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Articles 1 - 9 of 9

Full-Text Articles in Anthropology

Enlightening The Bats: Sound And Place Making In Burmese Buddhist Practice, Andrew Dicks Nov 2015

Enlightening The Bats: Sound And Place Making In Burmese Buddhist Practice, Andrew Dicks

Andrew Dicks

In Burma (Myanmar), the Abhidhamma, a rigorous and abstract soteriological treatise situated within the vast Pali Buddhist canon, is the focus of both monastic and lay practitioners’ close study and popular veneration. In particular, the Paṭṭhāna, the last and most complex volume of the Abhidhamma, is envisioned as a keystone in the long-term preservation of the Buddha’s teachings, which are also understood to inevitably disappear. As a result of these conditions and understandings, a popular ritualized and amplified recitation of this difficult text has developed in order to maintain the text’s presence in popular consciousness. This is a conscientious move …


The Religification Of Pakistani-American Youth, Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher Jan 2015

The Religification Of Pakistani-American Youth, Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher

Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher

This article describes a cultural production process called religification, in which religious affiliation, rather than race or ethnicity, has become the core category of identity for working-class Pakistani-American youth in the United States. In this dialectical process, triggered by political changes following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Muslim identity is both thrust upon Pakistani-American youth by those who question their citizenship and embraced by the youth themselves. Specifically, the article examines the ways in which schools are sites where citizenship is both constructed and contested and the roles that peers, school personnel, families, and the youth themselves play in …


Beyond Exile: The Ramayana As A Living Narrative Among Indo-Fijians In Fiji And New Zealand, Kevin Miller Dec 2014

Beyond Exile: The Ramayana As A Living Narrative Among Indo-Fijians In Fiji And New Zealand, Kevin Miller

Kevin C. Miller

Drawing on the themes of collective memory, cultural ideologies, and narrative constructions, this chapter proposes to examine the narrative of the Ramayana epic, its exegesis through performance, and its continued relevance to identity formation among Indo-Fijian Hindus both within Fiji and its Pacific Rim diaspora. Based on the recasting of the “twice-migrated” Indo-Fijian as the “twice-banished” by certain observers, we might expect the meaning of the Ramayana in the lives of Indo-Fijian Hindus in New Zealand to shift towards the theme of Rama’s exile, just as it did for the indentured laborers who made the original journey to Fiji. Nevertheless, …


The Color Of Christ In Haiti, Elizabeth Mcalister Dec 2013

The Color Of Christ In Haiti, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

Haiti is an officially Roman Catholic country, and the popular religion
of Vodou incorporates many Catholic elements. Why, then, is Jesus
Christ relatively deemphasized in both traditions, while Mary and
the countless saints and spirits have a greater presence in the religious
lives of most Haitians? This article delves into the Roman Catholic
and Kongolese Catholic history of Haiti to explore why Jesus Christ
is a relatively remote figure and why he is represented as white in a
Black-majority country.


American Evangelicals Talking With God In Their Minds, Rebecca Kim Dec 2013

American Evangelicals Talking With God In Their Minds, Rebecca Kim

Rebecca Kim

Tanya M. Luhrmann’s When God Talks Back examines how God becomes real in the minds of American evangelicals. How is it that sensible and reasonable people in this evidential world claim to walk and talk with God and experience God personally? Luhrmann answers this conundrum as an anthropological psychologist and sympathetic outsider delving into the world of American evangelicals. She finds that evangelicals are able to experience an all-loving God who has a direct and positive effect in their lives because they train their minds to do so. They school their minds to see, touch, and feel God. Reviewing the …


Odnos Žrtve I Milosti U Oblicima Obožavanja I Postizanja Mira, Matija Kovačević Jun 2013

Odnos Žrtve I Milosti U Oblicima Obožavanja I Postizanja Mira, Matija Kovačević

Matija Kovačević

Žrtva je jedan od najrasprostranjenijih pojmova diljem svjetskih kultura. Prisutan je u sekularnom i religijskom rječniku, svakodnevnim i izvanrednim prilikama, privatnoj i javnoj sferi. U skladu s time, neki oblik žrtvenog rituala našao se u praktički svim svjetskim kulturama i tradicijama. Iako umanjeni i promijenjenih oblika, ni danas nisu nestali iz čovječanstva, a u prošlosti su sačinjavali uobičajeni dio svakodnevnog života. Svrha žrtvenih rituala bila je raznovrsna, ali jedan od najčešćih motiva kojim su bili prožeti jest pomirenje s božanstvom, zajedno s izbjegavanjem kazne i osiguranjem života i sigurnosti pojedincu i/ili svijetu. S druge strane, koncept milosti i milosrđa nije …


Review, The Spirits And The Law: Vodou And Power In Haiti, Gina Ulysse Jun 2013

Review, The Spirits And The Law: Vodou And Power In Haiti, Gina Ulysse

Gina Athena Ulysse

Book review, Kate Ramsey, The Spirits and The Law: Vodou and Power in Haiti (UChicago 2011).


Roy Rappaport, Brian Hoey Dec 2012

Roy Rappaport, Brian Hoey

Brian A. Hoey, Ph.D.

Roy Abraham Rappaport, an American anthropologist recognized as a key figure in ecological anthropology and the study of religious ritual in human evolution.


Eloquence And Reason: Creating A First Amendment Culture, Robert L. Tsai Oct 2008

Eloquence And Reason: Creating A First Amendment Culture, Robert L. Tsai

Robert L Tsai

This book presents a general theory to explain how the words in the Constitution become culturally salient ideas, inscribed in the habits and outlooks of ordinary Americans. "Eloquence and Reason" employs the First Amendment as a case study to illustrate that liberty is achieved through the formation of a common language and a set of organizing beliefs. The book explicates the structure of First Amendment language as a distinctive discourse and illustrates how activists, lawyers, and even presidents help to sustain our First Amendment belief system. When significant changes to constitutional law occur, they are best understood as the results …