Melanesian Ethnography and the Comparative Project of Anthropology: Reflection on Strathern’s Analogical Approach

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 39-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Hirsch
Keyword(s):  
Reproductive Technologies ◽  
The Other ◽  
Technological Innovations ◽  
The West ◽  
Social Forms ◽  
The World ◽  
The Gift ◽  
Analogical Approach

Melanesian ethnography has been a substantial and enduring presence in Strathern’s comparative project of anthropology. The cornerstone of this project was The Gender of the Gift, where a model was established for demonstrating the analogies between Melanesian societies based on a system of common differences. The comparisons created in this work were centred on a real and radical divide between Melanesia and the West. Strathern’s subsequent comparative work has examined the debates surrounding new social and technological forms in the West (e.g. new genetic and reproductive technologies) through drawing analogies with Melanesian social forms; she has simultaneously highlighted the limits of these comparisons. Her intention in this comparative project has been to expand the range of concepts and language used to understand western social and technological innovations that potentially affect the world at large, so that debate is not simply circumscribed by western preoccupations and concerns. As mediated through the analysis of Strathern and the other Melanesian anthropologists she draws on, the voices and interests of non-westerners can potentially inform and even reform the grounds of such deliberations.

scholarly journals MEREFLEKSIKAN TUHAN DALAM PERSPEKTIF METAFISIKA, DAN RELEVASINYA BAGI MULTIKULTURALISME INDONESIA

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
pp. 3-18
Author(s):  
Agustinus Wisnu Dewantara
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Relationship With God ◽  
Human Thought ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Analogical Approach ◽  
Human Intellect ◽  
The Relationship

Talking about God can not be separated from the activity of human thought. Activity is the heart of metaphysics. Searching religious authenticity tends to lead to a leap in harsh encounter with other religions. This interfaith encounter harsh posed a dilemma. Why? Because on the one hand religion is the peacemaker, but on the other hand it’s has of encouraging conflict and even violence. Understanding God is not quite done only by understanding the religion dogma, but to understand God rationally it is needed. It is true that humans understand the world according to his own ego, but it is not simultaneously affirm that God is only a projection of the human mind. Humans understand things outside of himself because no awareness of it. On this side of metaphysics finds itself. Analogical approach allows humans to approach and express God metaphysically. Human clearly can not express the reality of the divine in human language, but with the human intellect is able to reflect something about the relationship with God. Analogy allows humans to enter the metaphysical discussion about God. People who are at this point should come to the understanding that God is the Same One More From My mind, The Impossible is defined, the Supreme Mystery, and infinitely far above any human thoughts.

From Little King to Landlord: Property, Law, and the Gift under the Madras Permanent Settlement

1986 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas B. Dirks
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Property Law ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Social Forms ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
The Gift ◽  
Permanent Settlement ◽  
The Impact

In the last few years, modern historians of India have pushed the historical frontier of their field backwards in time. Colonialism is no longer considered the great watershed it once was thought to be. Historians who concern themselves with economic processes such as protoindustrialization tend in particular to minimize the impact of the consolidation of colonial rule in the late eighteenth century. Changes viewed as significant by these historians usually begin with the introduction of capitalism and the early encroachment of a world system, both of which predate the full political realization of colonialism. Historians who concern themselves with political changes tend in the other direction, although increasingly they have proposed major continuities between the ancien régime and the early colonial state. Historians concerned with social change view colonialism as significant but invoke various new forms of dualism to account for the limited effects of colonialism on local social forms. Whatever their differences, all of these historians agree that the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are crucial for viewing later changes in economy, polity, and society, and, from their varying theoretical and ideological perspectives, delight in excoriating traditional views of India as static and “traditional” before the arrival of the British.

Nathan Söderblom and the Study of Religion

1969 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric J. Sharpe
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Religion ◽  
The Other ◽  
Recent History ◽  
Biblical Criticism ◽  
The West ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

To the student of the recent history of theological ideas in the West, it sometimes seems as though, of all the ‘new’ subjects that have been intro duced into theological discussion during the last hundred or so years, only two have proved to be of permanent significance. One is, of course, biblical criticism, and the other, the subject which in my University is still called ‘comparative religion’—the (as far as possible) dispassionate study of the religions of the world as phenomena in their own right.

scholarly journals Marginalized centre: Wana people and the geography of power

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 114
Author(s):  
Giorgio Scalici
Keyword(s):  
Social Power ◽  
The Other ◽  
Power Relationships ◽  
World Religions ◽  
The West ◽  
Spiritual World ◽  
The World ◽  
The Government ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Relationship Of

The Wana of Morowali (Indonesia) are nowadays a small endangered community marginalized by the Indonesian government, world religions and the other communities in the area but, according to their own mythology, they are not the periphery of the world, but the real centre of it. Their cosmogonic myth tells how the Wana land (Tana Taa) was the first land placed on the primordial waters and it was full of mythical power, a power that, when the land was spread around the world to create the continents, abandoned the Wana to donate wealth and power to the edge of the world: the West. This myth has a pivotal role in the Wana worldview, their categorization of the world and the power relationships in it. The Wana reverse the traditional relationship between centre and periphery, placing themselves in a powerless centre (the village or the Tana Taa) that gave all its power to a periphery (the jungle or the West) that must be explored to obtain power and knowledge. This relationship not only expresses a clear agency in shaping the relationship of power with forces way stronger than the Wana (Government and world religions) but also creates internal hierarchies based on the access to this knowledge; granted to men and partially precluded to women due to the cultural characterizations of these genders. Indeed, the majority of shamans, called tau walia (human-spirit), are men, and they are the only one that can travel between the human and the spiritual world, obtaining a spiritual and social power. In this article, we will see how Wana categorise the world and use religion, rituality and gender to express their agency to cope with the marginalization by the government, the world religions and the other community in the area.

scholarly journals The Painter and the Princess: Constructing Feminism/Decentring Orientalism between Copenhagen, Istanbul, Cairo and Tunis

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-71
Author(s):  
Ragnhild Johnsrud Zorgati
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Gender Roles ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
The West ◽  
Literature And Politics ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
The World ◽  
International Importance ◽  
Late Nineteenth

This article explores the encounters between a Polish-Danish painter and an Egyptian princess in the second part of the nineteenth century, at the junction of Orientalism, modernism and Islamic reformism. The painter Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann is known for her Orientalist paintings and autobiographical writings, while Princess Nazli Fadhel was a hostess of influential intellectual salons in Cairo and Tunis and, as such, a contributor to the world of art, literature and politics. Jerichau-Baumann and Nazli Fadhel were both creative and controversial personalities engaged in the cultural and political debates of their time. They were outspoken and well-travelled, which challenged conventional gender roles. Based on Scandinavian, English, French and Arabic sources concerning Jerichau-Baumann and Nazli Fadhel's lives, this article argues that the activities of these two women are testament to the increasing international importance of feminist discourses in the late nineteenth century. Their encounter is emblematic of the rapidly expanding connections across cultural, linguistic, and religious boundaries that characterized the nineteenth-century world. It thus questions the binary constructions – the idea of the West/Europe and the Other – underlying the paradigm of Orientalism.

Bridging or Widening the Gap? Narrative Discourses of the West and Westerners in Jordan’s My American Neighbor Television Program

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 431-445
Author(s):  
Sumaya Kubeisy ◽  
Bradley C. Freeman
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Media Representation ◽  
Television Show ◽  
The West ◽  
Thematic Content Analysis ◽  
Film And Television ◽  
The World ◽  
The Media

Media researchers have often examined how film and television can have an impact on audiences. Media have various effects on audience members. When it comes to representing ‘the other’, the media often rely on stereotypes. Research has shown that ethnic Arabs are under-represented in US film and television, and their depictions are distorted with stereotypical portrayals. The current study joins the discussion on ‘media representation’ (in this case, informed by the construct of Occidentalism) by conducting a qualitative, thematic, content analysis (informed by narrative analysis, both socio-linguistic and socio-cultural) of the Jordanian television show My American Neighbor. Stereotypes can be both positive and negative, and they are often used by media storytellers regardless of their background or location in the World.

Omar Noman. Economic and Social Progress in Asia: Why Pakistan Did Not Become a Tiger. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1997. 324 pages. Hardbound. Rs 575.00.

1997 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-207
Author(s):  
Faisal Bari
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
South Korea ◽  
South Asia ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
The West ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World

Most people in Pakistan look towards the West for models of economic development, and some even look to the Islamic past. But in recent decades, the more spectacular cases have been much closer to home, and towards the East. Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are already in the ranks of the developed, while China, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand are making good progress. Despite the recent setbacks, their progress over the last three decades has been enviable. On the other hand, the countries in South Asia have lagged behind. Four decades ago there was little to choose between most of these countries, but by the seventies, the paths of some had clearly diverged, while others were beginning to diverge. Today, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka are amongst the poorest in the world, and on certain measures, they are the poorest! What happened in the last four decades? This is the issue that Omar Noman tackles in this book.

Self within World

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Culliney ◽  
David Jones
Keyword(s):  
Personal Development ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Dynamic Flow ◽  
The West ◽  
Self In Relation ◽  
The Core ◽  
The World ◽  
Constructive Interaction

We describe the foundations of the fractal self in relation to the Chinese notion of personal development and enhancement of adeptness in the world and mutualism with the other. This seeking, described in the codified system of Daoism, is a pathway that may progress to the highest level of achievement of such a self: that which defines a sage. The chapter introduces the view that a sage is a fractal self that achieves a peak of intimacy and constructive interaction with the world. We detail the development of human beings on this pathway, emerging beyond the core embodiments of empathy, sympathy, and rudimentary morality observed in apes. The self for the early Chinese was always a being that was embedded in the world and dynamic flow of forces. This self was defined in intimate terms as adaptable and adept, seeking to be a microcosmic contributor to some holistic macrocosm. In this chapter, Daoism leads our thinking on how the fractal self engages with the world. In turn, this way of understanding selfness and its potential to enrich its system from within resonates with discussions of the interactive self of Buddhism and was also in the minds of Pre-Socratic thinkers in the West.

The Connection between “Religious Intolerance” and “Holy Ignorance”; Discussion on Religious Freedom Based on the Qurʾan and Hadith

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-45
Author(s):  
Ali Hasannia
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
The Other ◽  
The West ◽  
Religious Intolerance ◽  
Four Corners ◽  
The World ◽  
Religious Sects ◽  
Social Orders ◽  
Descriptive Method

Abstract Nowadays in four corners of the world, there are groups rising and violating human dignities and social orders by the name of religion. The existence of such belief is due to misconceptions about religion, especially when speaking of Islam versus the West. In the other, “tolerance” occurs in a society wherein different social groups and parties live together with different beliefs and customs. Nevertheless, different ideas regarding the sound meaning of the term tolerance, which basically in Islam comes from the Qurʾan and Hadith literature, led to contradict practices by different religious sects. The present paper, based on the analytical descriptive method and through Qurʾanic notions, traditional and Islamic teachings and thinkers’ views, aims to discuss the extent and limits of tolerance in Islam, particularly concerning freedom, and how misconceptions about it brings about the disaster phenomenon of “holy ignorance”. It will show the meaningful connection between intolerance, holy ignorance, radicalism, lack of sound understanding about religion, and lack of religious freedom.

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