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Cultural Themes (cultural + themes)
Selected AbstractsIdentity and Healing in Three Navajo Religious Traditions: Sa'ah Naagháí Bik'eh HózhoMEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2000Elizabeth L. Lewton In this article, we elucidate how the Navajo synthetic principle Saah Naagháí Bik'eh Hózho (SNBH) is understood, demonstrated, and elaborated in three different Navajo healing traditions. We conducted interviews with Navajo healers and their patients affiliated with Traditional Navajo religion, the Native American Church, and Pentecostal Christianity. Their narratives provide access to cultural themes of identity and healing that invoke elements of SNBH. SNBH specifies that the conditions for health and well-being are harmony within and connection to the physical/spiritual world. Specifically, each religious healing tradition encourages affective engagement, proper family relations, an understanding of one's cultural and spiritual histories, and the use of kinship terms to establish affective bonds with one's family and with the spiritual world. People's relationships within this common behavioral environment are integral to their self-orientations, to their identities as Navajos, and to the therapeutic process. The disruption and restoration of these relationships constitute an important affective dimension in Navajo distress and healing. [Navajos, identity, religion, healing, health] [source] Ritual, Risk, and Danger: Chain Prayers in FijiAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 1 2004MATT TOMLINSON Abstract Rituals that defuse immediate senses of danger can perpetuate senses of powerlessness. Ambiguous language used in defensive rituals can heighten people's senses of the risks they are confronting and also compel people to perform those rituals again in the future. In this article, I illustrate this argument by examining Fijian Methodist masu sema (chain prayers), which are conducted to defuse the dangers that beset society, including curses from demonic ancestors. I argue that Fijian cultural themes of present-day human powerlessness are generated largely by competition between Methodist and chiefly authorities. "Chain prayers" are attempts to negate the power of dangerous ancestors, but in requesting God's help, ritual participants cast themselves as powerless. Verbal ambiguity in chain prayers gives "demons" lives of their own, compelling their future circulation. [source] Nurturing a strong process safety culturePROCESS SAFETY PROGRESS, Issue 1 2006Shakeel H. Kadri Process safety management introduced a formal, structured, management systems approach to accident prevention that represented a "step change" improvement in identifying and reducing the potential for major process plant accidents. Although the process safety management elements have proven effective, the overall sustainability remains a challenge. This paper highlights the importance of a strong process safety culture that is needed to sustain a strong process safety performance. We use the Columbia Shuttle disaster incident as a backdrop to focus the attention on the significance of not having an optimal "Safety Culture." Examples have been included from our industry to further exemplify its broad applicability. The paper proposes an approach that will help organizations to self-assess the state of the process safety culture in their organizations, which can be an aid in their ongoing cultural improvement effort. Four important cultural themes are identified and described: (1) Create awareness and buy-in about process safety culture themes, (2) adapt process safety culture themes to your company experience, (3) use suggested indicators to identify specific areas of improvement, and (4) develop a strategic improvement plan to strengthen and sustain process safety culture. © 2005 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog, 2006 [source] Finding Ways to Create Connections Among Communities: Partial Results of an Ethnography of Urban Public Health NursesPUBLIC HEALTH NURSING, Issue 1 2000Judeen Schulte Ph.D. The purpose of this ethnographic study was to describe the culture of public health nurses (PHNs) in a large, Midwestern urban health department. Data collection methods, data management, and analyses followed ethnographic procedures and resulted in the development of categories, domains, and cultural themes. The general study participants were PHNs, clients, supervisors, and administrators. The primary cultural theme that emerged was that public health nursing is finding ways to create connections among communities. Three interacting communities were identified: the local communities, communities created by individuals and families, and communities of resources. This article describes one of the three subthemes that emerged, processes used to help clients create connections, and describes how caring is shown uniquely in public health nursing. As a result of the study, implications for nursing practice, education, and research were developed. The results of the study supported a position that public health nursing is a unique nursing specialty. It reinforced also the applicability of an ethnographic design and methodology to nursing research. [source] Cultural Perspectives Concerning Adolescent Use of Tobacco and Alcohol in the Appalachian Mountain RegionTHE JOURNAL OF RURAL HEALTH, Issue 1 2008Michael G. Meyer MA ABSTRACT:,Context:Appalachia has high rates of tobacco use and related health problems, and despite significant impediments to alcohol use, alcohol abuse is common. Adolescents are exposed to sophisticated tobacco and alcohol advertising. Prevention messages, therefore, should reflect research concerning culturally influenced attitudes toward tobacco and alcohol use. Methods: With 4 grants from the National Institutes of Health, 34 focus groups occurred between 1999 and 2003 in 17 rural Appalachian jurisdictions in 7 states. These jurisdictions ranged between 4 and 8 on the Rural-Urban Continuum Codes of the Economic Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture. Of the focus groups, 25 sought the perspectives of women in Appalachia, and 9, opinions of adolescents. Findings: The family represented the key context where residents of Appalachia learn about tobacco and alcohol use. Experimentation with tobacco and alcohol frequently commenced by early adolescence and initially occurred in the context of the family home. Reasons to abstain from tobacco and alcohol included a variety of reasons related to family circumstances. Adults generally displayed a greater degree of tolerance for adolescent alcohol use than tobacco use. Tobacco growing represents an economic mainstay in many communities, a fact that contributes to the acceptance of its use, and many coal miners use smokeless tobacco since they cannot light up in the mines. The production and distribution of homemade alcohol was not a significant issue in alcohol use in the mountains even though it appeared not to have entirely disappeared. Conclusions: Though cultural factors support tobacco and alcohol use in Appalachia, risk awareness is common. Messages tailored to cultural themes may decrease prevalence. [source] Diminished men and dangerous women: representations of gender and learning disability in early- and mid-nineteenth-century BritainBRITISH JOURNAL OF LEARNING DISABILITIES, Issue 2 2000Patrick McDonagh Summary The present article explores the relationship of gender and learning disabilities in early- and mid-nineteenth-century literary representations of people with learning disabilities. Literary texts are useful historical documents because these often foreground how learning disabilities worked symbolically in a social context and enable us to examine the ideological forces shaping notions of learning disabilities. The images explored in the present study suggest some common cultural themes. Men with learning disabilities were understood as being diminished, somehow lacking an essential component of masculine identity. Women, on the other hand, were often reduced to the essential, yet disruptive element of feminine sexuality, or later in the century, were conceived as deviant from the feminine norm in their carnality. [source] | |||||||||||||