scholarly journals Secondary Burial Practices in the Middle Neolithic: Causes and Consequences

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-170
Author(s):  
Åsa M. Larsson
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Main Body ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Group Unity ◽  
Secondary Burial

The article discusses the increasing evidence that burial traditions in the Neol ithic are more varied than is otten acknowledged, and focuses especially on the evidence of cremations as a continuous practice throughout the period. This variation should not be seen primarily as a result of competing cosmologies, but rather as different ways of expressing a main body of thought, depending on the cultural context and the need of the community members. Rituals are seen as events where structure is not only displayed, but also created and negotiated in a dialogue with the participants. Rituals therefore have the potential to both hinder and facil itate the changes that take place internally or externally. Evidence of secondary burial practices is given special attention, in particular regarding the mortuary houses of eastern middle Sweden in the late Middle Neolithic, since rituals linked to this tradition have been shown to involve a wider community and to emphasize on group unity over individualism. They also grant the participants a feeling ofcontrol over death, and through this the structuration of society. By acknowledging mortuary variation, which has often been overlooked as exceptions and curiosities, we are given additional insights into prehistoric strategies and mentaliities.

scholarly journals Participatory Approach to Gap Analysis between Policy and Practice Regarding Air Pollution in Ger Areas of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 3309
Author(s):  
Bonjun Koo ◽  
Jong-Il Na ◽  
Throstur Thorsteinsson ◽  
Ana Maria Cruz
Keyword(s):  
Air Pollution ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Gap Analysis ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Pollution Levels ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The Government

Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, suffers from severe air pollution during the long winter months, and its air pollution levels are among the highest in the world. Residents in the ger areas of Ulaanbaatar are unable to take advantage of the laws and policy regulations to reduce air pollution despite years of efforts to address this issue by international and local organizations including the government of Mongolia (GoM). Important challenges and barriers that have limited the success of various governmental policies that tackle air pollution problems were identified through participatory approaches. In order to do this, personal interviews were conducted with various stakeholders such as officials from central and local governments, government agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), international organizations, and academia. Moreover, a workshop was conducted to elucidate the views of ger area community members in Ulaanbaatar. Based on the results of these interviews and workshop, the gaps between the policy approaches of the government, the actual conditions, and the desired situations of the residents to improve air quality in Ulaanbaatar were analyzed. The large gaps that were identified between the national and local perspectives on air pollution issues demonstrated that the reduction of air pollution in Ulaanbaatar requires solving fundamental and complex problems based on a better understanding of the specific conditions and needs of the residents of the ger areas. Moreover, active participation and discussion of the residents at the workshop indicated that community-based approaches could be applied in the cultural context of Mongolia with promising results in finding solutions.

Understanding and Analyzing Natural Hazards Governance

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Gerber
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Risk Reduction ◽  
Natural Hazards ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Conceptual Clarity ◽  
Wide Range

Governance is a complex, highly elastic term used in a wide range of settings which sometimes leads to ambiguity. As a result, defining natural hazards governance as a unique and specific construct is needed for conceptual clarity and analytic precision. At core, natural hazards governance pertains to two fundamental considerations: reducing risk and promoting resilience. While not always recognized as such in the hazards and disasters literature, risk reduction and resilience promotion are two pure public goods. But they are also highly complex public goods—amalgams of a series of distinct but interrelated public policy choices and the administrative systems that put those choices into effect. To understand better a logic for defining and assessing natural hazards governance it is essential to consider it as a set of explicitly collective choices over the production of a complex of public goods aimed at addressing hazards risk reduction and promoting resilience within or across defined political jurisdictions. Those choices create frameworks permitting a set of authoritative actions (lawful and legitimate) to be stated and executed by governmental entities, by non-governmental agents on their behalf (in some form), or for goods and services to be jointly co-produced by governmental and non-governmental actors. Those collective choices in a given setting are influenced by the institutional structure of formal public policy decision-making, which itself reflects variations in the political efficacy of community members, competing interests and incentives over policy preferences, and level of extant knowledge and understanding of critical challenges associated with given hazards. Those formal collective choices are also reflective of a broader cultural context shaping norms of behavior and conception of the relationship between communities and hazards.

scholarly journals Just Another Storm: Conceptualizing Older Adults’ Perceptions of the COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 201-202
Author(s):  
Christopher Freed ◽  
Shoon Lio ◽  
Martha Arrieta ◽  
Roma Hanks
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Generational Differences ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Disaster Mitigation ◽  
Older Individuals ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Group Data ◽  
Focus Group Data

Abstract Older adults of color who experience health disparities are especially vulnerable to health and economic adversity related to COVID-19. This study focuses on nine zip codes wherein 70.2% of residents are of African-American descent and an estimated 31.5% of residents live in poverty. To understand the lived experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, perceived challenges of COVID-19, and the dissemination of information related to COVID-19, we collected interview and focus group data in Spring 2020 from fifteen community members, leaders, or advocates. Analyses reveal that older individuals approach the COVID-19 pandemic with familiar disaster mitigation strategies. Other persons perceive the pandemic as another community challenge that African-Americans must confront. Older adults report generational differences in perceptions of the risk of COVID-19 and compliance with health guidelines. Overall, analyses reveal a deeply cultural context for intergenerational responses associated with COVID-19 and a sense of agency among older community leaders as health advocates.

“Let the Dead Bury Their Own Dead”; Secondary Burial and Matt 8:21–22

1990 ◽  
Vol 83 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Byron R. McCane
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
First Century ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Secondary Burial

New Testament interpreters have long puzzled over the meaning of the saying, “Let the dead bury their own dead” (Matt 8:22; Luke 9:60), and although many ingenious solutions have been proposed, none has been generally convincing. It is surprising that Jewish burial practices have not been brought into this discussion. For the burial practices of first-century Jews in Palestine are well known: many tombs have been carefully excavated, and several rabbinic texts explicitly discuss the care of the dead. Yet this information has never (to my knowledge) been brought to bear on Matt 8:21–22. In this paper, I propose that secondary burial, a widespread burial custom among Jews in first-century Palestine, can solve the riddle of these verses. Against the background of secondary burial, both the meaning of the disciple's question and the force of Jesus' response become clear. In particular, it is not necessary to suppose, as many interpreters do, that Jesus was talking about the “spiritually” dead. On the contrary, if the references to the dead are taken literally, the saying sounds both ironic and eschatological.

scholarly journals Community-level antibiotic access and use (ABACUS) in low- and middle-income countries: Finding targets for social interventions to improve appropriate antimicrobial use – an observational multi-centre study

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heiman F.L. Wertheim ◽  
Nguyen Thi Kim Chuc ◽  
Sureeporn Punpuing ◽  
Wasif Ali Khan ◽  
Margaret Gyapong ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Antibiotic Use ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Multi Centre Study ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Social Interventions ◽  
Middle Income Countries ◽  
Actual Use ◽  
Low And Middle Income

In many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), a poor link between antibiotic policies and practices exists. Numerous contextual factors may influence the degree of antibiotic access, appropriateness of antibiotic provision, and actual use in communities. Therefore, improving appropriateness of antibiotic use in different communities in LMICs probably requires interventions tailored to the setting of interest, accounting for cultural context. Here we present the ABACUS study (AntiBiotic ACcess and USe), which employs a unique approach and infrastructure, enabling quantitative validation, contextualization of determinants, and cross-continent comparisons of antibiotic access and use. The community infrastructure for this study is the INDEPTH-Network (International Network for the Demographic Evaluation of Populations and Their Health in Developing Countries), which facilitates health and population research through an established health and demographic surveillance system. After an initial round of formative qualitative research with community members and antibiotic suppliers in three African and three Asian countries, household surveys will assess the appropriateness of antibiotic access, provision and use. Results from this sample will be validated against a systematically conducted inventory of suppliers. All potential antibiotic suppliers will be mapped and characterized. Subsequently, their supply of antibiotics to the community will be measured through customer exit interviews, which tend to be more reliable than bulk purchase or sales data. Discrepancies identified between reported and observed antibiotic practices will be investigated in further qualitative interviews. Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach will be employed to identify the conversion factors that determine whether or not, and the extent to which appropriate provision of antibiotics may lead to appropriate access and use of antibiotics. Currently, the study is ongoing and expected to conclude by 2019. ABACUS will provide important new insights into antibiotic practices in LMICs to inform social interventions aimed at promoting optimal antibiotic use, thereby preserving antibiotic effectiveness.

scholarly journals TRADISI UNGGAHAN SEBAGAI TRANSFORMASI AGAMA, SOSIAL, DAN BUDAYA (Studi Etnografi Komunitas Bonokeling di Desa Pekuncen Kecamatan Jatilawang Kabupaten Banyumas)

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-173
Author(s):  
Nawawi Nawawi
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Social Culture ◽  
Religious Transformation ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family

Abstract: Unggahan tradition in a ritual that is unique and full of magical feel. Unggahan conducted at sites considered sacred and trusted local people can get closer to the Almighty. This ritual in understood as a form of preservation of cultural heritage. In the social and cultural context, unggahan can be used as a vehicle for social cohesion, a means of togetherness of community members. In a unggahan ritual procession, community members gathered togheter without any barriers in the class and social status. Unggahan centred in rural communities Bonokeling Pekuncen Jatilawang District of Banyumas. All members of the community, including “child putu” of the various regions, both in the district of the Banyumas, Cilacap, Banjarnegara, even in far away arears come together in Pekuncen. Unggahan also become a means of gathering the family and as well as a social, cultural, and religious transformation. Unggahan is an expression of piety society where a sense of mutual assistance, solidarity and togetherness become main patterns of this tradition. Keyword: Unggahan, Transformation, Religion, Social, Culture.

scholarly journals Countervailing aesthetics? Depictions of British Muslims and the multicultural working class in post-7/7 art

2018 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 240-254
Author(s):  
Madeline Clements
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
First Century ◽  
Community Members ◽  
The Social ◽  
Islamic Terrorism ◽  
Breeding Grounds ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
British Culture

This article considers the significance of artist Philip Gurrey’s 2008 series of portraits of members of multicultural working-class communities in Beeston, Leeds, in the social, political, and cultural context of the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings. Reflecting on the impetus for making these works, Gurrey has observed that “the predominant rhetoric [in 2007] was almost as if this place was generating extremism” (2014a: n.p.). In his opinion, “the artist’s prerogative is to look at the aesthetic generated; the feel and mood of the place as portrayed by the media was completely wrong” (2014b). This essay focuses on The Beeston Series (2008–2009) of paintings, which Gurrey composed by merging and splicing together the features and skin-tones of the suburb’s community members, and subsequently exhibited to local audiences at the BasementArtsProject in south Leeds, a space removed from the metropolitan centres that appeared either to dismiss or to demonize them. Drawing on Jill Bennett’s explorations of art as the “critical, self-conscious manipulation of media” (2012: 6), this article goes on to explore how such mundane and unsensational, though striking, portraits presented an aesthetic that ran counter to contemporaneous representations of such communities as the breeding grounds of Islamic terrorism. It argues that through such critical, aesthetic approaches, artists in twenty-first-century Britain contest still-dominant discourses around the failure of multiculturalist policies and supposed alienness to indigenous British culture of Muslim identities, and fears about the harbouring of an “enemy within”. In doing so, it draws comparisons between Gurrey’s regionally-specific paintings and other more metropolitan attempts to depict the aesthetic realities of 7/7, the perpetrators of such attacks, and the multicultural, working-class identities scrutinized in their wake. Works discussed in relation to The Beeston Series include Mark Sinckler’s controversial drawing Age of Shiva (2008), and Faiza Butt’s Is This the Man (2010) portrait series.

At the Beginning: the Status of Women in Neolithic and Shang China*

NAN Nü ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
David N. Keightley
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Marriage Patterns ◽  
The Status ◽  
Secondary Burial ◽  
Initial Exploration ◽  
Status Of Women

AbstractDespite the local and frequently disparate nature of the evidence, both archaeological and inscriptional, and despite the difficulties involved in interpreting that evidence, the study of particular topics-such as secondary burial, following-in-death, sex ratios, marriage patterns, childbearing, Shang royal consorts, Shang ancestresses, and lineage terminology-permits the general conclusion that from at least the Late Neolithic until the Late Shang the political and economic status of most women in China, as represented in burial practices and recorded religious beliefs, was, despite some significant exceptions, inferior to that of most men. The present article provides an initial exploration of how such status distinctions emerged and how they functioned.

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