Marco Lazzarotti

Universität Heidelberg · Institute of Ethnology

This article introduces how, even if in a context refractory to the Gospel, the evangelization of the Dominicans started a kind of dialogue between the symbols embodied in the Catholic cosmology and the ones belonging to the traditional Taiwanese culture. The opposition of the local population to the presence of Westerners, and the fact that the Do...

BOOK REVIEW. Marco Lazzarotti: X. Cong: Marriage, Law and Gender in Revolutionary China, 1940-1960. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016 (Cambridge Studies in the History of the People’s Republic of China). – xvi, 327 p. INTAMS, International Academy for Mariage and Spirituality Vol. 27/2, 2021-02-01 | Book review

In this chapter, Altan’s scheme is enriched by Gramsci’s notion of sedimented social meanings of language. According to Gramsci, language negotiates the various social backgrounds of speakers so that it is shared but not unified, mirroring the sedimented differences within social structure. These ideas are employed for the analysis of situations in...

This chapter analyzes the element of Genos and the role of kinship and descent in the construction of local identity. The author focused mostly on the most prominent branch of the Catholic families in Shuiwei, the Zhong family. This chapter details the genealogical records of the family, in the form of genealogical diagrams. The data come mostly fr...

In this chapter, Topos, the author introduces his fieldsite in more detail and introduces the idea of multiple identities of a single place. While Shuiwei is marked by its Christianity by most of its inhabitants and neighbors, it is cast as a Hakka place by the Township government—an identity fostered in various respects, for example, the teaching...

This chapter focuses on issues concerning religious cosmology and the relationships it involves. These are mostly expressed in ritual. In fact, rituals highlight a central argument of this book—identities come about as alterities, and these alterities are immanent to the groups. That is, they do not simply distinguish one group from another, but th...

In this chapter, it is analyzed the narrative approach and the way a particular place is constructed as a site of difference. With this approach the author tries to analytically unify a series of apparent contradictions. The first part of the chapter argues that stories imply the worlds they are set in by establishing them as build from differences...

The Book is fully availble at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/196OnfxT9uUETatuJ8hRoBJVPlAV-8lCG/view?fbclid=IwAR3PMvlzSHKCxJ7FyESnVZRon_0_c2f1xOcj1GBFAkRYfSKBZovC2PFtdO4

This book introduces a simple idea: when we tell a story, we tell a story and at the same time create the world where this story takes place. Narration creates environments, spaces and, in a certain sense, gives symbolic meanings and values to the identities by which people interact in their daily experiences. Set in the multicultural and multireli...

Traditionally in Taiwan death is not considerate the terminal moment of a person life, but throughout specific rituals of passage, it is a way to get a different status, the status of ancestors. Ancestors still live with their descendants, very often they influence descends life in order to satisfy their needs, on the other hand they need to be wor...

Dialog presupposes a clear and precise identity. On the other hand it requires also, as basic requirement, the recognition of the identity of the other. Only in this way the message can be understood and enrich the identities of the interlocutors. The history of Catholic Church's missions could be read as a dialog developed over time. A dialog betw...

This paper looks at two case studies of the way in which the Catholic Church in Taiwan has adapted to the local culture. 1 The author holds that there was a clear and concrete opposition to the process of evangelization: an active opposition led by the Dangki or local religious mediums, and a symbolic opposition arising from the Taiwanese cultural...