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Rethinking Perspectives in Tribal Studies: Anthropology and Beyond
Abstract
The title of the present volume, namely Shifting Perspectives in Tribal Studies—From an Anthropological Approach to Interdisciplinarity and Consilience, suggests shifting approaches in scientific study of tribes which practically began in the discipline of anthropology. Admittedly, anthropology approached the tribal studies in scientific spirit right from the beginning of the discipline.
... These stories often contain moral lessons and explain natural phenomena. This religion fosters a strong sense of community and collective responsibility (11). Festivals and rituals are community-centric, involving collective participation in preparations, ceremonies, and celebrations. ...
... Festivals and rituals are community-centric, involving collective participation in preparations, ceremonies, and celebrations. The Donyi-Polo religion is thus a vibrant and integral part of the cultural fabric of the indigenous tribes in Arunachal Pradesh, embodying their deep connection with nature, community, and spirituality (11). The dynamics of spiritual experiences in multicultural contexts can be better understood by taking into account the spiritual health of young people in this area. ...
... By fostering a strong connection with nature, community, and ethical living, young practitioners often report enhanced mental health and resilience against social issues such as addiction and despair. The faith's focus on truthfulness and selflessness cultivates a supportive environment that encourages personal growth and collective welfare (11). Hence, current study is a scientific attempt to shed light on young people's spiritual experiences and coping mechanisms by examining the spiritual well-being of young people in Arunachal Pradesh, India. ...
The present this study aims to explore relationship between the engagement in spiritual activities and the spiritual well-being of tribal youth practicing indigenous religious faith of Donyi Polo. The tribal youth of indigenous faith practices closeness to nature and believe on spirit in various natural entity and spirituality is considered as closeness to mother nature. The present study aims to explore the concept of spirituality in terms of finding the reason of existence in this world, how to liberate oneself with human limitation. The researchers administered the Spiritual Well-being (SWB) Scale and a self-constructed interview schedule on Spiritual engagement to 103 tribal youth selected randomly from Arunachal Pradesh, ages 18 to 32 who practice indigenous religious faith Donyi-polo. The results found that there was high level of spiritual well-being among the youth. Additionally, individuals who engaged in spiritual practices had considerably higher scores on measures of spiritual well-being than those who did not. Further research findings indicate that those who often read or listened to spiritual content had considerably higher scores for spiritual well-being compared to those who didn’t. The finding of the research is able to fill the gap in present knowledge in spiritually among indigenous tribal youth of India in a borderland state.
In Kerala, a state with its time-tested social and political tradition which seeks to bind all sections of people together, irrespective of religion or caste, the emergence of the National Democratic Alliance as an alternative to the two mainstream political fronts had its repercussions among a section of the minorities. The fluctuation in the voting preferences signals the crisis the Left Democratic Front is facing. Except for the extremely poor, all other socio-economic groups, including Dalits, Other Backward Castes, the lower classes and the younger generation, are highly volatile and are changing their political preferences, depending on the unfolding social reality.
Orient BlackSwan, New Delhi 2010) Reviewed by Madhusree Mukerjee "The economic imperialism of a single tiny island kingdom (England) is today keeping the world in chains," Gandhi had observed in 1928. "If an entire nation of 300 million took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts." The locusts have arrived, and they are stripping bare the heartland of India. In Out of this Earth: East India Adivasis and the Aluminium Cartel, anthropologist Felix Padel and film-maker Samarendra Das describe a plunder of resources in the mineral-rich Indian states of Orissa, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh on a scale so horrific as to recall the worst excesses of colonialism. The forests, mountains and peoples of central India are being devastated so that entrepreneurs can get at the aluminium, iron, coal and other minerals underfoot—to earn unprecedented profits for themselves, their financial backers, and the ministers and civil servants they suborn. This book fascinates with the exceptional depth of its research and the unforgettable lesson it imparts on the phenomenon of resource extraction in all its globalized complexity and local perversity. And it terrifies by peeling off layer after layer of propaganda to reveal how feeble a control the citizens of even a democracy may have over their own destinies. No longer is the adivasi (or indigenous Indian) free to decide on what mountain slope she will build her hut, what she will plant on her farm, from which forest glen she will gather firewood, from which crystal stream she will collect water, and what she will feed her children—how, indeed, she will live. Whether she will be allowed to live at all and on what terms are being decided by bankers in New York, Washington, or London; by CEOs of extractive industries who live anywhere in the world they choose, which is never near the ravaged landscapes where they mine; and by ministers and civil servants in New Delhi or Bhubaneswar or Ranchi or Raipur. These men have decided that the aboriginal way of life has to become extinct, in order to make way for an India that will replicate the United States in its wealth, power, strip-mall homogeneity and social inequity—as well as its history of appropriation of indigenous lands.
Scientific understanding of human violence is one of the most urgent tasks of our time. Given this sense of urgency, it is
shocking how little we seem to know about it (Turpin & Kurz, 1997: 1–2). In fact, even among scholars there is not even the beginning of an agreement concerning a definition of what exactly ‘violence’
is (Stanko, 2003: 3). One of the most common ways of defining violence is to only consider forms of criminal violence and to argue that violence is the use of force that has been prohibited by law (Riedel & Welsh, 2002: 3). However, whilst ‘violence’ might conventionally connote physical attack, the notion of physical violence represents a surprisingly
broad spectrum of incidents (Waddington, Badger & Bull, 2004:149). This is obvious, even within the legal point of view which, typically, defines violence rather technically as “the actual
or threatened, knowing or intentional application of statutory impermissible physical force by one person directly against
one or more other persons outside the contexts both of formal institutional or organizational structures and of civil or otherwise
collective disorders and movements for the purpose of securing some end against the will or without the consent of the other
person or persons” (Weiner, 1989: 37–38). Thus, it may appear to be self-evident what ‘violence’ is but, in reality, ‘violence’ is “a slippery term which covers
a huge and frequently changing range of heterogeneous physical and emotional behaviors, situations and victim-offender relationships”
(Levi & Maguire, 2002: 796).
In its trajectory as a scientific field, the peace research recognizes that defining “peace” is, in fact, an important part of the scientific strategy. Thus, the field has been dedicated to conceptualizing peace in a broad, dialogic, and complex manner, as complex and diverse as the world is. Likewise, conceptualizing violence is an intricate task since, more important than reaching a definition or typologies – as there is, obviously, many types of violence –, indicating theoretically significant dimensions of violence is essential, as it leads us to thinking, researching, and potentially acting on the most serious problems of Mankind. If the peace action must be considered because it is an action against violence, then the concept of violence must be broad enough to cover the most significant varieties and, in addition, must be specific enough to serve as a basis for concrete action. Given this perspective, this article aims at presenting a theoretical-conceptual reflection about peace and violence in the context of the critical perspective of peace studies.
The concept of Nationalism is linked to the idea of sovereignty and hence; it has to be associated to the principle of self-determination [1]. In the 19th century, John Stuart Mill argued that nationalist movements were dependent on ethnicity, language and culture. These were the basis of the demand for statehood. While this stood true for most nationalistic movements, Hurst Hanum of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy remarked that in this era, the notion of selfdetermination was used by groups to divide rather than unify territory [2]. The disintegration of the Ottoman Empire can be used as an example.
This paper submits that practical concerns have overtaken the theoretical in contemporary anthropology, especially in India. A perilous consequence of this trend is that instead of illuminating the functioning and dynamics of society and culture in particular and general terms, it confines itself to the question of policy prescription. By directing their energies to the 'issues of usefulness', anthropologists have come to think that the future survival of anthropology is incumbent upon its immediate market value. The future of anthropology can be enhanced, instead, by giving primacy to an interpretive understanding of societies and cultures, thereby making comments on existing policies for development and social justice more perceptive and relevant.
Violence and Nonviolence: Pathways to Understanding is the first book to provide an integrative, systematic approach to the study of violence and nonviolence in one volume. Eminent scholar and award-winning author Gregg Barak examines virtually all forms of violencefrom verbal abuse to genocideand treats all of these expressions of violence as interpersonal, institutional, and structural occurrences. In the context of recovery and nonviolence, Barak addresses peace and conflict studies, legal rights, social justice, and various nonviolent movements. Employing an interdisciplinary framework, Barak emphasizes the importance of culture, media, sexuality, gender, and social structure in developing a comprehensive theory of these two separate, but inseparable phenomena.
This book examines folk music and dance revival movements in Russia, exploring why this folk culture has come to represent Russia, how it has been approached and produced, and why memory and tradition, in these particular forms, have taken on particular significance in different periods. Above all it shows how folk "tradition" in Russia is an artificial cultural construct, which is periodically reinvented, and it demonstrates in particular how the "folk revival" has played a key role in strengthening Russian national consciousness in the post-Soviet period.
Nurse practitioners (NPs), as advanced practice nurses, have evolved over the years to become recognized as an important and growing trend in Canada and worldwide. In spite of sound evidence as to the effectiveness of NPs in primary care and other care settings, role implementation and integration continue to pose significant challenges. This article utilizes postcolonial theory, as articulated by Homi Bhabha, to examine and challenge traditional ideologies and structures that have shaped the development, implementation and integration of the NP role to this day. Specifically, we utilize Bhabha's concepts of third space, hybridity, identity and agency in order to further conceptualize the nurse practitioner role, to examine how the role challenges some of the inherent assumptions within the healthcare system and to explore how development of each to these concepts may prove useful in integration of nurse practitioners within the healthcare system. Our analysis casts light on the importance of a broader, power structure analysis and illustrates how colonial assumptions operating within our current healthcare system entrench, expand and re-invent, as well as mask the structures and practices that serve to impede nurse practitioner full integration and contributions. Suggestions are made for future analysis and research.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
In this article I examine the ways in which the term “indigenous peoples” is reworked in a specific South Asian context. I focus on the new, hybrid category of “indigenous tribe” in the Indian state of Meghalaya. I argue that we can think of the indigenous tribe
category as a strategic conflation of two different regimes of rights or political assertions. The first relates to the existing nation-state framework for affirmative action as expressed in the Scheduled Tribe (ST) status, while the second relates to the emerging global framework for asserting
the rights of indigenous peoples. While the benefits of asserting the status of indigenous tribes is obvious, for example, preventing other, nonindigenous tribes from owning land in the state, the long-term gains seems more doubtful. Both affirmative action programs and indigenous peoples
frameworks are motivated by a moral imperative to redress historical injustices and contemporary social inequalities. To evoke them for other ends might eventually backfire. The larger point I seek to make, however, is that political categories tend to take on a life of their own, escaping
their intended purposes and hence applied by people in novel and surprising ways.
This paper explores narrative constructions and expressions of local identity among the southwestern Oromo of Ethiopia. It aims to clarify how, on what bases, and to what end each local group understands itself in relation to 'others' within and beyond the wider re-gional Oromo grouping. From an internal perspective, there are a number of local boundaries differentiating one's own group from those of others. In oral societies like the Oromo, the bases for and contents of collective self-identifications and self-perceived differences from others are mainly constructed, interpreted, and articulated in various forms of folklore, espe-cially in narrative performances. It is in and through conversational narrative performances that members of each local group (re-)create, perpetuate, or even challenge a prototypical and/ or stereotypical portrait of their own selves and of others.
Renewed fears expressed by the United Nations about worldwide population growth have coincided with international concerns about the increased consumption of meat. This article, which draws upon long‐term fieldwork in the Guatemalan highlands and ongoing scientific research in the Netherlands, examines the ways in which global organizations are framing and responding to these concerns. Economists generally address the problem of increased meat consumption through the language of ‘demand’, while nutritionists adopt the rhetoric of nutritional ‘needs’. Not only do these approaches tend to present meat – which in practice takes many forms – as a single substance, but they also flatten the nuanced relationships that exist between the eater and the eaten, while overlooking the diverse contexts in which ‘meat’ eating takes place. This article addresses the question how anthropologists might approach the topic of increased meat consumption, suggesting that an analysis of the ways in which global actors approach this topic can help the discipline of anthropology to re‐engage with historic debates about the role of ‘the material’ and ‘the symbolic’ in relation to eating practices and to move these debates in new and productive directions.
This paper reviews gold and copper mining in Papua New Guinea (PNG) along the “triad stakeholder model” (Ballard and Banks 2003) proposing a triad relationship between (1) trans-national mining corporations, (2) the nation-state of Papua New Guinea, and (3) indigenous local communities, their socio-ecological environment and claims. Gold mining could be a huge asset, but turns out to be a curse to the independent part of the world’s second largest island known as “a mountain of gold in a sea of oil.” Our paper is based on research that began during our year-long residency at the country’s only Technical University in Lae. We are discussing several issues related to the nation’s gold resources and their exploitation: varied mining technologies and locations, the environmental impact, economics, human cost and gender issues, indigenous culture versus international corporate culture, state interferences, and urban development. One example is the industrial port city of Lae, founded during the gold rush of the 1920s that inaugurated rapid urban development. Once gloriously known as the “Pearl of the Pacific,” the town experienced administrative expansion and suffered from the subsequent exhaustion of nearby gold mines entailing a reverse development.
Alexander the Great, ruler of Macedonia and conqueror of much of the eastern Mediterranean world in the fourth century BCE, figures prominently in folklore for centuries afterward. This paper analyzes several stories about Alexander to explore the intersections among history, myth and identity. By looking at accounts of Alexander written by Jews living in Alexandria in the Roman period, by early Byzantine Christians and by medieval Persian Muslims, I demonstrate that communities from all over the Mediterranean used myths about Alexander to redefine their identity in response to catastrophic changes.
Everyone knows that suffering exists. The question is how to define it. Given that each person's pain has a degree of reality for him or her that the pain of others can surely never approach, is widespread agreement on the subject possible? Almost all of us would agree that premature and painful illness, torture, and rape constitute extreme suffering. Most would also agree that insidious assaults on dignity, such as institutionalized racism and sexism, also cause great and unjust injury.
Given our consensus on some of the more conspicuous forms of suffering, a number of corollary questions come to the fore. Can we identify those most at risk of great suffering? Among those whose suffering is not mortal, is it possible to identify those most likely to sustain permanent and disabling damage? Are certain "event" assaults, such as torture or rape, more likely to lead to late sequelae than are sustained and insidious suffering, such as the pain born of deep poverty or of racism? Under this latter rubric, are certain forms of discrimination demonstrably more noxious than others?
Anthropologists who take these as research questions study both individual experience and the larger social matrix in which it is embedded in order to see how various large-scale social forces come to be translated into personal distress and disease. By what mechanisms do social forces ranging from poverty to racism become embodied as individual experience? This has been the focus of most of my own research in Haiti, where political and economic forces have structured risk for AIDS, tuberculosis, and, indeed, most other infectious and parasitic diseases. Social forces at work there have also structured risk for most forms of extreme suffering, from hunger to torture and rape.
Working in contemporary Haiti, where in recent years political violence has been added to the worst poverty in the hemisphere, one learns a great deal about suffering. In fact, the country has long constituted a sort of living laboratory for the study of affliction, no matter how it is defined. "Life for the Haitian peasant of today," observed anthropologist Jean Weise some twenty-five years ago, "is abject misery and a rank familiarity with death." The situation has since worsened. When in 1991 international health and population experts devised a "human suffering index" by examining measures of human welfare ranging from life expectancy to political freedom, 27 of 141 countries were characterized by "extreme human suffering." Only one of them, Haiti, was located in the Western hemisphere. In only three countries in the world was suffering judged to be more extreme than that endured in Haiti; each of these three countries is currently in the midst of an internationally recognized civil war.
Suffering is certainly a recurrent and expected condition in Haiti's Central Plateau, where everyday life has felt like war. "You get up in the morning," observed one young widow with four children, "and it's the fight for food and wood and water." If initially struck by the austere beauty of the region's steep mountains and clement weather, long-term visitors come to see the Central Plateau in much the same manner as its inhabitants: a chalky and arid land hostile to the best efforts of the peasant farmers who live here. Landlessness is widespread and so, consequently, is hunger. All the standard measures reveal how tenuous the peasantry's hold on survival is. Life expectancy at birth is less than fifty years, in large part because as many as two of every ten infants die before their first birthday. Tuberculosis is the leading cause of death among adults; among children, diarrheal disease, measles, and tetanus ravage the undernourished.
But the experience of suffering, it is often noted, is not effectively conveyed by statistics or graphs. The "texture" of dire affliction is perhaps best felt in the gritty details of biography, and so I introduce the stories of Acéphie Joseph and Chouchou Louis. The stories of Acéphie and Chouchou are anything but "anecdotal." For the epidemiologist as well as the political analyst, they suffered and died in exemplary fashion. Millions of people living in similar circumstances can expect to meet similar fates. What these victims...
This article examines political and intellectual influences of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar's Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? (published in 1923) on the development of nationalism in India. The article argues that contemporary political concerns about national identity raised in India have historical links that go back to Savarkar's text, especially the discourses on the politics of naming. The article considers the implications of these writings on one of Savarkar's disciples: Dr Dattatrey Parchure, an individual who had acquired notoriety for his role in Mohandas K. Gandhi's assassination in 1948. By examining Dr Parchure's life-story, the article shows how transformations in the family, the medical profession, masculinity and religion were directly intertwined with an emergent Hindu nationalism. But more specifically, the article examines Dr Parchure's decision to name children Vinayak as a way of evoking a mental image of Savarkar as an icon in everyday life and to propagate the ideals of Hindutva . The article posits that the politics of figures like Dr Parchure and Savarkar reflect a conjuncture in the development of nationalism in India during the colonial period, and their legacies continue to influence the making of today's post-colonial nationalism.
Economics is the study of that broad aspect of human activity which is concerned with resources, their limitations and uses, and the organization whereby they are brought into relation with human wants. In modern industrial societies economists have worked out an elaborate technique for the study of this organization, and have produced a body of generalizations upon it. It is still a matter of argument as to how far this technique and these generalizations can be applied in the study of primitive communities (Firth 1958:63).
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This article suggests one way to systematically code textual data for research. The approach utilizes computer content analysis to examine patterns of emphasized ideas in text as well as the social context or underlying perspective reflected in the text. A conceptual dictionary is used to organize word meanings. An extensive profile of word meanings is used to characterize and discriminate social contexts. Social contexts are analyzed in relation to four reference dimensions (traditional, practical, emotional and analytic) which are used in the social science literature. The approach is illustrated with five widely varying texts, analyzed with selected comparative data. This approach has been useful in many social science investigations to system-atically score open-ended textual information. Scores can be incorporated into quantitative analysis with other data, used as a guide to qualitative studies, and to help integrate strengths of quantitative and qualitative approaches to research.
Cultures may be viewed as systems of elements constituted through the selection, interpretation and internalization of traditions by individuals and groups. Group identities may be viewed as cores of living tradition systems based on a limited number of key symbols and tales of identity. The cultural identities of Finno-Ugrian minorities in present-day Russia are at risk and uncertainty prevails concerning the strategies to be adopted in their defence. What are the cultural resources for ethnic survival and what principles may be discerned in a basic strategy that should be flexible enough to be modified according to thousands of different minority situations?
The widespread adoption of bottom‐up participation as opposed to top‐down modernisation approaches has opened up challenging opportunities for anthropology in development. The new focus on indigenous knowledge augurs the next revolution in anthropological method, informants becoming collaborators and their communities participating user‐groups, and touches upon such contemporary issues as the crisis of representation, ethnography's status with regard to intellectual property rights, and interdisciplinary cooperation between natural and social scientists. Indigenous‐knowledge studies are challenging not only because of difficulties in cross‐cultural communication and understanding but also because of their inevitable political dimensions. Contributing to development which intervenes in people's lives, these studies engage with them in novel ways.
This article exposes the role played by professional ethnologists associated with the Ethnic Research Institute in justifying Japanese intervention in Asia during World War II. Major ethnologists worked closely with key government and military officials to guide imperial Japan's efforts at nation building throughout Asia. By "liberating" people throughout Asia to their ethnic identities instead of citizenship in their own political states, Japanese ethnologists provided active support for Japan's military and imperialist activities. After defeat and the loss of Japan's empire, this ethnological tradition was refitted for domestic consumption and provided a cultural theory for Japanese identity that continued the wartime discourse on nationality as an ethnic form of identity distinct from citizenship in a democratic state.
This volume is a collection of the most important essays written by Franz Boas on the science of anthropology. "Franz Boas is the father of American anthropology and one of the founders of the field of modern anthropology. The book, Race, Language, and Culture, is a collection of some of his most important essays."âDavid Schneider, University of Chicago "An exceptional book. Exceptional because it brings into one volume sixty-two papers written by the most influential figure in American anthropology. . . . Exceptional in that it exhibits the wide range of interests and scientific exactness which made it possible for one man to exert such a profound influence on the growing science of anthropology. . . . This is a volume every student of anthropology will wish to possess; it will also have a wide distribution among other students of the social sciences, and all interested in the problems of race."âFay-Cooper Cole, American Anthropologist
Building on local knowledge: The challenge of agroforestry for pastoral areas
- E G C Barrow
- EGC Barrow
The Future of Social Anthropology: Disintegration of Metamorphosis?
- R Needham