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Cultural Development (cultural + development)
Selected AbstractsDoes intergenerational social mobility affect antagonistic attitudes towards ethnic minorities?THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, Issue 2 2009Jochem Tolsma Abstract Up till now, no study satisfactorily addressed the effect of social mobility on antagonistic attitudes toward ethnic minorities. In this contribution, we investigate the effect of educational and class intergenerational mobility on ethnic stereotypes, ethnic threat, and opposition to ethnic intermarriage by using diagonal mobility models. We test several hypotheses derived from ethnic competition theory and socialization theory with data from the Social and Cultural Developments in The Netherlands surveys (SOCON, waves 1995, 2000, and 2005) and The Netherlands Kinship and Panel Study (NKPS, wave 2002). We find that the relative influence of social origin and social destination depends on the specific origin and destination combination. If one moves to a more tolerant social destination position, the influence of the social origin position is negligible. If on the other hand, one is socially mobile to a less tolerant social position, the impact of the origin on antagonistic attitudes is substantial and may even exceed the impact of the destination category. This confirms our hypothesis that adaptation to more tolerant norms is easier than adaptation to less tolerant norms. We find only meagre evidence for the hypothesis that downward mobility leads to frustration and consequently to more antagonistic attitudes. [source] Transatlantic constitutionalism: Comparing the United States and the European UnionEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 4 2004SERGIO FABBRINI The European Union has more to learn from the American experience of constitutionalism than from any of its own Member States. Like the United States, the European Union will have a frame of government constitution that will try to order a system of multiple and concurrent communities of interests, as happened in America, and designed by an indirectly elected assembly. The European Union and the United States will continue to manifest many differences in other crucial aspects of their institutional and cultural development. However, although constrained by their respective historical and institutional paths, their constitutional evolution is making the Atlantic Ocean less wide than it used to be. [source] Cultural Hegemony of Singapore among ASEAN Countries: Globalization and Cultural PolicyINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF JAPANESE SOCIOLOGY, Issue 1 2004Kenichi Kawasaki The Singapore Government started to call their city a "Global City for the Arts", making numerous cultural policy changes. They also worked on various cultural experiments to establish their cultural leadership or hegemony among Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries. The development of arts policies, cultural industries and people's positive commitment towards cultural exchanges are examples of this change. Singapore therefore is now playing the role of the cultural hub among the ASEAN countries. As an example of this, the present study discusses "Esplanade", which opened as a huge cultural complex in October 2002. Then the paper will also discuss both bright and dark sides of the cultural development in Singapore. As a conclusion, this paper discusses the possibility of the cultural contribution of Singapore to ASEAN countries, in spite of having serious epistemological discontinuity among ASEAN. [source] 12.,Transculture: A Broad Way Between Globalism and MulticulturalismAMERICAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY, Issue 1 2009Article first published online: 18 FEB 200, Mikhail Epstein This paper develops a concept of transculture as a model of cultural development that differs from both leveling globalism and isolating pluralism. While culture frees humans from the material dependencies of nature, it also creates new, symbolic dependencies,on customs, traditions, conventions, which a person receives as a member of a certain group and ethnos. Among the many freedoms proclaimed as rights of the individual, there emerges yet another freedom,from one's own culture, in which one was born and educated. Transculture is viewed as the next level of liberation, this time from the "prison house of language," from unconscious predispositions and prejudices of the "native," naturalized cultures. The case of the Japanese poet Araki Yasusada (1903,1972), a survivor of Hiroshima, demonstrates how transcultural creativity, though cast in the form of a literary hoax, can produce an internationally recognized achievement. Transculturalism is especially needed in world politics, where the factor of fixed cultural identity based on race, ethnos, religion, or ideological commitments turned out to be a source of conflict and violence. This paper argues that the categories of opposition and identity do not preclude the significance of the third category, which is difference. The differences complement each other and create a new interpersonal transcultural community to which we belong, not because we are similar but because we are different. The transcultural perspective opens a possibility for globalization not as homogenization but, rather, as further differentiation of cultures and their "dissemination" into transcultural individuals, liberating themselves from their dependence from their native cultures. The global society can be viewed as the space of diversity of free individuals rather than that of fixed groups and cultures. It is an alternative to the clash of civilizations and a hope for lasting peace. [source] The Fortified Site of Leceia (Oeiras) in the Context of the Chalcolithic in Portuguese EstramaduraOXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 1 2000JoÃo Luís Cardoso Research into the Chalcolithic period in the region of Lower Estremadura, south of Torres Vedras, western Portugal, has generated much new data from fortified sites and cemeteries. The lack, so far, of a thorough overview of this diverse body of information has hindered the definition of the Chalcolithic culture of the region. The economic, social and cultural transformation observed at sites with a long sequence beginning with the Late Neolithic, has never been analysed. The results obtained by the author in one of the most notable sites of the region, the fortified site of Leceia, near the town of Oeiras, are of particular interest. Seventeen excavation campaigns carried out since 1983 have provided a remarkable body of information. The characterization of other previously identified Chalcolithic groups in Portugal allow us to see how the Chalcolithic of Estremadura relates, at a regional level, with the cultural development to the north, the south, the hinterland and the coast. Of major importance to this discussion are the chronometric results obtained in Leceia. For the first time, the 36 radiocarbon dates and their subsequent statistical treatment have allowed us to establish absolute boundaries for the existing successive cultural phases of the Late Neolithic and the Early, Middle and Late Chalcolithic. [source] Pre-Columbian population dynamics in coastal southern Peru: A diachronic investigation of mtDNA patterns in the Palpa region by ancient DNA analysisAMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 2 2010Lars Fehren-Schmitz Abstract Alternative models have been proposed to explain the formation and decline of the south Peruvian Nasca culture, ranging from migration or invasion to autochthonous development and ecological crisis. To reveal to what extent population dynamic processes accounted for cultural development in the Nasca mainland, or were influenced by them, we analyzed ancient mitochondrial DNA of 218 individuals, originating from chronologically successive archaeological sites in the Palpa region, the Paracas Peninsula, and the Andean highlands in southern Peru. The sampling strategy allowed a diachronic analysis in a time frame from approximately 800 BC to 800 AD. Mitochondrial coding region polymorphisms were successfully analyzed and replicated for 130 individuals and control region sequences (np 16021,16408) for 104 individuals to determine Native American mitochondrial DNA haplogroups and haplotypes. The results were compared with ancient and contemporary Peruvian populations to reveal genetic relations of the archaeological samples. Frequency data and statistics show clear proximity of the Nasca populations to the populations of the preceding Paracas culture from Palpa and the Peninsula, and suggest, along with archaeological data, that the Nasca culture developed autochthonously in the Rio Grande drainage. Furthermore, the influence of changes in socioeconomic complexity in the Palpa area on the genetic diversity of the local population could be observed. In all, a strong genetic affinity between pre-Columbian coastal populations from southern Peru could be determined, together with a significant differentiation from ancient highland and all present-day Peruvian reference populations, best shown in the differential distribution of mitochondrial haplogroups. Am J Phys Anthropol 2010. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] DARK AND SHINY: THE DISCOVERY OF CHROMITE IN BRONZE AGE FAIENCE*ARCHAEOMETRY, Issue 2 2006N. C. F. GROOT The Late Bronze Age (1550,1200 bc) in the Near East was a period of cultural development, international trade and technological innovation, notably in metallurgy and silicate technology. As a spin-off of the new glass technology, new colorants were also applied to faience glazes presumably to increase their aesthetic value. Here, we report on the presence of chromite minerals in the glaze of a faience vessel from Deir ,Alla, Jordan, 1200 years earlier than reported so far. Importantly, chromite was not only used as a greyish pigment, but also as a nucleating agent for spherulitic crystallization of augite in the amorphous glaze. These synthetic augite formations give a unique, sparkly appearance to the faience vessel, apparently imitating a metallic look. The making of such an intricate glaze and its contemporary significance reflect not only the high level but also the appreciation of innovation in that region at that time. [source] Place, memory and identity: Imagining ,New Asia'ASIA PACIFIC VIEWPOINT, Issue 3 2005T.C. Chang Abstract:,The rapid transformation of Asian societies and landscapes, especially since the mid-1990s, has engendered much conjecture of the ,Asian renaissance' and the rise of a ,New Asia'. This Special Edition of Asia Pacific Viewpoint explores the intersecting themes of ,urban place', ,social memory' and ,cultural identity' in the articulation of and contestation towards New Asia. Specifically, the six articles here offer various interpretations of New Asia , as tourism marketing tool, political vision and social identity , and the politics involved in urban, tourism and cultural development. From colonial hotels in key South-East Asian cities to the historic waterfront of Singapore; from festivals and rituals in Hong Kong, Hoi An (Vietnam) and Penang (Malaysia) to the clash of cultural values in Manggarai (Indonesia), ,selective remembering' and ,ideological forgetting' are central to the construction of New Asian identities. Ultimately, this Special Edition hopes to provoke continuing discussions on the rhetoric of New Asia and its imaginative and contested geographies, sociologies and histories. [source] Healing and Salvation in Late Modernity: the Use and Implication of Such Terms in the Ecumenical MovementINTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF MISSION, Issue 380-381 2007Vebjørn Horsfjord This article explores developments over the last decades in the way ecumenical texts, primarily originating from world conferences organized by the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism, speak about soteriology. Under the headlines, "Salvation Today" (1973) and "Your Kingdom Come" (1980), terminology inspired by liberation theology took centre stage, and a predominantly immanent understanding of salvation was promoted. In recent years a different terminology has taken over, and it is one that focuses on "healing" and "the fullness of life". At its best, the holistic healing approach manages to take up the important concerns from earlier times, such as economic justice, racism and environmental issues, while at the same time giving more room for existential issues and the experiences of the individual The new healing discourse appears to reflect two different modalities of the church's healing ministry, viz. that which is concerned with the causes of suffering, and that which addresses the experience of suffering. The latter was often ignored in the recent past. The healing discourse gives room for new explorations of practices that have been central in the church throughout its history, such as anointing the sick, and praying for and with them, and hearing individual confessions. Openness towards subjective experience also has implications for the contextualization of the Christian faith. There is a new awareness that not only do the causes of suffering vary from situation to situation but so does the understanding of (what constitutes) suffering itself. Changing or varying understandings of suffering give rise to different approaches to its alleviation, and can inspire a rethinking of how we understand salvation in different contexts. The new healing discourse can also be studied in its relationship to cultural trends known as post-modernity or late modernity. The texts under study display very ambivalent approaches to these developments. There might be a tendency for texts that have concrete experience as their starting point to take a more positive view of these cultural developments than do texts that begin with more general theological observations. [source] Prehistorical East,West admixture of maternal lineages in a 2,500-year-old population in XinjiangAMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 2 2010Fan Zhang Abstract As an area of contact between Asia and Europe, Central Asia witnessed a scenario of complex cultural developments, extensive migratory movements, and biological admixture between West and East Eurasians. However, the detanglement of this complexity of diversity requires an understanding of prehistoric contacts of the people from the West and the East on the Eurasia continent. We demonstrated the presence of genetic admixture of West and East in a population of 35 inhabitants excavated in Gavaerk in southern Xinjiang and dated 2,800,2,100 years before present by analyzing their mitochondrial DNA variations. This result indicates that the initial contact of the East and the West Eurasians occurred further east than Central Asia as early as 2,500 years ago. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2010. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] | ||||||||||