1,721,036 research outputs found
Death and the Loss of Civilized Predation among the Piaroa of the Orinoco Basin
No full textOvering Joanna. Death and the Loss of Civilized Predation among the Piaroa of the Orinoco Basin. In: L'Homme, 1993, tome 33 n°126-128. La remontée de l'Amazone. pp. 191-211
Culture of indifference : dilemmas of the Filipina domestic helpers in Hong Kong
No full textIn this study, an examination of the everyday experiences of the contract migrant Filipina domestic helpers exposes a culture of indifference which pervades the Hong Kong society on all levels--individual, community, and judiciary. At the centre of the abuses inflicted upon the Helpers is the employment contract with extraordinarily restrictive terms which promotes abuse by many employers. This study also looks at the transnational informal social infrastructure which has been organized by the Filipino community to mediate the hostile working environment engendered by the indifference of the global economic and political climate upon their lives.
Faced with the task of implementing new policies for controlling labour migration into Hong Kong, the legislators have focused on the end result and finding the means with which to accomplish their goal. Embedded within this process are unexamined cultural mores and practices. Although the starting point is to benefit the community, by providing domestic helpers to serve the middle and upper class households, too often the abusive consequences to individual migrants are ignored as the women become the means to an end. Migration has often been viewed as an aberration to the notion of the sedentary community. Treated as an anomaly, it is the migrant who problematizes simple theoretical positions of social organization and structure. The migrant is always treated as the one who does not conform to the ideal community and is conveniently merged into existing social categories, such as the lower status of women in Hong Kong, and the lower status of domestic workers -- relegated thereby to the periphery of the society's consciousness
The making of real people : an interpretation of a morality-centred theory of sociality, livelihood and selfhood among the Muinane (Colombian Amazon)
No full textIn this monograph I interpret a wide-ranging native theory of sociality of
the Muinane, an indigenous group of the Colombian Amazon. This theory
simultaneously addresses their livelihood activities, some aspects of their
phenomenological experience, their bodily form, their group identity, and their
views on the achievement of a uniquely human, morally sociable way of life.
The Muinane understand their thoughts/emotions as well as their bodies to be
material in origin and character. Proper bodies and thoughts/emotions are
made out of ritual substances and foodstuffs, which have divine subjectivities
and agencies of their own, and which ‘sound’ through people, establishing
people's subjectivities and agencies. Such subjectivities and agencies lead to
the communal achievement of `coolness', the state of convivial sociability,
tranquility, abundance and generalised good health that constitutes ideal
community life. Because they share substances, kin are also understood to
share bodily features and thoughts/emotions. Their consubstantiality leads to
mutual love and to an intersubjectivity that enables them to live well together,
without unseemly contestations or differences in ultimate moral purposes.
However, the material character of bodies and thoughts/emotions is
also a source of danger. Animals and other evil beings can sabotage proper
community life by replacing people's moral substances with their own false
ones, causing people to experience mad, envious, angry and even sorcerous
thoughts/emotions, and to suffer from weakening or lethal bodily diseases.
It is the moral obligation and inclination of properly constituted human
beings to make new human beings, by intentionally forging their bodies, their
thoughts/emotions and their ‘baskets of knowledge.’ They must do this by
transforming evil substances into proper substances, through work and
through everyday or sporadic rituals.
The matters addressed in this monograph -native theories of sociality,
of self, of livelihood and so on- are of central pertinence to ongoing
discussions in Amazonianist anthropology
A arte de nascer em casa: um olhar antropológico sobre a ética, a estética e a sociabilidade no parto domiciliar contemporâneo
Get PDFDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Antropologia socialEste estudo realiza uma etnografia dos ritos domiciliares de parto e nascimento atualmente realizados em Florianópolis. A retomada do ambiente doméstico como lugar ideal para o nascimento insere-se em um contexto mais abrangente no qual os ritos engendrados a partir da medicalização do parto estão sendo debatidos e contestados. Tomando como eixo analítico os aspectos éticos e estéticos dos ritos de parto domiciliar, este estudo evidencia uma revalorização do ambiente doméstico como espaço de sociabilidade. Estes ritos articulam-se com novas formas de espiritualidade e vivência terapêutica e vêm desenhando novas teias de significado em torno da parturição. O material etnográfico privilegiado neste estudo constituiu-se de entrevistas realizadas com seus praticantes.This is an ethnography of the home birth rites taking place in Florianópolis nowadays. The retake of domestic environment as the ideal place for birth is inserted in a wider context on which the rites begotten from the medicalization of birth are debated and questioned. Taking as analytic axis the ethical and esthetical aspects of the domestic birth rites, this study evidences a revaluing of domestic environment as a space of sociability. These rites articulate with new forms of spirituality and therapeutic experience and draw new webs of significance relating birth labor. The privileged ethnographic material in this study is constituted of interviews with its practitioners
The hearer, the hunter and the agouti head : aspects of intercommunication and conviviality among the Pa'ikwené (Palikur) of French Guiana
No full textThe thesis is in the broadest terms an anthropological exploration of
intercommunication; it concerns concepts and practices of speech and
hearing among a Lowland Amazonian people, the Pa'ikwene, concentrating
particularly on the community of Deuxieme Village Esperance in southern
Guyane (French Guiana). A significant aspect of the subject is the
axiological one, i. e., the moral and aesthetic values attaching to proper
dialogic, and consequently social, relations - or what Ingold describes
(1986: 141) as the "conversation that is social life".
Revealing the speech of ordinary people to be as `powerful' in its way as that
of chiefs, the study addresses the instrumentality of speaking and hearing in
the creation and maintenance of sociality. Essentially, I argue that
intersubjective communication does not so much `imply' Pa'ikwene society
(Levi-Strauss 1973: 390) as construct it as a sociable, pleasurable and
egalitarian entity; that it is, in short, one of the fundamental `tools for
conviviality' (Illich 1973).
While the role of language in the process of society has long been
recognised by anthropology, and comprehensively investigated, tht of
listening to it seems, perhaps because of the more `private' nature of the act,
not to have enjoyed the same level of sociological interest. Given this
imbalance, special emphasis is laid on native audition as embodied by the
cultural phenomenon of "Tchimap", "to hear-listen-understand", and its use
in three key spheres, the political, economic and magico-religious.
One central issue deals with the agency and perceived value of "good
hearing" in the generation of good relations between humans, and of
productive ones between humans and non-humans. Another major theme,
of relevance to the ongoing theoretical debate on 'individualismcollectivism',
involves the efficacy of "Tchimap" as a performative means of
personal autonomy, within and as part of, rather than in opposition to, the
group
Fertile words : aspects of language and sociality among Yanomami people of Venezuela
No full textIn the first part of the thesis (Chapters I to 7)1 discuss two Yanomami myths of
origin, namely the myth of the origin of the night, and the myth of the master of
banana plants. While drawing heavily on Lizot's ethnographical and linguistic
work, my analysis of the myth will be embedded within two interconnected
debates of present concern to anthropology: On the one hand, the strong
linkage between the poetics of myth narration and the poetics of the everyday
life. To better explore this relationship I will also drawn on Overing's recent work
on the fundamental importance of understanding the political philosophy that
pervades such linkage. On the other hand there is also the important role that
the world of the felt, the senses and passions play in Yanomami conceptions
and practices of sociality.
In part 2 of the thesis, I deal with the issue of Yanomami warfare by describing
Yanomami people's understanding of warfare. In doing this, I endeavour to
develop a shift from the anthropologist's theories of war among the Yanomami
to the Yanomami's own theories about both peace and its failure. War and
conflict are addressed here from the point of view of the Yanomami aesthetics
of their own convivial relations and sociality, along with its multiple oral
expressions. I demonstrate that Yanomami people have their own (strong)
theories about what is conducive to peace and war and how these theories are
grounded in moral and political values attached to a particular Yanomami
aesthetics of egalitarianism. In doing this, I explore the way Lizot emphasises
the dialectic between Yanomami conceptions of peace and warfare.
Furthermore, through an exploration of the linkage Lizot establishes between
Yanomami warfare and their morality, I wish to shed new light on the political
dimensions of their conflicts and the place of warfare in their culturally specific
aesthetics of egalitarian relationships.
Part 3 of the thesis (chapters 9, 10, 11) deals with the Yanomami elders'
speech, a mode of communication that has been almost neglected in other
previous works. After having discussed various topics (myth and the everyday,
Yanomami warfare) through which various aspects of Yanomami moral and
political philosophy can be grasped, in this last part of the thesis I show the
strong linkage between such philosophy and this type of speech. The elders'
speech is dealt with in various parts of the thesis and also in various ways. First,
and departing from the way a myth of origin explicitly makes references to it, I
illustrate, the way Yanomami people conceive of this type of speech. I do this by
describing, following Hymes' (1981,2003) insights, the way in which the myth
teller "describes" this speech in his narrative. Second, in Chapter 3, I make a
brief description of the speech and in Chapters 9, 10, and 11 I provide
fragments of the speech of an elder that I transcribed and analysed
Cashinahua cosmovision : a perspectival approach to identity and alterity
No full textThis thesis explores the interface of social and cosmogonic thought in an indigenous society of the southwestern Brazilian Amazon. The first part sets out the Cashinahua ontological framework, describes key concepts and places the Cashinahua in the broader context of an Amerindian worldview where perspectivism and a special philosophical interest in the questions of alterity and identity are central issues. These questions are dealt with by means of a complex dualistic symbolism that pervades the fields of ethnicity, gender, social life and ritual. The second part of the thesis is divided into two chapters (chapters III and IV). Chapter three sets out the mythological framework in which the key concepts previously described gain a narrative form, while chapter IV describes the Nixpu pima initiation ritual of girls and boys and shows how this ritual represents an important moment of synthesis and actualisation of the Cashinahua worldview. The initiation ritual illustrates how the Cashinahua basic ontological distinctions between the embodied and rooted self as opposed to free-floating images and spirits are expressed in a graphic way and guide ritual action. Throughout the thesis references are also made to the intimate association and mutual illumination between, on the one hand, the Cashinahua worldview, social life and ontology, and, on the other, eschatology and indigenous conceptions of death
Of life and happiness : morality, aesthetics, and social life among the southeastern Amazonian Mebengokré (Kayapó), as seen from the margins of ritual
No full textThis thesis deals with different aspects of the processes of production of sociability
among the Xikrin-Mebengokré of the Cateté River, central Brazil. I focus on ceremonies and their performance, as ways of access to Mebengokré conceptions concerning the morality and aesthetics of social life. I analyse the semiotics of
‘kin’-ship production, the performative aspects of emotion as a sociability tool, the
use of song and dance for the co-ordination of collective technical tasks, and a
Mebengokré ‘theory of language’ as social agency. In the conclusion I focus on the
criticism of some of the key theoretical aspects of Ge ethnology, in the light of my
previous analysis
The application of geomatic technologies in an indigenous context : Amazonian Indians and indigenous land rights
No full textIndigenous people have employed Western analogue techniques (maps, charts, etc) to
support their land rights ever since their traditional territories came under threat.
Although indigenous groups utilise such tools there is still a significant divide between
the epistemological conception of these analogue techniques and the ontology of the
indigenous people. This research looks at one of the latest technologies to be utilised by
indigenous peoples, that of geomatics technologies. It examines their design and
application using the analytical techniques of anthropology juxtaposed with the
geographical methodologies. Using both the literature and three case studies drawing
from fieldwork conducted in the Peruvian Amazonian I argue that although previous
analogue techniques carried a certain epistemological baggage, they were effectively
neutral and did not impact of the ontology of the indigenous peoples. Geomatics
technologies are not neutral and carry more than just baggage, so they are not so simply
appropriated. Indigenous conceptions of landscape are not compatible with the current
design of geomatics technologies but indigenous federations are increasingly employing
them. The indigenous federation along with non-governmental organisations adopt the
geomatics technologies because of their perceived authority in land rights and their
applications in land management and saving cultural heritage. The State recognises this
authority because the design and output of geomatics conforms to its legal system.
However, indigenous peoples have a different agenda and conception of land rights.
Their agenda is based on revitalising their heritage and land rights derived through self-determination.
This research reveals such issues of power, politics and authenticity
behind its application and the ontological and epistemological philosophy of its design
A taste of movement : an exploration of the social ethics of the Tsimanes of lowland Bolivia
No full textThis thesis explores Tsimane understandings and creations of varying forms of sociality. Each chapter addresses different but related issues concerning sociality. Fieldwork was carried out in three riverine settlements over the period from December 1991 to August 1994.
The thesis shows that sociality is created and perpetuated by individuals as a processual endeavour, and does not amount to a tangible structure predicated upon fixed social relationships. Community in a physically bound sense is not found amongst the Tsimanes. Given forms of sociality are shown to rest more upon an appropriateness or inappropriateness of mood or affectivity. These are created and effected by subtle details of each individual’s presence amongst others. Social presence is understood by the Tsimanes as both potentially nurturant and predatory.
Tsimanes are explicit about their ideas of preferred and abhorred social presence and behaviour of human and non-human others. This thesis explores ways in which such ideas are articulated to create a discourse on social ethics. A Tsimane aesthetics of social living carries with it practical implications for creating and perpetuating forms of sociality.
An underlying theme of the thesis is one of mobility and the oscillating nature of Tsimane movements between different groups of kin and affines, and between moods and forms of sociality. I demonstrate that the high value placed by the Tsimanes upon movement, and the enjoyment they experience from it, most efficiently enable the achievement of correct social existence. A lack of knowledge and intention, ultimately resulting in illness and death, are principally deemed to occur as a result of immobility
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