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Culture is a broad concept that crosses different social sciences, especially after the cultural turn of the mid-twentieth century, before that was mainly the subject of anthropology. This paper focuses on various current theoretical principals that deal with culture and sets special emphasis on the debate on information/communication. The idea is to escape from different binary oppositions and look for complex and dialectical concepts that help us establish truly interdisciplinary debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Google Books Ngram Viewer (Google Ngram) is a search engine that charts word frequencies from a large corpus of books and thereby allows for the examination of cultural change as it is reflected in books. While the tool's massive corpus of data (about 8 million books or 6% of all books ever published) has been used in various scientific studies, concerns about the accuracy of results have simultaneously emerged. This paper reviews the literature and serves as a guideline for improving Google Ngram studies by suggesting five methodological procedures suited to increase the reliability of results. In particular, we recommend the use of (I) different language corpora, (II) cross-checks on different corpora from the same language, (III) word inflections, (IV) synonyms, and (V) a standardization procedure that accounts for both the influx of data and unequal weights of word frequencies. Further, we outline how to combine these procedures and address the risk of potential biases arising from censorship and propaganda. As an example of the proposed procedures, we examine the cross-cultural expression of religion via religious terms for the years 1900 to 2000. Special emphasis is placed on the situation during World War II. In line with the strand of literature that emphasizes the decline of collectivistic values, our results suggest an overall decrease of religion's importance. However, religion re-gains importance during times of crisis such as World War II. By comparing the results obtained through the different methods, we illustrate that applying and particularly combining our suggested procedures increase the reliability of results and prevents authors from deriving wrong assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose an agent-based model leading to a decrease or an increase of hostility between agents after a major cultural threat such as a terrorist attack. The model is inspired from the Terror Management Theory and the Social Judgement Theory. An agent has a cultural identity defined through its acceptance segments about each of three different cultural worldviews (i.e., Atheist, Muslim, Christian) of the considered society. An agent’s acceptance segment is composed from its acceptable positions toward a cultural worldview, including its most acceptable position. An agent forms an attitude about another agent depending on the similarity between their cultural identities. When a terrorist attack is perpetrated in the name of an extreme cultural identity, the negatively perceived agents from this extreme cultural identity point of view tend to decrease the width of their acceptance segments in order to differentiate themselves more from the threatening cultural identity. We generated a set of populations with cultural identities compatible with data from a survey on attitudes among a large sample representative of the population of France; we then simulated the reaction of these agents facing a terrorist attack from Muslim extremists. For most populations, the average attitude toward Muslims becomes more negative. However, for some specific populations, we noticed the opposite effect as the average attitude of the population toward Muslims becomes less negative. In these populations, the Muslim agents strongly differentiate themselves from the terrorists’ extreme cultural identity, and the other agents are aware of these changes. These reactions are due to particular properties of their cultural identities that are identified in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attitudes and beliefs about menstruation can place restrictions on menstruating women and girls, limiting their ability to fully participate in community life, education and employment. This paper presents evidence on menstruation-related beliefs contributing to restrictive practices in Papua New Guinea (PNG), Solomon Islands (SI) and Fiji. Focus group discussions and interviews were undertaken with 307 adolescent girls, women and men in a rural and urban site in each country. Data were analysed using an inductive thematic approach. Participants described a range of attitudes and beliefs that restrict the behaviour of menstruating women and girls. Themes include the belief that menstrual blood is ‘dirty’; that when menstruating, girls and women can bring ‘bad luck’ to men; secrecy and shame associated with menstruation; and beliefs about the impact of certain behaviours on menstruation and health. Restrictive practices were more frequently reported in PNG and SI than Fiji, and more common in rural compared with urban sites. Some restrictions, such as avoidance of household chores, were perceived as desirable or driven by women themselves. However participants identified other restrictions, such as not being able to attend church or hygienically wash menstrual hygiene materials, as unwanted, in some cases impacting on participation in school, work and community life. Education initiatives guided by women and girls, implemented by local stakeholders and grounded in a sound understanding of specific contexts are needed to address discriminatory attitudes and beliefs that contribute to unwanted restrictions, and to support enabling attitudes and beliefs regarding menstruation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the association between given and family names and self-ascribed ethnicity as classified by the 2011 Census of Population for England and Wales. Using Census data in an innovative way under the new Office for National Statistics (ONS) Secure Research Service (SRS; previously the ONS Virtual Microdata Laboratory, VML), we investigate how bearers of a full range of given and family names assigned themselves to 2011 Census categories, using a names classification tool previously described in this journal. Based on these results, we develop a follow-up ethnicity estimation tool and describe how the tool may be used to observe changing relations between naming practices and ethnic identities as a facet of social integration and cosmopolitanism in an increasingly diverse society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local and indigenous knowledge is being transformed globally, particularly being eroded when pertaining to ecology. In many parts of the world, rural and indigenous communities are facing tremendous cultural, economic and environmental changes, which contribute to weaken their local knowledge base. In the face of profound and ongoing environmental changes, both cultural and biological diversity are likely to be severely impacted as well as local resilience capacities from this loss. In this global literature review, we analyse the drivers of various types of local and indigenous ecological knowledge transformation and assess the directionality of the reported change. Results of this analysis show a global impoverishment of local and indigenous knowledge with 77% of papers reporting the loss of knowledge driven by globalization, modernization, and market integration. The recording of this loss, however, is not symmetrical, with losses being recorded more strongly in medicinal and ethnobotanical knowledge. Persistence of knowledge (15% of the studies) occurred in studies where traditional practices were being maintained consiously and where hybrid knowledge was being produced as a resut of certain types of incentives created by economic development. This review provides some insights into local and indigenous ecological knowledge change, its causes and implications, and recommends venues for the development of replicable and comparative research. The larger implication of these results is that because of the interconnection between cultural and biological diversity, the loss of local and indigenous knowledge is likely to critically threaten effective conservation of biodiversity, particularly in community-based conservation local efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bangladesh is a culturally conservative nation with limited freedom for women. A number of studies have evaluated intimate partner violence (IPV) and spousal physical violence in Bangladesh; however, the views of women have been rarely discussed in a quantitative manner. Three nationwide surveys in Bangladesh (2007, 2011, and 2014) were analyzed in this study to characterize the most vulnerable households, where women themselves accepted spousal physical violence as a general norm. 31.3%, 31.9% and 28.7% women in the surveys found justification for physical violence in household in 2007, 2011 and 2014 respectively. The binary logistic model showed wealth index, education of both women and their partner, religion, geographical division, decision making freedom and marital age as significant household contributors for women’s perspective in all the three years. Women in rich households and the highly educated were found to be 40% and 50% less likely to accept domestic physical violence compared to the poorest and illiterate women. Similarly, women who got married before 18 years were 20% more likely accept physical violence in the family as a norm. Apart from these particular groups (richest, highly educated and married after 18 years), other groups had around 30% acceptance rate of household violence. For any successful attempt to reduce spousal physical violence in the traditional patriarchal society of Bangladesh, interventions must target the most vulnerable households and the geographical areas where women experience spousal violence. Although this paper focuses on women’s attitudes, it is important that any intervention scheme should be devised to target both men and women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural narratives on disability have received much attention over the past few decades. In contexts of poverty, limited information and everyday challenges associated with having, or caring for someone with a disability, different understandings have emerged. A project was set up to promote disability awareness in neighborhood communities in a rural part of Kenya, using a process of reflection and education. This paper reports on the first aspect–reflection. The aim was to investigate local understanding of disability as a co-constructed concept. The research questions were: 1. What cultural beliefs shape local understanding of disability? 2. What challenges are perceived to be associated with disability? A phenomenological approach was adopted. Focus group discussions were conducted with twenty-one community groups involving 263 participants and audio-recorded. The data were transcribed and thematic analysis was carried out. Visual maps were created to illustrate any interconnections, before establishing the final conclusions. Local beliefs attributed disability to: human transgression of social conventions, particularly concerning inappropriate family relations, which invoked a curse; supernatural forces affecting the child; the will of God; unexplained events; and biomedical factors. Challenges associated with disability related to the burden of caregiving and perceived barriers to inclusion, with stress as a shared bi-product. Local understanding of disability in this rural part of Kenya demonstrated overlapping explanations and plurality of beliefs. Two possible interpretations are offered. Firstly, oscillation between explanatory lines demonstrated instability, affecting broader acceptance of disability. Secondly, and more positively, in the face of challenges, the desire to make sense of the existing situation, reflected a healthy pluralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses four different but connected explanations for addressing environmental change on Mount Kilimanjaro. These explanations are: the scientific, the chiefly, the economic, and that which pertains to social policy. Scientists document that the glaciers on Mount Kilimanjaro are thinning and disappearing. Descendants within chiefly lineages argue that their authority needs to be revitalised to protect the environment. Economists defend the value of harvesting and exporting natural and agricultural resources, while social policy advocates recommend teaching the public about these interweaving interests. An effort is needed to connect and question these four narratives through an environmental education that promotes deep anthropological analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper applies and adapts an approach derived from anthropology previously known as grid-group theory and later as Cultural Theory (CT). CT is concerned with connections between forms of organization and the values and behaviors of actors within them. It first briefly outlines the structural bases of CT. In doing so it offers a framework for understanding how corporate organizations can be classified as cultures, demonstrating four archetypal categories. It identifies dominant features of each then shows with examples their manifestations in different uses of space - both internal and external. Space is linked integrally to information flow and control. Predictable and forecastable patterns are identified for each archetype. They are shown to relate to the differential selection, enforcement or abnegation of boundaries and the varying forms of exploitation, constraints and sanctions used to sustain them. The paper then examines the symbolic and ceremonial uses of space and effective and ineffective uses. It shows how organizations cannot be considered unicultural; but are mixed “regimes” comprising symbiotic but not necessarily synergistic cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The papers in this volume generally represent new developments in anthropology and cultural theory. Inevitably, in an evolutionary flowering, divergence can occur. Two of the papers represent a very new approach to theory for anthropology. This note discusses issues related to construction of theory that distinguish those papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a connected world where people influence each other, what can cause a globalized monoculture, and which measures help to preserve the coexistence of cultures? Previous research has shown that factors such as homophily, population size, geography, mass media, and type of social influence play important roles. In the present paper, we investigate for the first time the impact that institutions have on cultural diversity. In our first three studies, we extend existing agent-based models and explore the effects of institutional influence and agent loyalty. We find that higher institutional influence increases cultural diversity, while individuals' loyalty to their institutions has a small, preserving effect. In three further studies, we test how bottom-up and top-down processes of institutional influence impact our model. We find that bottom-up democratic practices, such as referenda, tend to produce convergence towards homogeneity, while top-down information dissemination practices, such as propaganda, further increase diversity. In our last model—an integration of bottom-up and top-down processes into a feedback loop of information—we find that when democratic processes are rare, the effects of propaganda are amplified, i.e., more diversity emerges; however, when democratic processes are common, they are able to neutralize or reverse this propaganda effect. Importantly, our models allow for control over the full spectrum of diversity, so that a manipulation of our parameters can result in preferred levels of diversity, which will be useful for the study of other factors in the future. We discuss possible mechanisms behind our results, applications, and implications for political and social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A vast body of global research shows that cultural factors affect the use of skilled maternity care services in diverse contexts. While interventions have sought to address this issue, the literature on these efforts has not been synthesised. This paper presents a systematic mapping of interventions that have been implemented to address cultural factors that affect women's use of skilled maternity care. It identifies and develops a map of the literature; describes the range of interventions, types of literature and study designs; and identifies knowledge gaps. Methods and Findings: Searches conducted systematically in ten electronic databases and two websites for literature published between 01/01/1990 and 28/02/2013 were combined with expert-recommended references. Potentially eligible literature included journal articles and grey literature published in English, French or Spanish. Items were screened against inclusion and exclusion criteria, yielding 96 items in the final map. Data extracted from the full text documents are presented in tables and a narrative synthesis. The results show that a diverse range of interventions has been implemented in 35 countries to address cultural factors that affect the use of skilled maternity care. Items are classified as follows: (1) service delivery models; (2) service provider interventions; (3) health education interventions; (4) participatory approaches; and (5) mental health interventions. Conclusions: The map provides a rich source of information on interventions attempted in diverse settings that might have relevance elsewhere. A range of literature was identified, from narrative descriptions of interventions to studies using randomised controlled trials to evaluate impact. Only 23 items describe studies that aim to measure intervention impact through the use of experimental or observational-analytic designs. Based on the findings, we identify avenues for further research in order to better document and measure the impact of interventions to address cultural factors that affect use of skilled maternity care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tradition of keeping written records of gift received during household ceremonies in many countries offers researchers an underutilized means of data collection for social network analysis. This paper first summarizes unique features of the gift record data that circumvent five prevailing sampling and measurement issues in the literature, and we discuss their advantages over existing studies at both the individual level and the dyadic link level using previous data sources. We then document our research project in rural China that implements a multiple wave census-type household survey and a long-term gift record collection. The pattern of gift-giving in major household social events and its recent escalation is analyzed. There are significantly positive correlations between gift network centrality and various forms of informal insurance. Finally, economic inequality and competitive marriage market are among the main demographic and socioeconomic determinants of the observed gift network structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Screen media usage, sleep time and socio-demographic features are related to adolescents' academic performance, but interrelations are little explored. This paper describes these interrelations and behavioral profiles clustered in low and high academic performance. A nationally representative sample of 3,095 Spanish adolescents, aged 12 to 18, was surveyed on 15 variables linked to the purpose of the study. A Self-Organizing Maps analysis established non-linear interrelationships among these variables and identified behavior patterns in subsequent cluster analyses. Topological interrelationships established from the 15 emerging maps indicated that boys used more passive videogames and computers for playing than girls, who tended to use mobile phones to communicate with others. Adolescents with the highest academic performance were the youngest. They slept more and spent less time using sedentary screen media when compared to those with the lowest performance, and they also showed topological relationships with higher socioeconomic status adolescents. Cluster 1 grouped boys who spent more than 5.5 hours daily using sedentary screen media. Their academic performance was low and they slept an average of 8 hours daily. Cluster 2 gathered girls with an excellent academic performance, who slept nearly 9 hours per day, and devoted less time daily to sedentary screen media. Academic performance was directly related to sleep time and socioeconomic status, but inversely related to overall sedentary screen media usage. Profiles from the two clusters were strongly differentiated by gender, age, sedentary screen media usage, sleep time and academic achievement. Girls with the highest academic results had a medium socioeconomic status in Cluster 2. Findings may contribute to establishing recommendations about the timing and duration of screen media usage in adolescents and appropriate sleep time needed to successfully meet the demands of school academics and to improve interventions targeting to affect behavioral change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the establishment of the scientific field of Food and Culture in Brazil, guided by Bourdieu's concepts. We describe the science park corresponding to this field, its geographical and institutional distribution, its insertion in the fields of knowledge, the issues investigated, the qualifications of the researchers, their academic programs and its links with post-graduate studies, their societies and scientific organizations are more specific objectives of this paper. Three areas of social science world are analyzed: "Sociology and Anthropology," "Health" and "Food and Nutrition" which is incorporated into the habitus of its main agent, the researcher of the Health Sciences, reflections, potential and methodological resources from the Social Sciences and Humanities. A woven web of meanings in this meeting place of different knowledge is marked by hegemonic biomedical viewpoint, resents and demands a stronger field of concepts and methods capable of dealing with the complexity of reality and the problems beyond laboratory benchs in life in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper pivots around an exceptional moment of colonial missionary encounter—the attempted "murder" in the 1930s of an incarnation of Samburu Divinity (pastoralists, northern Kenya). Examining this event through a comparative focus on other strange cases of "divinicide," I elucidate certain key moments of intense metaphysical struggle that typically become effaced, forgotten, or flattened in the process of colonial witness. Focus on the ontological micropolitics of exceptional moments of the colonial encounter such as these affords us the opportunity to illuminate crucial, often elusive, even substantially forgotten dimensions of the unequal process by which shared cultural imaginaries are forged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contextuolised in terms of the phenomenal growth in purchasing power in the so-called 'emerging market' in South Africa, this paper considers possibilities for anthropological involvement in market research, and looks at ways in which trust influences buying behaviour in the financial market. Drawing on research in two financial institutions, and taking into account current trends in anthropological endeavour, this presentation considers what role anthropologists might play in market research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding is an essential clinical practice skill, one which draws upon cognitive and affective, conscious and unconscious abilities. This paper explores the challenges posed by cross-cultural understanding. Using concepts from anthropology and data from anthropological field work and clinical practice, it examines cultural differences in the experience and communication of affect. Clinical examples from Northern Thailand are used to illustrate the ways these subtle and complex differences in clients' affective worlds challenge our capacity to understand those who are culturally different. Implications for cross-cultural social work practice are addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay was written in the context of a project to set up an archive of texts in popular Swahili on an Internet web site called Language and Popular Culture (www.pscw.uva.nl/lpca/). The formulation of thoughts on commentary came as the last of four steps. Step 1 was the deposition in this archive of the original text and translations of a colonial history entitled Vocabu-laire de ville de Elisabethville (previously published in Fabian 1990a). This was followed--step 2--by the inclu-sion on the same site of the text and a translation of recorded comments made by Kalundi Mango during our work on the translation of the Vocabulaire. Step 3 was the production of a commentary I decided to write when I realized that my translation of Kalundi's comments was getting overburdened with footnotes ('Commenting Ka-lundi's comments''). Step 4--though I actually began working on it while writing the commentary--was an attempt to think through some of the theoretical and practical consequences of the Internet for ethnography based on a virtual text-archive. With the advent of the Internet, language-centered anthropology-- understood here as anthropology that conceives of research as communicative and mediated above all by language--faces a new situation. The conditions of recourse to ethnographic texts, the documents of fieldwork that are among our primary sources, have changed (or could change) radically. Traditional genres of anthropological writing (such as the scientific paper, the monograph, or the historical account) place limits on the uses of ethnographic texts (and even more so of audiovisual records); the new possibility we have of depositing these documents on web sites makes them present in ways that are bound to affect ethnographic writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new reading of Franz Boas's philosophy of science and his approach to the understanding of culture and behavior. It points out that his approach had important parallels with the worldview of the major figures associated with pragmatism and suggests that a similar perspective can be useful today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropological and ethnohistorical accounts of the Northwest Coast and Southeast Alaska have underemphasized the early and thorough industrialization of the area. This paper describes the transformation of Native fan. lies and community forms by small scale salmon-canning firms m the late 19th and early 20th century, beginning with the building of the first salmon cannery in Klawock, Alaska, in 1878. Attention to the unmaking of past forms of obligation and expectation leads to an understanding of the volatility of specifically local histories in Native villages. Totem poles and tricycle races are both locations of ambiguous cultural production that are tied to these histories in overlapping and complex ways, and as such, they serve as metaphors for the larger processes at work in these towns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is divided into three sections, the first sketches a panorama of the conditions of construction of knowledge, not "about" but from the perspective of culture. The second is a self-critical presentation of the author's work on what he terms '"Cultural Fronts. " Lastly, some of the characteristics and effects of the cultural fronts project are presented, which is currently being developed in Mexico and, through recently initiated collaborations, in other parts of Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper the author considers the matter of what he terms "cultural decentring" and the complexity of contemporary identity that this produces. He opens with a provocative question, asking "From where should we think about identity?," for one's centrality or peripherality, he suggests, has an impact on the issues raised and on our perceptions of whether we have merely to live with diversity or think more fundamentally in terms of cultural survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developmental psychologists have often found it difficult to take cultural factors seriously in their research. This is in part because the holistic notion of culture appeared to have global effects that are difficult to model as variables in research designs, and anthropologists have not been able to agree on a viable unit of culture. This paper proposes that treating culture as ‘models’ is a powerful way to conceptualize cultural aspects of human development, and that specific kinds of cultural models can easily be factored into research designs in developmental psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]