Socialantropologi og kulturantropologi

This book presents Maingueneaüs notion of paratopia and its application to literary discourse. Unlike most discourse analysts, who pay little attention to literature, the author argues that a discourse analytical perspective allows us to challenge the usual separation between textual and contextual approaches to works. Considered as an impossible belonging, paratopia is a condition of possibility of literature, of the subjects who occupy a writer's position and of the use they make of language. To find their place as creators, writers must elaborate their own paratopia, they must give it shape and meaning. Their works must both construct a certain world and, through paratopic shifters, reflect and legitimise the conditions of their own appearance. Paratopia is an invariant of literature, but it takes different forms throughout history: writers draw on their paratopic potential to appropriate the resources made available tothem by literary discourse in their own time. Today, the development of digital technologies and research on gender prompts us to take a different look at traditional forms of paratopia. The corpus includes canonical and recent texts, mainly from Western literature. It will be of interest to students and scholars in literary studies, discourse studies (discourse theory and discourse analysis), and sociology of culture.

This edited collection addresses concepts of value and its impact on economies and economic decision-making in Mesoamerica. It brings together various theoretical and methodological approaches to illuminate the little-studied topic of value in ancient economies.While scholars increasingly note that tangible objects found in the archaeological record could assume different values, depending on how they were used and circulated, less attention has been paid to how we might infer consensus (or lack of consensus) on how value was determined in past cultures so different from contemporary ones. These contributions show how multiple and conflicting understandings of what is important and meaningful coexist within any society even as moments of exchange create the impression of shared formulations of value. They consider divergences between shared understandings based on systems of beliefs and patterns of practice and the individual decisions of social actors. They also discuss howinequalities in social structures might inform our understanding of value, and how a multiplicity of values might encourage closer inspection of inequality in turn.The book brings together fifteen chapters focused on many parts of Mesoamerica, including Western Mexico, the Basin of Mexico, Veracruz, Oaxaca, and various parts of the Maya Lowlands, and range chronologically from the Classic period (250-900 CE) to the Spanish Conquest in the early 16th Century. It appeals to those working in archaeology, economic anthropology, economic history, and all those interested in how value can be understood in terms of contemporary cultural and political differences.

This volume, written in a readable and enticing style, is based on a simple premise, which was to have several exceptional ethnographers write about their experiences in an evocative way in real time during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than an edited volume with dedicated chapters, this book thus offers a new format wherein authors write several, distinct dispatches, each short and compact, allowing each writer's perspectives and stories to grow, in tandem with the pandemic itself, over the course of the book. Leaving behind the trope of the lonely anthropologist, these authors come together to form a collective of ethnographers to ask important questions, such as: What does it mean to live and write amid an unfolding and unstoppable global health and economic crisis? What are the intensities of the everyday? How do the isolated find connection in the face of catastrophe? Such first-person reflections touch on a plurality of themes brought on by the pandemic, forces and dynamics of pressing concern to many, such as contagion, safety, health inequalities, societal injustices, loss and separation, displacement, phantasmal imaginings and possibilities, the uncertain arts of calculating risk and protection, limits on movement and travel, and the biopolitical operations of sovereign powers. The various writings¿spun from diverse situations and global locations¿proceed within a temporal flow, starting in March 2020, with the first alerts and cases of viral infection, and then move on to various currents of caution, concern, infection, despair, hope, and connection that have unfolded since those early days. The writings then move into 2021, with events and moods associated with the global distribution of potentially effective vaccines and the promise and hope these immunizations bring. The written record of these multiform dispatches involves traces of a series of lives, as the authors of those lives tried to make do, and write, in trying times. A timely ethnography of an event that has changed all our lives, this book is critical reading for students and researchers of medical anthropology, sociocultural anthropology, contemporary anthropological theory, and ethnographic writing.

Based on ethnographic research conducted in a town on the Polish-Belarussian border, this book examines borders and the lingering echoes of conflict. Using hauntology as a guiding framework to understand how people live amidst the histories and reverberations of conflicts, the author investigates the role that landscape, with its material presences and absences, plays in evoking and maintaining the border. The ethnography probes themes of ethnicity, religious practice, memory and space, investigating the border as a dynamic social process.By immersing herself in the everyday lives of the borderland, Joyce unravels how traces - lingering imprints of the past - shape local relationships in the present, influencing shared understandings of history and the future. Introducing the concept of the spectral border as a lens to reveal the ambiguous presence of afterlives and memories tied to a historical boundary, the book unveils its present-day ghostly forms in the local ideas and practices of neighbourliness at the heart of borderland identity. Spectral Borders interrogates the use and limitations of these practices by exploring points of tension, where the meanings and uses of 'being a neighbour' and 'being from the borderland' are tested and challenged. In doing so, the book raises important questions about how conviviality is created and managed in a place with a long and unresolved history marked by ethnic and religious violence, war, and civil unrest.

Født til Fiasko - en social tabers lange vandring er Peter Williams hudløst ærlige fortælling om en opvækst i et barsk miljø i London. Hvor ingen troede på, han nogensinde ville blive andet end endnu en kriminel bølle. Og en fortælling om at arbejde som roadie for blandt andre Sex Pistols og Smokie. Køre Europa tynd i lastbil. Være eftertragtet britisk DJ på danske diskoteker i 80’erne. Få et barn i Danmark og kæmpe en bitter kamp om forældremyndigheden. Og trods alle odds lande i en tryg, kærlighedsfuld og sikker havn i sidste halvdel af livet. Som blot 11-årig bliver Peter Williams arresteret for første gang. Han er vokset op i et havnekvarter i 60’ernes London, og det var den sikre vej til en kriminel løbebane. Selv hans forældre var overbeviste om, at Peter ville ende bag tremmer. Et nyt socialt eksperiment for unge kriminelle i London i 1974 blev imidlertid et vendepunkt for den unge Peter, der godt nok stjal et pengeskab under sit ophold på The Hammersmith Teenage Project, som det sociale eksperiment blev døbt, men som også kom på en strabadserende vandretur, der ændrede hans livssyn.I september 2018 gik han samme vandretur. Han vidste ikke helt hvorfor, måske for at ære en nylig afdød medarbejder på The Hammersmith Teenage Project, der troede på ham i Peters unge år og hjalp ham bort fra den ellers udstukne vej til et liv bag tremmer? Måske for endnu bedre at forstå, hvem han var? I så fald lykkedes det. For første gang nogensinde slap Peter Williams nemlig sin evige anklage mod sig selv over at have brugt alt for meget af sit liv på vrede, slagsmål, opgør og vold, og i stedet lod han sin underbevidsthed tilgive ham.

As monstrous bodies on-screen signal a wide range of subversive destabilization of the notions of identity and community, this anthology asks what meanings monsters and monstrosity convey in relation to our recent circumstances shaped by neoliberalism and the pandemic that have led to the intensified tightening of border controls by nation-states, the intensive categorization of (un)identifiable bodies, and subsequent forms of isolations and detachments imposed by social distancing and the rapid transition of sociality from reality to virtual reality.Presenting various thinkings along the lines of the body and its representations as cultural text, together with popular or recent media productions showing various bodies deemed to be monstrous as they either cross conventionally held borders or stay in liminal spaces such as between human-animal, human-machine, virtual bodies-corporeal flesh, living-death, and other permeable borders, this volume looks into the on-screen constructions of the monster and monstrosity not only as they represent notions of difference, perceived (non)belongings, and disruptions of traditional identity markers, but also as they either conceal various vulnerabilities or implicitly endorse violence towards the labeled Other.

This book provides a historical-sociological analysis of recreational scuba diving practices. Starting from a national case study, Greece, the book analyzes the gradually evolving global institutional arrangements of this version of underwater recreational activities. Based on the author¿s experience as a former diving instructor and on an historical and sociological research of scuba diving in Greece, the book examines the stages of institutionalization of scuba diving as a leisure practice on a global scale, from 1945 to the present day. It combines two traditions: the phenomenological approach of underwater multisensory embodied experience and tourism studies. The two main research questions that the project answers are (a) how scuba diving has historically been shaped as a leisure activity, (b) how has underwater experience been conceptually shaped as a leisure activity. This case is an excellent example for exploring the relationship between society, technology, body and modern practices of self in the late modernity world, under a phenomenological and historical perspective.

This book is a meticulously researched and thought-provoking study that delves into the analysis and comparison of rituals in two distinct settings: the ancient Book of Leviticus and traditional Malagasy culture on the island of Madagascar. Author Olivier Randrianjaka invesigates why Malagasy Christians connect with Leviticus despite the apathy of the Western church. As this book demonstrates, the key unifying themes are sin, purification, and sacrifice. Profound parallels emerge between Levitical rituals (such as postpartum purification and the Day of Atonement) and Malagasy rituals (such as taboo violation, postpartum purification, and the New Year royal bath). The study highlights the universal relevance of sin, purification and sacrifice rituals, inviting reflection on their significance in diverse cultural and religious contexts."This is a remarkable book that represents a groundbreaking exploration of the intricate connections between Leviticus and Malagasy traditional rituals. The author¿s meticulous analysis and profound insights into the themes of sin, sacrifice and atonement offer invaluable knowledge for Christian readers. I highly recommend this work to anyone seeking a comprehensive understanding of Madagascar¿s religion, particularly its rich tapestry of traditional rituals."¿Dr. Razivelo Mariette, Lutheran Faculty of Theology (SALT), Madagascar"Rituals for purification play a significant role in most cultures, and this book contributes to the understanding of these phenomena in general. It provides insight into these rituals in Malagasy society and their description in the Book of Leviticus in the Bible. The book focuses on religious praxis, as described in texts and demonstrated in life. Every person will encounter these phenomena, and here is a tool to grasp their meaning."¿Magnar Kartveit, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament at VID Specialized University, Stavanger, Norway

How to build a fairer, more neuro-inclusive society

An utterly unique travel memoir about a gay expat searching an otherworldly place for a deeper understanding of his partner and his adoptive homeland.Embark on an extraordinary odyssey through the heart of the world's driest non-polar desert-the Atacama. In Mars on Earth, intrepid journalist Mark Johanson navigates this otherworldly terrain, a sliver of camel-colored hills, windswept dunes, and desolate salt flats nestled between the Pacific's tumultuous waves and the towering Andes. Unfolding against the backdrop of Chile's 2019-2020 protests, Mark's journey begins in Santiago, unraveling a rich tapestry of human resilience and passion that fuels a nation's desire for change.As he traverses 1,200 miles of alien landscapes, Mark climbs to the Andean Altiplano's dizzying heights, explores the Pacific's kelp forests, and ventures onto a lithium-rich salt flat threatened by progress. The narrative reaches new heights as Mark delves into the heart of the Atacama, meeting captivating characters-a guardian of ancient mummies, a guru in a glass box, and a copper miner who defied nature's grasp for 69 days. At its core, Mars on Earth weaves a rich tapestry of voices, highlighting the stories of Chile's marginalized communities, including the working class, Indigenous peoples, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and immigrant communities from Venezuela and Haiti. Each narrative contributes to the social movement that could redefine the nation's future. This vibrant and adventurous work of narrative nonfiction is a captivating exploration of a land both barren and brimming with life.

Presents Tantra from an ethnographic vantage point, through a series of case studies grounded in diverse settings across contemporary Asia.

Offers a fresh approach to the problem of the human figure in an age of digital cinema.

"An ethnographically rich study of graffiti as monument and the monument as graffiti, establishing that graffiti is an inherently political form of popular visual culture"--

De nombreux livres ont été écrits sur le cinéma et les séries télévisées d'épouvante et d'horreur au sein des États-Unis contemporains, mais aucun en France n¿avait encore tenté de traiter le phénomène dans son ensemble. Pour répondre à cette ambition, quinze spécialistes ont été invités à se focaliser chacun sur un élément précis du sujet. De nombreux aspects complémentaires sont ainsi abordés, comme la résurgence du motif cannibale, l¿influence de l'imaginaire «¿trumpien¿», le spiritisme, l'horreur adolescente, l'épouvante cybernétique, la prégnance de la figure du zombie ou l'importance du gore. L¿analyse de tous ces territoires, à laquelle s¿ajoute une bibliographie de référence sur le sujet, permettra au lecteur d'appréhender les fondements des peurs américaines contemporaines, de découvrir en quoi ce cinéma est si important pour comprendre cette civilisation et d'appréhender de nouveaux réalisateurs, encore peu connus, mais en plein devenir.

In this remarkable book, noted cultural scholar D. Paul Schafer examines the great cultural awakening that is taking place all across the world---an awakening that is opening the doors to a cultural age. Schafer begins by considering the importance of culture, as well as discussing how culture has been defined by a variety of thinkers. He then turns to an examination of the vast constellation of cultures that exist in the world before moving progressively "up the ladder," from the cultures of individuals, children, parents, homes, families, communities, and schools to those of towns, cities, regions, countries, the entire human world, and finally the cultures of other species. This is followed by an assessment of several foundational requirements for the creation of a cultural age, such as the cultural interpretation of history and the centrality of cultural development and policy. The author concludes by discussing various ways of opening the doors to a cultural age, strategies to harmonize crucial relationships and cultivate spirituality and compassion, the prerequisites for living in a cultural age, and, finally, an exploration of why it is so essential to make the transition from the present economic age to a future cultural age.The Great Cultural Awakening represents the culmination of a lifetime of research, analysis, and advocacy in the cultural field. In the words of the reviewers, it is truly a "masterpiece" as well as a "beacon of light," urging us on toward a better future.ADVANCE PRAISE FROM AROUND THE WORLD FOR THE GREAT CULTURAL AWAKENING¿¿Amazing! Schafer chronicles the evolution of the cultural realm and describes the interwoven dimensions of nature, human beings, other species, cultures, time, and space. Reading this book is like seeing ourselves as part of nature rather than apart from nature, as well as imagining a world where harmony, sustainability, and well-being for all people, countries, and species are the ultimate goal. ---Mira Sartika, Founder and Director, Chakra Cultural Foundation, IndonesiaSchafer guides us with erudition, authority, and conviction toward a clear and positive vision of a cultural age. His inexhaustible range of references, depth of insight and analysis, and trust in what he terms "the great cultural awakening" make this book essential reading for everyone interested in a serious, far-ranging, and scrupulously-argued discussion of the vital need for the citizens of the world to come together to build a just, harmonious, and productive future: a new cultural age. ---Max Wyman, author of The Compassionate Imagination: How the Arts Are Central to a Functioning Democracy, CanadaCulture is much more than a dimension of sustainable development; it is the overarching key to a sustainable world. ---Engelbert Ruoss, USI Università della Svizzera Italiana, and Co-Owner at Innoreg SAGL, SwitzerlandA much needed, comprehensive, and insightful map to find our way out of the global crisis and make the transition to a cultural age. Paul Schafer, an acknowledged expert in the field, offers an enlightening perspective on how to develop culture and cultures from the ground up, drawing on a wealth of inspiring references and compelling examples. ---Thomas Legrand, author of Politics of Being: Wisdom and Science for a New Development Paradigm, France

With the first appointment of the outstanding performance artist Marina Abramovic to the Pina Bausch Professorship at the Folkwang University of the Arts, the focus in the 2023-23 academic year was placed on transdisciplinarity, artistic daring and social awareness.The project supervised by Abramovic, entitled "Free Interdisciplinary Performance Laboratory (FIPL)", was realised in a class put together by her, in which she brought together over 20 students from the fields of music (classical and jazz, instrumental, vocal and composition), dance, design, photography, (physical) theatre and directing. The students developed individual or collective concepts for performances and learnt how to develop a long-term performative work form in an experience-based process. In a workshop entitled "Cleaning the House", which was organised according to a method developed by Marina Abramovicmethod developed by Marina Abramovic, the students developed a sense of the presence required in performances, including the exploration of their individual physical and mental limits. The outstanding performance artist Marina Abramovic was the first holder of the new Pina Bausch Professorship at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen in 2022/23. She focused on transdisciplinarity, artistic daring and social awareness. In her Free Interdisciplinary Performance Laboratory (FIPL), Abramovic brought together over twenty students from the fields of music, dance, design, photography, (physical) theater and directing. Over two semesters, they realized artistic-performative projects that dealt with agency, resilience and body awareness and explored physical and mental boundaries.

1930 hatte im Großen Schauspielhaus in Berlin, dem von Max Reinhardt als "Theater der Fünftausend" konzipierten Bau, ein Stück Premiere, das nicht nur bei Kritikern und Publikum größten Zuspruch fand, sondern dem auch eine beispiellose Nachkriegskarriere in der deutschsprachigen Theaterlandschaft beschieden war: "Im weißen Rößl", ein von dem Regisseur Erik Charell und dem Autor Hans Müller umgearbeitetes Lustspiel von Oscar Blumenthal und Gustav Kadelburg, das im Stil der Charell-Revue mit Musik von Ralph Benatzky, Robert Stolz, Robert Gilbert u. a. den Berlinerinnen und Berlinern eine ländlich-exotische (und erotische) Alpenidylle in die Hauptstadt zauberte. Durch die Kette an Aufführungen, die seit 1930 bis in die Gegenwart hinein nicht abreißt, erfuhr das Werk eine Vielzahl an Neufassungen, die mit ihren Zugängen nicht nur Plot, Musik und Ästhetik immer wieder aktualisierten, sondern, zumal in Produktionen wie in der "Bar jeder Vernunft" in Berlin (1994) oder der Verfilmung von Christian Theede (2013), auch die Rezeptionsgeschichte des Stückes mitreflektieren. Dieser Band thematisiert neben Deutungen, Figuren und der Aufführungsgeschichte des Werkes auch Aspekte der Verfilmungen.

Liminality: the state of being 'betwixt and between' is one of anthropology's most influential concepts. This volume reconsiders Victor Turner's innovative extension of Arnold Van Gennep's concept of liminality from within the Manchester tradition of Social Anthropology established by Max Gluckman. Turner's work was grounded in ethnography and engaged with philosophical perspectives in varied socio-historical contexts, extending well-beyond the confines of the anthropology that initially inspired much of his work. Liminality has therefore become a concept with broad interdisciplinary reach. Engaging with topical issues across the globe - from neuroscience to open access publishing and refugee experiences in Europe - this volume launches Turner's fundamental work into the future.

The relationship between anthropology departments and their surrounding urban communities has been traditional limited by a number of factors. The Potential for Anthropology and Urban Community Engagement pushes past these limitations, developing a firm foundation from which applied anthropology can support grassroots research and lasting community programs. Using two partnering Milwaukee organizations as examples, this volume explores the need in urban neighborhoods for practicing anthropologists, how a high volume of asset-building programs can be developed by practicing anthropologists, and the potential efficacy of anthropology departments in partnering with urban neighborhoods.

"From the New Yorker staff writer and acclaimed author of Future Sex comes a clever and subtly scathing follow-up about love, sex, drugs, and techno in our time of rage Everything shifted for Emily Witt the day she met Andrew. It was the summer of 2016, and her first book would soon enter the world. A tour through alt-sex in the Internet age, it would receive widespread acclaim for its sharp and aloof critical eye. And yet here Emily was, pining for the same monogamous normy life she once questioned-all because of a techno-head programmer from Queens who chain-smoked and showered with Irish Spring. Their future together developed unexpectedly. Over the next four years, they would fall in and out of foggy clubs, take drugs in bathroom stalls, move in together, and build a life. As oceans boiled and wildfires burned, Emily and Andrew retreated deeper into Brooklyn's underground, where illegal parties in hollowed-out offices drowned out the din of a crumbling world. But like even the best calibrated trip, it had an end. Bookended by Donald Trump's election and the summer of George Floyd's murder, Health and Safety recalls these tumultuous years with bracing clarity, offering Witt's own life as a lens onto an American era of dissolution, dissociation, and rage. With her trademark critical eye that spares no one-least of all herself-Witt explores how a generation has endured the indignities of late-stage capitalism, and questions whether we still might be saved"--

This edited volume extends current voluntourism theorizing by critically examining the intersections among various forms of work-leisure travel and language learning/teaching. The book¿s contributors investigate volunteer tourism and its cognates such as working holidaymaking, international internships, and gap year labor, as discursive fields in which powerful ideas about language(s), their speakers, and pedagogical practices are propagated worldwide. The various authors¿ chapters shed light on the hegemony of global English, the social consequences of linguistic commodification and neoliberal rationalities, the ways in which speaker identity positions can alter the exchange value of languages, and how language competencies are tied to power in the labor market, among related topics. This volume will be of interest to readers in Applied Linguistics, Critical Sociolinguistics, Educational and Linguistic Anthropology, Tourism and Leisure Studies, Migration and Mobility Studies, and Language Teaching and Learning.

In dieser Studie werden die sozialen Praktiken im Beobachtungs- und Dokumentationsverfahren des Early Excellence-Ansatzes erforscht. Dabei werden im Rahmen einer (ko-)konstruktivistisch-postmodern ausgerichtete Ethnographie sowohl Beobachtungs- und Dokumentationspraktiken der pädagogischen Fachkräfte als auch der forschenden Person untersucht. Bezugnehmend auf praxistheoretische und beobachtungstheoretische Perspektiven wird die Komplexität der Organisation des Beobachtungs- und Dokumentationsverfahrens in der Praxis von Kindertageseinrichtungen herausgearbeitet und nachgezeichnet, wie die soziale Position in der Beobachtung relational zwischen programmatischen und pädagogischen Anforderungen hergestellt wird.

The book consists of four chapters. The first one contains information about the topic which introduce the project's characteristics, and, at the same time, provide the background for further theoretical and methodological reflection. The second chapter contains a list of research problems and questions, a presentation of the philosophical worldviews (research paradigms) of the project team who guided the planned research and which resulted in the adoption of research strategies compatible with them, and, consequently, procedures and techniques for obtaining source materials and their analysis. In the third chapter, we present a set of terms, ideas, and concepts which inspired the project team as useful tools for describing and analysing the phenomenon under study. The fourth chapter is a kind of ligature that binds together all the previous findings, it is a summary of integrating ideas, concepts, as well as the adopted research procedures and techniques.

This collection delves into the conceptual and semantic dissection of aesthetic and moral emotions. It grapples with their definition, scope, function, and structure. Highlighting a range of semantic research methods, the authors also present interdisciplinary studies on emotions like anger, admiration, disgust, guilt, and feelings linked to beauty perception. This book serves as a thematic and methodological gateway to interdisciplinary human emotionality research.

Fr. James Tab Charoa is the Dean of Studies of Theologicum at St. Paul's Major Seminary both Philosophicum and Theologicum Juba-South Sudan. He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Khartoum in 2003. He has pastoral experience in the Archdiocese of Khartoum in Kosti Pastoral Religion. He was appointed by the Sudan Catholic Bishops' Conference as Vice-Rector of St. Paul's Major Seminary Theologicum as from 2010-2014. He was sent to the Catholic University of East Africa as from 2014-2016 where he earned a licentiate in Sacred Theology with a specialization in moral Theology. He was appointed again by the Sudan Catholic Bishops' Conference as a full-time Staff at St. Paul's Major Seminary Theologicum as from 2016-2017. From 2017-2018, he was appointed as Care-Taker Rector of St. Paul's Major Seminary Theologicum by the Sudan Catholic Bishops' Conference. After the reunification of both Philosophicum and Theologicum in 2019, he was appointed as the Dean of Studies of Theologicum at St. Paul's Major Seminary. Fr. Tab has written a good number of books relevant to his field of moral theology such as "Ethics of Human Sexuality: A Call for Chastity in Christian Families, Nairobi, CUEA Press, 2017, Key Principles of the Catholic Social Teaching: Their Relevance to the African World View, Nairobi, CUEA Press, 2019 and other books. As about the Compendium of Nuär Origin, Culture, and Moral Evaluation, the Nuär people, usually, referred to as Nuer, are one of the largest ethnic groups in the Republic of South Sudan. They can be metaphorically considered as the right arm of the new nation. If ever you want to know more about these noble and God-fearing people, their history, lifestyle, geographical and demographic surroundings and cultural practices, Father James Tab Charoa has said it all in this book. I had heard and learned much about the Nuär people over the years, having studied, worked and lived with some of them. I read many books written about the Nuär by prominent anthropologists such as E. Evans-Pritchard and P.P. Howell (on Nuer marriage), and Douglas H. Johnson (on Nuer prophets). These writers have laid good foundations on which any research on Nuär people can be further developed. Whereas I had gotten it all about the Nuär people, I came to know that much more was still to come which the author has now completed in his book.

An uncompromising look at Nigeria’s crisis of democracy by a renowned essayist and critic.