Anthropological Sense Research Articles

Cross-cultural translation studies as thick translation

Taking its cue from two specific examples (particular terms used by Aristotle and by Yan Fu) the first part of this article rehearses the hermeneutic question of cross-cultural understanding but gears the discussion to the specific issues of the complicity of translation in cross-cultural understanding, whether in an historical or an anthropological sense, and of the need to inspect critically the vocabulary used in the exercise. The second part considers practical ways in which the cross-cultural study of translation might proceed. It harks back to I. A. Richards, draws on the anthropology of Clifford Geertz and on philosophical pragmatism to redefine the aim of cross-cultural translation studies, and finally settles on the notion of ‘thick translation’ as a self-reflexive way to engage with other concepts of translation.

ALGUNAS OBSERVACIONES SOBRE EL ESTADO ACTUAL DE LA BIOÉTICA EN ARGENTINA

This paper proposes as thesis that in Argentina bioethics runs the risk of operating as an institution in the anthropological sense this term and that, as su...

The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas. vol. 3: South America, pt. 1

The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas. vol. 3: South America, pt. 1

An environmental history of Great Britain: from 10,000 years ago to the present

This is a history of the environment of England, Wales and Scotland, and of the interactions of people, place and nature since the last ice sheet withdrew some ten thousand years ago. It is concerned with the changing cultures (in the full anthropological sense) of the peoples inhabiting Britain as well as with the environment they transformed, exploited, abused and cherished. As the author points out, every culture in Britain has had to acknowledge its placement on a set of islands 50 N where any month of the year can be the wettest month of the year, where there are some long shallow estuaries and a few deep inlets, and where cereals do not reliably ripen 300 metres above sea-level. Cultural imagination cannot alter these realities, but it can variously view them as dangerous or picturesque, as economic or uneconomic. The book is a history of changing reflexivity in the interactions between people, culture, and nature. The book is structured as a chronological narrative. It is written with unusual grace, wit and clarity, and illustrated with 50 photographs and some 60 maps and diagrams, all specially prepared for this book. The author draws on a very wide range of sources and uses scientific evidence as well as the conventional historical record, as well as on his own experience of the landscapes of Britain. This is cultural and natural history at its best, with a wide appeal within and without the academy.

Religious discourse as metaculture

Religious discourse heard in rural Fijian Methodist contexts is often metacultural, that is, it is a cultural product that comments on 'culture' itself. In this article, I examine the implications of religious discourse's metacultural functions, including the ways in which senses of time's movement are constructed and inflected with moral evaluation, and the ways in which senses are generated of the present's inferiority compared to the past. Drawing on linguistic data from a variety of sources, and examining it at progressively finer levels of analysis, I argue that Fijian Methodist metacultural statements can have profound political impact and effectively circulate 'culture' in the general anthropological sense.

Трансцендентально-антропологічні підвалини креативного мислення в метафізиці І. Канта

Author thinks that Kant's critique of metaphysics is motivated by creative need in execution of the possibility of a holistic world-view. By directing thought to the sphere of theoretically appropriate, Kant gives metaphysics anthropological sense which strengthens his motivation. Anthropologist metaphysics gives motivation to creativity of philosophical thinking by opening volition to connect ontological and axiological in philosophical subject: it gives completeness to worldview. But scientific conscience has not overcome non-critical fantasies that scientific intellect can cognize the last truths about the world without any intensional implicatures of anthropological origin yet. Anthropological method of critical thinking makes scientific intellect holistic and reflexive without censoring religious nature of humankind.

Onna Rashiku (Like a Woman): The Diary of a Language Learner in Japan

political topic. These chapters also describe attempts to implement standardization programs and their impact on the country's sociolinguistic realities. The author, however, saves his harshest criticism for those experts who debate these issues in academic forums but do not address the grassroots problems of plurilingual societies and oral cultures in an anthropological sense. Throughout the book, the author contrasts various approaches to the Indian language experience. He discusses the early and continued conflicts between proponents of a national, common medium and those who argued for the use of local languages in daily life and education, for the linking of nonstandard languages to the mainstream language as a transitional measure, and for the use of a diversity of dialects or languages in speaking with standard language skills used for writing. The author's conclusion is that ESL teachers need to view language diversity both as an asset to society and as an issue to be dealt with pragmatically. The book is difficult for readers in the sense that it assumes a certain

Finding Social Capital: The French Revolution in Italy

If were sharply defined, the term would be less usefully suggestive. It seems to refer to those practices, customs, groups, and institutions that strengthen civil society. In a sense, the concept is always retrospective. We acknowledge the presence of social capital whenever we attribute collective (essentially political) behavior more to established patterns of behavior than to immediate requirements, interests, or tactical calculations. The term is temptingly residual, a signifier for behaviors not simply selfish, and it tends to be used in notably judgmental ways, treating as those practices considered beneficial to society's smooth functioning. Logically, this usage seems somewhat circular and historically rather deterministic. I propose to make this loose term looser, by expanding it to include cultural capital. By cultural capital, I mean the customs of public behavior (a part of culture in the anthropological sense) and the content of shared values (as communicated through the literature and arts of high culture). This definition extends the idea of as used by Putnam and his associates. They measured primarily in terms of voluntary organizations, on the grounds that associational life may, as Tocqueville thought it did, build habits of cooperation and trust that facilitate effective, democratic government. Thinking in the broader terms of cultural invites attention to less institutionalized habits

A Case for Comparing Apples with Oranges Intemational Differences in Values

The Nature of Across Nations Comparisons are odorous (Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing, III, v, 18) Popular wisdom deems that one cannot compare apples with oranges. But what do we mean by 'compare'? Both Oxford and Webster Dictionaries(1) give two meanings to word: (1) liken, regard as similar; and (2) examine in order to observe similarities or differences. It is obvious that general interpretation of word refers to first meaning, and that scientific inquiry involves second. Scientifically speaking, apples and oranges come under general category of 'fruits' and can be compared on many criteria such as availability, price, color, vitamin content or keeping quality. Comparing apples with oranges, cross-cultural psychologist Harry Triandis once said, is okay as long as we possess fruitology, theory of fruits. Any comparison of values and attitudes across nations is in some way comparison of apples to oranges, and without its fruitology it risks being fruitless effort. Three basic questions have to be resolved: (1) nature of criteria for comparison; (2) to what extent nations are proper unit for such comparison, and (3) functional equivalence of nations concerned with respect to criteria considered. 1. The criteria for our comparison are values and attitudes, known as constructs. A construct is directly accessible to observation but inferable from verbal statements and other behaviors and useful in predicting still other observable and measurable verbal and nonverbal behavior (Levitin, 1973: 492). Constructs do not 'exist' in an absolute sense: we define them into existence. Metaphorically I called them mental programs; like computer programs, we cannot observe them directly; we can only observe what they do. In case of people we can observe their behavior, their words and deeds - including way they respond to survey questions - from which we infer presence of stable mental programs (Hofstede, 1980: 14). Inspired by Kluckhohn (1951: 395) and Rokeach (1972:159ff) I defined value as a broad tendency to prefer certain states of affairs over others. The term values is generally reserved for mental programs that are relatively unspecific; attitudes and beliefs refer to more specific mental programs (Hofstede, 1980: 15). I treated values as part of culture, latter defined as the collective programming of mind which distinguishes members of one group or category of people from another. This is not complete definition of culture, which as construct has been notoriously difficult to define, but it covers what I was able to measure in my research (Op. cit.: 25). At level of nations, values that distinguish between nations are component of 'national cultures.' National culture is more or less synonymous to what generation ago used to be called national character, term that infers psychologizing. Culture allows more emphasis on environment in which people function.(2) 2. The use of nations as units for comparing mental programs is debatable. Most anthropologists shy away from nations as units for studying culture. They are basically right, as nations can host many cultures in anthropological sense, and cultures can bridge more than one nation. If data are collected by field observation as anthropologists tend to do, student of culture can choose more relevant units. If data are partly collected from secondary sources, as in most comparative research, one can hardly escape from using nation level. Many potentially culturally relevant data are only available at that level, so nation becomes surrogate for more suitable units. Fortunately, quite few nations are culturally reasonably homogeneous. Older nations have in 20th century been subject to process of homogenization through national media (such as TV) and national institutions (e.g., army and soccer league). …

Initiations et apprentissages à l’hôpital : comment devient-on une infirmière ?

Initiation and training at the hospital. How to become a nurse ? This article presents the foundations of the human relations established in the work of the French, hospital nurses, through initiation stages which inscribe the distinctive marks of the nurses’identity not only on their memory but also on their bodies. The first hospital, training periods in which they become hardened to pain, through the sometimes tough disovery of suffering, are followed by informal training sessions, often very long, with older nurses who are firmly rooted in the field, allowing the young nurses to become more in tune with the emotions raised by the environment or the direct, dirtying, dangerous hand-to-hand fight with illness, death, contagion and madness, in the anthropological sense of the terms.

Reconciliation of Cultures in the Third Republic: Émile Mâle (1862-1954)

RECONCILIATION OF CULTURES IN THE THIRD REPUBLIC: EMILE MALE (1862-1954) Joseph F. Byrnes* The Lost Catholic Patrimony1 When Emile Mâle deciphered the art programs of the French medieval cathedrals, and, in fact, religious art from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries, he rediscovered a culture2—clerical, artistic, and popular—that had been expressed in the art.3 "Mr.Byrnes is professor ofmodern European history in Oklahoma State University,Stillwater . He wishes to acknowledge gratefully the help of Gilberte Émile-Mâle, daughter of the historian; Annick Adam, librarian and archivist at the Bibliothèque de l'Institut; and Daniel Moulinet, Francis-Noël Thomas, and Elizabeth Williams. A brief version of this article was presented at the annual meeting ofthe Western Society for French History in October of 1994.¦André Chastel glosses the term "patrimony" as "an artistic and architectural (monumental ) heritage in which one can recognize oneself." See "Le Patrimoine,"in Pierre Nora (ed.), Les Lieux de mémoire:II La Nation ** (Paris, 1984-1992), p. 420. This volume is one of a series of seven.The first is entitled La République; the second, third, and fourth volumes are bear the title // La Nation, each successive volume indicated by one, two, three asterisks; the fifth, sixth, and seventh volumes all bear the title IIILes France, each successive volume indicated by arabic numerals and subtitles. Readers of these volumes should consult Steven Englund's masterly criticism oftheir analytical framework. See"The Ghost of Nation Past,"Journal ofModern History, 64 (1992), 299-320, and "History in a Late Age: A Review Essay of Pierra Nora, ed., Les France" French Politics and Society, 14 (1996), 68-79- Englund argues forcefully that "nation" and "France" are ideological constructs subject to historical and critical analysis. Taking my cue from Englund, I hold that Male's achievement must be understood as part ofa continuum: a major step in the scholarly clarification of medieval culture and a major step in the development of one principal definition of French national consciousness. Philip Schlesinger says that "national cultures are not simple repositories of shared symbols to which the entire population stands in identical fashion." Rather they are to be approached as sites of contestation in which competition over definitions takes place. See "On National Identity: Some Conceptions and Misconceptions Criticized," Social Science Information, 26 (1987), 260-261; I am grateful to Steven Englund for pointing out this reference. 2"Culture" has been defined by the anthropologist Clifford Geertz as an "historically transmitted pattern ofmeanings embodied in symbols, a system ofinherited conceptions 401 402RECONCILIATION OF CULTURES INTHE THIRD REPUBUC: EMILE MÂLE (1862-1954) Over a period of thirty-four years Mâle published four great syntheses of religious art history. Each synthesis was effected in a different manner , depending upon the sources used to explain the subject matter and the media employed by the artists. In LArt religieux du XIIIe siècle en France (1898), then, it was the Speculum Majus, the encyclopedia of religious thought byVincent ofBeauvais. In LArt religieux de lafin du moyen âge en France (1908), it was the Franciscan theologians of deep religious sentiment; in LArt religieux du XIIF siècle en France (1922), expressed in symbolic forms by means ofwhich men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life." See Clifford Geertz,"Religion as a Cultural System," The Interpretation ofCultures:SelectedEssays (New York, 1973),p.89. In the decades since the appearance of this essay, the concept of culture has become highly politicized. Stefan Collini says that contemporary cultural studies are less concerned with the "plurality of symbolic systems and practices that enable different groups to make various kinds of sense of their lives"; more concerned with the attempt to give voice to minority cultures—"social therapy." See his"Escape from DWEMsville: Is Culture Too Important to be left to Cultural Studies?" Times Literary Supplement, May 27, 1994, pp. 3-4. In my essay I retain the use of the term "culture" in the older, standard anthropological sense established by Geertz. Male's work was, in effect, a study of"culture" as defined by cultural anthropologists from Clyde Kluckholn to Clifford Geertz. Among modern medievalists, those who...

La culture de I'imago

Les images envahissent aujourd'hui tous les aspects de notre culture. Par le cinéma, la télévision, l'ordinateur, les mêmes images inondent la planète. La plupart sont nouvelles, très différentes des tableaux, des photographies ou des gravures qui, il y a peu de temps encore, étaient seuls à exprimer et à fixer l'imaginaire individuel et collectif. Les plus récentes sont dites virtuelles : ces images semblent n'avoir pas d'autre origine qu'elles-mêmes ; à la manière des images de rêve, elles s'engendrent de leur propre mouvement et de manière aléatoire. Pour l'historien, cependant, il n'y a de nouveauté qu'inscrite dans une histoire longue qui invite à rétablir les continuités temporelles que l'observation immédiate du présent risque de masquer.

Psychoanalysis and Postmodernism

Tarrying with the Negative. Kant, Hegel, and the Critique of Ideology By Slavoj Ziiek Duke University Press, 1993 Only now, almost a century after the publication of The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), are we beginning to be able to situate Freud in the context of social and cultural history. He wrote, of course, amid the epochal transformation from an industrializing society and Victorian culture to large-scale corporate capitalism, mass culture, and modernism. He was, arguably, the central figure in the cultural transformation that accompanied that transition. Perhaps we are starting to think historically about his work now, insofar as we are moving out of and into a new epoch driven by the globalization of capital. What exactly do we mean when we describe or postmodernism as epochs of cultural history? Not culture in its anthropological sense: family, religion, everyday life, food, sex, material objects; nor artistic innovations such as film, abstract art, or the stream-of-consciousness novel. In my view a cultural epoch should be conceptualized in terms of changes in the structure of subjectivity, especially in the relation of the individual subject to his or her culture. Such changes, and thus the idea of a cultural epoch itself, are quintessentially modern. Since the Renaissance, and increasingly since the nineteenth century, men and women have defined themselves as modern, or some subset of the as part of a continuing attempt to define the modern subject. Along with the question of subjectivity, the redefinition of sexual difference and of the structure of feeling that exists within and between the sexes should be considered intrinsic to any definition of a cultural epoch. This too is a modern question. Whereas the ancient world defined itself primarily in terms of male/male relations, often explicitly homosexual, the heterosexual couple was at the center of Protestantism and early capitalism. While gender and sexuality remained a subtext in early modern conceptions of subjectivity, such terms as Romanticism, Victorianism, and modernism registered epochal reconfigurations in the history of the sexes. Given the centrality of psychoanalysis to modern conceptions of both the subject and sexual

‘Die dood van Digenis’ - mistifikasie van ’n Bisantynse held

The Byzantine akritic poem, "The Death of Digenis", which manifests all the characteristics of the Byzantine Neo-Hellenic tragoudi, is a good exemplum of an epic song, where mystification (in its anthropological sense) is used to idealize the hero. Historically the akritic songs (9th - 13th cent. A.D.) refer to the ongoing war on Byzantium’s frontiers between the Christian defenders of the empire and the Moslem invaders. The poem's structure, its historical-epic elements and especially its symbolism are examined in this article. It thus becomes clear that the unknown poet juxtaposes present, past and future in such a way that Digenis’s heroic (but human) exploits of the past are integrated in a supernatural climax, where the hero in his struggle loses to Charon (Death - Archangel Michael). Consequently Digenis, whose name means ‘bom twice', complies on the one hand with the tragic destiny of an epic death, and on the other hand passes through a kind of initiation ritual into the Christian host of the heroes of Heaven.

Spiderwoman and the chaste tree: the semantics of matter.

Spiderwoman and the Chaste Tree: The Semantics of Matter Heinrich von Staden (bio) I It has been argued persuasively that the cultural contexts in which scientific discourse is practiced contribute significantly to its characteristic features in any given scientific epoch or society, and that the modern historian of science who ignores such cultural contexts runs many a hermeneutic risk. Jean-Pierre Vernant, Pierre Vidal-Naquet, and G. E. R. Lloyd, for example, have traced distinctive epistemological, methodological, and rhetorical features of Greek scientific discourse to aspects of Greek legal and political culture. 1 Lloyd likewise has used a comparative analysis to explain distinctive features of the scientific discourse of ancient China and Greece in terms of the political institutions and practices of those two civilizations. 2 But attention to the larger cultural contexts in which specific kinds of matter are selected and deployed by ancient scientists and physicians is also crucial to the interpretation of ancient science. [End Page 23] Since “science” is encountered by many historians of science mainly in its written refractions, and since historiographic practice brings with it its own engulfing logocentrism, it is perhaps not surprising that the interpretation of the material culture of ancient science has been the victim of relative inattention. By the interpretation of “material culture” I do not mean only the study of artefactual culture, in the traditional anthropological sense (indeed, modern archaeologists and historians of technology have offered excellent accounts of the artefacts produced and used by ancient scientists). Nor do I mean that the natural, nonartefactual entities described, prescribed, and used by ancient scientists and physicians should simply be identified, catalogued, and classified (several useful analytical inventories of such substances have been compiled 3 ). Rather, by referring to “material culture” I wish to underscore the cultural valorizations of such natural matter through social, religious, scientific, medical, and other human practices. No less than scientific or poetic descriptions of matter, the uses of “natural” matter are a significant source of meanings; natural substances, too, become a complex, informative part of “culture” through human use. In religious, commercial, scientific, agricultural, horticultural, and other activities, humans from early times have continually dislodged pieces of “natural matter” from their pristine existence in nature, assigning them diverse values, functions, and meanings. “Natural matter” thus becomes a rich repository of cultural meanings, also when deployed in scientific practice, and, along with the words and artefacts of scientists, it hence represents a significant hermeneutic challenge. 4 In this contribution I offer examples of the value of attentiveness to details of cultural context for the interpretation of the uses made by “scientific medicine” of a natural substance. The substance singled out here for purposes of illustration is the chaste tree, one specimen of which ancient Greeks believed to be the oldest [End Page 24] living tree. It will be argued that the aims that have dominated modern analyses of such ancient pieces of matter (for example, the aim of precisely identifying, by their modern scientific names, the natural substances in question; of trying to determine their therapeutic or nutritional efficacy; of empirically demonstrating the “rationality” of their ancient applications; and of identifying the taxonomic principles by which ancient writers gained “scientific” control of a mass of natural substances), while unquestionably valuable (even though their targets often remain elusive), need to be supplemented by cultural perspectives that render the “meaning of matter” more profoundly and richly approachable. From the Hippocratic writings of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E. to the Byzantine period, Greek medical, botanical, and agricultural writers display abundant familiarity with the attribution of therapeutic powers to the chaste tree (agnus castus, or vitex agnus castus L.; its Greek name is agnos or lygos). 5 Various parts of this shrub or tree are helpful, they claim, in treating a wide range of conditions, such as hangovers, dropsy, disorders of the spleen or the liver, inflammations, bruises, skin diseases, eye ailments, and swellings around wounds. Its calorific and desiccant properties, in particular, are commonly extolled. 6 This broad spectrum of medical applications notwithstanding, the products of the chaste tree are predominantly deployed in two arenas: to counter threats posed to human reproduction, notably by disorders of the...

Urban Culture: City sex: views of American women and urban culture, 1869 to 1990

Urban women are provocative; their mere presence has frequently stimulated observers to label the relationship between women and urban culture problematic. As Mary P. Ryan recently noted, ‘To search for women in public is to subvert a longstanding tenent of the modern Western gender system, the presumption that social space is divided between the public and the private and that men claim the former while women are confined to the latter.’ What follows here is an examination of the changing discourse of the relationship between women and cities since the Civil War. Perhaps for the reason indicated by Ryan, few systematic surveys have been made of that literature. Only those works which explicitly posit a connection between women and urban culture are included here; it is not enough that the women described beincities, there must be some discussion of the interaction between the two. The term ‘culture’ is used in the anthropological sense – culture as a way of life. Many of the works reviewed here examine women who somehow deviate from the ‘ideal’ woman, who in the nineteenth century seemed to be a married Protestant middle-class non-employed mother. Thus they demonstrate abundant interest in prostitutes, immigrant women and wage-earning women, as well as in politically and sexually radical women.

Fundal height in normal pregnant Nigerian women: Anthropometric gravidogram

Fundal height measurements in centimeters (FH) have always been an objective method of evaluating fetal growth in pregnancy. The popular Mcdonald's rule refers mainly to caucasians unfortunately. Since FH may actually vary in an anthropological sense it was considered necessary to apply Mcdonald's rule to African subjects. Pregnant Nigerian women were studied to observe how their fundal height values compared with those obtained for caucasian women in western communities. A gravidogram was derived for the 10th, 50th and 90th centiles. Values outside the range of 10–90th centiles are to be used for the prediction of small-for-dates and large-for-dates babies accordingly. Prediction formulae for the various centiles derived from regression analysis were obtained and their usefulness in clinical anthropological practice using fundal height measurement highlighted. A simple universal formula for African subjects is presented. Normal values of pregnant women for somatotype, height, and abdominal girth are also presented. The result of this survey demonstrates a significant difference in fundal height values of African women from those of the hitherto utilized standards derived from the study of caucasian women, especially in early pregnancy. This report suggests an early intra-uterine growth retardation in the African pregnancies which is corrected in the third trimester.

Does the Working Class Have a Culture in the Anthropological Sense?

Cultural AnthropologyVolume 4, Issue 2 p. 137-162 Does the Working Class Have a Culture in the Anthropological Sense? Douglas E. Foley, Douglas E. Foley Department of Anthropology University of TexasSearch for more papers by this author Douglas E. Foley, Douglas E. Foley Department of Anthropology University of TexasSearch for more papers by this author First published: May 1989 https://doi.org/10.1525/can.1989.4.2.02a00020Citations: 11AboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume4, Issue2May 1989Pages 137-162 RelatedInformation

Folklore as Evidence of Peasant Mentalite: Social Attitudes and Values in Russian Popular Culture

The study of has recently been elevated from its former lowly status on the margins of undergraduate language and syllabuses to the very forefront of new approaches to social history. Previously regarded as having little more than curiosity value to the antiquarian historian, has become an important source of evidence for the histoire des mentalites pioneered by French scholars of the Annales school. In the English-speaking world, too, the annalistes' concern with the attitudes and values of the ordinary people of preindustrial society, and especially of the peasantry, has come to be shared by a new generation of historians of culture.2 For some, indeed, folklore is now identified with culture: the concept includes not only the oral literature of folktales and folk poetry, but also the entire body of customs, rituals, and traditional practices which comprise a culture,in the anthropological sense.3 The study of Russian peasant mentalite, however, remains a largely underdeveloped field for historians. In the USSR scholars are more inhibited by disciplinary boundaries than their Western colleagues, and research on aspects of popular culture has been largely monopolized by specialists on and ethnography.4 Such scholars, of course, have

KİŞİLİĞİN OLUŞMASINDAKİ KÜLTÜREL ETMENLER

Personality is a product of learning on a large scale. Enculturation, on the other hand, is a process of education that makes an individual part of their own culture. Education, in anthropological sense, continues more or less throughout the whole phase of life as of birth within the society an individual is born into. Through education, the individual learns the manners of his culture and at the same time acquires a basic personality that is a complicated structure of mental faculties, perceptions, thoughts, habits, and responses based on conditioned excitement. Hence, personality is formed partly by the abilities controlled by heredity, partly by the status and roles that the individual carries throughout life, and partly with the education given within the culture concerned. Despite the differences in forms and conditions, the underlying cause of the link between society and education is the sense of necessity to be educated in all societies.