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Commodifying Indigeneity: How The Humanization Of Birth Reinforces Racialized Inequality In Mexico, Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications

This article examines the humanized birth movement in Mexico and analyzes how the remaking of tradition—the return to traditional birthing arts (home birth, midwife‐assisted birth, natural birth)—inadvertently reinscribes racial hierarchies. The great irony of the humanized birth movement lies in parents’ perspective of themselves as critics of late capitalism. All the while, their very rejection of consumerism bolsters ongoing commodification of indigenous culture and collapses indigeneity, nature, and tradition onto one another. While the movement is quickly spreading across Mexico, indigenous women and their traditional midwives are largely excluded from the emerging humanized birth community. Through ethnographic examples, the article …

Cardiovascular Disease And Type 2 Diabetes In Evolutionary Perspective: A Critical Role For Helminths?, Michael D. Gurven, Benjamin C. Trumble, Jonathan Stieglitz, Aaron D. Blackwell, David E. Michalik, Caleb E. Finch, Hillard Kaplan

ESI Publications

Heart disease and type 2 diabetes are commonly believed to be rare among contemporary subsistencelevel human populations, and by extension prehistoric populations. Although some caveats remain, evidence shows these diseases to be unusual among well-studied hunter-gatherers and other subsistence populations with minimal access to healthcare. Here we expand on a relatively new proposal for why these and other populations may not show major signs of these diseases. Chronic infections, especially helminths, may offer protection against heart disease and diabetes through direct and indirect pathways. As part of a strategy to insure their own survival and reproduction, helminths exert multiple cardio-protective …

War Of The Worlds: Music And Cosmological Battles In The Balinese Cremation Procession, Michael B. Bakan

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Abstract

This article explores processional action as a form of cosmological intervention in Hindu-Balinese cremation processions, focusing on the multiple and intersecting functions of a particular type of Balinese instrumental music ensemble: the gamelan beleganjur. It explores the alternately “enlivening and protective aspects” (DeVale 1990, 62) that underlie the use of beleganjur music in the ngaben, or cremation ritual, showing how beleganjur’s sonic power and rhythmic drive serve to combat malevolent spirit beings, strengthen and inspire processional participants in their efforts to meet challenging ritual obligations, and grant courage to the souls of deceased individuals embarking on their …

Myatt, Jerry (Fa 895), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Collection 895. Project titled: “Farm Tools.” Includes survey sheets with brief descriptions of non-mechanized farm implements in Monroe County, Kentucky. Sheets include a brief description, terms, informant’s name, and a photo of the tool.

Boswell, Robert H. (Fa 894), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 894. Project titled: “Italian-American Folklore.” Includes survey sheets with descriptions of traditional Italian stories and tales told by Italian-Americans in New Jersey. Sheets include a brief description, informant’s name, and the motif class.

Conner, John (Fa 891), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Collection 891. Project titled: “Development of Tobacco.” Project includes brief descriptions of different types of tobacco, terms, beliefs, and implements used in its cultivation in McLean County and Shelby County, Kentucky. Sheets include a brief description; when discussing implements, an illustration is included.

Mitschele, Jeff (Fa 892), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 892. Project titled: “[Ghost Stories]” Project includes survey sheets with brief descriptions of ghost stories. Sheets include a brief description, informant’s name, and the motif index number.

Dick, Martha (Fa 893), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 893. Project titled: “Proverbs.” Project includes Survey index cards with brief descriptions of proverbs. Copies include a brief description, informant’s name, and the motif index number.

Gruszka, Joseph (Fa 890), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 890. Title: “Lithuanian Beliefs and Christmas Ornaments.” Includes note cards with brief descriptions of Lithuanian customs and beliefs by Cook County, Illinois residents and illustrations of Christmas customs. Note cards include a brief description of the belief and informant’s name.

Phillips, Gary (Fa 887), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 887. Title: “Ghost in Human Form Guards Treasure.” Includes motif sheets with brief descriptions of each variation and constant trait of the parent form of the ghost story distinguished in the lists of traits and variable forms. Sheets include a description of the tale variation and corresponding motif index number.

Harrison, Annette B. 1950 (Fa 889), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 889. Title: “Our Goodman.” Includes sheets with brief descriptions of each variation of the ballad “Our Goodman” and the constant trait of the ballad’s archetype in the lists of traits and variable forms used in Ohio County, Kentucky. Sheets include a text of the ballad variation and corresponding motif index number.

Early, Laura (Fa 888), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folkilfe Archives Project 888. Title: “Spirit of the Ohio.” Project includes survey sheets with brief descriptions of buildings in Meade County, Kentucky. Sheets include a brief description of each building.

Hester, Rhodes (Fa 886), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 886. Title: “Collection of Information on Old Farm Machinery.” Includes survey sheets with brief descriptions of non-motorized farm machinery and tools used in the Pennyroyal Region of Kentucky. Sheets include a term or name, brief description, informant’s name, and a photo of the implement.

Contributors To Indian Catholicism: Interventions And Imaginings, Mathew Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

Contributors to Indian Catholicism: Interventions and Imaginings, the inaugural issue of the Journal of Global Catholicism.

Authority, Representation, And Offense: Dalit Catholics, Foot Washing, And The Study Of Global Catholicism, Mathew Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

In reflecting on a sharp scholarly exchange at a conference, this article explores issues of authority, representation, and offense in global Catholic and South Asian Studies. Focusing on the act of foot washing by Dalit Catholics, the article examines how scholarly offense is linked to particular claims of representational authority. The article also puts this discussion within the context of contemporary debates about Western portrayals of Indian culture and society.

The Tying Of The Ceremonial Wedding Thread: A Feminist Analysis Of “Ritual” And “Tradition” Among Syro-Malabar Catholics In India, Sonja Thomas

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article presents a feminist analysis of patriarchy persisting in Catholicism of the Syro-Malabar rite in Kerala. The article specifically considers the impact of charismatic Catholicism on women of the Syro-Malabar rite and argues that it is important to interrogate this new face of religiosity in order to fully understand how certain rituals are allowed to change and be fluid, while others, especially concerning female sexuality, are enshrined as “tradition” which often restricts the parameters for women’s empowerment and may reinforce caste and patriarchal hegemonies preventing feminist solidarity across different religious- and caste-based groups.

Dalit Catholic Home Shrines In A North Indian Village, Mathew Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article examines three Catholic home shrines in a Dalit community in North Indian and argues that it is misleading to think that home shrines and other collections of material objects are somehow static conveyors of meaning. “Meaning” can mean many things or nothing at all, depending upon the terms we are using and the scholarly methods we deploy. The crucial aspect of Dalit Catholic home shrines is that they are literally open to interpretation and reinterpretation, to touching and being touched. Their significance—their meaning—depends not on decoding their structure or symbolic logic, but interacting with them as part of …

The Grace Of God And The Travails Of Contemporary Indian Catholicism, Kerry P. C. San Chirico

Journal of Global Catholicism

This essay discusses the challenges faced by Indian Catholicism, particularly as it seeks to adapt to and in contemporary, post-colonial India through the process or program of what is called inculturation, a self-conscious program of adaptation to Indian religion and culture. Since Indian Catholicism is constituted by so many irreducible persons-in-relation, the article focuses on the life of the Catholic priest, Swami Ishwar Prasad in whose life we may chart something of the inculturation movement and the Catholic tradition as it is found in North India region, in one rather long and rich lifetime connecting two centuries. The article seeks …

In Continuity With The Past: Indigenous Environmentalism And Indian Christian Visions Of Flora, James Ponniah

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article considers whether Indian Christianity can be said to have a distinctive ecological vision. The first two parts of the article examine Christian environmentalism in two native forms of Indian Christianity: Tamil Christianity and Tribal Christianity. Continuing with the theme of conformity to the local culture—though of the elite—the third part of the article investigates how Christian Ashrams function as dynamic centers for ecological praxis. The last part of the article considers how contemporary Indian Christian communities can respond to the ecological challenges confronting them.

Antoniyar Kōvil: Hindu-Catholic Identity At The St. Anthony Shrine In St. Mary’S Co-Cathedral, Chennai, Pj Johnston

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article combines ethnographic description of the practices of Hindu and Christian visitors of the St. Antony Shrine in Chennai with the observation that this material cannot be understood using the standard world religions paradigm that essentializes Christianity as exclusivistic. Drawing upon the visual and material culture of the shrine in light of premodern and Vatican II templates for inculturation and the negotiation of religious difference, the article highlights overlap between Tamil Hinduism and the Tamil Popular Catholicism of the site to argue that the beliefs and practices documented should inform descriptive and normative accounts of Catholic Christianity. Because Tamil …

Foster, Gary (Fa 885), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 885. Paper titled: “Folk Cures of Barren County.” Project includes index cards with brief descriptions of folk cures along with a map of the collection area in Barren County, Kentucky. Cards include a brief description of the cure and informant’s name.

Robbins, Richard D. (Fa 881), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 881. Paper titled: “Breckinridge County Smokehouses.” Project includes survey sheets with descriptions of smokehouses and meat curing in Breckinridge County, Kentucky. Sheets include a description and informant’s name.

Beatty, Beverly D. (Fa 884), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 884. Paper titled: “Jewish Folklore.” Project includes survey sheets and note cards with brief descriptions of various religious and superstitious beliefs. Survey sheets and note cards include a brief description of each belief or saying and informant’s name.

Adair, Mary And Dian Whitlock (Fa 882), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 882. Paper titled: “Architecture and Culture of Schochoh, Kentucky.” Project includes survey sheets with brief descriptions of various buildings along with a map of the area of Schochoh in Logan County, Kentucky. Sheets include a brief description, the informant’s name, and a photo and/or illustration of the building.

Bradley, Peggy And Dianah Logsdon (Fa 883), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Collection 883. Paper titled: “Negro Religious Beliefs.” Project includes survey sheets with descriptions of religious beliefs and practices of African Americans in Kentucky. Sheets include a description and informant’s name.

Culture And Conservation: Beyond Anthropocentrism, Nathan Poirier

Journal of Ecological Anthropology

No abstract provided.

Pace, Clint And Linda Pace (Fa 879), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 879. Project titled: “Water-powered Mills in Warren County, Kentucky.” Includes history of water run mill sites in Warren County, Kentucky, mill terms, and survey sheets with brief descriptions of mills. Sheets include a brief description, informant’s name, and an illustration of the water mill.

Druen, Sibyl Jean And Patricia Gilley (Fa 878), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 878. Paper titled: “Quilt Patterns: The Jonesville and Wisdom Communities.” Project includes survey sheets with brief descriptions of quilt patterns, process and terms of quilters in Hart and Metcalfe Counties, Kentucky. Sheets include a brief description, informant’s name, and a photo or drawing of the quilt and/or quilt pattern.

Brown, Ronnie (Fa 877), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 877. Paper titled: “Old Buildings of Butler County.” Project includes survey sheets with brief descriptions of selected buildings in Butler County, Kentucky. Sheets include a brief description, informant’s name, and photos of each building.

Curtis, Robert (Fa 880), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 880. Paper titled: “Ghost Stories.” Project includes survey sheets with brief descriptions of ghost stories as told by residents of Tompkinsville and Rock Bridge, Kentucky. Sheets include a brief description of ghost story and informant’s name.