Field Of Social Anthropology Research Articles

Genocide and Relevance: Current Trends in United States Holocaust Museums

This article argues that Holocaust museums create connections between Holocaust memory and the traumatic pasts of many nations and cultures in pursuit of a multidirectional museology of relevance that reflects the diversity of American society and exemplifies the museums’ collective function as moral institutions in the United States. The article cites empirical evidence and curatorial decisions but also analyzes museum practices through the lens of post-Holocaust Jewish moral thought. It offers an ethical and philosophical framework against which museums’ curatorial and philosophical choices can be examined. It documents and analyzes the way that Holocaust museums both filter and prompt the key questions being faced in Holocaust institutions and by the Jewish community today. Three major issues are examined: how museums address the subject of modern genocide, how they attempt to create relevance, and how they maintain a distinct emphasis on the Holocaust. Methodologically, the project relies upon three approaches to assist me in answering questions such as the ones above. First, I employ empirical analysis as it has been developed in the field of cultural anthropology and engage in close examinations of multiple United States Holocaust museums – through on-site visits, interviews with senior staff, a study of web materials, and close analysis of museum documents. The second approach is historical analysis; the literature of the field is used as secondary source material that sheds light on the decisions made in the museums and on the history of their development. Finally, there is a philosophical analysis of the empirical and historical data and the patterns documented, employing various philosophical and ethical approaches to articulate a museology of relevance. Through the use of these approaches, this article theorizes about the future of Holocaust museums.

Examination of Cultural Anthropology in Esfarayen's Oral Literature

The present study was aimed to examine people's oral literature in Esfarayen, an old city located in North Khorasan. Esfarayen possesses unique characteristics and a special culture with a rich oral literature, because it receives different races and tribes, especially Karmanji Kurds, Turks, Tats, and Persians, coming from different parts of Iran. Esfarayen's oral literature like in other parts of Iran is the product of mental, spiritual conditions based on dreams, failures, hopes, fears, and struggles in different areas of work such as agriculture and livestock. People in Esfarayen use oral literature for security, peace, survival, recreation, cultural affairs, and daily tasks; their oral literature includes vocals, anecdotes, lullabies, beliefs, superstitions, quotations, curses, prayers, and dreams. It should be noted that no study has been conducted with this approach. Being native and being an MA student, and more importantly, paying attention to people's oral literature have been the reasons why the author has selected this subject in the field of cultural anthropology. This research, using two study methods, has tried to gather, classify, analyze, and describe a considerable portion of people's oral literature in Esfarayen. The results obtained from show that ideas and linguistic and cultural differences help to reinforce people's culture in Esfarayen. Vocals, beliefs, superstitions, music, lullabies, fortunes, legends, stories, and anecdote in Esfarayen are taken from people's dreams based on history. This thesis has been provided by relying on a field and documentary research method (interview, corporate observation) and using a theoretical framework of functionalism, diffusionism, and interpretivism. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2016.v7n3s2p86

Collective Approaches to Risk in Business: An Introduction to Plural Rationality Theory

This article initiates a discussion regarding Plural Rationality Theory, which began to be used as a tool for understanding risk 40 years ago in the field of social anthropology. This theory is now widely applied and can provide a powerful paradigm to understand group behaviors. The theory has only recently been utilized in business and finance, where it provides insights into perceptions of risk and the dynamics of firms and markets. Plural Rationality Theory highlights four competing views of risk with corresponding strategies applied in four distinct risk environments. We explain how these rival perspectives are evident on all levels, from roles within organizations to macro level economics. The theory is introduced and the concepts are applied with business terms and examples such as company strategy, where the theory has a particularly strong impact on risk management patterns. The principles are also shown to have been evident in the run up to—and the reactions after—the 2008 financial crisis. Traditional “risk management” is shown to align with only one of these four views of risk, and the consequences of that singular view are discussed. Additional changes needed to make risk management more comprehensive, widely acceptable, and successful are introduced.

THIRD REPORT: 1965–6 (published December 1966) PART II: DEFINITIONS THE CENTRE: SOME BASIC DEFINITIONS

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. published by The University of Birmingham, 1963. Also in THE USE OF ENGLISH, Vol. XV, 2 and 3 and THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR, vol. 33, 2. 2. in A GUIDE TO THE SOCIAL SCIENCES, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1966, Also in THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR, Vol. 35, 2. 3. Two Working Papers in Cultural Studies, Alan Shuttleworth, (December 1966). Working Paper No. 2: ‘A Humane Centre’ and ‘Max Weber and The “Cultural Sciences”’. 4. For example, in the field of cultural anthropology and some branches of modern linguistics. 5. Max Weber, ‘“Objectivity” In Social Science’, Methodology of the Social Sciences, ed. E. Shils and H. Finch. 6. It might be thought that this consideration is the exclusive concern of the literary scholar and critic. It is interesting, therefore, to recall that Max Weber, whom we quote again at a later point, is aware of the same problem. Writing in ‘The Logic Of The Cultural Sciences’, about the correspondence between Goethe and Frau von Stein, Weber speaks of one sense in which the letters stand as ‘an object of valuation … connected with the incomparable, the unique, the irreplaceable literary element in the object’. An ‘interpretation' based on this criterion is useful for the analyst, Weber says, because it provides ‘knowledge for him in the sense that it, as we say, extends his “inner life” and his “mental and spiritual horizon”, and makes him capable of comprehending and thinking through the possibilities and nuances of life-patterns as such and to develop his own self intellectually, aesthetically and ethically … in a differentiated way – or in other words, to make his “psyche” so to speak, more “sensitive to values”’ … . ‘this valuation of the object in its characteristic uniqueness supplies the reason why the object becomes an object of reflection and of … intellectual treatment, that is, it becomes an object of interpretation’. (Methodology Of The Social Sciences, P143) 7. F.R. Leavis, The Common Pursuit. 8. Max Weber, ‘“Objectivity” In Social Science’, Methodology etc. 9. Max Weber, ‘“Objectivity” In Social Science’, Methodology etc. 10. Max Weber, ‘Logic of the Cultural Sciences’, Methodology of the Social Sciences. 11. Raymond Williams, The Long Revolution.

Organizational networks, migration, and intercultural relations in Trieste, Italy

PurposeThe present paper is part of a study associated with the migration phenomenon and the formation of intercultural social and economic relations which emerged in Italy in the nineteenth century and its practical and social implications in the twenty‐first century. The city of Trieste, Italy consists of a case study which examines the formation of organizational networks in the Mediterranean and in Europe which consist of the basic body of the so called Greek commercial dispersion.Design/methodology/approachThis study presents data collected from the analysis of archival documents. It is part of the scientific field of social anthropology and is a case study where participative observation was employed. Interviews with people offered the researchers ground to explain the purposes and reasons for the implementation of decisions related to the creation of the organizational networks.FindingsThe article discusses the relation between the national group with its unique cultural identity and entrepreneurship, emphasizing the cultural characteristics of such relation. The consequences from the existence of these networks in all sectors of the life of the community of these areas are investigated. To a third level of discussion, the mapping and analysis of the cultural interactions which emerged as a result of these networks shaping an integrated cultural identity is examined.Originality/valueThe project succeeds in making a theoretical and practical contribution to the way the development of organizational networks presented for Trieste, Italy can consist of a typical recourse for other areas of the Mediterranean where cultures and identities intermingle nowadays and migration and policy directions need to be implemented.

Relating through Dreams: Names, Genes and Shared Substance

In the late 1990s, Iceland became known worldwide for the development of a national genetic database. Articles in international newspapers addressed the issue of how a whole nation could agree upon selling their genetic material for medical research. Within the field of social anthropology, the concern is that such initiatives are a sign of the “geneticization” of society, leaving little room for what is designated as a socially constructed relatedness. An analysis of dreams, dreamt and shared by Icelanders, offers a different picture. Focusing on the important role of dreams for naming Icelandic children, this article seeks to demonstrate that even in a society such as Iceland, which is considered to be highly “genetic oriented”, practices that highlight non‐genetic relationships between people are significant.

Book Reviews: Rumba Rules: The Politics of Dance Music in Mobutu’s Zaire

[Extract] What an enchanting ethnographic study! This book deserves to be widely read. I say this as a reviewer who is a complete outsider to African studies. As I have little first-hand knowledge concerning the ethnography or even the music of this part of the world, my comments on this book are based on my understanding of its significance in terms of the contribution it makes to debates within the field of cultural anthropology, in particular the anthropology of performance, the anthropological study of music, political anthropology and the anthropology of popular culture. My particular interest is in its contribution to the comparative study of links between power and performance, as the main aim of the ethnography is to explore ‘the links, both material and symbolic, between the performance of popular dance music and the emergence of a particular type of political culture in Mobutu’s Zaire’ (p. 24).

4.2.3 Cultural Differences in Systems Engineering: What They Are, What They Aren't, and How to Measure Them

AbstractDespite frequent use of the term culture in contemporary engineering practice, there is currently no reliable way of understanding what constitutes true shared beliefs and meanings that impact how groups of Systems Engineers spread across multiple departments and countries work together. This paper develops a framework to address that gap and measure cultural variation in Systems Engineering contexts. Drawing from the field of cultural anthropology, we demonstrate methods to empirically measure cultural consensus and divergence related to fostering collaboration, understanding business success or failure, and identifying characteristics of effective cross‐functional teams. The discussion identifies substantive content of what real organizational cultures are, where they are different, and where they overlap. That quantified content feeds culture as a rigorous element of organizational strategy into global alignment and process excellence or six sigma initiatives targeted at changing team behavior. The result is a framework for conducting rigorous, empirical investigations to truly understand the human dimensions that are critical to effective Systems Engineering practice. We discuss areas this approach applies to global process alignment and team effectiveness.

Poles and Germans: An International Business Relationship

In this article, we aim to identify and explain how Polish managers, in the Polish affiliates of German companies, view their German partners. The theoretical background for this article comes from the field of social anthropology. The empirical data were collected during face-to-face, semi-structured interviews with executives in Poland. The findings presented here are the result of qualitative analysis. We argue that the Polish/German contrast, as perceived by Polish managers, bears a strong resemblance to other core/periphery ethnic relationships in Europe. Parallels are drawn from the British Isles. We argue that the characterizations discussed play an important role in allowing managers to understand their business roles and capabilities within an international business context. A major shortcoming in international business research is the poor understanding of these ingrained attitudes. Our study aims to fill this gap.

Crosscultural Counselling for Japanese Adolescents Experiencing Acculturative Stress

The purpose of this article is to define and describe the issues relating to acculturation and acculturative stress. A proposed counselling approach for acculturative stress is presented and has been adapted from interventions for social phobia, which considers of the role of the crosscultural counsellor as well as models of cultural orientation and identity. Suggestions for counsellor preparation for dealing with culturally diverse clients are provided drawing upon resources and methods from the field of cultural anthropology. The intention of presenting these ideas and strategies will propose ways to assist minority groups, like international students, improve and maintain psychological wellbeing and quality of life. Finally, recommendations for further research in the areas of acculturation and acculturative stress are identified.

Sapir's Vision of Culture and Personality

For Edward Sapir the concept of culture was a reification of processes that were rooted in individuals' personality and psychology. Sapir suggested that psychiatry's focus on individual biography and pathology gives it unique relevance for social science efforts to understand the mechanisms of cultural transmission and transformation. As a discipline that must integrate culture and biology in theory and practice, psychiatry can provide a corrective to the extremes of biological or cultural reductionism. Although mainstream psychiatry has largely abdicated the role it once had in the social sciences, the interdisciplinary field of cultural psychiatry may meet some of Sapir's hopes. Recent work in cultural psychiatry is centrally concerned with illness narratives that arise from the interaction of personal and collective meaning. Illness narratives may serve individual defensive functions, position individuals in a social world, and help to maintain overarching cultural formations. They also may challenge or subvert existing cultural meanings and create new forms of discourse. The close analysis of how cultural and individual meanings interact that is provided by cultural psychiatry has much to offer the wider field of cultural anthropology.

Networks and Their Relevance to the Entrepreneurial/Marketing Interface: A Review of the Evidence

This paper considers the relevance which networks have for research at the Marketing/Entrepreneurship Interface. The paper argues that while there is some evidence to suggest that networks are an important tool for entrepreneurial firms, there is a need to more clearly explain what is meant by the terms “network” and “networking”. It is proposed that by using a definition of networks borrowed from the field of social anthropology, current understanding of the marketing benefits that can accrue to firms which make entrepreneurial use of networks can be advanced. Drawing upon the findings of research which employed such a definition, the paper concludes that networks and the activity of networking are indeed important entrepreneurial marketing tools and that further research attention to these is required to acquire a comprehensive understanding of these.

Apparitions of the Madonna at Oliveto Citra by Paolo Apolito

Apparitions of the Madonna at Oliveto Citra. By Paolo Apoito. Translated by William A. Christian,Jr. (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press. 1998. Pp. xi.267. $49.50.) On November 24, 1985, the feast of Saint Macarius, the patron saint of Oliveto Citra, a small town south of Salerno, Italy, the townspeople held their annual evening celebration in honor of their saint. Late that night, while many were still celebrating, twelve boys who had been playing in the center of the town, reported having seen the Blessed Virgin Mary. They ran into a nearby bar shouting, We've seen the Madonna. The barmaid went to where the boys had been playing and reportedly saw the Madonna herself, who spoke to the barmaid. That was the beginning of a long series of alleged apparitions, which continued for about ten years on an almost daily basis. Many people, hundreds, some of them pilgrims who have come for an evening of prayer to the place where the Madonna is said to appear, say that they have seen the Virgin Mary and heard her speak to them. HIer message has always been the same: she calls them to be converted, to have faith, and to pray. At present, only one person claims to see the Blessed Virgin Mary at all, and rarely. There are few pilgrims, and only a handful of people come to the center of the town each evening to say the rosary together. For all practical purposes, the episode of the Oliveto Citra apparitions is closed. This book is about the phenomenon of those alleged apparitions. Congratulations to the translator and to the University of Pennsylvania Press. The production of the book, including the book jacket, stands as a model for publication of a scholarly work. And William A. Christian has done an outstanding work of translation, with an additional bibliography additional explanatory footnotes, and an extensive and useful index. The book itself is another matter. Readers, in general, will be puzzled by the book rather than enlightened. The author teaches cultural anthropology at the University of Salerno, Italy, near where the alleged apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary reported in the book take place. This book, the author's first to be translated into English, purports to be a scholarly, scientific study in the field of cultural anthropology. The distanced view that the author takes from his subject, however, far from being scientific, appears condescending and peculiarly prejudiced against the people of that part of southern Italy. …

La Antropología Social en la Argentina: un producto de la democracia

In the beginning, Argentinian anthropology was confined to physical anthropology, arqueology and folklore. During the sixties, a new approach, from the field of social anthropology, appeared. The discipline had broad aims as to its object (including more than Indians and peasants), and its compromise with finding solutions for the country’s urgent problems. This conception was threatened by hegemonic theoretical trends during the years of dictatorship which prohibited its practice, persecuted teachers and closed courses. The real consolidation of the discipline only became possible in 1983 with the restoration of democracy.

Preface

This issue of ISMO concerns culture. It is only fair to say that this could mean virtually anything. The following discussion makes some attempt to specify the range of interests and ideas that emerge from the articles. It may be useful, and I hope not too self-indulgent, to begin with some autobiography to explain my own position and give some background to my comments. I began learning in the field of social anthropology in Oxford in 1970, guided by Edwin Ardener, whom many (including myself) consider one of the outstanding intellects in British postwar social anthropology (see, for example, Chapman, 1989; Hastrup, 1989). Social anthropology in Oxford at the time was in the full flush of a theoretical revolution that has often been summarized as a shift from the study of function to the study of meaning (Ardener, 1971a; Pocock, 1961). Social anthropology in Great Britain had been institutionalized in the period between the wars under two major figures Bronislaw Malinowksi and A.R. Radcliffe-Brown. These two were not, in their own view, in the same theoretical camp, but they are perceived, in retrospect, as sharing some important characteristics of the period. In particular, both conceived of their subject as a of society. Radcliffe-Brown, in 1957 (late in his career), published a collection of essays from previous decades and called it A Natural Science of Society. Malinowski, in 1944, published a theoretical manifesto called A Scientific Theory of Culture. There is neither space nor need to go into the detail of the arguments, but the message was clear enough societies were to be studied objectively, as if they were biological species or bits of the physical world; they were to be observed, classified, and detailed in such a way that a closed and determinate science would be developed a science that, bit by bit, would

STRATEGIC NETWORKS AMONG SMALL FIRMS: IMPLICATIONS FOR STRATEGY RESEARCH METHODOLOGY*

ABSTRACTThis paper deals with the choice of methodological approach within strategic network research. Network‐oriented research approaches indicate a broader set of organizational and environmental variables. the issue of trust in network relations implicates contextual aspects such as the socio‐cultural foundation of people's interaction. the striving toward more complex, multi‐level models of strategy is seen to put a heavy burden on the development of adequate strategy research methods. the paper reports and interprets experience from a case study of inter‐organizational exchange governance in small firms. the discussion suggests a need for more in‐depth knowledge of cultural contexts, and of socio‐economic relations of actors within strategic networks. the paper recommends a search for new methodological inputs from other academic disciplines more experienced with human interaction research. In particular, methodological tools found within the field of social anthropology are recommended.

The Anthropology of Misfortune and Cognitive Science. Examples from the Ivory Coast Senufo

The ArgumentThis paper applies the approach developed by the congnitive sciences to a classical field of social anthropology—i.e., the analysis of represetations and behaviors relative to misfortune in “traditional” societies.The initial argument is that the conceptual division and the modes of description and explanation of anthropology suffer from serious weaknesses: these concepts cannot serve to understand empirical phenomena (utterances and/or behavior); they rely on a confused and erroneous conception of the different domains involved and the causalities between them; and they use simplistic hypotheses about the existence and causal status of the entities that usually form the ultima ratio of anthropological reasoning (e.g., lineage organization, ancestors, witchcraft, etc.). These entities would directly “cause” other individual representations or behaviors. This simplification also affects the analysis of states of belief in these entities, to which individuals would supposedly “adhere”.I argue here that the cognitivist approach, within a “methodological individualism” framework, provides a more adequate description of phenomena observed in the field. This enables the various levels and domains to be more finely defined. The analysis of “typical” utterances and inferences in a “tranditional” society, the Senufo of the Ivory Coast, is here used to clarify these anthropological problems. Two levels can be distinguished: (1) a priori representations, which are underdetermined, enabling them to occur within valid inferences; (2) perception and/or action, which obeys different cognitive constraints. The existential status of unobservable entities appearing in causal inferences is not equivalent (“symmetrical”) depending on whether they are determined as antecedent or consequent.This paper suggests a theory of interpretive processes and beliefs having flexible references, because they are incomplete and domain-specific. It allows a comparison with facts observed in Western societies. It is also in contrast to the ordinary conception of religious states of belief — i.e., these states would be purely psychological, states of “adherence,” collective, autonomous, obligatory, part of a systemized set of knowledge; collective notions (of God, church, etc.) would here logically precede individual representations.

The Healing Space in Psychotherapy and Theatre

This article is a comparative examination of the relationship of audience and actors on the one hand, and of a client and his psychotherapist on the other. Peter Elsass argues that in order to describe both relationships as of a healing nature, one also has to identify a ‘healing space’ beyond the consulting room, instead of focusing on the healing relationship itself. Employing an analogy with shamanism, he describes this ‘healing space’ as a ‘pinta’, or vision from an extra-contextual frame. The history of psychoanalysis shows this need for a ‘pinta’ as a driving, rebellious force, and he suggests that without a ‘pinta’ of its own, the theatre also dies. Peter Elsass is a Professor of Health Psychology in the Medical Faculty of Aarhus University, Denmark, and chief psychologist at the Psychiatric Hospital, Aarhus. In addition to writing a large number of articles within the medical and psychological fields, he has also worked in the field of cultural anthropology, and in Strategies for Survival: the Psychology of Cultural Resilience in Ethnic Minorities (New York University Press, 1992), he describes his many periods of residence with Indian tribes in Colombia. Peter Elsass has been an associate of Odin Theatre, and has taught at the International School of Theatre Anthropology, directed by Eugenio Barba.

Der Runen-Stein von Rök und Snorri Sturluson - oder 'Wie aussagekräftig sind unsere Quellen zur Religionsgeschichte der Wikingerzeit?'

The article contributes to the discussion on source criticism within the research field of Old Norse religion. It examines the common assumption that archaeological sources are always to prefer above written sources from the Middle Ages where the Viking Era is described as such accounts are invariably tendentious and biased. Influenced by theories from the field of social anthropology, however, the article argues for the worth of written sources as a complement to the material ones. As an example, the effort to interpret the inscriptions on the runic stone from Rök are introduced. The article suggests that different kinds of source material offer a spectrum of possibilities out of which none alone, but rather all taken together, can deepen the researcher’s knowledge about the object under study.

Praktische theologie als een academische discipline

PT is an academic field merging for new ways: It no longer wants to be a pure ‘application of systematic theology for ecclesial practice’. It attempts to find its own subject matter and methodology. Scholars seek the field (subject matter) of PT in the work of the pastor (clerical model), in the church as part of society (ecclesial model), or in the paradigm of liberation. The methodology of PT has been strongly influenced by the rise of the social disciplines: psychology and sociology. Moreover, methods from the field of cultural anthropology (Geertz, Turner) and hermeneutics (Gadamer, Ricoeur) are to be seen in the field of PT at this moment. For the normative aspects practical theologians not only seek their resources in biblical and systematic theology, but also in ethics (Browning) and in hermeneutical approaches (Gerkin).