Bringing the Dead Home: Hindu Invitation Rituals in Tamil South India

2021 ◽  
Vol 89 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-142
Author(s):  
Amy L Allocco
Keyword(s):  
South India ◽  
Human Host ◽  
Sacred Texts ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The World ◽  
The Dead

AbstractDrawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Tamil-speaking South India, this article presents one Hindu invitation ritual to return dead relatives known as pūvāṭaikkāri to the world of the living and install them as household deities. This two-day ceremony demonstrates that prevailing scholarly perceptions of death and what follows it in Hindu traditions have constrained our ability to appreciate other models for ritual relationships between the living and the dead. These vernacular rituals call the dead back into the world, convince them to possess a human host, and persuade them to be permanently installed in the family’s domestic shrine so they may protect and sustain living kin. Rather than aiming to irrevocably separate the dead from the living, these rites are instead oriented toward eventual conjunction with the dead and therefore reveal a fundamentally different picture than that articulated in the majority of Hinduism’s sacred texts and scholarly accounts.

scholarly journals Global Migration, Local Communities and the Absent State: Resentment and Resignation on the Italian Island of Lampedusa

Sociology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 591-608 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michela Franceschelli
Keyword(s):  
Local Community ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Global Migration ◽  
Local Public Services ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
The World ◽  
Socially Situated ◽  
Deep Sense

This article draws on the case of the Italian island of Lampedusa to explore how global migration nurtures populist discourses at the local community level. Lampedusa, a key transitory site for migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe, revealed strong concerns about the neglect of local public services and the mismanagement of migration. These concerns fed a deep sense of resentment that the islanders addressed toward the Italian state, resonating with the experiences of other communities around the world and reifying populist ideas. Based on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork, and disseminated by a film documentary, the article reveals how apparently similar global populist experiences disclose different local worries and long-term historical processes. In doing so, it unfolds the socially situated nature of Lampedusa’s populist resentment and so it contributes to a more thorough understanding of the relation between local communities and the national state as it is being reflected through debates on migration.

scholarly journals Putting Indian Christianities into Context: Biographies of Christian Conversion in a Leprosy Colony

2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 1134-1159 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAMES STAPLES
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
South India ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Social Positioning ◽  
Material Gain ◽  
Positive Sense ◽  
Per Se

AbstractGandhian andHindutva-inspired discourses around conversions to Christianity in India over-simplify the historical nexus of relations between missionaries, converts and the colonial state. Challenging the view that conversions were ever only about material gain, this paper draws on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with leprosy-affected people in South India to consider the role that conversion has also played in establishing alternative, often positively construed, identities for those who came to live in leprosy colonies from the mid twentieth century onwards. The paper draws out the distinctive values associated with a Christian identity in India, exploring local Christianities as sets of practices through which, for example, a positive sense of belonging might be established for those otherwise excluded, rather than being centred upon personal faith and theologyper se. Biographical accounts are drawn upon to document and analyse some of the on-the-ground realities, and the different implications—depending on one's wider social positioning—of converting from Hinduism to Christianity in South India.

scholarly journals SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Elicits Cell Signaling in Human Host Cells: Implications for Possible Consequences of COVID-19 Vaccines

Vaccines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
Yuichiro J. Suzuki ◽  
Sergiy G. Gychka
Keyword(s):  
Cell Signaling ◽  
Neutralizing Antibodies ◽  
Host Cells ◽  
Spike Protein ◽  
Healthy Individuals ◽  
Experimental Animal Models ◽  
Human Host ◽  
The World ◽  
Long Term Consequences

The world is suffering from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). SARS-CoV-2 uses its spike protein to enter the host cells. Vaccines that introduce the spike protein into our body to elicit virus-neutralizing antibodies are currently being developed. In this article, we note that human host cells sensitively respond to the spike protein to elicit cell signaling. Thus, it is important to be aware that the spike protein produced by the new COVID-19 vaccines may also affect the host cells. We should monitor the long-term consequences of these vaccines carefully, especially when they are administered to otherwise healthy individuals. Further investigations on the effects of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein on human cells and appropriate experimental animal models are warranted.

Anthropology as Method: North Korea at a Distance

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-203
Author(s):  
Sonia Ryang
Keyword(s):  
North Korea ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The World

Abstract North Korea is one of a very small number of countries in the world that an anthropologist has not set foot in with the purpose of conducting long-term ethnographic fieldwork. Given the country’s closed nature, anthropology seems to be the least qualified discipline with which to approach North Korea. Upon closer examination, however, this might not be the case; anthropology may offer unexpected advantages, not only permitting us to study North Korea but also to reflect on aspects of our own societies and cultures with a critical eye. This article explores both the challenges to be faced and the rewards to be gained by an anthropologist studying North Korea.

scholarly journals Anthropology from Home

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-52
Author(s):  
Magdalena Góralska
Keyword(s):  
Physical Contact ◽  
Foreseeable Future ◽  
Social Anthropology ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Digital Ethnography ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The World ◽  
Critical Insight ◽  
Insight Into

The coronavirus pandemic has made ethnographic fieldwork, as traditionally conceived in anthropology, temporarily impossible to conduct. Facing long-term limitations to mobility and physical contact, which will challenge our research practices for the foreseeable future, social anthropology has to adjust to these new circumstances. This article discusses and reflects on what digital ethnography can off er to researchers across the world, providing critical insight into the method and offering advice to beginners in the field. Last, but not least, the article introduces the phrase ‘anthropology from home’ to talk about research in the pandemic times – that is, geographically restricted but digitally enabled.

Thoughts on the Long-Term Strategy, Science and Democracy

2006 ◽  
pp. 4-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Abalkin
Keyword(s):  
Strategy Development ◽  
Russian Science ◽  
Global Trends ◽  
The World ◽  
World Development ◽  
Crucial Condition

The article covers unified issues of the long-term strategy development, the role of science as well as democracy development in present-day Russia. The problems of budget proficit, the Stabilization Fund issues, implementation of the adopted national projects, an increasing role of regions in strengthening the integrity and prosperity of the country are analyzed. The author reveals that the protection of businessmen and citizens from the all-embracing power of bureaucrats is the crucial condition of democratization of the society. Global trends of the world development and expert functions of the Russian science are presented as well.

Coal's Persistence in the Capitalist World-Economy

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul K. Gellert ◽  
Paul S. Ciccantell
Keyword(s):  
World Economy ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Energy Transition ◽  
Ecological Modernization ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Coal Consumption ◽  
The World ◽  
Capitalist World Economy ◽  
Capitalist World

Predominant analyses of energy offer insufficient theoretical and political-economic insight into the persistence of coal and other fossil fuels. The dominant narrative of coal powering the Industrial Revolution, and Great Britain's world dominance in the nineteenth century giving way to a U.S.- and oil-dominated twentieth century, is marred by teleological assumptions. The key assumption that a complete energy “transition” will occur leads some to conceive of a renewable-energy-dominated twenty-first century led by China. After critiquing the teleological assumptions of modernization, ecological modernization, energetics, and even world-systems analysis of energy “transition,” this paper offers a world-systems perspective on the “raw” materialism of coal. Examining the material characteristics of coal and the unequal structure of the world-economy, the paper uses long-term data from governmental and private sources to reveal the lack of transition as new sources of energy are added. The increases in coal consumption in China and India as they have ascended in the capitalist world-economy have more than offset the leveling-off and decline in some core nations. A true global peak and decline (let alone full substitution) in energy generally and coal specifically has never happened. The future need not repeat the past, but technical, policy, and movement approaches will not get far without addressing the structural imperatives of capitalist growth and the uneven power structures and processes of long-term change of the world-system.

Ghost, Broken Narratives and the Art of Dying

2013 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 15-22
Author(s):  
Lars Rømer
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The World ◽  
Art Of Dying ◽  
The Dead

This article investigates how experiences of ghosts can be seen as a series of broken narratives. By using cases from contemporary as well 19th century Denmark I will argue that ghosts enter the world of the living as sensations that question both common sense understanding and problematize the unfinished death. Although ghosts have been in opposition to both science and religion in Denmark at least since the reformation I will exemplify how people deal with the broken narrative of ghosts in ways that incorporate and mimic techniques of both the scientist and the priest. Ghosts, thus, initiate a dialogue between the dead and the living concerning the art of dying that will enable both to move on.

Covid-19 and Mining industry

2020 ◽  
pp. 10-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
V.B. Kondratiev
Keyword(s):  
Mining Industry ◽  
Commodity Markets ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Mining Companies ◽  
The World ◽  
Commodity Demand ◽  
Long Term Impact

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the commodity markets and mining industry around the world in different ways. Mining company’s operations have been hit by coronavirus outbreaks and government-mandated production stops. Demand for many commodities remains low. This paper examines the potential long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on future commodity demand, mining prospects, as well as tactical and strategic steps by mining companies to overcome the current crisis quickly and effectively.

Unmaking and Remaking the World in Long-Term Solitary Confinement

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 16
Author(s):  
Lisa Guenther
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Solitary Confinement ◽  
Hunger Strike ◽  
State Prison ◽  
Legal Documents ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Collective Resistance ◽  
Civil Death

In The Body in Pain, Elaine Scarry analyzes the structure of torture as an unmaking of the world in which the tools that ought to support a person’s embodied capacities are used as weapons to break them down. The Security Housing Unit (SHU) of California’s Pelican Bay State Prison functions as a weaponized architecture of torture in precisely this sense; but in recent years, prisoners in the Pelican Bay Short Corridor have re-purposed this weaponized architecture as a tool for remaking the world through collective resistance. This resistance took the form of a hunger strike in which prisoners exposed themselves to the possibility of biological death in order to contest the social and civil death of solitary confinement. By collectively refusing food, and by articulating the meaning and motivation of this refusal in articles, interviews, artwork, and legal documents, prisoners reclaimed and expanded their perceptual, cognitive, and expressive capacities for world-making, even in a space of systematic torture.

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