Search Results (31)

Historical and archaeological records help shed light on the production, ritual practices, and personhood of cult objects characterizing the central Peruvian highlands after ca. AD 200. Colonial accounts indicate that descendant groups made and venerated stone images of esteemed forebears as part of small-scale local funerary cults. Prayers and supplications help illuminate how different artifact forms were seen as honored family members (forebears, elders, parents, siblings). Archaeology, meanwhile, shows the close associations between carved monoliths, tomb repositories, and restricted cult spaces. The converging lines of evidence are consistent with the hypothesis that production of stone images was the purview of family/lineage groups. As the cynosures of cult activity and devotion, the physical forms of ancestor effigies enabled continued physical engagements, which vitalized both the idol and descendant group. Full article

A Sepik myth tells of a time in which women were in charge of powerful spirits before jealous men reversed the gender roles by force. Today, the men of Timbunmeli (Nyaura, West Iatmul) have lost control over spirits who have started to act through female bodies. Christian charismatic rituals hint at mythical times, and remind villagers that women are the original custodians of spirits now understood as being spirits of God. While previously, male bodies represented spirits in shamanic rituals and through male ritual regalia, now women are the predominant recipients of God’s gifts. This paper analyzes the current religious practices as onto-praxis in relation to the local concept of personhood and the relational ontology informing the Nyaura’s lifeworld. Building on Strathern, Bird-David, and Gell’s theories about the personhood of humans and things from an anthropology of ontology perspective and adding a gender perspective to the discussion, this paper argues that dividuality put into practice has not only informed the way the Nyaura have made charismatic Christianity their own, but is also central for understanding current events impacting gender relations in which material objects representing spirits play a crucial role. Full article

In this essay, I recount the recent narrative of an evangelical awakening on issues of sexual violence though the impact of Rachael Denhollander, an advocate and survivor of sexual trauma. Denhollander’s evangelical credentials authorized fellow US evangelicals to sympathize with the #MeToo movement. I then show how this script of awakening obscures a long history of abuse in relation to LGBTQ persons of faith. I demonstrate how American evangelical sex manuals make abuse both constitutive to a genuine discovery of personhood and simultaneously marginal to one’s self-identification. Paradox becomes a framework for describing the “problem” of homosexuality in evangelical circles. Finally, I reflect on what it suggests to scholars of religion that a religious community ensconces abuse in this distinctive way. Full article

Caught between different structures of identity hierarchies, queer and trans Asian American experiences have been systematically erased, forgotten, or purposely buried; as such, their experiences have often been minimized. In this paper, we seek to reimagine personhood in psychology through the perspectives of queer and trans Asian American subjectivities. Beginning with a brief discussion on the impacts of coloniality on conventional conceptualizations of who counts as human, we then consider how this is taken up in psychology, especially for multiply marginalized folx. Moving beyond the possibilities of representational politics, we explore possible decolonial frameworks and alternative methodologies in psychology to center queer and trans Asian American personhoods and to see them as more than just research participants. Full article

An exploration of industrial ruin sites has received sufficient attention in the past. Framed under the hybrid perspective of non-representational theory and paralleled with Ingold’s taskscape conceptualized terms, this study examines the TSA (train service area), an opencast mining ruins site in Gongguan town of Maoming, southern China, as a case locus to depict the ‘lives lived’ and the textures of the taskscape encountered by locales and to sketch out the iterative and eventful movements of human and non-human dynamic phenomena at the rural-urban interface from the 1960s to the 1980s, with the aim to re-examine the locality of one industrial city and regenerate the local culture. As actualized through ‘stories and dramatic episodes’, i.e., an art intervention of a new geographical historiography, the ‘thick’ landscape of mine transport comes to the stage as the self-landscape and of group-place scenes. In the first scene, the industrial past is evoked along the actor’s movement, through situated knowledge and through shared personhood; thus, the spirit of place is finally obtained through the aesthetic sublimation in the landscaping. In the second scene, the movement between the workplace and other rural areas, which are rural and seasonal, has balanced the gap between the urban and the rural, whilst the proximity of the village to the TSA accelerates the process of rural urbanization in this area. Among which, tea, as a non-human item, irreducibly produces a ‘structure of feeling’ and conjures up a sense of past people and past times and of customs, beliefs and localism. Full article

The idea of avatāra no doubt presents a philosophical challenge, as it appears to stand in contrast to the Vedāntic principle of non-duality; the Bhāgavata purāṇa (BhP) offers an opportunity to look into this question due to its unique structure, which combines the Vedānta and Rasa traditions. As such, this paper looks into the theology of Avatāra in the Bhāgavata purāṇa; it argues that reading the purāṇic genre in light of Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta is not as conducive to the understanding of the avatāra as reading it in light of Rāmānuja’s Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta, which indeed is compatible with the purāṇic genre. Moreover, uncovering the underlying assumptions of Western notions of personhood, it seems that classical ideas of “the person” have to be looked into, and offering an alternative idea of personhood may be necessary in order to better understand the theology of avatāra. Full article

This paper joins a discussion about the representational dissonance and commemorative ethics of two self-referential works that engage with Susan Sontag’s 2004 death from Myelodysplastic Syndrome: Annie Leibovitz’s A Photographer’s Life1990–2005 (2006) and David Rieff’s Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son’s Memoir (2008). Instead of approaching these two texts as testimonial accounts measured by standards of reliability and grace, this paper considers how the temporal dissonance produced by an incurable cancer diagnosis thwarts questions of personhood and ethical intention in Leibovitz’s photography and Rieff ’s prose. By contextualizing these works as the caregivers’ experience of Sontag’s illness, this paper reads them as attempts at gauging two distinct temporal perspectives that confound identification—those of living through and of remembering terminal time. Full article

This article explores the interplay between content, narrator, and lifeworld in narrative constructions concerning the meanings of pilgrimage to Mecca by studying the hajj stories of second-generation Moroccan-Dutch women. By adopting a ‘dialogical approach’ to self-storytelling, it is asked how the pilgrimage experiences of these women and the meanings they attribute to them are shaped by different intersecting discursive traditions that inform their daily lives. It is demonstrated that by creative re-articulation and mixing of vocabularies from different discursive traditions to make sense of their hajj experiences, the women contribute to a modern reconfiguration of the genre of hajj accounts. Since gender is the site par excellence where the public debate about the (in)compatibility of being Muslim and being European/Dutch is played out, specific attention will be paid to how the women negotiate conceptions of female Muslim personhood in their stories. Full article

This article examines how Edith Stein’s philosophical and theological anthropology is foundational to the “new feminism” that both Paul VI and John Paul II called for in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. In particular, this article shows how Stein helps to respond to Simone de Beauvoir’s argument that taking women’s biology into consideration leads to essentialism with political implications. This article outlines main themes in the new feminism, and gives a brief overview of the ideas about the “hour of woman” and the “feminine genius” pronounced by popes Paul VI and John Paul II. This article then describes and analyzes Stein’s psycho-physical theory of the human person. Finally, this article considers the importance of Stein’s thought for feminist theology, with brief application to the issue of the ordination of women to the priesthood. Full article

In the period now being called the Anthropocene, the fatal vulnerabilities of the modern way of constructing selfhood are becoming ever more evident. Joanna Macy, who writes from a Buddhist perspective, has argued for the need to “green” the self by rediscovering its participation in ecological and cosmic networks. From a Christian perspective, I would articulate this in terms of an imperative to rediscover our spiritual personhood as radical communion in both God and cosmos. In this paper, “self” refers to an ever-restless process of construction of identity based in self-awareness and aimed at maintaining one’s integrity, coherence, and social esteem. I use the term “person,” on the other hand, to refer to a relational center that exists to be in communion with other persons. How—within the conditions of the dawning Anthropocene—can the tension between these two essential aspects of human existence be opened up in a way that can more effectively protect human and other life on Earth? This would require, it seems, harnessing both the self-protective and the self-giving potentials of human beings. The proposed path is to give ourselves over into the rhythms of the Spirit, being breathed in to selfless personal communion and out to co-creation of our refreshed selfhood. Full article

When considering that artistic and literary artifacts reflect the cultural views and mores of a particular time period, there is a significant misalignment between stories depicting increased moral status of pigs (e.g., vis-à-vis human-porcine relationships) and ongoing practices of pig consumption, commodification, and medical experimentation. In fact, there has been increased industrial farm meat production and biotechnological experimentation. Xenotransplantation trials, for example, are being heralded “the answer” to organ shortages needed for human transplantation, while significant ethical concerns persist. In this paper, I posit that literary reflections add a valuable dimension to animal ethics deliberations, providing a meta-narrative against which to assess normative practices. Beginning with synopses of three books: E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web (1952), Robert Newton Peck’s A Day No Pigs Would Die (1972), and Paul Griffin’s Saving Marty (2017), I illustrate a shifting moral status view of human–pig relationships. Next, I discuss personhood attributions through biological, philosophical, and legal frameworks; review benefits and risks of xenotransplantation; reflect on the moral status of non-human animals; and offer concluding thoughts. Full article

The legal conception and interpretation of the subject of law have long been challenged by different theoretical backgrounds: from the feminist critiques of the patriarchal nature of law and its subjects to the Marxist critiques of its capitalist ideological nature and the anti-racist critiques of its colonial nature. These perspectives are, in turn, challenged by anarchist, queer, and crip conceptions that, while compelling a critical return to the subject, the structure and the law also serve as an inspiration for arguments that deplete the structures and render them hostages of the sovereignty of the subject’ self-fiction. Identity Wars (a possible epithet for this political and epistemological battle to establish meaning through which power is exercised) have, for their part, been challenged by a renewed axiological consensus, here introduced by posthuman critical theory: species hierarchy and anthropocentric exceptionalism. As concepts and matter, questioning human exceptionalism has created new legal issues: from ecosexual weddings with the sea, the sun, or a horse; to human rights of animals; to granting legal personhood to nature; to human rights of machines, inter alia the right to (or not to) consent. Part of a wider movement on legal theory, which extends the notion of legal subjectivity to non-human agents, the subject is increasingly in trouble. From Science Fiction to hyperrealist materialism, this paper intends to signal some of the normative problems introduced, firstly, by the sovereignty of the subject’s self-fiction; and, secondly, by the anthropomorphization of high-tech robotics. Full article

There is an increasing awareness of the need to promote behaviors consistent with the understanding that individuals with dementia deserve adequate respect. Person-centered attitudes on the part of a care facility’s staff can affect care practices and relationships with residents. This study examined the psychometric properties of the Korean version of the Personhood in Dementia Questionnaire (KPDQ), which measures staff’s person-centered attitudes toward individuals with dementia. The KPDQ was translated and adapted based on commonly used guidelines from the World Health Organization. For psychometric testing, the data obtained from a total of 269 participants in 13 long-term care facilities were analyzed. Factor analysis, item fit, convergent validity, and known-group validity were examined. Reliability and differential item functioning (DIF) based on Rasch analysis were also assessed. The KPDQ consists of 20 items with three subscales (“agency”, “respect for personhood” and “psychosocial engagement”). Item fit statistics indicated that each item fits well with the underlying construct. The KPDQ demonstrated satisfactory convergent validity, known-group validity and internal consistency reliability. There was no DIF by subgroup according to age or educational status. Results indicated that the KPDQ is a reliable and valid tool for measuring long-term care staff’s beliefs about personhood. Full article

Designating rights for nature is a potentially powerful way to open up the dialogue on nature conservation around the world and provide enforcement power for an ecocentric approach. Experiments using a rights-based framework have combined in-country perspectives, worldviews, and practices with legal justifications giving rights to nature. This paper looks at a fusion of legal traditions, religious worldviews, and practices of environmental protection and advocacy in the context of India. It takes two specific legal cases in India and examines the recent high-profile rulings designating the rivers Ganga, Yamuna, and their tributaries and glaciers as juristic persons. Although the rulings were stayed a few months after their issuance, they are an interesting bending of the boundaries of nature, person, and deity that produce Ganga and Yamuna as vulnerable prototypes. This paper uses interview data focusing on these cases and document and archival data to ask whether legal interventions giving rights to nature can become effective avenues for environmental activism and spiritual ecology. The paper also assesses whether these legal cases have promoted Hindu nationalism or ‘Hindutva lite’. Full article

Meaningful activities can enhance quality of life, a sense of connectedness, and personhood for persons with dementia. Healthcare professionals play an important role in maintaining meaningful activities, but little is currently known about the impact of the transition from home to nursing home on these activities. This study explored the experiences of professionals in four Dutch nursing homes, identifying facilitators and barriers to the maintenance of meaningful activities during the transition. A qualitative explorative design was used. Data were collected using focus groups and analyzed using thematic analysis. Twenty-two professionals participated in four focus groups, and three themes were identified: (1) a lack of awareness and attention for meaningful activities; (2) activities should be personalized and factors such as person characteristics, interests, the social and physical environment, and specific information such as roles, routines, activities, and personal issues play an important role in maintaining activities; (3) in the organization of care, a person-centered care vision, attitudes of professionals and interdisciplinary collaboration facilitate maintenance of meaningful activities. Healthcare professionals felt that meaningful activities are difficult to maintain and that improvements are needed. Our study provides suggestions on how to maintain meaningful activities for persons with dementia prior, during and after the transition. Full article