Download or read book Ritual Performances as Authenticating Practices written by Michael Rudolph and published by LIT Verlag Münster. This book was released on 2008 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This present study examines the dynamics of the contemporary rituals of Taiwanese Aborigines following the change of this people's self-perception in times of Taiwanese multiculturalism and nativism. Based on materials collected in many years of participating observation, the book scrutinizes the efficacy of these rituals within the new religious, socio-cultural, and political context - a context that today is not only impacted by local and national, but also by global influences. Are these rituals mere folkloristic representations of culture, or do they have deeper implications for society and people's identities? The book argues that the often newly invented or re-invented rituals play a crucial role regarding the generation, confirmation and transformation of social reality in the new socio-political context.
Download or read book The Affect of Difference written by Christopher P. Hanscom and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2016-05-31 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Affect of Difference is a collection of essays offering a new perspective on the history of race and racial ideologies in modern East Asia. Contributors approach this subject through the exploration of everyday culture from a range of academic disciplines, each working to show how race was made visible and present as a potential means of identification. By analyzing artifacts from diverse media including travelogues, records of speech, photographs, radio broadcasts, surgical techniques, tattoos, anthropometric postcards, fiction, the popular press, film and soundtracks—an archive that chronicles the quotidian experiences of the colonized—their essays shed light on the politics of inclusion and exclusion that underpinned Japanese empire. One way this volume sets itself apart is in its use of affect as a key analytical category. Colonial politics depended heavily on the sentiments and moods aroused by media representations of race, and authorities promoted strategies that included the colonized as imperial subjects while simultaneously excluding them on the basis of "natural" differences. Chapters demonstrate how this dynamic operated by showing the close attention of empire to intimate matters including language, dress, sexuality, family, and hygiene. The focus on affect elucidates the representational logic of both imperialist and racist discourses by providing a way to talk about inequalities that are not clear cut, to show gradations of power or shifts in definitions of normality that are otherwise difficult to discern, and to present a finely grained perspective on everyday life under racist empire. It also alerts us to the subtle, often unseen ways in which imperial or racist affects may operate beyond the reach of our methodologies. Taken together, the essays in this volume bring the case of Japanese empire into comparative proximity with other imperial situations and contribute to a deeper, more sophisticated understanding of the role that race has played in East Asian empire.
Download or read book Outcasts of Empire written by Paul D. Barclay and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction : empires and indigenous peoples, global transformation and the limits of international society -- From wet diplomacy to scorched earth : the Taiwan expedition, the Guardline and the Wushe rebellion -- The long durée and the short circuit : gender, language and territory in the making of indigenous Taiwan -- Tangled up in red : textiles, trading posts and ethnic bifurcation in Taiwan -- The geobodies within a geobody : the visual economy of race-making and indigeneity
Download or read book Ritual Heritage and Identity written by Christiane Brosius and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2020-11-29 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the importance of ritual and ritual theory to discourses of authenticity and originality, thereby deepening our insight into concepts of cultural heritage, identity and nation in a globalised world. The volume is the first interdisciplinary attempt to understand the significance of rituals and related performative traditions in the creation of grounded cultural identities, ‘home’ and heritage as geographically experienceable locations. It assembles perspectives from social and cultural anthropology, performance studies, education and arts that can deal with the politics of revitalisation and preservation of ritualised traditions. While some chapters in this book emphasise on the ritualisation of cultural heritage by concentrating on power relations and politics, as well as actual processes of identification, especially for marginalised ethnic groups or migrant communities, others explore how rituals as intangible heritage are strategically employed by different groups all over the world to make their claims public and to improve and negotiate their position on a local, national or global platform. This book recognises ritualised performances as transnational and cross-cultural phenomena, which are not only tied to and defined via national territories and identities but which also demand new theoretical and methodological approaches towards the discussion of rituals and heritage.
Download or read book Legal and Rhetorical Foundations of Economic Globalization written by Keren Wang and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-06-13 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the subtle ways in which rhetorics of sacrifice have been re-appropriated into the workings of the global political economy in the 21st century. It presents an in-depth analysis of the ways in which ritual practices are deployed, under a diverse set of political and legal contexts, as legitimation devices in rendering exploitative structures of the prevailing political-economic system to appear inescapable, or even palatable. To this end, this work explores the deeper rhetorical and legal basis of late-capitalist governmentality by critically interrogating its mythical and ritual dimensions. The analysis gives due consideration to the contemporary incarnations of ritual sacrifice in the transnational neoliberal discourse: from those exploitative yet inescapable contractual obligations, to calendrical multi-billion dollar 'offerings' to the insatiable needs of 'too-big-to-fail' corporations. The first part of the book provides a working interpretative framework for understanding the politics of ritual sacrifice – one that not only accommodates multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary knowledge of ritual practices, but that can also be employed in the integrated analysis of sacrificial rituals as political rhetoric under divergent historical and societal contexts. The second conducts a series of case studies that cut across the wide variability of ritual public takings in late-capitalism. The book concludes by highlighting several key common doctrines of public ritual sacrifice which have been broadly observed in its case studies. These common doctrines tend to reflect the rhetorical and legal foundations for public takings under hegemonic market-driven governance. They define 'appropriate and proper' occasions for suspending pre-existing legal protections to regularize otherwise transgressive transfers of rights and possessions for the 'greater good' of the economic order.
Download or read book Tattoo Traditions of Asia written by Lars Krutak and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2024-10-31 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For millennia, tattoos have documented the history of humanity one painful mark at a time. They form a visual language on the skin, expressing an individual’s desires and fears as well as cultural values, family ties, and spiritual beliefs on the surfaces of the body. The Indigenous peoples of Asia have created some of the world’s oldest and most distinctive tattoos, but their many contributions to body art and practice have been largely overlooked. Tattoo Traditions of Asia is the first single volume dedicated to the anthropological study of an ancient cultural practice and artform that spans many countries and societies, ancestral lands, and contemporary communities across the continent and its islands. This richly illustrated survey combines the author's twenty years of fieldwork, interviewing hundreds of Indigenous tattoo bearers and contemporary tattoo practitioners, with painstaking research conducted in obscure archives throughout the region and elsewhere to break new ground on one of the least-understood mediums of Indigenous Asian expressive culture—a vital tradition to be celebrated, an inspirational story told in skin and ink.
Download or read book Indigenous Cultural Translation written by Darryl Sterk and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-05-01 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Indigenous Cultural Translation is about the process that made it possible to film the 2011 Taiwanese blockbuster Seediq Bale in Seediq, an endangered indigenous language. Seediq Bale celebrates the headhunters who rebelled against or collaborated with the Japanese colonizers at or around a hill station called Musha starting on October 27, 1930, while this book celebrates the grandchildren of headhunters, rebels, and collaborators who translated the Mandarin-language screenplay into Seediq in central Taiwan nearly eighty years later. As a "thick description" of Seediq Bale, this book describes the translation process in detail, showing how the screenwriter included Mandarin translations of Seediq texts recorded during the Japanese era in his screenplay, and then how the Seediq translators backtranslated these texts into Seediq, changing them significantly. It argues that the translators made significant changes to these texts according to the consensus about traditional Seediq culture they have been building in modern Taiwan, and that this same consensus informs the interpretation of the Musha Incident and of Seediq culture that they articulated in their Mandarin-Seediq translation of the screenplay as a whole. The argument more generally is that in building cultural consensus, indigenous peoples like the Seediq are "translating" their traditions into alternative modernities in settler states around the world.
Download or read book Truly Human written by Scott E. Simon and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2023-04-28 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sediq and Truku Indigenous peoples on the mountainous island of Formosa – today called Taiwan – say that their ancestors emerged in the beginning of time from Pusu Qhuni, a tree-covered boulder in the highlands. Living in the mountain forests, they observed the sacred law of Gaya, seeking equilibrium with other humans, the spirits, animals, and plants. They developed a politics in which each community preserved its autonomy and sharing was valued more highly than personal accumulation of goods or power. These lifeworlds were shattered by colonialism, capitalist development, and cultural imperialism in the twentieth century. Based on two decades of ethnographic field research, Truly Human portrays these peoples’ lifeworlds, teachings, political struggles for recognition, and relations with non-human animals. Taking seriously their ontological claims that Gaya offers moral guidance to all humans, Scott E. Simon reflects on what this particular form of Indigenous resurgence reveals about human rights, sovereignty, and the good of all kind. Truly Human contributes to a decolonizing anthropology at a time when all humans need Indigenous land-based teachings more than ever.
Download or read book Japanese Taiwan written by Andrew D. Morris and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-07-30 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Colonial agents worked for fifty years to make a Japanese Taiwan, using technology, culture, statistics, trade, and modern ideologies to remake their new territory according to evolving ideas of Japanese empire. Since the end of the Pacific War, this project has been remembered, imagined, nostalgized, erased, commodified, manipulated, idealized and condemned by different sectors of Taiwan's population. The volume covers a range of topics, including colonial-era photography, exploration, postwar deportation, sport, film, media, economic planning, contemporary Japanese influences on Taiwanese popular culture, and recent nostalgia for and misunderstandings about the colonial era. Japanese Taiwan provides an interdisciplinary perspective on these related processes of colonization and decolonization, explaining how the memories, scars and traumas of the colonial era have been utilized during the postwar period. It provides a unique critique of the 'Japaneseness' of the erstwhile Chinese Taiwan, thus bringing new scholarship to bear on problems in contemporary East Asian politics.
Download or read book International Perspective on Indigenous Religious Rights written by Claude Gélinas and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-12-18 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the status of indigenous religious rights in the world today? Despite important legal advances in the protection of indigenous religious beliefs and practices at the international and national levels, there are still many obstacles to the full implementation of these provisions. Using a unique large-scale comparative approach, this book aims to identify the fundamental issues that characterize the law of indigenous religions in several countries, as well as certain avenues that may prove useful in state implementation of the provisions of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples regarding practice, promotion, transmission, protection, and access to spiritual heritage.
Download or read book The Landscape of Historical Memory written by Kirk A. Denton and published by Hong Kong University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-01 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Landscape of Historical Memory explores the place of museums and memorial culture in the contestation over historical memory in post–martial law Taiwan. The book is particularly oriented toward the role of politics—especially political parties—in the establishment, administration, architectural design, and historical narratives of museums. It is framed around the wrangling between the “blue camp” (the Nationalist Party, or KMT, and its supporters) and the “green camp” (Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, and its supporters) over what facets of the past should be remembered and how they should be displayed in museums. Organized into chapters focused on particular types of museums and memorial spaces (such as archaeology museums, history museums, martyrs’ shrines, war museums, memorial halls, literature museums, ethnology museums, and ecomuseums), the book presents a broad overview of the state of museums in Taiwan in the past three decades. The case of Taiwan museums tells us much about Cold War politics and its legacy in East Asia; the role of culture, history, and memory in shaping identities in the “postcolonial” landscape of Taiwan; the politics of historical memory in an emergent democracy, especially in counterpoint to the politics of museums in the People’s Republic of China, which continues to be an authoritarian single party state; and the place of museums in a neoliberal economic climate. “This book offers unique insight into the configurations of international museum culture as manifested in the sociopolitical landscape of post–martial law Taiwan. Using case studies filled with telling details, Denton analyzes how museums both reflect and initiate cultural change. This work adds substantially to Taiwan studies and museology, with in-depth scholarship and innovative observations presented in a clear and compelling narrative.” —Joseph R. Allen, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities “This is a fascinating and meticulously researched survey of Taiwan’s museums. Denton has produced a book that is both scholarly and highly readable. It will appeal to a wide readership, encompassing social scientists specializing in Taiwan, students of Chinese or East Asian studies, observers of Taiwanese politics and the local cultural scene, and others besides.” —Edward Vickers, Kyushu University
Download or read book Making Islam Work written by Thijl Sunier and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-10-16 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The development of Islamic landscapes in Europe, is first and foremost related to Islamic authority. Religious authority relies on persuasiveness and deals with issues of truth, authenticity, legitimacy, trust, and ethics with reference to religious matters. This study argues that Islamic authority-making among European Muslims is a social and relational practice that is much broader and versatile than theological proficiency and personal status. It can also be conferred to objects, activities, and events. The book explores various ways in which Islamic authority is being constituted among Muslims in Western Europe with a particular focus on the role of ‘ordinary’ Muslims. This book is available in its entirety in Open Access.
Download or read book Religions of Asia in Practice written by Donald S. Lopez, Jr. and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 747 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed volumes of Princeton Readings in Religions present the remarkable range of all that is encompassed in the practice of religions, across the centuries and across the world. Religions of Asia in Practice: An Anthology brings together into a single volume the most important and fascinating selections from the volumes on Buddhism, India, China, Tibet, and Japan to give an overview of how religions have been lived by both ordinary and extraordinary people throughout the continent of Asia. These materials--many of which had never before been translated into any Western language--include ritual manuals, hagiographical and autobiographical writings, popular commentaries, instructions to children, poetry, and folktales. Each is preceded by a substantial introduction in which the translator discusses the text's history and influence and guides the reader through points of potential difficulty and particular interest. The volume includes, in addition, clear and compelling introductions to each of the major traditions. Religions of Asia in Practice: An Anthology offers a fascinating look at the spectrum of religious practices in Asia over almost three millennia. As such, it is ideally suited for use as a textbook in courses on world or Eastern religions as well as for the general reader.
Download or read book Religions of Tibet in Practice written by Donald S. Lopez, Jr. and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2007-03-25 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1997, Religions of Tibet in Practice is a landmark work--the first major anthology on the topic ever produced. This new edition--abridged to further facilitate course use--presents a stunning array of works that together offer an unparalleled view of the Tibetan religious landscape over the centuries. Organized thematically, the twenty-eight chapters are testimony to the vast scope of religious practice in the Tibetan world, past and present. Religions of Tibet in Practice remains a work of great value to scholars, students, and general readers.
Download or read book The history of emotions written by Rob Boddice and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2017-12-28 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces students and professional historians to the main areas of concern in the history of emotions. It discusses how the emotions intersect with other lines of historical research relating to power, practice, society and morality. Addressing criticism from within and without the discipline of history, the book offers a rigorous defence of this new approach, demonstrating its potential centrality to historiographical practice, as well as the importance of this kind of historical work for our general understanding of the human brain and the meaning of human experience.
Download or read book Ritual Performance and Politics in the Ancient Near East written by Lauren Ristvet and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Lauren Ristvet rethinks the narratives of state formation by investigating the interconnections between ritual, performance, and politics in the ancient Near East. She draws on a wide range of archaeological, iconographic, and cuneiform sources to show how ritual performance was not set apart from the real practice of politics; it was politics. Rituals provided an opportunity for elites and ordinary people to negotiate political authority. Descriptions of rituals from three periods explore the networks of signification that informed different societies. From circa 2600 to 2200 BC, pilgrimage made kingdoms out of previously isolated villages. Similarly, from circa 1900 to 1700 BC, commemorative ceremonies legitimated new political dynasties by connecting them to a shared past. Finally, in the Hellenistic period, the traditional Babylonian Akitu festival was an occasion for Greek-speaking kings to show that they were Babylonian and for Babylonian priests to gain significant power.
Download or read book Mortality Mourning and Mortuary Practices in Indigenous Australia written by Myrna Tonkinson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-03-02 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on ethnography of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across Australia, Mortality, Mourning and Mortuary Practices in Indigenous Australia focuses on the current ways in which indigenous people confront and manage various aspects of death. The contributors employ their contemporary and long-term anthropological fieldwork with indigenous Australians to construct rich accounts of indigenous practices and beliefs and to engage with questions relating to the frequent experience of death within the context of unprecedented change and premature mortality. The volume makes use of extensive empirical material to address questions of inequality with specific reference to mortality, thus contributing to the anthropology of indigenous Australia whilst attending to its theoretical, methodological and political concerns. As such, it will appeal not only to anthropologists but also to those interested in social inequality, the social and psychosocial consequences of death, and the conceptualization and manipulation of the relationships between the living and the dead.
