Cultures

In The Origin and Goal of History Karl Jaspers describes the rise of civilizations by using the phrase "Axial Age" to refer to a phenomenon that is not reducible to direct causal relations between different cultures. This essay addresses the question of how the new level of self-consciousness of mankind that has been achieved during the Axial Age can best be explained. Three possible explanations are being discussed, which comprise firstly, seeing the parallel cultural developments of the axial age as a pure temporal coincidence; secondly, identifying the simultaneity of the axial civilizations as a sign of destiny or as the work of God; and thirdly, identifying concrete cultural and anthropological patterns that have shaped the axial cultures. While the third explanation does not exactly correspond with Jaspers' original philosophical intentions, it is arguably the most defensible one.

In a scathing attack on the classic Herderian-Boasian concept of culture and its potential for generating both relativism and chauvinism, Alain Finkielkraut (1987) notes that although the United Nations' Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was initially ...

Vedecká monografia oboznamuje čitateľa s metodikou deviatich faktorov vyvinutou Jeffom Cartwrightom na zisťovanie prieniku hodnotových systémov organizačnej kultúry a zamestnancov konkrétnej organizácie, a tým jej motivačného potenciálu, pričom uvádza konkrétne príklady jej využitia v realite slovenských podnikov. Autori zovšeobecňujú výsledky analýz svojich prieskumov s využitím tejto faktorov a v novom svetle prezentujú potenciál jej využitia. Prvá kapitola uvádza základné informácie o kultúre, špecificky o organizačnej kultúre, druhá kapitola je venovaná motivácii a východiskovým motivačným teóriám. Tretia kapitola predstavuje deväť faktorov a metodiku, ktorá ich využíva. V štvrtej kapitole je prezentovaná metodika deviatich faktorov a príklady oblastí, v ktorých ju možno využiť. Piata kapitola predkladá ukážky uplatnenia metodiky deviatich faktorov v konkrétnych prípadoch v realite slovenských podnikov.

Fr : L'objectif du 9e congrès des CIAM (1953) était l'adoption d'une Charte de l'habitat en prolongement de la Charte d'Athènes adoptée au 4e congrès en 1933. Ce fut à cet égard un échec, mais, à bien y regarder, c'est aussi à ce moment que prend naissance un ensemble d'orientations qui sortent certains architectes de leur isolement et les ouvrent aux travaux de chercheurs en sciences sociales. Patrick Geddes, le grand urbaniste écossais, qui finit ses jours à Montpellier, en fut l'inspirateur, entraînant le nouveau Président des CIAM, l'architecte catalan J.-L. Sert, et la secrétaire des CIAM, J. Tyrwhitt vers des préoccupations moins asservies à la technique et à ses promesses et plus volontiers attentives aux différences culturelles, aux compétences et aux capacités d'organisation des habitants et à l'importance de l'espace public et de l'environnement. Un certain nombre de leurs disciples, tel que John FC Turner purent ainsi jouer un rôle important dans les pays du Sud mais aussi dans les pays du nord lorsque la réhabilitation des villes anciennes vint à l'ordre du jour en 1975, décrétée année du patrimoine européen.
En : The objective of the 9th congress of CIAM (1953) was the adoption of a Charter on housing in continuation with the Charter of Athens adopted during the 4th congress in 1933. This was in this respect a failure, but, on closer look, it was also at that time that various orientations emerged that allowed some architects to come out of isolation and be exposed to the works of social sciences researchers. Patrick Geddes, the great Scottish planner, who ended his days in Montpellier, was its instigator, encouraging the new President of CIAM, the Catalan architect J. - L. Sert, and the secretary of CIAM, J. Tyrwhitt to be less concerned with technique and its promises and more with cultural differences, competence, abilities of organizing inhabitants and with the importance of public space and the environment. Some of their followers, such as John FC Turner was then able to play an important role in the South and the North as well when the restoration of old cities came on the agenda in 1975, year of the European heritage.

Argumenta:
In the small mountain villages and countryside of Southern Italy, there still lives a magical female tradition shrouded in mystery. These women are called Janare (singular Janara), and in popular folklore they are considered witches, devoted to the darkest and most evil of practices.
This dark reputation is mainly because of the Catholic Inquisition, and the works of a C17th Jewish doctor, who described them as devil worshippers. But in actuality, these women were, and still are above all, peasant healers and seers, capable of entering the world of invisible things. But as free women, the Janare have been seen historically as dangerous for the patriarchal peasant society of southern Italy.
(Article pubblished on Sacred Hoop Magazine - issue 111, March 2021)

Key words: witchcraft, folklore, cultural studies, janare, traditions, paesant magic

When talking about the Warao, we tend to consider this ethnic group indigenous to the Orinoco river, as a homogeneous society, with some similar characteristics in the whole area of ​​its territory. Both in his oral history, myths, modern ethnography, as well as in the historical sources, we can see that existed in the past at least four distinct groups of this indigenous culture. Todaymany of these differences  may be seen in well-defined territories in the Orinoco Delta and its periphery, where it is possible to find indigenous inhabitants living in stilt houses, without horticulture or canoes to emerging farmers living in high ground houses, builders of canoes and urban dwellers.


Cuando se habla de los Warao, se tiende a considerar a este grupo étnico ribereño autóctono del Orinoco, como una sociedad homogénea, con ciertas características similares en todo el ámbito de su territorio. Tanto en su historia oral, mitos, la moderna etnografía, como en las fuentes históricas, podemos ver que existieron en el pasado al menos cuatro grupos bien diferenciados de esta cultura indígena. Hoy pueden verse muchas de estas diferencias en sectores bien definidos del teritorio deltano y su periferia, donde habitan desde indígenas sin horticultura habitando casas sobre pilotes en las riberas, sin canoas, hasta agricultores incipientes, habitantes de casas construidas en terrenos altos, constructores de canoas y habitantes urbanos.

Abstract: The paths followed by hemp in its conquest of the Maghreb
Following a previous article which reviewed current knowledge on the introduction of the hemp in the Maghreb, the author returns in the present note on ways borrowed by this species to become established durably.
Three ways are evoked: 1. The Mediterranean way, during the Antiquity, in the trail of the Punic; 2. The way of Egypt, which having been the front door by which spread in North Africa, in the XIIth century, ecstatic practices often associated with the consumption of cannabis; 3. The Sahelian way which brought african strains hemp in the saharan oases,
in a later time.

Keywords: Cannabis, hemp, Morocco, Maghreb, history, introduction, cultures, Phenicians, Carthaginians, mystic brotherhoods, Sahel, takrouri, narcotics.

Résumé: Les voies suivies par le chanvre dans sa conquête du Maghreb
Donnant suite à un précédent article qui récapitulait les connaissances actuelles sur l’introduction du chanvre au Maghreb, l’auteur revient dans cette note sur les voies que cette espèce a empruntées pour s’y établir durablement.
Trois voies sont évoquées: 1. la voie méditerranéenne, durant l’Antiquité, dans le sillage des Puniques; 2. la voie de l’Égypte, qui fut la porte d’entrée par laquelle se diffusèrent au Maghreb, à partir du XIIème siècle, des pratiques extatiques s‘accompagnant souvent de cannabophagie; 3. la voie sahélienne qui amena des souches africaines de chanvre dans les oasis sahariennes, à une époque tardive.

Mots clés: Cannabis, chanvre, Maroc, Maghreb, histoire, introduction, cultures, Phéniciens, Carthaginois, confréries mystiques, Sahel, takrouri, narcotiques.

Summary

The hemp was introduced in the Maghreb, from the Middle East, in a distant time which it is difficult today to determine with accuracy, but in any case previous to the Xth century because we already find in Kitab surat al-ard of Ibn Hawqal the mention of its culture in three countries of the Maghreb. The cultivars first ones acclimatized belonged to the var. sativa because the hemp was cultivated at first in the Maghreb and in Andalusia for food and technical purposes (hempseed, textile and paper). This variety was however able to be also used for its tipsifying properties as we find a first indication for Kabylia from the Xth century. Little common at the beginning, this toxicomaniac practice will spread afterward when the first sufi brotherhoods, inspired by the muslim mysticism of Middle East, will begin to occupy a more and more important place in the maghrebi popular worship. The use of ḥašîša in mystic practice, who appeared shyly in the Maghreb during the XIIIth century, settles down definitively in the cultural landscape for the XVIth century, changing little by little status and purpose, becoming less and less the quest of God and more and more the search for the pleasure. It is credibly during this period when the var. indica, more effective in its psychotropic activity, was introduced from Egypt. The North of Tunisia and nearby Kabylia were certainly the first lands of setting-up in the Maghreb of the new variety, the lands which will become in the XVth century the most important zone of cannabis culture, where from it will set out to conquer the whole subcontinent until Sahara. And it is probably at the XVIIIth century that Rif was won at the culture of var. indica which prospered there then because of historic, ecological, political and socioeconomic factors, and it so developpe that it dethrones, from the second half of the XIXth century, Kabylia and Constantinois in the rank of first producing region for indian hemp in the Maghreb.

At the same time as this culture recorded progress, the custom of cannabis as narcotic spread in a exponential way in the population, becoming fast worrisome and forcing the beys of Algeria and the sultans of Morocco to set up measures of prohibition, limitation or control. These first tries of regulation of the culture and the consumption of the cannabis will not be continued during the period of colonial occupation, the french and spanish authorities having adopted, concerning this question, a liberal, politicking and utilitarian attitude, making cross their strategic and economic objectives before the interest of the local populations.

It is this past which appears in the current events of modern Morocco, every time the question of the cannabis is approached. The difficulties which this country meets in the management of its antinarcotic policy today result certainly, first and foremost, from disparities which still remain in the territorial development more than half a century after the independence, but these difficulties also find a part of explanation in the inheritance of the history.

Mots clés

Cannabis, chanvre, Maroc, Maghreb, histoire, introduction, cultures, stupéfiants, narcotiques, hemp, narcotics.

Style and function are intuitively appealing concepts we bring to archaeological classification based on our interaction in daily life with our own artifacts. In this interaction, we routinely distinguish between functional and stylistic aspects of artifacts and it is but a short step to extend our experiential knowledge to the domain of artifact classification by introducing a distinction between functional and stylistic types. We can distinguish a functional trait as one in which variation in the values for a trait have consequences at a phenomenological level in accordance with physical properties, mode of energy transfer involved in doing an activity with an artifact, and so on, when using an artifact with the trait in question for some task. In a stylistic trait, variation in the values for the trait has consequences at the ideational level and may thereby alter a conceptual relationship between the artifact on which that trait is embedded and the performance of an activity with that artifact.  Evolutionary archaeologists, following Robert Dunnell, have mistakenlyargued that neutral traits should be equated with stylistic traits and the traits affected by selection should be equated with functional traits, even though both functional and stylistic traits are subject to selection.

Myths are the stories created by the humans of ancient civilizations in order to explain how the world and nature work. Since, for the ancient civilizations, it was almost impossible to explain how certain natural events occur all around the world. Human nature, inherently, needs to feel safe and secure in the midst of mysterious chaos and the unknown; therefore, some stories, which describe mighty Gods that protect humans as well as the underworld of evil, are made up by humans to calm their anxieties and fears, stemming from what they call evil. After that, these stories spread amongst people and, finally, become an integral part of the culture of their society.

Le savoir traditionnel africain a longtemps été marginalisé. Cela semble être dû au fait que ce savoir n'a pas été vulgarisé. Il se donnait sous le manteau à la gloire des élites. Mais, aujourd'hui, encore, les mêmes élites qu'elles soient traditionnelles ou modernes continuent encore de masquer le savoir et plongent tout un continent dans les ténèbres de l'obscurantisme et de l'égoïsme éducationnel. Chacun veut être le seul spécialiste et l'Afrique continue de sombrer.

In this article, I discuss the challenges of conducting a qualitative content analysis in more than one language. Doing research across languages requires detailed attendance to different ways of meaning-making and to the role of distinct (political) cultures. Furthermore, additional reflection is needed in order to become aware and consider one's own role in interpretation and meaning-making. Based on a research project on threat perceptions and enemy image constructions in American and German security policy relating to international terrorism after 9/11, I illustrate the development of a coding frame fitting to the distinct languages and (political) cultural backgrounds, as well as ways of reflection.

Most of the major social theorists have addressed the issue of distinction. Largely ignoring each other's views on the matter, they have mainly sought to integrate their discussion within their respective grand theories. The main defect is that, often extrapolating from the analysis of one particular case, they have claimed to provide sociological laws. On the basis of personal field work as well as a sound acquaintance with the literature dealing with elite groups, the author aims at suggesting how differences from one society to another challenge universalistic understanding. Although comparative research proves to make it impossible to accept any general theory of distinction, the article, however, shows that many classical perspectives are worthy of note if taken as partially valid.

El artículo hace un recorrido general por el sector cultural en EE.UU. para introducirnos en su complejo entramado y plantear las perspectivas que el contexto norteamericano ofrece a los artistas procedentes de países hispanohablantes. En la primera parte describe de forma general algunos de los mecanismos, estructuras básicas y realidades sociales que diferencia el contexto estadounidense. En la segunda parte, y de una manera más concreta, el texto analiza el subsector de las artes visuales. El estudio finaliza con algunas reflexiones que de cara al futuro y en el ámbito de las relaciones culturales debemos considerar en la era de la globalización.

The article takes a general look through the Cultural Sector in the U.S. introducing us into its complex framework and establishing the perspectives that the North American setting offers artists coming from Spanish speaking countries. The first part generally describes some of the mechanisms, basic structures, and social realities that set the American context apart. In the second part, and in a more precise manner, the text analyzes the world of Visual Arts. The study ends with some observations that we should take into account in the era of globalization for the future and in the field of international cultural relations

The concept of ethnicity drift proposed by the author is focused on mobility and changeability of values, positions and social realities making up an identity as the correlation between a person and a nation. Ethnicity drift resembles rather a chain of situational responses than a linear evolution. Ethnicity is similar to the immune system which becomes active in crises and during virus attacks, while in a healthy organism stays inconspicuous, as if sleeping. One of the case studies analyzed by the author is the evolution of phenomenon of Russianness over a thousand year period.

Dans un monde de marchandisation, les cultures traditionnelles au fondement d’identités collectives minoritaires sont confrontées à des enjeux sociaux d’importance. Comment peuvent-elles assurer leur pérennité dans des sociétés travaillées par des mouvements de standardisation généralisés ? En Martinique, département français d’Outre-mer, le rôle contemporain des musiques et danses bèlè est clairement posé lorsqu’on cherche à lier ces pratiques socioculturelles traditionnelles à la catégorie de l’industrie musicale des musiques du monde.

En este libro, el autor retoma su investigación sobre las sombras de un gnomon unitario realizada en las últimas dos décadas. En esta exposición, sobresale el hecho de que las sombras solsticiales debieron haber sido fundamentales en el desarrollo de las primeras civilizaciones del Homo sapiens. Los casos incluidos en estas páginas documentan y valoran con precisión, la influencia del gnomon y sus sombras en los fundamentos de la historia de la Matemática, la Astronomía, el Urbanismo. El lector descubrirá que el factor gnomónico expuesto, pareciera estar tras un velo pero al fin y al cabo, presente en el desarrollo cultural de la humanidad.

Historically Christianity owes much to Judaism. St. Paul’s Christianity, however, changed the way of thinking of many of the first Jews because of a new way of reasoning about selfhood, the human body, and human cognition. Without wanting to treat certain theological concepts, I want to underline how modern science’s view of the person is closer to traditional Judaism than it is to Christianity, and how Paul’s “error” was diffused throughout the Western world, by analyzing the semantics of linguistic references to the body, the soul, and emotions. What was St. Paul’s error? The question means to be both allusive and provocative. He was born by the name Saul in the city of Tarsus, in modern Turkey, during the height of its splendour as a Roman-Greek city. Paul grew up as a “free man”, that is, as a Roman citizen in a cosmopolitan environment. He is considered to be the most influential and productive of the testimonies of the Christian thought throughout Asia Minor and Western Europe...