Consensual Violence: A Cultural Contradiction

In American culture, violence is typically understood as inherently negative; no one would want to be personally subjected to violence because violence by its very nature is undesirable. Thus, the idea of seeking out violence seems paradoxical. In cases where a person actively pursues violent treatment, the question arises: can violence be consensual? This question is included in discourse on sadomasochism (SM), or an attraction to giving or receiving pain in a sensual or sexual context, which many argue is a form of violence. Through a critical discourse analysis of legal statutes regarding interpersonal violence and interviews with women involved in SM, I will address the question of whether or not sadomasochism can be considered physical and sexual violence

The Anthropology of Religion, And Question of Methodology

Anthropology, being an inherently interdisciplinary discipline, is a promising approach to the forever perplexing subject: Religion. Driven by a quest to understand the Humanity of humans—to widen the perspective of the “other”, it had an inevitable encounter with religion. And just as every other discipline, it had its share of war wounds with challenges in either definitions, methodology, or the outcomes of the study of religion. In this review, I am looking into the chaotic outcomes that is far from rewarding for the “tidy mind”, the methodology behind the outcomes, and potential solutions for these challenges

The anthropological dimension on ethnomodelling research based on ethnomathematics and modelling.

The application of ethnomathematics and the tools of mathematical modelling allow us to see a different reality and give us insight into mathematics accomplished holistically. Using this perspective, a pedagogical action that connects cultural aspects of mathematics with its academic aspects is referred to as ethnomodelling. This is a process of translation and elaboration of problems and questions taken from systems that are part of any given cultural group. Thus, we would like to broaden the discussion for possibilities for the inclusion of ethnomathematics and mathematical modelling perspectives by using ethnomodelling which, if done correctly, acts against colonialism and respects the social and cultural diversity with guarantees for the development of understanding of our differences through dialogue and respect. Ethnomodelling empowers these members of diverse groups against domination and oppression

Amateurism:Exploring its Multiple Meanings in the Age of Film, Video, and Digital Media

In the current digital age, media amateurs seem to have taken over a large part of cultural production and revised traditional hierarchies between pro- fessionals and amateurs. This development has been characterized as a form of “mass amateurisation,” or even “mass cultural production.” This present state of affairs is deeply embedded in an ongoing discourse on the value of being an ama- teur. Both in public discourse and in scholarly debates, amateurism has been conceptually categorized as either a self-assigned role or as a label that is con- ferred by others. To explore the multiple meanings of amateurism, this chapter demonstrates how a media historical approach helps to better understand the full complexity of the concept. In addition, we propose that future research can benefit from the development of clear analytical approaches to identify various amateur modes of practice, while also acknowledging the ongoing hybridity of the media amateur

The Andacollo\u27s Mining Community: Ethnographic Work-Based Approach to Corporate Social Responsibility Policies and Practices

This ethnographic study was designed to explore the phenomenon of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the mining industry. The research addressed the impacts of a problematic, systemic, and ethnocentric (top-down) CSR approach driven by a transnational mining company, and proposed a novel cultural relativist (bottom-up) CSR approach looking at the social needs of the community. Solving the problem stemming from the ethnocentric approach is important for both the mining company and the community affected by the CSR program, as it will alter dynamics between actors and mitigate social conflicts. The purpose of this study was to investigate factors that improve the fractured relationship between the community and the mining company and put its social license to operate at risk. The mitigation of social conflicts is needed for the mining corporation to maintain its social license to operate in a harmonic and collaborative mining-community relationship. The research question was designed to gather the perceptions of corporate leaders and community members in Chile\u27s Andacollo mining area regarding the imbalance between the ethnocentric and cultural relativism perspectives adopted in CSR policies and practices. A purposive sample of 30 subjects was interviewed to collect data regarding their perceptions that were then categorized, coded, and interpreted using an inductive approach and thematic networks. The research findings showed that improvements in CSR practice are likely to result from the mining company placing emphasis on the social dimension. A shift from a top-down to a bottom-up CSR approach will contribute to the reduction of social conflicts, build a socially sustainable setting, and foster positive social change with benefits for the society

Cultural Values in Urban Conservation: The Emic Perspective

The form, structure, and modus operandi of historic urban areas are inextricably linked between them, reflecting the essence and dynamics of society. Cultural values of historic urban areas and their theoretical construction can be determined in the light of what linguists and anthropologists call the etic and emic dimensions of systems of meaning. This dichotomic concept was coined by linguist Kenneth Pike in 1954 and transmuted to cultural anthropology by Marvin Harris in 1964; since then, it has proved a very useful heuristic device for many disciplines and has been used in many senses (universal vs. specific, objective vs. subjective, outsider vs. insider, ideal vs. actual, ethnological vs. ethnographic). In the case of urban heritage, this etic/emic approach situates values between a meta-discourse on the tangible features of the urban fabric and their meaning, and a speci(fic)-discourse on the specificity of urban fabric and its cultural construction and significance. The two discourses are both concerned with recognising and understanding the identity of the urban fabric, and ideally complement each other: the first category of objective values is rooted in history and theory of urbanism and our desire to create better places for living, while the second of specificity, is rooted in anthropology and an understanding of cultural diversity through hermeneutics of space. The evaluation of the urban context for the purpose of identifying what is urban heritage and what are its values should attempt to examine it through both perspectives, in order to ensure a comprehensive, if not exhaustive, investigation. This means that, beside the well-established comparative, typological and morphological methods of architecture and urban history, that represent an objective, etic perspective, attention should be paid to the more relative, emic perspective produced by the societies who in fact build and use a particular urban context

The truth about Texas : a naturalistic study of the construction of heritage

Vita.This investigation is set during what some regard an unheroic age -- an era of historical amnesia in the West, where compatriots are increasingly manufactured through the presentation of preferred narratives about the past. It attempts to establish a research agenda in iconology -- on state administrators of heritage-tourism as agents of normalcy, totalizing the histories they externalize. Exploring the preinterpretations (i.e., the unformulated thematics) within the discourse and praxis of these conceivable 'administrator-judges', it scrutinizes how tourism matters -- probing meanings of heritage-tourism at supra-individual and macro-cosmic levels. Given the theoretically invertebrate nature of tourism studies upon iconological issues of domination / subjugation involved in the past's 'pasteurization', it becomes a transdisciplinary inquiry of universe maintenance, robbing sociology, philosophy, anthropology, political science, marketing, communications and history for insight into social truth as collective coercive act. Thus, the investigation absorbs a Foucauldian / Nietzschean conceptualization of truthmaking - - where truth is fused with power: the validity of any particular truth is deemed relative to a specific regime-of-power. This fusion is found substantive for both the study problem (in exploring the Foucauldian 'gaze' of heritage-tourism administrators) and the research problem (exploring social science approaches able to capture the contemporary pluriverse of truths). Hence, concepts of postmodernity are frequently used to distill the temporal and inventive nature of the truths that unfold within 'editorialized heritage'. Plumbing the possible multivocality of 'the talk' of 'agents of normalcy', the investigation is constructivist, here deploying a naturalistic inquiry methodology as a catalyst study of pastmaking in Texas -- viz., as an adjuvant inquiry for the longhaul / blanket research agenda. Timing and access difficulties during summer 1992, however, diminished the interactive, in-dwelling and iterative force of that adjuvant contextualization. Instead, the available discourse was, restrictively, a one-time batch of 'public-professional' literature, published by the target Texan state agency..