Reconsidering Taíno Social Dynamics after Spanish Conquest: Gender and Class in Culture Contact Studies

2004 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 597-626 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Deagan
Keyword(s):  
Native Americans ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
Culture Contact ◽  
Contact Period ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Mitigating Factors ◽  
Before And After

Despite the fact that the Taíno people of the Caribbean were the first Native Americans to encounter and coexist with Europeans after 1492, there has been almost no archaeology of Taíno response to that encounter. This study explores the reasons for (and consequences of) this neglect, and their larger implications for American contact-period archaeology. It also challenges prevailing historical models of Taíno social disintegration, drawing upon six years of archaeological work at the En Bas Saline site in Haiti, the only extensively excavated Taíno townsite occupied both before and after contact. Our results, organized by a household-scale analytical framework emphasizing Taíno constructions of gender and class, suggest that there were few major alterations to traditional Taíno social practice during the post-contact period, and most of these were related to activities thought to have been the domain of non-elite Taíno men. It is suggested that the relatively nonspecialized gender roles among the Taíno, as well as the clearly differentiated nature of their social classes, may have served as mitigating factors in the disruption of Taíno cultural practice under Spanish domination. This work also reveals a marked Taíno resistance to the incorporation of European cultural elements, which provides a striking contrast to the Spanish patterns documented in contact-era European towns, and underscores the critical importance of incorporating gender relations into studies of culture contact.

Country Music as Cultural Practice

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clifford R. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Country Music ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
Music Culture ◽  
Folk Revival ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
Community Expression ◽  
Past Half ◽  
Scholarly Inquiry

This chapter argues that country music should be examined first and foremost as social practice—as a driver of community expression and social capital through music, words, and dance. While country music functions in a multitude of ways, from narrative storytelling to commercial product and points in between, the commercial sphere of country music has been exhaustively examined. Scholarly inquiry into country music, rooted in the folk revival of the mid-twentieth century and significantly influenced by collectors (and collections) of commercial country music, has maintained a southern, commercial focus for much of the past half-century. As such, scholarly and popular understanding of what, where, and who country music springs from has ignored significant regional vernacular forms and uses of country music. Ethnographic inquiry has made it possible to tell the story country music culture and traditions. Murphy illustrates his argument with examples from New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and Atlantic Canada.

Representing Native American Women in Early Colonial American Writings: Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Juan Ortiz and John Smith

Sederi ◽  
2009 ◽  
pp. 25-45
Author(s):  
Mª Carmen Gomez Galisteo
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
Gender Roles ◽  
Contact Period ◽  
Native American Women ◽  
American Women ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
Hernando De Soto ◽  
Female Roles ◽  
Cabeza De Vaca

Most observers of Native Americans during the contact period between Europe and the Americas represented Native American women as monstrous beings posing potential threats to the Europeans’ physical integrity. However, the most well known portrait of Native American women is John Smith’s description of Pocahontas, the Native American princess who, the legend goes, saved Smith from being executed. Transformed into a children’s tale, further popularized by the Disney movie, as well as being the object of innumerable historical studies questioning or asserting the veracity of Smith’s claims, the fact remains that the Smith-Pocahontas story is at the very core of North American culture. Nevertheless, far from being original, John Smith’s story had a precedent in the story of Spaniard Juan Ortiz, a member of the ill-fated Narváez expedition to Florida in 1527. Ortiz, who got lost in America and spent the rest of his life there, was also rescued by a Native American princess from being sacrificed in the course of a Native American ritual, as recounted by the Gentleman of Elvas, member of the Hernando de Soto expedition. Yet another vision of Native American women is that offered by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, another participant of the Narváez expedition who, during almost a decade in the Americas fulfilled a number of roles among the Native Americans, including some that were regarded as female roles. These female roles provided him with an opportunity to avert captivity as well as a better understanding of gender roles within Native American civilization. This essay explores the description of Native American women posed by John Smith, Juan Ortiz and Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca so as to illustrate different images of Native American women during the early contact period as conveyed by these works.

scholarly journals Understanding ‘Successful Practice/s’ with Parents with Learning Difficulties when there are Concerns about Child Neglect: the Contribution of Social Practice Theory

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 387-409
Author(s):  
Beth Tarleton ◽  
Danielle Turney
Keyword(s):  
Child Protection ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Child Neglect ◽  
Practice Theory ◽  
Learning Difficulties ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Social Model ◽  
Social Practice Theory ◽  
Vulnerable Children ◽  
The Many

AbstractSocial practice theory (SPT) investigates how meanings (socially available understandings/attitudes) work together with competences and materials/resources to develop shared (social) practices. SPT was used as a theoretical and analytical framework in a study which investigated ‘successful’ professional practices when working with parents with learning difficulties where there are concerns about child neglect. The research took place in three local authorities (LAs) in England that were recommended as sites of ‘successful’ practice. With the parents’ agreement, 38 professionals who worked with the eight participating families were asked about their ideas about parents with learning difficulties and neglect, their understanding of ‘successful’ practice, their experience and knowledge of working with this group of parents, how they worked with the parent and other professionals involved with the parent, as well as the resources available to them. Detailed case studies of the support provided to eight mothers were developed. It was found that the professionals shared a range of attitudes and understandings, including awareness of the many barriers faced by this disadvantaged group of parents, and that the neglect was typically linked to lack of understanding/knowledge about the child’s needs which could in many cases be mitigated through provision of support. The meanings they shared promoted an empowering, relationship-based, multi-agency approach to parents which recognised their need for support while also focusing on the needs and welfare of the children. This positive approach accords with the call for longer-term/recurrent support to be available for parents with learning difficulties alongside the development of a social model of child protection that rethinks how best to safeguard vulnerable children.

scholarly journals Social Learning and Transdisciplinary Co-Production: A Social Practice Approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (18) ◽  
pp. 7511
Author(s):  
Kimberley Slater ◽  
John Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Transformative Change ◽  
Social Practice Theory ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Practice Approach ◽  
Neighbourhood Scale ◽  
Constituent Elements

To address the challenge of achieving social learning in support of transformative change to sustainability, this paper develops an analytical framework that applies a social practice theory (SPT) lens to illuminate the constituent elements and dynamics of social learning in the context of transdisciplinary coproduction for sustainability transitions. Adopting an SPT approach affords a means of interpreting concrete practices at the local scale and exploring the potential for scaling them up. This framework is then applied to a real-world case at the urban neighbourhood scale in order to illustrate how social learning unfolded in a grassroots transdisciplinary coproduction process focused on climate action. We find that a social practice perspective illuminates the material and nonmaterial dimensions of the relationship between social learning and transdisciplinary coproduction. In decoupling these properties from individual human agency, the SPT perspective affords a means of tracing their emergence among social actors, generating a deeper understanding of how social learning arises and effects change, and sustainability can be reinforced.

Dialogue and confrontation in Venezuelan political interaction

AILA Review ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 3-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana Bolívar
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Physical Violence ◽  
Language Awareness ◽  
Conversational Analysis ◽  
Political Dialogue ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Critical Language Awareness

This paper focuses on political change in Venezuela from a critical discourse analysis perspective that emphasizes the roles of the participants in the interaction to show how, with their actions, they are affected and affect others. An interactional approach based on Firth’s categories of context (Firth, 1951) and conversational analysis is used (Bolívar, 1986, 1994a, 1994b). The interaction is studied at a global level first in order to identify the actors responsible for political change in the social dynamics, and then particular events are examined in more detail. The aim is to describe how, in ongoing interaction, the political dialogue after 1998 moved from a formal democratic one to a violent confrontation between two major groups. The article focuses on political events before and after April 11th 2002, which marked a turning point in Venezuelan history. The corpus includes national newspapers, presidential speeches, the program Aló Presidente, slogans, graffiti, and insults recalled by women and men. The results show how verbal aggression and physical violence affect and weaken democratic dialogue and, consequently, the possibility of cooperation and understanding. The discussion highlights the need to strengthen critical language awareness in order to promote peace language rather than hate language.

Understanding second language fluency behavior: The effects of individual differences in first language fluency, cross-linguistic differences, and proficiency over time

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 755-785 ◽  
Author(s):  
AMANDA HUENSCH ◽  
NICOLE TRACY-VENTURA
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
First Language ◽  
Oral Narrative ◽  
Language Fluency ◽  
Multiple Regressions ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
Mitigating Factors ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Over Time

ABSTRACTThis study examined the extent to which first language (L1) fluency behavior, cross-linguistic differences, and proficiency can predict second language (L2) fluency behavior over time. English L1 Spanish (n= 24) and French (n= 25) majors completed a picture-based oral narrative in the L2 before and after 5 months residing abroad and later in the L1 after returning home. Data were coded for seven measures of speed, breakdown, and repair fluency. The results from multiple regressions indicated that L1 fluency behavior, cross-linguistic differences, and proficiency differentially contributed to explaining L2 fluency behavior prior to and during immersion. These findings suggest that when investigating L1–L2 fluency relationships considerations of mitigating factors such as cross-linguistic differences are necessary, and it is worthwhile to focus on how the contributions of these factors shift during development.

scholarly journals Group size influences individual metabolic traits in a social fish

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuelle Chrétien ◽  
Daniel Boisclair ◽  
Steven J Cooke ◽  
Shaun Killen
Keyword(s):  
Metabolic Rate ◽  
Group Size ◽  
Social Group ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Physiological Traits ◽  
Metabolic Rates ◽  
Night Time ◽  
Treatment Standard ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Shelter Availability

Group living is widespread among animal species and yields both costs and benefits. Presence of conspecifics can restrict or enhance the expression of individual behaviour, and the recent social environment is thought to affect behavioural responses in later contexts, even when individuals are alone. However, little is known about how social dynamics influence the expression of individual physiological traits, including metabolic rates. There is some evidence that shoaling can reduce fish metabolic rates, but habitat conditions such as shelter availability may generate density-dependent influences on individual metabolic rates. We investigated how social group size and availability of shelter influence Eurasian minnow Phoxinus phoxinus metabolic rates estimated by respirometry in the presence or absence of plant shelter. Respirometry trials were conducted before and after we housed fish for three weeks in a social treatment consisting in a specific group size (n= 4 or 8) and shelter availability (presence or absence of plant shelter in the holding tank). Minimum day-time and night-time metabolic rates estimated while in presence of plant shelter were lower than when estimated in absence of plant shelter, both before and after individuals were housed in their social group size and shelter availability treatment. Standard metabolic rate was higher for fish held in groups of four as compared to fish held in groups of eight while maximum metabolic rate showed no difference. Shelter availability during the social treatments did not influence standard or maximum metabolic rates. Our results suggest that group size may directly influence energy demands of individuals, highlighting the importance of understanding the role of social dynamics on variations in physiological traits associated with energy expenditure.

scholarly journals Analyzing Social Meaning: How Words Matter in Social Contexts (Based on German Communicative Practice)

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (10) ◽  
pp. 1556-1566
Author(s):  
Sergei T. Nefedov ◽  
◽  
Valeria E. Chernyavskaya ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Linguistic Anthropology ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Research Directions ◽  
Linguistic Unit ◽  
Communicative Practice ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Meanings

The paper discusses the notion of social meaning that has become a central one in sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, metapragmatics. The study was informed by these research directions and the main outcomes. The term social meaning pinpoints what linguistic forms convey about the social identity of the users, about their personality, social features and ideologically, value-based orientations. We presume that this is a category of meaning that a linguistic unit (an utterance) obtains as a result of its usage in a certain context. Social meanings are fixed by social practice. It acts as an index to the context in which the linguistic unit is expected to be used and relevant. Indexical relations are open for re-evaluations that are mediated by speakers ideological views. The study is based on German socio-cultural practice and reveals how indexical relations arise between a linguistic unit and the socio-cultural environment, the social occasion of its usage. The analysis is conducted as corpus-assisted discourse analysis, based on the «Digital dictionary of the German language» / «Das Digitale Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache»

scholarly journals MAKING SPACE AND NATION MEANINGFUL THROUGH BORDERS AND THEIR REPRESENTATIONS IN ROMANIAN GEOGRAPHY TEXTBOOKS, DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-116
Author(s):  
Oana-Ramona ILOVAN
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Geography Education ◽  
Argumentative Discourse ◽  
Temporal Perspective ◽  
Educational Discourse ◽  
Research Material ◽  
The Social ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Spatial Consciousness

Lately, in Romania and abroad, research about the hidden agendas of educational discourses circulated by school textbooks has become richer. This research focuses on the process of bordering that took place in 1918 and the creation of Greater Romania and on the new borders and their representations in Geography school textbooks before and after that year. These representations are considered in the form of both text and images. First, I describe these representations and, secondly, I uncover and explain their intentions in the respective historical and geographical contexts. As History and Geography have been always viewed among the most influential subject matters in school, I employed visual methodology and discourse analysis to study Geography of Romania school textbooks – officially accepted products. The research material is made of Geography school textbooks. From a temporal perspective, my research material includes textbooks that were circulated starting with 1902 and in the 1930s. In addition, I assessed the degree to which Geography education was politicized. Results showed that, in the first half of the 20th century, the wished-for or newly-established and contested borders of Romania generated a lengthy and argumentative discourse about state borders and about the history and geography of the territories inhabited by Romanians. Ethnocultural identity concepts and conceptions of national identity were provided for the young and not only. Geography of Romania school textbooks were not apolitical, but reinforced a socio-spatial consciousness, based on the natural and anthropic features of the borders and on how they were represented, revealing the social practice of the educational discourse about border areas.

scholarly journals HIDING AGENCY OF SEVERE ACTIONS IN ENGLISH PRINT MEDIA: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF 2014 ISLAMABAD SIT-INS

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
ice alfionita ◽  
Wendy Pandapotan Sahat Martua Simangunsong
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Basic Assumption ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Passive Voice ◽  
Political Events ◽  
The Media ◽  
Ideological Structure

Political events of grave political importance took place in Pakistan after the 2013 elections. Suspicions of fraud in the election and murder of 14 workers at the Minhaj Trust in Lahore led two main political parties, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan AwamiTehreek (PAT) to march to Islamabad with plans to continue the demonstration visit. to overthrow the allegedly corrupt and cruel government. While covering the sitting demonstrations, the media seemed to cover the event in a slightly different way. The media support government or opposition, with more passion than ever before. Based on the CDA's basic assumption that language, as social practice, is a different network of choices that can limit and define ideological meaning, this study aims to study the role played by the election of active or passive voice structures in social development. which means three major British newspapers Pakistani-Dawn, The News, and The Nation. The analytical framework has been borrowed from major CDA analysts who see that passive voice separates agents of action or events, reduces agents/actors from action responsibilities, and builds social meaning by choosing an embedded ideological structure.

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