АУТОР / AUTHOR(S): Ingrid Slavec Gradišnik 
DOI: 10.46793/CSGE5.78ISG
САЖЕТАК / ABSTRACT:
“Anthropologists don’t study villages; they study in villages.” This insightful statement by Clifford Geertz (1973) encapsulates the essence of the role of place and space in ethnological terms. It underscores the importance of researchers to focus more on people than the place itself. This approach provides a deeper understanding of the culture and stimulates discussions on the relationship between geographical and ethnological/anthropological research problems and methodology, addressing disciplinary priorities.
Since the second half of the 18th century, geography and the ethno and anthropo disciplines have coexisted, reflecting the centuries-long tradition of documenting cultural differences between different peoples. Explaining differences was inconceivable without spatial mapping, a practice that can be traced back to antiquity when it was common to explain cultural differences in terms of proto-geographical determinism.
The first part of our discussion will shed light on the history of the relationship between geography and delineations of ethnological/anthropological activities. These relations, which have evolved, mirror the successive differentiation and specialization of scientific disciplines that can be traced back to the 18th century. Then, the first ideas emerged to emancipate ethnographic issues, which were then part of the historical-geographical observation of the world. This period was characterized by a close bond between history and geography, with the two disciplines often referred to as “ancient/medieval/new history/geography” to mark their focus in the pre-Enlightenment. Even in the 20th century, some remnants of the original roots were preserved, particularly in anthropogeography.
The dynamics of the spatial foci will be illustrated through research examples from Slovenia. Since the second half of the 20th century, Slovenian social scientists and humanities scholars witnessed several postmodern “turns,” including the “spatial turn.” This term refers to a shift in focus in various disciplines, including ethnology and anthropology, towards studying space and place as fundamental dimensions of human experience, social organization, and symbolic universe. It is instructive to see how ethnologists and anthropologists have reflected on space and place, given that space is one of the fundamental research dimensions (and thus a taken-for-granted category); yet, it must be subject to continuous reflection.
КЉУЧНЕ РЕЧИ / KEYWORDS:
ethnology and geography; disciplinary history; spatial turn; ethnology/ anthropology in Slovenia