Food and Society at Real Alto, an Early Formative Community in Southwest Coastal Ecuador

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 122-142
Author(s):  
Deborah M. Pearsall ◽  
Neil A. Duncan ◽  
Karol Chandler-Ezell ◽  
Douglas H. Ubelaker ◽  
James A. Zeidler

We investigated foodways at Real Alto, an early Formative (4400–1800 BC) Valdivia site in coastal Ecuador, using starch and phytoliths recovered from 50 stone tools from three residential and two ceremonial structures, as well as 46 human dental calculus samples, to explore how food reflects the social relationships and economy of the community. Maize was important in daily meals and ceremonial foods by the Middle Valdivia (2800–2400 BC), but it was only one component of an agricultural system that included yuca, arrowroot, llerén, canna, yam, jackbean, squash, gourd, chili, and cotton. Ceremonial and everyday foods at Real Alto did not differ: actions surrounding food were both domestic and ceremonial, depending on context. Households had equal access to annual crops and to root-tubers with longer growing seasons. Gelatinized starch was commonly recovered on tools, indicating the processing of cooked foods. Dental calculus residues confirmed common consumption of cooked foods, fruits, and root-tubers. Cultivating crops with different water and growing season requirements necessitated diverse practices, potentially including selection of short-season varieties, hand watering, and growing crops over multiple rainy seasons. The latter two practices required increased labor inputs: access to labor was likely a key element supporting the nascent social hierarchy that emerged by the Middle Valdivia.

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 278-282
Author(s):  
Kirill A. Popov

This review is devoted to the monograph by Jan Nedvěd “We do not decline our heads. The events of the year 1968 in Karlovy Vary”. The Karlovy Vary municipal museum coincided its publishing with the fiftieth anniversary of the Prague spring which, considering the way of the presentation, turned the book not only to scientific event but also to the social one. The book describes sociopolitical trends in the region before the year 1968, the development of the reformist movement, the invasion and advance of the armies of the Warsaw Pact countries, and finally the decline of the reformist mood and the beginning of the normalization. Working on his writing, the author deeply studied the materials of the local archive and gathered the unique selection of the photographs depicting the passage of the soviet army through the spa town and the protest actions of its inhabitants. In the meantime, Nedvěd takes undue freedom with scientific terms, and his selection of historiography raises questions. The author bases his research on the Czech papers and scarcely uses the books of Russian origin. He also did not study the subject of the participating of the GDR’s army in the operation Danube, although these troops were concentrated on the borders of Karlovy Vary region as well. Because of this decision, there are no materials from German archives or historiography in the monograph. In general, the work lacks the width of studying its subject, but it definitively accomplishes the task of depicting the Prague spring from the regional perspective.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (152) ◽  
pp. 92-99
Author(s):  
S. M. Geiko ◽  
◽  
O. D. Lauta

The article provides a philosophical analysis of the tropological theory of the history of H. White. The researcher claims that history is a specific kind of literature, and the historical works is the connection of a certain set of research and narrative operations. The first type of operation answers the question of why the event happened this way and not the other. The second operation is the social description, the narrative of events, the intellectual act of organizing the actual material. According to H. White, this is where the set of ideas and preferences of the researcher begin to work, mainly of a literary and historical nature. Explanations are the main mechanism that becomes the common thread of the narrative. The are implemented through using plot (romantic, satire, comic and tragic) and trope systems – the main stylistic forms of text organization (metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, irony). The latter decisively influenced for result of the work historians. Historiographical style follows the tropological model, the selection of which is determined by the historian’s individual language practice. When the choice is made, the imagination is ready to create a narrative. Therefore, the historical understanding, according to H. White, can only be tropological. H. White proposes a new methodology for historical research. During the discourse, adequate speech is created to analyze historical phenomena, which the philosopher defines as prefigurative tropological movement. This is how history is revealed through the art of anthropology. Thus, H. White’s tropical history theory offers modern science f meaningful and metatheoretically significant. The structure of concepts on which the classification of historiographical styles can be based and the predictive function of philosophy regarding historical knowledge can be refined.


Author(s):  
Dennis Eversberg

Based on analyses of a 2016 German survey, this article contributes to debates on ‘societal nature relations’ by investigating the systematic differences between socially specific types of social relations with nature in a flexible capitalist society. It presents a typology of ten different ‘syndromes’ of attitudes toward social and environmental issues, which are then grouped to distinguish between four ideal types of social relationships with nature: dominance, conscious mutual dependency, alienation and contradiction. These are located in Pierre Bourdieu’s (1984) social space to illustrate how social relationships with nature correspond to people’s positions within the totality of social relations. Understanding how people’s perceptions of and actions pertaining to nature are shaped by their positions in these intersecting relations of domination – both within social space and between society and nature – is an important precondition for developing transformative strategies that will be capable of gaining majority support in flexible capitalist societies.


Edupedia ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-66
Author(s):  
Khulusinniyah ◽  
Farhatin Masruroh

The social-emotionaldevelopment of children is important to be developed from an early age. The emotionaldevelopment in early childhood, takes place simultaneously with their social development. Even there is claim that their emotional development is influenced by their social development. Itcaused by the emotional reactions displayed by early childhood as a response to the social relationships that they live with other people. The emotional development of early childhood can also affect the sustainability of social relationships. Stimulation is an important thing to give by early childhood educators and parents so they can optimize their social emotion development. With this treatment, they can grow into the life ready person in facing the complex future.


Author(s):  
Martin Krzywdzinski

This chapter examines the organizational socialization mechanisms in automotive plants in Russia and China. The empirical analysis starts with selection processes. How do the companies select candidates during recruitment and whom do they select? Are they looking for a certain type of employee? The chapter continues with the analysis of onboarding concepts in China and Russia and then follows the employees within their teams. It analyzes the social relationships in the team, which influence the socialization processes within the company. Finally, overarching company activities intended to promote social integration (team building, competitions) are examined to determine the extent to which they shape work behaviors and generate identification with the company. The analysis shows considerable differences between the Russian and the Chinese plants regarding the intensity and the effects of organizational socialization.


Author(s):  
Iain McLean

This chapter reviews the many appearances, disappearances, and reappearances of axiomatic thought about social choice and elections since the era of ancient Greek democracy. Social choice is linked to the wider public-choice movement because both are theories of agency. Thus, just as the first public-choice theorists include Hobbes, Hume, and Madison, so the first social-choice theorists include Pliny, Llull, and Cusanus. The social-choice theory of agency appears in many strands. The most important of these are binary vs. nonbinary choice; aggregation of judgement vs. aggregation of opinion; and selection of one person vs. selection of many people. The development of social choice required both a public-choice mindset and mathematical skill.


Author(s):  
Mariek Vanden Abeele

Recent empirical work suggests that phubbing, a term used to describe the practice of snubbing someone with a phone during a face-to-face social interaction, harms the quality of social relationships. Based on a comprehensive literature review, this chapter presents a framework that integrates three concurrent mechanisms that explain the relational impact of phubbing: expectancy violations, ostracism, and attentional conflict. Based on this framework, theoretically grounded propositions are formulated that may serve as guidelines for future research on these mechanisms, the conditions under which they operate, and a number of potential issues that need to be considered to further validate and extend the framework.


Author(s):  
Alicja Szerląg ◽  
Arkadiusz Urbanek ◽  
Kamila Gandecka

Background: The analysis has involved social interactions in a multicultural environment. The social context has been defined by the Vilnius region (Lithuania), where national, religious, and cultural differences exist across generations (multicultural community). The space of “social relationships”, as one of the modules of the WHO quality of life assessment, has been studied. An innovation of the research has been related to the analysis of the phenomenon of community of nationalities and cultures as a predictor of quality of life (QoL). The social motive of the research has been the historical continuity (for centuries) of the construction of the Vilnius cultural borderland. Here, the local community evolves from a group of many cultures to an intercultural community. Interpreting the data, therefore, requires a long perspective (a few generations) to understand the quality of relationships. We see social interactions and strategies for building them as a potential for social QoL in multicultural environments. Methods: The research has been conducted on a sample of 374 respondents, including Poles (172), Lithuanians (133), and Russians (69). A diagnostic poll has been used. The respondents were adolescents (15–16 years). The research answers the question: What variables form the interaction strategies of adolescents in a multicultural environment? The findings relate to interpreting the social interactions of adolescents within the boundaries of their living environment. The description of the social relations of adolescents provides an opportunity to implement the findings for further research on QoL. Results: An innovative outcome of the research is the analysis of 3 interaction strategies (attachment to national identification, intercultural dialogue, and multicultural community building) as a background for interpreting QoL in a multicultural environment. Their understanding is a useful knowledge for QoL researchers. The data analysis has taken into account cultural and generational (historical) sensitivities. Therefore, the team studying the data has consisted of researchers and residents of the Vilnius region. We used the interaction strategies of adolescents to describe the category of “social relationships” in nationally and culturally diverse settings.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8247
Author(s):  
Dimitrios N. Vlachostergios ◽  
Christos Noulas ◽  
Anastasia Kargiotidou ◽  
Dimitrios Baxevanos ◽  
Evangelia Tigka ◽  
...  

Lentil is a versatile and profitable pulse crop with high nutritional food and feed values. The objectives of the study were to determine suitable locations for high yield and quality in terms of production and/or breeding, and to identify promising genotypes. For this reason, five lentil genotypes were evaluated in a multi-location network consisting of ten diverse sites for two consecutive growing seasons, for seed yield (SY), other agronomic traits, crude protein (CP), cooking time (CT) and crude protein yield (CPY). A significant diversification and specialization of the locations was identified with regards to SY, CP, CT and CPY. Different locations showed optimal values for each trait. Locations E4 and E3, followed by E10, were “ideal” for SY; locations E1, E3 and E7 were ideal for high CP; and the “ideal” locations for CT were E3 and E5, followed by E2. Therefore, the scope of the cultivation determined the optimum locations for lentil cultivation. The GGE-biplot analysis revealed different discriminating abilities and representativeness among the locations for the identification of the most productive and stable genotypes. Location E3 (Orestiada, Region of Thrace) was recognized as being optimal for lentil breeding, as it was the “ideal” or close to “ideal” for the selection of superior genotypes for SY, CP, CT and CPY. Adaptable genotypes (cv. Dimitra, Samos) showed a high SY along with excellent values for CP, CT and CPY, and are suggested either for cultivation in many regions or to be exploited in breeding programs.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Claudio Bolzman ◽  
Tineke Fokkema ◽  
Ibrahima Guissé ◽  
Danique van Dalen

Abstract This article focuses on European migrants living in Morocco and now near retirement or retired. Using a lifecourse approach we are interested in whether their timing of migration to Morocco made a difference in terms of their motivations to settle there and subsequently with the social relationships at the destination. To this end, we conducted 36 biographical interviews with Swiss, Dutch and Belgian Flemish migrants aged 50 and older. Findings show the relevance of a lifecourse perspective for international migration studies. Early adulthood migrants to Morocco had no strong obligations in their home country and were ready to explore new affective or professional experiences in a new country. They had the time to discover and find a place in Moroccan society and to develop long-lasting social relationships with kin and non-kin. Middle-adulthood migrants moved with the intention of rapidly accessing a higher standard of living thanks to the tourism economy, with hedonistic perspectives in a setting with a better climate. Their social life is limited to interaction with business clients and a few like-minded migrants from Europe, and their communication with personnel is a daily challenge. Most late-in-life migrants experienced disruptive life events before migrating, and expected to find in Morocco a second chance to build a better life. They generally move in select circles of European expatriates.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document