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Leveling Mechanism
In cultural anthropology, a leveling mechanism is a practice that acts to ensure social equality, usually by shaming or humbling members of a group that attempt to put themselves above other members. One commonly given example of a leveling mechanism is the !Kung practice of "shaming the meat", particularly as illustrated by the Canadian anthropologist Richard Borshay Lee in his article "Eating Christmas in the Kalahari" (1969). When Lee gave the !Kung an ox as a Christmas gift, the !Kung responded by insulting the gift, calling it a "bag of bones" and joking that they would have to eat the horns because there was no meat on it. Lee later asked a man named Tomazo why his gift was insulted in this way. He responded that it was because the gift was arrogant. Lee asked what he meant by this and was told: See also * * Law of Jante * Tall poppy syndrome The tall poppy syndrome is a cultural phenomenon in which people hold back, criticise or sabotage those who have or are be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cultural Anthropology
Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The portmanteau term sociocultural anthropology includes both cultural and social anthropology traditions. Anthropologists have pointed out that through culture people can adapt to their environment in non-genetic ways, so people living in different environments will often have different cultures. Much of anthropological theory has originated in an appreciation of and interest in the tension between the local (particular cultures) and the global (a universal human nature, or the web of connections between people in distinct places/circumstances). Cultural anthropology has a rich methodology, including participant observation (often called fieldwork because it requires the anthropologist spending an extended period of time at the research loc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Equality
Social equality is a state of affairs in which all individuals within a specific society have equal rights, liberties, and status, possibly including civil rights, freedom of expression, autonomy, and equal access to certain public goods and social services. Social equality requires the absence of legally enforced social class or caste boundaries and the absence of discrimination motivated by an inalienable part of an individual's identity. For example, advocates of social equality believe in equality before the law for all individuals regardless of sex, gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, origin, caste or class, income or property, language, religion, convictions, opinions, health, or disability. Social equality is related to equal opportunity. Definition Social equality is variously defined and measured by different schools of thought. These include equality of power, rights, goods, opportunities, capabilities, or some combination of these things. It may also by de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Routledge
Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law, and social science. The company publishes approximately 1,800 journals and 5,000 new books each year and their backlist encompasses over 70,000 titles. Routledge is claimed to be the largest global academic publisher within humanities and social sciences. In 1998, Routledge became a subdivision and imprint of its former rival, Taylor & Francis Group (T&F), as a result of a £90-million acquisition deal from Cinven, a venture capital group which had purchased it two years previously for £25 million. Following the merger of Informa and T&F in 2004, Routledge became a publishing unit and major imprint within the Informa "academic publishing" division. Routledge is headquartered in the main T&F office in Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxfordshir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ǃKung People
The ǃKung are one of the San peoples who live mostly on the western edge of the Kalahari desert, Ovamboland (northern Namibia and southern Angola), and Botswana. The names ''ǃKung'' (''ǃXun'') and ''Ju'' are variants words for 'people', preferred by different ǃKung groups. This band level society used traditional methods of hunting and gathering for subsistence up until the 1970s. Today, the great majority of ǃKung people live in the villages of Bantu pastoralists and European ranchers. Beliefs The ǃKung people of southern Africa recognize a Supreme Being (Khu/Xu/Xuba/Huwa) who is the Creator and Upholder of life. Like other African High Gods, he also punishes man by means of the weather, and the Otjimpolo-ǃKung know him as Erob, who "knows everything". They also have animistic and animatistic beliefs, which means they believe in both personifications and impersonal forces. For example, they recall a culture hero named Prishiboro who had a wife who was an elephan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Borshay Lee
Richard Borshay Lee (born 1937) is a Canadian anthropologist. Lee has studied at the University of Toronto and University of California, Berkeley, where he received a Ph.D. He holds a position at the University of Toronto as Professor Emeritus of Anthropology. Lee researches issues concerning the indigenous people of Botswana and Namibia, particularly their ecology and history. Known best for his work on the Ju'/hoansi, Lee won the 1980 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for his book ''The !Kung San: Men, Women, and Work in a Foraging Society''. With Irven DeVore, Lee was co-organiser of the 1966 University of Chicago Symposium on "Man the Hunter". Lee co-edited with Richard Daly ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunter-Gatherers'', which was first published in 1999. In 2003, ''Anthropologica'', the journal of the Canadian Anthropology Society, dedicated an issue to Lee's oeuvre. In 2011 he co-authored the children's book ''Africans Thought of It: Amazing Innovations'' with Bathseba Opi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Museum Of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 interconnected buildings housing 45 permanent exhibition halls, in addition to a planetarium and a library. The museum collections contain over 34 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, and human cultural artifacts, as well as specialized collections for frozen tissue and genomic and astrophysical data, of which only a small fraction can be displayed at any given time. The museum occupies more than . AMNH has a full-time scientific staff of 225, sponsors over 120 special field expeditions each year, and averages about five million visits annually. The AMNH is a private 501(c)(3) organization. Its mission statement is: "To discover, interpret, and disseminate—through scientific research ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Law Of Jante
The Law of Jante (, da, Janteloven )Norwegian nb, Janteloven , nn, Jantelova; is, Jantelögin; fo, Jantelógin; sv, Jantelagen ; fi, Janten laki . is a code of conduct created in fiction by the Danish-Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose and has been assumed by some to explain the egalitarian nature of Nordic countries. The attitudes were first formulated in the form of the ten rules in Sandemose's satirical novel ''A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks'' (, 1933), but the attitudes themselves are older. Sandemose portrays the fictional small Danish town of Jante, which he modelled upon his native town Nykøbing Mors in the 1930s, where nobody was anonymous, a feature of life typical of small towns. It is used generally in colloquial speech in the Nordic countries as a sociological term to denote a social attitude of disapproval towards expressions of individuality and personal success. Definition There are ten rules in the law as defined by Sandemose, all expressive of variations ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tall Poppy Syndrome
The tall poppy syndrome is a cultural phenomenon in which people hold back, criticise or sabotage those who have or are believed to have achieved notable success in one or more aspects of life, particularly intellectual or cultural wealth; "cutting down the tall poppy". Commonly, in Australia and New Zealand, "cutting down the tall poppy" is used to describe those who deliberately put down another for their success and achievements. In Japan, a similar common expression is "the nail that sticks up gets hammered down". In the Netherlands, this expression is "don't put your head above ground level" (''boven het maaiveld uitsteken''), with the cultural phenomenon being named '' Maaiveldcultuur''. In Chile, this expression is known as "''chaquetear''" ('pull the jacket'). In Sweden, this expression is known as Law of Jante. The Law of Jante comes with "rules" such as "you're not to think you are anything special". Etymology The concept originates from accounts in Herodotus' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cultural Anthropology
Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The portmanteau term sociocultural anthropology includes both cultural and social anthropology traditions. Anthropologists have pointed out that through culture people can adapt to their environment in non-genetic ways, so people living in different environments will often have different cultures. Much of anthropological theory has originated in an appreciation of and interest in the tension between the local (particular cultures) and the global (a universal human nature, or the web of connections between people in distinct places/circumstances). Cultural anthropology has a rich methodology, including participant observation (often called fieldwork because it requires the anthropologist spending an extended period of time at the research loc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
