http://hdl.handle.net/10023/122 Mon, 20 May 2013 09:06:17 GMT 2013-05-20T09:06:17Z http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3455 Abstract: The aim of my PhD project has been to understand how Hutong residents’ ideas about living space have been different from those living in the high-rise compound and how their concept of living space has been changed by both internal and external factors, meaning additional affiliated functions and governmental city-planning. I conducted my fieldwork in Beijing between July 2009 and September 2012: fourteen months in total, interspersed with trips to St. Andrews. I spent ten months from July 2009 to May 2010 living in a Hutong called Xingfu Street (the word translates as ‘happiness’). Then I moved into a high-rise apartment outside the inner city, called Suojiafen Compound, for a further four months. This study concerns space in the contemporary city of Beijing: how space is humanly built and transformed, classified and differentiated, and most importantly how space is perceived and experienced. In the end I have developed the concept “overlapped” space as a way to detect the “personality” of space in both Hutong and high-rise apartment: how they differentiated from each other and how they have been transformed in different way by the residents inside. Sat, 01 Jun 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3455 2013-06-01T00:00:00Z Yang, Qingqing The aim of my PhD project has been to understand how Hutong residents’ ideas about living space have been different from those living in the high-rise compound and how their concept of living space has been changed by both internal and external factors, meaning additional affiliated functions and governmental city-planning. I conducted my fieldwork in Beijing between July 2009 and September 2012: fourteen months in total, interspersed with trips to St. Andrews. I spent ten months from July 2009 to May 2010 living in a Hutong called Xingfu Street (the word translates as ‘happiness’). Then I moved into a high-rise apartment outside the inner city, called Suojiafen Compound, for a further four months. This study concerns space in the contemporary city of Beijing: how space is humanly built and transformed, classified and differentiated, and most importantly how space is perceived and experienced. In the end I have developed the concept “overlapped” space as a way to detect the “personality” of space in both Hutong and high-rise apartment: how they differentiated from each other and how they have been transformed in different way by the residents inside. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3448 Abstract: The present thesis examines the themes of ‘shared history,’ ‘place-making,’ and ‘reconciliation’ to assess how these come together in the establishment of an Aboriginal identity in Perth, Western Australia. Focusing on individuals who do not represent the common stereotypes associated with Aboriginal Australians, it will be demonstrated that these individuals are forced into an in-between place where they have to continually negotiate what Aboriginality means in the twenty-first century. Taking on this responsibility they become mediators, stressing a ‘shared history’ in order to create a place for themselves in the non-Aboriginal landscape and to advance reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australia by fighting the dominant discourse from within. Beginning with the State and Government’s Native Title appeal premiss that Nyungar never existed, this thesis will examine this claim by first presenting an account of the history of southwest Western Australia to establish the place Aboriginal people have been forced into by the colonists during early settlement, and the processes of which extend into the present day. From there on in the focus will be on individual Aboriginal people and their careers and businesses, examining how they attempt to redefine what is perceived and accepted as Aboriginality through different interaction and mediation ‘tactics’ with non-Aboriginal Australians. Finally, this thesis will take a closer look at the reconciliation movement in Australia and the people involved in it. It will determine different approaches to reconciliation and assess their possibility and meaning for the construction of a twenty-first century Aboriginal identity. The thesis will conclude that although Nyungar are forced into the dominant discourse, their resistance from within credits a new kind of Aboriginality that is just as valid as the ‘traditional’ and ‘authentic’ Aboriginality imagined by non-Aboriginal Australia. Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3448 2012-11-30T00:00:00Z Hemmers, Carina The present thesis examines the themes of ‘shared history,’ ‘place-making,’ and ‘reconciliation’ to assess how these come together in the establishment of an Aboriginal identity in Perth, Western Australia. Focusing on individuals who do not represent the common stereotypes associated with Aboriginal Australians, it will be demonstrated that these individuals are forced into an in-between place where they have to continually negotiate what Aboriginality means in the twenty-first century. Taking on this responsibility they become mediators, stressing a ‘shared history’ in order to create a place for themselves in the non-Aboriginal landscape and to advance reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australia by fighting the dominant discourse from within. Beginning with the State and Government’s Native Title appeal premiss that Nyungar never existed, this thesis will examine this claim by first presenting an account of the history of southwest Western Australia to establish the place Aboriginal people have been forced into by the colonists during early settlement, and the processes of which extend into the present day. From there on in the focus will be on individual Aboriginal people and their careers and businesses, examining how they attempt to redefine what is perceived and accepted as Aboriginality through different interaction and mediation ‘tactics’ with non-Aboriginal Australians. Finally, this thesis will take a closer look at the reconciliation movement in Australia and the people involved in it. It will determine different approaches to reconciliation and assess their possibility and meaning for the construction of a twenty-first century Aboriginal identity. The thesis will conclude that although Nyungar are forced into the dominant discourse, their resistance from within credits a new kind of Aboriginality that is just as valid as the ‘traditional’ and ‘authentic’ Aboriginality imagined by non-Aboriginal Australia. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3419 Abstract: This thesis explores the textualizing of the South Atlantic island of St Helena (a British Overseas Territory) through an analysis of the relationship between colonizing practices and the changing representations of the island and its inhabitants in a range of colonial 'texts', including historiography, travel writing, government papers, creative writing, and the fine arts. Part I situates this thesis within a critical engagement with post-colonial theory and colonial discourse analysis primarily, as well as with the recent 'linguistic turn' in anthropology and history. In place of post-colonialism's rather monolithic approach to colonial experiences, I argue for a localised approach to colonisation, which takes greater account of colonial praxis and of the continuous re-negotiation and re-constitution of particular colonial situations. Part II focuses on a number of literary issues by reviewing St Helena's historiography and literature, and by investigating the range of narrative tropes employed (largely by travellers) in the textualizing of St Helena, in particular with respect to recurrent imaginings of the island in terms of an earthly Eden. Part III examines the nature of colonial 'possession' by tracing the island's gradual appropriation by the Portuguese, Dutch and English in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century and the settlement policies pursued by the English East India Company in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. Part IV provides an account of the changing perceptions, by visitors and colonial officials alike, of the character of the island's inhabitants (from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century) and assesses the influence that these perceptions have had on the administration of the island and the political status of its inhabitants (in the mid- to late twentieth century). Part V, the conclusion, reviews the principal arguments of my thesis by addressing the political implications of post-colonial theory and of my own research, while also indicating avenues for further research. A localised and detailed exploration of colonial discourse over a period of nearly five hundred years, and a close analysis of a consequently wide range of colonial 'texts', has confirmed that although colonising practices and representations are far from monolithic, in the case of St Helena their continuities are of as much significance as their discontinuities. Fri, 01 Jan 1999 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3419 1999-01-01T00:00:00Z Schulenburg, Alexander Hugo This thesis explores the textualizing of the South Atlantic island of St Helena (a British Overseas Territory) through an analysis of the relationship between colonizing practices and the changing representations of the island and its inhabitants in a range of colonial 'texts', including historiography, travel writing, government papers, creative writing, and the fine arts. Part I situates this thesis within a critical engagement with post-colonial theory and colonial discourse analysis primarily, as well as with the recent 'linguistic turn' in anthropology and history. In place of post-colonialism's rather monolithic approach to colonial experiences, I argue for a localised approach to colonisation, which takes greater account of colonial praxis and of the continuous re-negotiation and re-constitution of particular colonial situations. Part II focuses on a number of literary issues by reviewing St Helena's historiography and literature, and by investigating the range of narrative tropes employed (largely by travellers) in the textualizing of St Helena, in particular with respect to recurrent imaginings of the island in terms of an earthly Eden. Part III examines the nature of colonial 'possession' by tracing the island's gradual appropriation by the Portuguese, Dutch and English in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century and the settlement policies pursued by the English East India Company in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. Part IV provides an account of the changing perceptions, by visitors and colonial officials alike, of the character of the island's inhabitants (from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century) and assesses the influence that these perceptions have had on the administration of the island and the political status of its inhabitants (in the mid- to late twentieth century). Part V, the conclusion, reviews the principal arguments of my thesis by addressing the political implications of post-colonial theory and of my own research, while also indicating avenues for further research. A localised and detailed exploration of colonial discourse over a period of nearly five hundred years, and a close analysis of a consequently wide range of colonial 'texts', has confirmed that although colonising practices and representations are far from monolithic, in the case of St Helena their continuities are of as much significance as their discontinuities. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3404 Abstract: This thesis is an anthropological exploration of the envy of Aguabuena people, a small rural community of potters in the village of Ráquira, in the Boyacá region of Andean Colombia. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork among these potters, I propose an understanding of envy in Aguabuena as an existential experience, shaping relationships between the self and others in the world, crosscutting metaphysical and physical spheres, and balancing between corrosive and more empathetic ways of co-existence. Disclosing the multipresence of envy in Aguabuena’s world, its effects on people (including the ethnographer), and the way envy is embodied, performed, reciprocated and circumvented by the potters, I locate envy in various contexts where it is said to be manifested. Furthermore, I discuss the complex spectrum of envy and its multivalent meanings, or oscillations, in the life of Aguabuena people. I also present interactions with people surrounding potters, such as Augustinian monks, crafts middlemen, and municipal authorities, all of whom recount the envy of potters. My research challenges previous anthropological interpretations on envy and provides an alternative reading of this phenomenon. Moving away from labelling and regulatory explanations of envy, performative models, or pathological interpretations of the subject, I analyse the lived experience of envy and how it encompasses different realms of experience as well as flows of social relations. While focusing on the tensions and entanglements that envy brings to potters, as it constrains social life but also activates and reinforces social bonds, I examine the channels through which envy circulates and how it is put into motion by potters. Additionally, my thesis intends to contribute to anthropological studies of rural pottery communities in Andean Colombia. I present my unfolding understanding of envy by using both the potters’ concept and material detail, punto, location, referring to a spot from where Aguabuena people enter different vistas of the world, or denoting a precise time when things or materials change their physical qualities. Through this device, I disclose realms of envy, while seeking to immerse the reader in the lived experience of envy. Tue, 04 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3404 2012-12-04T00:00:00Z Castellanos Montes, Daniela This thesis is an anthropological exploration of the envy of Aguabuena people, a small rural community of potters in the village of Ráquira, in the Boyacá region of Andean Colombia. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork among these potters, I propose an understanding of envy in Aguabuena as an existential experience, shaping relationships between the self and others in the world, crosscutting metaphysical and physical spheres, and balancing between corrosive and more empathetic ways of co-existence. Disclosing the multipresence of envy in Aguabuena’s world, its effects on people (including the ethnographer), and the way envy is embodied, performed, reciprocated and circumvented by the potters, I locate envy in various contexts where it is said to be manifested. Furthermore, I discuss the complex spectrum of envy and its multivalent meanings, or oscillations, in the life of Aguabuena people. I also present interactions with people surrounding potters, such as Augustinian monks, crafts middlemen, and municipal authorities, all of whom recount the envy of potters. My research challenges previous anthropological interpretations on envy and provides an alternative reading of this phenomenon. Moving away from labelling and regulatory explanations of envy, performative models, or pathological interpretations of the subject, I analyse the lived experience of envy and how it encompasses different realms of experience as well as flows of social relations. While focusing on the tensions and entanglements that envy brings to potters, as it constrains social life but also activates and reinforces social bonds, I examine the channels through which envy circulates and how it is put into motion by potters. Additionally, my thesis intends to contribute to anthropological studies of rural pottery communities in Andean Colombia. I present my unfolding understanding of envy by using both the potters’ concept and material detail, punto, location, referring to a spot from where Aguabuena people enter different vistas of the world, or denoting a precise time when things or materials change their physical qualities. Through this device, I disclose realms of envy, while seeking to immerse the reader in the lived experience of envy. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3389 Abstract: This thesis explores the part gambling plays in an urban setting in Highland Papua New Guinea. Gambling did not exist in (what is now) Goroka Town before European contact, nor Papua New Guinea more broadly, but when I conducted fieldwork in 2009-2010 it was an inescapable part of everyday life. One card game proliferated into a multitude of games for different situations and participants, and was supplemented with slot machines, sports betting, darts, and bingo and lottery games. One could well imagine gambling becoming popular in societies new to it, especially coming on the back of money, wage-work and towns. Yet the popularity of gambling in the region is surprising to social scientists because the peoples now so enamoured by gambling are famous for their love of competitively giving things away, not competing for them. Gambling spread while gifting remained a central part of the way people did transactions. This thesis resists juxtaposing gifting and selfish acquisition. It shows how their opposition is false; that gambling is instead a new analytic technique for manipulating the value of gifts and acquisitions alike, through the medium of money. Too often gambling takes a familiar form in analyses: as the sharp end of capitalism, or the benign, chance-led redistributor of wealth in egalitarian societies. The thesis builds an ethnographic understanding of gambling, and uses it to interrogate theories of gambling, money, and Melanesian anthropology. In so doing, the thesis speaks to a trend in Melanesian anthropology to debate whether monetisation and urbanisation has brought about a radical split in peoples’ understandings of the world. Dealing with some of the most starkly ‘modern’ material I find a process of inclusive indigenous materialism that consumes the old and the new alike, turning them into a model for action in a dynamic money-led world. Thu, 27 Jun 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3389 2013-06-27T00:00:00Z Pickles, Anthony J. This thesis explores the part gambling plays in an urban setting in Highland Papua New Guinea. Gambling did not exist in (what is now) Goroka Town before European contact, nor Papua New Guinea more broadly, but when I conducted fieldwork in 2009-2010 it was an inescapable part of everyday life. One card game proliferated into a multitude of games for different situations and participants, and was supplemented with slot machines, sports betting, darts, and bingo and lottery games. One could well imagine gambling becoming popular in societies new to it, especially coming on the back of money, wage-work and towns. Yet the popularity of gambling in the region is surprising to social scientists because the peoples now so enamoured by gambling are famous for their love of competitively giving things away, not competing for them. Gambling spread while gifting remained a central part of the way people did transactions. This thesis resists juxtaposing gifting and selfish acquisition. It shows how their opposition is false; that gambling is instead a new analytic technique for manipulating the value of gifts and acquisitions alike, through the medium of money. Too often gambling takes a familiar form in analyses: as the sharp end of capitalism, or the benign, chance-led redistributor of wealth in egalitarian societies. The thesis builds an ethnographic understanding of gambling, and uses it to interrogate theories of gambling, money, and Melanesian anthropology. In so doing, the thesis speaks to a trend in Melanesian anthropology to debate whether monetisation and urbanisation has brought about a radical split in peoples’ understandings of the world. Dealing with some of the most starkly ‘modern’ material I find a process of inclusive indigenous materialism that consumes the old and the new alike, turning them into a model for action in a dynamic money-led world. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3206 Abstract: This thesis discusses the concepts of labour, life, and language among the Yami of Lanyu, Taiwan. In the local context, it is labour, life and language that comprise the concept of personhood among the Yami: tao, i.e. the ‘person’ in Yami language, is someone created labouring, and his labour in turn creates affluence, authority, and truth. I name this culturally particular image of a real or true person as Homo laboris or ‘Man the Worker’. This thesis aims to explore how labour, wealth, power, and knowledge are interrelated in Yami culture, and behind these relations, what material, social and epistemological conditions exist and render the relatedness possible. By analysing the contemporary economic predicament among the Yami, I attempt to highlight the effect of an episteme: when the Yami recognise and pursue wealth in the context of market economy they seem to be blind to the enormous invisible wealth in the market, because their category of wealth is constructed through numerous vis-à-vis relationships whose meaning resides in what a particular person is able to ‘see’. The concept of wealth is being re-categorised among the Yami, due to both their continuous trial and error in business management and the invincible power of abstract money. Accordingly, the straightforward relations between wealth, power, knowledge and labour are dissolving. The image of a real person is also changing now. In short, what money and commodities introduce to the Yami is not merely their use- or exchange- value but a set of new relations and a new way to see and recognise the world. Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3206 2012-11-30T00:00:00Z Kao, Hsin-chieh This thesis discusses the concepts of labour, life, and language among the Yami of Lanyu, Taiwan. In the local context, it is labour, life and language that comprise the concept of personhood among the Yami: tao, i.e. the ‘person’ in Yami language, is someone created labouring, and his labour in turn creates affluence, authority, and truth. I name this culturally particular image of a real or true person as Homo laboris or ‘Man the Worker’. This thesis aims to explore how labour, wealth, power, and knowledge are interrelated in Yami culture, and behind these relations, what material, social and epistemological conditions exist and render the relatedness possible. By analysing the contemporary economic predicament among the Yami, I attempt to highlight the effect of an episteme: when the Yami recognise and pursue wealth in the context of market economy they seem to be blind to the enormous invisible wealth in the market, because their category of wealth is constructed through numerous vis-à-vis relationships whose meaning resides in what a particular person is able to ‘see’. The concept of wealth is being re-categorised among the Yami, due to both their continuous trial and error in business management and the invincible power of abstract money. Accordingly, the straightforward relations between wealth, power, knowledge and labour are dissolving. The image of a real person is also changing now. In short, what money and commodities introduce to the Yami is not merely their use- or exchange- value but a set of new relations and a new way to see and recognise the world. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3095 Abstract: This thesis dwells on the existence of freedom in the life of people in a Brazilian favela (shantytown). The ethnography presents the dance of freedom with the full intensity of a carnivalesque. The exploration also ponders the existence of metafreedom (proposed as the freedom necessary for the expression of freedom) as a form of control over iterations of freedom. At the same time that it argues for a radical carnivalization of narratives of freedom, it flirts with the very limits of freedom as a concept and as a practice. One of the main contributions is in avoiding a reductive analysis of the concept of freedom, narrowing it to a simpler or alternative notion. Instead, the project presents the complex relations of five experienced objects – livre; livre-arbítrio; libertação; liberada and liberdade – to one another and to the life situations in which they come to existence in Favela da Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro. In methodological terms, the research argues that one of the ways to approach the topic of freedom from an ethnographic perspective is through the occurrences of linguistic expressions of freedom as objects that can be empirically experienced and registered by the ethnographer. It is mainly by making the complexities of freedom visible ethnographically, by tracing freedoms in their daily existence and by connecting these different kinds of freedom to diverse lived experiences and social contexts that the thesis advances the debate on freedom. The discussion of a carnivalesque of freedom in a Brazilian favela is also a call for a reflection on what ethnography as an empirical method, and anthropology more broadly, can offer to the understanding of freedom. Tue, 15 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3095 2012-05-15T00:00:00Z Lino e Silva, Moises This thesis dwells on the existence of freedom in the life of people in a Brazilian favela (shantytown). The ethnography presents the dance of freedom with the full intensity of a carnivalesque. The exploration also ponders the existence of metafreedom (proposed as the freedom necessary for the expression of freedom) as a form of control over iterations of freedom. At the same time that it argues for a radical carnivalization of narratives of freedom, it flirts with the very limits of freedom as a concept and as a practice. One of the main contributions is in avoiding a reductive analysis of the concept of freedom, narrowing it to a simpler or alternative notion. Instead, the project presents the complex relations of five experienced objects – livre; livre-arbítrio; libertação; liberada and liberdade – to one another and to the life situations in which they come to existence in Favela da Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro. In methodological terms, the research argues that one of the ways to approach the topic of freedom from an ethnographic perspective is through the occurrences of linguistic expressions of freedom as objects that can be empirically experienced and registered by the ethnographer. It is mainly by making the complexities of freedom visible ethnographically, by tracing freedoms in their daily existence and by connecting these different kinds of freedom to diverse lived experiences and social contexts that the thesis advances the debate on freedom. The discussion of a carnivalesque of freedom in a Brazilian favela is also a call for a reflection on what ethnography as an empirical method, and anthropology more broadly, can offer to the understanding of freedom. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3094 Abstract: This thesis investigates the transnational migration of Slovakian Roma from the eastern borderlands of the European Union to Great Britain. Based on more than two years of ethnographic fieldwork in the village of Tarkovce and in several British cities, this study examines concrete pathways through which Roma come to migrate and experience their movement. For Tarkovce Roma, the most recent migration opportunity offers a potential means to carve out a sense of a viable life and of autonomy amidst the oppressive circumstances and asymmetrical relations they experience with non-Roma dominant groups and non-related Roma. I focus on Tarkovce Roma strivings for existential mobility, which condition their physical movement to the place of destination, and on their hopes for upward socio-economic mobility. I argue that migration enables Roma to contest and re-negotiate the hegemonic racial and social categories which historically place them at the bottom of social hierarchies. The thesis explores the unevenly distributed possibilities and complex inequalities that Tarkovce Roma encounter on their journeys towards realising their hopes in migration. I situate these differences within the daily sociability of Tarkovce Roma, intense webs of kinship and friendship ties, and key concepts of ‘soft hearts’ and ‘heaviness.’ I describe how Roma migrants come to occupy one of the most vulnerable positions in the British labour market and how they simultaneously, and constantly, search for other ways of making ‘big money.’ Finally, I address questions of categorisations, in particular the internal differentiations between Roma, as well as the transformation that many Roma migrants encounter in British cities, from initial ‘invisibility’ to ‘visibility’. By focusing on one particular neighbourhood in Glasgow, I analyse the shifting forms of ethno-cultural categorisations that mark Roma/Gypsy difference. Thu, 21 Jun 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3094 2012-06-21T00:00:00Z Grill, Jan This thesis investigates the transnational migration of Slovakian Roma from the eastern borderlands of the European Union to Great Britain. Based on more than two years of ethnographic fieldwork in the village of Tarkovce and in several British cities, this study examines concrete pathways through which Roma come to migrate and experience their movement. For Tarkovce Roma, the most recent migration opportunity offers a potential means to carve out a sense of a viable life and of autonomy amidst the oppressive circumstances and asymmetrical relations they experience with non-Roma dominant groups and non-related Roma. I focus on Tarkovce Roma strivings for existential mobility, which condition their physical movement to the place of destination, and on their hopes for upward socio-economic mobility. I argue that migration enables Roma to contest and re-negotiate the hegemonic racial and social categories which historically place them at the bottom of social hierarchies. The thesis explores the unevenly distributed possibilities and complex inequalities that Tarkovce Roma encounter on their journeys towards realising their hopes in migration. I situate these differences within the daily sociability of Tarkovce Roma, intense webs of kinship and friendship ties, and key concepts of ‘soft hearts’ and ‘heaviness.’ I describe how Roma migrants come to occupy one of the most vulnerable positions in the British labour market and how they simultaneously, and constantly, search for other ways of making ‘big money.’ Finally, I address questions of categorisations, in particular the internal differentiations between Roma, as well as the transformation that many Roma migrants encounter in British cities, from initial ‘invisibility’ to ‘visibility’. By focusing on one particular neighbourhood in Glasgow, I analyse the shifting forms of ethno-cultural categorisations that mark Roma/Gypsy difference. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3069 Abstract: This thesis addresses the worship practices of contemporary Quakers and their social enactment. It presents an ethnography that attempts to evoke participation in Meeting for Worship at a local site (St Andrews Quaker Meeting) and also adopts a strategic perspective towards Quaker practices as a dispersed community of practice. It deploys two major theoretical frameworks: a revised theory of secularisation developed by Taylor (2007) and Martin (2005); and Cultural Theory developed from Douglas (1996,1998). A short history of Quakers is set out. A context for contemporary Quakers, the ‘spiritual landscape’ (Taylor, 2007), is characterised. Quaker reflexive literature is reviewed. Following the ethnography of a Meeting for Worship, four key domains of practice are further discussed – the body, silence, speech and gatheredness. The Meeting for Worship for Business is described using ethnographic material. Sources of power, decision-making criteria, the construction of the Quaker narrative, and the emergence of renewal initiatives are reviewed. Four central elements of Quaker practice – the Worship ritual, the Testimonies, Business Meetings, and Cosmologies – are plotted within the grid- group model and Cultural Theory. The thesis has twenty-two Figures and five Appendices which contain a Dramatis Personae, a Fieldwork Diary and background information on Quaker practice. The challenge for contemporary Quakers is portrayed as the attempt to create and maintain unity in diversity and this is explicated by analysing Quaker practices in the light of the pressures of secularisation and cross-pressures within the spiritual landscape, in particular the dialectical tension theorised by Taylor (2007) between ‘transcendence’ and ‘immanence’. Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/3069 2011-11-01T00:00:00Z Lloyd-Richards, Huw This thesis addresses the worship practices of contemporary Quakers and their social enactment. It presents an ethnography that attempts to evoke participation in Meeting for Worship at a local site (St Andrews Quaker Meeting) and also adopts a strategic perspective towards Quaker practices as a dispersed community of practice. It deploys two major theoretical frameworks: a revised theory of secularisation developed by Taylor (2007) and Martin (2005); and Cultural Theory developed from Douglas (1996,1998). A short history of Quakers is set out. A context for contemporary Quakers, the ‘spiritual landscape’ (Taylor, 2007), is characterised. Quaker reflexive literature is reviewed. Following the ethnography of a Meeting for Worship, four key domains of practice are further discussed – the body, silence, speech and gatheredness. The Meeting for Worship for Business is described using ethnographic material. Sources of power, decision-making criteria, the construction of the Quaker narrative, and the emergence of renewal initiatives are reviewed. Four central elements of Quaker practice – the Worship ritual, the Testimonies, Business Meetings, and Cosmologies – are plotted within the grid- group model and Cultural Theory. The thesis has twenty-two Figures and five Appendices which contain a Dramatis Personae, a Fieldwork Diary and background information on Quaker practice. The challenge for contemporary Quakers is portrayed as the attempt to create and maintain unity in diversity and this is explicated by analysing Quaker practices in the light of the pressures of secularisation and cross-pressures within the spiritual landscape, in particular the dialectical tension theorised by Taylor (2007) between ‘transcendence’ and ‘immanence’. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2964 Abstract: In this thesis I place detailed descriptions of Talang Mamak lives in an historically reconstructed context which focuses upon the Talang Mamak's status as debt-bondsmen of the Sultans of the kingdom of Inderagiri (1509-1963). Information about current Talang Mamak lives is presented in the form of five life-histories, or biographies, in which both local issues (development; deforestation; drought; crime; relationships with wider, Muslim, society; debt- management; ) and local practices (leadership, rice-farming, rubber cultivation and tapping, cock-fighting, shamanism, marriage, etc) are described in terms of the biographical subjects' experiences of them. Preceding the life-histories and forming a context in which they can be understood, is an historical reconstruction of Minangkabau and Malay settlements along the Inderagiri river, the establishment of the kingdom of Inderagiri and its relationship with the Dutch and the Republic of Indonesia. In this history I re-describe both the well-documented Minangkabau and the as-yet undocumented Talang Mamak, in terms of relationships between rulers and their debt-bondsmen subjects and show that forms of social organisation such as matrilineal inheritance, duolocal residence and bride-price were enforced, by rulers, upon their debt-bondsmen subjects as a means of maintaining and manipulating social inequalities. After the five life-histories, by way of a conclusion, I suggest that the `culture' of many isolated, non-Muslim groups on both sides of the Straits of Melaka, including Talang Mamak and Kubu in Sumatra, and Semai and Temuan in Malaysia, can be best understood in terms of their economic relationships with Malay and Minangkabau rulers and recent changes to these ties introduced by modern nation-states. Using this perspective I reject the label `Proto- Malay' which has been customarily used to describe isolated non-Muslim populations in Sumatra, such as Talang Mamak, and in Malaysia, such as Semai, in terms of so-called ethnic characteristics. I propose that what these groups of people have in common is not an ascribed ethnicity but rather similar historical relationships with Muslim kingdoms who they served as debt-bondsmen. Thu, 01 Jan 1998 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2964 1998-01-01T00:00:00Z Singleton, William In this thesis I place detailed descriptions of Talang Mamak lives in an historically reconstructed context which focuses upon the Talang Mamak's status as debt-bondsmen of the Sultans of the kingdom of Inderagiri (1509-1963). Information about current Talang Mamak lives is presented in the form of five life-histories, or biographies, in which both local issues (development; deforestation; drought; crime; relationships with wider, Muslim, society; debt- management; ) and local practices (leadership, rice-farming, rubber cultivation and tapping, cock-fighting, shamanism, marriage, etc) are described in terms of the biographical subjects' experiences of them. Preceding the life-histories and forming a context in which they can be understood, is an historical reconstruction of Minangkabau and Malay settlements along the Inderagiri river, the establishment of the kingdom of Inderagiri and its relationship with the Dutch and the Republic of Indonesia. In this history I re-describe both the well-documented Minangkabau and the as-yet undocumented Talang Mamak, in terms of relationships between rulers and their debt-bondsmen subjects and show that forms of social organisation such as matrilineal inheritance, duolocal residence and bride-price were enforced, by rulers, upon their debt-bondsmen subjects as a means of maintaining and manipulating social inequalities. After the five life-histories, by way of a conclusion, I suggest that the `culture' of many isolated, non-Muslim groups on both sides of the Straits of Melaka, including Talang Mamak and Kubu in Sumatra, and Semai and Temuan in Malaysia, can be best understood in terms of their economic relationships with Malay and Minangkabau rulers and recent changes to these ties introduced by modern nation-states. Using this perspective I reject the label `Proto- Malay' which has been customarily used to describe isolated non-Muslim populations in Sumatra, such as Talang Mamak, and in Malaysia, such as Semai, in terms of so-called ethnic characteristics. I propose that what these groups of people have in common is not an ascribed ethnicity but rather similar historical relationships with Muslim kingdoms who they served as debt-bondsmen. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2960 Abstract: This volume is a study of the immigration of three individual groups of Scottish Highlanders as they ventured to the new colony of Georgia in British North America between the years 1735 and 1748. It examines the importance of the area of the Altamaha River in which they settled and the conflicts along the southern frontier of British colonial America between the rival powers of Great Britain, Spain, France, and the Native American population. These struggles would necessitate the organised recruiting efforts made on the part of the Trustees for Establishing the Colony of Georgia in America to bring Highland Scots, in particular, to the province as their first line of defense. The focus of the text is on the Scots themselves as the changing conditions in the Highlands motivated them to leave their native glens of Scotland to come to the pine barrens of Georgia. The thesis explores the ability of these immigrants to face the challenges of a new environment and the trials of the frontier settlement at Darien. It is an account of how their cultural distinctiveness and "old world" experience aptly prepared them to adapt and to prosper in the new land and to play a vital role in the survival of colonial Georgia. The Highlanders of Scotland who settled at Darien during the first two decades of the colony's existence have been relegated to the shadows of Georgia's colonial history for too long and this work hopes to establish their importance during this crucial period. Mon, 01 Jan 1996 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2960 1996-01-01T00:00:00Z Parker, Anthony W. This volume is a study of the immigration of three individual groups of Scottish Highlanders as they ventured to the new colony of Georgia in British North America between the years 1735 and 1748. It examines the importance of the area of the Altamaha River in which they settled and the conflicts along the southern frontier of British colonial America between the rival powers of Great Britain, Spain, France, and the Native American population. These struggles would necessitate the organised recruiting efforts made on the part of the Trustees for Establishing the Colony of Georgia in America to bring Highland Scots, in particular, to the province as their first line of defense. The focus of the text is on the Scots themselves as the changing conditions in the Highlands motivated them to leave their native glens of Scotland to come to the pine barrens of Georgia. The thesis explores the ability of these immigrants to face the challenges of a new environment and the trials of the frontier settlement at Darien. It is an account of how their cultural distinctiveness and "old world" experience aptly prepared them to adapt and to prosper in the new land and to play a vital role in the survival of colonial Georgia. The Highlanders of Scotland who settled at Darien during the first two decades of the colony's existence have been relegated to the shadows of Georgia's colonial history for too long and this work hopes to establish their importance during this crucial period. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2955 Abstract: The objective of this study is to trace the relationship between oveit and covert acculturation and bilingualism in the Colombian Indian community of Guambia. The first section describes the ten indicators of innovative behaviour that form the Overt Acculturation Scale, on the basis of which the informants were allocated to three Acculturation Categories. These indicators, weighted according to their relative importance for the Guambianos, are: dress and language; occupation, migration and education; reciprocal labour, goods and the home, ritual and medicine, and access to the media. Acculturation has noticeably affected very few. These form an elite of well-educated young men who wear Western clothes, have specialised occupations and skills, and are well-acquainted with White culture and society through personal ties, migration and the media. All others are distributed along a continuum, taking more or less from the White World. Secondly, imaginative stories told in Guambiano and Spanish to a series of pictures by the informants were analysed for signs of covert acculturation. Six hypotheses were statistically tested which held that the ethnic identity of the characters portrayed, as Guambiano or White, would affect their personalities, actions, aims, interactions and emotions. Also, the acculturational level of the story- teller and the language used would affect the content, except for emotion. In Guambiano all display similar beliefs in traditional values and a similar acculturated are fav achievement-oriented show ambivalence and people and culture. Thirdly, these ethnocentrism; in Spanish the highly curable to White characters and more and ambitious, the slightly acculturated the unacculturated defend their own same stories were used to investigate bilingual proficiency. The range of syntactic constructions used in the two languages, the range of vocabulary found in Spanish, and the levels of grammatical and lexical interference in both languages were used as measures of oral productive proficiency. The majority shows sufficient proficiency in Spanish for inter-group communication, but some few have only a passive knowledge and others prove more fluent than in Guambiano on the test. The major conclusion is that the Guambianos' strong ethnic identity - symbolised in their dress, language, land and work - prevents greater acculturation. At present only the highly acculturated elite is innovative and bicultural, while the majority seeks to maintain its cultural heritage. It is economic interaction, not bilingualism, that will probably lead to eventual wholesale modification, since the Guambiano language remains strong but the economic situation grows ever worse. Tue, 01 Jan 1980 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2955 1980-01-01T00:00:00Z Long, Violet The objective of this study is to trace the relationship between oveit and covert acculturation and bilingualism in the Colombian Indian community of Guambia. The first section describes the ten indicators of innovative behaviour that form the Overt Acculturation Scale, on the basis of which the informants were allocated to three Acculturation Categories. These indicators, weighted according to their relative importance for the Guambianos, are: dress and language; occupation, migration and education; reciprocal labour, goods and the home, ritual and medicine, and access to the media. Acculturation has noticeably affected very few. These form an elite of well-educated young men who wear Western clothes, have specialised occupations and skills, and are well-acquainted with White culture and society through personal ties, migration and the media. All others are distributed along a continuum, taking more or less from the White World. Secondly, imaginative stories told in Guambiano and Spanish to a series of pictures by the informants were analysed for signs of covert acculturation. Six hypotheses were statistically tested which held that the ethnic identity of the characters portrayed, as Guambiano or White, would affect their personalities, actions, aims, interactions and emotions. Also, the acculturational level of the story- teller and the language used would affect the content, except for emotion. In Guambiano all display similar beliefs in traditional values and a similar acculturated are fav achievement-oriented show ambivalence and people and culture. Thirdly, these ethnocentrism; in Spanish the highly curable to White characters and more and ambitious, the slightly acculturated the unacculturated defend their own same stories were used to investigate bilingual proficiency. The range of syntactic constructions used in the two languages, the range of vocabulary found in Spanish, and the levels of grammatical and lexical interference in both languages were used as measures of oral productive proficiency. The majority shows sufficient proficiency in Spanish for inter-group communication, but some few have only a passive knowledge and others prove more fluent than in Guambiano on the test. The major conclusion is that the Guambianos' strong ethnic identity - symbolised in their dress, language, land and work - prevents greater acculturation. At present only the highly acculturated elite is innovative and bicultural, while the majority seeks to maintain its cultural heritage. It is economic interaction, not bilingualism, that will probably lead to eventual wholesale modification, since the Guambiano language remains strong but the economic situation grows ever worse. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2895 Abstract: While the present work is far from being a definitive one, it does aim at providing a fairly complete phonology of San Martin Quechua. The author has tried to give a satisfactory account of the descriptive problems and their possible solutions for the dialect. The theoretical principles used to solve the problems are explained, the notions of the theory are defined, and their application to the data is outlined in every case, and explained in some detail in many cases as well. This work is unusual among works on Quechua as regards the space it devotes to explaining and solving problems in the description. Existing descriptions of Quechua may be characterised as supposedly problem-less descriptions. The present work treats Phonology, not as a subsidiary to grammar but as a universe in its own right, with its own problems and solutions. The European background of the work, and the 'axiomatic' approach of Mulder, have undoubtedly contributed in, great measure to the nature of this description, and to what some might call its 'preoccupation' with problems. Without wishing to tag derogatory labels on Bloomfieldian linguistics (enough writers have done so already). I have written the present work as a possible answer to what I believe to be an inadmissable ‘gap’ in Quechua linguistic description as it stands the lack of a rigorous autonomous phonology, which attempts to recognise, state and solve descriptive problems. It is to be hoped that the present work provides a beginning for a fully-fledged discipline of Quechua phonology. [Taken from the forward not from the abstract]. Sat, 01 Jan 1972 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2895 1972-01-01T00:00:00Z Howkins, Douglas William While the present work is far from being a definitive one, it does aim at providing a fairly complete phonology of San Martin Quechua. The author has tried to give a satisfactory account of the descriptive problems and their possible solutions for the dialect. The theoretical principles used to solve the problems are explained, the notions of the theory are defined, and their application to the data is outlined in every case, and explained in some detail in many cases as well. This work is unusual among works on Quechua as regards the space it devotes to explaining and solving problems in the description. Existing descriptions of Quechua may be characterised as supposedly problem-less descriptions. The present work treats Phonology, not as a subsidiary to grammar but as a universe in its own right, with its own problems and solutions. The European background of the work, and the 'axiomatic' approach of Mulder, have undoubtedly contributed in, great measure to the nature of this description, and to what some might call its 'preoccupation' with problems. Without wishing to tag derogatory labels on Bloomfieldian linguistics (enough writers have done so already). I have written the present work as a possible answer to what I believe to be an inadmissable ‘gap’ in Quechua linguistic description as it stands the lack of a rigorous autonomous phonology, which attempts to recognise, state and solve descriptive problems. It is to be hoped that the present work provides a beginning for a fully-fledged discipline of Quechua phonology. [Taken from the forward not from the abstract]. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2844 Abstract: This thesis holds that the application of the archaeological method, developed by the French philosopher Michel Foucault, to the field of anthropology reveals a hitherto hidden primitive episteme. Such a project represents a rejection of a search for a fundamental Truth, available through the traditional figures of rationality, either vertically in history or horizontally across cultures. The form of reason posited by this project does not have a constant and universal occurrence but is given in the discontinuous figures of the episteme. The quest for a single manifestation of the conditions of validity in reason is replaced by a study of the conditions of possibility of the truths, discourses and institutions of a primitive peoples. The conditions of possibility for the emergence of the elements of primitive knowledge and practices are available through the application of the explanatory unities of the archaeological method. These unities replace the traditional explanatory role of the subject, with all of its psychological baggage, which has a central role in modern theories of rationality. The subject-knowledge link that dominates traditional anthropological analyses is replaced by a powerknowledge link that postulates the two axes of discursive and non-discursive concerns. The discursive axis is concerned with the objects, concepts, statements and discursive formations of primitive knowledge while the non-discursive axis is concerned with the systems of power that propagate and sustain those discourses. These two axes constitute the nature of the archaeology employed in this study. This thesis is sustained by both negative and positive evidence. The negative evidence takes the form of an antisubjectivist thrust where the subject-dependent explanatory unities of the tradition are replaced by the positivistic elements of archaeology. The positive evidence primarily takes the form of a detailed analysis of the presence of the guiding codes of the episteme amongst the Trobriand Islanders that give rise to their primitive knowledge and practices. In this area, I make extensive use of Malinowski's ethnographic observations for their breath of detail and application without employing his subject-dependent psychobiological conclusions. Further, I am proposing a transformative position such that orality becomes a feature of the episteme rather than its condition of possibility. The guiding codes of the Trobriand episteme take the form of enclosed oppositional figures that are everywhere related to space. The Trobriand episteme provides the conditions for the emergence of primitive discourses and orders the experiences of the Trobrianders. The guiding figures of the episteme are based in a form of complementary opposition, causation as vitality and a dogma of topological space that give rise to primitive knowledge which is a form of divination. A significant part of this dissertation is taken up with an examination of the detail and limitation of these figures where ideas from Levy-Bruhl, Hallpike, and others are employed to produce the most appropriate configuration for my project. A particular form of language as the manipulation of real signs, rather than ideational signs, has its possibility in this configuration which has consequences for the type of knowledge produced. The form of knowledge appropriate to the presence of such a model of language is magic. Writing has no possibility for emerging in this episteme and, therefore, there are significant consequences for the type of knowledge that can be maintained and propagated in a context which must utilise static tradition to the detriment of reflection. An archaeological analysis of the Trobriand Islanders, focusing on discourses on sex and marriage, the nature of tabooed sexual acts, economic relations arising out of marriage and the role of the polygamous chief, the nature of love-magic and magic in general, reveals a shared possibility for all of these discursive realms in the figures of the episteme. These discourses are regulated by the presence of a fundamental opposition between a brother and his sister. This opposition forms the motif for primitive problematizations and constitutes a vulnerable boundary which is the appropriate focus of taboos relating to sex and food, amongst others. This primitive episteme characterises the unity of the experiences of the Trobrianders. This experience is discontinuous with our own and does not involve a role for the individual ego. This project represents a worthwhile contribution to an understanding of human experience and knowledge in general which does not seek to reduce the natural diversity of man to just the monotonous experience of modern man. In conclusion, I tentatively speculate about the appropriateness of the Trobriand figures for primitive experience in general. Wed, 01 Jan 1992 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2844 1992-01-01T00:00:00Z Slattery, David P. This thesis holds that the application of the archaeological method, developed by the French philosopher Michel Foucault, to the field of anthropology reveals a hitherto hidden primitive episteme. Such a project represents a rejection of a search for a fundamental Truth, available through the traditional figures of rationality, either vertically in history or horizontally across cultures. The form of reason posited by this project does not have a constant and universal occurrence but is given in the discontinuous figures of the episteme. The quest for a single manifestation of the conditions of validity in reason is replaced by a study of the conditions of possibility of the truths, discourses and institutions of a primitive peoples. The conditions of possibility for the emergence of the elements of primitive knowledge and practices are available through the application of the explanatory unities of the archaeological method. These unities replace the traditional explanatory role of the subject, with all of its psychological baggage, which has a central role in modern theories of rationality. The subject-knowledge link that dominates traditional anthropological analyses is replaced by a powerknowledge link that postulates the two axes of discursive and non-discursive concerns. The discursive axis is concerned with the objects, concepts, statements and discursive formations of primitive knowledge while the non-discursive axis is concerned with the systems of power that propagate and sustain those discourses. These two axes constitute the nature of the archaeology employed in this study. This thesis is sustained by both negative and positive evidence. The negative evidence takes the form of an antisubjectivist thrust where the subject-dependent explanatory unities of the tradition are replaced by the positivistic elements of archaeology. The positive evidence primarily takes the form of a detailed analysis of the presence of the guiding codes of the episteme amongst the Trobriand Islanders that give rise to their primitive knowledge and practices. In this area, I make extensive use of Malinowski's ethnographic observations for their breath of detail and application without employing his subject-dependent psychobiological conclusions. Further, I am proposing a transformative position such that orality becomes a feature of the episteme rather than its condition of possibility. The guiding codes of the Trobriand episteme take the form of enclosed oppositional figures that are everywhere related to space. The Trobriand episteme provides the conditions for the emergence of primitive discourses and orders the experiences of the Trobrianders. The guiding figures of the episteme are based in a form of complementary opposition, causation as vitality and a dogma of topological space that give rise to primitive knowledge which is a form of divination. A significant part of this dissertation is taken up with an examination of the detail and limitation of these figures where ideas from Levy-Bruhl, Hallpike, and others are employed to produce the most appropriate configuration for my project. A particular form of language as the manipulation of real signs, rather than ideational signs, has its possibility in this configuration which has consequences for the type of knowledge produced. The form of knowledge appropriate to the presence of such a model of language is magic. Writing has no possibility for emerging in this episteme and, therefore, there are significant consequences for the type of knowledge that can be maintained and propagated in a context which must utilise static tradition to the detriment of reflection. An archaeological analysis of the Trobriand Islanders, focusing on discourses on sex and marriage, the nature of tabooed sexual acts, economic relations arising out of marriage and the role of the polygamous chief, the nature of love-magic and magic in general, reveals a shared possibility for all of these discursive realms in the figures of the episteme. These discourses are regulated by the presence of a fundamental opposition between a brother and his sister. This opposition forms the motif for primitive problematizations and constitutes a vulnerable boundary which is the appropriate focus of taboos relating to sex and food, amongst others. This primitive episteme characterises the unity of the experiences of the Trobrianders. This experience is discontinuous with our own and does not involve a role for the individual ego. This project represents a worthwhile contribution to an understanding of human experience and knowledge in general which does not seek to reduce the natural diversity of man to just the monotonous experience of modern man. In conclusion, I tentatively speculate about the appropriateness of the Trobriand figures for primitive experience in general. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2819 Abstract: National Parks bear greater implications than simply preserving or conserving pockets of landscape. They evoke values of conservation versus development, livelihood economics, environmental stewardship and personal enrichment; they fulfil positions in relation to the national and the international stage. Social characteristics are revealed though this comparative study of Banff National Park and the Cairngorms National Park. Perceptions of space, place and boundaries crucially imply different meanings to the people living inside the national park boundaries and those living outside the boundaries. 'Insiders' are long-term permanent residents for whom being in the park is a practical activity; 'outsiders' include scientists, conservationists, bureaucrats, and tourists, who take various ideological positions regarding the park's purpose. Both sides take a serious interest in the park and how it is managed and regard it as a place where they are 'at home'. Groups within these spaces considers their values and rights superior to others and conflict often arises. Non-violent means of gaining power as theorized by Foucault and Bourdieu, employing knowledge and discourse, are highly suggestive in the study of national parks. Discourse of nature is strategically significant as it influences purpose and policy that drive government's decisions on how the park will be managed - in this way discourse shapes the culture of how we use nature. Knowledge, as symbolic capital and as the basis for truth, sparks divisiveness - in particular scientific knowledge versus experiential knowledge. Changes to the exclusive North American model, such as those instituted in the Caimgorms, mark the increased social utility and inclusive nature of national parks. The challenge remains for park managers to reconcile values connected with nationalism and environmental ethics with values connected with local livelihoods. Sun, 01 Jan 2006 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2819 2006-01-01T00:00:00Z Rettie, Kathleen National Parks bear greater implications than simply preserving or conserving pockets of landscape. They evoke values of conservation versus development, livelihood economics, environmental stewardship and personal enrichment; they fulfil positions in relation to the national and the international stage. Social characteristics are revealed though this comparative study of Banff National Park and the Cairngorms National Park. Perceptions of space, place and boundaries crucially imply different meanings to the people living inside the national park boundaries and those living outside the boundaries. 'Insiders' are long-term permanent residents for whom being in the park is a practical activity; 'outsiders' include scientists, conservationists, bureaucrats, and tourists, who take various ideological positions regarding the park's purpose. Both sides take a serious interest in the park and how it is managed and regard it as a place where they are 'at home'. Groups within these spaces considers their values and rights superior to others and conflict often arises. Non-violent means of gaining power as theorized by Foucault and Bourdieu, employing knowledge and discourse, are highly suggestive in the study of national parks. Discourse of nature is strategically significant as it influences purpose and policy that drive government's decisions on how the park will be managed - in this way discourse shapes the culture of how we use nature. Knowledge, as symbolic capital and as the basis for truth, sparks divisiveness - in particular scientific knowledge versus experiential knowledge. Changes to the exclusive North American model, such as those instituted in the Caimgorms, mark the increased social utility and inclusive nature of national parks. The challenge remains for park managers to reconcile values connected with nationalism and environmental ethics with values connected with local livelihoods. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2679 Abstract: The Rainbow Family of Living Light is an intentional society devoted to achieving world peace through spiritual healing. A loose association of spiritual seekers that explicitly rejects all forms of leadership and imposed authority, it represents an interesting example of an anarchist and communal society. Rainbow Family events regularly draw thousands of people. These take place all over the world. While some participants may question the label, it can be described as one of the biggest and most geographically diverse New Age groups on the planet. As such, it is a very important factor in shaping the entire present day New Age movement. I conducted fieldwork with the Rainbow Family between the autumns of 1998 and 2002, traveling with the nomadic group throughout the United States. The Rainbow Family rejects any sort of official membership, accepting anyone who attends its events as an equal participant. Spending extended periods of time in the field, I became immersed in this alternative society. The distinction between ethnographic researcher and informants was highly problematic under such circumstances. This made me acutely aware of the issues surrounding fieldwork and anthropological authority. My own work began to seem quite similar to the spiritual seeking of other participants. As such, I began to consider the commonalities between anthropology and the spirituality encountered within the Rainbow Family. The spiritual discourses produced by Rainbow Family participants are uniquely eclectic and ludic in tone. In a setting explicitly championing individual freedom rather than coercion, there is no sense of spiritual orthodoxy. The ways in which spiritual discourses are treated by the Rainbow Family display interesting attitudes towards truth, authority, and reality. These attitudes are reminiscent of epistemological orientations within postmodernist anthropology. Rainbow Family participants find noteworthy solutions to the apparent ontological dilemmas postmodernism presents. It is my hope that looking at the Rainbow Family of Living Light will suggest a viable way for anthropology to productively deal with its current crisis of identity. Sun, 01 Jan 2006 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2679 2006-01-01T00:00:00Z Berger, Adam The Rainbow Family of Living Light is an intentional society devoted to achieving world peace through spiritual healing. A loose association of spiritual seekers that explicitly rejects all forms of leadership and imposed authority, it represents an interesting example of an anarchist and communal society. Rainbow Family events regularly draw thousands of people. These take place all over the world. While some participants may question the label, it can be described as one of the biggest and most geographically diverse New Age groups on the planet. As such, it is a very important factor in shaping the entire present day New Age movement. I conducted fieldwork with the Rainbow Family between the autumns of 1998 and 2002, traveling with the nomadic group throughout the United States. The Rainbow Family rejects any sort of official membership, accepting anyone who attends its events as an equal participant. Spending extended periods of time in the field, I became immersed in this alternative society. The distinction between ethnographic researcher and informants was highly problematic under such circumstances. This made me acutely aware of the issues surrounding fieldwork and anthropological authority. My own work began to seem quite similar to the spiritual seeking of other participants. As such, I began to consider the commonalities between anthropology and the spirituality encountered within the Rainbow Family. The spiritual discourses produced by Rainbow Family participants are uniquely eclectic and ludic in tone. In a setting explicitly championing individual freedom rather than coercion, there is no sense of spiritual orthodoxy. The ways in which spiritual discourses are treated by the Rainbow Family display interesting attitudes towards truth, authority, and reality. These attitudes are reminiscent of epistemological orientations within postmodernist anthropology. Rainbow Family participants find noteworthy solutions to the apparent ontological dilemmas postmodernism presents. It is my hope that looking at the Rainbow Family of Living Light will suggest a viable way for anthropology to productively deal with its current crisis of identity. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2665 Abstract: This thesis deals with different aspects of the processes of production of sociability among the Xikrin-Mebengokre of the Catete River, central Brazil. I focus on ceremonies and their performance, as ways of access to Mebengokre 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 Mebengokre '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. Wed, 01 Jan 2003 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2665 2003-01-01T00:00:00Z de Oliveira, Adolfo This thesis deals with different aspects of the processes of production of sociability among the Xikrin-Mebengokre of the Catete River, central Brazil. I focus on ceremonies and their performance, as ways of access to Mebengokre 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 Mebengokre '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. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2618 Abstract: This thesis is about the traditional beliefs and the process of Islamization among the Zaghawa. It examines Islam as understood and practised by the Zaghawa society rather than the "universal model" of Islam or Islam as it is supposed to be. Chapter one is concerned with the 'basic' cosmology, system of belief and objects of sanctity among the Zaghawa. The Zaghawa gave the names of their ha mandas (sacred mountains) to their territorial divisions and their newly appointed chiefs in the past slaughtered a pregnant camel on top of their clans' ha mandas in order to legitimise their leadership and power. Chapter two explains how the harsh environmental conditions of Dar Zaghawa and the lack of security in the past caused many uncertainties and led the Zaghawa to consult various divinatory techniques to arrive at the hidden knowledge and the hazards that might lie ahead. The various divinatory techniques practised by the Zaghawa are also examined in detail in this chapter in addition to various forms of afflictions caused by supernatural powers and their traditional healing devices. Chapter three is devoted-to the introduction of Islam into the Zaghawa society. It shows how the point at which Islam met the Zaghawa at first was such that it appeared less alien to them, a fact which made it easy for them to accept the new religion. This chapter furthermore examines the impact of Islam upon cosmology, system of belief, objects of sanctity, divination, affliction and healing. It also explains why Islamization brought about the sex division of religion and how the concept of religious purity and pollution introduced by Islam has been interpreted by the fakis to justify the discrimination against the mai . Chapter four describes the Islamic ritual practices, notably the five pillars of Islam and the ritual practices related to the life cycle, agricultural activities, purification and reconciliation on the occasion of adultery and manslaughter. The main purpose of this chapter is to discern how these general Islamic rituals have been influenced by the particular setting of the Zaghawa environment. Chapter five discusses and evaluates the effect of formal education, the establishment of the new Sudanese state and formal peace keeping institutions, the improvement of communications and medical services and the deterioration of environmental conditions in Dar Zaghawa in facilitating religious change. The chapter goes on to explain how the socioeconomic crises and political upheavals in Dar Zaghawa in the sixties on the one hand and the complicity of the national political parties with the Zaghawa chiefs on the other anguished the commoners and led many of them to join the Muslim Brotherhood and the Jamaa Ansar al--Sunna al--Mohamediva and demand the return to the pristine Islam and the application of the Islamic shari'a law. It furthermore explains why the religious reformers, though they succeeded in persuading the Zaghawa to accept the religious changes in some aspects of their lives, failed to do so in many other aspects, notably the gender relations and the discrimination against the mai. The concluding chapter critically assesss and evaluates the existing literature on conversion to Islam in Africa. The syncretism and the marginalization models, though important, do not go far enough to explain why the Zaghawa continued to perform their pre--Islamic rituals even when their belief changed. It suggests Fernandez's model, which differentiates between the social consensus and cultural consensus, as particularly useful for deeper analyses of the impact of Islam upon the Zaghawa society. Tue, 01 Jan 1991 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2618 1991-01-01T00:00:00Z Mohamed-Salih, El Tigani Mustafa This thesis is about the traditional beliefs and the process of Islamization among the Zaghawa. It examines Islam as understood and practised by the Zaghawa society rather than the "universal model" of Islam or Islam as it is supposed to be. Chapter one is concerned with the 'basic' cosmology, system of belief and objects of sanctity among the Zaghawa. The Zaghawa gave the names of their ha mandas (sacred mountains) to their territorial divisions and their newly appointed chiefs in the past slaughtered a pregnant camel on top of their clans' ha mandas in order to legitimise their leadership and power. Chapter two explains how the harsh environmental conditions of Dar Zaghawa and the lack of security in the past caused many uncertainties and led the Zaghawa to consult various divinatory techniques to arrive at the hidden knowledge and the hazards that might lie ahead. The various divinatory techniques practised by the Zaghawa are also examined in detail in this chapter in addition to various forms of afflictions caused by supernatural powers and their traditional healing devices. Chapter three is devoted-to the introduction of Islam into the Zaghawa society. It shows how the point at which Islam met the Zaghawa at first was such that it appeared less alien to them, a fact which made it easy for them to accept the new religion. This chapter furthermore examines the impact of Islam upon cosmology, system of belief, objects of sanctity, divination, affliction and healing. It also explains why Islamization brought about the sex division of religion and how the concept of religious purity and pollution introduced by Islam has been interpreted by the fakis to justify the discrimination against the mai . Chapter four describes the Islamic ritual practices, notably the five pillars of Islam and the ritual practices related to the life cycle, agricultural activities, purification and reconciliation on the occasion of adultery and manslaughter. The main purpose of this chapter is to discern how these general Islamic rituals have been influenced by the particular setting of the Zaghawa environment. Chapter five discusses and evaluates the effect of formal education, the establishment of the new Sudanese state and formal peace keeping institutions, the improvement of communications and medical services and the deterioration of environmental conditions in Dar Zaghawa in facilitating religious change. The chapter goes on to explain how the socioeconomic crises and political upheavals in Dar Zaghawa in the sixties on the one hand and the complicity of the national political parties with the Zaghawa chiefs on the other anguished the commoners and led many of them to join the Muslim Brotherhood and the Jamaa Ansar al--Sunna al--Mohamediva and demand the return to the pristine Islam and the application of the Islamic shari'a law. It furthermore explains why the religious reformers, though they succeeded in persuading the Zaghawa to accept the religious changes in some aspects of their lives, failed to do so in many other aspects, notably the gender relations and the discrimination against the mai. The concluding chapter critically assesss and evaluates the existing literature on conversion to Islam in Africa. The syncretism and the marginalization models, though important, do not go far enough to explain why the Zaghawa continued to perform their pre--Islamic rituals even when their belief changed. It suggests Fernandez's model, which differentiates between the social consensus and cultural consensus, as particularly useful for deeper analyses of the impact of Islam upon the Zaghawa society. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2549 Abstract: The thesis is a study of a Guaraní community (comunidad) situated in the Department of Santa Cruz in the southeastern lowlands of Bolivia. The thesis uses the concept of ‘comunidad’ as a focus of investigation. While this concept is one that is familiar and firmly embedded in contemporary discourses throughout Bolivia, the meanings which different people and interest groups attach to it and the purposes which they ascribe to it are far from unanimous. Apart from the physical and legal entity, comprising a group of people, the land on which they live, and the legal title for its ownership, a comunidad is a multifaceted and multilayered complex of diverging and sometimes competing ideas, desires and agendas. Questioning the concept of ‘comunidad’ in this way opens up new perspectives on what people are doing and why that could easily be overlooked in continuing to assume that we know what we are talking about when talking about a ‘comunidad indígena’ in Bolivia today. The thesis explores the case of Cañón de Segura by eliciting and bringing together the various claims and perspectives that impact on the lives of its inhabitants (comunarios). Starting with a historical overview to situate the comunidad within Bolivian and Guaraní history, the thesis moves into an ethnographic discussion of the comunarios’ own perceptions and meanings of ‘comunidad’, followed by an exploration of various outsiders’ perspectives on the same topic that impact on the comunarios’ lives in different ways. The aim of the thesis is to illustrate the overlap and entanglements between these different positions in order to show how the different perspectives on the meaning and purpose of a Guaraní ‘comunidad’ all contribute to shape the actual realities of people’s lives ‘on the ground’. Thu, 21 Jun 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2549 2012-06-21T00:00:00Z Groke, Veronika The thesis is a study of a Guaraní community (comunidad) situated in the Department of Santa Cruz in the southeastern lowlands of Bolivia. The thesis uses the concept of ‘comunidad’ as a focus of investigation. While this concept is one that is familiar and firmly embedded in contemporary discourses throughout Bolivia, the meanings which different people and interest groups attach to it and the purposes which they ascribe to it are far from unanimous. Apart from the physical and legal entity, comprising a group of people, the land on which they live, and the legal title for its ownership, a comunidad is a multifaceted and multilayered complex of diverging and sometimes competing ideas, desires and agendas. Questioning the concept of ‘comunidad’ in this way opens up new perspectives on what people are doing and why that could easily be overlooked in continuing to assume that we know what we are talking about when talking about a ‘comunidad indígena’ in Bolivia today. The thesis explores the case of Cañón de Segura by eliciting and bringing together the various claims and perspectives that impact on the lives of its inhabitants (comunarios). Starting with a historical overview to situate the comunidad within Bolivian and Guaraní history, the thesis moves into an ethnographic discussion of the comunarios’ own perceptions and meanings of ‘comunidad’, followed by an exploration of various outsiders’ perspectives on the same topic that impact on the comunarios’ lives in different ways. The aim of the thesis is to illustrate the overlap and entanglements between these different positions in order to show how the different perspectives on the meaning and purpose of a Guaraní ‘comunidad’ all contribute to shape the actual realities of people’s lives ‘on the ground’. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2548 Abstract: Since the 1950s, men and women, mainly Rastafari from the West Indies, have moved as repatriates to Shashamane, Ethiopia. This is a spiritually and ideologically oriented journey to the promised land of Ethiopia (Africa) and to the land granted by His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I. Although migration across regions of the global south is less common than migration from the global south to north, this move is even more distinct because it is not primarily motivated by economic concerns. This thesis - the first in-depth ethnographic study of the repatriate population - focuses on the conceptual and pragmatic ways in which repatriates and their Ethiopian-born children “rehome” this area of Shashamane that is now called Jamaica Safar (or village in the Amharic language). There is a simultaneous Rasta identification of themselves as Ethiopians and as His Majesty’s people, which is often contested in legal and civic spheres, with a West Indian social inscription of Shashamane. These dynamics have emerged from a Rastafari re-invention of personhood that was fostered in West Indian Creole society. These ideas converge in a central concern with the inalienability of the land grant that is shared by repatriates, their children and Rastafari outside Ethiopia as well. Accordingly, the repatriate population of Shashamane becomes the centre of international social and economic networks. The children born on this land thus demonstrate the success of their parents’ repatriation. They are the ones who will ensure the Rastafari presence there in perpetuity. Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2548 2011-11-30T00:00:00Z Gomes, Shelene Since the 1950s, men and women, mainly Rastafari from the West Indies, have moved as repatriates to Shashamane, Ethiopia. This is a spiritually and ideologically oriented journey to the promised land of Ethiopia (Africa) and to the land granted by His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I. Although migration across regions of the global south is less common than migration from the global south to north, this move is even more distinct because it is not primarily motivated by economic concerns. This thesis - the first in-depth ethnographic study of the repatriate population - focuses on the conceptual and pragmatic ways in which repatriates and their Ethiopian-born children “rehome” this area of Shashamane that is now called Jamaica Safar (or village in the Amharic language). There is a simultaneous Rasta identification of themselves as Ethiopians and as His Majesty’s people, which is often contested in legal and civic spheres, with a West Indian social inscription of Shashamane. These dynamics have emerged from a Rastafari re-invention of personhood that was fostered in West Indian Creole society. These ideas converge in a central concern with the inalienability of the land grant that is shared by repatriates, their children and Rastafari outside Ethiopia as well. Accordingly, the repatriate population of Shashamane becomes the centre of international social and economic networks. The children born on this land thus demonstrate the success of their parents’ repatriation. They are the ones who will ensure the Rastafari presence there in perpetuity. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2150 Abstract: Based on extended research on Chinese medical and epidemiological archival material dating back to the beginning of the 20th century, and on six months of internship in epidemiology in Beijing’s Medical School and in Haidian District’s Centre of Disease Control and Prevention, this thesis explores the conjunction of three major epidemiological crises in modern Chinese history with processes of State formation: the 1911 Manchurian pneumonic plague, the 1952 germ-warfare, and the 2003 SARS outbreak. Analysing the three crises as Events in line with Alain Badiou’s epistemology it seeks to establish how different strategies of governmental fidelity to the imagined cause of each crisis have led to distinct modes of organisation and valorisation of the social: Republican China and its decline to fascism; the clash between professional revolutionaries and technocrats in Maoist China; and the emergence of the “Harmonious Society” of mass exploitation and repression today. This conjunction between State formation and epidemiological Events is explored with the use of Foucault’s genealogical method in a quest for a historical materialist approach that posits at its epicentre processes of class composition, decomposition and recomposition, and their contested enclosure by the governmental apparati of capture. The present thesis thus examines the three major epidemiological crises of modern China as forming grounds for biopolitical strategies that give rise to modes of subjectivation and circuits of debt/guilt within the context of the class struggle. And at the same time, it aims to create a new field of investigation for anthropology: the relation of State and Event, from a viewpoint that contests the accepted relation of event and structure expounded by Marshall Sahlins, proposing as the main object of this investigation the conjunction between necessity and will that can never be reduced either to the naturalism of historical determinism, nor to the culturalism of subjective contingency. Fri, 25 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2150 2010-06-25T00:00:00Z Lynteris, Christos Based on extended research on Chinese medical and epidemiological archival material dating back to the beginning of the 20th century, and on six months of internship in epidemiology in Beijing’s Medical School and in Haidian District’s Centre of Disease Control and Prevention, this thesis explores the conjunction of three major epidemiological crises in modern Chinese history with processes of State formation: the 1911 Manchurian pneumonic plague, the 1952 germ-warfare, and the 2003 SARS outbreak. Analysing the three crises as Events in line with Alain Badiou’s epistemology it seeks to establish how different strategies of governmental fidelity to the imagined cause of each crisis have led to distinct modes of organisation and valorisation of the social: Republican China and its decline to fascism; the clash between professional revolutionaries and technocrats in Maoist China; and the emergence of the “Harmonious Society” of mass exploitation and repression today. This conjunction between State formation and epidemiological Events is explored with the use of Foucault’s genealogical method in a quest for a historical materialist approach that posits at its epicentre processes of class composition, decomposition and recomposition, and their contested enclosure by the governmental apparati of capture. The present thesis thus examines the three major epidemiological crises of modern China as forming grounds for biopolitical strategies that give rise to modes of subjectivation and circuits of debt/guilt within the context of the class struggle. And at the same time, it aims to create a new field of investigation for anthropology: the relation of State and Event, from a viewpoint that contests the accepted relation of event and structure expounded by Marshall Sahlins, proposing as the main object of this investigation the conjunction between necessity and will that can never be reduced either to the naturalism of historical determinism, nor to the culturalism of subjective contingency. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2114 Abstract: This thesis is an ethnographic study of the pursuit of kametsa asaiki (‘the good life’) in an Ashaninka village by the Bajo Urubamba River (Peruvian Amazonia). My study centres on Ashaninka social organization in a context made difficult by the wake of the Peruvian Internal War, the activities of extractive industries, and a series of despotic decrees that have been passed by the Peruvian government. This is all framed by a change in their social organization from living in small, separated family-based settlements to one of living in villages. This shift presents them with great problems when internal conflicts arise. Whilst in the past settlements would have fissioned in order to avoid conflict, today there are two related groups of reasons that lead them to want to live in centralised communities. The first is their great desire for their children to go to school and the importance they place on long-term cash-crops. The second is the encroachment of the Peruvian State and private companies on their territory and lives which forces them to stay together in order to resist and protect their territory and way of life. I suggest that this change in organisation changes the rules of the game of sociality. Contemporary Ashaninka life is centred on the pursuit of kametsa asaiki, a philosophy of life they believe to have inherited from their ancestors that teaches emotional restraint and the sharing of food in order to create the right type of Ashaninka person. Yet, at present it also has new factors they believe allow them to become ‘civilised’: school education, new forms of leadership and conflict resolution, money, new forms of conflict resolution, intercultural health, and a strong political federation to defend their right to pursue kametsa asaiki. My thesis is an anthropological analysis of the 'audacious innovations' they have developed to retake the pursuit of kametsa asaiki in the aftermath of the war. I show that this ethos of living is not solely a communal project of conviviality but it has become a symbol of resistance in their fight for the right to have rights in Peru. Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2114 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z Sarmiento Barletti, Juan Pablo This thesis is an ethnographic study of the pursuit of kametsa asaiki (‘the good life’) in an Ashaninka village by the Bajo Urubamba River (Peruvian Amazonia). My study centres on Ashaninka social organization in a context made difficult by the wake of the Peruvian Internal War, the activities of extractive industries, and a series of despotic decrees that have been passed by the Peruvian government. This is all framed by a change in their social organization from living in small, separated family-based settlements to one of living in villages. This shift presents them with great problems when internal conflicts arise. Whilst in the past settlements would have fissioned in order to avoid conflict, today there are two related groups of reasons that lead them to want to live in centralised communities. The first is their great desire for their children to go to school and the importance they place on long-term cash-crops. The second is the encroachment of the Peruvian State and private companies on their territory and lives which forces them to stay together in order to resist and protect their territory and way of life. I suggest that this change in organisation changes the rules of the game of sociality. Contemporary Ashaninka life is centred on the pursuit of kametsa asaiki, a philosophy of life they believe to have inherited from their ancestors that teaches emotional restraint and the sharing of food in order to create the right type of Ashaninka person. Yet, at present it also has new factors they believe allow them to become ‘civilised’: school education, new forms of leadership and conflict resolution, money, new forms of conflict resolution, intercultural health, and a strong political federation to defend their right to pursue kametsa asaiki. My thesis is an anthropological analysis of the 'audacious innovations' they have developed to retake the pursuit of kametsa asaiki in the aftermath of the war. I show that this ethos of living is not solely a communal project of conviviality but it has become a symbol of resistance in their fight for the right to have rights in Peru. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1972 Abstract: This is a study of coming to know what it is to be Paamese. The work seeks to present an anthropological understanding of ontological concerns that constitute a Paamese perception of subjectivities. I take my lead from Paamese perceptions that the internal capacities of subjects or “things” (e.g. persons, villages, islands, and movement itself) are revealed through relations with others. This correlates with anthropology’s methodology of testing its analytical strategies through the ethnographic practices of others in order to reach more accurate representations. Paamese, as is common elsewhere in Vanuatu and Melanesia, have an extremely fluid attitude towards sociality and easily accommodate urban dwelling without leaving Paama behind. I suggest that a nuanced multi-positioned approach in which several aspects of Paamese sociality are considered from a point of limitation employed by Paamese to focus an event, such as a marriage exchange, will present a better understanding of how these subjectivities, that is Paamese people and Paama Island, adhere such that they do not part company wherever they go. Paamese suggest that each event should be considered as if following a single branch in the canopy of a tree – a scalable perception that offers the promise that a multi-faceted approach will reveal a replicable form. I take this approach to specificity seriously and employ a looping aesthetic, measi, adapted from Paamese sand-drawing in order to consider the shifting concerns expressed by Paamese perceptions of out (place), āmal (agnatic clans), sise (road), vatte (origin), ara (blood) and asi (bone). I suggest that these, parts, can be considered together as a holography for how to come to know what it is to be Paamese. Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1972 2011-06-01T00:00:00Z Lind, Craig This is a study of coming to know what it is to be Paamese. The work seeks to present an anthropological understanding of ontological concerns that constitute a Paamese perception of subjectivities. I take my lead from Paamese perceptions that the internal capacities of subjects or “things” (e.g. persons, villages, islands, and movement itself) are revealed through relations with others. This correlates with anthropology’s methodology of testing its analytical strategies through the ethnographic practices of others in order to reach more accurate representations. Paamese, as is common elsewhere in Vanuatu and Melanesia, have an extremely fluid attitude towards sociality and easily accommodate urban dwelling without leaving Paama behind. I suggest that a nuanced multi-positioned approach in which several aspects of Paamese sociality are considered from a point of limitation employed by Paamese to focus an event, such as a marriage exchange, will present a better understanding of how these subjectivities, that is Paamese people and Paama Island, adhere such that they do not part company wherever they go. Paamese suggest that each event should be considered as if following a single branch in the canopy of a tree – a scalable perception that offers the promise that a multi-faceted approach will reveal a replicable form. I take this approach to specificity seriously and employ a looping aesthetic, measi, adapted from Paamese sand-drawing in order to consider the shifting concerns expressed by Paamese perceptions of out (place), āmal (agnatic clans), sise (road), vatte (origin), ara (blood) and asi (bone). I suggest that these, parts, can be considered together as a holography for how to come to know what it is to be Paamese. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1862 Abstract: This thesis is an ethnography of how places like mountain pastures (jailoos), hydro-electric dams and holy sites (mazars) matter in striving for a good life. Based on eighteen months of fieldwork in the Toktogul valley of Kyrgyzstan, this study contributes to theoretical questions in the anthropology of post-socialism, time, space, work and enjoyment. I use the term ‘moral geography’ to emphasize a spatial imaginary that is centred on ideas of ‘the good life’, both ethical and happy. This perspective captures an understanding of jailoos which connects food, health, wealth and beauty. In comparing attitudes towards a Soviet and post-Soviet dam, I reveal changes in the nature of the state, property and collective labour. People in Toktogul hold agentive places like mazars and non-personalized places like dams and jailoos apart, implying not one overarching philosophy of nature, but a world in which types of places have different gradations of object-ness and personhood. I show how people use forms of commemoration as a means of establishing connections between people, claims on land and aspirations of ‘becoming cultured’. I demonstrate how people draw on repertoires of epic or Soviet heroism and mobility in conceiving their life story and agency in shaping events. Different times and places such as ‘eternal’ jailoos and Soviet dams are often collapsed as people derive personal authority from connections to them. Analysing accounts of collectivization and privatization I argue that the Soviet period is often treated as a ‘second tradition’ used to judge the present. People also strive for ‘the good life’ through working practices that are closely linked to the Soviet experience, and yet differ from Marxist definitions of labour. The pervasively high value of work is fed from different, formally conflicting sources of moral authority such as Socialism, Islam and neo-liberal ideals of ‘entrepreneurship’. I discuss how parties, poetry and song bring together jakshylyk (goodness) as enjoyment and virtue. I show how song and poetry act as moral guides, how arman yearning is purposely enjoyed in Kyrgyz music and how it relates to nostalgia and nature imagery. The concept of ‘moral geography’ allows me to investigate how people strive for well-being, an investigation that is just as important as focusing on problem-solving and avoiding pain. It also allows an analysis of place and time that holds material interactions, moral ideals, economic and political dimensions in mind. Fri, 24 Jun 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1862 2011-06-24T00:00:00Z Feaux de la Croix, Jeanne This thesis is an ethnography of how places like mountain pastures (jailoos), hydro-electric dams and holy sites (mazars) matter in striving for a good life. Based on eighteen months of fieldwork in the Toktogul valley of Kyrgyzstan, this study contributes to theoretical questions in the anthropology of post-socialism, time, space, work and enjoyment. I use the term ‘moral geography’ to emphasize a spatial imaginary that is centred on ideas of ‘the good life’, both ethical and happy. This perspective captures an understanding of jailoos which connects food, health, wealth and beauty. In comparing attitudes towards a Soviet and post-Soviet dam, I reveal changes in the nature of the state, property and collective labour. People in Toktogul hold agentive places like mazars and non-personalized places like dams and jailoos apart, implying not one overarching philosophy of nature, but a world in which types of places have different gradations of object-ness and personhood. I show how people use forms of commemoration as a means of establishing connections between people, claims on land and aspirations of ‘becoming cultured’. I demonstrate how people draw on repertoires of epic or Soviet heroism and mobility in conceiving their life story and agency in shaping events. Different times and places such as ‘eternal’ jailoos and Soviet dams are often collapsed as people derive personal authority from connections to them. Analysing accounts of collectivization and privatization I argue that the Soviet period is often treated as a ‘second tradition’ used to judge the present. People also strive for ‘the good life’ through working practices that are closely linked to the Soviet experience, and yet differ from Marxist definitions of labour. The pervasively high value of work is fed from different, formally conflicting sources of moral authority such as Socialism, Islam and neo-liberal ideals of ‘entrepreneurship’. I discuss how parties, poetry and song bring together jakshylyk (goodness) as enjoyment and virtue. I show how song and poetry act as moral guides, how arman yearning is purposely enjoyed in Kyrgyz music and how it relates to nostalgia and nature imagery. The concept of ‘moral geography’ allows me to investigate how people strive for well-being, an investigation that is just as important as focusing on problem-solving and avoiding pain. It also allows an analysis of place and time that holds material interactions, moral ideals, economic and political dimensions in mind. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1835 Abstract: This thesis explores a network of participants, dance students and teachers, who travel between New York City and Dakar, Senegal, around the practice of West African dance forms. Focusing on the Senegalese dance-rhythms Sabar, I joined this movement and my fieldwork methodology included apprenticeship as a student. I explored different learning environments of Sabar in New York and Dakar: the understandings involved, how this movement is maintained and how it affects dance forms. The methodological move enabled a comparative approach to research questions of learning and performing, local aesthetics and notions of being. This thesis discusses the role of the imagination in mobilizing students and teachers to travel within this network. I explore how participants navigate through the political geography of this movement, sustain the network, and how in turn the cultural flow of Sabar is ‘punctuated’ by socio-economic relationships. Secondly, I explore the understandings involved in each learning context, how these are negotiated and contested on the dance floor and how they relate to broader socio-cultural discourses and relationships that they reinforce or subvert. I argue that while different Sabar settings cannot be understood as ‘bounded’ in as much as people and ideas circulate through them, they are also distinct in that they produce different forms of Sabar. The learning contexts provide the meeting grounds for alternative conceptions of ‘dance’ and pedagogy. I explore how these notions are negotiated in relation to the specific socio-cultural and economic environments in which they are located. Specifically I analyse some common problems New York students face in learning and performing Sabar and explore the reasons behind them: the complex connection between movement and rhythm and the achievement of a specific kinaesthetic in movement. I delineate the relationship between movement and rhythm in Sabar and the importance of the aesthetic of improvisation. I argue that the prevalence of certain paradigms of learning and ‘dance’ over others is related to the specific socio-economic relationships of the participants. Specifically, an over-emphasis on movement distracts from other important aspects in the performance of Sabar and I argue that skills need to be understood as environed processes, malleable and shifting in relation to the broader socio-economic settings that link the participants together. Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1835 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z Bizas, Eleni This thesis explores a network of participants, dance students and teachers, who travel between New York City and Dakar, Senegal, around the practice of West African dance forms. Focusing on the Senegalese dance-rhythms Sabar, I joined this movement and my fieldwork methodology included apprenticeship as a student. I explored different learning environments of Sabar in New York and Dakar: the understandings involved, how this movement is maintained and how it affects dance forms. The methodological move enabled a comparative approach to research questions of learning and performing, local aesthetics and notions of being. This thesis discusses the role of the imagination in mobilizing students and teachers to travel within this network. I explore how participants navigate through the political geography of this movement, sustain the network, and how in turn the cultural flow of Sabar is ‘punctuated’ by socio-economic relationships. Secondly, I explore the understandings involved in each learning context, how these are negotiated and contested on the dance floor and how they relate to broader socio-cultural discourses and relationships that they reinforce or subvert. I argue that while different Sabar settings cannot be understood as ‘bounded’ in as much as people and ideas circulate through them, they are also distinct in that they produce different forms of Sabar. The learning contexts provide the meeting grounds for alternative conceptions of ‘dance’ and pedagogy. I explore how these notions are negotiated in relation to the specific socio-cultural and economic environments in which they are located. Specifically I analyse some common problems New York students face in learning and performing Sabar and explore the reasons behind them: the complex connection between movement and rhythm and the achievement of a specific kinaesthetic in movement. I delineate the relationship between movement and rhythm in Sabar and the importance of the aesthetic of improvisation. I argue that the prevalence of certain paradigms of learning and ‘dance’ over others is related to the specific socio-economic relationships of the participants. Specifically, an over-emphasis on movement distracts from other important aspects in the performance of Sabar and I argue that skills need to be understood as environed processes, malleable and shifting in relation to the broader socio-economic settings that link the participants together. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1714 Abstract: The central theme or `red-thread' that I consider in this thesis is the concept of risk as it is perceived by and affects the two sides of the medical encounter - in this instance ethnic Pakistanis and Health Professionals - in Britain. Each side very often perceives risk quite distinctively, relating to the balance between the spiritual and temporal realms. This is particularly germane in matters to do with possible congenital defects within the prenatal realm for the ethnic Pakistani, and predominantly Muslim, side of this encounter. Thus one of the factors considered in this thesis is how senses of Islam impact upon the two sides. By ethnic Pakistanis Islam is seen as central to all life decisions, whilst Health Professionals view Islam with some considerable trepidation, little understanding it or its centrality to the former's decision-making processes. This is particularly significant with regard to attitudes to health and health care. In the initial stages of the project I had thought first cousin marriage (FCM), seen by ethnic Pakistanis as desirable and by Health Professionals as putting ethnic Pakistanis at-risk to be central to the argument, but concluded that concerns around FCM were a `red herring', merely a trope for the tensions between the two sides - at once both British and at-risk from audit culture. Although no longer central, FCM remains a viable touchstone in consideration of the two sides' perceptions of genetic risk. In this thesis the medical encounter between ethnic Pakistanis and Health Professionals is performed within the realm of the so called New Genetics. Here the respective understandings of the New Genetics are informed by the enculturation processes that shape the two sides' world view. Furthermore, I will agree with Lord Robert Winston's and others' concern that any attempt to eradicate an adaptive genetic mutation, in this instance, thalassaemia, from the gene pool is not only undesirable in the short term, but also that such eradications may have an adverse, and far reaching, effect on whole population groups in the future. The main thrust of my argument is that audit culture not only compounds risk for both sides, but also perpetuates institutional racism within the National Health Service (NHS), by promulgating what I have called the language myth. That is to say that much institutional racism is the unwanted by-product of the NHS's attempts to become more patient centred and its continuing efforts to develop systems of best practice. This professionalisation process within the NHS can be seen to impact most strongly in relation to communication - particularly the claimed language barrier between the two sides. This `barrier' has worrying policy implications for any meaningful communication between the two sides, notably relating to obtaining informed consent from ethnic Pakistani patients - with a resultant increase in risk for the two sides and clear economic consequences for the NHS. Sat, 01 Jan 2005 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1714 2005-01-01T00:00:00Z Murphy, Richard The central theme or `red-thread' that I consider in this thesis is the concept of risk as it is perceived by and affects the two sides of the medical encounter - in this instance ethnic Pakistanis and Health Professionals - in Britain. Each side very often perceives risk quite distinctively, relating to the balance between the spiritual and temporal realms. This is particularly germane in matters to do with possible congenital defects within the prenatal realm for the ethnic Pakistani, and predominantly Muslim, side of this encounter. Thus one of the factors considered in this thesis is how senses of Islam impact upon the two sides. By ethnic Pakistanis Islam is seen as central to all life decisions, whilst Health Professionals view Islam with some considerable trepidation, little understanding it or its centrality to the former's decision-making processes. This is particularly significant with regard to attitudes to health and health care. In the initial stages of the project I had thought first cousin marriage (FCM), seen by ethnic Pakistanis as desirable and by Health Professionals as putting ethnic Pakistanis at-risk to be central to the argument, but concluded that concerns around FCM were a `red herring', merely a trope for the tensions between the two sides - at once both British and at-risk from audit culture. Although no longer central, FCM remains a viable touchstone in consideration of the two sides' perceptions of genetic risk. In this thesis the medical encounter between ethnic Pakistanis and Health Professionals is performed within the realm of the so called New Genetics. Here the respective understandings of the New Genetics are informed by the enculturation processes that shape the two sides' world view. Furthermore, I will agree with Lord Robert Winston's and others' concern that any attempt to eradicate an adaptive genetic mutation, in this instance, thalassaemia, from the gene pool is not only undesirable in the short term, but also that such eradications may have an adverse, and far reaching, effect on whole population groups in the future. The main thrust of my argument is that audit culture not only compounds risk for both sides, but also perpetuates institutional racism within the National Health Service (NHS), by promulgating what I have called the language myth. That is to say that much institutional racism is the unwanted by-product of the NHS's attempts to become more patient centred and its continuing efforts to develop systems of best practice. This professionalisation process within the NHS can be seen to impact most strongly in relation to communication - particularly the claimed language barrier between the two sides. This `barrier' has worrying policy implications for any meaningful communication between the two sides, notably relating to obtaining informed consent from ethnic Pakistani patients - with a resultant increase in risk for the two sides and clear economic consequences for the NHS. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1690 Abstract: In May 1984, the Nahua, a Panoan speaking indigenous people living in a remote corner of the Peruvian Amazon, experienced their ‘first contact’ with Peruvian national society. 25 years later they appear to many observers to have ‘thrown away their culture’ under pressure from the outside world. This thesis argues instead that these changes were adopted by the Nahua for their own very good reasons and that these transformations reflect greater continuity with the past than first appears. The apparent lack of nostalgia that the Nahua have for the past instead reflects an inherent capacity for flexibility. This flexibility is manifested at a collective level in the frequent fissions of local groups and at an individual level in their susceptibility to losing their sense of self. The thesis focuses on two key aspects of this flexibility. The first is that the Nahua understand the site of their personal transformations to be the body which they describe as ‘soft’. This ‘softness’ refers to its ability to incorporate other worldly powers and become like the animals they eat or the people with whom they co-reside. Nevertheless, this capacity also means they can become ‘other’ when they live apart from their kin. This elasticity of selfhood is typical of many indigenous Amazonian peoples but the Nahua sit at the more flexible end of this spectrum. This is because they cultivate an attitude of radical hunger towards the outside world and place relatively less importance on techniques of restraint and control. The second aspect is the astonishing flexibility of Nahua worldviews. This is because their cosmologies are less a fixed set of facts and more a shamanic technique of knowing the unknown. These techniques help the Nahua understand the mysteries of the spirit world, their dreams and the world of Peruvians. In conclusion, it is the ‘softness’ of their bodies, the elasticity of their selves and the flexibility of their cosmologies that explain the extraordinary resilience of the Nahua in the face of dramatic transformations in the surrounding world. Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1690 2010-11-01T00:00:00Z Feather, Conrad In May 1984, the Nahua, a Panoan speaking indigenous people living in a remote corner of the Peruvian Amazon, experienced their ‘first contact’ with Peruvian national society. 25 years later they appear to many observers to have ‘thrown away their culture’ under pressure from the outside world. This thesis argues instead that these changes were adopted by the Nahua for their own very good reasons and that these transformations reflect greater continuity with the past than first appears. The apparent lack of nostalgia that the Nahua have for the past instead reflects an inherent capacity for flexibility. This flexibility is manifested at a collective level in the frequent fissions of local groups and at an individual level in their susceptibility to losing their sense of self. The thesis focuses on two key aspects of this flexibility. The first is that the Nahua understand the site of their personal transformations to be the body which they describe as ‘soft’. This ‘softness’ refers to its ability to incorporate other worldly powers and become like the animals they eat or the people with whom they co-reside. Nevertheless, this capacity also means they can become ‘other’ when they live apart from their kin. This elasticity of selfhood is typical of many indigenous Amazonian peoples but the Nahua sit at the more flexible end of this spectrum. This is because they cultivate an attitude of radical hunger towards the outside world and place relatively less importance on techniques of restraint and control. The second aspect is the astonishing flexibility of Nahua worldviews. This is because their cosmologies are less a fixed set of facts and more a shamanic technique of knowing the unknown. These techniques help the Nahua understand the mysteries of the spirit world, their dreams and the world of Peruvians. In conclusion, it is the ‘softness’ of their bodies, the elasticity of their selves and the flexibility of their cosmologies that explain the extraordinary resilience of the Nahua in the face of dramatic transformations in the surrounding world. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1016 Abstract: This thesis is about the construction of 'satire' as an exclusive practice among the Cefalonian and hence proposes the term satiricity (satirikotita). It explores the construction of the category of the Cefalonian "madman" by means of dialogics between performance and evaluation. It is observed that the relation depends on three principles that obtain among audience members and a performer: conditioning the performance, participation in and observation of the performance and evaluation of it. Being one of the few anthropological studies on the Ionian islands of Greece, this thesis aims to contribute to the anthropology of the Ionian islands and of Cefalonia in particular. It looks at the relation between a town and a village on the ground of teasing events and refutes the argument of satire as an urban phenomenon only. It sets the elementary principles towards anthropology of satire and emphasizes the importance of studying everyday teasing events. It also contributes to understanding a 'native' researcher's presence in different ways. Satiricity is seen as a 'par excellence' feature that Cefalonians have. No matter if Cefalonia is a part of the Greek nation-state and people follow 'modern Greek culture', they still employ satiricity as a way of distancing themselves from Greeks. 'Distance' is forged on the basis of absolute exclusion of Greeks from having, practising and understanding satiricity in the way that Cefalonians do. The Conclusions leave the ground open for more investigation on teasing events and application of such viewpoints around other areas of the island, and of the Ionian islands or other Greek islands. I also point to studies looking at island and mainland teasing events and potential differences. After all, we need to examine not only how people construct the claim on the exclusivity of 'satire'. We need to examine how such a claim is applied, supported or contrasted and possibly rejected when Cefalonians engage with other Greeks away from the island. Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1016 2009-08-05T00:00:00Z Pollatou, Efpraxia This thesis is about the construction of 'satire' as an exclusive practice among the Cefalonian and hence proposes the term satiricity (satirikotita). It explores the construction of the category of the Cefalonian "madman" by means of dialogics between performance and evaluation. It is observed that the relation depends on three principles that obtain among audience members and a performer: conditioning the performance, participation in and observation of the performance and evaluation of it. Being one of the few anthropological studies on the Ionian islands of Greece, this thesis aims to contribute to the anthropology of the Ionian islands and of Cefalonia in particular. It looks at the relation between a town and a village on the ground of teasing events and refutes the argument of satire as an urban phenomenon only. It sets the elementary principles towards anthropology of satire and emphasizes the importance of studying everyday teasing events. It also contributes to understanding a 'native' researcher's presence in different ways. Satiricity is seen as a 'par excellence' feature that Cefalonians have. No matter if Cefalonia is a part of the Greek nation-state and people follow 'modern Greek culture', they still employ satiricity as a way of distancing themselves from Greeks. 'Distance' is forged on the basis of absolute exclusion of Greeks from having, practising and understanding satiricity in the way that Cefalonians do. The Conclusions leave the ground open for more investigation on teasing events and application of such viewpoints around other areas of the island, and of the Ionian islands or other Greek islands. I also point to studies looking at island and mainland teasing events and potential differences. After all, we need to examine not only how people construct the claim on the exclusivity of 'satire'. We need to examine how such a claim is applied, supported or contrasted and possibly rejected when Cefalonians engage with other Greeks away from the island. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1012 Abstract: The thesis gives a description within the framework of tagmemic theory of Resigaro, a South American Indian language of the Huitoto group, spoken in the region between the Amazon and the Putumayo, in north-eastern Peru. The Introduction reviews critically previous work on the language, and sets out modifications in tagmemic theory which it is claimed avoid circularity and repetition and improve the description. Principal among these is a strict separation of the three modes of Contrast, Variation and Distribution, and the use of multiplication of derive structures. Part I of the thesis describes the first two levels of the Phonological Hierarchy - Phoneme level and Syllable level. Part II describes the grammatical hierarchy, in which the following levels are set up: Root Stem Word (Group) (Piece) Phrase Clause Sentence (Group and Piece are sub-levels affecting only the Verb class.) Each Level is described in a separate chapter, starting at the lowest level (Root). Each class (Verb, Noun, Pronoun, etc.) is described in turn at each level at which it has elements. At Phrase level, Phrases are described as being either Endocentric or Axis-Relator. Endocentric Phrases (Verb, Noun, and Numeral) are described first. At Clause level, the description of Clause structure is preceded by a description of Clause-level tagmemes - first the nuclear, and then the peripheral tagmemes. It is indicated that this simplifies the presentation of Clause structure. Under Clause structure, the Declarative clause is described first, and other Clause classes are derived from this, viz.: Interrogative, Imperative, Nominalized and Relativized. The description of the Contrast and Variation modes of Sentence level is followed by an analysis of the first section of a text. Appendix I presents a lexicon of Resigaro in two parts: Part I is Resigaro-Spanish-English, and Part II is Spanish-Resigaro. Appendix II presents a 376-word four-language comparative word list for Resigaro, Bora, Ocaina and Huitoto Muinane Thu, 01 Jan 1976 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1012 1976-01-01T00:00:00Z Allin, Trevor R. The thesis gives a description within the framework of tagmemic theory of Resigaro, a South American Indian language of the Huitoto group, spoken in the region between the Amazon and the Putumayo, in north-eastern Peru. The Introduction reviews critically previous work on the language, and sets out modifications in tagmemic theory which it is claimed avoid circularity and repetition and improve the description. Principal among these is a strict separation of the three modes of Contrast, Variation and Distribution, and the use of multiplication of derive structures. Part I of the thesis describes the first two levels of the Phonological Hierarchy - Phoneme level and Syllable level. Part II describes the grammatical hierarchy, in which the following levels are set up: Root Stem Word (Group) (Piece) Phrase Clause Sentence (Group and Piece are sub-levels affecting only the Verb class.) Each Level is described in a separate chapter, starting at the lowest level (Root). Each class (Verb, Noun, Pronoun, etc.) is described in turn at each level at which it has elements. At Phrase level, Phrases are described as being either Endocentric or Axis-Relator. Endocentric Phrases (Verb, Noun, and Numeral) are described first. At Clause level, the description of Clause structure is preceded by a description of Clause-level tagmemes - first the nuclear, and then the peripheral tagmemes. It is indicated that this simplifies the presentation of Clause structure. Under Clause structure, the Declarative clause is described first, and other Clause classes are derived from this, viz.: Interrogative, Imperative, Nominalized and Relativized. The description of the Contrast and Variation modes of Sentence level is followed by an analysis of the first section of a text. Appendix I presents a lexicon of Resigaro in two parts: Part I is Resigaro-Spanish-English, and Part II is Spanish-Resigaro. Appendix II presents a 376-word four-language comparative word list for Resigaro, Bora, Ocaina and Huitoto Muinane http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1011 Abstract: The paper aims to show that Andean myth, on one level, represents a technical language recording astronomical observations of precession and, at the same time, an historical record of simultaneous social and celestial transformations. Topographic and architectural terms of Andean myth are interpreted as a metaphor for the organisation of and locations on the celestial sphere. Via ethnoastronmical data, mythical animals are identified as stars and placed on the celestial sphere according to their "topographical " location. Tested in the planetarium, these "arrays" generate clusters of dates - 200 B.C. and 650. A. D. Analysis of the names of Wiraqocha and Manco Capac indicates they represent Saturn and Jupiter and that their mythical meeting represents their conjunction in 650 A.D. The astronomy of Andean myth is then used as an historical tool to examine how the Andean priest-astronomers recorded the simultaneous creation of the ayllu and of this distinctive astronomical system about 200 B.C. The idea that the agricultural ayllu, with its double descent system stressing the importance of paternity, represents a transformation of society from an earlier matrilineal/horticultural era is examined in light of the sexual imagery employed in myth. Wiraqocha’s androgyny and the division of the celestial sphere into male (ecliptic) and -female(celestial equator = “earth” ) are interpreted as cosmological validations of the new social structure. Wed, 01 Jan 1986 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1011 1986-01-01T00:00:00Z Sullivan, William F. The paper aims to show that Andean myth, on one level, represents a technical language recording astronomical observations of precession and, at the same time, an historical record of simultaneous social and celestial transformations. Topographic and architectural terms of Andean myth are interpreted as a metaphor for the organisation of and locations on the celestial sphere. Via ethnoastronmical data, mythical animals are identified as stars and placed on the celestial sphere according to their "topographical " location. Tested in the planetarium, these "arrays" generate clusters of dates - 200 B.C. and 650. A. D. Analysis of the names of Wiraqocha and Manco Capac indicates they represent Saturn and Jupiter and that their mythical meeting represents their conjunction in 650 A.D. The astronomy of Andean myth is then used as an historical tool to examine how the Andean priest-astronomers recorded the simultaneous creation of the ayllu and of this distinctive astronomical system about 200 B.C. The idea that the agricultural ayllu, with its double descent system stressing the importance of paternity, represents a transformation of society from an earlier matrilineal/horticultural era is examined in light of the sexual imagery employed in myth. Wiraqocha’s androgyny and the division of the celestial sphere into male (ecliptic) and -female(celestial equator = “earth” ) are interpreted as cosmological validations of the new social structure. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1010 Abstract: In 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. Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1010 2000-01-01T00:00:00Z Londoño Sulkin, Carlos David In 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. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1009 Abstract: This thesis examines the vitality of Hidalgo Nahuatl (HN) in the communities of Jaltocan, Panacaxtlan, Santa Cruz, Santa Teresa and Zohuala in the Huasteca Hidalguense, Mexico. The research, conducted in Mexico and St. Andrews University from 1976-1982, applies an analysis of HN within the framework of the Sociology of Language and Dependency Theory, thereby using a multi-disciplinary approach. Through an investigation of the historical, social, cultural and economic factors related to HN, the latter is embedded in its reality. HN is shown to be originally a language of dependency and oppression, supported by a long mestizo tradition of "caciquismo". It is demonstrated that an increasing number of Spanish (S) monolinguals, together with other socio-economic factors, is encouraging Nahuas to bilingualize and S:: =A. is fast becoming the new language of dependency. The Hidalgo Nahuas possess practical reasons for the acquisition of S., these being to solve their daily problems - especially land tenancy -, to communicate with the mestizo out-group and to undertake trading with non-HN speakers. However, the Nahuas are not surrendering their native language as they bilingualize, but rather, tend to limit its usage to native Nahua contexts and speakers. HN has become important to the Nahuas in order to demonstrate their ethnic identity and territoriality. The introduction of government projects to the communities, such as the Castellanizacion project or bilingual-bicultural education, are shown to be theoretically bilingual in approach, but fail to take into account sufficiently the regional Indian language in the praxis. The stable maintenance of HN is highlighted by statistical results from the word-count of recorded texts, documents and publications and the range of morphological phenomena affecting S. words in HN is described with examples from the Corpus. The linguistic interference from S. in HN is located within Dependency Theory and this author suggests the use of the term dependency word rather than loan word and dependency language, thus implying a diachronic sociological process which is reflected in HN. Extended Texts are offered as evidence of the linguistic standard of HN and attitudes of Nahuas towards their language are presented. The final conclusion is that modern HN is a viable, vital and functional language at the time of undertaking this research and demonstrates a frequent usage by a large number of speakers. HN has still not entered into:. -avital process of language death, as is the case in other Nahuatl-speaking regions of Mexico, and is still being maintained, particularly at community level, by adults and children alike. Fri, 01 Jan 1982 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1009 1982-01-01T00:00:00Z Stiles, Neville This thesis examines the vitality of Hidalgo Nahuatl (HN) in the communities of Jaltocan, Panacaxtlan, Santa Cruz, Santa Teresa and Zohuala in the Huasteca Hidalguense, Mexico. The research, conducted in Mexico and St. Andrews University from 1976-1982, applies an analysis of HN within the framework of the Sociology of Language and Dependency Theory, thereby using a multi-disciplinary approach. Through an investigation of the historical, social, cultural and economic factors related to HN, the latter is embedded in its reality. HN is shown to be originally a language of dependency and oppression, supported by a long mestizo tradition of "caciquismo". It is demonstrated that an increasing number of Spanish (S) monolinguals, together with other socio-economic factors, is encouraging Nahuas to bilingualize and S:: =A. is fast becoming the new language of dependency. The Hidalgo Nahuas possess practical reasons for the acquisition of S., these being to solve their daily problems - especially land tenancy -, to communicate with the mestizo out-group and to undertake trading with non-HN speakers. However, the Nahuas are not surrendering their native language as they bilingualize, but rather, tend to limit its usage to native Nahua contexts and speakers. HN has become important to the Nahuas in order to demonstrate their ethnic identity and territoriality. The introduction of government projects to the communities, such as the Castellanizacion project or bilingual-bicultural education, are shown to be theoretically bilingual in approach, but fail to take into account sufficiently the regional Indian language in the praxis. The stable maintenance of HN is highlighted by statistical results from the word-count of recorded texts, documents and publications and the range of morphological phenomena affecting S. words in HN is described with examples from the Corpus. The linguistic interference from S. in HN is located within Dependency Theory and this author suggests the use of the term dependency word rather than loan word and dependency language, thus implying a diachronic sociological process which is reflected in HN. Extended Texts are offered as evidence of the linguistic standard of HN and attitudes of Nahuas towards their language are presented. The final conclusion is that modern HN is a viable, vital and functional language at the time of undertaking this research and demonstrates a frequent usage by a large number of speakers. HN has still not entered into:. -avital process of language death, as is the case in other Nahuatl-speaking regions of Mexico, and is still being maintained, particularly at community level, by adults and children alike. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1008 Abstract: The 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. Thu, 01 Jan 1998 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1008 1998-01-01T00:00:00Z Passes, Alan The 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. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1007 Abstract: My thesis "Quechua Religious Terms in the Departments of Apurimac and San Martin, Peru" deals with the problem of changing meaning-loads of Quechua religious terms. I chose the departments (counties) of Apurimac and San Martin as representative of a montana (jungle) and sierra (mountain) Quechua culture respectively. The purpose of the thesis is to show though the analysis from a corpus of one hundred and thirty-two terms that Quechua religious terms still carry much of tine nearing load they had before the Spanish conquest despite more than four hundred years of religious and other cultural pressures. This study also highlights the difficulties and unresearched areas in the fields of dialectology and folklore of the Quechua culture, a culture that is still very much the life of some ten million people in Latin America today. Thu, 01 Jan 1976 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1007 1976-01-01T00:00:00Z McIntosh, G. Stewart My thesis "Quechua Religious Terms in the Departments of Apurimac and San Martin, Peru" deals with the problem of changing meaning-loads of Quechua religious terms. I chose the departments (counties) of Apurimac and San Martin as representative of a montana (jungle) and sierra (mountain) Quechua culture respectively. The purpose of the thesis is to show though the analysis from a corpus of one hundred and thirty-two terms that Quechua religious terms still carry much of tine nearing load they had before the Spanish conquest despite more than four hundred years of religious and other cultural pressures. This study also highlights the difficulties and unresearched areas in the fields of dialectology and folklore of the Quechua culture, a culture that is still very much the life of some ten million people in Latin America today. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1006 Abstract: This dissertation investigates evangelization in the writings of ten Roman Catholic and Protestant theologians who were chosen due to their interaction with the major themes of Liberation Theology and their interest in evangelization. The six Roman Catholic theologians include Leonardo Boff, Segundo Gulilea, Gustavo Gutihrrez, Archbishop Oscar Romero, Juan Luis Segundo, and Jon Sobrino. The four Protestant theologians include Mortimer Arias, Emilio Castro, Orlando Costas, and Jose Miguez Bonino. Along with a chapter on each theologian, two separate chapters are devoted to a comparison of the Roman Catholics as a group and the Protestants as a group. The concluding chapter collects the findings and presents a common view of evangelization in Latin American Liberation Theology. In addition, this thesis is set in its historical context with studies of evangelization in four Roman Catholic Documents – Vatican II, Medellin, Evanglii Nuntiandi, and Puebla, and WCC documents tram the New Delhi Assembly (1961) to the Vancouver Assembly (1983). This study demonstrates that evangelization is a central theme of Latin American Liberation Theology. Both Roman Catholic and Protestant liberation theologians devote a great deal of attention to this topic which serves for them as a bridge between theology and praxis. In the theological realm, evangelization is founded on the concept of the reign of God. III the arena of praxis, evangelization is centered on proclamation and action. In addition, evangelization stands as a theme around which Roman Catholic and Protestant liberation theologians unite; the similarities between them are significant and numerous. These theologians present a view of evangelization which has the potential to alter traditional understandings and existing structures of evangelization. Their concept of evangelization pioneers new frontiers as it interacts with liberation, the poor, denunciation, action, collective conversion, and a comprehensive view of the reign of God. Fri, 01 Jan 1988 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1006 1988-01-01T00:00:00Z Pope-Levison, Priscilla This dissertation investigates evangelization in the writings of ten Roman Catholic and Protestant theologians who were chosen due to their interaction with the major themes of Liberation Theology and their interest in evangelization. The six Roman Catholic theologians include Leonardo Boff, Segundo Gulilea, Gustavo Gutihrrez, Archbishop Oscar Romero, Juan Luis Segundo, and Jon Sobrino. The four Protestant theologians include Mortimer Arias, Emilio Castro, Orlando Costas, and Jose Miguez Bonino. Along with a chapter on each theologian, two separate chapters are devoted to a comparison of the Roman Catholics as a group and the Protestants as a group. The concluding chapter collects the findings and presents a common view of evangelization in Latin American Liberation Theology. In addition, this thesis is set in its historical context with studies of evangelization in four Roman Catholic Documents – Vatican II, Medellin, Evanglii Nuntiandi, and Puebla, and WCC documents tram the New Delhi Assembly (1961) to the Vancouver Assembly (1983). This study demonstrates that evangelization is a central theme of Latin American Liberation Theology. Both Roman Catholic and Protestant liberation theologians devote a great deal of attention to this topic which serves for them as a bridge between theology and praxis. In the theological realm, evangelization is founded on the concept of the reign of God. III the arena of praxis, evangelization is centered on proclamation and action. In addition, evangelization stands as a theme around which Roman Catholic and Protestant liberation theologians unite; the similarities between them are significant and numerous. These theologians present a view of evangelization which has the potential to alter traditional understandings and existing structures of evangelization. Their concept of evangelization pioneers new frontiers as it interacts with liberation, the poor, denunciation, action, collective conversion, and a comprehensive view of the reign of God. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1005 Abstract: This work presents a concept of conversion using the researches of Liberation theologians and the relation of Jesus to four groups in the Synoptics. In chapter one, the main concern is the hermeneutical problem as it defines the kind of emphasis the interpretation of the Bible will support. Liberation theology focuses on its context as the key aspect for a practical interpretation. In chapter two six Liberation theologians are studied with a focus on the concept of conversion. All of them criticize the type of conversion that has produced a Christianity centered on spiritual features and disregarding the Latin American situation. In chapter three the situation of Palestine in Jesus' time is described and the political, economic, and religious situation is explored. The aim of this chapter is to show that Jesus was born and lived under political, economic, and religious oppression. In chapter four the relationship of Jesus to four groups is stated. In relation to the Pharisees, two aspects are considered: that the table-fellowship of Jesus with the outcasts produced a confrontation with the Pharisees; and that, at least one time, Jesus talked about overriding the Law because of the Kingdom of God. In relation to the religious authorities, Jesus prophetically rejected the Temple and Its system. In relation to the Roman authorities, Jesus established that all things belong to God and that loyalty to any government must be relative. In relation to the rich and the poor, Jesus stressed through hard criticism of riches that the Good News are preferentially to the poor. In the conclusion, using "the relation of relationship" model of C. Boff, it is stated that the concept of conversion of Liberation theologians with social, economic and political implications, is based on the Scriptures and it is the best solution for Christianity in an oppressive situation. Tue, 01 Jan 1991 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1005 1991-01-01T00:00:00Z Mahecha, Guidoberto This work presents a concept of conversion using the researches of Liberation theologians and the relation of Jesus to four groups in the Synoptics. In chapter one, the main concern is the hermeneutical problem as it defines the kind of emphasis the interpretation of the Bible will support. Liberation theology focuses on its context as the key aspect for a practical interpretation. In chapter two six Liberation theologians are studied with a focus on the concept of conversion. All of them criticize the type of conversion that has produced a Christianity centered on spiritual features and disregarding the Latin American situation. In chapter three the situation of Palestine in Jesus' time is described and the political, economic, and religious situation is explored. The aim of this chapter is to show that Jesus was born and lived under political, economic, and religious oppression. In chapter four the relationship of Jesus to four groups is stated. In relation to the Pharisees, two aspects are considered: that the table-fellowship of Jesus with the outcasts produced a confrontation with the Pharisees; and that, at least one time, Jesus talked about overriding the Law because of the Kingdom of God. In relation to the religious authorities, Jesus prophetically rejected the Temple and Its system. In relation to the Roman authorities, Jesus established that all things belong to God and that loyalty to any government must be relative. In relation to the rich and the poor, Jesus stressed through hard criticism of riches that the Good News are preferentially to the poor. In the conclusion, using "the relation of relationship" model of C. Boff, it is stated that the concept of conversion of Liberation theologians with social, economic and political implications, is based on the Scriptures and it is the best solution for Christianity in an oppressive situation. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1004 Abstract: The ethnographic object of study of my thesis is a group of penitents, called ‘Ave de Jesus’, that dwells in the hinterlands of Northeast Brazil. As many other groups and penitents of this area they have a strong devotion to Padre Cicero -a deceased priest who founded the city in which they live, Juazeiro do Norte - who they believe to be Jesus himself. In fact, according to them, all the events of the Bible there in Juazeiro do Norte, such that they live in a biblical time, the Bible being their actual history which should culminate in destruction - A final end to the world. The Ave de Jesus have incorporated into their form of life the ways of being and relating to the world of those missionaries and religious leaders from the past, such as Padre Ibiapina, Antonio Conselheiro, Padre Cicero, and many ‘beatos’ who wandered throughout the ‘Sertao’* preaching penance and charity. Although these religious images make a lot of sense for those who live in such a harsh area as the ‘Sertoes’, there is no doubt that they are also in conflict with the mainstream system of interpretation of reality. In my thesis I explore how the biblical images take part in the construction and negotiation of truth and meaning, and how they work as references for acting, thinking and ‘feeling’. Because these biblical images are invariably related to moral sentiments - such as compassion, generosity, mercy, commiseration and a highly moral evaluation of the experience of suffering - that underlies the way of life of many penitents in Juazeiro, my thesis focuses on the social role of emotion in building up truth and creating sociability. The Chapter I provides the Introduction in which is given a bibliographical review on messianic and millenarian movements and pilgrimage, and points to my own theoretical choice. It is also in the introduction that I discuss the issue of rationality, ideology and narratives related to the problem of my research and the methodological approach. In Chapter III provide an overall ethnography of penance within the surrounds of Juazeiro do Norte in the past and present. In Chapter III I first introduce a brief ethnography of the Ave de Jesus. In Chapter IV I explore the situation of conflict between systems of interpretation within which Master Jose - the leader of the Ave de Jesus - finds himself. The subject of discussion in this chapter is the role of the affective and beauty in negotiating meaning and constructing truth. In Chapter VI dwell upon Emotions. In this chapter I provide a discussion concerning the importance of emotions in understanding the way of life of many penitents in Juazeiro do Norte, with special attention to the Ave de Jesus. Another subject of discussion is what an emotion is about and their relation to action and thought. In my ethnography and interpretation of emotions I have focused on those emotions which are cognitively stressed by the Ave de Jesus, such as suffering, compassion, mercy, etc. which underlies their form of life. In Chapter VI I provide a discussion on how images of charity are related to an ideal image of society -a Utopia. By going deeper into the relation between images of suffering, poverty and mendicancy I explore how the Ave de Jesus creates a sociality based on generosity, hospitality and sharing whereby they realise a messianic expectation. In the Conclusion I have tried to answer the main task of my thesis, that is, to provide an understanding of how sadness is beautiful. Through all the issues elected to for discussion in each chapter I intend to give support to my interpretation of the role and importance of emotions within the social life of the Ave de Jesus. *The semi-arid backlands of Northeast Brazil Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1004 2000-01-01T00:00:00Z Campos, Roberta Bivar Carneiro The ethnographic object of study of my thesis is a group of penitents, called ‘Ave de Jesus’, that dwells in the hinterlands of Northeast Brazil. As many other groups and penitents of this area they have a strong devotion to Padre Cicero -a deceased priest who founded the city in which they live, Juazeiro do Norte - who they believe to be Jesus himself. In fact, according to them, all the events of the Bible there in Juazeiro do Norte, such that they live in a biblical time, the Bible being their actual history which should culminate in destruction - A final end to the world. The Ave de Jesus have incorporated into their form of life the ways of being and relating to the world of those missionaries and religious leaders from the past, such as Padre Ibiapina, Antonio Conselheiro, Padre Cicero, and many ‘beatos’ who wandered throughout the ‘Sertao’* preaching penance and charity. Although these religious images make a lot of sense for those who live in such a harsh area as the ‘Sertoes’, there is no doubt that they are also in conflict with the mainstream system of interpretation of reality. In my thesis I explore how the biblical images take part in the construction and negotiation of truth and meaning, and how they work as references for acting, thinking and ‘feeling’. Because these biblical images are invariably related to moral sentiments - such as compassion, generosity, mercy, commiseration and a highly moral evaluation of the experience of suffering - that underlies the way of life of many penitents in Juazeiro, my thesis focuses on the social role of emotion in building up truth and creating sociability. The Chapter I provides the Introduction in which is given a bibliographical review on messianic and millenarian movements and pilgrimage, and points to my own theoretical choice. It is also in the introduction that I discuss the issue of rationality, ideology and narratives related to the problem of my research and the methodological approach. In Chapter III provide an overall ethnography of penance within the surrounds of Juazeiro do Norte in the past and present. In Chapter III I first introduce a brief ethnography of the Ave de Jesus. In Chapter IV I explore the situation of conflict between systems of interpretation within which Master Jose - the leader of the Ave de Jesus - finds himself. The subject of discussion in this chapter is the role of the affective and beauty in negotiating meaning and constructing truth. In Chapter VI dwell upon Emotions. In this chapter I provide a discussion concerning the importance of emotions in understanding the way of life of many penitents in Juazeiro do Norte, with special attention to the Ave de Jesus. Another subject of discussion is what an emotion is about and their relation to action and thought. In my ethnography and interpretation of emotions I have focused on those emotions which are cognitively stressed by the Ave de Jesus, such as suffering, compassion, mercy, etc. which underlies their form of life. In Chapter VI I provide a discussion on how images of charity are related to an ideal image of society -a Utopia. By going deeper into the relation between images of suffering, poverty and mendicancy I explore how the Ave de Jesus creates a sociality based on generosity, hospitality and sharing whereby they realise a messianic expectation. In the Conclusion I have tried to answer the main task of my thesis, that is, to provide an understanding of how sadness is beautiful. Through all the issues elected to for discussion in each chapter I intend to give support to my interpretation of the role and importance of emotions within the social life of the Ave de Jesus. *The semi-arid backlands of Northeast Brazil http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1003 Abstract: In 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. Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1003 2004-01-01T00:00:00Z Rubio, Javier Carrera In 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. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1000 Abstract: Indigenous 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. Wed, 01 Jan 2003 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1000 2003-01-01T00:00:00Z Menell, David Indigenous 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. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/965 Abstract: My thesis examines from an ethnographic account how history has been made, told and interpreted by the Angaité people of the Chaco since the Paraguayan nation-state effectively carried out the colonization of this territory in the 19th century until the present day. The key elements of this account are the Angaité’s notions and practices on alterity, storytelling and shamanism and how they interplay with one another. I explore the notions of alterity and its counterpart similarity in the context of multiple material transactions in which the Angaité engage both among themselves and with outsiders. I also examine the inseparable socio-moral evaluations attached to such transactions. I show how certain transactions such as exchange or commoditisation do not necessarily conflict with good social relations. Nevertheless, the closest relationships – preferably evoked in kinship terms - are constantly constructed by the combination of several practices including sharing, pooling, cohabitation and companionship and the relational morality that underpins them. This relational morality, I argue, is both inscribed and enacted through the telling of Nanek Any’a narratives –“Old news/events”. I analyze some of these narratives in order to show how the Angaité people interpret the consequences of the colonization of the Chaco. For this I provide an intelligible context for the Nanek Any’a that may otherwise appear contradictory or incomprehensible to a non-Angaité listener. The Angaité’s versions of history compared to the official accounts challenge the simplistic of the Angaité as “acculturated” and a homogenous indigenous people and situate them as main actors of their own lives. Rather than the Angaité being the victims of history the Nanek Any’a emphasize that it was the mistakes and failing of their ancestors in their original encounter with the Paraguayans that resulted in an unbalanced relationship with the latter in socio-economic terms. In addition to this, I describe in the light of the historical processes undergone in the lives of the Angaité, how the shamanic discourses and capacities and Angaité cosmology have changed. I explore how they have constantly incorporated external elements, and thus such shamanic elements pervades contemporary areas of life and interactions that include not only the paradigmatic indigenous shaman, but unusual figures such as pastors, powerful outsiders and leaders. Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/965 2010-06-01T00:00:00Z Villagra Carron, Rodrigo Juan My thesis examines from an ethnographic account how history has been made, told and interpreted by the Angaité people of the Chaco since the Paraguayan nation-state effectively carried out the colonization of this territory in the 19th century until the present day. The key elements of this account are the Angaité’s notions and practices on alterity, storytelling and shamanism and how they interplay with one another. I explore the notions of alterity and its counterpart similarity in the context of multiple material transactions in which the Angaité engage both among themselves and with outsiders. I also examine the inseparable socio-moral evaluations attached to such transactions. I show how certain transactions such as exchange or commoditisation do not necessarily conflict with good social relations. Nevertheless, the closest relationships – preferably evoked in kinship terms - are constantly constructed by the combination of several practices including sharing, pooling, cohabitation and companionship and the relational morality that underpins them. This relational morality, I argue, is both inscribed and enacted through the telling of Nanek Any’a narratives –“Old news/events”. I analyze some of these narratives in order to show how the Angaité people interpret the consequences of the colonization of the Chaco. For this I provide an intelligible context for the Nanek Any’a that may otherwise appear contradictory or incomprehensible to a non-Angaité listener. The Angaité’s versions of history compared to the official accounts challenge the simplistic of the Angaité as “acculturated” and a homogenous indigenous people and situate them as main actors of their own lives. Rather than the Angaité being the victims of history the Nanek Any’a emphasize that it was the mistakes and failing of their ancestors in their original encounter with the Paraguayans that resulted in an unbalanced relationship with the latter in socio-economic terms. In addition to this, I describe in the light of the historical processes undergone in the lives of the Angaité, how the shamanic discourses and capacities and Angaité cosmology have changed. I explore how they have constantly incorporated external elements, and thus such shamanic elements pervades contemporary areas of life and interactions that include not only the paradigmatic indigenous shaman, but unusual figures such as pastors, powerful outsiders and leaders. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/960 Abstract: The research explores the concept of human consciousness and its being experienced in a particular social context, focusing on consciousness’s ‘highest potential’ as described in both ancient Buddhist Philosophy and more recent spiritual teachings. The main attention is on the individual’s emotional and mental experience of ‘conventional’ and ‘ultimate’ reality as taught by these traditions and the possible transformation of consciousness they might initiate. Two years of fieldwork was carried out at the Barbara Brennan School of Healing, which is a spiritual educational institution, offering a four-year training to become a healer. The School emphasis is on the human individual and his or her inherent existential power to transform and transcend limitations or delusions, focusing on the process of self- transformation. Being human in the eyes of the School is seen as an endless potential for growth, creativity, the capacity to love, and about learning to become fully responsible for one’s own life and happiness. The thesis explores the effect that this particular understanding of human potential has in the quotidian existence of the trainee and her or his social relations. Methodologically the study is based in phenomenological anthropology. This approach here implies that life cannot be understood through the conceptual or systematic study of its outward forms. Therefore it places conscious experience at the centre of its investigation, rather than disengaged objectivity. By employing the first-person perspective and undertaking part of the training myself, I hope to do justice to the inherently subjective dimension of consciousness and to gain as deep an understanding as possible of the processes of its transformation. The thesis thus includes subjective personal experience as primary data, and understands being objective in the sense of being open and without bias to both internal and external experience, giving the ‘perennial wisdom’ of spiritual traditions the same status as approved scientific laws. Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/960 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z Lenk, Sonja The research explores the concept of human consciousness and its being experienced in a particular social context, focusing on consciousness’s ‘highest potential’ as described in both ancient Buddhist Philosophy and more recent spiritual teachings. The main attention is on the individual’s emotional and mental experience of ‘conventional’ and ‘ultimate’ reality as taught by these traditions and the possible transformation of consciousness they might initiate. Two years of fieldwork was carried out at the Barbara Brennan School of Healing, which is a spiritual educational institution, offering a four-year training to become a healer. The School emphasis is on the human individual and his or her inherent existential power to transform and transcend limitations or delusions, focusing on the process of self- transformation. Being human in the eyes of the School is seen as an endless potential for growth, creativity, the capacity to love, and about learning to become fully responsible for one’s own life and happiness. The thesis explores the effect that this particular understanding of human potential has in the quotidian existence of the trainee and her or his social relations. Methodologically the study is based in phenomenological anthropology. This approach here implies that life cannot be understood through the conceptual or systematic study of its outward forms. Therefore it places conscious experience at the centre of its investigation, rather than disengaged objectivity. By employing the first-person perspective and undertaking part of the training myself, I hope to do justice to the inherently subjective dimension of consciousness and to gain as deep an understanding as possible of the processes of its transformation. The thesis thus includes subjective personal experience as primary data, and understands being objective in the sense of being open and without bias to both internal and external experience, giving the ‘perennial wisdom’ of spiritual traditions the same status as approved scientific laws. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/891 Abstract: This thesis is an ethnographic analysis of kinship among the Kuna of the San Blas Archipelago of eastern Panamá, which focuses on the creation of bodies and persons. San Blas island villages are characterized by a compact layout and a burgeoning demographic concentration in relation to space. Despite land is available on surrounding mainland areas, the Kuna continue living in nucleated villages, emphasizing kinship as the value of a life in spatial and social concentration. By describing quotidian life in one Kuna community, this thesis considers what it means to live in concentration from a Kuna perspective, and how wellbeing is created through daily practices and rituals aimed at contrasting the social disengagement, that people consider an effect of domestic splitting, the ramification of collateral ties, and illnesses inflicted by invisible pathogenic beings. My analysis focuses on two main lines of enquiry: 1) the progression of social relations from close to distant. Beginning from the house, where the bodies of co-residents are made consubstantial through commensality, the thesis analyses marriageability as the management of social distance, and the celebration of communal drinking festivals as the re-patterning of relations with different types of non-kin (e.g. non co-resident kin, the dead, and pathogenic spirits) for the regeneration of fertility and wellbeing. 2) It focuses on the person and discusses how adults make sense of babies and processes of body and kinship making in relation to non-human beings. By describing how ritual and micro-quotidian practices operate according to patterns of density and repetition, this thesis demonstrates that concentration and saturation are the core notions of sociality and personhood for the Kuna. The thesis argues that saturation is interior to the ongoing creation of kinship. Sat, 01 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/891 2010-05-01T00:00:00Z Margiotti, Margherita This thesis is an ethnographic analysis of kinship among the Kuna of the San Blas Archipelago of eastern Panamá, which focuses on the creation of bodies and persons. San Blas island villages are characterized by a compact layout and a burgeoning demographic concentration in relation to space. Despite land is available on surrounding mainland areas, the Kuna continue living in nucleated villages, emphasizing kinship as the value of a life in spatial and social concentration. By describing quotidian life in one Kuna community, this thesis considers what it means to live in concentration from a Kuna perspective, and how wellbeing is created through daily practices and rituals aimed at contrasting the social disengagement, that people consider an effect of domestic splitting, the ramification of collateral ties, and illnesses inflicted by invisible pathogenic beings. My analysis focuses on two main lines of enquiry: 1) the progression of social relations from close to distant. Beginning from the house, where the bodies of co-residents are made consubstantial through commensality, the thesis analyses marriageability as the management of social distance, and the celebration of communal drinking festivals as the re-patterning of relations with different types of non-kin (e.g. non co-resident kin, the dead, and pathogenic spirits) for the regeneration of fertility and wellbeing. 2) It focuses on the person and discusses how adults make sense of babies and processes of body and kinship making in relation to non-human beings. By describing how ritual and micro-quotidian practices operate according to patterns of density and repetition, this thesis demonstrates that concentration and saturation are the core notions of sociality and personhood for the Kuna. The thesis argues that saturation is interior to the ongoing creation of kinship. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/872 Abstract: This PhD thesis focuses on the creation and maintenance of the liberal Jewish community in present day Cologne, Germany. The community has the telling name Gescher LaMassoret, which translates into „Bridge to Tradition.‟ The name gives away that this specific community, its individual members and its struggles cannot be understood without the socio-historic context of Germany and the Holocaust. Although this Jewish community is not a community of Holocaust survivors, the dichotomy Jewish-German takes various shapes within the community and surfaces in the narratives of the individual members. These narratives reflect the uniqueness of each individual in the community. While this is a truism, this individual uniqueness is a key element in Gescher LaMassoret, whose membership consists of people from various countries who have various native languages. Furthermore, the community comprises members of Jewish descent as well as Jews of conversion who are of German, non- Jewish parentage. Due to the aftermaths of the Holocaust and the fact that Gescher LaMassoret houses a vast internal diversity, the creation of this community which lacks any tradition happens through mixing and meshing the life-stories and other narratives of the members, which flow into the collective narrative of the community. On the surface, the narratives of the individual members seem in conflict, they even contradict each other, which means that the narrative of the community is in constant tension. However, under the dissimilarities on the surface of the individual narratives hide similarities in terms of shared values and attitudes, which allow for enough overlaps to create a community by way of braiding a collective narrative, which offers the members to experience a 'felt ethnicity.' Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/872 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z Kranz, Daniela This PhD thesis focuses on the creation and maintenance of the liberal Jewish community in present day Cologne, Germany. The community has the telling name Gescher LaMassoret, which translates into „Bridge to Tradition.‟ The name gives away that this specific community, its individual members and its struggles cannot be understood without the socio-historic context of Germany and the Holocaust. Although this Jewish community is not a community of Holocaust survivors, the dichotomy Jewish-German takes various shapes within the community and surfaces in the narratives of the individual members. These narratives reflect the uniqueness of each individual in the community. While this is a truism, this individual uniqueness is a key element in Gescher LaMassoret, whose membership consists of people from various countries who have various native languages. Furthermore, the community comprises members of Jewish descent as well as Jews of conversion who are of German, non- Jewish parentage. Due to the aftermaths of the Holocaust and the fact that Gescher LaMassoret houses a vast internal diversity, the creation of this community which lacks any tradition happens through mixing and meshing the life-stories and other narratives of the members, which flow into the collective narrative of the community. On the surface, the narratives of the individual members seem in conflict, they even contradict each other, which means that the narrative of the community is in constant tension. However, under the dissimilarities on the surface of the individual narratives hide similarities in terms of shared values and attitudes, which allow for enough overlaps to create a community by way of braiding a collective narrative, which offers the members to experience a 'felt ethnicity.' http://hdl.handle.net/10023/751 Abstract: This research (the first long-term ethnographic study of FOI in Britain) investigates concepts at the heart of FOI - transparency, trust, secrecy, truth, private, public, power and agency. Eighteen months participant observation fieldwork, alongside policy-makers, practitioners, and end-users facilitated in depth, study of the radical subject-object transformations that FOI requires, and the aesthetics that underpin it. The introduction of FOI entailed a 'culture change' - from a culture of secrecy to one of disclosure - driven, in Scotland, by the Scottish Information Commissioner through conferences. These were an opportunity for practitioners to come into new knowledge about the Act, their shared knowledge dissolving the divisions between them. But new divisions then opened between practitioners and colleagues; culture change being in the replication of a form of a relationship that previously lay between government and citizens. In their replicated form, individual practitioners disappeared - were made 'transparent' - only to reappear on being differentiated, leaving them acutely aware of the personal relations this fissure disclosed, and throwing into sharp question a theory of people's division as indicative of their 'secrecy'. Transparency, here, depended on whether people were divided or combined - acting in their own capacity, or that of the organization. While making personal relations absent from new disclosures was necessary for FOI compliance, this concealment hid a complex network of relations, and turned knowledge into 'information'. Yet the division between information and knowledge was not crisp: end-users continued to read practitioners' personal relations in disclosed information, thus relations were both absent from and implied in the information released. Whether information was public (and accessible) depended on the undifferentiated status of those who created, handled, or were the subjects of, information. As people came into new knowledge, invoking their divided or common footing, they alternated between appearing 'private' or 'public' - person or thing - a division between individuals reflecting a division within each of them. Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/751 2009-06-23T00:00:00Z John, Gemma This research (the first long-term ethnographic study of FOI in Britain) investigates concepts at the heart of FOI - transparency, trust, secrecy, truth, private, public, power and agency. Eighteen months participant observation fieldwork, alongside policy-makers, practitioners, and end-users facilitated in depth, study of the radical subject-object transformations that FOI requires, and the aesthetics that underpin it. The introduction of FOI entailed a 'culture change' - from a culture of secrecy to one of disclosure - driven, in Scotland, by the Scottish Information Commissioner through conferences. These were an opportunity for practitioners to come into new knowledge about the Act, their shared knowledge dissolving the divisions between them. But new divisions then opened between practitioners and colleagues; culture change being in the replication of a form of a relationship that previously lay between government and citizens. In their replicated form, individual practitioners disappeared - were made 'transparent' - only to reappear on being differentiated, leaving them acutely aware of the personal relations this fissure disclosed, and throwing into sharp question a theory of people's division as indicative of their 'secrecy'. Transparency, here, depended on whether people were divided or combined - acting in their own capacity, or that of the organization. While making personal relations absent from new disclosures was necessary for FOI compliance, this concealment hid a complex network of relations, and turned knowledge into 'information'. Yet the division between information and knowledge was not crisp: end-users continued to read practitioners' personal relations in disclosed information, thus relations were both absent from and implied in the information released. Whether information was public (and accessible) depended on the undifferentiated status of those who created, handled, or were the subjects of, information. As people came into new knowledge, invoking their divided or common footing, they alternated between appearing 'private' or 'public' - person or thing - a division between individuals reflecting a division within each of them. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/529 Abstract: Linguistic description has been described as "the application of a particular linguistic theory to a selected field of linguistic phenomena". The thesis presented here offers a partial application of Axiomatic Functionalism, (partial because its concern is with syntax only), to data collected on the San Martín dialect of Quechua. Proportionate to the whole body of Quechua studies, there has been little produced on the syntax of any Quechua dialect. Most syntactic studies, as do the large majority of phonological and morphological studies, use American methodology, be it based on Bloomfieldian linguistics, or be it based on those of Chomsky. The present methodology stands diametrically opposed to both schools of American linguistics cited above, and as a result introduces a fresh approach to the study of the syntactic aspect of Quechua. With Axiomatic functionalism, a new way of looking at Quechua grammar is presented and thus much of what is accepted "fact" reappraised. For this reason, while the concern of the thesis is with producing a description of syntactic relations in San Martín Quechua under the terms of Axiomatic Functionalism, reference is made to descriptions of other Quechua dialects, most notably where the application of Axiomatic Functionalism produces statements containing certain phenomena which are quite different from statements made on equivalent phenomena in other dialects using a different linguistic theory. Moreover, Axiomatic Fundamentalism is a deductive theory, and so statements regarding the data contained in the description are not statements of "fact", but are hypotheses which may stand as valid hypotheses regarding the data unless they can be refuted. Given that the theoretical base on which the description rests is different from that used in other descriptions of Quechua dialects, and so that the hypotheses made regarding syntactic relations in San Martín Quechua may be tested, Part I of the thesis is given over to the theoretical side of the work: to explaining the relation between theory and description in Chapter I, to giving brief explications of those notions in the theory which have particular relevance for a syntactic description in Chapter II, and in noting some of the limits set to the selection of the data for description in Chapter III./ The axioms and definitions of the theory are given in Appendix A. Part II of the thesis, which is in six chapters, deals with the description proper. Structures which may stand as sentences are established and analysed into their constituent structures, the relations between each constituent being ascertained. Analysis is carried through to the stage where there are no constituents analysable in syntactic terms left. Sat, 01 Jan 1977 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/529 1977-01-01T00:00:00Z Howkins, Angela Linguistic description has been described as "the application of a particular linguistic theory to a selected field of linguistic phenomena". The thesis presented here offers a partial application of Axiomatic Functionalism, (partial because its concern is with syntax only), to data collected on the San Martín dialect of Quechua. Proportionate to the whole body of Quechua studies, there has been little produced on the syntax of any Quechua dialect. Most syntactic studies, as do the large majority of phonological and morphological studies, use American methodology, be it based on Bloomfieldian linguistics, or be it based on those of Chomsky. The present methodology stands diametrically opposed to both schools of American linguistics cited above, and as a result introduces a fresh approach to the study of the syntactic aspect of Quechua. With Axiomatic functionalism, a new way of looking at Quechua grammar is presented and thus much of what is accepted "fact" reappraised. For this reason, while the concern of the thesis is with producing a description of syntactic relations in San Martín Quechua under the terms of Axiomatic Functionalism, reference is made to descriptions of other Quechua dialects, most notably where the application of Axiomatic Functionalism produces statements containing certain phenomena which are quite different from statements made on equivalent phenomena in other dialects using a different linguistic theory. Moreover, Axiomatic Fundamentalism is a deductive theory, and so statements regarding the data contained in the description are not statements of "fact", but are hypotheses which may stand as valid hypotheses regarding the data unless they can be refuted. Given that the theoretical base on which the description rests is different from that used in other descriptions of Quechua dialects, and so that the hypotheses made regarding syntactic relations in San Martín Quechua may be tested, Part I of the thesis is given over to the theoretical side of the work: to explaining the relation between theory and description in Chapter I, to giving brief explications of those notions in the theory which have particular relevance for a syntactic description in Chapter II, and in noting some of the limits set to the selection of the data for description in Chapter III./ The axioms and definitions of the theory are given in Appendix A. Part II of the thesis, which is in six chapters, deals with the description proper. Structures which may stand as sentences are established and analysed into their constituent structures, the relations between each constituent being ascertained. Analysis is carried through to the stage where there are no constituents analysable in syntactic terms left. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/523 Abstract: This thesis is an ethnographic account of the carving of wooden ritual statues and of the shamanic figure of the seer among the Kuna of the San Blas archipelago of Panamá. Through a study of the production of wooden ritual statues and of the birth and initiation of seers, I show that the distinction between the visible and the invisible, and between designs and images, is a crucial aspect of Kuna ways of thinking and experiencing their world. On one hand, the Kuna theory of design shows the importance of the development of social skills in the creation of person and sociality. On the other hand, the Kuna concept of image points to the relation between human and ancestral beings and to the transformative capacities of both. Through the constant interplay of the two categories, people interact with cosmic forces and create social life. The ethnography explores three aspects of the problem. First, the relationship between the islands inhabited by Kuna people and the mainland forest is described, focusing on the distance and separation of the two domains. The forest is perceived as a space populated by ancestral animal and tree entities, as well as demons and souls of the dead. Second, the carving of the ritual statues and the skill of Kuna carvers are described in relation to human and supernatural fertility. The birth of seers, different from that of other babies, provides evidence of the importance of natal design as the potential skills of each person. Third, relationships between human and supernatural beings are described considering Kuna myth and ritual action, in comparison with other indigenous American societies. This thesis concludes that it is through carving wooden statues and developing the capacity to see, Kuna people seek security in social life and protection from a predatory cosmos. Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/523 2008-06-25T00:00:00Z Fortis, Paolo This thesis is an ethnographic account of the carving of wooden ritual statues and of the shamanic figure of the seer among the Kuna of the San Blas archipelago of Panamá. Through a study of the production of wooden ritual statues and of the birth and initiation of seers, I show that the distinction between the visible and the invisible, and between designs and images, is a crucial aspect of Kuna ways of thinking and experiencing their world. On one hand, the Kuna theory of design shows the importance of the development of social skills in the creation of person and sociality. On the other hand, the Kuna concept of image points to the relation between human and ancestral beings and to the transformative capacities of both. Through the constant interplay of the two categories, people interact with cosmic forces and create social life. The ethnography explores three aspects of the problem. First, the relationship between the islands inhabited by Kuna people and the mainland forest is described, focusing on the distance and separation of the two domains. The forest is perceived as a space populated by ancestral animal and tree entities, as well as demons and souls of the dead. Second, the carving of the ritual statues and the skill of Kuna carvers are described in relation to human and supernatural fertility. The birth of seers, different from that of other babies, provides evidence of the importance of natal design as the potential skills of each person. Third, relationships between human and supernatural beings are described considering Kuna myth and ritual action, in comparison with other indigenous American societies. This thesis concludes that it is through carving wooden statues and developing the capacity to see, Kuna people seek security in social life and protection from a predatory cosmos. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/509 Abstract: In 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. Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/509 2008-06-25T00:00:00Z Kennelly, Estelle M In 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. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/456 Abstract: This thesis is based upon fieldwork carried out in the island of Apiao, in the archipelago of Chiloé, southern Chile. It is an ethnographic exploration of the way the small community of Apiao conceive of communication and interaction with both fellow human beings and supernatural creatures. The thesis describes details of every day life, with an emphasis on visiting as the main mode of social interaction. Through reciprocal hospitality the islanders enact balanced reciprocal exchange. Food and drink is offered and received; this is always returned in equal measure with a return visit. Visits between friends or neighbours are articulated according to a formal ritualistic etiquette based on asking. Balance is temporarily interrupted and small debts incurred when favors are asked. These must be reciprocated promptly. Momentary interruption of equilibrium perpetuates relations among people who describe themselves as being 'all the same'. Marriage equates to forming an independent, productive unit with a focus on inhabitants of households rather than on family in terms of decent or blood ties. Kinship terms are limited to the word mama and this refers to the grandmother, the focal role in raising children. Active memory as expression of love and care is what makes people related to each other. Kin ties must be kept active by constant love and care. Forgetful kin are in turn forgotten and slowly erased from memory. The thesis shows that religious beliefs are centered on exchange relationships with powerful entities that belong to the supernatural world. The dead and the miraculous San Antonio are powerful and ambivalent: they protect and help the living but can be revengeful and harmful if neglected by the living. Novenas are offered to the dead and the San Antonio in exchange for protection and miracles. Novenas represent a public and powerful ritual display of hospitality, enacting values of memory, solidarity and exchange. Tue, 24 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10023/456 2008-06-24T00:00:00Z Bacchiddu, Giovanna This thesis is based upon fieldwork carried out in the island of Apiao, in the archipelago of Chiloé, southern Chile. It is an ethnographic exploration of the way the small community of Apiao conceive of communication and interaction with both fellow human beings and supernatural creatures. The thesis describes details of every day life, with an emphasis on visiting as the main mode of social interaction. Through reciprocal hospitality the islanders enact balanced reciprocal exchange. Food and drink is offered and received; this is always returned in equal measure with a return visit. Visits between friends or neighbours are articulated according to a formal ritualistic etiquette based on asking. Balance is temporarily interrupted and small debts incurred when favors are asked. These must be reciprocated promptly. Momentary interruption of equilibrium perpetuates relations among people who describe themselves as being 'all the same'. Marriage equates to forming an independent, productive unit with a focus on inhabitants of households rather than on family in terms of decent or blood ties. Kinship terms are limited to the word mama and this refers to the grandmother, the focal role in raising children. Active memory as expression of love and care is what makes people related to each other. Kin ties must be kept active by constant love and care. Forgetful kin are in turn forgotten and slowly erased from memory. The thesis shows that religious beliefs are centered on exchange relationships with powerful entities that belong to the supernatural world. The dead and the miraculous San Antonio are powerful and ambivalent: they protect and help the living but can be revengeful and harmful if neglected by the living. Novenas are offered to the dead and the San Antonio in exchange for protection and miracles. Novenas represent a public and powerful ritual display of hospitality, enacting values of memory, solidarity and exchange.