How do exile, the loss of home, and life on the other side of the world shape a scientist?
This question was placed at the center of her doctoral dissertation by Aleksandra Saksida, who successfully defended her research at the ISH Faculty of Alma Mater Europaea University entitled Branislava Sušnik’s Research Path in Paraguay – Processes of Resocialization and Identity Transformation.
From Slovenia to Paraguay
Branislava Sušnik is considered one of the most important Slovenian anthropologists, although her name is still not sufficiently known in her homeland. After the end of the Second World War, she left Slovenia and built a new life in Paraguay, where for decades she researched the lives of Indigenous communities and established herself as one of the most prominent researchers of South America.
Her work went beyond conventional academic frameworks. She believed in the equality of cultures and ways of life and demonstrated that anthropology is not merely the study of distant peoples, but above all an understanding of human beings, their world, values, and identity. Through her research, she preserved valuable testimonies of cultures that were rapidly changing or even disappearing under the influence of colonization, capital, and modernization.
When personal experience becomes part of a scientific story
It was precisely Branislava Sušnik’s personal life story that made Aleksandra Saksida’s research particularly interesting. The author found that, in a way, the Slovenian scientist experienced processes similar to those of the communities she studied. She too had to adapt to a new environment, language, and society and, through the process of resocialization, reshape her identity.
By analyzing field notes, letters, and other archival sources, the doctoral candidate showed that scholarly work cannot be separated from the researcher’s life path. In Branislava Sušnik’s works, the personal experience of exile and the study of the acculturation processes of Indigenous communities are thus intertwined.
The research particularly highlighted her anthropological and ethnolinguistic study of the Ishir or Chamacoco communities and offered a new perspective on the connection between the researcher’s personal experience and the creation of scientific knowledge.
New light on the work of a long-overlooked scientist
The dissertation also brings new insights into the life of the Slovenian anthropologist and reveals some previously unknown information from her personal and professional activities. It is an important contribution to a better understanding of a scholar who never returned after leaving her homeland, yet left an indelible mark on world anthropology through her work.
In Paraguay, Branislava Sušnik received numerous recognitions for her research achievements and is regarded as one of the key figures in the development of anthropological science. In Slovenia as well, her work is gradually gaining its deserved place. Among the first to draw attention to the significance of her scholarly opus was former Minister of Culture Borut Šuklje, who in 1993 expressed support for her and the wish that her achievements would become more widely recognized in her homeland as well.
Of particular symbolic weight is also the fact that Borut Šuklje was, at the same time as Aleksandra Saksida, a doctoral student at the AMEU Faculty of Humanities. Due to his untimely death, he did not live to see the defense of his dissertation, and in 2024 the university awarded him an honorary posthumous doctorate.
Aleksandra Saksida’s doctoral dissertation represents an important step toward rediscovering an exceptional Slovenian woman whose life story and scientific legacy continue to inspire researchers at home and around the world.
The mentor of the doctoral dissertation was Assist. Prof. Dr. Marija Mojca Terčelj, the chair of the committee was Prof. Dr. Nadja Furlan Štante, and the committee member was Dr. Igor Škamperle.
