Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Graber
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
Power Sources ◽  
Native Peoples ◽  
Sun Dance ◽  
Indian Country ◽  
Life Saving ◽  
Indian Lands

Opening with an extended description of Kiowas’ 1873 Sun Dance, the Introduction establishes two main arguments. First, expansion into Indian lands and encounters with Native peoples prompted Christian missionaries and reformers to cast themselves as “friends of the Indian” who could acquire land and achieve Indians’ cultural transformation through peaceful means. In bringing the Christian God to Indian Country, Protestants and Catholics obscured their role in violent and coercive expansion and constructed an image of themselves as benevolent believers imparting life-saving gifts. Second, Kiowas relied on their cultural practices, including rites for engaging sacred power, to respond to American efforts to reduce their lands, change their way of living, and break their tribal bonds. They continued and adapted older practices, as well as experimented with new ritual options and potential power sources. For Kiowas, “gods” both old and new were central to their struggle to survive and flourish as Americans invaded Indian Country.

1882 to 1892

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Graber
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Native People ◽  
The West ◽  
Power Sources ◽  
Native Peoples ◽  
Ghost Dance

As Americans became increasingly dissatisfied with reservations, they called for the allotment of Native lands. The process ended communal landholding and designated 160-acre plots for individuals. “Surplus” lands became eligible for sale to American settlers. Kiowas and other Native people responded with alarm. Allotment not only violated treaties, it also undermined their way of living in relation to the land and each other. As Americans clamored for allotment, the federal government also cracked down on Native cultural practices, including rites for seeking sacred power. Kiowas faced pressures to end communal dances, peyote rites, and healing practices. In this climate, Kiowas sought out new possible power sources, including the Christian God preached by missionaries. They also joined Native peoples across the West in a movement that came to be known as the Ghost Dance, envisioning a future in which their lands were restored and lost relatives and buffalo herds resurrected.

scholarly journals Illuminating Vestige: Amateur Archaeology and the Emergence of Historical Consciousness in Rural France

2013 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 474-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt Hodges
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Economic Restructuring ◽  
Historical Consciousness ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
Historical Ethnography ◽  
The Past ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Rural France

AbstractThis article provides a historical ethnography of an abrupt and transient awakening of interest in Roman vestige during the 1970s in rural France, and explores its implications for comparative understanding of historical consciousness in Western Europe. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Languedoc, and particularly the commune of Monadières, it details a vogue for collecting pottery shards scattered in a nearby lagoon that developed among local inhabitants. The article frames this as a ritualized “expressive historicity” emergent from political economic restructuring, cultural transformation, and time-space compression. It analyses the catalyzing role of a historian who introduced discursive forms into the commune for symbolizing the shards, drawn from regionalist and socialist historiography, which local people adapted to rearticulate the historicity of lived experience as a novel, hybrid genre of “historical consciousness.” These activities are conceptualized as a “reverse historiography.” Elements of historiographical and archaeological discourses—for example, chronological depth, collation and evaluation of material relics—are reinvented to alternate ends, partly as a subversive “response” to contact with such discourses. The practice emerges as a mediation of distinct ways of apprehending the world at a significant historical juncture. Analysis explores the utility of new anthropological theories of “historicity”—an alternative to the established “historical idiom” for analyzing our relations with the past—which place historiography within the analytical frame, and enable consideration of the temporality of historical experience. Findings suggest that the alterity of popular Western cultural practices for invoking the past would reward further study.

scholarly journals Religious Socialisation of Children and Youth in Eastern Orthodox Christian Church as Educational and Pastoral Challenge of Sharing of Cultural Practices

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Liana Galabova
Keyword(s):  
Religious Education ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
Eastern Orthodox ◽  
Children And Youth ◽  
Best Interest ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Mass Public ◽  
The Church

As a result of three decades of social-cultural transformation, Bulgarian literature and practice of religious education though still rare is increasing and improving. As the Church recovers, local parishes, monasteries, and convents become visibly re-socialised and motivated again to provide more adequate pastoral care for all ages. This study explores the importance of informal improvisation and innovation as an approach, in the best interest of children and youth, at a time when an effective, regulated mass public religious education system in Bulgaria is not likely to appear soon. At the same time, revitalised eparchial, parish, convent, and monastery centres start meeting actual needs of renewed church ethos, and begin to provide opportunities for religious socialisation of children and youth that is more functional. Based on direct and indirect experience, on observation, and on partial access to limited local empirical data (that is historically and/or anthropologically only partially explored and categorised), this paper contributes to the analysis of the following unresolved issue: how to direct research toward and keep account of well-known educational and pastoral practices, whether traditional or contemporary, that aid the effective and sustainable religious socialisation of children and youth.

scholarly journals Tea Plantations and Socio-Cultural Transformation: The Case of Assam (India)

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chandra Kala Magar ◽  
Bimal Kumar Kar
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Central India ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
The State ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Important Place ◽  
The People ◽  
Tea Plantations ◽  
The Impact

The tea plantations of Assam, which constitute the country’s 53.97 per cent tea area, 49 per cent tea worker population, and 52.04 per cent tea production, occupy an important place in the economy, culture and polity of the state. The onset of tea plantations during British colonial rule has not only changed the landscape of the upper Brahmaputra valley through green tea bushes being nourished by tea tribes from east-central India, but also evolved a distinct tea culture. Although formation of small tea growers has added a new dimension to the growth of tea industry of Assam in recent times, the culture that emerged due to the long continued interaction of British planters, tea worker tribes and indigenous Assamese is well reflected in the language, way of life, work culture, food habits and many other socio-cultural practices in most of the large tea estates in the state. In fact, the impact of tea culture is so penetrative that it has been able to bring about development in the form of tea festival, tea tourism, tea folk songs and dances, etc. in the state. An attempt is made in this paper to explore the role of tea plantation and the people associated with it to the socio-cultural transformation of Assam based on both secondary data and primary data through field study. The primary data have been collected from selected tea estates, tea garden worker colonies, tea-tribe villages and urban dwellers.

scholarly journals Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Rachid Ouaissa ◽  
Friederike Pannewick ◽  
Alena Strohmaier
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
Mena Region ◽  
Central Interest ◽  
Transformation Processes

Abstract This essay collection is the outcome of interdisciplinary research into political, societal, and cultural transformation processes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region at the Philipps-Universität in Marburg, Germany. It builds on many years of collaboration between two research networks at the Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies: the research network “Re-Configurations: History, Remembrance and Transformation Processes in the Middle East and North Africa” (2013–19), funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), and the Leibniz-Prize research group “Figures of Thought | Turning Points: Cultural Practices and Social Change in the Arab World” (2013–20), funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). Both research projects’ central interest lay in the political, social, and cultural transformation that has become especially visible since 2010–11; we conceptualize this transformation here using the term “re-configurations.” At the core of the inquiry are interpretations of visions of past and future, power relations and both political and symbolic representations.

1803 to 1837

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Graber
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
The United States ◽  
Thomas Jefferson ◽  
Native People ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Native Peoples ◽  
Indian Lands ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Ritual Practices

In 1803, Thomas Jefferson purchased the Louisiana Territory and brought Kiowa lands under the authority of the United States. Over the next 30 years, the federal government worked to purchase Indian lands and create a barrier between settlers and Indians, using treaties and removal agreements to achieve these aims. They also sought to “civilize” Indians by funding Protestant and Catholic efforts to teach farming, domestic skills, and Christianity. Kiowas maintained their way of life, far from events east of the Mississippi, and had strong alliances with other Native peoples and agreements with other colonial powers. They maintained their ritual practices and flourished in many respects. Over time, however, the arrival of Native people who had been removed from the East put new pressures on Kiowas. With more people venturing into their lands, Kiowas finally met with American officials in the 1830s and signed their first treaty with the United States.

Nature and Nurture on Imperial China's Frontiers

2009 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 245-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER C. PERDUE
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
Aboriginal Peoples ◽  
Nomadic Pastoralists ◽  
Nature And Nurture ◽  
Ethnic Categorization ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractEcologies of production and state classifications shaped Chinese imperial frontier policies. In Chinese classical debates about the effect of environment on human character, the dominant view held that all peoples could become civilised, but a dissenting view held that barbarians could never change their ways. Nomadic pastoralists likewise debated whether to adopt certain Han cultural practices or reject them. Chinese dynasties often accepted diversity, but at certain times tried to eliminate difference by persuasion or by force. Three cases illustrate these processes during the Qing period: the relationship between Manchus and Mongols, Qing policies towards aboriginal peoples and the settlement of Taiwan, and Qing policies towards southwestern mountain peoples. In each case, policies came out of the interaction of ethnic categorization, views on cultural transformation and frontier environments. When Qing rulers lost the ability to recognise such cultural distinctions, they lost a key to the endurance of the empire.

A Hybrid New World... or Not?

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Fatima Essadek
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
New World ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Cultural Conditions ◽  
Cultural Pattern

During the last three decades, early modern scholarship has drawn heavily on twentieth-century theorisation to analyse the socio-cultural conditions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. An example of such scholarly endeavours is the attempt to appropriate the concept of hybridity to explain the constitution of cultural identity. This article re-evaluates this critical trend by reviewing the model of hybridity in relation to early modern cultures; it simultaneously proposes the existence of another cultural pattern that is here labelled ‘cultural transformation’. The article also contends that hybridisation is more manifest in the domain of material culture: the ethno-cultural characteristics of early modern communities made them more receptive towards accepting and integrating material objects but less welcoming towards assimilating beliefs, values or cultural practices from other nations.

Decolonizing “Allyship” for Indian Country: Lessons from #NODAPL

Hypatia ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 178-189
Author(s):  
Andrea Sullivan-Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous People ◽  
Current Issue ◽  
Native People ◽  
Epistemic Injustice ◽  
Native Peoples ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Indian Country ◽  
A Current

AbstractIn 2016, when #NODAPL first appeared in the mainstream media, many nonnative people approached me about how to support the water protectors. This question can be answered in a couple of ways: first, I might address the specific issue (actions that directly support those at Standing Rock), or second, I might respond more generally about how to be an ally to native people. The two responses highlight a current issue in Indian Country: should nonnatives serve as active bystanders—or should they be allies to native peoples? Being an ally has come under scrutiny, especially given its propensity for epistemic injustice. Some philosophers—such as Rachel McKinnon—argue for dismissing the concept altogether, requiring that individuals serve as active bystanders. Although this may be necessary to support individuals in the transgender community, it lacks the resources to fully address the needs of colonized peoples. In this article, I argue for the operationalization of “ally” in Indian Country insofar as it is subject to decolonizing treatment. Although there is a need for both bystanders and allies in Indian Country, the Indigenous people must define the concepts that are intended to serve them.

scholarly journals When knowledge goes underground

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-35
Author(s):  
Ashley Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Academic Libraries ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Residential Schools ◽  
Cultural Revitalization ◽  
Cultural Information ◽  
Sun Dance ◽  
Indian Act ◽  
Information Poverty

The passing of the Indian Act in 1876 imposed cultural information poverty within Indigenous communities. Through this piece of Canadian legislation, Indigenous communities were forced to send their children to Residential Schools, and all cultural practices such as the potlatch and Sun Dance were banned. These policies disrupted education practices, and the passing down of information, creating a disconnect between younger generations and their communities. However the Indian Act’s goal of assimilation failed with some of these traditions going underground, being practiced in secret. Through strength and resilience communities today are experiencing a cultural revitalization, and what one Indigenous author calls a renaissance. The paper concludes by sharing ideas on how academic libraries can better engage with their local Indigenous communities.

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