scholarly journals Archaeology and the Sugpiaq renaissance on Kodiak Island: Three stories from Alaska

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon L. Pullar ◽  
Richard A. Knecht ◽  
Sven Haakanson

The Sugpiat people have lived in the Kodiak Archipelago for at least 7,500 years, but suffered extraordinary pressure on their cultural identity beginning with violent Russian conquest in 1784 and followed by Russian and American colonisation. Recognising that drastic actions were needed to preserve Sugpiaq heritage, the Kodiak Area Native Association began a cultural revitalisation movement. The centrepiece was a Native-owned state-of-the-art museum that opened in 1995. This essay recounts the stories of three participants in the beginning of a process that has transformed the cultural landscape of Kodiak.

Author(s):  
Megha Chhabra ◽  
Manoj Kumar Shukla ◽  
Kiran Kumar Ravulakollu

: Latent fingerprints are unintentional finger skin impressions left as ridge patterns at crime scenes. A major challenge in latent fingerprint forensics is the poor quality of the lifted image from the crime scene. Forensics investigators are in permanent search of novel outbreaks of the effective technologies to capture and process low quality image. The accuracy of the results depends upon the quality of the image captured in the beginning, metrics used to assess the quality and thereafter level of enhancement required. The low quality of the image collected by low quality scanners, unstructured background noise, poor ridge quality, overlapping structured noise result in detection of false minutiae and hence reduce the recognition rate. Traditionally, Image segmentation and enhancement is partially done manually using help of highly skilled experts. Using automated systems for this work, differently challenging quality of images can be investigated faster. This survey amplifies the comparative study of various segmentation techniques available for latent fingerprint forensics.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksander Smalianczuk

In the Search for a National Idea: Krajowość in the Beginning of the Twentieth Century as an Attempt at “Lithuanian Poles’" IdeologyKrajowość as the national ideology of the “civil” (or “political”) type developed in Belarus and Lithuania at the beginning of the twentieth century. The adherents of krajowośćclaimed that all native inhabitants of historical Lithuania, disregarding their ethno-cultural identity, are “the citizens of the Kraj” [the Countrymen] and therefore belong to one nation. Some called them “the nation of Lithuanians.” The category of “the native inhabitants” was used in relation to the Lithuanians, Belarusians, Poles, Jews, and almost never to Russians. As the main criterion for a national identity they proclaimed patriotism and self-identification as citizens.The krajowość idea appeared among the nobility. Its representatives belong to the combined Polish culture in respect of their own Lithuanian and Belarusian origin. The former Grand Duchy of Lithuania was interpreted by them as a historical native land. It was the determining factor in the formation of a new identity.All adherents of krajowość (Michal Romer, Roman Skirmunt, Kanstancyja Skirmuntt, Ludwik Abramovich, etc.) belonged to the group of the “Lithuania (vel Belarus) Poles”. Despite their intentions, the krajowość idea was formed on the basis of the “Lithuanian Poles’” struggle for their own place in the new society. As a result, the ideology for “Lithuanian Poles” was created, but it could not neutralize the existing Polish-Lithuanian-Belarusian conflict. W poszukiwaniu idei narodowej: „krajowość” początku XX wieku jako próba ideologii „Polaków litewskich”„Krajowość”, czyli ,,ideologia krajowa”, została sformułowana na Białorusi i Litwie na początku XX wieku. Krajowcy stwierdzali, że wszyscy rdzenni mieszkańcy historycznej Litwy, niezależnie od ich etnokulturowej i stanowej przynależności, należą do jednego „narodu Litwinów”. Za główne kryteria owej narodowej przynależności uznano poczucie patriotyzmu w stosunku do Litwy historycznej. Jednym z celów krajowości było pogodzenie partykularnych interesów miejscowych narodów z ich ogólnym interesem, pod jakim rozumiano dobro wspólnej Ojczyzny, historycznej Litwy. Jednak mimo zamiarów ideologów, którzy mówili o „obywatelach Kraju”, krajowość wyrosła z poszukiwania przez Polaków litewskich swego miejsca w nowym społeczeństwie. Koncepcja krajowa była ideologią Polaków litewskich, stworzoną przede wszystkim dla nich. Z postanowieniami krajowców była związana przede wszystkim perspektywa polskości na Litwie historycznej.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-39
Author(s):  
Shota Matitashvili

A new step in the history of Christian monasticism in eastern Georgia is associated with thirteen Syrian monks, led by John, who came to Iberia (K‘art‘li) in the mid-sixth century C.E. They were the bearers of a Syrian tradition that implied the combination of an heroic ascetic endeavor and an apostolic mission. They came as spiritual heirs of St. Nino, a Cappadocian virgin who converted Georgia to Christianity in the beginning of the fourth century. Their vitae were first composed by a certain hagiographer named John-Martyrius, but this work does not survive. In the tenth century, the head of the Georgian Church and the distinguished ecclesiastical writer Arsenius II (955–980) depicted their lives and deeds based on different oral and written sources. Later, other unknown authors also wrote additional hagiographical works about these Syrian ascetics. At the beginning of their ascetic and ecclesiastical careers, the thirteen Syrian monks settled on Zedazeni mountain with their spiritual supervisor, John. John later sent them to different corners of the Iberian kingdom in opposition to paganism and Zoroastrianism. They founded monasteries and became influential religious leaders during the second half of the sixth century. Through their vitae, composed by Arsenius and other unknown authors, it is possible to trace the process of transforming the small ascetic communities established by Syrian monks into great feudal organizations. These monasteries had an important impact on the Georgian social and cultural landscape during the Middle Ages.


2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 300-327
Author(s):  
Marie Vejrup Nielsen

AbstractThe article examines references to a specific religious heritage (Lutheran Christianity) within the debate sections of two national Danish newspapers. The aim of the analysis is to provide empirical data as a background for a discussion of conflicts concerning the connection between religious heritage and contemporary society. The themes of the public debate surveyed are identified as related to changes in the religious and cultural landscape in Denmark, such as the presence of Muslim immigrants. Three main discourse packages are identified in relation to the connection between religious heritage and contemporary culture: (1) strong connection; (2) no connection/disconnection; (3) negotiated connection. The conclusions of this analysis provide the foundation for a discussion of civil religion in zones of conflict over religious and cultural identity in a contemporary northern European context.


Author(s):  
Werner Gaisbauer ◽  
Helmut Hlavacs

On the one hand, creating rich virtual worlds "by hand" like in the game Grand Theft Auto V is hugely expensive and limited to large studios. On the other hand, procedural content generation (PCG) allows tiny teams to create huge worlds like Hello Games did with only four people (in the beginning) for the recently released game No Man's Sky. Following in the footsteps of Hello Games, this paper tries to equip the reader with an overview about the state-of-the-art of how to build such a virtual world, i.e., a populated virtual city with buildings, streets, parks, vegetation, humans, and vehicles, using just PCG assets. Each PCG asset that is envisioned to bring the city to life is grouped and discussed in detail and the latest research trends in PCG are presented together with open questions. Using the above-mentioned PCG assets, instead of months, a city can be built in a mere couple of minutes by a user without much experience in designing 3D assets. The city can then be used for many applications like games, virtual reality (VR), or film.


Nordlit ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 47
Author(s):  
Lill Tove Fredriksen

The article is a literary analysis of the satirical Sámi folk-song ”Elveland”. The song about about the road man, forester and river attendant Elveland on the west side of the municipality of Porsanger was made in the beginning of the 1900s, as a form of revenge on the part of the local community because he would not let them cut as much firewood as they needed. With irony as an important device, the text serves as a meeting point for dialogues between different voices, and where power relations and the political nature of cultural identity is revealed.


Author(s):  
Jennifer Ngan Bacquet

Language teacher identity has been at the forefront of pedagogical research in recent years; this has become particularly important due to the demographic changes seen throughout the world since 2015; since then, there have been significant changes in the cultural landscape of schools in general and language teaching in particular, which presents unique challenges for teachers in their process of identity construction. This study aims to explore the transformative nature of language teacher identity in two settings: teaching in online classrooms in one’s home country, and teaching in online classroom abroad. The research will explore how cultural identity shapes an educators’ relationship with students, how one’s own cultural identity influences methodological and pedagogical choices, how these can improve literacy in the young adult classroom, as well touching upon the relevance of cultural identity is in a developing teacher. The findings revealed a general consensus on the need to gear pedagogigcal practices towards a student-centered approach; they further showed a general split in how teachers view the role that cultural identity plays in the classroom: while some felt that local cultures hindered their approach to teaching, others felt it helped build rapport and understanding between teachers and learners.


Author(s):  
George W. Noblit

This chapter explains meta-ethnography as created by Noblit and Hare and how the method has been used since. This is the methodology each of the chapters in this volume used to synthesize qualitative research studies of cultural identity. Meta-ethnography is an approach to qualitative research synthesis that is interpretive rather than aggregative. In this volume, we introduce critical meta-ethnography as an approach to informing social theory. It involves identifying the key metaphors or concepts in the selected studies and comparing them. Studies are translated into one another, developing a synthesis that takes the form of an analogy. In recent years, meta-ethnography has been used extensively in health studies, particularly in the United Kingdom. This chapter both clarifies the status of meta-ethnography as a methodology of synthesis based in the translation of studies into each other and addresses the current state of the art of meta-ethnography. The chapter ends by introducing the meta-ethnographies that follow.


2015 ◽  
Vol 158 ◽  
pp. 446-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.P. Kramer ◽  
M.P.E. Maas ◽  
M.H.J. Martens ◽  
A.W.M. van Schijndel ◽  
H.L. Schellen

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 240-253
Author(s):  
Natalia M. Velikaya

The article considers the most significant issues of cultural development of Russian small and medium-sizes cities, in the era of globalization, in the context of such major social threats as the erosion of national and cultural identity, the loss of traditional cultural landscape and the reduction of cultural capital.Analyzing the legislative and financial bases of cultural policy in small and medium-sized cities of Russia, the author identifies the key problem areas of the state cultural policy.The empirical base of the study was obtained during the implementation of two research projects conducted in 2015 and 2019, the main methods of which had been document analysis, expert interviewing and case studies of the most successful projects in the field of culture. The data of specific sociological studies allowed us to consider the state of the cultural sphere in small and medium-sized cities and to identify the role of cultural activity of urban communities in the cultural process. The results of the case method indicate the most successful and effective projects in the cultural sphere, implemented on the basis of public-private partnership with the involvement of civil society.The article draws conclusions about potential directions of cultural policy in small and medium-sized cities of Russia, including investments, creation of urban development strategies and interaction with local communities.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document