Learning to Honour Their Body and Blood : pilgrims on the Path of Mary Magdalene

This article describes the beliefs and some of the ritual practices of a group of female pilgrims visiting places in France and Catalonia that they associate with the figure of Mary Magdalene. It pays particular attention to the pilgrim's process of learning ways to relate to her own body and to her menstrual cycle. Drawing elements from neo-paganism these women reinterpret the meaning of Christian symbols and places. They consider Mary Magdalene both as a forerunner of feminism and as a model for independent women. Performing a ritual of offering menstrual blood to the earth, they establish an intimate relationship with what they identify as the "Mother Earth". Theories used to justify the beliefs in the sacrality of menstrual blood are largely derived from anthropological texts

Sur le chemin de Marie Madeleine. Des lectures au pèlerinage

Quelles sont les difficultés que l’anthropologue rencontre au moment de décrire les pèlerins influencés par la réinterprétation de la figure de Marie Madeleine? Quels sont les livres qu’ils utilisent pour formuler leurs propres idées et quels parcours suivent-ils en France? Le roman de Dan Brown “Le Code Da Vinci” a diffusé l’idée que Marie Madeleine était l’épouse de Jésus et la mère de ses enfants. Cependant, déjà, avant même la publication de ce best-seller, il existait des pèlerins qui parcouraient le sentier de Marie Madeleine et faisaient leurs connexions énergétiques dans des églises chrétiennes. Leurs théories, qui contiennent des éléments des mouvements “New Age” et Wicca, offrent un type de mythologie contemporaine et une base pour leurs pratiques rituelles. Cette façon de vivre le pèlerinage est récente et en évolution continue. Cela implique que certains des sanctuaires catholiques de France aient un nouveau type de pèlerinage

Religious Heritage in Fátima and Mouraria, Portugal

UIDB/04038/2020 UIDP/04038/2020publishersversionpublishe

When homebirth “goes wrong”: holistic mothers who end up giving birth in a Portuguese hospital

The article is based on research about holistic mothering in contemporary Portugal. Holistic mothering is an umbrella term, used here to describe different mothering choices based on the assumption that pregnancy, birthing and early mothering are important spiritual experiences for the mother and the child, but also for the father. In Portugal, many holistic mothers choose homebirth and avoid what they perceive as excessive medicalization during hospital birth. Influenced by Davis-Floyd’s analysis of birth as an American rite of passage and her distinction between a technocratic and a wholistic model of birth, Portuguese holistic mothers conceptualize homebirth as a rebellious choice that subverts the predominant, biomedical model. The subversive aspects of homebirth are underscored by the fact that it exists in a legal void and is presented in the media and in popular discourse as a dangerous choice that poses an obstacle to the country’s modernization. Drawing on ethnographic data, I argue that the entrenchment of two opposing models, what Davis-Floyd calls the wholistic and the technocratic, is counter-productive and contributes to traumatic experiences for holistic mothers who choose homebirth but who end up hospitalized, and consequently targeted for critique by the medical establishment and the wider social environment, which originates a sense of guilt and/or inadequacy for not being able to follow-through with the birth at home.O artigo resulta de uma investigação sobre a maternidade holística no Portugal contemporâneo. A expressão “maternidade holística” descreve, de forma genérica, as escolhas de maternidade que pressupõem que a gravidez, o nascimento e a maternidade são experiências espirituais importantes para a mãe e para a criança, mas também para o pai. Em Portugal, muitas mães holísticas escolhem o parto domiciliar para evitar o que entendem ser uma excessiva medicalização durante o parto hospitalar. Influenciadas pela análise de Davis-Floyd sobre o nascimento como um rito de passagem americano, e pela sua distinção entre um modelo tecnocrático e um modelo holístico, essas mães conceptualizam o parto domiciliar como uma subversão do modelo biomédico predominante. Os aspetos subversivos desta escolha são enfatizados pelo facto de este tipo de parto não ser legalmente reconhecido e ser considerado pelos meios de comunicação e pela opinião pública como uma escolha perigosa que representa um obstáculo ao processo de modernização do país. Usando dados etnográficos, argumento que a construção de dois modelos opostos, o tecnocrático e o holístico, pode resultar em experiências traumáticas para as mulheres que escolhem um parto domiciliar mas acabam por dar à luz num hospital. Criticadas pelo pessoal médico, pelos meios de comunicação e pelo ambiente social, estas mães holísticas vivem sentimentos de culpa e/ou sentem-se inadequadas porque não foram capazes de dar à luz em casa

YouTubers' social functions and their influence on pre-adolescence

This study focuses on the relationship between preadolescents and youtubers, with the objective of observing how tweens integrate youtubers as referents of a teen digital culture. From a socio-psychological and communicological perspective, a mixed methodological design was applied to carry out the audience study, which was divided into two parts: a quantitative analysis of the audience via a survey administered to 1,406 eleven-twelve year old students of Catalan Secondary Schools, and a qualitative analysis of the preadolescence audience using three focus groups. The quantitative data was analysed with SPSS and the qualitative data with the help of the Atlas.ti software. The results demonstrate that tweens consider youtubers as referents for entertainment and for closeness to a teen digital culture, but not really as a role models or bearers of values as influencers. Also, preadolescents show some dimensions of Media Literacy, since they recognise youtubers’ commercial strategies and their role as actors and professionals. The study notes gender bias in some aspects, and is an introduction to observation of the social functions of youtubers amongst teenagers, individuals who are in the process of constructing their identity and on the point of becoming young adults

Birthing matters in Portugal: introduction

In this introduction to the collection “Birthing matters in Portugal,” the contributions of anthropology to the understanding of childbirth as social practice are outlined. Portugal is a country with one of the highest rates of medical intervention in childbirth in Europe, and widespread and diverse opposition to current medicalised approaches to birthing care in Portugal are becoming increasingly visible, yet the “alternative” practice of homebirth exists in a legal void. The introduction provides a summary of the historical emergence of the current situation, which has scarcely been explored to date by social science scholars. This colelction of articles is an attempt to bridge the present gap in knowledge by showcasing new anthropological research from Portugal on pregnancy and childbirth, offering analyses of birth which go beyond generalising descriptions of the oppositional discourses of specific social actors (e. g. doctors, midwives, homebirthers), and instead analyse the various reflections, collaborations, contestations and contradictions, in particular situations and settings. The experiences of women are foregrounded. The contribution of each of the four papers in the collection is described.Nesta introdução ao dossier “A importância do parto em Portugal” são apresentadas as contribuições da antropologia para a compreensão do parto como prática social. Portugal apresenta uma das taxas mais altas da Europa de intervenção médica no parto, e uma ampla e diversificada oposição às atuais abordagens medicalizadas do parto em Portugal está a tornar-se cada vez mais visível; no entanto, a prática “alternativa” do parto domiciliar existe num vazio legal. Esta introdução fornece um resumo histórico da forma como a situação atual surgiu, o que até agora praticamente não foi explorado nas ciências sociais. O dossiê é uma tentativa de colmatar a atual lacuna no conhecimento, apresentando novas pesquisas antropológicas sobre gravidez e parto em Portugal, as quais oferecem novas análises que vão além da descrição generalizada dos discursos de oposição de atores sociais específicos (por exemplo, médicos, parteiras, pessoas que experienciaram partos domiciliares) e, em vez disso, analisam as várias reflexões, colaborações, contestações e contradições que emergem em situações e contextos particulares e, em especial, pondo a experiência das mulheres em primeiro plano

Very early rheumatoid arthritis is the major predictor of major outcomes: clinical ACR remission and radiographic non-progression

OBJECTIVES: To identify predictors of clinical remission as well as of no x-ray progression in a cohort of early rheumatoid arthritis (ERA) treated with a tight-control protocol. METHODS: A total of 121 consecutive patients with ERA were treated to reach European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) and/or American College of Rheumatology (ACR) clinical remission with methotrexate (MTX) for 3 months, then with a combination with anti-tumour necrosis factor if the patient did not achieve a 44-joint Disease Activity Score (DAS44) ≤2.4. At baseline and after 12 months all the patients had hand and foot joint radiographs. Very early rheumatoid arthritis (VERA) was defined as a disease with symptoms of less than 12 weeks. RESULTS: In all, 46.3% of the patients reached DAS remission and 24.8% achieved ACR remission. More than 60% of patients reached remission with MTX. Male sex and an erythrocyte sedimentation rate <35 mm/h at onset arose as significant predictors of EULAR remission, while VERA disease was the only predictor of ACR remission. At baseline, 28.1% of the patients were erosive. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that the only independent predictor of erosiveness was 'not having VERA disease'. After 12 months, VERA was the only factor predicting a lack of new erosions. CONCLUSIONS: VERA represents the best therapeutic opportunity in clinical practice to achieve a complete remission and to stop the erosive course of rheumatoid arthritis

A Unique Case of the Transformation of a Hepatic Leiomyoma into Leiomyosarcoma with Pancreatic Metastases: Review of the Literature with Case Presentation

Primary hepatic leiomyoma (PHL) is a rare entity, with very few cases reported in the literature. Even more rarely, until now practically undescribed, is the transformation of a hepatic leiomyoma into leiomyosarcoma with pancreatic metastases. Here, we report a single case of the progression of PHL in primary hepatic leiomyosarcoma, with clinical–surgical and histopathological features, and we conducted a review of the literature of related cases that can be found

YouTubers' social functions and their influence on pre-adolescence

This study focuses on the relationship between preadolescents and youtubers, with the objective of observing how tweens integrate youtubers as referents of a teen digital culture. From a socio-psychological and communicological perspective, a mixed methodological design was applied to carry out the audience study, which was divided into two parts: a quantitative analysis of the audience via a survey administered to 1,406 eleven-twelve year old students of Catalan Secondary Schools, and a qualitative analysis of the preadolescence audience using three focus groups. The quantitative data was analysed with SPSS and the qualitative data with the help of the Atlas.ti software. The results demonstrate that tweens consider youtubers as referents for entertainment and for closeness to a teen digital culture, but not really as a role models or bearers of values as influencers. Also, preadolescents show some dimensions of Media Literacy, since they recognise youtubers’ commercial strategies and their role as actors and professionals. The study notes gender bias in some aspects, and is an introduction to observation of the social functions of youtubers amongst teenagers, individuals who are in the process of constructing their identity and on the point of becoming young adults