Rethinking Mediumship in Contemporary Wenzhou

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-252
Author(s):  
PAN Junliang
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Local Society ◽  
Folk Religions ◽  
The 1960S

The study of spirit mediums has drawn the attention of international scholars from the 1960s onward, and the topic continues to thrive. Yet little work has been done on spirit mediums in mainland China, which have mainly been glimpsed through studies of mediumship in Taiwan. This article draws on ethnographic research to explore the diverse traditions of spirit mediums in Wenzhou. While spirit mediums are viewed with ambivalence, they play a significant role within broader Chinese folk religions. It is crucial to understand spirit mediums through the appropriate cultural context in order to understand their diverse practices and roles in local society. I discuss why Wenzhou’s mediumship should be regarded as a form of shamanism in spite of differences between its discourse and practices and those of Minnan mediumship, as well as those of Siberian or Korean shamanism.

Contemporary Shamanisms in Norway

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trude Fonneland
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Global Networks ◽  
Local Manifestation

This book examines Sámi shamanism in Norway as a uniquely distinctive local manifestation of a global new religious phenomenon. It takes the diversity and hybridity within shamanic practices seriously through case studies from a Norwegian setting and highlights the ethnic dimension of these currents, through a particular focus on Sámi versions of shamanism. The book’s thesis is that the construction of a Sámi shamanistic movement makes sense from the perspective of the broader ethno-political search for a Sámi identity, with respect to connections to indigenous peoples worldwide and trans-historically. It also makes sense in economic and marketing terms. Based on more than ten years of ethnographic research, the book paints a picture of contemporary shamanism in Norway in its cultural context, relating it both to the local mainstream cultures in which it is situated and to global networks. By this, the book provides the basis for a study revealing the development of inventiveness, nuances, and polyphony that occur when a global religion of shamanism is merged in a Norwegian setting, colored by its own political and cultural circumstances.

After the Exodus: The New Catholics in Boston's Old Ethnic Neighborhoods

2007 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Regine O. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Racial Climate ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Haitian Immigrants ◽  
New Immigrants ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Catholic Churches ◽  
Residential Settlement

AbstractThis article contributes to the growing body of work on the impact of religious institutions on the identities and experiences of new immigrants from the Caribbean, Latin America, and Asia. Drawing from ethnographic research on Haitian immigrants in Boston, I find a relationship between initial residential settlement patterns and the location of Catholic churches. Following Gerald Gamm's Urban Exodus: Why Jews Left Boston and the Catholics Stayed, I argue that Haitian immigrants who arrived in Boston in the 1960s were attracted to certain neighborhoods despite the racial climate because they were Catholic. In addition to the influence of rules governing membership and religious authority, I show that Haitians turned to a Catholic narrative of their experience in Boston because being Catholic was the most acceptable way of being Haitian in that social context.

The “Escape” Behavior and Strategy of Married Lahu Women in Southwest China

2021 ◽  
pp. 036319902110423
Author(s):  
Yang Gao
Keyword(s):  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Southwest China ◽  
Escape Behavior ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Migration Behavior ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Marriage And Family ◽  
Local Society ◽  
Family Patterns ◽  
Individual Actions

In the last several years, marriage and family patterns among the Kucong Lahu of Jinping County, Yunnan, have changed significantly due to rapid economic and social changes all over China. Based on ethnographic research in Lu Village, this article explores the current “escape” migration behavior of married Lahu women. They used migration as a strategy to escape patriarchal husbands, families, and local society. This paper describes a paradox between the autonomy of women's individual actions and the inability to escape the system even when on “escapes.” This sort of “escape” strategy cannot ultimately change the gender inequality and social status.

The Bronze Age of Southeast Asia: New Insight on Social Change from Ban Non Wat

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Higham
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Copper Base ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Bronze Age

The expansion of copper-base metallurgy in the mainland of Eurasia began in the Near East and ended in Southeast Asia. The recognition of this Southeast Asian metallurgical province followed in the wake of French colonial occupation of Cambodia and Laos in the nineteenth century. Subsequently, most research has concentrated in Thailand, beginning in the 1960s. A sound chronology is the prerequisite to identifying both the origins of the Bronze Age, and the social impact that metallurgy may have had on society. This article presents the revolutionary results of excavations at the site of Ban Non Wat in northeast Thailand within the broader cultural context of Southeast Asian prehistory, concluding that the adoption of copper-base metallurgy from the eleventh century BC coincided with the rise of wealthy social aggrandizers.

scholarly journals Between Mainland and Island: Causes for Migration and the Way of Life of Chinese Mainland Migrant Workers in Bó’áo

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Gumpenberger
Keyword(s):  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Small Town ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Hainan Island ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Local Society ◽  
Rapid Transformation ◽  
The Way

Abstract This article presents the results of a case study conducted in Bó’áo, a small town on Hǎinán Island currently undergoing rapid transformation. Triggered by the founding of the Boao Forum for Asia, an unknown fishing village has turned into an important location for conferences and tourism. On the basis of Grounded Theory this case study focuses on migrant workers from mainland China, using qualitative semi-structured interviews in order to explore the causes behind this migration influx to Bó’áo. In addition, this paper investigates the way these migrants organise their lives in this small town by raising the question of social integration within the local society—a topic largely neglected in the general academic discourse in and on China. The results of this study show that the level of education determines both reasons for migration as well as the way the migrant workers organise their everyday lives and the way in which they interact with locals. This paper also scrutinises common concepts of integration, e.g. the need to acquire the language spoken by the majority.

Who Framed Theatre? The ‘Moment of Change’ in British TV Drama

1999 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madeleine MacMurraugh-Kavanagh ◽  
Stephen Lacey
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Television Drama ◽  
Doctoral Research ◽  
British Drama ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The University

It has long been the received wisdom that television drama has become increasingly ‘filmic’ in orientation, moving away from the ‘theatrical’ as its point of aesthetic reference. This development, which is associated with the rejection of the studio in favour of location shooting – made possible by the increased use of new technology in the 1960s – and with the adoption of cinematic as opposed to theatrical genres, is generally regarded as a sign that the medium has come into its own. By examining a key ‘moment of change’ in the history of television drama, the BBC ‘Wednesday Play’ series of 1964 to 1970, this article asks what was lost in the movement out of the studio and into the streets, and questions the notion that the transition from ‘theatre’ to ‘film’, in the wake of Ken Loach and Tony Garnett's experiments in all-film production, was without tension or contradiction. The discussion explores issues of dramatic space as well as of socio-cultural context, expectation, and audience, and incorporates detailed analyses of Nell Dunn's Up the Junction (1965) and David Mercer's Let's Murder Vivaldi (1968). Madeleine MacMurraugh-Kavanagh is the Post-Doctoral Research Fellow on the HEFCE-funded project, ‘The BBC Wednesday Plays and Post-War British Drama’, now in its third year at the University of Reading. Her publications include Peter Shaffer: Theatre and Drama (Macmillan, 1998), and papers in Screen, The British Journal of Canadian Studies, The Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, and Media, Culture, and Society. Stephen Lacey is a lecturer in Film and Drama at the University of Reading, where he is co-director of the ‘BBC Wednesday Plays’ project. His publications include British Realist Theatre: the New Wave and its Contexts (Routledge, 1995) and articles in New Theatre Quarterly and Studies in Theatre Production.

Landscapes of Memories: A Study of Representation for Translocal Chinese Cultural Heritage in Kaiping, Guangdong, China

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-37
Author(s):  
Bo-wei Chiang
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Local Economic Development ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Modern China ◽  
Overseas Chinese ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
Local Society ◽  
Migration History ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The 1960S

Abstract Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, many young people emigrated from Guangdong to the American West in search of a better living, mainly through building the Pacific Railroad and panning for gold in California. Some of these overseas Chinese who eventually accumulated wealth sent remittances back to their hometowns to provide their families with a better life, or they built mansions for their own retirement. They also used their wealth to renovate ancestral halls, establish schools, get involved in local politics and issues of local public security, public hygiene, etc. The overseas Chinese were one of the important new rising social strata in modern China before the 1960s. This paper will focus on translocal Chinese cultural heritage in Guangdong and try to discuss how people memorize, narrate, preserve, and represent their migration history in these hometowns. Meanwhile, the meaning of the tangible cultural heritage as a landscape of memories in local society in China will also be discussed. Firstly, I think that there are three types of overseas Chinese memories: the memory of suffering, the memory of making fortunes, and the memory of a philanthropic image; secondly, I will deal with the narrative and representation of the collective memories since the 1990s and check how the collective memory became the cultural heritage beneath the state’s discourse; and finally, I will analyze how the overseas Chinese cultural heritage became resources for cultural tourism and local economic development, and show a process of commercialization of those landscapes.

Mass Immunization in East Asia and Global Health, 1960–80

2019 ◽  
pp. 144-165
Author(s):  
Mary Augusta Brazelton
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Rural Health ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Mass Immunization ◽  
The Republic ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter investigates the role of mass immunization in Chinese medical diplomacy programs during the 1960s and 1970s. While most scholarship has stressed the influence of barefoot doctor and other paraprofessional training programs in the emergence of the People's Republic of China (PRC) as a global model for rural health services, mass immunization programs in China had measurable results—in terms of lowered incidence of disease—that helped legitimize these training efforts and the nation's program of rural health care more broadly. Ultimately, the global popularization of Chinese public health was a consequence of regional competition within East Asia. During the Cold War era, the PRC used medical aid to foreign countries to compete for power and influence with the Republic of China on Taiwan, where institutions and personnel that the Nationalist Party brought to the island after 1948 built upon practices established during the period of Japanese colonial rule (1895–1945). The involvement of Taiwan in medical diplomacy reflected the expansionist agendas of its Western allies in the Cold War as well as competition with the PRC for recognition as the legitimate government of mainland China.

Groups and Social Boundaries

2021 ◽  
pp. 72-108
Author(s):  
Jan Fuhse
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Social Boundaries ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Group Concept ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Network Patterns ◽  
Social Units

Social groups were a key concept in early sociology (German formal sociology, symbolic interactionism). Since the 1960s, they have been replaced by “social network” as the prime concept for informal social structures. We rarely find the bounded and internally homogeneous social units suggested by the group concept in the real world. Instead, individuals are embedded in a complex mesh of social relationships. Building on relational sociology, we can reconceptualize groups as a particular case of densely connected network patterns of social relationships. These exist only by degree, to the extent that they are reinforced by a social boundary separating the group members symbolically from the outside world and by foci of activity for the group to meet. Densely connected groups develop a particular group culture, and they frequently use symbols to signal group membership and the cultural difference to other groups and to the wider cultural context (group style).

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