Diffusionism in anthropology posits centres of creativity from which things diffuse, such as ideas and innovations. But what sort of place is likely to be such a centre of creativity? I distinguish two cases, the second of which poses a problem for diffusionism.

The collision of culture and culture is bound to affect each other. This paper discusses the influence of ancient Chinese cultural classics on European religious philosophy from the perspective of cross-cultural communication, and expounds how China has influenced western religious philosophy through the exchange history of The Two Cultures and the views of modern and contemporary scholars, as well as the views of modern and contemporary western scholars on Chinese ancient cultural classics. Cross cultural communication is (...) not only an artificially influenced communication, but also an inevitable historical event that cannot be reversed. (shrink)

This article is a revised and considerably expanded version of a short paper first delivered to the Past and Present Annual Conference 1979 on ‘The Transmission of Ideas in Early Modern Europe c. 1350–1700’. A slightly different version in German was presented to the Tübingen Symposium on ‘Flugschriften als Massenmedium der Reformationszeit’ in 1980, which has been published in the conference proceedings . I have repeated a few paragraphs of this German version here.

The Internet and other interactive networks are diffusing across the globe at rates that vary from country to country. Typically, economic and market structure variables are used to explain these differences. The addition of culture to these variables will provide a more robust understanding of the differences in Internet and interactive network diffusion. Existing analyses that identify culture as a predictor of diffusion do not adequately specify the dimensions of culture and their impacts.This paper presents a set of (...) propositions to be used in analyses of the impact of culture on the diffusion of interactive networks. The propositions were developed using cultural constructs presented by Hofstede (1991), Herbig (1994) and Hall and Hall (1987). Diffusion of innovations theory and critical mass theory provide the theoretical base. The development of the propositions resulted from a close examination of the theories for relationships mediated by culture. The resulting propositions use cultural variables in relationships established by the theories. It is hoped that the propositions will serve as a starting point for future research in the area of cultural influences on the diffusion of interactive networks. (shrink)

The eighteenth century was an era in which science came to play a major role in the cultural ideal of the city elite. The phenomenon of the ‘gentleman-scientist’ arose: a layman without a scientific education who for a variety of often socially desirable reasons devoted himself to scientific endeavours. Scientific instruments were the tools for this interest. This article describes the introduction, diffusion, and construction in the Netherlands of one of the most prominent eighteenth-century instruments: the reflecting telescope. (...) The reception of this instrument casts new light on the usually almost invisible network of gentleman-scientists and instrument-makers in this region. The specific economic and political factors of the Netherlands led to a totally different development of this instrument compared with the ‘motherland’ England. Whereas in Great Britain the reflecting telescope was a great success well into the nineteenth century, in the Netherlands it became a symbol of technical inability and stagnation. (shrink)

From the 1870s to the 1920s Poor Law institutions in England developed from destinations of last resort to significant providers of health‐care. As part of this process a general professionalisation of Poor Law work took place. The change was facilitated by wider social, philosophical and political influences in nineteenth century England. The introduction of trained nurses into the Poor Law was part of a diaspora of both ideas and people from voluntary institutions and organisations. Unrecognised in 1834, nurses eventually became (...) the most numerous class of workhouse officers. This was not accomplished without dispute and acrimony. As a group and as individuals nurses were often at the centre of disputes. Utilising a social history framework and drawing on contemporary written sources, including Poor Law and nursing journals, this paper highlights the role played by Poor Law nurses in the diffusion of values and attitudes that helped to transform the workhouse regime from one of punishment to therapy. (shrink)

This investigation examines the question of whether the similar theories of the origins of monarchy encountered in certain early Greek and Indian literary sources should be taken as evidence of cross-cultural diffusion of political ideas. The paper argues against the alternative explanation, according to which the similarity in form in the Greek and Indian versions of the kingship theory is rooted in similar social processes, by exposing how the earliest extant Greek version of the theory seems to build (...) on a prototype most closely mirrored in one early Indian source. (shrink)

La diffusion des révisions hiéronymiennes des Bibles latines s’est faite notamment à travers les textes liturgiques latins. La présente communication s’intéresse à l’utilisation de l’oeuvre du moine de Bethléem dans les prières des livres liturgiques (missels, sacramentaires et bénédictions pontificales). Elle est centrée sur les citations des livres dits “des petits prophètes”. Si l’oeuvre de Jérôme s’impose progressivement dans la vie liturgique occidentale à partir de la deuxième moitié du VIIe et du VIIIe siècle, plusieurs missels et sacramentaires comportent (...) aussi bien des citations de la révision de Jérôme que de versions des Vieilles latines. C’est notamment le cas de sacramentaires irlandais de la fin du VIIe siècle et du missel gallican dit Missale Gothicum, datant des années 700. À cette époque, l’oeuvre de Jérôme n’est donc pas encore utilisée par la liturgie comme un ensemble unifié. La citation et l’allusion aux anciennes traductions latines persiste même dans la péninsule ibérique et la liturgie mozarabe jusqu’au XIIe siècle. Une étude détaillée des allusions au livre II de Jonas montre que des morceaux de versets issus des Vieilles latines se sont maintenus pendant tout le Moyen-Âge dans des livres ayant recours à la Vulgate, peut-être parce qu’ils étaient passés dans la culture biblique collective. Cet article souligne donc la nécessité d’une analyse détaillée, livre liturgique par livre liturgique, pour étudier les citations de la Bible dans la liturgie latine, car une même pièce liturgique peut emprunter à plusieurs traductions différentes. (shrink)

The expression 'the criminal question' does not at present have much currency in English-language criminology. The term was carried across from Italian debates about the orientation of criminology, and in particular debates about what came to be called critical criminology. One definition offered early in the debate described it as 'an area constituted by actions, institutions, policies and discourses whose boundaries shift'. According to this writer, crime, and the cultural and symbolic significance carried by law and criminal justice, is (...) an integral aspect of the criminal question. 'The criminal question' draws attention to the specific location and constitution of a given field of forces, and the themes, issues, dilemmas and debates that compose it. At the same time it enables connections to be made between these embedded realities and the wider, conceivably global, contours of influence and flows of power with which it connects. This in turn raises many questions. How far do the responses to crime and punishment internationally flow from and owe their contemporary shape to the cultural and economic transformations now widely known as 'globalisation'? How can something that is in significant ways embedded, situated, and locally produced also travel? What is not in doubt is that it does travel - and travel with serious consequences. The international circulation of discourses and practices has become a pressing issue for scholars who try to understand their operation in their own particular cultural contexts. This collection of essays seeks a constructive comparative view of these tendencies to convergence and divergence. (shrink)

"Diffusion – Disjunktion – Distanz Erwin Panofskys kulturmorphologische Grundierung oder Nachdenken über Renaissanceand Renascences (1944) Der vorliegende Beitrag skizziert den ersten Teil eines Forschungsentwurfs, in dessenZentrum Erwin Panofskys Artikel Renaissance and Renascences aus dem Jahr 1944steht. Die Analyse des Textes fokussiert Panofskys historische Formel des sog. ›Disjunktionsprinzips‹zur Antikenrezeption und beleuchtet das inliegende Verständniskultureller Prozesse und Zusammenhänge. Der Blick wird auf die kulturtheoretischenImplikationen gelenkt, die in Panofskys Formel enthalten sind. Diese impliziertnämlich eine grundsätzliche Mobilität antiker Kulturelemente. Mit Nähezum ethnologischen Modell (...) der Diffusion wird ein kulturtheoretischer Zugangzu Panofskys Arbeit ermöglicht, der bisher ebenso wenig beachtet wie ideengeschichtlichkontextualisiert wurde. Dabei wird deutlich, dass kulturelle Tradierungsich anhand diffusionistischer Erklärungsmuster mit dem Ziel formiert, einehierarchische Ordnung europäischer (Kultur‑)Epochen am Beispiel der Antikenrezeptionzu postulieren. Der Ansatz zeigt das Potenzial, welches sich im Vergleichdominanter Strömungen der deutschen Ethnologie und der Kunstgeschichte imfrühen 20. Jahrhundert verbirgt. This article sketches the first part of a research project centred on Erwin Panofsky’s article»Renaissance and Renascences« from 1944. The analysis of the text focuses on Panofsky’shistorical formula of the so-called ›principle of disjunction‹ for the reception of antiquity andsheds light on the internal understanding of cultural processes and contexts. The view is directedto the cultural-theoretical implications contained in Panofsky’s formula. This implies afundamental mobility of classical cultural elements. The proximity to the ethnological modelof diffusion enables a cultural-theoretical approach to Panofsky’s work that has so far beenignored, nor has it been contextualized in terms of a history of ideas. It becomes clear thatcultural tradition is formed on the basis of diffusionist explanatory patterns with the aim ofpostulating a hierarchical order of European (cultural) epochs using the example of the receptionof antiquity. The approach shows the potential hidden in the comparison of dominantcurrents in German ethnology and art history in the early 20th century ". (shrink)

The rapid uptake of digital technologies is constantly transforming the modern culture of sports spectating; however, relatively little is known about the impact of digitalization on the changing face of global sports-consuming audiences, particularly from a qualitative perspective. In this article, the relationship between modern mass digital technologies and audiences of sports spectators is described and explained by taking a customer-centric approach to grounded theory using a literature review and in-depth qualitative semi-structured interviews with sports marketing, management, and technology professionals. (...) The qualitative approach permits the gathering of in-depth insights into a problem, generates new concepts through data synthesis and analysis, and captures changing attitudes within the sports industry. Moreover, the qualitative approach to research is not bound by the limitations of quantitative methods and focuses on the primary questions of “how” and “why” digital technology’s mass deployment and diffusion have transformed content consumption in the sports industry. The analysis first systematizes and codes the collected data. Second, all the materials are iteratively read and the key points are outlined. Using the iterative analysis, the theoretical and empirical insights and findings are synthesized in order to achieve the results. Finally, dimensions of the transformation of sports spectators’ consumption are identified and explained. The research implications highlight “how” and “why” modern digital technologies have changed the sports-consuming audience by making it more inclusive in terms of age, gender, demographics, social and health status. These findings are useful for sport managers to better understand their audiences and processes in an ever-changing global society. (shrink)

This paper discusses the influence of Sextus Empiricus' works on Renaissance culture and the recovery of Pyrrhonism during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It investigates what primary and secondary sources were available at the time, and who knew and made use of such sources. The article concludes that the dearth of Pyrrhonic arguments in Renaissance literature was due to the prevailing and incompatible culture of humanism rather than to a lack of interest in Sextus Empiricus’ works during this period.

Der vorliegende Beitrag setzt die Überlegungen eines Forschungsentwurfs fort, dessen erster Teil im Band 63/2 dieser Zeitschrift erschien. Die historische Formel des sog. ›Disjunktionsprinzps‹ entwickelt Panofsky u.a. in dem 1944 im Kenyon Review erschienenen Artikel Renaissance and Renascences. Die grundsätzliche Mobilität antiker Kulturelemente, die er seiner Formel zuschreibt, impliziert einen bei ihm bisher unbenannten kulturtheoretischen Zugang mit deutlicher Nähe zum ethnologischen Modell der Diffusion. Ausgehend davon entwirft Panofsky mittels einer kulturmorphologischen Vorgehensweise ein transepochales Modell kultureller Tradierung. Dies ermöglicht es (...) ihm, seine Vorstellung einer hierarchischen Gliederung menschlicher (Kultur‑)Epochen am Beispiel der Antikenrezeption zu festigen. Um sich den kulturtheoretischen Implikationen in Panofskys Ausführungen zu nähern, sollen hier jene Stationen beleuchtet werden, die Panofskys intellektuellen Horizont möglicherweise mitgeformt haben – so z.B. die Prägung durch Aby Warburg, der seine Ausbildung in Bonn u.a. unter der Lehre Karl Lamprechts absolvierte. Zum anderen wird Panofskys Argumentation mit den Ideen deutscher Diffusionisten verglichen. Die vergleichende Methode offenbart nicht nur erstmalig deutliche Analogien, sondern zeigt, wie Panofsky mittels Antikenrezeption eine spezifische Vorstellung von der menschlichen Kulturgeschichte vorgibt. The article continues the considerations of a research draft, the first part of which was published in volume 63/2 of this journal. Panofsky develops the historical formula of the socalled ›principle of disjunction‹ in the article ›Renaissance and Renascences‹ published in the Kenyon Review in 1944. The fundamental mobility of ancient cultural elements, which he ascribes to his formula, implies a previously unnamed cultural-theoretical approach with a clear proximity to the ethnological model of diffusion. On this basis, Panofsky uses a cultural morphological approach to design a transepochal model of cultural transmission. This enables him to consolidate the idea of a hierarchical structure of human (cultural) epochs using the example of the reception of antiquity. In order to approach the cultural-theoretical implications in Panofsky’s remarks, those stations that may have shaped Panofsky’s intellectual horizon will be examined – e.g. the influence of Aby Warburg, who completed his education in Bonn under the teachings of Karl Lamprecht, among others. On the other hand, Panofsky’s argumentation is compared with the ideas of German diffusionists. The comparative method not only reveals clear analogies for the first time, but also shows how Panofsky uses the reception of antiquity to provide a specific idea of human cultural history. (shrink)

The diffusion of similar organizational practices across the world has been a prominent research topic for quite some time. In the literature on sociological new institutionalism, two basic research perspectives have developed to address the diffusion and subsequent institutionalization of cultural models and formally organized practices. The first argues that diffusion happens as a top-down adoption process. The second describes diffusion and institutionalization as bottom-up emergence. My stance bridges both perspectives. In this article, I argue (...) that for us to understand diffusion processes, emergence and adoption need to be integrated within a coherent theoretical framework, as both of these processes are inseparably interlinked. The global diffusion of truth commissions is employed as a case study to develop this framework. Starting with the empirical observation of the global diffusion of truth commissions, I dissect the case study by asking: How did truth commissions emerge and become adopted as a globally recognized solution to the problem of dealing with human rights violations after political transitions? To answer this question, I introduce three theoretical building blocks—reciprocal typification, narrative embedding, and fictional consensus. Taken together, these concepts constitute the process of collective learning, which I present here as a new approach to diffusion. (shrink)

In the context of the current heated debate surrounding the pervasive influence of the English language and Anglo-American culture on other languages, as well as the widespread purist attitude towards some contact-induced language change phenomena, both abroad and in Romania, our article discusses the situation of English lexical borrowings in present-day Romanian, focusing on the perception and processing of the so-calledluxury Anglicisms(Sections 2and3) by young Romanian native speakers, in an attempt to see whether such an analysis can help clarify their (...) acceptability and diffusion across our target population. We propose an alternative cognitive, psycholinguistic approach to the study of contact-induced lexical borrowings, aiming to show that there is no difference in the young Romanian native speakers’ processing of sentences containing luxury Anglicisms and their established Romanian counterparts. Such findings may support our claim that the acceptability and diffusion of such Anglicisms are pervasive across our target population, even if the official position generally condemns such uses, considering them gratuitous and a burden in communication, even making it unintelligible sometimes.Our analysis starts from the observation that most (but not all) Romanian academics, whether linguists or not, tend to embrace a purist attitude, while on the other hand young Romanians accept such Anglicisms and tend to use them extensively. In fact, such uses are not limited to young people, who have been the subjects of our research, but are the ‘norm’ in daily conversations and elsewhere across the general population (Stoichițoiu Ichim 2006). Thus, there seems to be a gap between the actual acceptability and diffusion of luxury Anglicisms among Romanians and the ‘official’ recommendations. Based on the results of a sensicality task, meant to show how 188 Romanians, aged 18–22, process and perceive sentences with or without luxury Anglicisms (seeSection 6), we will try to show that luxury Anglicisms are accepted and, by recurrent use, diffused among the Romanian community. For a more accurate picture of their diffusion, the findings will be further correlated with data fromCoRoLa, the only official corpus ofpresent-day Romanian (beginning 1989) made available under the auspices of the Romanian Academy, as well as a corpus currently in the making, and the Internet (seeSection 7).Besides showing that luxury Anglicisms cannot really be blamed for burdening or impairing processing, and thus communication, and explaining why such uses should not be censured or disapproved, we hope that our study of acceptability and diffusion will demonstrate that we are dealing with a complex, multi-layered phenomenon that can be better understood by going beyond a diachronic and synchronic analysis of particular words and a frequency count, and should incorporate more experimental data.Last but not least, we suggest that, on the practical side, such experimental studies as the one described here could be used as an additional criterion for the lexicographic inclusion of lexical borrowings. (shrink)

Through cultural transmission, repeated learning by new individuals transforms cultural information, which tends to become increasingly compressible . Existing diffusion chain studies include in their design two processes that could be responsible for this tendency: learning and reproducing . This paper manipulates the presence of learning in a simple iterated drawing design experiment. We find that learning seems to be the causal factor behind the increase in compressibility observed in the transmitted information, while reproducing is a source (...) of random heritable innovations. Only a theory invoking these two aspects of cultural learning will be able to explain human culture's fundamental balance between stability and innovation. (shrink)

Behavioral genetics and cultural evolution have both revolutionized our understanding of human behavior – largely independent of each other. Here, we reconcile these two fields under a dual inheritance framework, offering a more nuanced understanding of the interaction between genes and culture. Going beyond typical analyses of gene–environment interactions, we describe the cultural dynamics that shape these interactions by shaping the environment and population structure. A cultural evolutionary approach can explain, for example, how factors such as rates (...) of innovation and diffusion, density of cultural subgroups, and tolerance for behavioral diversity impact heritability estimates, thus yielding predictions for different social contexts. Moreover, when cumulative culture functionally overlaps with genes, genetic effects become masked, unmasked, or even reversed, and the causal effects of an identified gene become confounded with features of the cultural environment. The manner of confounding is specific to a particular society at a particular time, but a WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) sampling problem obscures this boundedness. Cultural evolutionary dynamics are typically missing from models of gene-to-phenotype causality, hindering generalizability of genetic effects across societies and across time. We lay out a reconciled framework and use it to predict the ways in which heritability should differ between societies, between socioeconomic levels, and other groupings within some societies but not others, and over the life course. An integrated cultural evolutionary behavioral genetic approach cuts through the nature–nurture debate and helps resolve controversies in topics such as IQ. (shrink)

The question whether the fusion of the musical traditions of different cultures is a good thing or not is irrelevant in practical terms, since there is no realistic possibility of preventing it, but the advantages and disadvantages that the process brings are worth considering nevertheless. The loss of diversity that results when one tradition is overwhelmed by its contact with a more influential one is not redressed by the increased variety that comes about within the dominant tradition, since the latter (...) are variations within a tradition rather than traditions of distinct origins. But the common denominator that allows different traditions to interact meaningfully with one another points to the ability of music to bring us in touch with our common humanity. (shrink)

The mental health professions operate largely so as to objectify a language of mental deficit. In spite of their humane intentions, by constructing a reality of mental deficit the professions contribute to hierarchies of privilege, reduce natural interdependencies within the culture, and lend themselves to self-enfeeblement. This infirming of the culture is progressive, such that when common actions are translated into a professionalized language of mental deficit, and this language is disseminated, the culture comes to construct itself in these terms. (...) This leads to an enhanced dependency on the professions and these are forced, in turn, to invent additional terms of mental deficit. Thus, concepts of infirmity have spiraled across the century, and virtually all remaining patterns of action stand vulnerable to deficit translation. Required within the professions are new linguistic formulations that create a reality of relationships without evaluative fulcrum. (shrink)

This article evaluates demands for privatized diversity that destabilize traditional notions of separation of state and religion, by asking secular authorities to adopt a hands-off, non-interventionist approach, placing civil and family disputes with a religious or cultural aspect beyond the official realm of equal citizenship. This potential storm to come must be addressed head on because it mixes three inflammatory components in today’s political environment: religion; gender; and the rise of a neo-liberal state. The volatility of these issues is (...) undisputed; they require a mere spark to ignite. The standard legal response to this challenge is to seek shelter behind a formidable ‘wall of separation’ between state and religion, even if this implies turning a blind eye to the concerns of religious women — especially those caught in the uncoordinated web of secular and religious marriage bonds. I will advance a different approach. By placing these once-ignored agents at the centre of analysis, this article explores the idea of permitting a degree of regulated interaction between religious and secular sources of identity and obligation, so long as the baseline of citizenship-guaranteed rights remains firmly in place. (shrink)

For Adorno and Horkheimer, rationalism – in fact, a technical rationalism which becomes a rationalism of domination– failed to provide the path to the liberation of man and society. The aftermath, half education of the masses, is not an incomplete education or lack of education, but substantially hostility towards culture and genuine education, decay and involvement of education in individual considerations and benefits, with the contribution of mass dissemination of culture and art. Half education is the spread of culture and (...) art without a living relationship with the consciousness of people, without consequences for their lives. Adorno clarifies that in this context, the relationship between life and production reduces the former into the transitory epiphenomenon of the latter, as life and individual existence are not known in their immediacy, they do not connect directly, but they rather become part of the teaching for of material production. For Ortega y Gasset, a new type of human being has been born, the massman, who becomes isolated, trapped in the irrational feeling that nothing else, apart from his own private welfare, matters, but he also continues to demand as if it were his natural right to do so. Nonetheless, and although he remains an individualist, he does not have real access to the gifts of individuality. Marcuse understands that, ultimately, there is a conflict between production and profit on the one hand and self-determination on the other. As technology spreads its dominance over nature, man conquers man through mass control, diffused through work and culture. In this way, technological rationalism becomes ultimately political rationalism. (shrink)

Pseudoscience spreads through communicative and inferential processes that make people vulnerable to weird beliefs. However, the fact that pseudoscientific beliefs are unsubstantiated and have no basis in reality does not mean that the people who hold them have no reasons for doing so. We propose that, reasons play a central role in the diffusion of pseudoscience. On the basis of cultural epidemiology and the interactionist theory of reasoning, we will here analyse the structure and the function of reasons (...) in the propagation of pseudoscience. We conclude by discussing the implications of our approach for the understanding of human irrationality. (shrink)

UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (2 November 2001) defines culture with an emphasis on cultural features: “culture should be regarded as the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group”, encompassing, “in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs”. Cultural traits are also the primitive of mathematical models of cultural transmission inspired by population genetics, imported and refined by economics. Any (...) serious evaluation of the notion of “cultural trait”, however, requires the interrogation of many disciplines, from cultural anthropology to linguistics, from psychology to archaeology to musicology. The very possibility of assuming the existence of cultural traits is not granted. In order to start a wide interdisciplinary confrontation, we need a sufficiently loose definition of a cultural trait as any trait whose production in individuals depends, to some extent, on social learning; and we need a deflationary interpretive horizon where cultural traits are not expected to provide an exhaustive theory of culture and cultural change. But from there, we can go a long way if each of the involved disciplines enters the debate with a self-presenting attitude, emphasizing its own methodological practices, and explaining whether and how cultural traits have a role in its own research programs and epistemic goals. Are there differences in aspects of culture that are studied by different disciplines? What definitions of cultural traits are on the table? How do we delimit a trait? How is the problem declined at different observational scales, and which scales are most in focus? Do traits travel in geographical space, and how? Are there other relevant spaces? How are traits modified in their diffusion? Is it possible and useful to build models of this diffusion? Only a strong multidisciplinary perspective can help to clarify these problems about cultural traits, by means of which we understand our precious heritage, cultural diversity. (shrink)

Because human cognition is creative and socially situated, knowledge accumulates, diffuses, and gets applied in new contexts, generating cultural analogs of phenomena observed in population genetics such as adaptation and drift. It is therefore commonly thought that elements of culture evolve through natural selection. However, natural selection was proposed to explain how change accumulates despite lack of inheritance of acquired traits, as occurs with template-mediated replication. It cannot accommodate a process with significant retention of acquired or horizontally (e.g. socially) (...) transmitted traits. Moreover, elements of culture cannot be treated as discrete lineages because they constantly interact and influence one another. It is proposed that what evolves through culture is the mind; ideas and artifacts are merely reflections of its current evolved state. Interacting minds transform (in part) through through a non-Darwinian autopoietic process similar to that by which early life evolved, involving not survival of the fittest but actualization of their potential. (shrink)

This paper means to demonstrate the theoretical-and- methodological potential of a particular pattern of thought about culture. Employing an end-means and absolute value plus concept of reality approach, the continuous model of culture aims to embrace from one holistic standpoint various concepts and debates of the modern human, social, and political sciences. The paper revisits the debates of fact versus value, nature versus culture, culture versus structure, agency versus structure, and economics versus politics and offers the concepts of the rule (...) of law, state capitalism, a dialectical model of progress, and interpretative qualitative research, as well as of cultural diffusion, autonomy, alienation, and individuality. This model distinguishes between the ideal-symbolical and the instrumental functions of culture, sees culture as being sewn from universal binaries, and provides a certain understanding of the cognitive function of a value judgment, with positivism so far vague about the topic. It, too, suggests an extra method for investigating culture : the comparative literature study of culture enables social science to view literature as its potential in-depth interviewee— a case for arguing for a certain conception of interdisciplinarity as well. In addition, it predicts that cultural particularism or individuality remains an essential factor of human existence. Analyzing the issue of Eurocentrism in social science, the model finds modernity ’s concept of reality to be involved in ” methodological ” intellectualistic reductionism, characterizing it since the empiricism/ rationalism origination. Systematically confusing the universal oppositions in a Eurocentric manner, intellectualism becomes a contributing factor in unfolding post- modernity. (shrink)

I belong to a generation of cultural studies researchers for whom Stuart Hall was not the primary voice defining the field as I first encountered it. He was not even among the first wave of writers that I read or heard discussed as doing ‘cultural studies’. Instead, I came to Hall’s work from a distance defined by the history of cultural studies as a discipline; first by the diffusion of some of its most important interventions through (...) other fields, so that it was not only people who said they were doing cultural studies who were taken up as key to the field, and second by the institutionalisation of a cultural studies canon in which Hall became only one voice, however influential. Nevertheless, by the time Hall died I had come not only to an enthusiastic appreciation of his work but to strongly feel my own indebtedness to it. I want to reflect here on how teaching cultural studies brought me to a close engagement with Hall’s work, and how teaching keeps Hall’s work and ideas alive when the exigencies of academic publishing might relegate him to citational history. (shrink)

Africa is a continent in transition amidst a revival of cultural practices. Over previous years the continent was robbed of the benefits of medical advances by unfounded cultural practices surrounding its cultural heritage. In a fast moving field like genetic screening, discussions of social and policy aspects frequently need to take place at an early stage to avoid the dilemma encountered by Western medicine. This paper, examines the potential challenges to genetic screening in Africa. It discusses how (...) cultural practices may affect genetic screening. It views genomics science as a culture which is trying to diffuse into another one. It argues that understanding the existing culture will help the diffusion process. The paper emphasizes the importance of genetic screening for Africa, by assessing the current level of burden of diseases in the continent and shows its role in reducing disease prevalence. The paper identifies and discusses the cultural challenges that are likely to confront genetic screening on the continent, such as the worldview, rituals and taboos, polygyny, culture of son preference and so on. It also discusses cultural practices that may promote the science such as inheritance practices, spouse selection practices and naming patterns. Factors driving the cultural challenges are identified and discussed, such as socialization process, patriarchy, gender, belief system and so on. Finally, the paper discusses the way forward and highlights the ethical considerations of doing genetic screening on the continent. However, the paper also recognizes that African culture is not monolithic and therefore makes a case for exceptions. (shrink)

This article responds to recent debates in critical algorithm studies about the significance of the term “algorithm.” Where some have suggested that critical scholars should align their use of the term with its common definition in professional computer science, I argue that we should instead approach algorithms as “multiples”—unstable objects that are enacted through the varied practices that people use to engage with them, including the practices of “outsider” researchers. This approach builds on the work of Laura Devendorf, Elizabeth Goodman, (...) and Annemarie Mol. Different ways of enacting algorithms foreground certain issues while occluding others: computer scientists enact algorithms as conceptual objects indifferent to implementation details, while calls for accountability enact algorithms as closed boxes to be opened. I propose that critical researchers might seek to enact algorithms ethnographically, seeing them as heterogeneous and diffuse sociotechnical systems, rather than rigidly constrained and procedural formulas. To do so, I suggest thinking of algorithms not “in” culture, as the event occasioning this essay was titled, but “as” culture: part of broad patterns of meaning and practice that can be engaged with empirically. I offer a set of practical tactics for the ethnographic enactment of algorithmic systems, which do not depend on pinning down a singular “algorithm” or achieving “access,” but which rather work from the partial and mobile position of an outsider. (shrink)

My theme at its most general is the relation between culture and power; at its most specific, the relation between a particular type of culture, so-called high culture, and two types of power, namely governmental power, and the related but more diffuse power prevailing in society at large.

Conversion to organic farming, along with its associated driving forces and barriers, has been explored intensively over the past decade, while studies on the distribution and impacts of local socio-cultural processes in relation to conversion to and diffusion of organic farming have been scarce. The concentration of organic farms in Denmark differs according to county and, moreover, there appears to be large within-county variation in the density of organic farms. The present study explores local aspects of conversion to (...) organic farming and the factors that may help explain variation in density and concentration of organic farms within smaller areas. The study is based on nine qualitative interviews with organic farmers from two neighboring areas, referred to as “mainland” and “island,” respectively. Three farms were situated in the high-density area (mainland) and the remaining six in the low-density area (island). Furthermore, five advisors with connections to the area provided information with regard to their local experience and perceptions. Three main, and to some extent interacting, issues are discussed. The first is the price of land related to local scarcity of land, in the context of structural development and the effects of agricultural policies. The second is distance – both physical and social. Cooperation and exchange of experience among organic farmers was frequent on the mainland side, while isolation and lack of interaction was more common for the island farmers. Third, the role of the agricultural advisory service and the existence of champion farmers are important: pioneer farmers on the mainland have been supported by committed agricultural advisors, while lack of organic champion farmers and low priority granted to organic farming among agricultural advisors were found on the island. (shrink)

Drawing on the work of Levi-Strauss, Malinowski, Dumezil, Van Gennep, Eliade and many others, Dr. Marsland proposes a dual/triune structure to early religion--a structure which appears to be worldwide.Marslander discusses the ideas of E.B.Tylor?s PRIMITIVE CULTURE (1872); James Frazer?s GOLDEN BOUGH (1890): the work of the Cambridge Ritualists, such as Jane Harrison?s THEMIS (1912) and F.M.Cornford?s ORIGINS OF ATTIC COMMEDY (1914); and Jessie Weston?s FROM RITUAL TO ROMANCE (1920). Also explored are the epistemological dilemmas of culture-formation and cultural (...) class='Hi'>diffusion based on mythic and societal change. This synthesis encompasses in a coherent whole gods, goddesses and their functions, festival rituals, the composition of sacred sites, the meaning of animal emblems and symbols in art, along with tribal social patterns. Taking a post-Lacanian view of the religious origin of culture, Dr.Marslander posits the use and structure of symbol in new and intricate ways. (shrink)

Accepting Cole's the premise that, “cultural-inclusive psychology has been … an elusive goal” but one worth striving to attain, I first set out to identify my domain of interest and competence as an intellectual. Deciding it to be social interaction between individuals, I then searched out theoretical approaches to this domain that encompassed as many approaches to this trans-historical concern that have emerged from cultural traditions bequeathing us their legacies. Doing this search comprehensively required me to move outside (...) my Judeo-Christian, Greco-Roman, Renaissance heritage and its international diffusion via the European Empires since the 1500's, embodied most recently the American dominance of intellectual discourse since the Second World War. In my case, this journey has taken me in to Chinese culture and psychology where I have worked towards integrating the Chinese worldview and its psychological measures into the discipline of social psychology. Striving for a more inclusive culture-view, I am now using multi-cultural data bases to transcend this two-cultural focus and incorporate wider measures of cultural variation into our theorizing and empirical validation of universal models for social interaction. This paper describes my current procedures for such culture-mapping. (shrink)

Cultural space knows no official boundary. Civilizational interaction, recorded and unrecorded, is an ongoing process. Diffusionism and parallelism get interfused in civilizational studies. To think of one-sided borrowing or lending in the realm of culture rests on bias or prejudice, perhaps both. To think that originally there was only one culture (Egypt or India or China) and that all other cultures are its diffused or dispersed form is incorrect, both theoretically and evidentially. Comparably incorrect is the anthropological hypothesis that (...) different cultures, in response to diverse social and natural stimuli or conditions, developed quite independently and in parallel manner. Once we believe, as I think we must, that cultural space is a continuum, the parallelistic thesis is bound to collapse. If, on the other hand, we totally reject the possibility of independent, relatively independent, origin and development of different cultures, we are obliged to deny the differentiable identity and personality and distinct cultures. To deny cultural pluralism is psychologically untenable and ideologically pernicious, and I have argued the point at length elsewhere. (shrink)

This study offers a theoretical framework for stakeholder management in an international and multicultural environment. Through the use of an extensive qualitative case study analysis, a methodological approach was developed for analyzing stakeholder dialogue data for cultural differences. Based on the empirical data it was possible to show specific ways in which cultural dimensions affect the international diffusion of stakeholder related policies. These findings contribute to the fields knowledge on internal stakeholder management implementation, by addressing the complexity (...) of embedding stakeholder management principles and practices within various international subsidiaries of the same multinational organization. (shrink)

Un jeu subtil associant les dimensions visuelles, culturelles ou sociales s’établit entre l’utilisateur de la règle et son destinataire. L’étude des différentes méthodes employées met en lumière cette dynamique du discours juridique. Cette nécessité de spécifier les rôles, de montrer les visages multiples a pour vocation de rendre sensible et conscient le locuteur au pluralisme organisé dans le discours juridique. C’est dans la multiplicité que le discours peut s’avérer fragile, susceptible de rupture dans la compréhension de sens.

My first aim in this article is to describe the origin of the notion of culture of knowledge due to the research activities carried out at the University of Frankfurt by the Research Group Culture of Knowledge and Social Change since 1999. In this context we examined the relation between knowledge and society and proposed the notion of culture of knowledge as a key-concept to emphasize that knowledge does always appear in a specific historical form, and can be investigated only (...) as a social practice. This key-concept turned out to be a helpful heuristic construct and had therefore a widespread diffusion as a general and extremely flexible category which can shed light on mutual relations between knowledge and culture in several historical contexts. Secondly, I will compare the approach taken in the culture of knowledge with other contextualist approaches of contemporary research areas like History of Science and Theory of Culture to show that it is particularly helpful in terms of connecting different fields. Finally, I will drive attention to a basic question concerning the approach of theculture of knowledge which remains still unanswered. The Frankfurter Research Group considered it as a model of knowledge alternative to all those positions in History of Science and Theory of Culture that assume the universal, trans-historical, and trans-cultural validity of fundamental forms of knowledge and cognitive abilities. I will discuss whether and to what extent these positions are really alternative, and for this purpose I will focus on a central point: whether the thesis of a radical historicity of knowledge undermines the very idea of universal rationality and to what extent. (shrink)

Liberal political philosophy emphasizes the benefits of membership in a cultural group and, in the opinion of this challenging book, neglects its harmful, oppressive aspects. Andrew Kernohan argues that an oppressive culture perpetuates inegalitarian social meanings and false assumptions about who is entitled to what. Cultural pollution harms fundamental interests in self-respect and knowledge of the good and is diffuse, insidious, and unnoticed. This cultural pollution is analogous to environmental pollution, and though difficult to detect, is nonetheless (...) just as real. The book's conclusion is that a liberal state committed to the moral equality of persons must accept a strong role in reforming our cultural environment. (shrink)

The article purports to examine the risk to cultural identity amongst an Indian community in South Africa using a single case study methodology. A case study approach was followed, using the qualitative research methodology, whereby not only the how, but also adding focus on the thoughts, feelings, perceptions, experiences and motivations that people have underlie their behaviour. The year 1960 marked the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the Indians to the Colony of Natal, hence the study considers the (...) period 1895 to 1960. Identifying with a particular culture allows members of that community to experience feelings of belonging and security. Moving across continents, Indian indentured sugar plantation labourers came to the Colony of Natal from 1860 until 1911 bringing with them their cultural identity. The risk to cultural identity is a significant contributor to an individual’s well-being. Cultural identity may be viewed as a sense of belonging based on one’s ancestry, rituals, religion, traditions, values and even language. When they were transported during the concurrent time of colonisation and indenture, they became displaced and thus an emotional threat to their well-being, belonging and security was created and simultaneously experienced. This threat compromised their cultural identity. This risk to cultural identity is investigated in the narrative of an Indian female national matriarch, Mrs Takurine Mahesh Singh who arrived in the Colony in 1895 and passed away in 1959. A risk to cultural identity existed, but the Indian community in South Africa did not experience deculturalisation. They were able to practise their ancestral culture without losing their identity. This is one of the findings and it concludes the abstract.Contribution: The study of identity, identity diffusion, identity loss is a very important aspect to study, especially for displaced communities who suffer not only alienation from their mother country, but also losing contact and cultures as a result of displacement. This article provides insight on the risk to cultural identity in Natal between 1895 and 1960. In terms of the findings, cultural identity is an important contributor to well-being. Identifying with a particular culture gave the matriarch a feeling of belonging and security. It also provides access to social and other networks which provide support and shared strength, values and aspirations. Although a product of oral history, for this research, the article could not be supported by other historical materials in an attempt at balancing the views as scholars have not explored the widowed Indian nationals who have remained in the Colony after indenture. This article should not be viewed simplistically as a retelling of Mrs Singh’s life story, but rather a narrative based on reflective memories that pieced together her departure from India under the political system of indenture, living and surviving as a widow under harsh laws and having multiple identities. The narrative oral history approach combined with a qualitative research methodology does not focus on analysis and interpretation but rather brings to the fore, the opportunity for further exploratory studies where the question ‘why’ will be answered. (shrink)

Recent studies of conceptual metaphors in a legal context have often dealt with the power of embodiment. However, the connotations of culturally originated metaphors could be different when they appear in laws and regulations. In particular, the role of metaphor when the legislator wishes to define intention in hybrid organizations is investigated here. The case studied is how a conceptual metaphor of ‘business’ manifesting itself in the Swedish simile adjective affärsmässig has spread over 40 years. ‘Business’ early on acquired connotations (...) such as impartiality and methodical approach, and can be used metaphorically. Introduced in the regulation of public procurement, ‘businesslike’ was later used to regulate conflicts of interest, restrict state aid and also entered tax legislation. Analysis of Swedish court decisions where ‘businesslike’ occurs shows how the emphasis has shifted from public sector efficiency to neo-liberal principles of competition, while stronger social norms related to environmental effects have led to the term being removed from the Public Procurement Act. Elements of a mixed jurisdiction arise from reliance on EU case-law, and national use of ambiguous cultural metaphors in legal texts and court decisions is a plausible response. (shrink)

The human ability to form large, coordinated groups is among our most impressive social adaptations. Larger groups facilitate synergistic economies of scale for cooperative breeding, such economic tasks as group hunting, and success in conflict with other groups. In many organisms, genetic relationships provide the structure for sociality to evolve via the process of kin selection, and this is the case, to a certain extent, for humans. But assortment by genetic affiliation is not the only mechanism that can bring people (...) together. Affinity based on symbolically mediated and socially constructed identity, or cultural kinship, structures much of human ultrasociality. This paper examines how genetic kinship and two kinds of cultural kinship—affinal kinship and descent—structure the network of cooperating whale hunters in the village of Lamalera, Indonesia. Social network analyses show that each mechanism of assortment produces characteristic networks of different sizes, each more or less conducive to the task of hunting whales. Assortment via close genetic kin relationships (r = 0.5) produces a smaller, denser network. Assortment via less-close kin relations (r = 0.125) produces a larger but less dense network. Affinal networks are small and diffuse; lineage networks are larger, discrete, and very dense. The roles that genetic and cultural kinship play for structuring human sociality is discussed in the context of these results. (shrink)