The Burden of Tribalism: The Social Context of Southern African Iron Age Studies

1984 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 455-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Hall
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Farming Communities ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
African Iron Age ◽  
Age Studies

The study of the archaeology of farming communities in southern Africa is an inherently political activity but there has been little critical analysis of the role of social context in forming problems and in shaping answers. It is argued in this paper that the history of Iron Age research south of the Zambezi shows the prevalent influence of colonial ideologies, both in the earliest speculations about the nature of the African past and in the adaptations that have been made to contemporary archeological methodologies in their application to the subcontinent. Concepts such as ethnicity have acquired specific meanings in southern Africa that contrast with the use of similar ideas in other contexts such as Australasia. Such relativity reinforces the view that specific, detailed critiques of archaeological practice in differing social environments are necessary for an understanding of the manner in which the present shapes the past.

The Burden of Tribalism: The Social Context of Southern African Iron Age Studies (1984)

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Hall
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Farming Communities ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

The study of the archaeology of farming communities in southern Africa is an inherently political activity but there has been little critical analysis of the role of social context in forming problems and in shaping answers. It is argued in this chapter that the history of Iron Age research south of the Zambezi shows the prevalent influence of colonial ideologies, both in the earliest speculations about the nature of the African past and in the adaptations that have been made to contemporary archaeological methodologies in their application to the subcontinent. Concepts such as ethnicity have acquired specific meanings in southern Africa that contrast with the use of similar ideas in other contexts such as Australasia. Such relativity reinforces the view that specific, detailed critiques of archaeological practice in differing social environments are necessary for an understanding of the manner in which the present shapes the past. In those countries where descendants of the colonizers mostly practise the archaeology of those colonized, the study of the past must have a political dimension. This has become overt in Australasia where, as one Aboriginal representative has put it, the colonizers ‘have tried to destroy our culture, you have built your fortunes upon the lands and bodies of our people and now, having said sorry, want a share in picking out the bones of what you regard as a dead past’ (Langford 1983: 2). In African countries, such opinions have been less explicit and consequently archaeologists have not frequently been faced with political accountability. Schmidt (1983) points out that there is some awareness that the intellectual constructs of Western archaeologists may have little meaning to African communities, but current literature describing research south of the Zambezi River of precolonial farming societies (by convention, termed the Iron Age) shows little acknowledgement that the social environment of the investigator may play a part in defining issues and colouring interpretations, or indeed, that the results themselves may have diverse political implications.

Female Christian prose today: A failed search for new women’s subjectivity?

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-149
Author(s):  
E. Chelpanova
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Social System ◽  
Family Values ◽  
The State ◽  
Current Work ◽  
Conservative Approach ◽  
Female Subjectivity ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

In her analysis of books by Maya Kucherskaya, Olesya Nikolaeva, and Yulia Voznesenskaya, the author investigates the history of female Christian prose from the 1990s until the present day. According to the author, it was in the 1990s, the period of crisis and transformation of the social system, that female Christian writers were more vocal, than today, on the issues of the new post-Soviet female subjectivity, drawing on folklore imagery and contrasting the folk, pagan philosophy with the Christian one, defined by an established set of rules and limitations for the principal female roles. Thus, the folklore elements in Kucherskaya’s early works are considered as an attempt to represent female subjectivity. However, the author argues that, in their current work, Kucherskaya and other representatives of the so-called female Christian prose tend to choose different, objectivizing methods to represent female characters. This new and conservative approach may have come from a wider social context, including the state-imposed ‘family values’ program.

scholarly journals Relatedness-Supportive Learning Environment for Girls in Physical Education

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra L. Gibbons
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Physical Education ◽  
Learning Environment ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Alternative Strategies ◽  
Healthy Relationships ◽  
The Social ◽  
High School Physical Education ◽  
Supportive Learning Environment

The challenges and issues associated with girls’ disengagement from high school physical education are serious and long standing. This disengagement has provided the impetus for the examination of alternative strategies to facilitate girls’ engagement in physical education. The purpose of this paper is to share a range of gender-inclusive practices in physical education grounded in the concept of a relatedness-supportive learning environment. "Relatedness" is the feeling of being connected to others in a social context. In turn, "relatedness support" refers to the social environments in which individuals have the opportunity to develop healthy relationships with others.

Lithium: evidence reconsidered

1997 ◽  
Vol 171 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Moncrieff
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Potential Role ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Main Current ◽  
The Social ◽  
Overall Evaluation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Role Based

This review examines the evidence for the main current recommendations for lithium use in psychiatry and briefly summarises the literature on its adverse consequences, in an attempt to develop an overall evaluation of its potential role based on available evidence. An introduction to the history of lithium is given because it is suggested that in both the 19th and 20th centuries the social context in which lithium emerged, rather than the quality of the scientific evidence, was decisive in determining its adoption as a treatment.

The social context of iron forging on the Kenya coast

Africa ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 386-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chapurukha M. Kusimba
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Social Power ◽  
High Status ◽  
Detailed Understanding ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ambiguous Position

Ironsmiths occupy an important yet ambiguous position in many African societies. They are both revered and feared, because they wield social power which arises from their access to occult knowledge, not only of metallurgy but of healing, divination, circumcision and peacemaking. In some societies smiths enjoy high status and are the wealthiest people. In others they are feared, covertly maligned, and blamed for societal misfortunes. In still others the smiths' position is often marginal except when they are needed to intercede on their society's behalf to solve natural or cultural predicaments. The forge or smithy plays a central role in the community as tool-making centre, a place of refuge from violence, of purification, and for healing. This article examines the social context of iron forging among the ironsmiths of the Kenya coast, focusing on the role of iron forging in the coastal economy, the forge, the smiths' life cycle, the institution of apprenticeship, the ritual and technical power of smiths, the role of women in the smiths' community, and the future of iron forging on the coast. It is argued that, while coastal smiths are marginal and despised, they hold important ritual and spiritual powers in coastal society. The article concludes that a detailed understanding of the traditional crafts historically practised on the coast can do much to illuminate the complex history of coastal society.

Introduction

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gergely Baics
Keyword(s):  
Urban Governance ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Market System ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Economies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Access To Food ◽  
Private Domain

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book tells story of New York's transition from a tightly regulated public market system of provisioning in the Early Republic to a free-market model in the antebellum period. It examines what a municipal market system was and how it worked to supply urban dwellers; how and why access to food moved from the public to the private domain by the 1840s; how these two distinctive political economies shaped the physical and social environments of a booming city; and what the social consequences of deregulation were for residents of America's first metropolis. On the whole, the book offers a comprehensive account based in political economy and the social and geographic history of the complex interplay of urban governance, market forces, and the built environment in provisioning New Yorkers.

Political Economy: History with the Politics Left Out?

2012 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 24-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Backhouse
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

AbstractThis paper argues that Milonakis and Fine, in their bookFrom Political Economy to Economics, offer an account of history that systematically omits discussion of how economics has been shaped by the political and social context in which it developed. This contrasts with work by intellectual historians who have argued that such factors were crucial to understanding the history of economic ideas. It is ironic given that Milonakis and Fine are criticising economists for excluding the political and the social from economics.

Chaucer and Contemporary Courts of Law and Politics

2020 ◽  
pp. 25-42
Author(s):  
Matthew Giancarlo
Keyword(s):  
Legal Consciousness ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
Direct Impact ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
Political Events ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Medieval England

Appreciating the significance of courts in Chaucer’s day requires understanding the connections among noble households, courts of law, and the practices of social interaction and play in late medieval culture. This chapter briefly summarizes important aspects of medieval court cultures. It summarizes Chaucer’s biographical history of legal and court connections. It explains the connections between legal courts and the social environments of noble households, and their relation to political events such as the Uprising of 1381. With specific reference to several stories and tales (The Summoner’s Tale, The Friar’s Tale, and the Second Nun’s Tale), this chapter explains how the worlds of aristocratic courtliness and the growing legal consciousness of late medieval England are examined and often criticized by Chaucer’s narratives. Chaucer’s life and work were richly informed by court contexts and understanding them helps the modern reader to better appreciate the direct impact that court cultures had on his literary practice.

The Prehistoric Origins of African Culture

1964 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Desmond Clark
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Regional Differences ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
African Culture ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
History Of

The paper traces the beginnings of human culture in Africa, its evolution and spread, and shows the feedback relationship that exists between biological evolution and culture. It is demonstrated how environment is the most important factor in producing variability at the food-gathering level, and the present-day regional differences in culture are shown to have been in existence for some 40,000 years. The history of the introduction and spread of domestication is summarized, and evidence is adduced to indicate that the diffusion of Iron Age economy in southern Africa was due as much to adaptation as to immigration, thus demonstrating a real and traceable continuity up to the present day.

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