Research Project Fair Vida

Online Questionnaire about Fair Vida is no longer available.

The collected and analyzed information from the online questionnaire was presented in my paper “Fair Vida as Cultural Archetype: Imaginings and Identifications among Contemporary Slovenes in Slovenia and Abroad” on November 21, 2008, in Philadelphia, USA, at the American Association for Advancement of Slavic Studies Convention at the panel by Society for Slovene Studies “Imagined Identities by and about Slovene Immigrants Expressed through Artistic Archetypes, Literary Nonfiction/Documentation, and Firsthand Testimonies.”

The paper discusses to what extent are the individual ideas and stories reflected in the media or to what extent they are influenced by the ideas and stories presented in the media (including poems, novels, plays, newspaper articles, TV, internet). How do the media influence the personal experiences and/or identifications? What causes the changes of ideas and stories about Fair Vida: the actual experiences of women, or rather, the way these experiences are portrayed in the media? Which version of the Fair Vida story do Slovenes or people of Slovene descent recall most readily, if any? What feelings does the expression Fair Vida bring up in women and men, i.e., pride, curiosity, empowerment, homesickness, shame, discomfort, jealousy, anger, etc.? Do these differ, and if yes, why? How do ideas of immigrant women and their romantic interests transform into cultural archetypes? To what extent are these ideas fueled by social, political, economic circumstances? Who identifies and is identified as Fair Vida and why? What are the consequences of such identifications from the cultural and sociological perspectives?

For more information about the Research Project Fair Vida,

please send an email to fair.vida@gmail.com

interweaving experiences TO CREATE

sumptuous tapestries of individual lives