In 2005 the Department of European Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology of Pécs University won a four-year EU grant of nearly one million Euros. The competitive project, in the Sixth EU programme “Marie Curie Host Fellowship for the Transfer of Knowledge” was entitled “From Hungarian ethnography to European ethnology and cultural anthropology” (PECS-ETHNO). Its aim was to enhance the teaching of ethnography in Hungary with the outlook of cultural anthropology. The fellowship provided the opportunity to invite 15 foreign guest lecturers, outstanding specialists in the topics we selected, for periods ranging from 2 months to 2 years (a total of 150 teacher/researcher-months).

As the conclusion of the project, an international conference was held in the Pécs seat of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, on May 15-16, 2009. The idea for the conference was inspired by the fact that most of the visiting fellows did not know one another, since the project brought them to Pécs at diff erent times. So we invited them back to report to each other and to us on their current research – providing a panorama of research topics, trends and methods that could be used for the revitalization of Hungarian ethnography.

This volume presents the proceedings of the conference. Its Hungarian title “Átjárók” [meaning both ‘passageways’ and ‘people who pass’] faithfully expresses the goal of the project: to build bridges – passageways – between Hungarian ethnography and cultural anthropology so that all who feel inclined can pass through the frontier between the two disciplines, thus contributing to the rejuvenation of Hungarian ethnography and to the mutual fertilization of these two scientific fields.