The sources of authority for shamanic speech : Examples from the Kham-Magar of Nepal

Among the Kham-Magar, an indigenous population of West Nepal, shamans end their long ritual chants with the promise to keep to the terms of the contract that bind human beings to the supernatural entities. In this paper I identify the sources of authority that allow the ritual specialists of this community to act as its spokespersons toward invisible partners. Taking up the debate initiated in the introduction to this special issue, I begin by confronting the notion of "social magic" that Bourdieu (1982:97-161) sees as the source of all authority, with the "discourse of magic" proposed by the linguist Tzvetan Todorov (1978:246-82), showing that the two approaches are less inconsistent than might first appear to be the case: both suggest that the efficacy of ritual speech rests on deception. The second part of the paper turns to Kham-Magar ethnography; it examines the staging of the sources of shamanic authority in the ceremony of consecration of a new shaman. I partly challenge Bourdieu's (1982:20) vision that ritual techniques are mainly techniques of domination, ensuring that the dominant power is reproduced, rather than being a source of authority for ritual specialists: "Rituals represent the limit of all situations of imposition1 where, through the application of a technical competence, however imperfect, a primarily social competence is exercised: the competence of the speaker who is authorized by his or her group to speak with authority." The third part looks precisely into the "competence of the speaker," shamanic speech itself, for possible sources of his or her ritual authority. I explore the pragmatic effects of the ritual use of language, including a reflexive definition of the performer. I argue that these techniques set up the conditions for the emergence of a transcendent authority.Issue title: Authoritative Speech in the Himalayas. Anne de Sales is an anthropologist, who holds the position of Senior Researcher in the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). Her publications on Nepal include a monograph on an ethnic minority, the Kham-Magar, and numerous articles on shamanic practices and oral literature. Since 1999 her publications have also addressed a range of anthropological issues concerning the impact of the Maoist insurrection on rural Nepal

Words of truth : Authority and agency in ritual and legal speeches in the Himalayas

This issue of Oral Tradition presents a collection of anthropological studies on the sources of authority for ritual and legal speech in the Himalayan region. Its goal is twofold: first, to shed new light on a region whose diversity of oral traditions has so far resisted comparative studies; and second, to reconsider two major theories of language communication that confront linguistics and sociology.Issue title: Authoritative Speech in the Himalayas. Marie Lecomte-Tilouine is senior researcher at Centre de Recherche en Ethnomusicologie and member of the Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Sociale, Centre de Recherche en Ethnomusicologie/ Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales/College de France, Paris, France. She has coordinated several collective research programs in Nepal and the Western Himalayas (Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh). She is presently heading, in collaboration with Anne de Sales, a program on the modalities of "presentification" (or production of presence) of invisible powers in the Himalaya, funded by the French National Agency for Research (ANR). Her books include: Hindu Kingship, Ethnic Revival and Maoist Rebellion in Nepal (2009), Bards and Mediums: History, Culture and Politics in the Central himalayan Kingdoms (2009), Nature, Culture and Religion at the Crossroads of Asia (2010), and Revolution in Nepal: An Anthropological and Historical Approach to the People's War (2013). Anne de Sales is an anthropologist, who holds the position of Senior Researcher in the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). Her publications on Nepal include a monograph on an ethnic minority, the Kham-Magar, and numerous articles on shamanic practices and oral literature. Since 1999 her publications have also addressed a range of anthropological issues concerning the impact of the Maoist insurrection on rural Nepal

Philippe Ramirez, De la disparition des chefs. Une anthropologie politique népalaise. Paris, CNRS, 2000.

Voici le premier livre d'anthropologie politique népalaise. Non que les ethnologues qui étudient le pays depuis une quarantaine d'années n'aient jamais traité ces questions. Nombreuses sont les monographies où sont analysées les relations politiques en jeu dans les sociétés qu'elles décrivent. Mais ces relations sont le plus souvent appréhendées par le biais du rituel et de la religion, champ d'étude qui a dominé l'anthropologie himalayenne. Il y a à cela une bonne raison, à savoir qu'a..

Balikci Anna, Lamas, Shamans and Ancestors. Village Religion in Sikkim

Les relations que les grandes religions entretiennent avec les pratiques religieuses locales constituent un des domaines privilégiés de la recherche en anthropologie pour de bonnes raisons: il faut en effet prendre en compte des données non seulement d’ordre religieux mais aussi historique, économique, sociologique et politique afin de saisir ces phénomènes complexes et l’anthropologue s’est fait une spécialité de combiner ces différentes approches, souvent grâce à une longue expérience de te..

Le mythe de Shangrila

Le premier objectif de cet article est de mettre en regard une certaine perception populaire du Népal comme un Shangrila avec quelques éléments de sa réalité historique, de manière à souligner que la révolution à laquelle nous assistons depuis 1990, et dont l’insurrection populaire d’avril 2006 est l’expression la plus récente, fait partie d’un processus plus long encore d’émergence de la nation népalaise. Le second objectif est de mettre en valeur l’inscription particulière, dans ce petit pays, de certains désordres mondiaux (difficulté de la genèse démocratique, revendications ethniques, guérilla révolutionnaire, échec du développement, émigration).The primary aim of this paper is to contrast the popular image of Nepal as a Shangri La with the stark reality of the country’s history. Thus the revolution that began in 1990, culminating in the popular uprising of April 2006, is seen as a chapter in the lengthy process of the emergence of the Nepalese nation. The article then highlights these developments as local manifestations of global disorders, such as the difficulty of establishing democracy, ethnic factionalism, guerrilla insurgency, the failure of development and large-scale economic out-migration

Arnaud Esquerre, Théorie des événements extraterrestres. Essai sur le récit fantastique

Plus de 1 500 récits de témoins d’événements extraterrestres couvrant une période de 60 ans (1952-2012) sont archivés par le Groupe d’études et d’informations sur les phénomènes aérospatiaux non identifiés (Geipan), qui dépend du Centre national d’études spatiales (Cnes). Sur la base de ce corpus entré dans le domaine public, Arnaud Esquerre élabore une théorie des événements extraterrestres qu’il expose en deux parties. Dans la première, il s’attache à montrer que ces histoires, où les descr..

Philippe Ramirez, De la disparition des chefs. Une anthropologie politique népalaise. Paris, CNRS, 2000.

Voici le premier livre d'anthropologie politique népalaise. Non que les ethnologues qui étudient le pays depuis une quarantaine d'années n'aient jamais traité ces questions. Nombreuses sont les monographies où sont analysées les relations politiques en jeu dans les sociétés qu'elles décrivent. Mais ces relations sont le plus souvent appréhendées par le biais du rituel et de la religion, champ d'étude qui a dominé l'anthropologie himalayenne. Il y a à cela une bonne raison, à savoir qu'a..

Corporate response to climate change:language, power and symbolic construction

Purpose – The objective of this paper is to explore corporate communications related to climate change in both a voluntary and mandatory setting. Adopting a critical perspective, the paper examines how companies who participated in the voluntary UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS) and the UK Government’s mandatory Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC) positioned themselves within the climate change debate. In particular, our analysis draws attention to how companies, through their communicative practice, helped to constitute and reproduce the structure of the field in which they operate. Design/Methodology/Approach – A context-sensitive discursive analysis of 99 stand-alone reports produced by companies participating in the UK ETS and CRC over a nine-year period. Our analysis is informed by Thompson’s (1990) depth-hermeneutic framework, which mediates the connection between linguistic strategies and the institutional field. Findings - Our analysis suggests that companies tended to adopt particular linguistic strategies in their communications related to climate change. For example, the strategy of ‘rationalization’ was employed in order to emphasise the organisational ‘opportunities’ resulting from climate change; in this sense, companies sought to exploit climate crises in order to advance a doctrine that endorsed market-based solutions. A noteworthy finding was that in the mandatory CRC period, there was a notable shift towards the employment of the strategies that Thompson (1990) refers to as ‘differentiation’ - whereby companies attempted to displace responsibility by presenting either government or suppliers as barriers to progress. Originality/Value – This paper explores how disclosure on climate change evolved while organisations participate in voluntary and compulsory climate change initiatives. In this respect, the analysis is informed by the social and political context in which the disclosure was produced

Influence of growth modulation on the effective permeability of the vertebral end plate. A porcine experimental scoliosis model

Background: Abnormal mechanical loading occurs in scoliosis as compared to normal spines. Intervertebral disc degeneration has been correlated with alteration of bone density in adjacent vertebral bodies. How vertebral end plate remodels in scoliosis and the consequences on disc homeostasis are not well understood. Permeability is a relevant physical measure to quantify mass transport in porous media. We hypothesized that effective permeability of the vertebral end plate was modified by growth modulation in a scoliosis animal model. Methods: Flexible asymmetric posterior instrumentation was undertaken on six healthy four-week-old pigs. Two sets of left pedicle screws were inserted and connected with a stainless steel cable. After two months, the apical intervertebral unit and three units located cranially and caudally, were harvested. One central and two lateral specimens were investigated using a previously validated method for measuring permeability. Findings: A three-dimensional deformity was obtained in all six animals with an average of 42 degrees right thoracic curve. 44 degrees lordosis and 21 degrees rotation. Permeability was significantly greater in the center of the end plates than in the periphery and it was decreased by -45% towards the apex of the deformity. Fluid flow direction did not play a significant role. No significant difference was found between the convex side and the concave side. Interpretation: The end plate is a crucial zone for diffusive and convective transport and we showed in a scoliosis animal model that a growth modulation may decrease its effective permeability. The proposed methodology and associated results could help to understand degenerative changes in human spine

Whole-exome sequencing in osteosarcoma reveals important heterogeneity of genetic alterations

BACKGROUND: Whole-genome sequencing studies have recently shown that osteosarcomas (OSs) display high rates of structural variation, i.e. they contain many somatic mutations and copy number alterations. TP53 and RB1 show recurrent somatic alterations in concordant studies, suggesting that they could be key players in bone oncogenesis. PATIENTS AND METHODS: we carried out whole-genome sequencing of DNA from seven high-grade OS samples matched with normal tissue from the same patients. RESULTS: We confirmed the presence of genetic alterations of the TP53 (including novel unreported mutations) and RB1 genes. Most interestingly, we identified a total of 84 point mutations and 4 deletions related to 82 different genes in OS samples, of which only 15 have been previously reported. Interestingly, the number of mutated genes (ranging from 4 to 8) was lower in TP53mut cases compared with TP53wt cases (ranging from 14 to 45). This was also true for the mutated RB1 case. We also observed that a dedifferentiated OS harboring MDM2 amplification did not carry any other mutations. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that bone oncogenesis driven by TP53 or RB1 mutations occurs on a background of relative genetic stability and that the dedifferentiated OS subtype represents a clinico-pathological entity with distinct oncogenic mechanisms and thus requires different therapeutic managemen