The staff of life: Food and female fertility in a West African society

Africa ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter M. Weil

Opening ParagraphThis paper is an examination of the dynamics of the kanyalangkafo, a cross-cultural fertility association. It first examines the changing economic and social environment of the Mandinka to clarify the factors relevant to the spread and acceptance of the fertility association.The second part of the paper describes the history and organization of the association.In the last part of the paper, the activities of the association and the ritually inverted sexual behaviour of its members are analyzed. Social integration is shown to be brought about in the presence of and partly because of the association and its activities. The integrative results include the manner in which the association organizes women and the social environment within which associational behaviour occurs. Models stemming from analyses of ritually inverted sexual behaviour are found to be generally supported by data from the Mandinka case.

Purpose of the study: To investigate the sociological dimension of social space structuring under the influence of territorial movements in the era of globalization based on the example of modern Russia. As the methodology for the study, the synthesis of E. Giddens’ theory was structured, its provisions on the topography of social space in the geographical plane. The paradigm of structuralist constructivism of P. Bourdieu was used as well, in which it was relevant for us to analyze habitus as a socio-geographical environment for the formation of institutional strategies of agents of social relationship. Factors that contribute to and hinder the adaptation of personality in the new social environment, were examined based on works by O. Toffler, U. Beck, V.I. Chuprov and Yu.A. Zubok. To determine the mechanism of the genesis and functioning of meanings in the new communicative environment, the authors relied on N. Luman's approach to self-identification and self-conference. In the process of analyzing the nature of trust in the institutional order in the context of globalization, the authors used works by A.V. Ivanov and S.A. Danilova who analyze the mechanisms of formation. The empirical basis for the article was a sociological study conducted on the basis of the Sociological Center of Kutafin Moscow State Law University.The article reveals the features of personality identification in a dynamic environment of interethnic and cross-cultural interactions, structured under the influence of territorial factors. The degree of conformity of the scale, the nature and depth of self-identification in various territorial planes of the social space are determined by the example of modern Russian society. Factors of social integration in the process of the formation of territorial identity both at the institutional level and in everyday life when constructing informal social ties are disclosed. The restrictions of social identification in the regions of Russia are found that prevent the formation of civic identity and responsibility for the reproduction of the social order. The values that determine social integration in cross-cultural interaction are revealed. The results of the study make a significant contribution to the development of methods for determining the causes of the genesis of separatist sentiments and the conditions for designing constructive social participation in various regions. The article is relevant for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as lecturers, involved in the problems of the sociological study of globalization, social space and group identity. The work uses an integral methodology for measuring social processes from the perspective of the subject of action, constructing strategies in the new social environment, and from the perspective of a system that ensures the reproduction of the institutional order.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 82-89
Author(s):  
Katalin Pallay

In the present study, we examine the social integration of former Transcarpathian students who participated in the university preparatory training of the Balassi Institute. Social integration plays a major role, both among mobile students settling in the destination country and in the sending country. Despite the fact that Hungarian students from Transcarpathia have the same linguistic and cultural background as their motherland, their integration into Hungarian society is often hampered: migration often involves giving up home connections, and the success of building new ones is unpredictable. Successful adaptation to the social environment of the destination country is not always an automatic mechanism. Our research was conducted using a questionnaire method. In the survey, we sought to answer the question of where the former Transcarpathian students participating in the preparatory training of the Balassi Institute settled after completing their studies and how they managed to integrate into the society of their place of residence. We compare the social integration of people returning to Transcarpathia, settling in Hungary and living abroad. In summary, we would like to present the results of the survey.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-36
Author(s):  
Oksana Shmyhlyuk

The article deals with the study of the reference social environment peculiarities of modern personality. It is known that the personality develops and forms in the process of entering the social environment under the influence of micro-, meso- , macro- and mega-factors. According to the transformational processes that take place in the world and particularly in Ukraine, the issues concerning modern social system peculiarities of the personality acquire relevance and practical significance. In order to investigate the reference environment peculiarities of representatives of Ukrainian and Polish ethnic groups and the significance of their influence on these groups, the Demographic Questionnaire by B. Pietrulewicz and J. Tivendell was used. It was modified and adapted by L. Zhuravlyova and O. Shmyglyuk in Ukraine by the agreement of the authors. The existence of ethnic and sexual differences in the reference social environment of the testees is studied empirically. It is stated that the interest of the contemporary Poles and Ukrainians in the reference environment with ethnocultural issues is at an average level. The presence of ethnic and sexual differences in the reference of microcommunity has been proved empirically. The representatives of the female sample differ in their assessment of the interest of the social environment in ethnocultural issues. Ukrainian women show a higher level of the interest in family, compared to the Poles who consider that friends are more important. Ukrainians are believed to be the most interested in the ethnocultural issues of friends, and Poles – teachers and employers. The sexual and ethnic differences in the reference point of the social environment are specified. Mass media are the most significant for Ukrainian men, parents’ opinion is significant for Ukrainian women. The Polish men make an emphasis on the "referencing friends", and Polish women give a great prominence to the opinion of teachers and employers.


Africa ◽  
1949 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. R. Radcliffe-Brown

Opening ParagraphProfessor Griaule's article on ‘L'Alliance cathartique’ in Africa of October 1948 raises a methodological point of considerable importance. If we wish to understand a custom or institution that we find in a particular society there are two ways of dealing with it. One is to examine the part it plays in the system or complex of customs and institutions in which it is found and the meaning that it has within this complex for the people themselves. Professor Griaule deals in this way with the custom by which the Bozo and the Dogon exchange insults with each other. He considers it as an element in a complex of customs, institutions, myths, and ideas to which the Dogon themselves refer by the term mangou. He shows us also what meaning the natives themselves attribute to this exchange of insults (p. 253). As a piece of analysis the article is admirable, and is a most important contribution to our growing knowledge of West African society.


10.1068/a345 ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 33 (12) ◽  
pp. 2189-2203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Dafinger

This paper outlines certain benefits that spatial analysis offers to anthropological research, and shows how anthropology and related linguistic research may in turn contribute to the understanding of the social determinants of spatial order. It presents a case study of spatial order in a rural West African society. Although the examples are from a particular setting, the theoretical frame is a general one: the analysis will focus on the connections between social order, language, and the perception of space.


Africa ◽  
1947 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond Firth

Opening ParagraphThe broad characteristics of the British West African colonies and their main social and economic problems are already fairly familiar from the relevant sections of Lord Hailey's African Survey (1938), and Professor Hancock's Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs (1942). A recent article by Dr. M. Fortes (1945) helps to bring the analysis up to date and makes very clear how great and rapid are the changes taking place in the social and economic structure. In this present contribution, the result of a very brief study, I attempt only to underline some of the salient features as they appear to one new to the West African scene, and to estimate the problems from the point of view of sociological research.


Africa ◽  
1935 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 417-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. E. Evans-Pritchard

Opening ParagraphThere are few, if any, African societies which do not believe in witchcraft of one type or another. These types can be classified and their areas of distribution marked out. Thus we have the ‘evil eye’ type, the likundu type, and the kindoki type, and doubtless other variations could be distinguished. But though some notion which we can describe as a belief in witchcraft is found in maybe every African society it is far from playing a uniform part in each. In many communities, including the one from which the information used in this paper was gathered, witchcraft is a function of a wide range of social behaviour, while in others it has little ideological importance. In this paper my conclusions about the social relations of the witchcraft concept are drawn from twenty months experience of the Azande nation of the Nile-Uelle divide, where witchcraft is a ubiquitous notion. Whether what is true of this people is true of many other African communities I cannot say.


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