Nationality Medicines in China: Institutional Rationality and Healing Charisma

2015 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 381-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lili Lai ◽  
Judith Farquhar
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Uneven Development ◽  
Southwestern China ◽  
Scholarly Work ◽  
Charismatic Authority ◽  
Modern Information ◽  
The Many ◽  
Minority Nationality ◽  
Institutional Rationality

AbstractThis article describes emergent Chinese regimes of knowledge about “minority nationality medicines.” We adopt Weberian terms of rational and charismatic authority to better understand ethnic healing as it is developing among minorities in southwestern China. In the course of uneven development among diverse ethnic groups over recent decades, modern information regimes and institutional models have started to transform the many forms of healing and heritage that can be found “on the ground” in minority areas. We delineate a shifting border between official (or rational) and wild (or charismatic) forms of medicine, and argue that every healing situation results from a dynamic and sometimes destructive relation between these forms of authority. We draw from research conducted among seven minority nationalities scattered in five provinces in China's south and southwest. After an overview of relevant scholarly work that circulates nationally, we discuss views and practices of three healers belonging to Zhuang, Tujia, and Yao groups, respectively. Ultimately we suggest that all healing, including that taking place in biomedical clinics, relies on some contact with “the wild,” and forges a relationship between rationality and charisma.

Toward knowing: Engaging Chinese medical worlds

2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 401-417
Author(s):  
Lili Lai ◽  
Judith Farquhar
Keyword(s):  
Southwestern China ◽  
Medical Systems ◽  
Medical Work ◽  
The Road ◽  
Good Action ◽  
On The Road ◽  
The Analects ◽  
Minority Nationality ◽  
Written Sources

This discussion opens with a puzzling statement from the analects of Confucius: When you know it you know it, when you don’t know, you don’t know. This is knowledge. Reflecting on various Chinese approaches to zhi (知), knowing/knowledge, in this article we re-explore the terrain we two authors covered together in recent research on minority nationality medical systems of southwestern China. Our itineraries drew us near to ‘folk’ approaches to knowing, evident both in practical medical work and in classic written sources. We found ourselves in that frictional field of medicine where expertise is not just possession of knowledge, it is also skills, politics, ethics, manipulations, ideologies, and more than one set of ontological assumptions. Reminded of some ancient Chinese metaphysical philosophy, we were led by healers to conclude that knowing and good action cannot be separated. The article reports visits to three mountain herbalists, describing the particular ways they practice knowing and use their expertise to treat difficult disorders. On the road through a mostly unknowable world, such Chinese healers expect transformations in both those who know and in what can be known and enacted. These lives teach us how to know not through concepts but through the irreducible patterning of life.

scholarly journals “we can all meet, be it soon or late”: E. A. Petherick and his scholarly and publishing social network1

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Rukavina
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Book Trade ◽  
Active Member ◽  
Scholarly Work ◽  
Geographical Society ◽  
International Book ◽  
The Many

Between 1870 and 1895, Australian bookseller Edward Petherick was an active member of the Royal Geographical Society, Hakluyt Society, and other groups interested in colonial trade and history, as well as increasingly an important figure in the developing international book trade. His surviving correspondence is the physical remnants of his social network and the many connections and exchanges he facilitated, including the sale and distribution of the explorer Richard F. Burton’s Arabian Nights in the colonies. Petherick considered it a privilege to engage with his correspondents and help individuals because knowledge did not flow in one direction in a social network. As Petherick assisted others who wanted to sell books overseas and learn about the colonies, he also benefited and gained knowledge that furthered his own interests and scholarly work.

Worldviews in Myanmar: A Missiological Perspective

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-83
Author(s):  
Steve Curtis
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Culturally Informed ◽  
Existential Beliefs ◽  
Summary Statement ◽  
Evaluative Beliefs ◽  
Christian Unity ◽  
The Many ◽  
Social Intercourse

Abstract Each of the many ethnic groups in Myanmar has its own unique worldview; however, these are all principally related, in some respects, to the three primary worldviews in Myanmar, as informed by the culture historically: animism, Buddhism, and, to a lesser extent, Hinduism. For the purposes of this article, I am defining “worldview” as: A culturally-informed, yet personal, system of thought, wherein are held existential beliefs, such as regards the existence or non-existence of a god or gods; evaluative beliefs, such as regards proper and improper expressions of social intercourse; and prescriptive beliefs, such as regards value and purpose. In light of this definition, the worldviews in Myanmar will be explored as to their existential, evaluative, and prescriptive beliefs, with a summary statement, addressing the missiological challenges, which those worldviews present, in particular, to Christian unity.

scholarly journals Conceptions of Race Beyond North America: The Subversion of the Colonial Racial Contract in The Bahamas

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 12-18
Author(s):  
David Allens
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
North American ◽  
West Indian ◽  
Uneven Development ◽  
The Bahamas ◽  
Indian Immigrants ◽  
Shared Culture ◽  
Racial Contract

In his work Ethnic groups and boundaries, Frederick Barth argues that applying definitions to group of peoples has less to do with emphasizing a shared culture than with defining the sentiments of communality in opposition to the perceived identity of an ‘other’ (Barth). In applying Barth’s framework, modern Bahamian identity has developed—and is largely understood—in comparison to a Haitian ‘other.' Therefore, this essay will argue that, having gone through multiple iterations of the racial contract, policies of subjugation initially intended for black colonial subjects (e.g. uneven development and colonially encouraged distrust) have been subverted for use by The Bahamas’ post-independence government against those with Haitian ancestry. It will demonstrate that Bahamian sentiments towards Haitians are contextualized historically and based on a long-standing colonial tradition of discrimination and social control that pitted West Indian immigrants against them. While this subjugation is no longer enforced along phenotypical lines, elements of privilege connected to the racial contract are now adjudicated along different lines that may prove harder to distinguish, perhaps making the privileges attached to the dominant identity different from a North American context.

scholarly journals Values and Attitudes in Banat Multiethnic Communities

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (18) ◽  
pp. 6-12
Author(s):  
Ileana Simona Dabu
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Individual Values ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Individual

AbstractThe Banat area is considered an area of interculturality and multilingualism, an area where there is an interference of cultures, a continuous dialogue between cultures and spiritualties. Banat, being a multicultural and multiethnic space, is a model of harmonious coexistence between the many ethnic groups that make it up. In the present research we have aimed at identifying the individual values of the inhabitants of the studied communities and the attitudes towards the others (Romanians, Serbs, Hungarians, Germans, Bulgarians and other ethnic groups), and also their attitudes towards work, land, church, trust in state institutions and traditional occupations.

scholarly journals The Politics of Managing Pluralism: Austria-Hungary 1867-1918

2009 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrina Witt
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Many

The multi-cultural nature of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the late nineteenth century created much unrest among the many different ethnic groups within the Empire. As each group struggled against the other groups for more rights, dissolution threatened the Empire. The Hapsburg government under Franz Joseph used two different strategies in Austria and Hungary to keep the country united, and these strategies successfully kept the Empire together for half a century.  After the Emperor’s death, opposing interests and separatism proved too powerful without Franz Joseph’s uniting influence, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed.

Tanzania: Documentation in Political Anthropology -- The Hans Cory Collection

1968 ◽  
Vol 11 (02) ◽  
pp. 195-213
Author(s):  
Norman N. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Lake Victoria ◽  
Venereal Disease ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Political Anthropology ◽  
Arts And Crafts ◽  
Secret Societies ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Many

Hans Cory, 1888-1962, in his years as Tanganyika government sociologist, produced a collection of papers and monographs in the general field of political anthropology that rank as an important primary research source concerning that nation. The documentation, as do Cory's published writings, reflect the diverse interests of the author and the many sides of his character. The son of a Viennese musical family, his early interests were in African songs and dances, in composing Swahili poetry, and in collecting African drawings and figurines. Largely self-taught in the field of social anthropology, he had an abiding interest in ceremonies and rites, in the composition of secret societies, and in the use of plant medicines for religious and magical purposes. As an official he advised the government on a myriad of social problems. Outbreaks of murder, venereal disease, cattle theft, or armed revolt often brought administrative requests that he investigate the problem in depth and make policy recommendations. The composition of the Cory collection, which is housed at the University College Library, Dar es Salaam, is predominantly typewritten papers, interviews, observations, and correspondence. Some of the field notes are handwritten, and a few papers are in German. There are also important subfiles of plant samples, drawings, paintings, and song texts. Cory's own bibliographical collection annotates and cross-indexes other writings by ethnic group, region, and individual author. The material falls into seven general categories: (1) local government, including native administration, constitution, and reform; (2) agricultural economics and land tenure; (3) magic, religion, secret societies, and related medical practices; (4) arts and crafts; (5) ethnography and tribal history; (6) customary law; and (7) language. The regional foci of much of the work are on the ethnic groups around Lake Victoria, particularly the Sukuma, Haya, Zinza, Kerewe, and Kuria. The peoples of central and western Tanzania, the Nyamwezi, Gogo, Nyaturu-Rimi, Ha, and Fipa, are represented in the collection, and some data exist on the eastern and coastal ethnic groups, particularly the Pare, Luguru, Zaramo, and Sambaa. Aside from a few monographs dealing with the Ngoni and Hehe, most ethnic groups of the southern regions of the country are not treated.

Social Movements as Nationalisms or, On the Very Idea of a Queer Nation

1996 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 505-547 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Walker
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Nationalist Discourse ◽  
The People ◽  
Gays And Lesbians ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Way

Given the immense mobilizing power possessed by the rhetoric of nationalism, as well as the many resources which can be tapped by groups which successfully establish national claims, it is not surprising that we have recently seen such a resurgence in nationalist discourse. One of the things which may surprise us, however, is the growing breadth in the types of groups which now launch such claims. No longer is the discourse of nationalism limited to use by ethnic groups and territorial populations. Recently it has come to be deployed by groups which we would normally tend to look upon as social movements. There has been a growing realization of the way in which constituencies such as Blacks, gays and lesbians, Chicano/as, and so on, make up distinct peoples, with cultures, public institutions, dialects, tastes, and social practices that set them off from the people or peoples around them.

A Central Asian Language Survey

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe Mennecier ◽  
John Nerbonne ◽  
Evelyne Heyer ◽  
Franz Manni
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
The Other ◽  
Levenshtein Distance ◽  
Language Varieties ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
Political Boundaries ◽  
Bootstrap Tree ◽  
Turkic Languages ◽  
The Many

We have documented language varieties (either Turkic or Indo-European) spoken in 23 test sites by 88 informants belonging to the major ethnic groups of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan (Karakalpaks, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Yaghnobis). The recorded linguistic material concerns 176 words of the extended Swadesh list and will be made publically available with the publication of this paper. Phonological diversity is measured by the Levenshtein distance and displayed as a consensus bootstrap tree and as multidimensional scaling plots. Linguistic contact is measured as the number of borrowings, from one linguistic family into the other, according to a precision/recall analysis further validated by expert judgment. Concerning Turkic languages, the results of our sample do not support Kazakh and Karakalpak as distinct languages and indicate the existence of several separate Karakalpak varieties. Kyrgyz and Uzbek, on the other hand, appear quite homogeneous. Among the Indo-Iranian languages, the distinction between Tajik and Yaghnobi varieties is very clear-cut. More generally, the degree of borrowing is higher than average where language families are in contact in one of the many sorts of situations characterizing Central Asia: frequent bilingualism, shifting political boundaries, ethnic groups living outside the “mother” country.

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