Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Conducting Ethnography In China, Leung-Sea, Lucia Siu

Prof. SIU Leung-sea, Lucia

Conducting ethnography in modern China can be highly fruitful, yet there are special-care items that seldom appear in methodology literature. Drawn from the author’s fieldwork in China’s futures markets in 2005, the first part of this paper discusses a list of practical items that ethnographers are likely to face: field access, the organizational culture of public and quasi-public institutions, obtaining trust, the scenarios of gifts and banquets, reliability of statistical data, politically sensitive areas, and personal safety.

The second part is a reflection on standpoint issues, namely Orientalism and nationalism. Ethnographers usually face tensions that arise from their roles, as …

The Ethical Trade In Cultural Property: Ethics And Law In The Antiquity Auction Industry, Kimberly L. Alderman

Kimberly L. Alderman

This article considers from an ethical perspective the role that auction houses play as facilitators of the illicit antiquity trade. It reviews the laws that regulate the antiquity auction industry and explains why they fail to prevent the trade in illegally excavated and exported cultural property. The article argues that auction houses should develop policies focused on ethics instead of regulatory compliance, explains why this would better further cultural preservation interests and protect creator cultures, and looks at potential business benefits of an ethical model.

The International Smuggling Of Children: Coyotes, Snakeheads, And The Politics Of Compassion, Greta Uehling

Greta Uehling

No abstract provided.

Simply History: A Review Of Recent Thought On Ethnography, Reflexivity And Auto/Ethnography, Denice J. Szafran

Denice J Szafran, Ph.D.

Since its inception as a discipline, anthropology utilized fieldwork with methodologies of participant-observation, surveys/interviews, and archival research, to record information on cultures. Traditionally the researcher disseminated this information in the form of a monograph, theoretically framed and laden with data, aimed almost exclusively at interested parties within academe. Informants spoke to researchers, who in turn "translated" what they heard into information on the varied and various traits of that culture, conflating methodology with presentation into the concept of ethnography. The debate about how best to represent ethnographic realism as a totality of cultural experience began in the discipline several decades …

Starhawk Re/Claims A View Of The World, Denice J. Szafran

Denice J Szafran, Ph.D.

From the turmoil and turbulence of society in the United States in the mid-20th century arose many movements and groups labeled “counter-cultural.” One such group, Reclaiming Collective, allegedly began as a feminist and alternative religious venture, but through the influence and leadership of its founder, Starhawk, it has taken on the additional role of attempting to alter the society from which it sprang. Culture change is complex and has far-ranging effects. I examine the possible reasons for the birth of Reclaiming through: the theories of cultural materialism and Weberian theories on religion; apply theories of intentional community and invented tradition; …

Proceedings From Scientific Conference On Green Energy And It, Dr. Erik Dahlquist

Dr. Erik Dahlquist

This conference is part of the annual Energitinget, a national arena for energy in Sweden, with some 2500 participants. The focus with this session is to give a forum for researchers to present scientific results, and also to discuss these with other researchers. It contains papers in the area of Energy and IT as well as Green energy generally

Queer Archaeology, Mathematical Modeling, And The Peopling Of The Americas, Elizabeth S. Chilton

Elizabeth S. Chilton

Issues of chronology, technology, and subsistence have long dominated discussions of the peopling of the Americas, to the near exclusion of more anthropological topics. For example, little attention has been given to the social implications of an unpeopled landscape for understanding and indigenous sex roles and gendered relationships of the first Native Americans. There has been some recent discussion of the sexual division of labor among Paleo-Indians—and even women’s fertility (MacDonald 1998; Surovell 2000; Waguespack 2005). However, many of these approaches are fraught with biological and environmental determinism as well as gender stereotypes. Taking a page from queer theory, in …

Words Leave No Fossils: Positing The Spread Of Indo-European Languages Across Neolithic Europe, Denice J. Szafran

Denice J Szafran, Ph.D.

Various disciplines of anthropology generally accept that the Indo-European language spread throughout Europe some time after the Mesolithic era; how and when this happened is consistently debated, however. Archaeological and archaeogenetic theories on these details are wide and varied, including Gimbutas' kurgan invasions, Renfrew's peer polity, Renfrew and Bellwood's first farmers, Adams and Otte's climactic change, Robb's sociological and Cavalli-Sforza's genetic studies. Most of these give only cursory glances to linguistic theories of the methods of language diffusion and dispersal, or in the case of memetics, have attempted to combine the two divergent fields. An analysis of these theories leads …

Four-Thousand-Year-Old Gold Artifacts From The Lake Titicaca Basin, Southern Peru, Mark Aldenderfer, Nathan M. Craig, Robert J. Speakman, Rachel Popelka-Filcoff

Nathan M Craig

Artifacts of cold-hammered native gold have been discovered in a secure and undisturbed Terminal Archaic burial context at Jiskairumoko, a multicomponent Late Archaic–Early Formative period site in the southwestern Lake Titicaca basin, Peru. The burial dates to 3776 to 3690 carbon-14 years before the present (2155 to 1936 calendar years B.C.), making this the earliest worked gold recovered to date not only from the Andes, but from the Americas as well. This discovery lends support to the hypothesis that the earliest metalworking in the Andes was experimentation with native gold. The presence of gold in a society of low-level food …

Chapter 04: Social Norms, Wolfgang Fikentscher

Wolfgang Fikentscher

Inclusive online updates jan10. The issue of social norms, well-known in moral theory, has not yet been much discussed in cultural anthropology. Chapter 4 develops a theory of social norms by identifying them with the fora on which humans can be held responsible.

Chapter 12: Torts, Crimes, Sanctions. Witchcraft And Related Issues (The Anthropology Of Compensatory Or Retributive Justice), Wolfgang Fikentscher

Wolfgang Fikentscher

Inclusive online updates jan10. Chapter 12 on torts and other wrongdoings will treat, along with the traditionally well researched basic concepts of this field of legtal anthropology (to which only brief attention will be given) a recently again debated alleged contrast between shame and guilt societies, the phenomenon of knowledge as witchcraft, and a short report on the growth and institutionalization of international criminal law. Early cultures do not distinguish between torts and crimes. They speak of wrongdoings. A designation of the person who commits the the tort or crime, is a “perpetrator” who is the defendant in civil and …

Chapter 02: History, Schools, And Names Of Anthropology Of Law, Wolfgang Fikentscher

Wolfgang Fikentscher

Inclusive online update jan10. The materials for this Chapter are mainly taken from Marschall (1991), Kohl (2001), Feest & Kohl (2001), Ortner (1984), Gottowik (1997), from my class readers (see Preface, above) and W. Fikentscher (1995/2004), 77 – 92. Apart from interest in, and observation of, current events in the anthropology of law, there was no additional research of my own. References may be found in Chapter 1 I. 6 or in the bibliographical subchapter III. below. In Chapter 2, the presentation of schools, directions, and names in cultural anthropology as well as a report on the crisis of ethnographic …

Chapter 03: Basic Concepts, Wolfgang Fikentscher

Wolfgang Fikentscher

Inclusive online updates jan10. Dealing with basic concepts of legal anthropology in Chapter 3, the presently much discussed (and practically important, see Chapter 13 V.1.), a focus is on the issue of ethnicity and cultural identity. Furthermore, Chapter 3 offers a freshly organized presentation of what may be called the issue of civilizational stages, in preparation of Chapter 9 where correlations between organizational, economical, religious and thought-modal traits are discussed. In Chapter 3, definitorial and functional aspects of basic concepts of anthropology are separated. For example, big man society, lineage, ramage, and clan structures are presented as such, and not …

Chapter 07: Biological Anthropology In Its Relation To The Anthropology Of Law, Wolfgang Fikentscher

Wolfgang Fikentscher

Inclusive online updates jan10. Systematically, anthropology c an be divided in cultural and biologocal (=physical, physiological) anthropology. Historically, in all stages of its development, anthropology has its period-specific relationship between its cultural and biological side. The following four examples may illustrate this: The cultural-anthropological evolutionists were strongly influenced by the biologist Charles Darwin. Bronislaw Malinowski’s functionalism focused on behavioral and psychological side of human society. Later anthropological studies included biological data in their ethnographic, materialist, or structuralist studies. The biological-anthropological research on – apparently - innate universals such as incest avoidance, hierarchy, possession, and liberty to act pose legal issues. …

Chapter 06: Analyses In Cultural Anthropology, Wolfgang Fikentscher

Wolfgang Fikentscher

Inclusive online updates jan10. Chapter 6, on anthropological analyses, starts with a criticism of ethnocentrism by using some contemporary examples, including the much debated “export of democracy”, in connection with Immanuel Kant’s theory of “eternal peace” through democracy. Chapter 6 also introduces the new idea of using synepeia analysis, as developed for the cultural anthropology of the modes of thoughts, as useful for other issues of cultural anthropology as well. This adds a new dimension to the much debated emic-etic discussion. It will be shown that a solution to this discussion might be the replacement of the traditional inside-outside approach …

Chapter 16: Applied Anthropology Of Law, Postscript - Update Apr09-Jan10, Wolfgang Fikentscher

Wolfgang Fikentscher

Inclusive online updates jan10. Chapter 16 focuses on applied anthropology and contains a renewed appeal, directed to the younger generation, to become engaged in culture-pertinent legal work. Currently much debated issues are ethnocentrism, modes of thought, identity, inalienable rights, problems related to the US, Europe, and Islam, as well as multicultural, ecumenical, foreign aid, and comparative issues. Applied anthropology is the use of anthropology in a prescriptive sense. Anthropologists are sometimes asked to prepare economic or political steps to be taken by international organizations, national governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), foreign aid groups, military planners, environmental expert teams, trade unions, etc. …

Chapter 10: Reciprocity, Exchange, Gifts, Contracting, Trust (The Anthropology Of Commutative Justice), Wolfgang Fikentscher

Wolfgang Fikentscher

Inclusive online updates jan10. The anthropology of law borders at the anthropologies of religion and of economics. Interdisciplinary work in these three fields is essential. In the anthropology of economics, this raises the issue whether to approach the overlapping areas from the economic or the anthropological side. This chapter argues in favor of the latter, reporting on (I.). an overview of the mainstream results and ensuing remarks and, (II.) because of their special importance for modern political tasks, the anthropology of the market and of competition, including the anthropologies of giving thanks and corruption. As in all chapters, a bibliography …

American Indian Law Codes: Pragmatic Law And Tribal Identity, Wolfgang Fikentscher, Robert Cooter

Wolfgang Fikentscher

No abstract provided.

Chapter 13: Jurisdiction. Procedure And Dispute Settlement. Conflicts Of Law (The Anthropology Of Jurisdictional Justice, Of Procedural Justice, And Of Conflicts Justice), Wolfgang Fikentscher

Wolfgang Fikentscher

Inclusive online updates jan10. As mentioned in the foreword, Chapter 13, in addition to presenting general aspects of procedure, deals with the legal anthropology of conflict of laws as a novelty that will be discussed at greater detail using Native American material for sake of illustration. Comments concerning, heuristic law finding, culture-specific maxims of legal procedure, and the context of material, substantive procedural, and jurisdictional law, are also included.

Chapter 01: Anthropology Of Law As A Science - Prefatory Materials, Wolfgang Fikentscher

Wolfgang Fikentscher

Inclusive online updates jan10. Chapter 1 redefines the position of legal anthropology within the social sciences. A new definition of law for anthropological purposes is sought, and in this context authority as an indispensable conceptional element of law is discussed in a new light. The relationship of law and justice will appear in a new light. Legal pluralism willo show two separable dimensions. Among the social science aspects of anthropology, empirical thinking and guidance by models are being contrasted and related to Pre-socratic, Platonic and Kantian epistemology.

Chapter 09: Societal Order, Personhood, And Human Rights (The Anthropology Of Constitutional Justice), Wolfgang Fikentscher

Wolfgang Fikentscher

Inclusive online updates jan10. Next to family and kinship, society is the closest framework and mark of orientation to a “higher mammal” such as the human being (cf. Chapter 7; and I., below). Chapter 9 deals with societal and social ordering of human life and thus represent the “public side” of personhood. This gives rise to a simultaneous discussion of the concept of personhood in anthropology. Johann Wolfgang Goethe once remarked in his drama “Dr. Faustus”: “It’s in their gods that humans paint themselves” (In seinen Göttern malt sich der Mensch). Similarly, Goethe could have said: “In his companionships man …

Chapter 17: Illustrations, Wolfgang Fikentscher

Wolfgang Fikentscher

Illustrations

Digital Heritage As A Dynamic Source In The School Of Information And Knowledge: Teaching Scenarios And Applications Using Infromation And Communication Technologies, Kosmas Touloumis

Kosmas Touloumis

Teaching with Information and Communications Technologies provides a significant opportunity for the study of cultural heritage and its management by the students. Τhe present paper discusses the need to develop a digital cultural heritage didactic and analogous learning scenarios, following the modern pedagogic principles and methods, based on: - The use of the official digitized cultural data and archives as multimodal semiotic resources in the ICT teaching context - The exploitation of digital nodes and digitized heritage archives, on the elaboration of interdisciplinary and collaborative projects by the students themselves - The social networking and the use of Web 2.0. …

The International Smuggling Of Children, Greta Uehling

Greta Uehling

Each year, over 100,000 children are apprehended entering the United States unaccompanied by parents or legal guardians, and without valid immigration documents. As many as 8,000 of these children are placed in an elaborate system of border patrol detention centers, shelter facilities, and courts. While the Department of Health and Human Services (through the Office of Refugee Resettlement) funds programs that care for the undocumented immigrants, the Department of Justice, (through the Department of Homeland Security) sweeps up and deports the very same children (or their parents). Apprehended children therefore bring to light the competing agendas of security and humanitarianism. …

War And Social Life In Prehispanic Peru: Ritual, Defense, And Communities At The Fortress Of Acaray, Huaura Valley, Margaret Brown Vega

Margaret Brown Vega

This is a study of ritual, war, and how those frame the construction of communities. Excavations at the fortress of Acaray in the Huaura Valley, Perú yielded evidence for conflict and ritual activities associated with two major time periods: the Early Horizon (ca. 900-200 B.C.) and the Late Intermediate Period (ca. A.D. 1000-1476). Using site survey and excavation data, a geographic information system to perform spatial analysis, and data on regional contexts this study demonstrates that Acaray was simultaneously a place constructed with defense in mind, and a locale for ritual activities linked to the strengthening of social bonds and …

Aproximaciones Arqueológicas Al Ritual En Los Andes: Un Análisis Del Espacio Ritual Durante El Periodo Formativo Medio En El Sitio Chiripa, Bolivia, Andrew P. Roddick

Andrew P Roddick

En esta ponencia presentaré varios datos cerámicos con el fin de examinar la función de dos estructuras pertenecientes al Período Formativo Medio (800-200 a.C.) en el sitio Chiripa, ubicado en la cuenca del lago Titicaca, Bolivia. Se inves- tigan, además, las actividades asociadas con la arquitectura doméstica y ritual, junto con una evaluación de la tradición religiosa Yaya-mama, presentada inicialmente por Chávez y Chávez, y representada por la arquitectura de Chiripa y sus artefactos asociados. Se hace referencia a la posibilidad de presencia tanto de festividades como de intercambio durante el Período Formativo Medio, a partir de un análisis cerámico …

Can A Person Subject To Islamic Law Make A Will In Nigeria?: Ajibaiye V Ajibaiye And Mr. Dadem’S Wild Goose Chase, Abdulmumini A. Oba

Abdulmumini A Oba

Subsequent to the controversial case of Yunusa v Adesubokan (1971) where Supreme Court which held that a Muslim can make will under the Wills Act even if the terms of the will are inconsistent with inheritance laws under Islamic law, the Wills Act and the various State Wills Laws were amended by making them subject to Islamic law and customary law. While the amendments have been upheld severally by the Supreme Court in relation to customary law, the Court of Appeal case of Ajibaiye v Ajibaiye (2007) is the first reported case in relation to Islamic law. Mr. Dadem in …

Seis Mil Años De Historia De Alicante: El Tossal De Les Basses., Pablo Rosser

pablo rosser

Catálogo de la exposición Seis mil años de historia de Alicante, realizada en el edificio anexo a los Pozos de Garrigós, Alicante, en donde se mostraban y explicaban las distintas culturas que se asentaron en este yacimiento, el más antiguo e importante de Alicante.

De Paradojas Y Neocons, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.

Political Liberalism And Public Reason, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

The paper explores John Rawls´s idea of public reason, as reflected in Political Liberalism and The Idea of Public Reason Revisited. In Rawls’s later works, public reason acquires fundamental significance as a criterion by which the principles to be assumed from the outset in a theory of political justice may be determined. The starting-point for Rawls´s theory -the idea of citizens as free and equal reveals- that this abstraction falls short of an authentic conception of human beings as social by nature. A brief study of key issues concerning marriage and the family shows the difficulties that underlie this question. …