Deviant Treatment of the Body as a Mortuary Ritual

2020 ◽  
pp. 347-360
Author(s):  
Takeshi Ishikawa
Keyword(s):  
Prone Position ◽  
Skeletal Remains ◽  
Decay Process ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Posture ◽  
Faunal Remains ◽  
Body Postures ◽  
Mortuary Ritual ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual

This chapter examines the social meaning of deviant mortuary practices from an osteoarchaeological perspective using skeletal remains from the Middle Jomon Period (ca. 3500–2500 cal BC) found at the Kusakari shell mound. The analyses focus on attributes associated with mortuary body treatments: 1) arrangements of remains, 2) body posture and direction, and 3) the location of burials within the cemetery. Although the usual body postures were dorsal during the period, one individual was laid in a prone position with an unusual body direction compared with other burials. The skeletal arrangement also revealed that the individual had been disarticulated early in the postmortem decay process; however, the remains were located within the usual cemetery area. Based on these results and the extraordinary amount of varied faunal remains in the vicinity, the deviant mortuary treatments appeared to arise from a specific social persona rather than an unusual context of death, such as drowning, suicide, warfare, or other cause.

Reading Signs and Symbols with Abdelkébir Khatibi

2020 ◽  
pp. 237-260
Author(s):  
Rim Feriani ◽  
Jasmina Bolfek-Radovani ◽  
Debra Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
The Body ◽  
Radical Theory ◽  
Abdelkebir Khatibi ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Sign Systems ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Theories Of Meaning

This chapter considers the ways in which Khatibi’s practices of reading contribute to theories of meaning through his thinking on the deciphering of signs and symbols and of making sense of the world, and of the worlds of the text, in their multifaceted forms. It takes as its starting point what Khatibi terms, in his introductory essay ‘Le Cristal du Texte’ in La Bessure du Nom propre, ‘l’intersémiotique’, migrant signs which move between one sign system and another. Khatibi takes as his own project examples from semiotic systems found within Arabic and Islamic cultures, from both popular culture, such as the tattoo, to calligraphy and the language of the Koran, from the body to the text and beyond – including storytelling, mosaics, urban space, textiles. His readings reveal the intersemiotic and polysemic meanings created in the movements of these migrant signs between their sign systems. For Khatibi, this ‘infinity’ of the ‘text’ is linked also to a mobile and migrant identity refracted in the multifaceted surfaces of the crystal (hence the title of the essay – ‘Le Cristal du Texte’) rather than in one reflection as in a mirror. Moving from these concerns of Khatibi with which he develops his radical theory of the sign, of the word and of writing, the chapter goes on to propose new readings of a selection of other writers with a shared, but varied, relationship to their Islamic heritage. These are writers working with and through that heritage – and importantly, as for Khatibi, including the Sufi heritage – and whose writing is also resonant with Khatibi’s intersemiotic theoretical and cultural project concerned with the individual and the collective, the historical and the contemporary, the political, the social and the linguistic.

Habitus and Field

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Leander
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Body ◽  
International Studies ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Implicit And Explicit ◽  
Heuristic Devices

The terms habitus and field are useful heuristic devices for thinking about power relations in international studies. Habitus refers to a person’s taken-for-granted, unreflected—hence largely habitual—way of thinking and acting. The habitus is a “structuring structure” shaping understandings, attitudes, behavior, and the body. It is formed through the accumulated experience of people in different fields. Using fields to study the social world is to acknowledge that social life is highly differentiated. A field can be exceedingly varied in scope and scale. A family, a village, a market, an organization, or a profession may be conceptualized as a field provided it develops its own organizing logic around a stake at stake. Each field is marked by its own taken-for-granted understanding of the world, implicit and explicit rules of behavior, and valuation of what confers power onto someone: that is, what counts as “capital.” The analysis of power through the habitus/field makes it possible to transcend the distinctions between the material and the “ideational” as well as between the individual and the structural. Moreover, working with habitus/field in international studies problematizes the role played by central organizing divides, such as the inside/outside and the public/private; and can uncover politics not primarily structured by these divides. Developing research drawing on habitus/field in international studies will be worthwhile for international studies scholars wishing to raise and answer questions about symbolic power/violence.

scholarly journals Diet in Mesopotamia: The Evidence of the Barley Ration Texts (c. 3000–1400 B.C.)

Iraq ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-45
Author(s):  
Rosemary Ellison
Keyword(s):  
Food Intake ◽  
Clinical Studies ◽  
Industrial Country ◽  
The Body ◽  
Faunal Remains ◽  
Healthy State ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Daily Intakes ◽  
Cylinder Seals

In order to live one must eat and if one is to live a full and active life the food that is eaten must supply all the nutrients required to maintain the body in a healthy state. An appreciation of the importance of diet has led to many modern studies in this field. The methods used include an examination of the environment of the country concerned; of its economic basis—for example whether it is mainly an agricultural or an industrial country, what food is available and whether such food is locally grown or imported; dietary surveys, usually at family level, of the food intake of the population and clinical studies to assess the health of the individual. The information gained in these surveys is used to assess the adequacy of the nutritional intake of the population. It has proved difficult to set up an accepted standard by which to judge adequacy of diet, but the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations has produced tables of recommended daily intakes of nutrients which can be taken as a practical guide.Some of these methods can be applied to ancient Mesopotamia in order to see whether the diet there can be considered adequate. Examination of the palaeoethnobotanical and palaeozoological evidence from excavated sites, together with references in cuneiform texts and representations of plants and animals on cylinder seals and reliefs, give information about the environment and the economic base. This was agriculture with cereals such as barley and wheat as the main crops and sheep, goats, cattle and pigs the main domesticated animals. Clinical studies of individual people are not possible: obviously no one is available for measuring and weighing or to supply blood and urine samples for tests! It may be, however, that the study of skeletal material will in future enable the likely height and weight of a population to be calculated and provide some information about calcium and Vitamin D deficiencies. It is impossible also to carry out the kind of dietary survey in which families are studied and their food weighed before eating so that exact food intake can be calculated. But by studying the botanical and faunal remains, cylinder seals and reliefs, and the cuneiform texts, it is possible to get some idea of the range of food which was available, which foodstuffs were utilized and how, and to a certain extent who ate what.

Life After Life: Bioarchaeology and Post-mortem Agency

2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 523-529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bettina Arnold
Keyword(s):  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Symbolic Capital ◽  
The Body ◽  
Post Mortem ◽  
Select Group ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Anxious Group

In the alternative fairy tale The Princess Bride, as William Goldman's character Miracle Max reanimates the apparent corpse of the hero Westley, he tells the anxious group observing the procedure: ‘There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive’ (Goldman 2007, 313). Only a select group of the dead can be characterized as being ‘slightly alive’, in the post-mortem agency sense, however, and the case studies presented here explore the many ways in which this subcategory of mostly dead individuals have engaged with and continue to impact the living in the past as well as today. Several themes emerge as especially salient: the iteration in the death-scape of the dynamic tension between the individual and the social group, which can result in transgression as well as conformity in the disposition of the body and its effects on the living; the symbolic capital represented by some dead bodies and the ways in which their potency may be affected by various forms of contextual association; and the ways in which the manipulation of the dead for political purposes is subject to constraints specific to the cultural contexts in which these interactions take place.

scholarly journals Narration Based On Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Advertisement: The Projection and Story

Nirmana ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 106-120
Author(s):  
Natalia Widiasari
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Social Responsibility ◽  
Social Responsibility ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Side ◽  
The Body Shop ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
A Company

Advertising plays an important role in narrating the social side of a company which is often referred to as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Corporate social campaigns are often seen as dubious, however, audiences as individuals interpret advertisements based on their values and experiences. TBSI (The Body Shop Indonesia) advertisements were conceptualized and analyzed using narrative transportation. Interviews are conducted with nine informants from various backgrounds. The results of the study are described in themes, namely (1) insight, (2) the relationship between CSR messages and the participant's value system, and (3) narrative responses to CSR advertisements. The result of the study states that advertising does not necessarily make the value from a social issue to be embedded or instilled in someone. Narrative and commitment to these values depend on the individual, person by person.

scholarly journals Reflective Surfaces: the Individual as the Key Social Relationship in New Zealand Society

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Catherine Ruth Wylie
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationship ◽  
Home Ownership ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
The Social ◽  
Inner Dialogue ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Mode Of Being

<p>The variety of concerns and everyday practices found in the lives of members of Western societies has to some degree deterred their exploration by anthropologists. In this thesis, I hope to demonstrate that a commonality does indeed exist within and sustains this multiformity. However, it exists where we might least expect to find it: in a dialogue which takes place with reference to the physical person rather than, as in other societies, with reference to the relations between categories of people. This thesis posits that the individual is not merely a synonym for person, or human being, but a social mode of being which is characteristic of particular social formations, namely those of the industrialized West. By mode of being I refer to both human experience and the terms in which it is comprehended. The mode of being derives from two overlaid dialectics: the inner dialogue between what I have termed the active self and the sense of self, and the engagement between that dialogue and the stock of options available in any given social ambiance. The mode of being becomes individualistic (compared to those based on exchange, descent, patronage, hierarchy etc) when the inner dialogue refers back to itself, when it is stressed as the locus of reality. The sense of self can be seen as a reflective surface in which is caught the configuration of elements derived from the social options, a pattern which differs sufficiently from person to person for the active self to be affirmed as distinct amongst others, as 'individual'. In the body of this thesis, the constituents of this mode of being are articulated and explored through a spiralling sequence of portraits depicting nineteen individuals, their relationships, possessions, opinions, expectations and the concerns which colour their lives. Three prime styles of the individual mode emerge. The most common of these stresses complementarity, and so focuses on partnership in marriage, exemplified and made demanding (purposeful) by children and home ownership. Less common, though increasing in frequency, is the autonomous style, which focuses on the person as separate, on a capability which carries its owner through a range of situations in which its use refers solipsistically back to the person, demonstratrating to others, particularly peers, those like him or herself (more the former than the latter) his or her high worth. Finally there is the participant style, which in contrast to the other two is more open to options, more fluid; which if involved in family and house, or job, is unlikely to make of those the enclosures they form for the executors of the other two styles. This thesis attempts to refresh our understanding of both individuality and society; and to show that it is not possible to comprehend the former, even though we may sense its significance, unless we broaden our perception of the latter beyond something that is shared, stressing community and categorization, to encompass processes which may lack a shared flcus or ordering but which are nonetheless simultaneously common and transcendent.</p>

Conclusion: Theology as Failure

2019 ◽  
pp. 175-182
Author(s):  
Marika Rose
Keyword(s):  
Social Economy ◽  
The Body ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theology And Philosophy ◽  
The Church ◽  
Is Failure ◽  
Body Theology

This conclusion draws together the themes of the book, exploring what a theology of failure looks like in relation to four overarching themes: freedom, materiality, hierarchy, and universalism. This account of ontology, desire, and Christian theology suggests not only that completeness is impossible but also that purity is impossible. The internal rupture that both constitutes and disrupts every individual economic identity is also the rupture between the social economy of the relationship between the individual and others, language and the body, theology and philosophy, God and the created order. Theology can no more remain immune from its others than it can completely encompass them. Once there was no secular; and yet the genealogy of the church, of Christian theology, is constantly interrupted, contaminated, and enriched by the profane, the abject, and the horrific. Theology is failure; the task, then, is to fail better, to liberate our others in order to begin the difficult work of learning how to love them.

scholarly journals Risk as Moral Danger: The Social and Political Functions of Risk Discourse in Public Health

1993 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 425-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Lupton
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Social ◽  
Divine Retribution ◽  
Multiple Meanings ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Risk Discourse

Risk is a concept with multiple meanings and is ideologically loaded. The author reviews the literature on risk perception and risk as a sociocultural construct, with particular reference to the domain of public health. Pertinent examples of the political and moral function of risk discourse in public health are given. The author concludes that risk discourse is often used to blame the victim, to displace the real reasons for ill-health upon the individual, and to express outrage at behavior deemed socially unacceptable, thereby exerting control over the body politic as well as the body corporeal. Risk discourse is redolent with the ideologies of mortality, danger, and divine retribution. Risk, as it is used in modern society, therefore cannot be considered a neutral term.

scholarly journals Salute e disuguaglianze in Europa

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulia Mascagni
Keyword(s):  
Social Processes ◽  
The Body ◽  
Economic Capital ◽  
Economic Resources ◽  
Life Expectation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Welfare Systems ◽  
Cultural Sphere ◽  
Emotional Dimensions ◽  
The Individual

This work analyses the relation between social inequality and health by focusing on the social processes and individual mechanisms that construct it within the area of action of the economic sphere, the cultural sphere and the social and territorial sphere. Within this framework, the body is conceived as a link between the physical, biological and material dimensions and the social, relational and emotional dimensions. At the same time, the proposal is to go beyond the well-known relationship between economic resources/social position and levels of health/life expectation, concentrating on the specific social and psychological dynamics generated by the availability of socio-economic capital. The over-simplified perspective of the social gradient of health is overtaken by an analysis of the relational dimension of the individual and his/her reference groups, and finally by appraising both the individual and collective aspects that can be traced to the social and political context and to the different welfare systems.

scholarly journals Understanding Tattoos from the Indonesian Underground Music Scene of the Surabaya Region

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Cons. Tri Handoko
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Art ◽  
Detailed Knowledge ◽  
Public Places ◽  
Music Scene ◽  
The Social ◽  
Spiritual Journeys ◽  
Underground Music ◽  
The Individual

This study analyses the functions and meanings of tattoos in the specific social and cultural context of the underground musicians and fans in urban East Java. The research methodology is based on qualitative data and uses ethnographic and social science methods. The ethnographic component comes from participation in music events, gatherings and visits to the target community in their homes and public places. The focus is on the analysis of the visual data in their particular contexts and draws from detailed knowledge of literature pertaining to existing international research about tattoos from a variety of perspectives. In particular, the individual explanatory narratives are considered to account for the icons, symbols and typography patterns, to understand the broader vocabularies of tattoos that are followed in the subculture of underground music in Indonesia. This research revealed that tattoos and tattooing practices among Java-based underground music subcultures were mostly still based on mutual co-operation, as shown by how some of the underground musicians and fans became the volunteer media of tattooing practices for their fellow tattoo apprentices. This kind of activity seems to strengthen their social interactions. From an analogical perspective, we can see the body as the site where they create those relationships. I call this phenomenon the social body event, a celebration of togetherness and unity, flowing dynamically in the form of the production of tattoos. Other findings were that tattoos also became a projection of their spiritual journeys, personal identity, as well as the group identity, in cases where there was a shift in the meaning of tattoos over time. The local preferences of tattoos and the tattooing process also involve local spiritual conceptions, such as the tattoo positioning on the body representing good or evil. Also, some subjects acquired tattoos after experiencing dreams. This phenomenon shows that some youngsters still believe that dreams can convey a supernatural message or a sign of a particular event in their life. Tattoo and tattooing practices in the underground music scene reflect the vigorous bond between inside and outside the self, the music scene, and the wider range of society. It is also clear how global tattoos can influence, in terms of tattoo styles and motifs. This research adds to the existing body of research and knowledge of both subcultures and body art in the Indonesian context.

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