The intra-couple comparativeanalysis revealed common discrepancies between the plans of the partners regarding the employmentof the mother and the use of non-parental childcare. Expectant fathers more often professed traditionalconservative views than their female partners.
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