Cultural Universe Research Articles

The Cultural Universe of the Nuaulu Tribe: A Testament to Commitment to Unity, Tradition, and Mutual Trust

Engaging in research within the interdisciplinary realms of ethics and cultural studies is immensely important. This study delves into the social institutions of the Nuaulu people, an indigenous community inhabiting the Seram Island of Indonesia. The analysis focuses on Mataruma, Traditional Rulers, and Traditional Houses, shedding light on their roles, significance, and implications for the community. The research draws on a combination of interviews and references to prior studies to construct a comprehensive narrative about these social institutions. The Mataruma system, characterized by gender equity and shared responsibilities, stands as a testament to the Nuaulu’s commitment to unity, tradition, and mutual trust. Traditional Rulers, the intermediaries between the human world and the realm of ancestors, play a pivotal role in preserving religious practices, reinforcing collective faith, and maintaining cultural integrity. The traditional houses, constructed from natural materials, serve as sacred spaces for rituals, symbolizing the connection between the living and the spiritual world. This in-depth analysis thoroughly explores the Nuaulu social institutions and their enduring influence on the preservation and enrichment of their culture. This study enriches our comprehension of the Nuaulu tribe’s distinctive cultural heritage and also underscores the significance of cultural preservation in the face of evolving religious identities, contributing substantially to the broader discourse in the fields of ethics and cultural studies.

Universals of Chinese Culture and Their Manifestation in Ceremonial Music

Universals of Chinese Culture and Their Manifestation in Ceremonial Music

Cultural universality and specificity of teacher-student relationship: a qualitative study in Belgian, Chinese, and Italian primary school teachers.

Extensive evidence highlights the significant influence of dyadic, emotional teacher-student relationship (TSR) on students' cognitive functioning, socio-emotional development, and overall well-being. However, it remains unclear whether the TSR construct and its manifestations can be generalized across cultures. This qualitative study investigated TSR among 60 primary school teachers in Belgium, China, and Italy (i.e., countries with varying positions on the collectivistic-individualistic continuum of culture). Through semi-structured interviews and metatheme analysis, the study examined the similarities and differences in TSR across these countries, revealing a nuanced and diverse picture in various cultural contexts. The findings align with the existing TSR model by including dimensions of closeness, conflict, and dependency, while also extending the model to identify additional dimensions such as authority, balance, distance, fairness, increasing student motivation, patience, and strictness. Regarding cultural perspective, teachers from these three countries exhibited similar conceptualizations of closeness, conflict, fairness, increasing student motivation, patience, and strictness, whereas the conceptualization of dependency, authority, balance, and distance may be influenced by (collectivistic versus individualistic) culture. Moreover, the manifestations of TSR varied across countries, highlighting the influence of cultural factors such as cultural norms, collectivistic versus individualistic values, and the perceived legitimacy of teacher authority. These findings shed light on the complexities of TSR across countries and emphasize the significance of culturally sensitive approaches in fostering positive TSR in education.

Лингвокультурные универсалии как доминирующий фактор восприятия мемов

The current study discusses the meme as a polycode text from the standpoint of linguoculturology. Based on the theories on exististing congruent cultural universals and divergent linguoculturemes, in the present paper a classification of memes is offered. It suggests to differentiate between three types of both the visual and verbal components of the meme: congruent, divergent or lacunary. Validity of the elaborated classification is evidenced using the results of the study investigating the way Russian and Chinese COVID-19 Internet memes may be perceived by Russian and Chinese recipients. The conclusion to be drawn is that congruent visual component allows for a more profound understanding of the meme by representatives of a different culture; at that, the verbal component might be either congruent, or divergent, or lacunary. On the contrary, the models including a divergent or lacunary visual component cannot be properly perceived by other cultures, irrespective of the type of the visual component.

Artistic embodiment of national cultural codes in the Belarusian epic

An artistic picture of the world in a literary work contains a system of artistic images, motifs, reflecting various aspects of cultural universals and having cultural meanings marked with the help of cultural codes. Codes of different cultures can be combined in works of art, but national cultural codes are aimed at showing the specifics of mental attitudes, features of the worldview, and behavior patterns of representatives of a certain culture. Investigating the specifics of the national picture of the world, researchers turn to the peculiarities of the representation of cultural meanings within the framework of dyads: “good – bad”, “life – death”, “male – female”, “real – ideal”, “West – East”, “own – someone else’s”, “harmony – disharmony” and others. The article examines changes and constants in the definition of cultural meanings highlighted with the help of the dyads “possible – impossible”, “now – then” using the example of Belarusian epic works of the first decades of the 20th century and the turn of the 20th and 20th centuries. It is concluded that national cultural codes act as carriers of deep historical and cultural meanings, through which the social, economic, geopolitical, cultural features of representatives of a certain nation or even the population of the state as a whole are manifested.

WALKING HISTORIES: NARRATIVES OF YOUNG URBAN DANCERS IN THE CITY OF RIO DE JANEIRO (BRAZIL)

The aim of the study is to investigate the construction of street dances in the city of Rio de Janeiro, describing urban dancers and their daily 'art of doing', listening to their voices and observing their physical and virtual interactions. In this paper, a specific methodological approach is applied towards a tactical plan in order to understand the urban dance phenomenon within the universe of hip-hop culture. This particular approach includes the analysis of eleven narratives of young dancers and their everyday experiences, their personal life stories, interlinked with categories such as masculinity and business. The results reveal the complexity of hip-hop and street-dance culture in general, and specifically among young Brazilians. The narratives of these young men have provided an effective means for representing hip-hop dancers’ concerns and bodily articulations in order to comprehend their dance practice and the construction of spaces, but also indicate aesthetic and commercial dimensions. Keywords: Hip-hop; dance; urban; masculinity; Brazil.

EDUCATIONAL AWARENESS OF THE HISTORICAL HERITAGE OF SERRA DA CAXEXA

The following article aims to direct the studies of archaeological sites in the Agreste region of Paraíba, more specifically in Serra da Caxexa, in the municipality of Casserengue – PB, 154 km from the capital, João Pessoa, developing the cataloguing, mapping and description of prehistoric sites existing there in order to contribute to their preservation process. Archaeological research in the State of Paraíba finds evidence of more than 500 archaeological sites, among these are the rock art sites “Pedra do Caboclo” and “Pedra do Letreiro”, belonging to the cultural universe of the Agreste Tradition, indicating strong evidence from the passage of indigenous groups that populated the Eastern Curimataú region before the European colonization process, being probably represented by the Sucurus of the Tarairiú nation with semi-nomadic characteristics. Cave paintings are classified as anthropomorphic, zoomorphic and geometric/schematic, generally in reddish tones resulting from the use of iron oxide. Unfortunately, the lack of knowledge about these archaeological sites leads to their destruction. Therefore, it is necessary to make all segments of society aware of the importance of the region’s archaeological heritage, seeking to await them for the knowledge of future generations and encourage new research that would rescue the historical value of local and regional culture. Thus, as an awareness of society in general, as a way of clarifying the importance of the historical and cultural heritage that surrounds them.

Traditional Non-Human Identity in Historical and Cultural Dynamics

The aim of the article is to conceptualise the self-definition type of “traditional other-than-human identities: mythological creatures” based on the material of elven identity. The research methodology within cultural studies is based on the principles of posthuman anthropology and studies of non-human identities in foreign humanities. Results. The transformation of perceptions about elves is considered and an analysis of elven identity among homo sapiens in the diachrony of culture is carried out. The features of its existence in premodern, modern, post-, and metamodern contexts are determined. The essence and reasons for the popularity of elven identity are revealed. The article’s hypothesis is confirmed, suggesting that other-than-human identities among biological people manifest themselves throughout human history. A comprehensive solution to these issues constitutes the scientific novelty of the work. Conclusions. The conceptualisation of the notion of “traditional other-than-human identities: mythological creatures” in a wide diachronic dimension of cultural dynamics made it possible to take a holistic view of the phenomenon of non-human identity among people. The author of the article argues that non-human identities are often transgressive in nature and belong to cultural universals of humanity. Mythological identities are represented in traditional representations of archaic and premodern. In the era of modernity, non-human identities are somewhat marginalised within the culture. Post- and metamodern actualises premodern beliefs. Mythological non-human identities among people, along with traditional interpretations, acquire new interpretations. In particular, they begin to be interpreted as parts of an individual’s psyche or as a result of a transhumanist transition to an alternative transhuman ideal.

Playing with Wonders: Objects, Role-Playing Games, and the Cultural Legacy of Bispo do Rosário for the City of Rio de Janeiro

We know that objects shape thought, as bearers of meaning and as the focal points of memory. Our question as artists and larpwrights was how those objects might affect the act of thinking itself. From this initial thought, we developed the notion of Living Objects — elements created to cause people to have strange new ideas and awaken thoughts beyond those prompted by reason alone — and sought to employ them in the micro role-playing games we presented to people in Rio de Janeiro in order to stimulate such an exploration of fantasy, desire, and daydreaming. The theoretical underpinning of our work relies upon the recovery of wonder discussed by critics like Kareem, Brain, and others. Within this endeavor, we presented Living Objects as fragments that provide a joke (witz). Witz is a concept explored by the Jena Romantic philosophers, in which poetic fragments of words influence thought or cause strangeness in normal ways of thinking, and cause derangement in the current logic. With this, they enable new creative paths for imagination.
 In doing so, we drew upon the cultural heritage of the city of Rio de Janeiro, especially the art of Bispo do Rosário, who produced a number of distinctive artistic objects during the decades that he was a patient in a psychiatric hospital. And in this work, we focus especially on a piece called “The Presentation Cloak.”
 These objects are central elements of micro role-playing games that we createdto encourage people to experience the stories linked to the life of Bispo do Rosário and the spaces he imagined about Rio de Janeiro. These games also inspired the participants to create stories from these objects, realizing how the influence of these elements stimulates imagination, belief in wonder, and immersion in the cultural universe created by Bispo do Rosário.

Victim Semantics. Part II

The paper focuses on understanding the place of the phenomena of a victim and sacrifice in the history of world culture and in sociocultural practices from its inception to the present state. The main socio-cultural pat terns of a victim and their links with other cultural universals — the game, myth, rites of passage, ethnic mentalit y are studied. The author analyses socio-cultural functions of the phenomena of a victim in the processes of changing technological structure in the Modern and Contemporary times and in the modern network societ y. It is concluded that the combination of sacrifice, game, myth and heroic principle is a universal regulating, synthesizing and promoting transitional factor. This factor in the anthroposphere triggers the process of emergence inside it of a special structure of self-maintenance and selfdevelopment, in other words, a socio-cultural matrix (invariant, homeoresis), the most impor tant element of stability in the conditions of any crisis and any transition.

Adoption of Caste by Christian and Jewish Communities in India

Abstract This essay investigates how caste, the most problematic cultural category of India, renders Indian versions of two Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Christianity, a site of ambivalence and conflict. It explores how caste has played out differently in the lives of two Abrahamic religious communities, i.e., the Christians and the Jews at two different locales, Kerala and Andhra. In Kerala, both Syrian Christians and Cochin Jews adopted caste as the given social order of the host country. They practised it to their advantage as it not only made it possible for them to get integrated into the existing Hindu cultural universe of the host nation but also conferred upon them a respectable social status, resulting in the acquisition of social/cultural capital. However, in Andhra, Christian and Jewish Madigas embraced their respective religions to eschew caste and gain self-respect. In Kerala, while caste became an effective route for a harmonious integration into the cultural matrix of the host territory, it not only disrupted intra-communal amity both among the Cochin Jews and the Kerala Christians but also became a source of defiance and alienation from the core teachings of each of these religions, resulting in the loss of ‘spiritual capital’. On the contrary, the rejection of caste on the part of the Madiga Jews and Madiga Christians, perhaps, brought them closer to the central message of fraternity and equality found both in Judaism and in Christianity, whereby they fared better in ‘spiritual and religious capitals’ than their counterparts in Kerala.

Wrongful Conviction Rates and Death Penalty Support: Acceptability Hypothesis in Japan

This study tested the hypothesis that presenting people with information about wrongful convictions that are considered an unacceptable cost of administering justice lowers support for the death penalty. We recruited 815 participants using an online crowdsourcing service in Japan, randomly assigned them to eight groups with varying combinations of presence or absence of information emphasizing losses caused by wrongful convictions and asked them to answer questions on the death penalty. Results of the preregistration experiment showed no effect of loss emphasis, but the groups provided with information on wrongful conviction rates were less likely to support the death penalty than those with no information; the higher the wrongful conviction rate, the lower was the support. This study’s findings, which replicated a previous study’s findings with non-U.S. participants, support the acceptability hypothesis and confirm the institutional and cultural universality of the effect of wrongful conviction information on public attitude toward capital punishment.

서울 암사동 유적의 세계유산적 가치 검토

The Amsadong Site, which were discovered as the Great Flood in 1925, is a representative Neolithic site on the Korean Peninsula, and is already designated and protected as a nationallydesignated cultural heritage due to their importance and significance. Recently, the value of the Amsadong site has been newly recognized and used as a socio-cultural resource, and preparations for the nomination of World Heritage based on the value and significance of the site.
 According to research on the Amsadong site, it would be the earliest Neolithic site in the Midwest of the Korean Peninsula, and is a representative site of the Korean Peninsula that shows Neolithic culture that emerged in the process of adapting to a new climate in Holocene. In particular, the pottery culture, which is represented by comb-patterned pottery excavated from the Amsadong Site, is a archaeological evidence that proves the universality of East Asian earthenware culture that changes into a new decoration technique and the process of differentially occurring, changing, developing, and spreading of comb-patterned pottery culture in the Korean Peninsula. In the early study of comb-pattern pottery culture, there was also a study of the diffusionism with Eurasian earthenware culture, but this is time to be reviewed through expanded research through multi-layered space setting including the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia.
 Comparing the value of Amsadong Site with criteria i)-vi), the nomination criteria of iii) and iv) can be met in consideration of differentiated pottery culture, new substance for adaptation to the changing environment, and the formation of settlement villages. However, in order to strategically promote the nomination as a World Heritage Site, it will be necessary to review the development of Neolithic pottires and comb-pattern pottery culture based on a wider space range, including the Korean Peninsula. In particular, for the serial nomination of World Heritage, it is necessary to review the outstanding and universal value through a review of Neolithic sites in the Midwest of the Korean Peninsula.
 The nomination of World Heritage is an effective way to protect and promote the value of the value of Amsadong Site, and we look forward to continuous efforts for World Heritage sites.

Knowledge, use and management in situ of Licuri (Syagrus coronata (Mart.) Becc.).

The aim of this study was to verify the relationships between the forms of use and management adopted by extractivists of the palm Syagrus coronata (Mart.) Becc., as well as their knowledge about it, and to relate ethnobotanical parameters to phenotypic traits in a caatinga area located at the Jiboia settlement in Senhor do Bonfim, Bahia. Licuri is considered a resource of high commercial importance for residents of the Jiboia Settlement. Thirty-five interviews were conducted with the extractivists from April to November 2018. Five categories of use were reported, with emphasis on human food, trade and animal feed. There was a significant relationship between the informants' age, oldest people, and the extractivism of S. coronata. Women's knowledge was also significant. To evaluate the relationship between the residents of the settlement and the Licuri, semi-structured interviews were applied. Phenotypic characterization was performed with selected S. coronata palms in the managed and unmanaged areas. From ethnobotanical and phenotypic data, it was possible to understand the population dynamics and the cultural universe surrounding the use and management of S. coronata, a native species from the northeastern semi-arid region of Brazil and currently under searched regarding this last aspect.

Deterritorialization in the context of cultural heritage and globalizing Msheireb downtown Doha

The State of Qatar has witnessed rapid urban activity and development in the decades since the discovery of oil, which has led to a large-scale change in the local cultural heritage and behavior of its residents. This uncontrolled rapid urbanization, along with the acceleration of globalization and modernity that has encompassed all areas, especially the city of Doha, has led to the deterioration and destruction of the downtown area of Msheireb. These transformations threaten the identity and local culture of Qatari society, affecting the place's sense of identity. The country's authorities have rushed to implement strategies and development plans aimed at redeveloping the old city center and improving the environment by creating innovative and inspiring living spaces that enable both locals and foreigners to communicate and integrate with one another to restore a sense of community. This study addresses the “Msheireb Downton Doha” project and the consequences of globalization. The study examines the concept of “deterritorialization” as a cultural condition that has pushed Msheireb Downtown Doha from modernity to postmodernism as an element of globalization. In this study, we will analyze the reconstruction of Msheireb, which helped to move the city toward cultural universality while simultaneously reducing regional borders. The study will analyze the extent to which this process succeeded or failed in preserving the spirit of the area's traditional architectural heritage and cultural identity in a manner that reflects the genuine sentiments and values of Qatari society.

Readers, Writers, and Oystercatchers: Reflections on the Future of the Book

Readers, Writers, and OystercatchersReflections on the Future of the Book Robert Bringhurst (bio) "Books," writes Robert Bringhurst, "are things that humans make, or try to make, as persistently as birds make nests, and we do it for similar reasons." In the following essay, the author mulls the future of these "cultural universals" that manifest as both oral books and the codex form, whether print or digital. THE PRESENT and the past are full of facts, sometimes easy to ignore but not so easy to escape. The future is mostly full of fictions. Some of us, hoping to escape the inescapable past and present, find the fictions of the future attractive for that reason. But fiction, as we know, can shed a lot of light on clotted facts. It can do this so well that some of us think that's what fiction is for. Here's a short (and entirely factual) vignette that bears upon this issue. In November 2022, a certain US politician, disgraced and out of office, formally announced that he would embark on another campaign. There were, of course, preliminary announcements of the announcement, to encourage media attention, and the media complied. And so, just before the event, a British journalist by the name of David Smith spoke on the phone with the Washington Post's associate editor, Bob Woodward. To the best of my knowledge, Smith has no monastic training, but in talking with his colleague, he employed a standard Zen technique： he posed a kōan. That is to say, he asked a seemingly dumb, slightly off-kilter question, seeking an unguarded, unpremeditated, illuminating response. Smith's kōan was "What's going to happen?" To which Woodward (also not, so far as I know, a Buddhist monk) gave a proper Zen reply: "You can't record the future" Smith then supplied what is known in the Zen world as jakugo, a phrase that sums things up. "You can't record the future, no," he said, "but you can revisit the past."1 That's not what I would call cosmic enlightenment, but it's a step in the right direction： an initial recognition that the future is reached through the past and the past through the present. We're the knot in which they're tied. The stakes are higher—much higher—in the slow parade of literate civilization than in the apoplectic shouting match of current American politics, but the same restrictions apply: no crystal balls, no tarot cards, no oracles. In thinking about the future—of the book, or of anything else—all we have to work with are the present and the past. Questions about the future are not, however, as casual and friendly as they once were. Our forefathers and foremothers could talk about the future—their own personal future or the future of their culture—without always having to ask at the same time whether humanity itself had any future. We have lost that luxury. One of the first things you realize when you contemplate cultural history is that civilizations are mortal. They all collapse sooner or later—but they don't all take the planetary ecosystem with them when they go. Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 38] _____ My own experience of books is, in most respects, the same as that of other readers and writers of my generation. My age-mates and I grew up in an analog world and have watched, with a wide spectrum of emotions, as that world grows more and more digital. We now read and write digital text, carry on digital conversations, listen to music in digital form, make and manipulate digital photographs, and consult the internet daily. To some of us, nevertheless, all that is digital smells of illusion. Benchmark reality—rocks and trees, rivers and mountains, tables and chairs, horses and dogs, ourselves and the people we know, the garden, the greenhouse, the forest—is outside the digital realm. By deduction as well as perception, real books belong to the realm of rocks and trees, not to the realm of pixels and megabytes. Like horses and dogs and tables and chairs, real books also require...

Modes of (R)existence in Brazilian Traditional Cultures: Ancestry and Queerness in the Subversive Performance of the Carimbó Cobra Venenosa

Abstract: Based on collaborative research on the Carimbó Cobra Venenosa group, this article discusses how traditional expressions are shaped by LGBTQIA+ performers and how perceptions of the LGBTQIA+ community are potentially altered when feminist and queer artists perform traditional folk genres. Carimbó is a form of music, dance, and sociability typical of the state of Pará (Amazonia, Northern Brazil). Although it has historically been a source of Black and popular subaltern resistance, it has also been structured by sexist, binary, and heteronormative perspectives. Cobra Venenosa is a carimbó group that invests in a subversive performance in which LGBTQIA+ activism is key. Cobra's aesthetic and political choices are characteristic of contemporary performative arts and artivism. However, the ensemble claims to be pau e corda —a vernacular category referring to carimbó traditional styles. Cobra's insistence on simultaneously occupying these two places challenges the limits of traditional carimbó from within. This article contributes to the visibility of feminist and queer experiences in the universe of traditional cultures, revealing the presence of distinct values, practices, subjects, and conflicts. It dialogues with feminist, queer, intersectional, and decolonial studies, and points to potential theoretical and analytical gains resulting from the study of nonconformant cases.

Modes of (R)existence in Brazilian Traditional Cultures: Ancestry and Queerness in the Subversive Performance of the Carimbó Cobra Venenosa

Abstract: Based on collaborative research on the Carimbó Cobra Venenosa group, this article discusses how traditional expressions are shaped by LGBTQIA+ performers and how perceptions of the LGBTQIA+ community are potentially altered when feminist and queer artists perform traditional folk genres. Carimbó is a form of music, dance, and sociability typical of the state of Pará (Amazonia, Northern Brazil). Although it has historically been a source of Black and popular subaltern resistance, it has also been structured by sexist, binary, and heteronormative perspectives. Cobra Venenosa is a carimbó group that invests in a subversive performance in which LGBTQIA+ activism is key. Cobra's aesthetic and political choices are characteristic of contemporary performative arts and artivism. However, the ensemble claims to be pau e corda —a vernacular category referring to carimbó traditional styles. Cobra's insistence on simultaneously occupying these two places challenges the limits of traditional carimbó from within. This article contributes to the visibility of feminist and queer experiences in the universe of traditional cultures, revealing the presence of distinct values, practices, subjects, and conflicts. It dialogues with feminist, queer, intersectional, and decolonial studies, and points to potential theoretical and analytical gains resulting from the study of nonconformant cases.

The sacredness of history as a subject of theoretical discussions and socio-cultural practice

The subject of the study is the correlation between the variants of relation to the sacred as a phenomenon of perception of the past and the practical embodiments of these modalities in various sociocultural forms. As a methodological basis, the principle of separation of history (historical science) and collective memory, implemented in "memory studies", in particular, by M. Hvalbvaks and P. Nora, was used. The original application of this principle in this study made it possible to establish two interdependencies between internally differentiated value-ideological attitudes (secular/sacred) regarding the historical past and their objectifications in the norms of law and the scientific ethos, the features of the education and education system, in the development of art. The secular assessment of sacred involves its elimination from the field of being, the mechanisms of spiritual development of the past, and finds expression either in the use of strict, formalized tools of historical knowledge, in the requirement of maximum deideologization of the latter, or in such a relation to the past, in which it turns into a material of subjective interpretations. In the opposite setting, the sacred is understood as a necessary and irreparable part of collective memory, the source of which in one interpretation is the transcendental plan of being, and in the other - the transcendental universals of culture. This installation turns out to be an obstacle to the complete elimination of sacred and from the practice of specialized historical knowledge, which finds normative expression in the integration of theological discourse into the structure of scientific knowledge.

Victim Semantics

The paper focuses on understanding the place of the phenomena of a victim and sacrifice in the history of world culture and in sociocultural practices from its inception to the present state. The main socio-cultural pat terns of a victim and their links with other cultural universals — the game, myth, rites of passage, ethnic mentalit y are studied. The author analyses socio-cultural functions of the phenomena of a victim in the processes of changing technological structure in the Modern and Contemporary times and in the modern network societ y. It is concluded that the combination of sacrifice, game, myth and heroic principle is a universal regulating, synthesizing and promoting transitional factor. This factor in the anthroposphere triggers the process of emergence inside it of a special structure of self-maintenance and selfdevelopment, in other words, a socio-cultural matrix (invariant, homeoresis), the most impor tant element of stability in the conditions of any crisis and any transition.