scholarly journals Hmong Textiles, Symmetries, Perception and Culture

Symmetry ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 1829
Author(s):  
Simeon S. Magliveras
Keyword(s):  
Vietnam War ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Gestalt Theory ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Art And Culture ◽  
Hmong Culture ◽  
Hmong People ◽  
Ethnographic Analysis

As part of this Special Issue, this paper attempts to add to a reflexive discussion and confront the simplistic understanding of why humans construct symmetries. This paper examines Hmong textiles called paj ntaub. The Hmong became a transnational people due to happenstance and the Vietnam War. Despite great trials and tribulations, the Hmong people and their art and culture survived. They express themselves and their identity through oral traditions and cultural practices, one of which is their textiles. The old textile styles, known as paj ntaub, are non-representational symmetric designs. The research for this paper was done in Laos. Grounded research, textual analysis and participant observation were the methods used. Though their textiles are a salient part of Hmong culture, little work has been done on the ontology of paj ntaub. This paper proposes a novel perspective to examining the paj ntaub by using anthropological symmetry, the gestalt theory on perception, and ethnographic analysis of the culture, meanings, and choices in design embedded in the textiles, as well as the process of making of the paj ntaub. This work proposes that the paj ntaub is not merely an expression of identity but a holistic expression in Hmong culture and reflects their relationship to their world.

scholarly journals Occupations and Professionalism in Art and Culture

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lennart G. Svensson
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Creative Industries ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
Emotional Labour ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Arts And Culture ◽  
Art And Culture

The article introduces the topic of this special issue on artists and professionalism from the perspective of the sociology of the arts and culture, in order to demonstrate how the contributions significantly develop studies of professions in general. Some theoretical concepts are defined and discussed: culture, arts, occupations, professions, status, field, symbolic and social capital, emotional labour, and reversed economy. An illustration is used to demonstrate pricing in arts and what may explain it. There is a focus on the field of art with a brief comparison to the academic field. In this issue we find studies on artists, authors, and theatre actors, which provide significant contributions to these themes in theories and studies of professions.Keywords: creative industries, creative occupations, professions, status, field, symbolic and social capital 

scholarly journals Broken promises of Internet and democracy: Internet art in Serbia, 1996–2014

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. 889-900
Author(s):  
Nina Mihaljinac ◽  
Vera Mevorah
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Internet Technology ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Internet Art ◽  
Art And Culture ◽  
Mixed Feelings ◽  
Phases Of Development ◽  
Democratic Principles ◽  
Internet Revolution

The article uses case studies of artistic and cultural practices on Internet in Serbia (1996–2014) to provide a deeper analysis of possible uses of internet technology and internet art for social and political change as well as showcasing changing attitudes toward the internet in a transitional semi-periphery state. Through analyzing these questions, the article defines several phases of development of internet and art projects in Serbia including (a) the phase of techno-utopia when internet technology was used for staging and supporting student protests and the so-called first ‘internet revolution’ in Serbia (1996–1999); (b) the phase of ambivalence or ‘mixed feelings’ toward the Internet, triggered of by Kosovo War and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)-led bombing of 1999–2000; (c) the phase of optimism and hope about the Internet after the ‘October 5th’ revolution (2000–cc. 2005); and (d) the phase of disillusionment with both the Internet and democracy (2010–2014). This study re-evaluates early achievements and democratic principles of networked society and illuminates core issues and accomplishments of cyberculture from the 1990s until present times through the point of view of multiple actors present within Serbian art and culture.

scholarly journals Fenomena Taubat pada Komunitas Forsabda di Tulungagung

ESOTERIK ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 171
Author(s):  
Mega Mustika Sari ◽  
Achmad Sauqi
Keyword(s):  
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis ◽  
Sampling Method ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Phenomenological Method ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Self Evaluation ◽  
Human Happiness ◽  
Art And Culture ◽  
Minimum Age

<p class="06IsiAbstrak">This research is motivated by the phenomenon where modern humans experience inner anxiety. The condition of human happiness is not only the satisfaction of physical needs, but also the fulfillment of inner needs. In the perspective of Sufism, efforts to fulfill inner needs are carried out by getting closer to God. Efforts to get closer to God in the science of Sufism begin with repentance. From those studies this research's aim is to study the phenomenon of repentance in cultural actors (javanes culture). In the area around the researcher, one of the cultural actors community is Forsabda (Art and Culture Discussion Forum). This study aims to determine the meaning and application of repentance to Forsabda activists. This research is a qualitative research with a phenomenological method. Data mining was carried out on Forsabda Tulungagung activists, to five participants with semi-structured interviews, participant observation and documentation methods. Participants were selected using a purposive sampling method with the following criteria: 1) Have a minimum age of 25 years, 2) Actively participate in Forsabda activities, 3) Willing to provide information. The data collected were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) techniques. The results of this study indicate that there are four meanings of repentance for Forsabda activists, namely self-awareness, self-evaluation, tawhidan, and habluminAllah. While the application of repentance to Forsabda activists is muhasabah, tawakal, tawadhu, istiqomah, gratitude, and inner peace.</p>

scholarly journals "So We Thought not to Lose Our Background Completely": Agency and Belonging among South Sudanese Acholi in New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ryan O'Byrne
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Fundamental Aspect ◽  
Cultural Performance ◽  
The South ◽  
Community Members ◽  
South Sudanese ◽  
Background Population

<p>The members of the South Sudanese Acholi population in New Zealand are part of the burgeoning number of refugees worldwide. As such, they are at risk of having their personal experiences submerged in the stereotypical view of ‘the refugee experience’. The South Sudanese Acholi community are a small but distinct ethnic sub-community within the wider South Sudanese refugee-background population in New Zealand. One of my primary aims in this thesis is to represent the specifically-situated experiences of individuals from this group within the broader contexts of refugee resettlement. A fundamental aspect of these experiences is the ambiguous and often contradictory senses of belonging which community members describe. Using analysis of the narratives through which these individuals make sense of their resettlement experiences, I determine agency to be an important consideration in experiences of belonging and, therefore, I argue that the role of agency to belonging should be more widely recognised. In this thesis I demonstrate how various attempts by South Sudanese Acholi at cultural (re)production in New Zealand are intimately linked to the many difficulties these individuals experience in resettlement, and particularly to how these difficulties impact the development and maintenance of a sense of belonging. Analyses of individual and common factors demonstrate the importance of belonging to experiences of resettlement. This is apparent throughout all aspects of South Sudanese Acholi’s everyday lives. This thesis is organised around the interlinking nature of three aspects of everyday life: marriage, cultural performance, and discursive practices. A central unifying factor is that each of these aspects of every day experience can be understood as attempts in developing more stable senses of belonging. Data was collected through a combination of participant observation and unstructured interviews. Participant observation was primarily undertaken among the Sudanese Acholi Cultural Association (SACA), a community-organised Acholi cultural performance group. Although not exclusively the focus of this research, the members of this group comprise the basis of my research participants and their resettlement experiences form the basis for my results. A focus on participants’ stories about their lives in resettlement allows analysis of the importance of their everyday practices and perceptions to the ways in which they experience and understand their lives in New Zealand and demonstrates that the on-going interaction between their experiences as refugees and their resettlement experiences are mutually reinforcing. I suggest that if refugees’ own voices and opinions are to be accurately represented, a holistic perspective of the full range of their experiences is required. The ambivalent, multiple, and multifaceted nature of belonging described by South Sudanese Acholi individuals’ is a defining feature of their resettlement experiences. I suggest that South Sudanese Acholi attempts at performing and reproducing their customary cultural practices in New Zealand serve primarily as creative means of adapting to the conditions of resettlement in ways which allow the construction, development, and maintenance of feelings of belonging among community members. However, I also determine that lack of agency is especially important for understanding the ambivalence about belonging South Sudanese Acholi demonstrate when speaking of these resettlement experiences. I argue that behind many of the everyday actions taken by refugees are simultaneous attempts to rediscover a sense of agency and to recreate a foundation for belonging.</p>

Culture and Authenticity Denominations in Bengali-Themed Restaurants

2017 ◽  
pp. 265-287
Author(s):  
Nilanjana Sinha ◽  
Himadri Roy Chaudhuri ◽  
Glyn Atwal ◽  
Sitanath Mazumdar ◽  
Alistair Williams
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Traditional Values ◽  
Cultural Authenticity ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Depth Interview ◽  
Culture Market ◽  
Global And Local ◽  
Modern Identity ◽  
Culinary Culture

With contemporary consumer sampling diverse fragmented artefacts, mediating authenticity to such multifaceted and paradoxical identity is a growing challenge for the market. Focusing on Bengali-Themed Restaurants (BTRs), an exploratory study attempts to elicit the different versions in which cultural authenticity is crafted and refined by the market to cater the fluidity in modern identity. Based on purposive sampling, fifteen Bengali themed restaurants were shortlisted in the Indian metropolitan city Kolkata where occasion based visits were made across a period of two years (2012-14). A combination of participant observation and in-depth interview was employed in the study. The study gave rise to the concept of ‘market mediated authenticity' which describes the role market is able to influence objective or pseudo forms of authenticity. The study identified the emergence of BTRs with conservative consumption context by endorsing core traditional values and freezing the employed cultural practices; staged culture as a socially constructed and negotiable phenomenon by loading local culinary with new representations of time and place and existential authenticity depicting an extensive commercialized foothold in defining culinary culture. Market plays an intervening role in characterizing authenticity and procreating its multiple forms. Authenticity can be interpreted in terms of the market negotiation between multiple global and local cultural forces.

scholarly journals Imagining the Hinterland: Literary Representations of Southeast Queensland Beyond the Brisbane Line

2005 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Belinda McKay
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Aboriginal People ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Literary Representations ◽  
The South ◽  
The West ◽  
The North ◽  
Literary Landscapes ◽  
Southeast Queensland

Southeast Queensland — the region encompassing Coolangatta and the McPherson Range to the south, Cooloola and the Blackall Range to the north, and the Great Dividing Range to the west — represents one of Queensland's most significant literary landscapes. For millennia, this area — defined by mountains and waterways — contained important gathering places for ceremonies and trade, and its inhabitants elaborated the meaning of the landscape in a rich complex of stories and other cultural practices such as the bunya festivals. Colonisation disrupted but did not obliterate these cultural associations, which remain alive in the oral traditions of local Aboriginal people and, in more recent times, have surfaced in the work of writers like Oodgeroo Noonuccal and Sam Watson.

scholarly journals Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) in High Schools: Subtle but Potentially Important Student Gains Detected from Human-Centered Curriculum Design

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alissa Ruth ◽  
Joseph Hackman ◽  
Alexandra Brewis ◽  
Tameka Spence ◽  
Rachel Luchmun ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High School Students ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Community Service ◽  
Curriculum Design ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Observation Data ◽  
School Students ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Ethnographic Analysis ◽  
Engineering Projects

A major goal in Engineering training in the U.S. is to continue to both grow and diversify the field. Project- and service-based forms of experiential, problem-based learning are often implemented with this as a goal, and Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) High is one of the more well-regarded and widely implemented. Yet, the evidence based on if and how participation in such programs shapes student intentions and commitment to STEM pathways is currently limited, most especially for pre-college programming. This study asks: How do high school students’ engineering mindsets and their views of engineering/engineers change as they participate in project–service learning (as implemented through an EPICS High curriculum)? This study employed a mixed method design, combining pre- and post-test survey data that were collected from 259 matched students (63% minority, 43% women) enrolling in EPICS High (total of 536 completed pre-tests, 375 completed post-tests) alongside systematic ethnographic analysis of participant observation data conducted in the same 13 socioeconomically diverse schools over a two-year period. Statistical analyses showed that participants score highly on engineering-related concepts and attitudes at both pre- and post-test. These did not change significantly as a result of participation. However, we detected nuanced but potentially important changes in student perspectives and meaning, such as shifting perceptions of engineering and gaining key transversal skills. The value of participation to participants was connected to changes in the meaning of commitments to pursue engineering/STEM.

Then and Now: Participant‐Observation in Political Theory

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
William E. Connolly
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Constitutional Interpretation ◽  
The Public ◽  
New Science ◽  
The Difference

This article examines changes in the study of participant-observation in the field of political theory. It explains that in the early 1960s, political theory was widely considered as a moribund enterprise. Empiricists were pushing a new science of politics, designed to replace the options of constitutional interpretation, impressionistic theory, and traditionalism. But by the mid-1960s the end of ideology screeched to a halt because of growing outrage about the Vietnam War, worries among college students about the draft, and the emergence of a civil rights movement. The academic study of political theory was revived and a series of studies emerged to challenge the fact-value dichotomy, the difference between science and ideology, and the public roles of academics.

Stargate Messages

1998 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 28-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Greaves
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
American Indian ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Cultural Meaning ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Indian Nations

The arrival of Europeans in North America resulted in the outright extinction of many Indian peoples, and, for those who survived, confinement to small reservations. Despite a subsequent cascade of determined efforts by Euro-Americans to extinguish the Indians' cultural lineages, the reservations allowed tribal groups to nurture and retain key elements of their ancestral cultures. Reservations, however, were composed of only a fraction of the lands formerly used by the Indian nations. The remainder of former Indian homelands, usually vast tracts, passed into Euro-American control. Whille it may be a surprise to many, Indian connections to these lost lands did not cease. As the papers of this special issue testify, the ceded lands continue to be anchors of essential cultural meaning and to play important roles in the cultural practices of American Indian peoples.

scholarly journals (RE)FRAMING SPATIALITY AS A SOCIO-CULTURAL PARADIGM: EXAMINING THE IRANIAN HOUSING CULTURE AND PROCESSES

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lakshmi Rajendran ◽  
Fariba Molki ◽  
Sara Mahdizadeh ◽  
Asma Mehan
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Planning ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Spatial Relations ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Visual Research Methods ◽  
Cultural Paradigm ◽  
Behavioural Patterns ◽  
Planning Concepts

With rapid changes in urban living today, peoples’ behavioural patterns and spatial practices undergo a constant process of adaptation and negotiation. Using “house” as a laboratory and everyday life and spatial relations of residents as a framework of analysis, the paper examines the spatial planning concepts in traditional and contemporary Iranian architecture and the associated socio-cultural practices. Discussions are drawn upon from a pilot study conducted in the city of Kerman, to investigate ways in which contemporary housing solutions can better cater to the continually changing socio-cultural lifestyles of residents. Data collection for the study involved a series of participatory workshops and employed creative visual research methods, participant observation and semi structured interviews to examine the interlacing of everyday socio-spatial relations and changing perception of identity, belonging, socio-cultural and religious values and conflict. The inferences from the study showcases the emerging social and cultural needs and practices of people manifested through the complex relationship between residents, the places in which they live, and its spatial planning and organisation. For a better understanding of this complex relationship, the paper argues the need for resituating spatiality as a socio-cultural paradigm.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document