Pardos’ Triumph

On September 13, 1745, the pardo (mixed-race Afro-Brazilian) brotherhood (lay Catholic association) of Nossa Senhora do Livramento (Our Lady of Emancipation) of Recife, Pernambuco, in collaboration with the pardo brotherhood of Nossa Senhora de Guadalupe (Our Lady of Guadalupe) in neighboring Olinda, enthralled Pernambuco’s largest city with a great festival in honor of Blessed Gonçalo Garcia (1556–97). Like many colonial festivals, the festivities included fireworks, artillery salvos, five triumphal carts, seventeen allegorical floats, five different dance performances, and jousting. Yet never before had such an extravagant display of material wealth been made by an Afro-Brazilian brotherhood. The pardo irmãos (brotherhood members) had two important issues they wanted to settle once and for all with this festival. One was the question of Blessed Gonçalo’s pardoness, since the would-be-saint was the son of a Portuguese man and an East Indian woman, and pardoness in Brazil had been defined as the result of white–black miscegenation. The other issue was the popular notion that mixed-race Afro-Brazilians constituted colonial Brazil’s most deviant and unruly socioracial group. In this article, I analyze how mixed-race Afro-Brazilians used the material culture of early modern festivals to publicly articulate claims about their sacro-social prestige and socio-symbolic status. I contend that material culture played a central role in the pardo irmãos’ articulation of their devotion to Blessed Gonçalo and claims of sacro-social and socio-symbolic belonging, and that they used this material culture to challenge colonial notions about their ethnic group.

Production and Consumption of Coromandel Lacquer Screens in the 17th and 18th Centuries

Coromandel lacquer screen is a Chinese folding screen made from the 17th century to 19th century in China. The screen is usually about 250cm high, 600cm width and consisting of twelve panels. Although these screens were made in China during the Qing dynasty, they received their name from India’s Coromandel coast, where they were transshipped to Europe in the late 17th and early 18th centuries by merchants of the English and Dutch East India companies. The Dutch traders carried these screens from Bantam in Java, and in early accounts they were frequently called Bantam screens as well as Coromandel screens. This paper examines Coromandel lacquer screen's art historical significance in the incising global interaction and consumer culture in the 17th and 18th centuries. It first discusses historical and cultural background of production in China which have been little known about. The primary sources focus on the record of Xiu Shi lu, the 16th century book about lacquer, and the inscriptions left on the screens. They will give information about when the screens were produced, what was the purpose of them, and the technique of decoratively incising lacquer and adding polychrome to the voids, called kuan cai in Chinese. The lacquer screen features a continuous scene run through all twelve panels, just like a hand-scroll painting with variety of colours. The prominent subjects for decoration are human figures, landscape and bird-and-flower. The narrative theme with human figures, such as Birthday Reception for General Guo Ziyi and the World of Immortals were shaped by literature or play. Also, the parallels between the lacquer screens and the paintings on the same theme are found. The scenes with Europeans are rare but bring various interpretations within the historical context of the time. The landscape themes, such as the Scenes of Lake Xihu and the Nine Bend in Mountain Wuyi, were depicted famous scenic spots in China. The composition and expression of the screens were probably inspired by landscape woodblock prints, it’s because the technique of lacquer screen and woodblock cutting are similar. Lastly, bird-and-flower theme has a long tradition of wishing longevity, happiness and peace in one’s life and produced in various medium. Thanks to the enormous progress in navigation and discovered sea roots in the 16th century, Dutch and England East India Companies imported quantities of Chinese lacquerworks in the 17th century. As Chinoiserie gain popularity all over Europe, Chinese objects were consumed in various ways. Imported Coromandel lacquer screens were incorporated into European interiors. They were cut into a number of panels, which mounted within wood paneling on walls and inserted into contemporary furniture. The lacquer screen also inspired European’s imitation of Asian lacquer known by a variety of names. This paper surveys Coromandel lacquer screen’s domestic production, exploding consumption and global conquest from the 17th century to 18th centuries, when the screen was explosively made. The lacquer screen is an active participant in cross-cultural interaction, not merely a passive commodity of china. Investigating the material culture of the lacquer screen, it was originally created in chinese domestic background concerned with social prestige, in Europe, consumed to show off exotic luxury and triggered a new stylistic changes in chinoiserie.

The Influencing Factors of The Changing Profession of Coconut Farmers to Service Sector Workers in Pakuweru Village Tenga Subdistric

Background: The total area of the village is 600 hectares and the largest part of the land usage is coconut farming which is 497 hectares, while the rest are roads and rivers.Research purposes: The purpose of the study is to determine whether the wage of labors, the term of payment of wages , and the social prestige affect the job shiffting of agricultural workers to servive sector workers.Research methods: The research method used in this research is a quantitative approach. Research results: The result shows that the changing profession from coconut farm workers to the service workers is determined by 3 (three) factors, that are the wage of labors, the term of payment wages, and social prestige. These are proved by a signigicant level ( α)=0.05, with the result obtained in table with dk=98 is 1.984, it means that the regression coefficient is significant between variable x and variable y , where the value of b=0,92, which means that every increase of 100 units will cause the incracement 0,92 of Y.Conclusion: The influence of changing profession of coconut farmers to service workers determined by three factors that are is the wages factor, the term of paymenet wages, and the social prestige. These are proved by the result of significant level (α) + 0,05, result obtained is(α) = 0,05, so the table with dk= 98 is 1.984, this result means that the null hypothesis is rejected. Means that from the calculation between variable X and Y, where the value of b = 0,92, which means that every increase of 100 units will cause the incracement 0,92 of Y. Furthermore the corelation coefficient of 0,86 which is significant, indicates that there is a relationship or linkage between the wage factor , the term of payment wages , and social prestige towards the changing profession of farm workers, as well as in the regression analysis. The square of correlation coeficient (π ) which is the coeficient of determination amounted to 0,73 =73%. This implies that the effect of the jobshifting of farmer workers to service workers can be explained by wage factors, the length of payment day, and and social prestige , amounted to 73%.

Developing a Motivation Scale for Engineering Studies in a Francophone Context

Based on self-determination theory, this research presents the development of a scale to assess motivation for engineering studies in a Francophone context. Three phases of data collection were conducted (N = 462, 545 and 864) for a total of 1871 engineering students (59.2% female). Results from both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses support a seven-factor structure for the scale: 1) intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivations characterised by 2) identified regulation – altruism, 3) introjected regulation – ego, 4) introjected regulation – conscience, 5) external regulation – security, 6) external regulation – social prestige and, finally, 7) amotivation. The dimensions of altruism and security are specific to engineering studies. The scale meets generally accepted criteria for reliability and verifies different types of validity evidence.

Coleccionismo y patrocinio de arte en el siglo XVII: el ejemplo de la familia Muñoz de Otálora

En este artículo se intenta explicar el coleccionismo y el patrocinio de arte y bibliográfico en el siglo XVII a través del ejemplo que nos proporcionan los inventarios de bienes del licenciado Alonso Muñoz de Otálora, alcalde de casa y corte, y de Juana Clara Muñoz de Otálora. El coleccionismo desde el punto de vista social se presenta como un símbolo del estatus y como una manifestación del prestigio social de los individuos y de las instituciones. La casa, como espacio físico y residencial, albergar las colecciones artísticas y otros objetos y joyas que nos acercan al nivel de vida y al lujo de las familias de poder del siglo XVII. Finalmente, el patrocinio y financiación de iglesias y ermitas se presentan como signo inequívoco de la magnificencia de la familia y como una manifestación de su poder y compromiso social con los valores civilizatorios. This article tries to explain the collecting and sponsorship of art and bibliography in the seventeenth century through the example provided by the inventories of assets of the lawyer Alonso Muñoz de Otálora, mayor of the house and court, and Juana Clara Muñoz de Otálora . Collecting from the social point of view is presented as a symbol of status and as a manifestation of the social prestige of individuals and institutions. The house, as a physical and residential space, the houses, the artistic collections and other objects and jewels that bring us closer to the standard of living and the luxury of the 17th century that power families. Finally, the sponsorship and financing of churches and hermitages are presented as an unequivocal sign of the magnificence of the family and as a manifestation of its power and social commitment to civilized values.

INTERNATIONAL AND GLOBAL LANGUAGES: CRITERIA, RATINGS, FORECASTS

The article examines the criteria on the basis of which ratings of international languages are compiled and their future is predicted. Language’s chances of becoming international are not highly dependent on its demographic power, structural advantages or ease of learning. What matters most is the influence that speakers of the language have on other peoples. The criteria of «internationality» of the language actually coincide with the criteria of its influence, communicative value, social prestige, sociolinguistic weight. The ratings of the influence of national languages are based on various criteria: state status, communicative potential, economic power, the number of people studying it as a foreign language. These ratings reveal more essential criteria of an international language: prevalence on several continents, the status of an official language in international organizations, value as a source of modern knowledge, a large number of its speakers as a second. A specific feature that brings the international language to the class of world languages should be recognized as its worldwide prevalence. This language is used all over the world, it is spoken (as the first or second) by the majority of the world’s population, its world status is recognized in all countries. The composition of the club of leading languages is constantly changing: some languages come to it, others decrease — depending on the military-political, demographic, economic and cultural success of their speakers. Although the number of speakers of English as a second language is growing steadily, its dominance should be considered as temporary. A new hierarchy of languages may emerge in the middle of 21st century, with other major languages — Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, Hindi/Urdu, competing equally with English in their respective regions. Although state status of the Ukrainian language creates favorable preconditions for its development, it could spread much faster due to its informational value, intellectual power, cultural attractiveness and economic success of Ukraine.

It’s All about Distinction: The Lifestyle Embeddedness of Fair Trade Consumption

Social scientists have argued that ethical consumption is embedded into broader lifestyles running across various domains of social life. For instance, fair trade consumption might be part of a distinctive lifestyle, including behaviors such as going to fancy restaurants or the opera. We, therefore, investigate the relationships of the main dimensions of broader lifestyles to various aspects of fair trade consumption—from purchase frequency, to visiting specialized stores, to the identification with fair trade. The analysis relies on data collected in the Summer of 2011 in Zurich, Switzerland. Since per capita consumption of fair trade products in this country was on a comparatively high level, the results are also important for other societies experiencing only currently the mainstreaming of fair trade. The first dimension, distinctiveness of lifestyles, denoting orientations and behaviors with high social prestige in society, emerges as a substantial and important determinant of all included aspects of fair trade consumption. The second dimension, modernity, is only correlated with a subset of these aspects. These effects are robust, even when taking ethical and political orientations and resource endowment into account. Hence, differences between lifestyle groups do not simply reflect the social position of high-status consumers or their ethical and political views. They reflect orientations, mental representations and routines specific to these social groups. Broader lifestyles are, therefore, a relevant addition to explanations of fair trade consumption.

Educație și școală în romanul românesc (1845-1947)

The article sets out to establish the ways in which the Romanian novelistic production between 1845 and 1947 reflects the challenges and accomplishments of successive efforts at modernising the educational system. Therefore, the case-studies we discuss are focused on some of the major implications of Romanian education: the shifts in the literal spaces in which the educational process is being conducted, the access to books and the social prestige accrued through reading, the link between education and the abroad – including the ambivalent status of foreign language education as platform on which the conflict between nationalism and cosmopolitanism is played out –, the opportunities opened by scientific progress, but also the anxieties it generates.

Francesco Maria Fiorentini (1603–1673): An Italian physician in ‘The Iron Century’

The aim of this paper is to shed light on the figure of Francesco Maria Fiorentini, a 17th-century physician from Lucca (Tuscany, Italy) and member of the Iatromechanical School, who distinguished himself for his role during the plague and the typhus epidemics that spread throughout Italy in the first half of that century. His work must be contextualized in a precise historical moment, which marked the gradual transition of Western medicine from the archaism of Galenic doctrine to that of the Iatromechanical School, when the foundations started to be laid for an experimental type of medicine that based its assumptions on the direct observation of phenomena concerning the human body. In this work, we mainly focus on the medical biography of Fiorentini and on the reasons why he enjoyed great social prestige among the most prominent figures of his time. However, Fiorentini should also be remembered as a multifaceted scholar, as evidenced by his numerous writings, which underline his erudition in disparate fields of knowledge.