Contemporary Community Research Articles

Religious Commodities or Cultural Elements?

Abstract This article is a case study of a lay Buddhist community that employs a business model called “living hall” (Shenghuo guan 生活馆) to facilitate the practice of Tibetan Buddhism among its members. The living hall model is explored in the context of the politics of religion in the People’s Republic of China (prc) and the dynamics of Tibetan Buddhism among Han Chinese in the past decades. The author investigates the model’s origin, its implementation in a contemporary Buddhist community, and its interaction with the discourse on Buddhism in the prc. The article joins a recent academic endeavor to illuminate the different modalities in which lay practitioners carry out Buddhist practice outside the sphere of institutionalized Buddhism. The article sheds light on the delicate dynamics between religion and state control in the prc and the role of entrepreneurs and materiality within lay Tibetan Buddhism.

Современные принудительные работы: аналог советских трудовых наказаний или альтернатива лишению свободы?

The contemporary Russian community service is a criminal punishment of a very contradictory nature. Therefore, its legal regulation requires special scientific attention in the historical context. This research featured a theoretical and legal understanding of the essence of modern community service through the prism of its Soviet prototypes. It involved comparative-legal, historical, and dialectical methods. The author performed a comparative analysis of community service, corrective labor, and probation in the USSR. The article gives a detailed description of criminal law regulation and a statistical analysis of community service at different stages of the Soviet Union. The Soviet legal reality appeared to have shaped the regulation, content, and procedure of community service in the USSR. The author proved the effect of the Soviet economic needs on this type of punishment. However, the contemporary Russian community service is rather unique and hardly inherited any features of its Soviet prototypes. The obtained conclusions can serve as foundation for further research on the theoretical concepts of community service.

History predicts contemporary community diversity within a biogeographic province of freshwater fish

AbstractAimHistorical biogeography and community ecology both seek to uncover the patterns and processes governing the structure and composition of communities, though typically at different temporal and spatial scales. Recent work has called to integrate these two fields; however, it is typically assumed that history plays little role in assembling contemporary, local communities. We incorporated phylogeographic data into traditional metacommunity analyses of freshwater fish communities to analyse if history can shape local community structure.LocationStreams in the Nicaraguan Depression in north‐eastern Costa Rica.TaxonFreshwater fish communities.MethodsWe sampled community composition in 14 streams of the San Juan River Basin during the dry season of 2019 and evaluated variability in community composition in response to local and landscape‐scale environmental variability, spatial distance and historic processes using redundancy analyses. We measured environmental and spatial variables using typical methods utilized in metacommunity studies and approximated the effects of history with samova genetic groupings of three livebearing fishes native to the area. We also used PERMANOVAs to test if community composition exhibits similar spatial structure as seen in the genetic data of the three livebearing fishes used as historical proxies.ResultsLarge‐scale patterns of genetic diversity predicted the patterns of local community diversity with community composition showing similar spatial structuring. Additionally, history variables were the only variables that significantly explained community composition and accounted for 20.6% of the total variability.Main ConclusionsSpecies‐specific incidence patterns within Costa Rican freshwater fish communities vary according to biogeographic history, indicating that history can impact local community assembly. These observed patterns are likely due to colonization history following eustatic sea level change. Phylogeography can bridge the gap between classical biogeography and community ecology by enhancing inferences regarding community assembly through time and space, therefore studies should incorporate both genetic and local community data when assessing community assembly.

Review: Mass Murder in California’s Empty Quarter: A Tale of Tribal Treachery at the Cedarville Rancheria, by Ray A. March

Review: <i>Mass Murder in California’s Empty Quarter: A Tale of Tribal Treachery at the Cedarville Rancheria</i>, by Ray A. March

Between Tradition and Modernity: Judaism on the Move

In this study we will discuss works of Israeli modern composers who set traditional prayers (piyut) to music. People are poised between tradition and modernity &amp;ndash; always yearning for meaning and striving for the transcendental, the eternal. We will discuss the modern interpretations of individual and congregational prayers and the role that these composers, who intertwine old and new, play in contemporary communities, in and outside Israel.&#x0D; &#x0D; This study is of cultural significance, today more than ever. The digital generation, born into a reality where the computer serves as the backbone of its lifestyle, the generation for whom social isolation has become part of the daily routine &amp;ndash; years to find an anchor in its life &amp;ndash; one of tradition, of the heritage of generations, which has the potential to give support and meaning to human existence. In a world ruled by uncertainty, tradition and culture, both particular and universal, offer a genuine key to life&amp;rsquo;s treasures. In this way man finds himself part of the chain of generations. He is connected. He has a cultural identity. The song of the synagogue, the liturgical song of man to God, has become the song of the crowd, and the song of man to man.

Making Siberian Turkic Printed Collections Visible

In the age of big data, small collections are often overlooked. Too numerically few to cause waves, the issues and problems that affect them are rarely addressed by cataloguing institutions. In the present paper, the author focuses on one such collection – holdings of Siberian Turkic materials at the British Library – to explore how homogenizing trends impact the cataloguing of these materials. The author concentrates particularly on aspects related to MARC21 requirements and authority files, and how these work to occlude the unique printing histories of Siberia’s indigenous Turkic languages. The author concludes that these trends may be overcome by treating the collections qualitatively through the creation of collection guides, addressing the inconsistencies in MARC21 and Library of Congress authority files, and outreach to and engagement with contemporary Siberian Turkic communities.

Locating vernacular creativity outside the ‘urban cool’ in Beijing: ephemeral water calligraphy

ABSTRACT How and where to be creative, and what creativity entails and affords has been subject to momentous change in recent decades in China. Since the early 2000s, the discourse of creativity has played a leading role in governmental policies that aim to boost economic development through a focus on the creative industries. First-tier Chinese cities have reinvented themselves as creative hotbeds with distinctive areas, often located at the fringes of the city, for creative production and practice (Ren and Meng [2012]. Artistic urbanization: creative industries and creative control in Beijing. International journal of urban and regional research, 36 (3), 504–521, Power, capital, and artistic freedom: contemporary Chinese art communities and the city. Cultural studies, 33 (4), 657–689). This article complicates this creative-city script, one that is deeply enmeshed in a global proliferation of the creativity discourse in tandem with Chinese state policies, by examining the practice of water calligraphy. This is an urban ephemeral creative practice that takes place in public parks in the centre of Beijing. Water calligraphy, done by the elderly in Beijing, challenges the idea of creativity as the domain of a young cool urban class, while its ephemerality contests ideas that urban creativity is necessarily forced into structures of commodification and governmentalization. Water calligraphers' adherence to the traditional discourse of calligraphy, despite several creative deviations, further challenges notions of creativity that identify it with novelty. Within the urban landscape, these senior citizens carve out a creative space for themselves outside designated art districts and creative industries clusters. In doing so, they disregard the imperative of the new that is conventionally believed to underpin ‘real’ creativity, and thus may help us to rethink the idea of creativity itself.

The Ghetto in European Perception: From Cities to Bodies

January 03 2022 The Ghetto in European Perception: From Cities to Bodies Rossella Mazzaglia Rossella Mazzaglia ROSSELLA MAZZAGLIA is an associate professor in performance studies at the University of Messina and the University of Bologna. She has published several books and articles on postmodern and Italian contemporary dance, urban dance, and community and migrant theatre. Her research investigates the ways in which theatre and dance respond to social, educational, and political issues in the elaboration of their aesthetic forms. She has directed experimental pedagogical projects, including the Bologna Social Practice Lab (with Pedro Lasch) in 2017–18 at the University of Bologna, and Growing Up Absurd, leading a team of researchers and artists in Messina in 2016. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Rossella Mazzaglia ROSSELLA MAZZAGLIA is an associate professor in performance studies at the University of Messina and the University of Bologna. She has published several books and articles on postmodern and Italian contemporary dance, urban dance, and community and migrant theatre. Her research investigates the ways in which theatre and dance respond to social, educational, and political issues in the elaboration of their aesthetic forms. She has directed experimental pedagogical projects, including the Bologna Social Practice Lab (with Pedro Lasch) in 2017–18 at the University of Bologna, and Growing Up Absurd, leading a team of researchers and artists in Messina in 2016. Online Issn: 1537-9477 Print Issn: 1520-281X © 2022 Rossella Mazzaglia2022Rossella Mazzaglia PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art (2022) 44 (1 (130)): 66–78. https://doi.org/10.1162/pajj_a_00601 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Search Site Citation Rossella Mazzaglia; The Ghetto in European Perception: From Cities to Bodies. PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 2022; 44 (1 (130)): 66–78. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/pajj_a_00601 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAll JournalsPAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art Search Advanced Search This content is only available as a PDF. © 2022 Rossella Mazzaglia2022Rossella Mazzaglia Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

‘Things of the outside teach me’: identity transfer and contextual transformation as expressions of persistent, syncretic cosmology in traditional spiritual and medicinal practice in the south-central Maloti-Drakensberg, southern Africa

ABSTRACT The Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains of southern Africa have a well-established history of contact and hybridity, one that greatly changed the appearances and cultural constitutions of its inhabitant communities. Southern San hunter-gatherers were among those incorporated into a range of new hybridised cultural formats. However, as much as change shows in the art adorning the region’s rock shelters, San identity is not routinely expressed among contemporary communities, leaving a question as to how far their ontologies persist into the present. This paper presents results of an interview survey undertaken in southern Lesotho and the adjoining Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The survey investigated modes of classification employed by traditional medicinal specialists, with particular reference to snakes and rivers, both important motifs across a range of regional idioms. The results are characterised by strongly relational themes and ontological mutabilities that contest conventional presentations of agriculturalist belief systems, despite more apparent community alignment with such identities, while comparing favourably with ‘animist’ themes in the testimonies of nineteenth-century San informants, including those of Qing in Lesotho and of multiple /Xam individuals from South Africa. These contrasts and similarities are highly suggestive of a syncretic history manifest in the present. They also have potential for representing a continuity of ideology with image-making practice, something that would encourage the inclusion of contextual, contemporary communities in the interpretive process in terms that are decoupled from anthropological expectations regarding those communities’ expressed identities.

Editors' Responsibility for Publishing High-Quality Research Results: A Worldwide Study Into Current Challenges in Quality Assessment Processes

The contemporary scientific community faces significant challenges in assuring research credibility. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an even greater interest in swift publications of valid research results, and individual editors of reputable academic journals might feel pressured to ensure high quality of published papers. Aiming to explore how editors perceive their management of the quality assessment processes and to identify decisions and processes which editors believe to be the most critical for securing high-quality publications, we conducted a qualitative survey. 258 editors of scientific journals from 42 countries participated in the study. Key findings of the first part of the study show that across disciplines, editors perceived the manuscripts as excellent if they were innovative, scientifically sound, well-written and well-argued, addressed a significant topic, contained useful results, and had the potential to change (improve) something. Secondly, originality emerged as the leading quality criteria in manuscript quality assessment, followed by validity and significance. Finally, results indicate that factors influencing the overall complexity of editorial quality assessment are: (i) clearly defined minimum threshold of required quality, (ii) consistency of assessment between individual quality criteria, and (iii) experience of the editor.

Sustainable Urban Form Based Old Community Regeneration — Taking Jing&amp;apos;anli Community in Tianjin as an Example

Sustainable urban form is an important prerequisite to stimulating urban vitality. Under the current urban regeneration movement in China, the transformation and upgrading of old communities mostly focus on renewing facilities and living and building qualities. Coordinating urban regeneration strategies and the changing urban development model to promote high-quality urban development is an important challenge. This paper believes that using the theory of sustainable urban form could help stimulate the proposal of creative urban design intervention comprehensively and systematically, and promote the refinement and humanism of urban regeneration. Taking the urban micro regeneration planning and design competition of Jing'anli community in Tianjin Binhai New Area as an example, this paper discusses applying sustainable urban form theory to transform old communities. In response to building a "complete community" and "15 mins-community life circle" by the central government, this paper explores the possibility of regeneration design strategies with mixed land use, sustainable transportation organization, high-density regeneration, diversity and passive energetic technologies and green design. This research is willing to guide the contemporary old community regeneration design for achieving sustainable high-quality urbanization in China.

К выходу в свет коллективной монографии «История Украины»

Review is devoted to published in 2022 collective monography «History of Ukraine» in which in details actual, directly hot problem was highlighted. Historiographic review presented in monography had been prepared on high professional level. High attention was directed to control of Ukrainian elites on mechanisms of forming principally «new» historical knowledge and to inclusion of educational system, cultural institutions, media enterprises to this process. Special attention according to reviewer opinion must be addressed to specific forms of using by representatives of Ukrainian administration of nationalist methods with the aim of concentration of Ukrainian policy on meaningless confrontation with Russia. Detailed analysis of facts gave to authors of monography possibility to reveal reasons of human catastrophe in Donbass. This catastrophe according to opinion of authors of monography was in many aspects appeared in result of influence of world informational infrastructure with help of which it became possible to use historical policy in geopolitical interests of large states and firstly of Western European countries which actually direct collective mind not only of some social groups and population of their countries but also of users of information in all over the world. The accent in monography was made on necessity existing for contemporary Russian historical community for giving answers on massive invasion of Ukrainian historical mythology; the so-called historical conceptions, ideological interpretations and large narrative constructions and to form energetic reactions on facts of falsification real history of Russia and of Ukraine. Basic points and results formulated by authors as based on massy base of sources. Monography includes very reach fact material and this quality allows its readers to deeply understand features of forming Ukrainian state system.

Aviva vs. the Dybbuk by Mari Lowe

Reviewed by: Aviva vs. the Dybbuk by Mari Lowe April Spisak Lowe, Mari Aviva vs. the Dybbuk. Levine Querido, 2022 [176p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781646141258 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9781646141524 $17.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 6-8 Aviva has an antagonistic relationship with the mischievous dybbuk (a restless soul who seeks resolution of some sort) in the mikvah her mother takes care of, but at the same time the creature has almost been her only friend, or at least near constant companion, since her father died. For years, she and her mother have been in a holding pattern of grief, refusing charitable offers and friendly overtures from their close-knit Jewish community, but a required school project turns out to be the necessary catalyst to help both of them move forward with their lives. Antisemitic acts run through the novel, and one particularly cruel incident is so traumatic that Aviva's reliability as our narrator is called into question as the story progresses—it's a powerful and surprising heel turn, crafted in a way to raise questions but not turn the reader against Aviva. The experience of grief as a suffocating fog is described with grace and thoughtfulness, and the ways in which each person copes are given equal validity (Aviva has deep sympathy for her mom's inability to leave their home). Novels focusing on contemporary Orthodox Jewish communities are rare; other than a glossary, Lowe trusts the reader to piece together the cultural and religious elements that are the most important elements in Aviva's life. Copyright © 2021 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Fatek (Tattoo): An Ethnic Bontoc Marker in the Northern Philippines

The Bontok Igorots of Mountain Province, in the Cordillera Region, are one of the Philippine tribes that practiced traditional tattooing. The reasons and meanings of their tattoos could be better understood through the traditional context of Bontoc culture. To determine the cultural significance of tattoos to the Bontoks, the descriptive survey investigation was used to explore the tribe’s physical and socio-cultural practice of tattooing (fatek); discover the changes in the practice and perceptions of tattoo as well as its implication in the traditional and contemporary Bontoc society. The study’s primary informants included Bontoc elders with first-hand experiences and knowledge in the practice of traditional tattooing and young people with tattoos. The findings of the study showed that the traditional tattoo in traditional Bontoc society conveyed symbolic meanings, especially among the male members of the tribe. The chaklag is a symbol of status and at the same time a part of the rite of passage. On the other hand, women’s tattoos in Bontoc had no significant meaning but purely for decorative purposes and social acceptance. This study unfolds many unique and indigenous tattoo symbols which contribute to the development of local art. The changing attitudes and perceptions toward tattoos by the contemporary Bontoc community is a tug of war between the older and younger generation. The advancement of technology made tattooing more convenient thus, attracting many young people in Bontoc to have tattoos. Further, tattooing has become part of the health and beauty industry and many young professionals and teenagers are having positive attitudes and perceptions toward tattoos. Today, the impact of tattoos in the Bontoc society is closely felt in the loss of their cultural and symbolic meanings and thus ceased to be an ethnic marker for the Bontoc tribe. In the area of economy, it is beginning to draw clients from young professionals and teenagers. It has likewise become an established career and business causing the development of innovated creative art.

Oracy and Ideology in Contemporary Gaelic: Conceptions of Fluency and its Perceived Decline Subsequent to Immersion Schooling

Notwithstanding the considerable extent of intergenerational disruption within contemporary Gaelic communities in Scotland, the development of national language policy has tended to focus on Gaelic-medium, immersion education (GME) as a means of revitalising the language. Gaelic education is prioritised alongside increasing language use and promoting a positive image of the language in the most recent iteration of the National Gaelic Language Plan (2018–23) as was the case in the two previous Plans (Bòrd na Gàidhlig 2007, 2012). Yet fine-grained and mixed methodological research conducted by the author found extensive evidence that Gaelic tends not to be used to a substantial degree by former GME students, years after their formal schooling is completed. In this article I focus on previously unpublished qualitative data which illustrate understandings of oracy and fluency among interview participants (N=46) and their perceptions of language attrition since attending immersion education in childhood. As the analysis of interview material shows, such demonstrable attrition of Gaelic oracy years after immersion provides clear challenges to current language planning priorities in Scotland.

Ortodocși și greco-catolici în Banat (a doua jumătate a secolului al XIX-lea și începutul secolului XX). Perspectiva lui Ioan Boroș / Orthodox and Greek Catholics in Banat (second half of the 19th and early 20th century). The perspective of Ioan Boroș

Bringing back into actuality a personality as important as Ioan Boroș (1850-1937), a reference figure of the Banat Greek Catholicism during the second half of the 19th century and the first decades of the next, represents a significant acquisition, an important result of the research efforts that were conducted after 1989 in the area of church history. In this respect, two major historiographical restitutions must be mentioned; after they saw the light of the printing press, they contributed in a the decisive manner in placing in the spotlight the proposed archiereus Ioan Boroș to the Romanian historiography and to the contemporary Greek-Catholic ecclesial and community consciousness; it is the publication of his memorial notes, along with his will, correspondence and documents proving his elevation to the rank of honorary archiereus, in the period immediately following the Great Union. A first book containing his historical writings is of great importance in understanding his intellectual profile and the great diversity of the concerns that animated him. Considering the intellectual formation, the life experience and the exceptional church administrative skill that Ioan Boroș showed, we consider that it is not without interest to see how his memorial notes and, on a broader level, his scientific and publishing activity, reflect the multi-confessional character of Banat and especially the relations between the two Romanian confessions, Orthodoxy and Greek Catholicism. This is the aim of the present research paper.

Revolutionary Elements in Bharathidasan Songs

The revolutionary poet Bharathidasan is notable among the unparalleled Tamil poets of the twentieth century. Many contributions were made for the liberation of India. His songs of liberation caused a stir among the natives. Aware of his contemporary social status, Bharathidasan was passionate about the need for Tamils to excel on the world stage. Bharathidasan can be described as a social activist who set out to eradicate the superstitions and social ills that pervaded his contemporary Tamil community in his songs. Bharathidasan is proud to be the first Tamil poet to have given voice to songs for the betterment of women and advancement in life. The purpose of this article is to explore the ideas of revolutionary elements found in the various songs of Bharathidasan, who was a firm believer that the country would prosper only if women progressed.

Supersession and Conversion: The Adversus Judaeos Liturgical Dramas of Saint-Martial de Limoges

ABSTRACT The adversus Judaeos tropes deeply embedded in the Saint-Martial de Limoges liturgical dramas in BN lat.1139 recommend radical ways of rethinking the organizing concepts that might inform this collection of devotional performances. Early eleventh-century liturgical records from Saint-Martial de Limoges demonstrate profound tensions between apocalyptic and eschatological thinking. Millenarian anxieties combine with news of the 1009 CE Muslim destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem to inspire unusual levels of antagonism toward the contemporary Jewish community in Limoges, including retrospective historical narratives by Christian clerics Rodulfus Glaber and Ademar of Chabannes of forced conversions, exile, and death as tools used to disperse Limoges's Jewish community after purported exegetical debates in 1010 CE. The Limoges liturgical dramas manifest these tensions between Christian apocalyptic and eschatological thinking, collectively reflecting a shared Christian cultural commitment to supersessionist representations of Jews and Judaism as end-of-time witnesses at the Christian Eschaton.

Real Value of Ukraine to the Contemporary Euro-Atlantic Space

The article conceptualises the real value of Ukraine in the context of the contemporary Euro-Atlantic civilisational community. In this regard, it raises the question of the global criteria of victory of our country in the war with the neo-totalitarian ‘northern neighbour’. Those criteria simultaneously serve as the global purport and meaning of Ukraine’s victory for the world and drive the decisions of the Western countries on rendering economic and military aid. The underlying criterion of Ukraine’s victory is the preservation and development of civilisational agency of our country and the triumph of the new humanism over neo-totalitarianism, which today threatens not only our country but also the world as a whole. Facing neo-totalitarianism, the new humanism is not confined to compassion for the Other, but rather extends to consolidation and co-creativity with the Other. Furthermore, the article highlights the Kyiv-Rus identity of Ukrainians, which consolidates the Ukrainian political nation, facilitating national resilience for the sake of the country’s agency. The Kyiv-Rus identity in its essence is juxtaposed against the muscovite-russian imperial identity at the level of values and further aligns Ukraine with the European identity. The author stresses that in addition to value-centred consolidation, Ukraine must also actively fulfil its interests in cooperation with the ‘Collective West’, given that shared interests among countries amid emergencies often prevail over values. Keywords: Euro-Atlantic space, humanism, neo-totalitarianism, meta-anthropology, meta-anthropological potentialism, personalism, worldview tolerance, consolidation, identity, mentality, Kyiv-Rus identity, Kyiv-Rus mentality, civilisational agency of Ukraine.

Border studies and ethnology of Southeast Europe

This paper deals with the transdisciplinary research area of border studies, in the context of ethnological and anthropological research in Southeast Europe. Border studies have expanded in the last three decades due to paradigmatic and sociopolitical shifts, with visible transfer of focus towards the issues of ?diffusion? of border practices and discourses sometimes termed as b/ordering. Europe and the Balkans experienced contradictory processes of parallel relaxation and abolishing of certain borders, while others are being tightened and established, which is also interpreted anthropologically. Once thought of as specific, Balkans (re)bordering of the 1990s found its b/ordering descendants in the last 20 years throughout Europe and the general rise of border thinking. Besides the traditional approach focusing on liminal and borderlands communities, anthropology in Southeast Europe has also started to investigate not only local communities, but also so-called mobile communities. Anthropology also possesses methodological capacity to discern b/ordering practices and discourses stemming from spatial borders which are not solely induced by the nation-state, and to grasp not only spatial, but also temporal aspects of b/ordering. By combining the ethnographic method, local focus and by primarily researching permanent or contemporary communities defined by the borders and b/ordering, ethnology and anthropology in this part of Europe can substantially contribute to the border studies.