Psychological Methods and Anthropological Problems

Africa ◽  
1937 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 401-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. C. Bartlett
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Anthropological Research ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Made In

Opening ParagraphIn this paper I do not propose to try to discuss those contributions made in the name of psychology to anthropological research and explanation which are already well known. Most of these have been made in the interests of some general theory. They involve assumptions concerning which there is legitimate and sharp division of opinion. My task is the less controversial one of attempting a survey of developments of psychological research which have taken place during the last ten or fifteen years, with a view to indicating the ways in which they may be of service to the anthropologist.

scholarly journals Atheists

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah R. Schiavone ◽  
Will M Gervais
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
Cultural Origins ◽  
Made In ◽  
Do So

Atheists represent an inconspicuous minority, identifiable only by their disbelief in God(s). Despite being highly stigmatized and disliked, until recent scientific endeavors, little has been known about this group including why they don’t believe, how many people are atheists, and why they trigger intense reactions. Thus, this paper aims to synthesize what is known about atheists (so far), and to help explain the widespread negative attitudes and prejudice towards atheists; the possible cognitive, motivational, and cultural origins of disbelief; and the unique challenges facing the study of religious disbelievers. To do so, we will explore current findings in psychological research on atheism by considering the complex interactions of cultural learning, motivations, and core cognitive processes. Although significant scientific progress has been made in understanding the factors underlying atheism, there remains much to be explored in the domain of religious disbelief.

A Note on the Abomey Protectorate

Africa ◽  
1959 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 146-155
Author(s):  
C. W. Newbury
Keyword(s):  
Local Authority ◽  
French West Africa ◽  
Police Powers ◽  
Administrative Policy ◽  
Administrative Practice ◽  
Authority Structure ◽  
French Military ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
The Military ◽  
Made In

Opening ParagraphIn 1894 the military power of one of West Africa's most highly centralized kingdoms was broken. Six years later the last representative of the Fon dynasty which had ruled from Abomey since the early seventeenth century was deposed and exiled. Immediately after the conquest of Abomey by the French, the kingdom, somewhat reduced in area, was administered as a colonial protectorate. Attempts to rule through an indigenous paramountcy were not new in French West Africa: similar experiments were made in Senegal and in the Futa Jallon. But, compared with these better-known examples, Dahomey lacks a detailed account of administrative practice in its protectorates and a treatment of the nature of Abomey kingship at a time when the local authority structure was being reappraised by Europeans. The quick demise of an institution that had flourished for about 300 years and excited the wonder of traders and travellers calls for some explanation. How much of the Fon dynasty's fiscal and religious functions survived its loss of police powers, and by what methods did French administrators take its place?Part of the answer to these questions lies in the decline of Abomey control of coastal trade in the years immediately preceding the conquest—a factor, indeed, which aroused the dynasty to desperate measures and occasioned French military intervention. The rest of the explanation is to be found in the contradiction between ‘protectorate’, as administrative policy, and the administrative practice of French officials at Abomey.

Dietary Change in a Sudan Village following Locust Visitation

Africa ◽  
1949 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. L. Corkill
Keyword(s):  
Rainy Season ◽  
Sesame Seed ◽  
Dietary Change ◽  
Black Cotton Soil ◽  
Blue Nile ◽  
Acacia Gum ◽  
White Nile ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
The Village ◽  
Made In

Opening ParagraphThe village of Ulu lies at about latitude 10° N. between the White Nile and the Blue Nile in the southern part of the Fung area of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The surrounding country is mostly thin savannah on black cotton soil but there are occasional outcrops of laterite as at Ulu itself. Water-holes are found and may be made in the larger watercourses after these have dried up at the termination of the rainy season. The dry season is roughly December to May. The inhabitants of Ulu call themselves Fung and are black Moslems of a possibly aboriginal stock. Wandering Araboid nomads of the Mesallamia and other tribes with camels, cattle, sheep, and goats may be encountered visiting traditional grazing areas. The Fung of Ulu cultivate millet, cow-peas and sesame seed as subsistence crops and in normal times surplus is bartered with the nomads for animals and no doubt clarified butter also. A small amount of cash is obtained by the gathering of acacia gum which is disposed of through the local Arab merchant.

Mill′s Principle of Liberty

Philosophy ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 69 (270) ◽  
pp. 417-441
Author(s):  
Y. N. Chopra
Keyword(s):  
Supporting Evidence ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Made In

Although J. S. Mill′s essay On Liberty was intended by its author to be read as a self-contained work,1 and even though a careful reading would justify seeing it in this way, it has far too often been denied this right even by its defenders. There is a crucial distinction to be made between eliciting some point of substance from a particular work by an author and then turning to the rest of his work to throw further light on it, and employing other texts from the corpus of his writings to put the construction on certain things said in it which the work by itself cannot sustain, thus treating the former as essentially a fragment, albeit a most important fragment, of a whole.2 I would suggest that recourse to the latter course is justified only when the possibilities of treating it autarchically have already been explored. In this paper I propose to treat a celebrated text in the former way only because I believe that the results will show such an approach to be uniquely worthwhile, or at least fruitful enough to justify a paper conceived in this way. And, with a view to putting what I want to say about it in maximum focus I shall with one or two exceptions eschew giving supporting evidence from Mill′s other writings, even when this is permitted by the distinction I have made in this opening paragraph.

scholarly journals Alexander Shakhnarovich: A Genuine Scholar and a Wonderful Person

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-14
Author(s):  
Alexei D. Palkin
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
General Theory ◽  
Text Analysis ◽  
Capacity Development ◽  
Speech Development ◽  
Scientific School ◽  
Academic Advisor ◽  
Language Capacity ◽  
Child Speech ◽  
Made In

This article dwells on a number of episodes related to the last years of Alexander Shakhnarovich, an outstanding Russian psycholinguist and a talented academic advisor. Alexander Shakhnarovich is known primarily for his research in child speech. The periodisation of speech development in early childhood he worked out is of particular interest. The article pinpoints that Shakhnarovich’s research was not related solely to speech development in ontogenesis, but elucidated a broader range of issues from those of general theory, like the structure of language consciousness, to those of special purposes, like linguistic expertise in forensics, dialectology, intonation and modality, peculiarities of text analysis, etc. It was Shakhnarovich’s great experience in analysing child speech that helped him to explore other psycholinguistic trends. The scientist proved to be an expert both in psycholinguistic issues that were intertwined with pure linguistics and in the psychology of speech. Alexander Shakhnarovich was a remarkable proponent of Lev Vygotsky’s scientific school whose theoretical insights made in the first half of the 20th century underlay Shakhnarovich’s findings. It is noteworthy that both Shakhnarovich and Vygotsky probed into child speech attempting to make conclusions on language capacity development as a whole and to tap into the fundamental through the applied.

Marriage Customs of the Luo of Kenya

Africa ◽  
1950 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. E. Evans-Pritchard
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Political Structure ◽  
General Account ◽  
Marriage Customs ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Made In

Opening ParagraphThis paper forms part of a short general account of the Luo based on a rapid survey made in 1936. The survey was financed by the Leverhulme Grants Committee. An earlier part, describing the political structure of the Luo, has recently appeared in another journal.Apart from information provided by Father Hartmann and a fuller account by Mr. K. C. Shaw, early accounts of Luo marriage are slight, and in some cases misleading. Mr. Shaw's account covers a good part of the ground covered by the present paper, but it is useful to have two independent accounts, especially as both were written from information obtained through interpreters. When I went to Kenya I did not expect to visit the Luo and I had not therefore read Mr. Shaw's article. Mr. Shaw and I disagree in a number of particulars in the overlapping parts of our papers. It does not follow from this that either of us is wrong in our statements because, as Mr. Shaw points out, there is some variation in local custom in the different tribes of Luoland. My own information on this particular subject was mostly obtained from the Alego tribe of Central Kavirondo. In the main I have followed the account given me by Pastor Ezekiel of that tribe. In doing so I have omitted much detail.

The Manipulation of Ritual among Plateau Nigerians

Africa ◽  
1963 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis P. Conant
Keyword(s):  
Technological Diffusion ◽  
Northern Nigeria ◽  
Regular Feature ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
The Many ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Ritual Context ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Manipulative Techniques ◽  
Made In

Opening ParagraphDespite great linguistic and cultural diversity, sustained political relations among the many different groups of the Jos-Bauchi Plateau are a notably regular feature of this area of Northern Nigeria. That these relations are often expressed in a ritual context is an observation frequently made in the literature on the Plateau Pagans. My intention here is to specify some of the regular ways in which ritual paraphernalia may be manipulated for a variety of secular purposes (often political) among communities of such very different kinds as those of the Plateau mountain people and neighbouring plainsmen. These manipulative techniques appear to be important in the analysis of such widely different phenomena as the adoption of Islam, technological diffusion, the spread of art styles, and, more generally, the successful persistence, through time, of relations between societies of very different levels of complexity and organization. My data are drawn from field experience among Barawa mountain settlements and the Bankalawa–Jarawa plains communities of Dass Independent District, Bauchi Province, on the east-south-eastern slopes of the Plateau.

Approaches to the economy of colonial Annaba, 1870–1920

Africa ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 497-523
Author(s):  
David Prochaska
Keyword(s):  
Department Store ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Steel Mill ◽  
Economic Influences ◽  
The Government ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Made In

Opening ParagraphThe Annaba economy today is Algerian. It is run entirely by Algerians except for the steel mill outside of town. The goods provided are tailored to its mostly Algerian customers (jillabas, harissa, henna), plus selected Western goods made in Algeria or imported from Europe (plastic buckets and gas bottles, Peugeot sedans for those with the money and connections, sitcoms for the few with TVs, commercial films for everyone). Goods are dispensed primarily in a modern suq, or bazaar, although the government also runs a supermarket and department store. French and other Europeans are physically absent from Annaba today for the most part, but Western economic influences persist, like only partly covered-over layers of historical sediment laid down orignally in the colonial period.

scholarly journals On the convergence of certain series involving the fourier constants of a function

1912 ◽  
Vol 87 (594) ◽  
pp. 217-224 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Fourier Series ◽  
General Theory ◽  
Bounded Function ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Careful Scrutiny ◽  
Associated Function ◽  
Fourier Constant ◽  
Made In

1. In a paper “On the Fourier Constants of a Function,” published in the ‘Proceedings’ of this Society, I showed how certain theorems, previously given by myself, might be employed to obtain formulæ for the sums of certain series involving the Fourier constants of a function. In the case in which the function is bounded, it was only proved that the formulæ hold whenever the series converge, or, more generally, when the summation is performed in the Cesàro manner (index unity). In a more recent paper, also published in the ‘Proceedings’ of this Society, “On a Mode of Generating Fourier Series,” I showed incidentally that the formulæ are still applicable when the function has every power of index less than 1 + p summable, provided only the index q , which occurs in the formulæ in question, is greater than 1/(1 + p ). Here again the theorem, as stated, contained the restriction that the summation was to be made in the Cesàro way. The main object of the papers in question was, in fact, to explain how certain methods might be employed, and these methods were in themselves inadequate for the purpose of removing the restriction. The theorems used involve the general theory of the integration of the Fourier series of a function term-by-term, when multiplied by another function. The coefficient n -q in the series Ʃ n = 1 n -q a n and Ʃ n = 1 n -q b n considered, is, however, itself the typical Fourier constant both of an odd and an even function, which may be expected to possess special properties bearing on the matter in hand. A careful scrutiny of these properties has accordingly enabled me to take the step of removing the restriction above explained. The former of the main results, above stated, may be otherwise expressed by saying that, though the Fourier series of a bounded function need not converge, even if the function be continuous, it, and its allied series, will be made to converge, by dividing its coefficients by any power, however small, of the index denoting their respective places in the series. This affords a convenient necessary test that a given Fourier series is the Fourier series of a bounded function. In the same way we have a corresponding necessary condition that a Fourier series should have a function whose (l+ p )th power is summable for associated function.

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