scholarly journals Strained Identity: Cultural and Religious Rituals of a Musahar Community

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-150
Author(s):  
Bhabani Pokhrel
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Field Observation ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Economic Situation ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Religious Rituals ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
The Everyday

This article portrays the Musahars, untouchable by tradition, as observing their cultural and religious rituals despite strains of change surrounding their identity. One of the diverse ethnic minorities of the Tarai plains of Nepal, the community exhibits a distinct set of characteristics, meriting ethnographic attention. Past studies have looked into their socio-economic situation but their cultural and religious practices, markers of their identity, are less studied. In that context, this paper has done the desk and field reviews of the cultural and religious traits seen in a small Musahar cluster of Province 1. The objectives were to describe the community’s everyday practices, what its members eat and drink, how they observe their life-cycle rituals, their feast and festivals, dresses and ornaments in light of literature, field observation and intensive interviews. The primary and secondary data are used to describe the everyday practices and strains of change in the Musahar identity. Interviews were held with four participants sampled purposively from Ward 1 of Biratnagar Metropolis, in Morang. The findings of this paper are expected to be useful for researchers interested in this particular community as well as for planners and policymakers who seek to bring the downtrodden community into the mainstream of development.

scholarly journals An Analysis of Religious Practices using Paradigm of Malayness in Burgess’ Beds in the East

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 15-19
Author(s):  
Nurhanis Sahiddan ◽  
Mardian Shah Omar . ◽  
Thaharah Hilaluddin .
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Students ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
The Third ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Six Elements

Burgess’ (1917-1993) trilogy of novels, The Malayan Trilogy (1964), is probably one of the most underestimated English literary texts on the Malay World. It has been suggested that the third novel of the trilogy, Beds in the East (1959), depicts the everyday practices of the Muslim Malay characters that go against their religion, Islam, through their conversations with other Muslim Malay characters and nonMuslim characters in the novel. In this study, I utilise one of the elements under the paradigm of Malayness in literature as proposed by Ida, which is Islam. According to this concept, the paradigm of Malayness consists of everyday-defined social realities, or the six elements, the Malay language, Islam, the Malay rulers, adat/culture, ethnicity and identity. From a close textual reading of the novel, my findings show that the Malay characters in the trilogy are portrayed as wayward Muslims in their beliefs and practices. It is hoped that these findings will contribute to the on-going study on Malay Muslims, discourse and the paradigm of Malayness in literature. These findings could also be utilised by foreign students in studying the Malay culture and the Malay language.

A Typology of International Judicial Practices

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey L Dunoff ◽  
Mark A Pollack
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Practice Theory ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
International Courts ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Judicial Opinions

This chapter discusses the inner working of ICs, such as the drafting of judicial opinions; practices concerning separate opinions; the role of language and translation; and the roles of third parties. It also presents a preliminary effort to identify and examine the everyday practices of international judges. In undertaking this task, the authors draw selectively upon a large literature on ‘practice theory’ that has only rarely been applied to international law in general or to international courts in particular. A typology and synoptic overview of practices is presented.

scholarly journals How We Heal: Genealogical Narratives of Healing among San Lázaro Devotees

Genealogy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Elaine Penagos
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Inquiry ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Narrative Medicine ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Cuban Americans ◽  
Photo Essay ◽  
Healing Narratives

Healing is the basis of belief in San Lázaro, a popular saint among Cubans, Cuban-Americans, and other Latinx peoples. Stories about healing, received through faith in San Lázaro, are typically passed on through family members, rendering them genealogical narratives of healing. In this photo essay, the author draws on her maternal grandmother’s devotion to San Lázaro and explores how other devotees of this saint create genealogical narratives of healing that are passed down from generation to generation. These genealogical narratives of healing function as testaments to the efficaciousness of San Lázaro’s healing abilities and act as familial avenues through which younger generations inherit belief in the saint. Using interview excerpts and ethnographic observations conducted at Rincón de San Lázaro church in Hialeah, Florida, the author locates registers of lo cotidiano, the everyday practices of the mundane required for daily functions and survival, and employs arts-based methods such as photography, narrative inquiry, and thematic poetic coding to show how the stories that believers tell about San Lázaro, and their experiences of healing through faith in the saint, constitute both genealogical narratives of healing and genealogical healing narratives where testimonies become a type of narrative medicine.

scholarly journals Borders and resilience: Asylum seeker reception at the securitized Finnish-Swedish border

2021 ◽  
pp. 239965442110000
Author(s):  
Eeva-Kaisa Prokkola
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seeker ◽  
Forced Migration ◽  
Border Crossing ◽  
Border Crossings ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Border Controls ◽  
And Control ◽  
Cross Border Cooperation

The past decade has witnessed a shift from “open borders” policies and cross-border cooperation towards heightened border securitization and the building of border walls. In the EU context, since the migration influx of 2015–2016, many Member States have retained the re-instituted Schengen border controls intended to be temporary. Such heightened border securitization has produced high levels of anxiety among various populations and increased societal polarization. This paper focuses on the processes underpinning asylum seeker reception at the re-bordered Finnish-Swedish border and in the Finnish border town of Tornio. The asylum process is studied from the perspective of local authorities and NGO actors active in the everyday reception, care and control practices in the border securitization environment enacted in Tornio in 2015. The analysis highlights how the ‘success’ of everyday reception work at the Tornio border crossing was bound to the historical openness of the border and pre-existing relations of trust and cooperation between different actors at various scales. The paper thus provides a new understanding of the significance of borders and border crossings from the perspective of resilience and highlights some of the paradoxes of border securitization. It notes that although border closures are commonly envisioned as a direct response to forced migration, the everyday practices and capacities of the asylum reception at the Finnish-Swedish border are themselves highly dependent on pre-existing border crossings and cross-border cooperation.

Directions of Change in Japanese Religiosity

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
David C. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Personal Factors ◽  
Different Dimensions ◽  
Surface Changes

Assertions about ‘secularisation’ in Japan are dependent on the accuracy of attempts to measure religiosity. Most indices try to measure observable religious practices, some also trying to assess levels of belief, but very few studies have attempted to measure the prevalence of religious experience. Measurements in each of these dimensions is problematic to some extent, so it is very difficult to know whether or not Japanese religiosity overall is increasing, declining or staying about the same, albeit with some surface changes. It is probably premature to assert too confidently that there is secularisation in Japan, or that religion is increasing or staying the same. This paper reviews some of the different dimensions of religiosity that need to be considered when trying to measure changes in religious behaviour. Statistics on alleged beliefs or observable practices need to be understood from the perspective of the motivations and attitudes behind them. In many cases, they are best understood in the perspective of the life-cycle, whereby expressions of religiosity change at different stages in a person’s life and are influenced by a variety of personal factors that affect whether or not an individual might participate in certain forms of religious practices.

scholarly journals The Denouncers: Populism and the Press in Venezuela

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT SAMET
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Recent Attention

AbstractDespite recent attention to the relationship between the media and populist mobilisation in Latin America, there is a misfit between the everyday practices of journalists and the theoretical tools that we have for making sense of these practices. The objective of this article is to help reorient research on populism and the press in Latin America so that it better reflects the grounded practices and autochthonous norms of the region. To that end, I turn to the case of Venezuela, and a practice that has been largely escaped attention from scholars – the use of denuncias.

In a “Half-dark, Half-light Zone”: Mobility, Precarity, and Moral Ambiguity in Vietnam's Urban Waste Economy

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minh T.N. Nguyen
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Network ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Urban Waste ◽  
The Public ◽  
Moral Ambiguity ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
State Agents

AbstractThis article discusses the everyday practices of a mobile network of migrant waste traders originating from northern Vietnam, locating them in an expanding urban waste economy spanning across major urban centres. Based on ethnographic research, I explore how the expansion of the network is foregrounded by the traders’ dealing with the precarious nature of waste trading, which is rooted in the social ambiguity of waste and migrants working with waste in the urban order. Characterised by waste traders as a “half-dark, half-light zone”, the waste economy is unevenly regulated, made up of highly personalised ties, and relatively hidden from the public. It is therefore rife with opportunities for accumulating wealth, but also full of dangers for the waste traders, whose occupation of marginal urban spaces makes them easy targets of both rent-seeking state agents and rogue actors. While demonstrating resilience, their practices suggest tactics of engaging with power that involve a great deal of moral ambiguity, which I argue is central to the increasing precaritisation of labour and the economy in Vietnam today.

scholarly journals The humanitarian protectorate of South Sudan? Understanding insecurity for humanitarians in a political economy of aid

2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-370
Author(s):  
Bram J. Jansen
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
South Sudan ◽  
Humanitarian Aid ◽  
State Building ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Security Threats ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Conflict Situations ◽  
The Everyday

ABSTRACTThis paper aims to contribute to debates about humanitarian governance and insecurity in post-conflict situations. It takes the case of South Sudan to explore the relations between humanitarian agencies, the international community, and local authorities, and the ways international and local forms of power become interrelated and contested, and to what effect. The paper is based on eight months of ethnographic research in various locations in South Sudan between 2011 and 2013, in which experiences with and approaches to insecurity among humanitarian aid actors were studied. The research found that many security threats can be understood in relation to the everyday practices of negotiating and maintaining humanitarian access. Perceiving this insecurity as violation or abuse of a moral and practical humanitarianism neglects how humanitarian aid in practice was embedded in broader state building processes. This paper posits instead that much insecurity for humanitarian actors is a symptom of the blurring of international and local forms of power, and this mediates the development of a humanitarian protectorate.

Revisiting the Past: History and Historical Memory during the Leningrad Blockade

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-129
Author(s):  
Alexis Peri
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Past History ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Crimean War ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
The Past ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Historical Reflection

AbstractThis article examines the everyday practices of historical reflection, recollection, and reconstruction as revealed in diaries of the Leningrad Blockade. In particular, it focuses on how Leningraders who chose to keep diaries of their experiences worked to make sense of the siege by situating it historically and comparing it to two other historical moments, the blockade of Petrograd during the Civil War and the siege of Sevastopol' during the Crimean War. Their evaluations of these historical analogies were based on a combination of personal and collective memories as well as on their understandings of state-sanctioned accounts of these events. Ultimately, these historical refl ections alerted the diarists to what they came to see as the unique and incomparable aspects of Blockade.

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