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This article studies the contested legal–political dynamics around forced migration flows to and through an unrecognized state: the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). We adopt an analytical perspective drawn from the literature on performative politics and the legal anthropology of documents to explore how migration dynamics interact with the contested legal status of the TRNC. Our two main questions are: What practical shape do the human rights of refugees and asylum seekers take in an interstitial legal space, where the foundation of law is itself subject to ambiguity, suspension, and contestation? And what implications—opportunities and hazards—does this constellation have for refugees and asylum-seekers? Drawing on interviews, lived experience and fieldwork observations, we make two arguments. First, we contend that the interstitial status of the TRNC represents both an opportunity for refugees and a threat. Secondly, we argue that a purely legal or technical understanding of legal identity and concurrent rights is inadequate; we must subject these phenomena to a politically informed analysis of the everyday practices through which legal norms and spaces are continuously shaped and reshaped. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is the contention of this paper that ethics of work ought to be anthropological, and artificial intelligence (AI) research and development, which is the focus of work today, should be anthropological, that is, human-centered. This paper discusses the philosophical and theological implications of the development of AI research on the intrinsic nature of work and the nature of the human person. AI research and the implications of its development and advancement, being a relatively new phenomenon, have not been comprehensively interrogated in the social and ethical teachings of the Catholic Church. This paper, therefore, proposes a path for this interrogation by expounding a discourse which is believed to be epistemically helpful in the developing discourse of AI in the ethical and social teachings of the Church. The advancement in the research on AI is not only redefining the meaning of work, but, even more so, it is questioning the metaphysical notion of the human person and the theological notion of work as an intrinsic part in the selfhood and dignity of the human person. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Watchman Nee's anthropology has been widely debated and polarized in academic fields. However, Watchman Nee's concept of human and the problem of ecclesiastical practices have often been overlooked in contemporary Chinese mainland churches. In the first three sections, this paper will start from different Chinese mainland denominations' interpretation of Nee's concept of human and their corresponding ecclesiastical practices. On the one hand, through the interpretive attitudes of different denominations toward the "concept of human" and their related ecclesiastical practices, we can see the situation of acceptance of Nee's anthropology in different contemporary Chinese denominations. On the other hand, we can also provide feedback for the academic research on Nee's anthropology from the reality of contemporary Chinese mainland churches. Then, this paper will make a comparison of anthropologies between Luther and Watchman Nee, referring to the current study of Martin Luther and the Third Enlightenment in China. The comparative study of these two men will not only open up new avenues for the study of their theologies but will also serve Chinese mainland churches by utilizing the results of the research on Nee's thoughts and Martin Luther and the Third Enlightenment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focus on the problem posed by the rigidity of categories to the translation/transaction operation of the intercultural approach to law. This rigidity holds subjects back from leaving the more structured paradigms (moral, social, cultural, legal) of their culture. The first methodological issue this paper seeks to clarify is to place the problem of categories within a narrowly delimited research horizon in which this issue can be treated with an appropriate degree of scientific rigor. This need seems to find a solution in a shift from the strictly legal plane to the linguistic plane. In linguistic terms, one could observe categories as the articulation of certain linguistic signs (signifier/signified) to a high degree of abstraction and fixity of meaning. The question, then, is whether and how it is possible to overcome the resistance of this elementary unit of language. This opens to the legal-theoretical problem a strictly linguistic (semiological and semiotic) line of inquiry. The research idea of this contribution is that the linguistic sign has spaces of resilience that remain unknown to the semiological view but visible to a semiotic view. A 'bridge' between the abstraction of the semiotic level and the concreteness of the legal level can be find in the most recent developments of cultural anthropology, which will be used here. Following this approach and these tools the aim of this paper is to show the potential of the sign observed from a semiotic perspective in drawing intersubjective and even interspecific semiotic lines useful to intercultural law. The method adopted here consists of an epistemological pluralism that holds together semiotics, anthropology and law, thus showing the fruitfulness of an openly interdisciplinary approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the necessity of proposing an epistemological approach that focuses on both essential and empirical features of culture. Phenomenology, as we find in Edmund Husserl, is introduced as the main methodology enabling us to establish invariant or essential principles of human culture. We explain how phenomenology analyzes consciousness and its structures, showing a different approach from empirical studies of culture, such as cultural anthropology. Despite these epistemological divergencies, we argue that phenomenology and anthropology should collaborate, and we illustrate this through an analysis of particular Jewish rituals, as an instance of anthropological descriptions and phenomenological analysis. In the first part of the paper, we provide a brief introduction to phenomenology, by outlining the most important concepts to understand this methodology, such as intentionality, constitution, and experiential layers. In the second part, we will use the previous essential analysis of culture as guidelines to analyze a concrete culture, like Judaism, with a focus on specific rituals. While analyzing Judaism unavoidably requires empirical observations in their various forms, phenomenology provides us with a method through which enucleating universal principles underlying contextual and historical elements, which need to be considered as invariant in each human group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Indiana (03418642) is the property of Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut, Preussischer Kulturbesitz and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper is an ecofeminist exploration of Pratibha Ray's (2001) one of the most imperative works The Primal Land, translated from Oriya text into English. The article presents grave issues on the themes of the exploitation of women within the community as well as the exploitation of the indigenous people at large, where nature becomes a spiritual and cultural symbol. The physical forces lurk upon tribal communities for the encroachment of land and the exploitation of natural reservoirs of resources and fracture the bond between nature and culture. Unrestrained hunger for modernization and urbanization leads to dissolving age-old bonds with nature and culture. Representation of internal and external conflicts where women are seen to work with a lot of burdens and face typical stringent traditional practices whereas external conflicts to preserve cultural identity and existence of ethnic community against the exploitative local government takes shape in this paper. Exploration of the life of the Bonda Tribe in the midst of the natural environment, their unique traditional practices, and their close affinity with nature as a spiritual being is presented through the ecofeminist holistic notion. This paper excavates the socio-ethnic tensions between the ethnic community and the politics of Development on one hand and the internal conflicts based on gender bias on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to consider an alternative pluralist pantheism (Mary Jane Rubenstein) as the next step in the evolution of interpersonal, interspecies, and God–human–nature relationships and its possible realisation in (post-)Christian ecofeminism and its epistemology. It follows the methodology and epistemology of theological ecofeminism, which assumes that the oppression of women and the exploitation of nature stem from the same constellation of phenomena: patriarchal domination, dualistic anthropologies, and global hypercapitalism. Recognising that pantheism is a very complex phenomenon and should not be viewed as a single codified viewpoint, but rather as a diverse family of different doctrines, this paper understands pantheism primarily as the paradigm that asserts that everything is part of a divine unity consisting of an all-encompassing, manifested deity or God/Goddess. The paper first explains the pan-en-theistic turn in Christian ecofeminism as a tool for deconstructing the dominant Cartesian dualistic binaries and their symbolism and metanarratives, and as the first "safe" phase of transition from Christian anthropocentrism. From this standpoint, Grace M. Jantzen's defense of pantheism as an alternative to transcendental theism is further explored as she argues that divinity is found "in" the physical and material world and nowhere else. The paper then moves to the second phase, proposed in the final part of the paper, on the possibility of the theoretical adoption of pluralist pantheism in (post-)Christian ecofeminist ecotheology. Here, the question of the "fear and horror of pantheism" in Western thought is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Mexican Studies / Estudios Mexicanos is the property of University of California Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper explored the parallels between the Jewish Yom Kippur ritual as described in Leviticus 16:11-22 and the Effutu Aboakyer festival celebrated by the Effutu people of Ghana, West Africa. Drawing upon anthropological and sociological methodologies, the study conducted a close exegesis of Leviticus 16:11–22, elucidating its atoning rituals and practices. By situating these rituals within the cultural context of the Effutu community, the paper unveiled remarkable similarities between the Yom Kippur observance and the Aboakyer festival. The chosen methodology acknowledged Scripture's inherent sociocultural insights and engages with anthropological research to enrich understanding. The study argued that atonement in traditional festivals does not achieve salvation for humanity; only Jesus’ sacrifice saves. Ultimately, this exploration offers theological reflections that resonate with both African and biblical contexts, shedding light on the enduring relevance of ancient rituals in contemporary cultural frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an exploration of play in tourism. It is situated in an approach to play and toys informed by phenomenological perspectives and theoretical insights drawn from existential anthropology. It argues that tourism and play are intimately linked and outlines the ways in which connections between the two have been made. This paper focuses on a particular practice of play in travel—one that involves the use of a toy. Using the notion of 'toy tourism', I examine the ways in which touristic practices associated with play are brought into being in the moment of doing. The research is located in the resorts of Palmanova and Magaluf on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca. I conducted the research using a doll from the Barbie Fashionista range, who I named Mordaith. I outline how and why Mordaith became my travel companion and the experience and events associated with my time with her in the resorts. This paper recounts the story of what happened when I brought about the play of toy tourism in Mallorca. It is an experimental approach that unfolds in the writing as much as in the gathering of information during fieldwork. I argue that what play is, and what a toy is, are neither fixed nor graspable objectivities. Rather, both toy and play, and, thus, toy tourism, emerge in my embodied imaginative understanding of what touristic and toy tourism practices are, as well as the actual embodied and emotional movements of employing a toy in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interactions between people and large carnivores on shared landscapes can have harmful social and ecological consequences. Human–carnivore coexistence depends on an assemblage of sociological factors including effective management institutions that address the social costs of carnivore conservation and promote tolerance toward wildlife. In East Africa, large carnivores are particularly troublesome for herders who depend on livestock for subsistence and wellbeing. This paper provides an overview of human–hyena conflict in the Tarangire ecosystem of northern Tanzania. It presents descriptive results from a questionnaire survey (n = 1076) administered as part of an anthropological study (2019–2020; 2022; 2023) of human–wildlife interactions across twelve villages inhabited by Maasai agropastoralists. The survey instrument was designed through community-based participatory research methods to convey herder concerns about the impacts of spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) on the livestock economy. Based on the perceptions and local ecological knowledge of Maasai interlocutors, the paper provides an overview of the spatial and temporal patterns of human–hyena interactions. Perceived frequencies of hyena attacks on kraaled livestock were unevenly distributed geographically, with those homesteads surrounding Manyara Ranch most heavily affected. Based on herder-reported livestock losses, the costs of depredation by spotted hyenas across the study area were estimated at approximately USD 904.84 per household per year. Most homesteads lacked fortified bomas and would benefit from the provision of lights and fencing materials to improve kraal structures. The paper's central finding is that spotted hyenas represent a pressing, everyday concern for local pastoralists. Unsurprisingly, herders despise hyenas and are intolerant of sharing landscapes with them. For carnivore conservation outside protected areas to thrive in Tanzania, conservationists and policy makers must engage more meaningfully with the lived experiences of local herders who bear the brunt of conservation costs on their livelihoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the anthropological conception of the first modern Italian anthropologist, Paolo Mantegazza (1831-1910). We will begin by contextualizing the status of anthropology in Italy during the second half of the 19th century. Subsequently, we will delve into some of the inspirations that led the Italians to have such a multifaceted conception of the discipline. Next, we will outline the content of this approach and clarify the meaning of "omnicomprehensive science." From there, we will come to understand the reason for the variety of interests of the anthropologist, who aimed to study the human being in all aspects of life. We will then mention the moral objective present in his professional journey: through an understanding of the complexity of human life, the anthropologist wanted to contribute to the progress and well-being of society; in other words, to "living well.", (© 2024 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Using anthropological theory, this paper examines human–android interactions (HAI) as an emerging aspect of android science. These interactions are described in terms of adaptive learning (which is largely subconscious). This article is based on the observations reported and supplementary data from two studies that took place in Japan with a teleoperated android robot called Telenoid in the socialization of school children and older adults. We argue that interacting with androids brings about a special context, an interval, and a space/time for reflection and imagination that was not there before. During the interaction something happens. There is adaptive learning and as a result, both children and older adults accepted Telenoid, and the children and older adults accepted each other. Using frames of play and ritual, we make sense and 'capture' moments of adaptive learning, and the feedback that elicits a social response from all study participants that results in self-efficacy and socialization. While "ritual" refers to the application of what has been learned and "play" means that there are no obvious consequences of what has been learned. This analysis illuminates new understanding about the uncanny valley, cultural robotics and the therapeutic potential of HAI. This has implications for the acceptance of androids in 'socialized roles' and gives us insight into the subconscious adaptive learning processes that must take place within humans to accept androids into our society. This approach aims to provides a clearer conceptual basis and vocabulary for further research of android and humanoid development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the application of liminality in Abha Dawesar's novel Babyji, focusing on the protagonist Anamika's journey through adolescence, sexuality, and societal expectations in 1990s Delhi. Liminality, a concept rooted in anthropology and later adopted in literary studies, describes the disorienting ambiguity and fluidity experienced by individuals in transitional states or thresholds. Babyji serves as a fertile ground for examining liminality, as Anamika navigates the thresholds between childhood and adulthood, traditional and modern values, and heteronormative and queer identities. Through a close reading of the novel, we analyze how Dawesar employs liminality not only as a narrative device but also as a means of critiquing rigid societal structures. Anamika's interactions with her lovers, her intellectual pursuits, and her struggle with her identity are marked by a constant state of in-betweenness, challenging conventional narratives of coming-of-age and identity formation. The novel's setting in a rapidly changing India further amplifies these themes, positioning Anamika's journey against the backdrop of a nation in transition. I argue that Anamika's liminal experiences reflect broader questions of power, agency, and resistance in a society grappling with the tensions between tradition and modernity. By situating the protagonist in various liminal spaces- be it in her relationships, her academic ambitions, or her socio-political context- Dawesar highlights the potential for transformation and self-discovery that liminality offers. Ultimately, Babyji presents a nuanced portrayal of adolescence as a liminal phase, inviting readers to reconsider the complexities of identity and belonging in a rapidly changing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on ethnographic photography representing ethnic minorities on China's southwest frontier during the Republican era (1912–1949), this paper reconsiders the role of photography as a source of evidence. The cross-cultural case in China extends studies of anthropology and photography beyond a European context and complicates our understanding of 'photographic evidence' by probing how such evidence was collected, produced, circulated and perceived in Han Chinese society. While photography played a significant role as an evidential force for anthropological and ethnographic endeavors, photography as 'evidence' was negotiated within the Chinese social, political, and cultural context of ethnicity. In spite of anthropological photography's western origins, it is impossible to fully understand work representing the non-Han subject in Republican China without analyzing its relationship with the visual tradition of the Miao album, a late imperial Chinese genre of ethnographic illustration. Through a critical reading of 'photographic evidence' pertaining to non-Han women's work, marriage and dance, this paper reveals the paradox of anthropological photography as visual evidence and highlights the social constitution of such work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Architectural anthropology offers a way to critically analyse spaces through the social life that happens around them. It is a qualitative approach that relies on ethnography to connect larger systems and subjective dimensions, self-reflexivity, and the use of visualisations as a key analytical tool. This paper reflects on the possible contribution of architectural anthropology to housing studies. More specifically, it looks at homing processes in social housing, interrogating how non-domestic spaces perform through tenants' inhabitation practices. It tests ways to visualise ethnographic data gathered during immersive fieldwork that involved participant observation and informal interactions in a high-rise estate in Brussels. Three types of visualisations (subjective map, annotated photograph, lived-in axonometry) are presented to articulate the paper's discussion of homing, un-homing and de-homing processes at the level of a district, urban interstices, and beyond social housing. Ultimately, the paper concludes that architectural anthropology may contribute further to housing studies by exploring the relationship between home(making) and urban contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music is an integral part of culture and human societies, which anthropologists study. What makes music so potent is its ability to contain values, reflect perspectives, and fill niches of societal needs. In this paper, I will discuss how ethnomusicology aids scholars in a deeper understanding of contexts, perspectives, and values in music and the experiences of the people who created it. I will analyze the relationships between music and technique, ritual, and religion in seven case studies. Drawing from examples from "right" singing in Estonia, the choral works of Stravinsky, Ambonwari rituals, ritual wailing in Amerindian Brazil, the maqam, syncretism in Southeast Asia, and Tamil Christian religious music, I will show how ethnomusicology uncovers understanding of the cosmology, values, and socio-cultural interactions of a people and their culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disasters and climate-related events, including tropical storms, droughts, coastal erosion, and ocean acidification, threaten small island nations. Given the urgency of reducing disaster risks and the effects of climate change on vulnerable populations, this reflection essay pursues three objectives. First, it highlights the role of anthropology, ethnography, and multi-sited research in exploring disaster impacts, climate crises, and public policy in island communities. It then highlights national planning and inter-regional activities to build awareness of various risk reduction efforts by island nations and multi-governmental organizations. This article concludes with discussion prompts to engage researchers, scholars, students, and practitioners studying and working in small island nations. Due to the growing interest in climate equity and justice, this paper argues that anthropologists can offer valuable methodologies and approaches to develop transdisciplinary and nuanced insights into researching disaster risk reduction efforts and climate policy networks in and across island nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the twelfth century, certain thinkers in the north of Europe were exalting human reason in a manner that had not been seen since the time of the ancient philosophers. Adelard of Bath, William of Conches, Thierry of Chartres and Peter Abelard all championed ratio in a way that seemed to challenge the hegemony of learning that rested securely with the authority of scripture, the testament of the Fathers and the canons of the established councils. In so doing, it represented a significantly different approach from the firmly established 'authors' (auctores) as certain scholars pursued their learning, and indeed even divine ascent, via other avenues. Even the visionary Hildegard von Bingen set enormous stock in rationality. This paper will discuss the use of reason for the anagogic ascent to the divine in order to trace its roots to a Platonic understanding of the universe in tandem with a highly positive anthropology that allowed for a bold reassessment of human capabilities, as well as a new appreciation of nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anti-Blackness adumbrates rationality and reaches into phobic realms, what Frantz Fanon called the "paralogical." Ebony Elizabeth Thomas's The Dark Fantastic links the dark fantastic imagination and the Dark Other of speculative fiction to their cultural iterations and augments the paralogicality of anti-Blackness by accounting for the narrative roles of hesitation and belief. This paper argues that it is further necessary to assert the narrative significance of nineteenth century Christian, pre-Adamite and/or Serpent Seed theological anthropologies for the production of what one might call a dark fantastic theological imaginary of human being. The paper argues, further, far from being a bygone heresy, the pre-Adamite mythos lives on in the "thin blue line" anthropology of contemporary policing. The paper therefore looks ultimately for abolitionist possibilities to interrupt this imaginary, which it sees in the theological counternarrative of Black being in Matt Ruff's novel Lovecraft Country and its TV adaptation by Misha Green. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Chiropractic, osteopathy, and physiotherapy (COP) professionals regulated outside the United States traditionally incorporate hands-on procedures aligned with their historical principles to guide patient care. However, some authors in COP research advocate a pan-professional, evidence-informed, patient-centered approach to musculoskeletal care, emphasizing hands-off management of patients through education and exercise therapy. The extent to which non-Western sociocultural beliefs about body representations in health and disease, including Indigenous beliefs, could influence the patient–practitioner dyad and affect the interpretation of pillars of evidence-informed practice, such as patient-centered care and patient expectations, remains unknown. Methods: our perspective paper combines the best available evidence with expert insights and unique viewpoints to address gaps in the scientific literature and inform an interdisciplinary readership. Results: A COP pan-professional approach tends to marginalize approaches, such as prevention-oriented clinical scenarios traditionally advocated by osteopathic practitioners for patients with non-Western sociocultural health assumptions. The Cynefin framework was introduced as a decision-making tool to aid clinicians in managing complex clinical scenarios and promoting evidence-informed, patient-centered, and culturally sensitive care. Conclusion: Epistemological flexibility is historically rooted in osteopathic care, due to his Indigenous roots. It is imperative to reintroduce conceptual and operative clinical frameworks that better address contemporary health needs, promote inclusion and equality in healthcare, and enhance the quality of manual therapy services beyond COP's Western-centered perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This white paper takes the unknown and the vague and movement towards/in those realms – as frames for a discussion of present practice and emergent potentiality of anthropological engagement with peace (building) studies. Arguably, embracing the unknown or vague as generative constants as well as fundamental elements of non-linear peacebuilding further open collaborative, communicative spaces of possibility. Aspects of this discussion are drawn from broader conceptual/methodological considerations in both peacebuilding and social anthropology so as to contribute to an interdisciplinary alignment. Furthermore, the positions and persuasions in this work are (in)formed by extensive, on-going examinations of research and narratives active in Southeast Europe today. By looking to emergent concepts in peace studies via anthropology while moving with regional-specific ethnographies that speak back against North Atlantic hegemonies, there is offered a discussion that brings local realities into transnational (socio-academic) deliberations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contribution of arts for development has recently received a great deal of attention from international donors ad organizations. The anthropology of art, however, has participated in a limited way in these debates. Borrowing theoretical tools from the socio-anthropology of development, this paper questions the politics of knowledge involved in the implementation of art projects in postcolonial context. Drawing on ethnographical research in Botswana on an art project opened by a NGO for the San people, it describes the ways areas of knowledge and non-knowledge have been attributed. It shows that the conceptions of knowledge at stake in the making of contemporary San art indirectly reproduce a Great Divide between modernity and tradition, which has direct impacts on the ways the practice is appropriated by local actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The windigo is a generally malicious figure in several Indigenous cultures of the land currently administered by the governments of the USA and Canada. In traditional narratives, the windigo is generally associated with hunger, greed, winter, and cannibalism. In this paper, I discuss how both Indigenous and non-Indigenous writers have used the figure of the windigo to critique and challenge environmental injustice. While some windigo stories present the being as a terrifying monster of the "wilderness", others use the figure as an embodiment of environmental destruction and the injustice that comes with it. Windigo stories also highlight three further aspects of colonial violence: military violence, sexual violence, and religious violence. Although some stories depict windigos being defeated through violence, many stress the importance of care and healing to overcome the windigo affliction. In fact, storytelling itself may be part of the healing process. Windigo stories, I argue, can be a useful way to interrogate the injustices created by colonialism and environmental destruction, and the stories can also offer hope for healing and for an environmentally just future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Critical disability studies" (CDS) is an interdisciplinary field of research that examines social, political, economic, racial, gendered and historical constructions of bodily non-normativity across different geopolitical areas and scales. Despite its diverse and multiple contributions and objectives, current research in critical disability studies has been described as mainly focusing on disability issues in the Global North and as having universalizing tendencies. In this context, intersubjective perspectives and empirical data offered by ethnographic works in medical and disability anthropology and related disciplines have been either in accord or tension with the broader field of CDS. On the one hand, this review article illustrates the many ways anthropologists have adopted various research perspectives to explore bodily non-normativity outside settings in the Global North. On the other, it shows the importance of research by anthropologists working on topics related to disability, as well as their recent fruitful collaborations with CDS scholars and approaches. By exploring these epistemological and empirical entanglements, this paper concludes that deeper engagements between CDS and anthropology, as well as a more thorough focus on the ethnographic analysis of bodily non-normativity, can open new creative routes for the analysis of disability in various world contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates trabecular bone ontogenetic changes in two different Polish populations, one prehistoric and the other historical. The studied populations are from the Brześć Kujawski region in Kujawy (north-central Poland), one from the Neolithic Period (4500–4000 BC) and one from the Middle Ages (twelfth-sixteenth centuries AD), in total 62 vertebral specimens (32 males, 30 females). Eight morphometric parameters acquired from microCT scan images were analysed. Two-way ANOVA after Box-Cox transformation and multifactorial regression model were calculated. A significant decrease in percentage bone volume fraction (BV/TV; [%]) with age at death was observed in the studied sample; Tb.N (trabecular number) was also significantly decreased with age; trabecular separation (Tb.Sp) increased with advancing age; connectivity density (Conn.D) was negatively correlated with biological age and higher in the Neolithic population. These data are found to be compatible with data from the current biomedical literature, while no loss of horizontal trabeculae was recorded as would be expected based on modern osteoporosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article delves into the intricacies of human defences in various domains, including the biological and psychological responses to protect oneself, and the abstract concept of sacrificing one's life to uphold ethical, moral, religious, and spiritual values. While physical, psychological, and moral values have been attended to in counselling, regard for the religious and spiritual aspects is still developing. As the author writes from a Christian perspective, Christian faith and values are considered. It is posited that a study of human nature, as presented in the Christian Bible, can facilitate a profound comprehension of human defences. The paper scrutinizes the correlation between "human defences" and "Christian spirituality" through a Christian lens on human nature. Furthermore, it introduces the idea of "spiritual defence" and how it is related to a spiritual awakening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In their efforts to dissuade Africans from engaging fruitfully on matters of design, including design anthropology, colonialists dismissed the indigenes as only capable of designing witchcraft and sorcery for which they were sadly famed in colonial anthropology. Arguing that twenty-first century African universities need to include design anthropology in the curriculum, this paper contends that the future of anthropology, and of Africa, lies in design as is evident in discourses and practices on designer babies, designer humanoid sex robots, industrial robots, designer robotic spouses, synthetic biology, Artificial Intelligence, human enhancements, nanofabrication, biohacking, gene and genome editing, reverse engineering and rewiring humans, gene and genome deletion, social designs and so on. Drawing on autoethnography and extensive literature review, the paper argues that design anthropology is increasingly becoming relevant in a world that is rethinking modernist designs which are at the core of the Anthropocene. Put differently, design anthropology enables [African] graduates to engage with contemporary, empirical issues of design in a twenty-first-century world where the discipline can only survive by shifting focus from an obsession with sterile discourses about, inter alia, the past and present of African witchcraft, culture, society and sorcery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews and summarizes six economics papers written as part of a project bringing together economists and anthropologists on conceptions and analyses of wealth. The project paired economists and anthropologists in order to illuminate differences in method, analytic technique, and disciplinary framings between the two fields. Anthropologists comment on the economists' papers from their discipline's point of view. The overall project was intended to increase understanding and to encourage future collaborations and learning between the two fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: The first half of the two-part study is on the emerging role of artificial intelligence in the forensic sciences. After clarifying the basic concepts and a brief historical overview, the possibilities of using AI in various forensic fields are discussed: genetics, pattern recognition, chemistry, toxicology, anthropology, forensic medicine, and scene reconstruction. Methodology: The study synthesises several recently published international papers. Findings: The penetration of the application of artificial intelligence into some fields of science is undoubtedly an ongoing process. Most of the varied forensic fields also cannot avoid this development. Analysing large databases unmanageable with traditional methods, pattern recognition, and machine learning can all be important tools for forensic science. However, an important conclusion is that AI is a supporter of human expert work, not a substitute. Value: In the field of forensic sciences, no such detailed summary article has been published in Hungarian so far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Belügyi Szemle (2010) is the property of Ministry of Interior of Hungary and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper aims to explore the theme of art in Helmuth Plessner's philosophical anthropology and show the possibilities of its use in the analysis of artistic creation and artwork. The article is divided into three parts: in the first part, it presents the background of Plessner's anthropological project and the intersection of his philosophy with Edmund Husserl's phenomenology. This strategy enables the synergy of both approaches which can be used for reflection of art. The second part displays the scope and ingenuity of Plessner's approach through a selection of texts where he addresses art. And finally, the third part delves into a functional elaboration of the anthropology of an artwork, specifically, using Max Beckmann as an example, into the question of anthropological foundations in art making, and the question of new form in art. For the latter question, I use the approach to architecture as an example relying on corporeality and Umwelt as guiding concepts. This analysis provides, on the one hand, description of anthropologically significant phenomena of artistic production of the first half of the twentieth century, and on the other hand, reveals functional determinations of corporeality, the world, and resonance with the world, the so-called equilibrium, which can be used to understand the artwork, and artistic production in the creation of a new form in art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the sea as a metonym for visualising the Caribbean island experience. This paper argues that islanders' relations with the sea are maintained through a double condition of connection and isolation, alienation and familiarity. This paper's theoretical position is informed by 'transinsularism', an approach that addresses how insular identities are constituted in relation to other island spaces. This paper's argument is contextualised with historical and ethnographic material on the island of Culebra, an offshore municipality of Puerto Rico. The historical material addresses the colonisation of Culebra in the 1880s by interests of the Spanish Crown, the occupation of the island by the US Navy and its liberation. The sea features at the foreground of these processes. This paper concludes that islanders maintain a sense of specific insular regard while self-consciously engaged in multiple network-generating networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Greek mythology formed the basis of much of Greek philosophy, art and science. The Greeks conceptualised their universe as animated by forces and elements which they anthropomorphised as gods and other supernatural beings. However, only recently has there been increasing attention on Greek mythology as a source of advanced technological and biomedical concepts. The Greek myths are fascinating for their technological ideas pertaining to body/cognitive enhancement. This paper provides theoretical correlations between Greek mythological and socio-historic dimensions of human enhancement, and some of their current/future technological developments, hence, offering a cultural anthropological perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science fiction takes many forms, including academic work that calls on readers to think about social and cultural problems. This paper takes a piece of science fiction, Kirinyaga: A Fable of Utopia, as an example and discusses the conflicts among globalization, modernization and tradition present in the text, thus highlighting the academic meaning of science fiction as a literary form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 2000s, scholars have proposed the notion of "world anthropologies" to expose the pluralistic nature of anthropology, and to counter the colonial legacy embedded in knowledge production. This paper discusses how anthropological knowledge in and of China contributes to, is distant from, and challenges, such intellectual movement at both intellectual and institutional levels. First, unlike Western anthropology which shifts from colonialism to liberalism and then to postcolonialism, anthropology in China began with a progressive agenda of anti-colonialism, and then leaned toward liberalism. In the context of China's rise, "China" has been further embroiled in a puzzle of imperialism. This reversed ideological tendency contributes to the disorientation of the critical energy in anthropology focused on China. Second, just as China has taken an active role in the competition for education and research in a globalized, yet uneven academia through discipline construction, anthropology in the West, particularly the United States, has become provincialized in terms of its intellectual agendas. Many of the younger generation of Chinese anthropologists have become stuck in the disjuncture, struggling to channel their critical energy through engaged scholarship, both within and beyond academic institutions. The epistemic politics in and of China, at both the intellectual and institutional levels, reveals that the post-socialist condition deserves to be reference points in world anthropologies. If decolonization posits treating plural standpoints as equal, then being counted in the decolonizing efforts necessitates subscribing to the dominant framework. Thus, more attention to the post-socialist condition, and ultimately the pluralization of the reference points of political potency, should truly pluralize, and ultimately decolonize, anthropology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Five hundred years of desire for cotton has reshaped landscapes, built global economic commodity chains, and devalued human life in the name of producing cheap clothing. Since 2001, cotton monocultures in South India have also reorganized genetic codes, continuing centuries of work to maintain the socioecological possibility of extractive agricultural production. This paper combines ethnographic and ethnobiological research in Telangana, India, to center cotton's role in organizing socioecological life for an agrarian world including farmers, farmworkers, plants, soils, buyers, weeds, and animals. Mutually exclusive systems of genetically modified Bt and organic cotton production offer a range of possible organizations of labor, aspiration, reciprocity, and labor. While historically situated in plantation inequalities, cotton production can also make unexpected room for socioecological relationships outside extractive monoculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on original ethnographic research in Australia focussing on the handling, management, and conceptualisation of death and the dead human body in 2020–2021. Analysis produced themes of secrecy and (in)visibility regarding both death and the collection of data. Key findings discussed are the withdrawal of information and off-the-record comments from participants, controlling of public access to information, and the (in)visibility of death and the body in the context of the mortuary, viewings and identifications, and the presentation of the body in virtual spaces. The paper argues that those who work with death and the dead in this particular context have power to shield their work, the body, and their processes from the public. Future research exploring the attitudes held by the general public towards death and the body and whether they align or challenge the death industry is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the links among internationalism, nationalism and racial discourses in post-Habsburg Central Europe. Focusing on Czech advocates of racial anthropology and eugenics, the paper documents that scientists embracing racial discourses did not evade scientific internationalism, either as an ideology or as a practice. Instead, in attempting to renew and expand their networks after the collapse of the empire, they were among its pioneers in interwar Czechoslovakia. This keen yet ambiguous embrace of internationalism that linked them to their counterparts in the Allied powers in the 1920s was reconfigured in the following decade. The 1930s were characterized by a search for alternative transnational models driven by political and epistemic challenges associated with the process of state-building and changing theories of heredity. This search resulted in interactions involving even Europe's colonies and dictatorships and became a significant, though not the only, factor contributing to the radicalization of these scientific communities. Analysing these exchanges as a manifestation of the 'dark side of transnationalism', the paper argues for the utility of this concept for the history of post-Habsburg Central Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on a specific aspect of the emergence of psychology and psychiatry as scientific disciplines in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It examines how psychological knowledge, which was scattered across different fields of knowledge such as philosophy and anthropology, as well as medical subfields such as physiology, pathology and state medicine, was filtered into medical education in three medical faculties of the Habsburg Monarchy: Vienna, Prague and Pest. As education was the primary arena of producing authoritative medical knowledge, the three institutions played a key role in the transfers of knowledge within the Monarchy and in shaping 'official' medical practices acknowledged by the state. These in turn could be used to validate different measures to normalize or optimize its population. Through the lens of education and the underlying tension between the different approaches to psychological knowledge that constituted a type of 'arcane knowledge' in the period, with fluid and often dubious boundaries and questionable applicability, the article points at the epistemological uncertainty and transitory nature of the psychological field. The paper also looks at how it was nevertheless integrated into medical education with varying success by the 1840s as part of the professionalization of psychiatry and with the pronounced aim of training specialists who could cooperate in creating functioning spaces for the mad where they could not only be kept, but also normalized and (re)integrated into society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mathematics plays a fundamental role in ecological research, yet its uses remain strikingly separate from advances in the environmental social sciences and humanities. In this paper, I work to address this impasse and outline the motivation and scope for an 'ecological mathematics', an approach to doing mathematics in environmental research which foregrounds relationship, embodiment and human difference. I begin by tracing the historical emergence of mathematics in ecology, noting how life processes have been conceptualised in a way which forces them to fit the ideals of mathematical models transplanted from the physical sciences. I then investigate the cultural factors shaping the evolution of mathematical thought, eliciting a malleability in how mathematical knowledge relates to the more-than-human world. This provides a place from which to rethink the role of abstraction in ecological thought, and develop mathematical methods grounded in ecological concepts. Drawing on ethnographic and perceptual accounts of space and time, I work with topological concepts from both mathematics and the social sciences to suggest a new correspondence between these subjects, elaborating a way of employing mathematical techniques which enliven, rather than deaden, the ecologies under study. The paper concludes with important philosophical clarifications to the approach of an ecological mathematics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops an anthropological perspective on contextualizing entrepreneurship. We argue that interconnectedness is the quintessence of such a perspective and takes the form of (1) sociocultural ties between people; (2) interrelationships between micro, meso, and macro levels; and (3) connections between the past and the present. We illustrate this perspective through our research among ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia, identifying three kinds of sociocultural ties among the ethnic Chinese (kinship, spiritual, and patron-client ties) and positioning these ties in the historical and contemporary experiences of Chinese migration, settlement, and business venturing. In doing so, we show that an anthropological perspective broadens the empirical scope (including developing countries, minority groups, and "everyday" entrepreneurship), the methodological scope (employing ethnographic methods), and the conceptual scope (considering sociocultural ties at the interpersonal level) of entrepreneurship research. The contribution lies in operationalizing and theorizing context: we operationalize context through interconnectedness – comprising our three forms as well as ethnographic methodology to examine these – and theorize interconnectedness by elaborating how entrepreneurs "do" context through enacting the sociocultural ties that "embody" this context, while considering the micro-meso-macro and past-present connections that have engendered these ties. Our anthropological perspective presents a fine-grained and holistic analytical framework for contextualizing entrepreneurship. Plain English Summary: Anthropology can broaden current understandings of how context is perceived in entrepreneurship research. As the study of how people live and experience the world around them, anthropology explores social relationships and their cultural meanings – sociocultural ties – to provide insights into the everyday of the people and communities studied. Such sociocultural ties can also illuminate how entrepreneurs enact context, a missing link in entrepreneurship research. Based on research among ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs in Cambodia and Indonesia, three kinds of sociocultural ties are presented that play a key role in their entrepreneurship: kinship ties (shared family and ethnic background), patronage ties (interdependence of politicians and entrepreneurs), and spiritual ties (membership of religious communities). It is through these ties that context is enacted at the micro level and entwines with the entrepreneurial process. To debunk the idea that context equals external setting, we invite entrepreneurship researchers to include sociocultural ties to reveal how entrepreneurs enact context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theorization of social sciences in the 20th century walked forward with difficulty. Clifford Geertz's essay, "Thick description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture", which comprehensively explored the fundamental problems in the process, is an essential document in the history of thoughts in the social sciences in the twentieth century. In response to Geertz's reflection, this paper tries to reveal the predicament of interpretive anthropology and the entire social sciences and its methodological roots through an epistemological analysis of social science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay is based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out among the Dimasas (of Assam and Nagaland) in Northeastern India. This Indigenous group has a system of double descent which places them separately from the other ethnic groups in the Indian subcontinent. In double descent, lineages are drawn through both the paternal and maternal lines of descent. The existing literature suggests that studies on double descent have mostly focused on ethnic groups in Africa, while not much research has been done on Dimasas or other Indigenous groups with double descent in the region. The paper attempts to fill the gap in South Asian anthropological literature on kinship discourses by focusing on the Dimasas of Northeast India. Further, by taking gender as an analytical tool, the paper attempts to explore the complex cultural contours of the double descent system, which intricately gets subsumed within the patriarchal setup in Dimasa society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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