Vladimir Karabatic - sociologist and cultural anthropologist.

Portrait of Vladimir Karabatic, 1984

Life of professor Karabatic

It was born in 1932, in the small coastal locality of Konavle, next to Dubrovnik, where its parents managed a bakery.In 1946, finished the war, the family Karabatic displaces to Poland. Vladimir begins its university studies in the faculty of Antropologia of the Warsawz Universitij and in 1959 will form part of the first promotion of licentiates in sociology.

During its years of student, the young Karabatic maintains a continued correspondence with colleagues of western universities, among them the American sociologist Daniel Bell, who in 1962 obtains a sociology professorship in Harvard and offers to Karabatic the position of enclosed investigator in its programs. Vladimir accepts the charge and travels to USA, where collaborates in Bell's academic projects and professionals. In the meantime, he even  finds time, material and influences to write its first theoretical works of importance, among them an interesting thesis on some etno-social cliches about southern spanish lands.

In 1966 Karavatic returns to Spain invited by the Department of Information and Tourism of Fraga Iribarne to continue with its investigations on the Mediterranean stereotypes. Karabatic feels very attracted by the diversity of emerging stereotypes that live together in the Spain of late 60's: the bulls, the flamenco, the paella, the spanish "macho man", the siesta... "Typical Spanish" and "Spain is different" they will be some of their best-known conclusions.

It finished the study, the Department of Information and Tourism sets in motion a campaign of communication to international level that will convert the tourism in one of the most important sources of income of Spain, at the same time that founds a new stereotype of Spain as tourist country.

In 1972 it marries with Pretty Ullman and the marriage is installed in Torremolinos. During the next years Karavatic will be professionally dedicated to consulting, teaching. Simultaneously, in the heat of its home, will develop the thickness of its theoretical work: the stereotype and its value of marketing, the social improvement through the positive identity reinforcement  , the dialectic bulldozer of the contradictory stereotypes or the synestesics of the cultural symbols. In 1979 the marriage transfer its residence to Ibiza. Vlado collaborates in the restructuring of the signs of identity of the Spain of the autonomies. It prompts new images and, in contribution with the autonomous institutions, aid to bring to light the Spanish cultural stereotypes abroad.

Vladimir Karabatic - His work

The work of the professor Karabatic themselves center in the analysis and study of the national stereotypes.They  interest him as possible factor of social cohesion and in its work pursues the establishment of warning psico-social that determine the demographic evolution and the collective psychological substratum of each community.[1]

The ethnic groups on the ones that its studies were centered originally belonged to the Europe central and of the east. Subsequently, and coinciding with its trips, Karabatic expanded its investigations to other communities, in the US and in various countries of the Europe southern, among them Spain.[2] It carries out diverse trips in contact always with the routine reality, what permits him to apply its peculiar methodology. The central corpus of its works was in constant development during the second and third quarters of the 20th century.
With his theory the professor Karabatic conforms a general theoretical framework that makes possible a quantifiable and objective study around the keys that determine the degree of ideological adhesion and the stereotypical cohesion average of any ethnic-national group. Originally rejected  by practically all the sociological and anthropological established schools , its work had a growing and gradual acceptance in reduced and a little eccentric circles  of the humanistic academic world. From the years 70, and in a almost secret way,his books are read  and they studied in an unexpected environment of  practical application: the world of marketing and social communication, where his theory fertilize and  feed diverse experiences in publicity, campaigns of communication, electoral publicity, diffusion of the faith and other associated fields [3]. Required to diffusehis theory, Kabaratic gives informal conferences and organizes seminars where brings to light his ideas and has the opportunity to influence their young colleagues.

Vladimir Karabatic working home, 1979

"My working method is 50% in walking, sitting at 50%". Hisingen, 1974.

During its stay in Spain the professor had the opportunity to verify the validity of its investigations, faced to a setting where the collision of stereotypes was produced in a spontaneous way and with great noise. They are the years of the large immigrations between the south and the north and for every Spain they live together Andalusian with Castilians, Basque with Galicians, Catalonian with Extremadura's peoples … Karabatic aid, with their studies and works of field, to bring back a potentially troubled social joint and without very complex doubt. For it, it transforms in its entirety the play of connotations that draw the national symbols, identifying the "erroneous eidetical zones" in each stereotype and substituting them for insertions or" stereotipical impulsions " (term discussed) of positive character. Once they remodeled, these memes are expanded and they promote in extensive campaigns of diffusion through the mass media, that Karabatic considers as "the perfect sociological tool".[4]

Resulting of all this spreaded word, in the middle of the sixties we attend a resurgence of the representative icons of the pride to be a Spaniard, a modern and traditional mood at the same time that is claimed without complexes and is projected in symbols internationally recognized: thus the paella, like dish identitarian of the Raise mediterranean, the botillo from Leon, that passes from stuffed of shepherds to delicatessen for strong stomachs, or the nebula ownership to the typical spanish, Slogan where they conjugate the pride little dissembled and a minimum invigorating dose of self-hate [5]. The verification of the performance and positive social influence of the "contradictory stereotypes" is one of the predictions that establishes the theory of stereotypes of the professor Karabatic, debated at first, but verified and ratified subsequently by numerous experiences and investigators.

If there is some part of the Spanish culture that have attracted to Karabatic more than others, that is the "Spanish dance" as designated by the professor in a categorical way , is to say,the Flamenco dance. K. It considers it the state of the art of his models or psychic-ethnic icon par excellence. He writes:

"[...] Those dressed-up figures of the bailaores and cantaores [sic] are the "perfect stereotype", that works in both directions : intra and extra the community represented, and that by his high  ideal meaning and emotional load can fulfil the functions of bridge between cultures or engagement stereotype".[6]

Vladimir Karabatic on Japan with two flamenco amateurs

"The stereotype always enjoy excellent health". Tokyo 1986

In order to check these hypothesis, Karabatic's work silently promotes a relaunching of the culture of the Flamenco, looking for putting it aside as a cultural phenomenon to a community where the stereotypes practically govern the social and cultural life, a place where those who don't adscribe to the social stereotypes previously accepted simply do not exist: attending Karabatic this place is Japan. Thus Karabatic ship in all type of cultural initiatives that put it in contact with dancers and other nippon artists , that serve him at the same time as object of study and  living evidence of the rightness of his asserts. As studious, highlight his collaborations in groups of study pertaining to the chairs of sociology and anthropology of diverse universities. It has translated to the serbo-croatian and commented many authors and main works of the discipline, such as Werner Sombart, George H. Mead And And. Durkheim. It has collaborateed with specialists of it cuts of M. Horkheimer, R. Dahrendorf Or C. Wright Mills. Nowadays, reside in Ibiza and find practically withdrawn of the academic circles, although doesn't resign in his obstinacy to vindicate his work.

Karabatic working in a hotel
"Hotels have been my second home".Madrid, 1972


Vladimir Karabatic's miscellany

Translations

Referencias

 

Contact

el profesor Vladimir Karabatic en la actualidad

If you want to contact the professor Karabatic, please use the following email:

vlado@vladimirkarabatic.com

Notes

  1. The detailed study of the parametric variability of these indicators in a linear chronological frame allowed him to establish, already at the beginning of the years 60, his controverted theory of the psico-ethnic icons, influences remarkable in the development of the sociological current that studies the phenomenon known like contemporary urban totemism.
  2. Karabatic first contacts with the North of Spain looking for to become aclimated itself to the heat of the Hispanic lot before crossing ardent territories of Castile and the roughshod south. This  initial roundtrip finishes in the East, where very to its grief it remains without knowing the Balearic Islands and it is forced to return to its home. This disadvantage prevents him to pick up data to complete " map of stereotypes and car-cliches of ethnic origin and popular key" that it projects to realise in next displacements.
  3. Some experts have wanted to associate the studies and conclusions of professor Karabatic to the origin of as present tendencies as viral marketing and the anti-propaganda, links that the professor rejects forcefully but who nevertheless their disciples do not deny.
  4. " [...] Imagine to be able to interact with the unconscious group, well: that's possibleas a matter of  fact. And not in a gaseous way, it is: directly to the eyes and ears of each of its neurons that we are the normal citizens of each community (sic) [...] All that technology is very useful for us who track changes on social self-concsciousness: it accelerates the processes that, otherwise, will take decades to take place." Fragment of one interviews to the Dr. Karabatic in the ISA Revenue, 2nd. yr. , XXV, p 113-118
  5. This contradiction, nevertheless, contributes balance to the mental substrate of the native, according to they establish theses of the professor and demonstrate its works of field later
  6. Karabatic insists that the stereotypes do not separate but they unite: the contact between cultures occurs on the part of those comfortably installed individuals in its identity stereotype, arranged to become rich with the cultural interchange that supposes the contact with other social environments.
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Copyright L. Karabatic 2007. This website is work in progress