Anthropological Theory Research Articles

Lacan and the transference

ABSTRACT Lacan papers reading is difficult and often disappointing. His technique, using shortening of sessions as a way of interpreting transference (“scansion”) is unacceptable. His great project of create a united structural theory of psychoanalysis, linguistic and anthropology has failed. However, his works on transference are worth being red. Lacan has reminded psychoanalysts that they are “divided subjects”, meaning that their unconscious remains unconscious to themselves, that they have to listen to themselves as much as they have to listen to their their patients; he has rediscovered the importance of après-coup, already stressed by Freud, but often forgotten; and above all, he has rediscovered the importance of words in transference interpretation, showing the importance of the link between two signifiers, more than the link between signifier and signified.

Criminal Bodies in Popular Victorian and Modernist Detective Fiction

This paper will examine the representation of the criminal body in detective fiction from the popular Victorian story magazine The Strand in its relationship to modernist experimental fiction which draws on the detective genre. Offering a broad survey of the Sherlock Holmes and other detective stories published in the first fourteen years of The Strand (1891-1904), the paper will argue that the period’s theories of criminal anthropology and hereditary criminality are consistently called into question in the popular magazine, suggesting that late-Victorian detective fiction was ambivalent toward theories of biologically determined criminality and was alive to problems of racial and class prejudice, corruption, and misidentification in criminal detection. Moving from the popular press to the canon, the paper will then make a claim for reading literary texts like G. K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare and Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale alongside the classic detective fiction of the popular press. To understand these novels in their engagements with classic detective fiction is to reconceptualize the notion of a neat divide between the period’s genres of fiction and to reach for a broader frame of literary responses to early criminology.

Mental maps, practical mastery and environmental experience: an analysis of the wayfinding culture of Evenki reindeer herders and hunters

AbstractThe present work explores the link between navigational processes and the experience of place by considering the case of Evenki reindeer herders and hunters. Our analysis shows how the idiosyncratic wayfinding methods of the Evenki result in a unique experience of place – a case that elucidates the important question of the impact of navigational processes on environmental experience, and that advances the debate between mental map theory and practical mastery theory in anthropology. We defend that their wayfinding methods – involving a particular gait, path networks, and vast hydrological and toponymical knowledge – allow the Evenki to navigate without a need for integrating egocentric and allocentric frames of reference. As a result, the Evenki experience themselves as free individuals moving through an environment that is alive and rife with possibility. This analysis reveals the ways in which wayfinding processes relying predominantly on route knowledge – as opposed to survey knowledge – affect environmental experience. Alternative methods of wayfinding can be seen as a form of resistance to the uniformisation of landscapes, and as a way of embracing the heterogeneity of space.

Reminiscence about the Soviet City: Urban Space in the Ukrainian Fiction of the 21st century

This paper addresses the group of works of contemporary Ukrainian literature in which the narrators’ reminiscences about urban areas directly relate to the formation of a national identity. In the Ukrainian fiction of the last two decades, the urban identity of the Soviet period is mainly shown as a specific ideologically caused type of identity, intended to replace or blur the national and the local identities. Marc Augé’s anthropological theory, which is based on the opposition of “places” and “non-places”, underlies the theoretical framework for this study. In the analyzed literary works, non-places as transitional areas, devoid of historicity and identity, are viewed as predominating over places and represented by either communal or private locations. Protagonists’ memories of communal non-places, – such as schools, hospitals, grocery stores, places of commemoration, monuments and administrative buildings, – often emphasize these characters’ feelings of alienation and misery in urban space. Communal non-places are also depicted in fiction as a means for authorities to exert ideological influence on citizens in order to restore the totalitarian regime (as is shown in the novel (Rivne / Rovno (The Wall) by Oleksandr Irvanets). Fiction depicting memories of private places also acquire non-place characteristics, such as the private apartment of the Lvivan Cilycks’ family in Victoria Amelina’s novel Dom’s Dream Kingdom. The transformation of the private area into a non-place demonstrates the danger of ignoring one’s own history, which leads to a loss of urban and national identity and the repetition of historical mistakes made by previous generations.

Denda Adat pada Tradisi Pepadun Masyarakat Lampung dalam Perspektif Hukum Islam

The people of Lampung, who are predominantly moslem, have a form of implementing customary fines known as dau. There is the term cepala or cepalau, which means 'violation of customary law' in Lampung, which is generally based on Islamic law. The people of Lampung, especially the Pepadun custom in West Tulangbawang Regency, adhere to customary law, which is a reflection of self-esteem that is relevant to the culture of the archipelago. This article aims to find out the practice of "customary fines' among the people of Lampung Pepadun in West Tulangbawang and describe the Islamic perspective on the practice of these customary fines. The researcher used the elicitation method with observing, note-taking, and interviewing techniques within the framework of legal anthropological theory with a phenomenological approach. In general, the practice of dau is in line with Islamic law. There is a stipulation of dau on the types of violations of customary law at mild, moderate, and serious levels, which have consequences of dau and social sanctions. In addition, there are types of violations of customary law in general that only result in punishment without social sanctions. The determination of dau is intended as social control to maintain order among the Pepadun indigenous people.

Adaptive learning in human–android interactions: an anthropological analysis of play and ritual

Using anthropological theory, this paper examines human–android interactions (HAI) as an emerging aspect of android science. These interactions are described in terms of adaptive learning (which is largely subconscious). This article is based on the observations reported and supplementary data from two studies that took place in Japan with a teleoperated android robot called Telenoid in the socialization of school children and older adults. We argue that interacting with androids brings about a special context, an interval, and a space/time for reflection and imagination that was not there before. During the interaction something happens. There is adaptive learning and as a result, both children and older adults accepted Telenoid, and the children and older adults accepted each other. Using frames of play and ritual, we make sense and ‘capture’ moments of adaptive learning, and the feedback that elicits a social response from all study participants that results in self-efficacy and socialization. While “ritual” refers to the application of what has been learned and “play” means that there are no obvious consequences of what has been learned. This analysis illuminates new understanding about the uncanny valley, cultural robotics and the therapeutic potential of HAI. This has implications for the acceptance of androids in ‘socialized roles’ and gives us insight into the subconscious adaptive learning processes that must take place within humans to accept androids into our society. This approach aims to provides a clearer conceptual basis and vocabulary for further research of android and humanoid development.

Radical Housing Justice Within and Beyond Caring

AntipodeEarly View Introduction Radical Housing Justice Within and Beyond Caring Michele Lancione, Corresponding Author Michele Lancione [email protected] orcid.org/0000-0002-9018-3562 Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning (DIST), Polytechnic and University of Turin, Turin, Italy[email protected]Search for more papers by this author Michele Lancione, Corresponding Author Michele Lancione [email protected] orcid.org/0000-0002-9018-3562 Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning (DIST), Polytechnic and University of Turin, Turin, Italy[email protected]Search for more papers by this author First published: 15 June 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12958Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. 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Mathematics in a Japanese overseas school: Connecting classroom study and curriculum

The aim of this paper is to investigate how the contents related to the arithmetic of fractions, as described in the official curriculum issued by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT), are implemented in actual teaching at the so-called Japanese supplementary school in Denmark. Additionally, at a methodological level, this case study demonstrates how so-called praxeological reference models can be developed at different levels of detail to describe classroom teaching at a particular grade level and the overall curriculum of primary school in a connected way. This study is based on the notions of praxeological reference models and moments of didactic processes from the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic. The findings reveal that (1) not much time is allocated to each moment and (2) the flow of gradually building up techniques, as intended by the textbook authors is to some extent disrupted in the lesson.

Existential aspects of human existence and the human-centered paradigm in public administration

This article analyzes the philosophical doctrine of the spiritual nature of man as the fundamental basis of his existence. The main focus of the analysis is Viktor Frankl's book "The Unconscious God," which presents an original anthropological theory encompassing all levels of human existence. By perceiving man holistically, this perspective contributes significantly to understanding human nature as a unique form of being. According to Frankl, the spiritual dimension can manifest both consciously and rationally, as well as unconsciously and irrationally. The crucial aspect lies in awakening and activating this spiritual principle within individuals, even if they are unaware of it. In his research, Frankl delves into dreams as a means of exploring the manifestations of the spiritual unconscious, and he conducts an in-depth analysis of conscience as a spiritual existential. This study's relevance stems from the growing prevalence of noogenic neurosis among educated and developed individuals in contemporary society, characterized by a profound sense of meaninglessness and an existential void. Essential existential elements fade from people's worldviews, transforming concepts like love, faith, hope, responsibility, and conscience into mere mental categories. A deeper understanding of this nature represents a crucial step in overcoming the noogenic crisis and facilitating further human evolution.

0116 A theory-driven, meta-analytical approach to evaluating optimal parenting behaviors and adolescent sleep

Abstract Introduction For adolescents, affiliative parenting behaviors (e.g., warm) are generally associated with better sleep and non-affiliative parenting behaviors (e.g., hostile) are associated with deficient sleep. However, specificity of interpersonal behaviors is unknown. We applied an interpersonal theoretical framework and conducted a meta-analysis to test and operationalize the theory that safety and security are necessary for good sleep. Methods Included in the meta-analysis were 41 studies on adolescent (10-19 years) sleep health and parenting behaviors. Studies included a total of 57,549, primarily female (52%), participants (Mage = 14.92, SDage = 2.00). Race/ethnicity was 76.7% White, 5.9% Black, 6.5% Hispanic, 1.5% Asian, and 9.4% Other. Structural analysis of social behavior (SASB) was applied to define and operationalize optimal (e.g., affiliative and autonomy granting/taking) and sub-optimal (e.g., non-affiliative and autonomy granting/taking) parenting behaviors (independent variable). Dependent variables were sleep regularity, duration, efficiency, latency, timing, quality, alertness/sleepiness, and disturbance. The final effect size of interest for analysis was a correlation efficient r. Results Optimal parenting behaviors were associated with longer sleep duration (r = 0.11, p = .02), decreased latency (r = -0.16, p < .001), less daytime sleepiness (r = -0.28, p < .001), and less sleep disturbances (r = -0.22, p < .001). Suboptimal parenting behaviors were associated with decreased sleep duration (r = -0.04, p = .05), increased latency (r = 0.12, p < .01), and more sleep disturbances (r = 0.38, p < .001). Conclusion This study applied interpersonal theory to define and operationalize parenting behaviors and their association with adolescent sleep. Findings support anthropological theory that parental interpersonal warmth is important for adolescent sleep and further indicate that security likely includes appropriate use of structure and autonomy granting behaviors. SASB analysis additionally revealed significant methodological issues that hamper understanding of the role of parental control (versus autonomy-granting) as separate from parental affiliation (versus hostility). This topic points the way to a crucial next step in developing an empirically grounded and comprehensive interpersonal model of sleep. Support (if any)

Introduction: Citational Politics in Medical Anthropology.

Introduction: Citational Politics in Medical Anthropology.

Reading legal ethnographies to re-map legal pluralism: a Pospisilian corrective to the prevailing dichotomous description of Afghanistan’s legal order

This article explores several ethnographies (both academic and para-academic) of Afghanistan’s traditional justice (jirgas and shuras) in order to illuminate contrasts of their conceptual approaches at different periods of the country’s history. In this genealogy we identify ethnographic observations of the levels at which various sociolegal authorities operate and which often elude standard international ontology. The article takes the legal ethnographies as signposts for a conceptual reframing of the legal situation in the country by drawing upon Pospisil’s legal-anthropological conceptual approach which offers an alternative to generic global legal models based on binary oppositions such as formal–informal, state–non-state or official–traditional. This reinterpretation achieves a more accurate non-dualistic understanding of Afghanistan’s traditional justice at the ethnographic micro-level. The discussion of Afghanistan’s legal ethnographies leads to renewed insights into Pospisil’s anthropological theory of law.

Operationalizing anthropological theory: four techniques to simplify networks of co-occurring ethnographic codes

The use of data and algorithms in the social sciences allows for exciting progress, but also poses epistemological challenges. Operations that appear innocent and purely technical may profoundly influence final results. Researchers working with data can make their process less arbitrary and more accountable by making theoretically grounded methodological choices. We apply this approach to the problem of simplifying networks representing ethnographic corpora, in the interest of visual interpretation. Network nodes represent ethnographic codes, and their edges the co-occurrence of codes in a corpus. We introduce and discuss four techniques to simplify such networks and facilitate visual analysis. We show how the mathematical characteristics of each one are aligned with an identifiable approach in sociology or anthropology: structuralism and post-structuralism; identifying the central concepts in a discourse; and discovering hegemonic and counter-hegemonic clusters of meaning. We then provide an example of how the four techniques complement each other in ethnographic analysis.

Rejoicing of the hearts: Turkish constructions of Muslim whiteness in Africa south of the Sahara

AbstractThis article analyses the racial framing of the humanitarian encounter between Turkish and African Muslims as a trope of first contact. Intensifying humanitarian relations with Africa south of the Sahara, in tandem with the foreign policy of the AKP (Justice and Development Party), has led to the emergence of a racialized affective regime in Turkey that endows Islamic philanthropy with new racial meanings. This article argues that racial subjects such as the White Muslim and the Black Muslim are produced through the affective labour of humanitarian volunteers and others, who narrativize and circulate experiences of first contact in Turkey. Based on a multi-sited ethnography in Turkey, Tanzania, Senegal, Gambia and Benin, this article explores race-making as affective labour. Taking on Berg and Ramos-Zayas’s call for an anthropological theorization of race and affect, it develops a critical framework to examine how humanitarian voluntarism produces differently racialized subjects. In order to do so, this analysis draws on James Baldwin’s insights into the racial and affective politics of the first contact to discuss how Turkish humanitarians build on and alter the racialized affective regime Baldwin describes.

Local perspectives on policy implementation of free maternity health services in Kenya: Implications for universal health coverage.

Kenya introduced free maternity services (FMS) in 2013 to enable all pregnant women to give birth for free in all government public health facilities. Currently, Kenya is rolling out universal health coverage (UHC), which has been acknowledged as a priority goal for every health system and part of the 'Big Four Agenda' for sustainable national development in Kenya. FMS is one of the core services in Kenya, but since its launch, it is not clear whether the decentralized approach chosen to implement FMS is leading to UHC. This nine-month ethnographic study in Kilifi County, Kenya, was conducted between March-July 2016 and February-July 2017. A narrative approach to analysis was applied. In this article, we interrogate local perceptions of participation during the crafting and implementation of FMS. Findings show that FMS was detached from local realities, and this was a major inadequacy of the top to bottom approach. FMS did not consider local power relations and bargaining power which are requisites during policy formulation and implementation. The participants expressed desire for more localized control over resources from the national government. The findings suggest that as UHC is rolled out in Kenya, consultation of local stakeholders at the grassroots by the state departments would likely improve maternal healthcare outcomes. Such consultations must take into consideration differences in bargaining power and local power relations. Borrowing from the basic tenets of the recent anthropological theorization of constitutionality, this article proposes a bottom to top approach that leverages and integrates local views during policy-making process to create trust, a sense of ownership and accountability.

The History of The Ponoragan Bridal Tradition in Ponorogo Regency in 2008 - 2019

This thesis examines the history of Ponoragan wedding customs in Ponorogo Regency in 2008-2019. The purpose of this study is to explain the history of the formation to the inauguration of the Ponoragan bridal custom in Ponorogo Regency and the existence of the Ponoragan bridal custom after it was nationally confirmed by the Central Leadership Council of the Indonesian Bridal Makeup Expert Association (HARPI) "MELATI" in 2017. The method used in this study is a historical method consisting of heuristics, source criticism, interpretation, and historiography. The approach used is cultural anthropology with anthropological theory in socio-cultural dynamics put forward by Kingsley Davis. The results of this study indicate that the Ponoragan bridal custom is a new cultural identity inspired by several iconic elements found in Ponorogo Regency, especially the Reyog Ponorogo Art. The early formation of the Ponoragan wedding tradition was inseparable from the influence of Mataraman culture, namely Solo and Yogyakarta. Prior to the existence of the Ponoragan wedding custom, the Ponorogo people wore Solo and Yogyakarta wedding customs. After 2008 the wedding customs used by the Ponorogo people were the Ponoragan wedding customs, the Modern wedding customs, and the Sunda Siger wedding customs. In 2008 Sutji Hariati who was chairman of the HARPI "MELATI" Ponorogo District Leadership Council had aspirations to create a regional bridal custom typical of Ponorogo Regency, then the idea was discussed in monthly meetings with the management of the HARPI "MELATI" Ponorogo District Executive Board with an agenda Excavation of traditional bridal traditions from the Ponorogo Regency area. The Ponoragan bridal custom was nationally confirmed by the HARPI Central Leadership Council "MELATI" in 2017 and won second place in the national level traditional bridal make-up event in the city of Bandung in 2019.
 Keywords: Ponoragan Bridal Tradition, Reyog, Mataraman

Between Moral Injury and Moral Agency​: Exploring Treatment for Men with Histories of Military Sexual Trauma

This Research Article deploys the frameworks of moral injury and moral agency to explore the experiences of veteran men who completed group therapy for military sexual trauma (MST). The article analyses ethnographically how veteran men with MST experience psychological growth via a replenishment of their sense of moral agency, thereby blending psychological theory about moral injury with anthropological theory about moral agency. It highlights how broader cultural experience can intersect and contribute to shame around MST, then depicts the ways that veterans recovered from a life characterised by pervasive shame, isolation, and compromised identity—psychological signs of moral injury—and made gains toward a life characterised by greater self-acceptance, an ability to tell one’s own story, and intimacy with others—signs of moral agency. In so doing, the article highlights the social and moral dimensions that can constitute psychological injury, and the way that addressing these dimensions can promote moral agency and thus mental health recovery.

An anthropological point of view: exploring the Chinese and Japanese issues of translation about teaching resources

The aim of this study is to advance understading of teachers’ and researchers’ work, in particular its cultural specificities, from a resource perspective by exploring the issues and challenges faced during the translation of a theoretical framework, the Documentational Approach to Didactics (DAD), from Western (English and French) to East Asian languages (Chinese and Japanese). A basic assumption is that the challenges encountered while translating are driven by the cultural and linguistic differences that exist between the West and East. Adopting the perspective of the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic (ATD), we frame the translation work as a transposition process of research praxeology (a model of the researchers’ practices and knowledge) from a Western to an Eastern institution. We investigate this process to identify cultural elements at different levels (school, society, civilization, etc.) using the ATD framework. After translating a DAD article into Chinese and Japanese separately, we then worked collaboratively to identify similar or diverse translation issues and investigated their origins. Consequently, the results revealed a considerable difference between the West and East, and ample similarities between China and Japan, especially in terms of the researchers’ work and its relationship with the teachers’ work.

Scale-Making Narratives and Musical Tourism in Recife, Brazil

Anthropological studies of tourism have theorized scale and scale-making in primarily spatialized forms. This article, however, applies linguistic anthropological theories to show that scale is a discursive framework that includes spatial as well as qualitative and quantitative dimensions, which people use to assess socioeconomic problems associated with tourism. By bridging tourism studies, “music touristics,” and the semiotics of scale-making, the article analyzes how individuals’ positionalities vis-à-vis tourism are embedded in local and global power relations. The narratives of an influential musical promoter in Recife, Brazil, show that he employs—and combines—spatial, quantitative, and qualitative scales to compare Recife with more successful musical tourism destinations, to make ideological claims, and to envision how to transform the city into a musical tourism destination. In examining these discourses, the article suggests that individuals narratively create and invoke scales to strategically situate themselves and others within the global tourism industry.

Conditions and constraints of implementing a mathematics lesson study-based PD program for Japanese pre-service teachers

In this study, we aim to explore the conditions and constraints of implementing a lesson study-based professional development (LSPD) program for Japanese pre-service primary teachers. Based on the anthropological theory of the didactic–a well-established theoretical framework in mathematics education research–it offers three dimensions (institutional, educational, and personal) to frame and analyze the various conditions to implement the LSPD program and the constraints that impede them. We used a case study of an LSPD program for Japanese pre-service primary teachers, which offered pre-service teachers an opportunity to engage in mathematics lesson planning and participate in a lesson study conference. The results illustrated the conditions of the institutional context in which the LSPD program appeared, and the constraints in the difficulty of making the lesson study and PD coexist. We also found that the personal constraints on pre-service teachers’ lesson preparation work were affected by the conditions and constraints in other dimensions (institutional or educational). Thus, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of the constraints that may shape or hinder teachers’ practice and knowledge in the LSPD program at diverse but interrelated levels.