Practices Of Other Cultures Research Articles

Female genital mutilation in France

The French Family Planning Association first protested to the World Health Organization in 1977 about its continuing silence about the genital mutilation of girls in Africa and the Far East. Though initially based more upon feminist concern for women's rights than upon the association's experience with female genital mutilation, the results of the practice became increasingly real and apparent in mother and child protection centers and family planning clinics as the wives and families of African immigrants arrived in France over the next few years. An estimated 100,000 immigrants live in the Paris region. The first reaction to the increasingly prevalent evidence of prior female genital mutilation was to not intervene in the practices of other cultures. It was only after a long period of raising awareness among health personnel, magistrates, institutes, and the general public that the problem began to be seen as something which needed to be addressed in France. It eventually took the death of two girls in 1982 to bring the issue into the open and force the authorities to take a stand against the practice in France. Health professionals and women attending family planning clinics are taught about female genital mutilation in an effort to prevent its continued practice. Information is also given to immigration candidates through French consulates about general family legislation in France and the prohibition of and punishment for female genital mutilation. Punishment can be from three months upwards in prison with fines. Several cases have come to court since 1982 and sentences have been passed against both fathers and mothers. Prevention kits of posters and leaflets have recently been published and distributed in the Paris area, but they will soon be available throughout France. Moreover, medical and social teams can and do report children at risk or who have suffered female genital mutilation through the normal channels for cases of child abuse.

The materialist mentality revisited

Many years after Wittgenstein penned his condemnation of Frazer's an? thropology of religion, a distinguished follower of his formulated a critique of the work of a man who was at that time perhaps the most prominent anthropologist writing in the English language. I am referring to Peter Winch's (1964) much-discussed essay, "Understanding a Primitive Society" (hereaf? ter UPS), in which he criticizes one of the central premises of Sir E. E. Evans-Pritchard's (hereafter referred to as E-P) (1937) ethnographic classic, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande. The juxtaposing of these two instances of a philosopher criticizing an anthropologist is far from capricious. In a footnote, Winch (UPS: 320) states that Wittgenstein's comments on Frazer inspired his own interpretation of Africa's Azande society. Furthermore, Wittgenstein and Winch make similar complaints about the respective targets of their criticisms; both Frazer and E P are accused of interpreting the mystical practices of other cultures as if their role were similar to that of science and technology in Western society. While Wittgenstein rejects Frazer's key thesis that the practitioners of primi? tive magic and ritual seek the kind of prediction and control of natural phe? nomena associated with modern science, Winch criticizes E-P for characterizing Zande mystical notions as false, a move which Winch (1964) claims unfairly assumes the universal applicability of epistemological crite

Engineering Ethics in A Multicultural Global Economy

Recent political upheavals that have occurred throughout the world will be followed by significant changes in the global economic order. The changes in the global economy will change engineering practice. Engineers from the United States will have greater access to work in formerly closed societies. While there may be new technological problems to overcome, practice in a multicultural global company will require engineers to handle a broader array of ethical dilemmas. Specifically, cultural influences on business practices will need addressing. This may require engineers to act at a higher level of moral development and to respect the values of other cultures. Values such as efficiency, timeliness, family responsibilities, and the value of land and nature have different levels of importance in different cultures. Different evaluations of risk and the issue of women engineers practicing may require adjustments to the business practices of other cultures. Addressing these issues as part of engineering pract...

Ethical and Legal Issues in the Care of the Impaired Newborn

The subject is approached from the standpoint of the debates and events of the "Baby Doe era," from 1982 to 1985. Historic episodes of mass infanticide and practices in other cultures, while often cited as warnings of moral peril, are difficult to apply to the problem of infant euthanasia. Key cases in American courts are reviewed, although no standard pattern of analysis is found to have emerged. The two streams of policy making at the national level, from the Department of Health and Human Services and the Congress, have effectively led back to underlying ethical dilemmas about the proper interpretation of the infant patient's best interests. The conclusion alludes to several issues that neonatal ethics has yet to confront.

On the Social Anthropology of Religion

That which we are inclined to classify as the religious statements and practices of other cultures tends to be representative of just what it is that is other about these cultures. To cite a notorious ethnographic example: had not been long in Nuerland when one morning my Nuer servant ... came in some excitement to tell me that a woman of his village, where we were staying, had given birth to a hippopotamus and a male child, both dead. It was too late to see what happened, but I was told that the hippopotamus had been placed in a nearby stream and the child, being a twin and therefore in Nuer eyes a sort of bird, had been placed in a tree.1 Plainly, on the face of it, statements of the kind reported here by Evans-Pritchard are so far from keeping with the entrenched understandings of the prevailing Western reality that they can hardly fail to capture the anthropological imagination and promote its enterprise. The distinctly anthropological endeavor to make sense of apparently radical human otherness, in such a way as also best to convey the other's own intentionality, is perhaps nowhere more exemplarily taxed than in the case of these statements and their like. In other words, the anthropological attempt to explicate religious phenomena solicits

Rapunzel: The Symbolism Of The Cutting Of Hair

I have adduced data to demonstrate that the act of cutting of hair is a symbol. The criterion of proof used is the traditional one in psychoanalysis: the idea carries constant meanings in separate areas of human experience and behavior. Such constant meanings are shown in a folk tale, the mental lives of patients, clinical studies by other authors, and certain practices of other cultures. The cutting of hair symbolizes separation from a mothering object, castration, and reparation.

A Cross-Cultural Look at Pregnancy, Labor, and Delivery

This article reviews sonic: pertinent cross-cultural literature that may give the maternity nurse the wider perspective of the practices and beliefs of many cultures in regard to childbirth. Such a perspective may help the nurse formulate solutions to certain problems encountered in caring for families during the maternity cycle. For example, learning about practices of other cultures regarding such things us delivery positions or the role of the father can help one loosen one's rigid concepts. We may first recognize a phenomenon that seems peculiar to other cultures, only to find on closer observation that it also occurs in our own.

Child-Rearing and Child-Care Practices among Israeli Students

To compare child-rearing practices cross-culturally, Cox ( 197 1 ) developed a 28-item questionnaire and used it in a study of Ethiopians. To enhance crosscultural comparability, the same questionnaire was given to comparable students: Chu and Ryback (1973) studied child-rearing practices in the Republic of China, and Ryback (1974) repeated the study in Thailand. To obtain information on child-care practices among the Hebrew population of Israel the same questionnaire was translated into Hebrew and administered to a sample of 150 predominantly Jewish Israeli students at Bar-Ilan University, living in the city of Tel Aviv. Although no statistical evaluation of the data from these studies was made, inspection of data suggests some aspects of child-rearing in Israel are remarkably similar to practices in other cultures, and some aspects are quite different. Among the Ethiopian, Chinese, Thai, and Israeli students, a greater proportion of Israeli students saw children as being made to feel loved and the parents as being sensitive to the child's needs. More Israelis appeared concerned about free urination and defecation by the young child and fewest appeared patient in training the child. More Ethiopian and Thai than Israeli and Chinese students (65% and 58% vs 30% and 29%, respectively) believed in the effectiveness of physical punishment. More Israeli students appeared to expect their children to become quickly independent of the family than any of the other three groups. More Israeli (46% yes, 50% no) than Ethiopian (22% yes, 73% no), Chinese (19% yes, 69% no) or Thai ( 5 % yes, 89% no) students were in general likely co allow aggressive behavior in children. More Israeli (54% yes, 42% no) and Ethiopian (46% yes, 54% no) than Chinese (16% yes, 69% no) students said they were likely to encourage fighting with other children.