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Economics As A Cultural System, Raymond Benton Dec 2015

Economics As A Cultural System, Raymond Benton

Raymond Benton Jr.

This article is an attempt to think about economic theory. The vehicle for thinking about it will be anthropology's concept of culture; the end result will be to suggest that economics is a cultural system, more specifically, that economics is a sacred cultural system. In order to give expression to this view it will be necessary to first sketch the concept of culture as created and historically transmitted systems of symbols and meanings. The argument has been brief and suggestive rather than long and decisive; more exploratory than conclusive. If it is correct, or at least correct in its orientation, …


Response To Commentary On “Rethinking Combined Departments: An Argument For History & Anthropology” By Stephen M. Lyon/Durham University, Uk; Yasar Abu Ghosh, Pavel Himl, Tereza Stöckelová, Lucie Storchová/Charles University, Prague; Robert Gibb/University Of Glasgow; Jakob Krause-Jensen/Aarhus University, Denmark; Veerendra P. Lele/Denison University, Ageeth Sluis, Elise Edwards Sep 2015

Response To Commentary On “Rethinking Combined Departments: An Argument For History & Anthropology” By Stephen M. Lyon/Durham University, Uk; Yasar Abu Ghosh, Pavel Himl, Tereza Stöckelová, Lucie Storchová/Charles University, Prague; Robert Gibb/University Of Glasgow; Jakob Krause-Jensen/Aarhus University, Denmark; Veerendra P. Lele/Denison University, Ageeth Sluis, Elise Edwards

Ageeth Sluis

Contains response from the authors, Ageeth Sluis and Elise Edwards.


Rethinking Combined History Departments: An Argument For History And Anthropology, Ageeth Sluis, Elise Edwards Sep 2015

Rethinking Combined History Departments: An Argument For History And Anthropology, Ageeth Sluis, Elise Edwards

Ageeth Sluis

Many opportunities for more integrated teaching that better capture the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary scholars' work and better achieve the aims of liberal arts education still remain untapped, particularly at smaller schools where combined departments are often necessary. The disciplinary boundaries between history and sociocultural anthropology have become increasingly blurred in recent decades, a trend reflected in scholarly work that engages with both fields, as well as dual-degree graduate programmes at top U.S. research universities. For many scholars, this interdisciplinarity makes sense, with the two disciplines offering critical theoretical tools and methods that must be used in combination to tackle …


Response To Commentary On “Rethinking Combined Departments: An Argument For History & Anthropology” By Stephen M. Lyon/Durham University, Uk; Yasar Abu Ghosh, Pavel Himl, Tereza Stöckelová, Lucie Storchová/Charles University, Prague; Robert Gibb/University Of Glasgow; Jakob Krause-Jensen/Aarhus University, Denmark; Veerendra P. Lele/Denison University, Ageeth Sluis, Elise Edwards Sep 2015

Response To Commentary On “Rethinking Combined Departments: An Argument For History & Anthropology” By Stephen M. Lyon/Durham University, Uk; Yasar Abu Ghosh, Pavel Himl, Tereza Stöckelová, Lucie Storchová/Charles University, Prague; Robert Gibb/University Of Glasgow; Jakob Krause-Jensen/Aarhus University, Denmark; Veerendra P. Lele/Denison University, Ageeth Sluis, Elise Edwards

Elise M. Edwards

Contains response from the authors, Ageeth Sluis and Elise Edwards.


Foreword: Transdisciplinary Conflicts Of Law, Ralf Michaels, Karen Knop, Annelise Riles Dec 2014

Foreword: Transdisciplinary Conflicts Of Law, Ralf Michaels, Karen Knop, Annelise Riles

Annelise Riles

This introduction to our co-edited special issue of Law and Contemporary Problems addresses how interdisciplinary studies might contribute to the revitalization of the field of Conflict of Laws. The introduction surveys existing approaches to interdisciplinarity in conflict of laws - drawn primarily from economics, political science, anthropology and sociology. It argues that most of these interdisciplinary efforts have remained internal to the law, relating conflicts to other legal spheres and issue areas. It summarizes some of the contributions of these projects but also outlines the ways they fall short of the full promise of interdisciplinary work in Conflicts scholarship, and …


Message In A Bottle: Lyrical Laments And Emotional Expression In Mandopop, Marc Moskowitz Aug 2014

Message In A Bottle: Lyrical Laments And Emotional Expression In Mandopop, Marc Moskowitz

Marc L. Moskowitz

This article explores the ubiquitous themes of loneliness, isolation and anomie in Mandopop (Mandarin Chinese language pop music). This is not to imply that people in the PRC and Taiwan are lonelier than people from other countries but, rather, that being human they experience these emotions. What is distinctive here is that Mandopop becomes a primary conduit to express feelings that are sanctioned in daily speech. The article addresses these concerns and uses in-depth interviews in Shanghai and Taipei to find out why Mandopop's themes ofloneliness and isolation are so resonant to its fans.


Review Of The Book The World Below: Body And Cosmos In Otomí Indian Ritual By Jacques Galinier, Alan Sandstrom Mar 2013

Review Of The Book The World Below: Body And Cosmos In Otomí Indian Ritual By Jacques Galinier, Alan Sandstrom

Alan R. Sandstrom

No abstract provided.


Comment On Fractilidad, Materialidad, Y Cultura: Un Estudio Etnoarqueologico De Los Awa-Guaja De Marnahao (Brasil), Jonathan Martin Feb 2013

Comment On Fractilidad, Materialidad, Y Cultura: Un Estudio Etnoarqueologico De Los Awa-Guaja De Marnahao (Brasil), Jonathan Martin

Jonathan Martin

No abstract provided.


Opposition And Complementarity Of The Sexes In Ndumba Initiation, Terence Hays Dec 2012

Opposition And Complementarity Of The Sexes In Ndumba Initiation, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

In this analysis of the juxtaposition of gender opposition and complementarity by Terence Hays, two important ceremonies of the unique culture of the Ndumba Highlanders are examined. Hays observes both gender ceremonies: the 'unmanra which is the male ceremony and the kwaasi which is the female ceremony. By observing these two ceremonies, Hays determines that the males and females believe they are opposed by their natures, but are also interdependent. By examining this culture's expressions of gender opposition, conversation, and complementarity, Hays believes understanding can then be realized.


A Historical Background To Anthropology In The Papua New Guinea Highlands, Terence Hays Nov 2012

A Historical Background To Anthropology In The Papua New Guinea Highlands, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

This work is a historical background of the early days of how and why anthropological fieldwork was conducted and includes the viewpoints of those who were actually there. Hays, like many others, made his region choice of the Papua New Guinea Highlands based on his imense interest and literature reviews of which happened to be in the literature of the Highlands with works by L.L. Langness, Kenneth E. Read, and James B. Watson. Hays also called upon conversations he had with David Cole and Kerry Pataki-Schweizer for his precise location choice. Hays discusses the early ethnographers during the colonial period …


Initiation As Experience, Terence Hays Nov 2012

Initiation As Experience, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

In honor of Kenneth E. Read, Terence Hays' essays of The New Guinea Highlands and their culture are a memory brought to the surface by Read's descriptive imagery of his experience witnessing a boy named Asemo who entered into manhood. Hays remembers his own experience of observing a right of passage in Ndumba in 1971 of five young boys. Hays infers the level of importance this culture puts on rights of passage and the shift in behavior exuded by those who are terrorized by the act. Hays remarks how what he saw before him were five very different boys from …


What Does One Do With White People Who Stay?, Terence Hays Nov 2012

What Does One Do With White People Who Stay?, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

This article is a retrospective of Terence Hays and his early ethnographic experiences with the Ndumba and with those who had almost no contact with Europeans. Hays draws on other works by those who also played the "pioneer" role in their field work and discusses how the society has handled the impact from the first contact of the "true pioneers" who had arrived almost 20 years prior to Hays and the others. Many of the Highlanders already were drawing on their previous experiences with the Europeans to deal with them as a constant in their lives. Hays notes that even …


Sound Symbolism, Onomatopoeia, And New Guinea Frog Names, Terence Hays Nov 2012

Sound Symbolism, Onomatopoeia, And New Guinea Frog Names, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

Brent Berlin has recently proposed the use of r sounds as a substantive universal in the names given to frogs and toads, a tendency that he attributes to onomatopoeia. A data set from over 200 New Guinea languages is analyzed. Berlin's proposal regarding r sounds recieves strong support, but an even more significant pattern is found with respect to g sounds. Onomatopoeia is a possible motivation for both of these patterns.


Delineating Regions With Permeable Boundaries In New Guinea., Terence Hays Nov 2012

Delineating Regions With Permeable Boundaries In New Guinea., Terence Hays

Terence Hays

Hays sets out the linkages among communities and societies as they form networks and regions in New Guinea. Hays reminds us of the long standing concern within the recent literature from New Guinea that supports the "primitive isolates" notion that is still with us. The "my people" syndrome still plagues the legions of researchers who seek to study a small distinct population that is largely uncontaminated by outside influences and remains primitive. He paints the picture of this primitive society by describing New Guinea topographically as a land of inaccessible mountain valleys, impenetrable swamps, and remote rain forests which make …


Oceania - From Tobacco In Culture And History: An Encyclopedia, Vol 2, Terence Hays Nov 2012

Oceania - From Tobacco In Culture And History: An Encyclopedia, Vol 2, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

The earliest historical record of tobacco use in Oceania dates back from 1616 on islands off the northwest coast of New Guinea. Tobacco cultivation may have been introduced to the philippines by the Spanish as early as 1575, but it was after large-scale cultivation began to flourish in Europe in the 1590's that the use of tobacco, if not always its cultivation, rapidly spread, with introductions by the Dutch in Java in 1601 and almost immediate diffusion throughout what is now Indonesia, with Halmahera becoming a center of cultivation and export (as was Java) by 1616.


Tairora - From The Greenwood Encyclopedia Of World Folklore And Folklife, Terence Hays Nov 2012

Tairora - From The Greenwood Encyclopedia Of World Folklore And Folklife, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

Encyclopedia entry regarding the geography, history, and culture of Tairora located in the Kainantu District of the Eastern Highlands Province of Papau New Guinea.


Folktales From Habi'ina, Katnantu District, Eastern Highlands Province, Terence Hays Nov 2012

Folktales From Habi'ina, Katnantu District, Eastern Highlands Province, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

The people of Habi'ina village live on the northern slopes of Mount Piora in the Dogara Census Division of the Kainantu District, Eastern Highlands Province. Like other Papua New Guineans, they possess a rich oral literature and tell each other stories for a wide variety of reasons. All stories are called huri, but several different types can be distinguished.


A Pacific Island Collection In Rhode Island, Terence Hays, Mary Conaway, Susan Yeaw Nov 2012

A Pacific Island Collection In Rhode Island, Terence Hays, Mary Conaway, Susan Yeaw

Terence Hays

Collections of artifacts and specimens from Pacific Island cultures are found throughout Rhode Island. The largest and most systematically collected is in the Museum of Natural History in Roger Williams Park, Providence. The items were acquired by Rhode Island citizens over about a 150 year period from the early 1800's to the 1950's. They are from the 3 culture areas of the Pacific: Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia. All form of matter including wood, shell, fiber, bone and skin, ivory, pottery, stone, and human hair are part of the artifact assemblage. The specimens (not studied for this project) include birds, lava, …


Missionaries - From Tobacco In Culture And History: An Encyclopeida, Vol. 1, Terence Hays Nov 2012

Missionaries - From Tobacco In Culture And History: An Encyclopeida, Vol. 1, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

For centuries, many missionaries have reflected the ambivalent and sometimes shifting views held by their peers back home, with their actions shaped by local circumstances as well as moral debates. In other cases, missionaries-most notably Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, and members of various evangelical sects of Protestantism-have long been opposed to smoking. Today, most missionaries around the world at least publicly speak out against tobacco use because of associated health risks. Whether only by example or as direct interoducers or suppliers, missionaries joined other colonial agents in the spread and support of tobacco use historically, regardless of what their common …


'Pigs Of The Forest' And Other Unwritten Papers, Terence Hays Nov 2012

'Pigs Of The Forest' And Other Unwritten Papers, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

Hays recounts his ethnographic observances while studying the peoples of the Papua New Guinea Highlands during a feast. During the feast, Hays plays the dutiful observer and note taker waiting off to one side. He notes that he and his wife, were the first "red people" both the children and adults have ever seen on a daily basis and finds himself the object of interest and stares. The children were excited whenever they received attention from he and his wife which Hays always found compelling. One of the children that was there that day was a young boy who Hays …


"Myths Of Matriarchy" And The Sacred Flute Complex Of The Papua New Guinea Highlands, Terence Hays Nov 2012

"Myths Of Matriarchy" And The Sacred Flute Complex Of The Papua New Guinea Highlands, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

In Hays study of the "Myths of Matriarchy" in the Papua New Guinea Highlands, he draws upon Joan Bamberger's "Myths of Matriarchy" from 1974. He seeks to address whether Bamberger's analysis of South American objects can illuminate those from the area he is studying, that of the Highlands of New Guinea. Hays notes that there is a long argued idea that the "sacred flute complex" was manifested from and contributed to the mutually antagonistic gender relations of the societies in which that area is known for and that once upon a time women brandished the flute and bullroarer instruments and …


"They Need Labels": Contemporary Institutional And Popular Frameworks For Gender Variance, Ophelia Bradley Aug 2012

"They Need Labels": Contemporary Institutional And Popular Frameworks For Gender Variance, Ophelia Bradley

Ophelia Bradley

This study addresses the complex issues of etiology and conceptualization of gender variance in the modern West. By analyzing medical, psychological, and popular approaches to gender variance, I demonstrate the highly political nature of each of these paradigms and how gender variant individuals engage with these discourses in the elaboration of their own gender identities. I focus on the role of institutional authority in shaping popular ideas about gender variance and the relationship of gender variant individuals who seek medical intervention towards the systems that regulate their care. Also relevant are the tensions between those who view gender variance as …


"No Tobacco, No Hallelujah" , Terence Hays Jul 2012

"No Tobacco, No Hallelujah" , Terence Hays

Terence Hays

According to myths and legends told by some peoples of New Guinea, tobacco is an ancient and indigenous plant, having appeared sponotaneously in a variety of ways. In other instances, the plant and the custom of smoking it are said to have been established by local culture heroes, while still other traditions prosaically cite adoptions from neighboring groups. On the basis of oral history alone, then, one might conclude that New Guinea tobacco appeared in widely scattered locations in the mythic past, and its distribution at the time of European contact is explainable as simple diffusion within the region.


Kuku-"God Of The Motuites", Terence Hays Jul 2012

Kuku-"God Of The Motuites", Terence Hays

Terence Hays

When European colonists arrived in Papua New Guinea, tobacco and the custom of smoking already were widespread but not universal. The newcomers quickly filled this void by introducing trade tobacco, which nearly everywhere was rapidly adopted. A "passion" for smoking was especially evident among those to whom tobacco was previously unknown or very new. The chemical properties of nicotine combined with an absence of cultural rules regarding its use to create a new "god."


Sacred Texts And Introductory Texts, Terence Hays Jul 2012

Sacred Texts And Introductory Texts, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

A survey of 118 introductory anthropology textbooks published in the period 1929-1990 examines the ways in which Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa has been presented to college undergraduates. In contrast to Derek Freeman's claim that her conclusions about Samoan sexuality and adolescence have been reiterated (approvingly) in an "unbroken succesion of anthropological textbooks," it appears that this work has been ignored almost as often as it has been cited. Criticesms of Mead, although relatively few and almost entirely methodological, have also been incorporated into texstbooks, both before and following Freeeman's 1983 book, Margaret Mead and Samoa. Whether or …


Introduction To Encyclopedia Of World Cultures Volume 2, Oceania, Terence Hays Jul 2012

Introduction To Encyclopedia Of World Cultures Volume 2, Oceania, Terence Hays

Terence Hays

No abstract provided.


Class And Kinship In Sudanese Urban Communities, Richard Lobban Apr 2012

Class And Kinship In Sudanese Urban Communities, Richard Lobban

Richard A Lobban

This article represents some of the results of three field research studies of urbanization in the Sudan. The research has focussed on two urban communities in the Khartoum area, those known as Tuti Island' and Burri al Mahas.2 The first study was conducted as doctoral research in 1970-72; a brief re-study took place in 1975, and most recently research was conducted in 1979-80. This ten-year period was a time during which major economic and demographic change occurred in the urban Sudan.


America And Political Islam, Richard Lobban Apr 2012

America And Political Islam, Richard Lobban

Richard A Lobban

I received this book before 11 September 2001 and am reviewing it in the aftermath of that day. One could not imagine a more intense crucible in which to view a work on political Islam. Under the glare of the fiery collapse at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and with bombs falling on Taliban and al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, the work of an author and a reviewer requires even greater scrutiny.


Pigs And Their Prohibition, Richard Lobban Apr 2012

Pigs And Their Prohibition, Richard Lobban

Richard A Lobban

Little is more central to the study of the modern Middle East than religion. Amidst the differences between the Judaic and Islamic traditions, both are unified about the religious prohibition of swine as a source of food. This taboo is one of the more significant common markers of their ethnicity and religious code.


War Clouds On The Horn Of Africa, Richard Lobban Apr 2012

War Clouds On The Horn Of Africa, Richard Lobban

Richard A Lobban

To review a book published five years ago describing a region in great turbulence is a great challenge. As one of those who has also written on aspects of the Horn of Africa it is tragically clear that the region's hostilities have brought misery and death for thousands. Resting with their remains are countless prophecies and predictions which had sought to analyze the latest events. These remarks may sound like defensive apologies of the author of this book, but I will defend him by assessing the difficulty of interpreting a dynamic and volatile region in the paroxysms of radical change.