Amazon Book Review Series of “Wild Wise Weird”.

Culture, which manifests in religion, tradition, custom, thought, perspective, language, lifestyle and many other human creations, is not one. There are many cultures that come in front of oneself massively, especially in this information and global era. Their presence makes every person asks: does a self only accepts one culture and then refuses other cultures? Should oneself accept any cultures by neglecting him/herself? How if oneself has an identity but receives any cultures? Some individual prefers to adhere to one culture, (...) and refuse other cultures. Directly or indirectly, he/she says: “There are no others, except me”. In other hands, some people negates him/herself and affirms others. He/she says: “I am nothing. The only existence is others. There is no specific cultural identity. Every culture is an imagined bundle of several cultures”. In this paper, I go out from those contradictory positions. I affirm the existence of an inclusive, critical and tentative self, which opens toward any cultures, but always criticizes anything before (and after) internalizes it in its changeable identity. This self is the self that will be retained by arguments in this paper, as a compatible self for encountering multicultural phenomenon in this era. (shrink)

Cultural Attraction Theory (CAT), also referred to as cultural epidemiology, is an evolutionary theory of culture. It provides conceptual tools and a theoretical framework for explaining why and how ideas, practices, artifacts and other cultural items spread and persist in a community and its habitat. It states that cultural phenomena result from psychological or ecological factors of attraction.

Trolley problems have been used in the development of moral theory and the psychological study of moral judgments and behavior. Most of this research has focused on people from the West, with implicit assumptions that moral intuitions should generalize and that moral psychology is universal. However, cultural differences may be associated with differences in moral judgments and behavior. We operationalized a trolley problem in the laboratory, with economic incentives and real-life consequences, and compared British and Chinese samples on moral (...) behavior and judgment. We found that Chinese participants were less willing to sacrifice one person to save five others, and less likely to consider such an action to be right. In a second study using three scenarios, including the standard scenario where lives are threatened by an on-coming train, fewer Chinese than British participants were willing to take action and sacrifice one to save five, and this cultural difference was more pronounced when the consequences were less severe than death. (shrink)

For liberalism, values such as respect, reciprocity, and tolerance should frame cultural encounters in multicultural societies. However, it is easy to disregard that power differences and political domination also influence the cultural sphere and the relations between cultural groups. In this essay, I focus on some challenges for cultural pluralism. In relation to Indian political theorist Rajeev Bhargava, I discuss the meaning of cultural domination and epistemic injustice and their historical and moral implications. Bhargava argued (...) that as a consequence of colonialism, “indigenous cultures” were inferiorized, marginalized, and anonymized. Although cultures are often changing due to external influences, I argue that epistemic injustice implies that a culture is forced to subjection, disrespected, and considered as inferior and that it threatens the dominated people’s epistemic framework, collective identity, and existential security. Finally, I refer to John Rawls’s theory of political liberalism as a constructive approach to avoid parochialism and Western cultural domination -/- . (shrink)

Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson’s theory of deliberative democracy has been widely influential and favorably viewed by many as a successful attempt to combine procedural and substantive aspects of democracy, while remaining quintessentially liberal. Although I admit that their conception is one of the strongest renditions of liberal democracy, I argue that it is inadequate in radically multicultural societies that house non-liberal cultural minorities. By focusing on Gutmann’s position on minority claims of culture in the liberal West, which follows (...) from Gutmann and Thompson’s theory of deliberative democracy, I attempt to show that the theory of deliberative democracy does not do justice to legitimate claims of culture made by nonliberal minority cultural groups in the liberal West. As a result, I further argue that their deliberative democracy itself is inadequate for radically diverse societies in the West, some of whose members also belong to nonliberal minority cultural groups. (shrink)

This article analyses the conceptual foundations of the notion of economic security in the context of the organizational culture of the tourism companies of Ukraine. The influence of the organizational culture on the economic security of the companies is justified. The areas of the security services of tourism companies are described. The conditions and criteria for establishing the systems of economic security at tourism.

For many, anger has been seen as irrationality, even as illness. But it seems that anger-related disorder and its culture-relatedness have not receive much attention in psychiatry. Like backward-looking ressentiment, hwabyeong 火病can be literally translated into anger disorder. In this paper, I examine the notion of anger and culture with the help of considering the case of hwabyeong as a Korean culture-bound syndrome (hereafter, CBS). Drawing on historical changes in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) and cases (...) of hwabyeong as CBS, I will argue that the social and cultural aspects of mental disorder are indispensable parts. Additionally, it will be suggested that the rigid distinction between CBS and mental disorders is questionable. First, I begin by examining Jarome Wakefield’s harmful dysfunction analysis and Ian Hacking’s social constructionism on mental disorder. Next, given that the illness is common among poor old women who suffered from patriarchal social structures, I question whether hwabyeong is really a culturally specific illness. Moreover, hwabyeong cannot be properly understood without considering unequal power relations and extremely limited ranges of one's agency. Thus, calling it culture- bound may be due to WEIRD-ish (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic), culturally stereotypical prejudice as well as misogynic thinking concerning hwabyeong. In present times, it's worth noting that, despite common biases, hwabyeong or han (恨) is no longer solely a Korean phenomenon, thanks to recent societal advancements. In conclusion, I show that curing hwabyeong or anger management is not just medical but sociopolitical matters. (shrink)

We consider the complex interactions between rape culture and epistemology. A central case study is the consideration of a deferential attitude about the epistemology of sexual assault testimony. According to the deferential attitude, individuals and institutions should decline to act on allegations of sexual assault unless and until they are proven in a formal setting, i.e., a criminal court. We attack this deference from several angles, including the pervasiveness of rape culture in the criminal justice system, the epistemology of testimony (...) and norms connecting knowledge and action, the harms of tacit idealizations away from important contextual factors, and a contextualist semantics for 'knows' ascriptions. (shrink)

This paper illustrates the significance of the epistolary short story within the cultural backgrounds of the various settings in the stories selected for the study. The short stories deployed in this essay are Karen King-Aribisala’s ‘Dear Okonkwo,’ Dul Johnson’s ‘Cinders of the Volcano,’ Kasimma Chinelo Okani’s ‘A Letter to the Dead,’ and Chuma Nwokolo’s ‘The Ransom Letters of Sisi Eko.’ The methodology adopted in this study is textual and qualitative deployed through an in-depth study of the selected stories and (...) a literary analysis of the data obtained thereafter. This study adopts the new formalism critical approach with the belief that literature should be studied as a combination of the artistic content and the society that produces it. This essay finds that the Nigerian epistolary short story is significant in the promotion and enablement of necromancy, provision of emotional and psychological therapy and promotion of moral rectitude in the society. (shrink)

This paper examines the influence of cultural and socioeconomic factors on the growth of enterpreneurship in Vietnam. Traditional cultural values continue to have a strong impact on the Vietnamese society, and to a large extent adversely affect the entrepreneurial spirit of the community. Typical constraints private entrepreneurs face may have roots in the cultural facet as legacy of the Confucian society like relationship-based bank credit. Low quality business education is both a victim and culprit of the long-standing (...) tradition that looks down on the role of private entrepreneurship in the country. (shrink)

Material culture and technoculture not only provide openings to study culture, but raise questions about contemporary materialism and technology more generally as well. Material culture tells a story, though usually not the whole story. The meanings of things are various, and finding out what they are requires a variety of approaches, from simply asking people what their things mean or observing how they use or don’t use them, to backtracking their history, or contextualizing them in broader cultural context. The (...) transition from hunter-gatherer life to that of agriculturally-based civilization some twelve thousand or so years ago was a great watershed of consciousness, not only radically altering the relation to the living environment, but also producing the origins of materialism. One of civilization’s dubious distinctions was to introduce poverty as well as property and wealth. Consumption is clearly a driving force on the globe today, powering economies, promising identities, providing a cornucopia of commodities. Technoculture is at its center, both in material devices and in the ideas they communicate about how what one has affects what one is and can be. The problem of materialism is not whether to have materials for living, but in allowing them to become goals in themselves. (shrink)

At all times, the purpose of development is to build structures that will enhance the economy. This is because there is a need to improve the living conditions of the people. The ability of the people to live meaningfully and satisfactorily is central to the idea of development. Illustrating this overriding concern, Nat Colleta insists that development is a process of a socio-economic change in the quality and level of human existence aimed at raising the standard of living and quality (...) of life( 1982). However, this has been dominated by structures tailored to the needs of the Western capitalist system, thus making it susceptible to manipulation and marginalization by not allowing for collective will of all relevant stakeholders. From this perspective, it does not meet the people’s ability to participate in shaping their own lives; it is the case that development practice should encourage the involvement of people in the most egalitarian manner. Therefore, a model that boosts the ability of stakeholders to participate in the deliberation of matters that affect them and to veto issues that they think are not relevant to their needs would be the ideal. This would ensure that voice is given to women and youths as well. Conceptualized in this way, people should be able to bring out what they want, generate their ideas about what to do, how to do it, and what is required to engender the needed successes and benefit from the physical improvement. In cases where the reverse is the case, as in the case of unfavorable situations and unexpected outcomes, people should be able to manage the implications and learn from them. It is, therefore, only a model of development that applies a “bottom up” approach that can engender this purpose. This approach must take cognizance of women participation in development, culture and its value component, relational and integrative principles which are achievable through the application of enabling methodologies among other things. The emphasis on those listed principles is the focus of this paper. (shrink)

The study of cultural evolution has taken on an increasingly interdisciplinary and diverse approach in explicating phenomena of cultural transmission and adoptions. Inspired by this computational movement, this study uses Bayesian networks analysis, combining both the frequentist and the Hamiltonian Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approach, to investigate the highly representative elements in the cultural evolution of a Vietnamese city’s architecture in the early 20th century. With a focus on the façade design of 68 old houses in (...) Hanoi’s Old Quarter (based on 78 data lines extracted from 248 photos), the study argues that it is plausible to look at the aesthetics, architecture, and designs of the house façade to find traces of cultural evolution in Vietnam, which went through more than six decades of French colonization and centuries of sociocultural influence from China. The in-depth technical analysis, though refuting the presumed model on the probabilistic dependency among the variables, yields several results, the most notable of which is the strong influence of Buddhism over the decorations of the house façade. Particularly, in the top 5 networks with the best Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) scores and p<0.05, the variable for decorations (DC) always has a direct probabilistic dependency on the variable B for Buddhism. The paper then checks the robustness of these models using Hamiltonian MCMC method and find the posterior distributions of the models’ coefficients all satisfy the technical requirement. Finally, this study suggests integrating Bayesian statistics in the social sciences in general and for the study of cultural evolution and architectural transformation in particular. (shrink)

Historically, culture has been treated as an object in international documents. One consequence of this is that cultural rights in international law have been understood as rights of access and consumption. Recently, an alternative conception of culture, and of what cultural rights protect, has emerged from international documents treating indigenous peoples. Within these documents culture is treated as an activity rather than a good. This activity is ascribed to peoples as well as persons, and protecting the capacity of (...) both peoples and persons to engage in culture is taken to be as basic a component of human dignity as are freedom of movement, freedom of speech, and freedom from torture. It is not an accident that this treatment of culture has emerged from international documents treating indigenous peoples. However, the value of this treatment of culture extends beyond the human rights of indigenous peoples. Treating culture as an activity establishes an understanding of what cultural rights protect that clarifies the relationship between cultural rights and other mechanisms for protecting minorities and frames the role of cultural communities in the realization of human dignity as an important physical and political issue, not just a psychological one. For these reasons, the norms regarding cultural rights that are emerging from international documents treating indigenous peoples are a much-needed step forward for peoples' rights more generally. (shrink)

Every year, the Vietnamese people reportedly burned about 50,000 tons of joss papers, which took the form of not only bank notes, but iPhones, cars, clothes, even housekeepers, in hope of pleasing the dead. The practice was mistakenly attributed to traditional Buddhist teachings but originated in fact from China, which most Vietnamese were not aware of. In other aspects of life, there were many similar examples of Vietnamese so ready and comfortable with adding new norms, values, and beliefs, even contradictory (...) ones, to their culture. This phenomenon, dubbed “cultural additivity”, prompted us to study the co-existence, interaction, and influences among core values and norms of the Three Teachings –Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism–as shown through Vietnamese folktales. By applying Bayesian logistic regression, we evaluated the possibility of whether the key message of a story was dominated by a religion (dependent variables), as affected by the appearance of values and anti-values pertaining to the Three Teachings in the story (independent variables). Our main findings included the existence of the cultural additivity of Confucian and Taoist values. More specifically, empirical results showed that the interaction or addition of the values of Taoism and Confucianism in folktales together helped predict whether the key message of a story was about Confucianism, β{VT ⋅ VC} = 0.86. Meanwhile, there was no such statistical tendency for Buddhism. The results lead to a number of important implications. First, this showed the dominance of Confucianism because the fact that Confucian and Taoist values appeared together in a story led to the story’s key message dominated by Confucianism. Thus, it presented the evidence of Confucian dominance and against liberal interpretations of the concept of the Common Roots of Three Religions (“tam giáo đồng nguyên”) as religious unification or unicity. Second, the concept of “cultural additivity” could help explain many interesting socio-cultural phenomena, namely the absence of religious intolerance and extremism in the Vietnamese society, outrageous cases of sophistry in education, the low productivity in creative endeavors like science and technology, the misleading branding strategy in business. We are aware that our results are only preliminary and more studies, both theoretical and empirical, must be carried out to give a full account of the explanatory reach of “cultural additivity”. (shrink)

What makes fast, cumulative cultural evolution work? Where did it come from? Why is it the sole preserve of humans? We set out a self-assembly hypothesis: cultural evolution evolved culturally. We present an evolutionary account that shows this hypothesis to be coherent, plausible, and worthy of further investigation. It has the following steps: (0) in common with other animals, early hominins had significant capacity for social learning; (1) knowledge and skills learned by offspring from their parents began to (...) spread because bearers had more offspring, a process we call CS1 (or Cultural Selection 1); (2) CS1 shaped attentional learning biases; (3) these attentional biases were augmented by explicit learning biases (judgements about what should be copied from whom). Explicit learning biases enabled (4) the high-fidelity, exclusive copying required for fast cultural accumulation of knowledge and skills by a process we call CS2 (or Cultural Selection 2), and (5) the emergence of cognitive processes such as imitation, mindreading and metacognition – ‘cognitive gadgets’ specialised for cultural learning. This self-assembly hypothesis is consistent with archaeological evidence that the stone tools used by early hominins were not dependent on fast, cumulative cultural evolution, and suggests new priorities for research on ‘animal culture’. (shrink)

The article is focused on the investigation of the impact the corporate culture makes on industrial enterprise development. It demonstrates that the formation of the corporate culture principles contributes to raising the level of staff involvement, its labor activity performance, maintaining and reproduction of human capital assets of an enterprise. Investments in the development of corporate culture are considered as an alternative to traditional methods of increasing the efficiency of an enterprise in an uncertain economic environment. Corporate culture development, which (...) involves a commitment to raising the level of knowledge, innovativeness and organization, has a positive effect on the performance and efficiency of the entire company, and aids in the regulation of internal labor relations, preventing potential critical situations. The introduction and development of corporate culture, which includes a certain system of values and behaviors, in modern domestic industrial enterprises is becoming a necessity. The application of the principles and values of corporate culture leads to the long-term success of an industrial enterprise. (shrink)

Through the lens of the informational entropy-based notion of value, I attempt to provide explanations for the aspects of cultural additivity that I could not explain previously: the additivity limit and the drawbacks of cultural additivity.

In this paper I refute the chief arguments for cultural relativism, meaning the moral (not the descriptive) theory that goes by that name. In doing this I walk some oft-trodden paths, but I also break new ones. For instance, I take unusual pains to produce an adequate formulation of cultural relativism, and I distinguish that thesis from the relativism of present-day anthropologists, with which it is often conflated. In addition, I address not one or two, but eleven arguments (...) for cultural relativism, many of which contribute to its popularity but receive scant attention from its critics. To elicit the failings of these arguments I deploy a host of pertinent but often neglected distinctions. (shrink)

This paper, “Cultural Statistics, the Media and the Planning and Development of Calabar, Nigeria” stresses the need for the use of Cultural Statistics and effective media communication in the planning and development of Calabar, the Cross River State Capital. This position is anchored on the fact that in virtually every sphere of life, there can be no development without planning, and there can be no proper planning without accurate data or information. Cultural Statistics, and effective use of (...) the media thus become imperative in the planning and development of Calabar, especially as the Cross River State capital, is fast becoming an internationally recognized cultural city due largely to its annual Calabar Festival and Carnival. The paper among other things argues that cultural statistics and the use of the media will reposition the city of Calabar, not only in terms of development, but also in marketing and branding, taking into consideration the new economy and globalization which involve technology, creativity, human capital and capacity for innovation. The paper concludes that although some effort has been made by the Cross River State government in gathering and publishing some cultural information in brochures and other periodicals, there will be need for deliberate and conscientious effort to be made by the relevant government authorities to collect, collate, analyze and interpret cultural data in Calabar and project same in the media with a view to enhancing the planning and development of the Cross River State capital so as to truly make it a tourism and cultural haven in Nigeria and in the continent of Africa. (shrink)

A brief reference article on cultural relativism.

This study compares the neural substrate of moral decision making processes between Korean and American participants. By comparison with Americans, Korean participants showed increased activity in the right putamen associated with socio-intuitive processes and right superior frontal gyrus associated with cognitive control processes under a moral-personal condition, and in the right postcentral sulcus associated with mental calculation in familiar contexts under a moral-impersonal condition. On the other hand, American participants showed a significantly higher degree of activity in the bilateral anterior (...) cingulate cortex (ACC) associated with conflict resolution under the moral-personal condition, and in the right medial frontal gyrus (MFG) associated with simple cognitive branching in non-familiar contexts under the moral-impersonal condition when a more lenient threshold was applied, than Korean participants. These findings support the ideas of the interactions between the cultural background, education, and brain development, proposed in the field of cultural psychology and educational psychology. The study introduces educational implications relevant to moral psychologists and educators. (shrink)

(PTOJ) - The cultural value system is one of the core and fundamental value systems in Vietnam and is part of the foundation to ensure the country's sustainable development. This article analyzes the building of a Vietnamese cultural value system in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which has a significant impact all aspects of social life, including the cultural sector.

Following recent arguments that cultural practices in wild animal populations have important conservation implications, we argue that recognizing captive animals as cultural has important welfare implications. Having a culture is of deep importance for cultural animals, wherever they live. Without understanding the cultural capacities of captive animals, we will be left with a deeply impoverished view of what they need to flourish. Best practices for welfare should therefore require concern for animals’ cultural needs, but the (...) relationship between culture and welfare is also extremely complex, requiring us to rethink standard assumptions about what constitutes and contributes to welfare. (shrink)

Cultural capital is usually defined as set of social features that provide individuals with social mobility and the possibility of changing their hierarchical position in systems such as wealth, power, prestige, education, and health. Cultural capital thus affects the processes of social promotion or degradation. It also includes social characteristics that allow horizontal mobility, that is, changes in social group membership. An individual’s cultural capital includes his or her social origin, education, taste, lifestyle, style of speech, and (...) dress. (shrink)

Culture and Religion have fundamental differences. Culture is related to nature, while religion emphasizes on authority and revelation. Culture naturally is more dynamic, while culture religionised is stagnant and conservative.

We provide new findings that add to the growing body of empirical evidence that important epistemic intuitions converge across cultures. Specifically, we selected three recent studies conducted in the US that reported surprising effects of knowledge attribution among English speakers. We translated the vignettes used in those studies into Mandarin Chinese and Korean and then ran the studies with participants in Mainland China, Taiwan, and South Korea. We found that, strikingly, all three of the effects first obtained in the US (...) also emerged in the East Asian cultures we studied. Our findings not only cohere with but also provide—at least moderate—support for the existence of extensive convergences of important epistemic intuitions across cultures. (shrink)

Methodological and philosophical foundations in the anthropology of Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the possibility of diagnosing and managing the innovation potential of the tourist enterprises through the study and modification of the characteristics of its organizational culture. The article examines the theoretical possibility of diagnosing and managing the innovation potential of the tourist business. The content of definitions "innovative potential" and "organizational culture" were analyzed. The necessity of using social-psychological model for the analysis of innovation reality of the innovative potential of tourism enterprises was (...) proved. The characteristics of an ideal model of innovative organizational culture of a tourist enterprise were formulated. The necessity to attract managers of tourism enterprises in the formation of the innovative capacity of enterprises of the tourism industry was grounded. It was proposed to consider the innovative potential of the tourism enterprise as an opportunity to transform and streamline the experience and the stereotypes interaction among business process, that is, as an opportunity to transform and streamline the experience of interaction between the subjects of the enterprise. (shrink)

Human behavior and thought often exhibit a familiar pattern of within group similarity and between group difference. Many of these patterns are attributed to cultural differences. For much of the history of its investigation into behavior and thought, however, cognitive science has been disproportionately focused on uncovering and explaining the more universal features of human minds—or the universal features of minds in general. -/- This entry charts out the ways in which this has changed over recent decades. It sketches (...) the motivation behind the cultural turn in cognitive science, and situates some of its central findings with respect to the questions that animate it and the debates that it has inspired. Woven throughout the entry are examples of how the cognitive science of culture, and especially its elevated concern with different forms of diversity and variation, continues to influence and be influenced by philosophers. -/- One cluster of philosophical work falls within the traditional subject matter of philosophy of science, in this case of the cognitive and social sciences. Philosophers have analyzed and assessed the methods and evidence central to the scientific study of cognition and culture, and have offered conceptual scrutiny, clarification, and synthesis. Research in a second vein sees philosophers themselves contributing more directly to cognitive scientific projects, (co)constructing theories, helping build computational models, even gathering empirical data. A third kind of work is naturalistic philosophy or philosophy of nature, wherein philosophers seek to use results from the cognitive science of culture to inform or transform debates over long-standing philosophical questions, including questions about the nature of philosophy and philosophical methodology itself. (shrink)

In this conceptual article, the authors explore the possibilities of another approach to examining the human dimensions of wildland fire. They argue that our understanding of this issue could be enhanced by considering a cultural studies construct known as the ‘‘circuit of culture.’’ This cross-disciplinary perspective provides increased analytic power by accounting for the meaningful role of 5 cultural processes in terms of their location and interrelation within social experience. The authors compare the circuit of culture approach with (...) a body of recent literature focused on wildland fire. The authors make the case that this research has moved in a positive direction since wildland fire first ignited social scientific interest in the 1980s, but it is still missing key cultural processes. Ultimately, following the circuit allows us to make more nuanced statements about meaning, something much needed in the face of the wicked problem of wildland fire. (shrink)

In this paper, I present an outline of the oppression account of cultural appropriation and argue that it offers the best explanation for the wrongfulness of the varied and complex cases of appropriation to which people often object. I then compare the oppression account with the intimacy account defended by C. Thi Nguyen and Matt Strohl. Though I believe that Nguyen and Strohl’s account offers important insight into an essential dimension of the cultural appropriation debate, I argue that (...) justified objections to cultural appropriation must ultimately be grounded in considerations of oppression as opposed to group intimacy. I present three primary objections to the intimacy account. First, I suggest that in its effort to explain expressive appropriation claims (those that purportedly lack an independent ground), the intimacy account doubles down on the boundary problem. Second, I question whether group intimacy possess the kind of bare normativity that Nguyen and Strohl claim for it. Finally, I argue that these objections give us reason to accept the importance of group intimacy to the cultural appropriation debate, but question the source of its significance as identified by Nguyen and Strohl. (shrink)

All theory makes assumptions about the nature of reality (either implicitly or explicitly) and such ontological assumptions necessarily regulate how one studies the things and events under investigation. Successful study is inex- tricably dependent upon an adequate ontology. As Bryant neatly puts it, "Effective application, in turn, is connected with adequate working assumptions about the constitution of society. Argument about the constitution of society is thus not a recondite activity which most sociologists [and organi- sation theorists] can safely ignore" (1995: (...) 58, interpolation added). The central concern in this paper is with the ontological underpinnings of much of the current literature in organisation studies in respect of struc- ture and culture. It will be argued that conflation of irreducible and causally-efficacious strata of social reality in the shape of social structure and culture permeates much of the current literature, thus rendering analysis of the interplay between them and their relationship with human agency diffi- cult to elucidate. The ontological underpinnings of organisational analysis have arguably turned full circle from the depth of social reality acknowl- edged by functionalism, structural Marxism and systems theory to the generic endorsement of Giddens’ structuration theory. As will be argued, Giddens’ theory entails a depthless ontology, which necessarily precludes methodological prescription. (shrink)

Cultural communication has obliquely shapes society relationships with another for the sake of togetherness prosperity. Diversity of norms and values from cultural symbols are able to be transferred as connecting elements in order to create interaction that is based on mutual comprehension of cultural norms. This study objective is to comprehend Bawean ethnic's cultural communication symbol. Employing qualitative methods, social construction paradigm is perceived through in-depth interview. This methodology adapted to realize the meaning of cultural (...) communication between Bawaean and the other Malay sub-ethnicity. There are one main informant and ten other informant whom have been interviewed face-to-face. The result has shown that Bawean ethnic's cultural communication symbol such as language, cuisine, martial arts and religious rituals are the main elements in Bawean ethnic's cultural communication. In conclusion, cultural communication between Bawean ethnic and other ethnic has taken place according to the situations as either inside or outside the group. Cultural similarities has facilitate cultural communication tranquility. It creates social integration with relation to the ethnic relationship processes such as acculturation, accommodation and integration. (shrink)

What could ground normative restrictions concerning cultural appropriation which are not grounded by independent considerations such as property rights or harm? We propose that such restrictions can be grounded by considerations of intimacy. Consider the familiar phenomenon of interpersonal intimacy. Certain aspects of personal life and interpersonal relationships are afforded various protections in virtue of being intimate. We argue that an analogous phenomenon exists at the level of large groups. In many cases, members of a group engage in shared (...) practices that contribute to a sense of common identity, such as wearing certain hair or clothing styles or performing a certain style of music. Participation in such practices can generate relations of group intimacy, which can ground certain prerogatives in much the same way that interpersonal intimacy can. One such prerogative is making what we call an appropriation claim. An appropriation claim is a request from a group member that non-members refrain from appropriating a given element of the group’s culture. Ignoring appropriation claims can constitute a breach of intimacy. But, we argue, just as for the prerogatives of interpersonal intimacy, in many cases there is no prior fact of the matter about whether the appropriation of a given cultural practice constitutes a breach of intimacy. It depends on what the group decides together. (shrink)

Este artículo cuestiona la composición endógena de los personajes protagónicos de los largometrajes Días de Santiago (2004) y Hombre Araña (2002). Ellos presentarán dos estereotipos distintos de vivencias y coincidirán con el cuestionamiento consuetudinario de sus propias identidades. Esa percepción permitirá precisar en el objetivo de este trabajo, que consiste en fundamentar las transgresiones psicológicas de los involucrados, pese a su configuración definida y reconocible para el espectador. Para lograrlo, se recurrirá al análisis sociológico que propone Iuri Lotman desde la (...) semiótica cultural, que será complementado con la confrontación con los filmes Un perro andaluz (1929), Tiempos modernos (1936), Ahí está el detalle (1940), Gregorio (1984) y La espalda del mundo (2000). Luego, se empleará la semiótica tensiva de Jacques Fontanille para elaborar esquemas afines al desenvolvimiento del superhéroe, así como también se diferenciarán los regímenes de sentido que se asemejan a la lógica de la trama. (shrink)

Cultural attractor theory (CAT) is a highly visible and audacious approach to studying human cultural evolution. However, the explanatory aims and some central explanatory concepts of CAT remain unclear. Here I remedy these problems. I provide a reconstruction of CAT that recasts it as a theory of forces. I then demonstrate how this reinterpretation of CAT has the resources to generate both cultural distribution and evolvability explanations. I conclude by examining the potential benefits and drawbacks of this (...) reconstruction. (shrink)

In this essay, I discuss the assumption that the environmental resource abundance can determine the level of cultural additivity.

The relevance of the study is the need to reform the educational environment based on the values of inclusion to ensure the accessibility of quality education for all people. The purpose of the study is to justify the need an inclusive culture formation as a culture of acceptance of diversity and mutual understanding. The research problem is the lack of development of an inclusive organizational culture is a barrier to ensuring the availability of quality education in a variety of health (...) limitations and the educational needs of students. The study is based on the analysis of regulatory documents, comparison and generalization of the available approaches in international and Russian theory and practice on the inclusion values issue in the strategy of educational organizations and the formation of an inclusive organizational culture. Results: it was established that the inclusive agenda in education aggravates the problem of the formation of an inclusive organizational culture as a culture of accepting diversity as a value, advantage, significant educational, upbringing, developing resource; staged, the need for a proactive strategy of the formation of intercultural competencies are justified. -/- . (shrink)

Cognitive scientists typically explain cognitive processes in groups from the study of the individual. Even researchers who recognize that our cognition is inherently situated and cannot be understood without placing it in a social context take the individual as the starting point for looking at group processes. It is reason for Robert Wilson (2004) to argue for 'group minds'. With this he creates room for the idea that certain group processes cannot solely be explained as the sum of the individual (...) cognitive participants. Marc Slors does not go that far in his article on group identification and cognition. Yet his writing takes important steps toward better understanding group cognition. Broadly speaking, I can agree with the reasoning of the article and agree with the conclusion. But there is an important point missing that must be elaborated if the article is not to fall prey to a fundamental critique. Slors' writing integrates an assumption that is under discussion in ecological psychology, namely that information perception for cultural affordances need not be specific and precise. I am skeptical of this assumption and explain why in what follows. As a helping hand, I also take a stab at reinforcing Slors' narrative. (shrink)

Is there something morally wrong with cultural appropriation in the arts? I argue that the little philosophical work on this topic has been overly dismissive of moral objections to cultural appropriation. Nevertheless, I argue that philosophers working on epistemic injustice have developed powerful conceptual tools that can aid in our understanding of objections that have been levied by other scholars and artists. I then consider the relationship between these objections and the harms of cultural essentialism. I argue (...) that focusing on the systematic nature of appropriative harms may allow us to sidestep the problem of essentialism, but not without cost. (shrink)

According to cultural evolutionary theory in the tradition of Boyd and Richerson, cultural evolution is driven by individuals' learning biases, natural selection, and random forces. Learning biases lead people to preferentially acquire cultural variants with certain contents or in certain contexts. Natural selection favors individuals or groups with fitness-promoting variants. Durham (1991) argued that Boyd and Richerson's approach is based on a "radical individualism" that fails to recognize that cultural variants are often "imposed" on people regardless (...) of their individual decisions. Fracchia and Lewontin (2005) raised a similar challenge, suggesting that the success of a variant is often determined by the degree of power backing it. With power, a ruler can impose beliefs or practices on a whole population by diktat, rendering all of the forces represented in cultural evolutionary models irrelevant. It is argued here, based on work by Boehm (1999, 2012), that, from at least the time of the early Middle Paleolithic, human bands were controlled by powerful coalitions of the majority that deliberately guided the development of moral norms to promote the common good. Cultural evolutionary models of the evolution of morality have been based on false premises. However, Durham (1991) and Fracchia and Lewontin's (2005) challenge does not undermine cultural evolutionary modeling in nonmoral domains. (shrink)

The information regime is mediated by the culture of the electronic device. It is characterized by the control of the deluded citizen through the deployment of freedom, thereby nullifying the core issue of human life: freedom. Through phenomenological-hermeneutic methodology (Heidegger, 2002), this work starts from the world of digital life to direct the interpretation towards digital governance, all of which appears as a hermeneutic horizon the information regime. It is concluded that in this new social order the political and all (...) other orders that arise from interaction are governed by a capitalism of emotions. (shrink)

Η εύληπτη εκπαιδευτική προσέγγιση ότι «κληρονομιά είναι οτιδήποτε θέλεις “εσύ” να διατηρηθεί για τις επόμενες γενιές» κλονίζεται στην ερώτηση «όλα όσα μας παραδίδονται από τους προγόνους μας αποτελούν μια προς διαφύλαξη κληρονομιά, εφόσον “εσύ” το αποφασίσεις;». Εκφάνσεις «βαρβαρότητας» που διασώζονται σε προγενέστερες εθιμικές πρακτικές θα μπορούσαν άραγε να αποτελέσουν στοιχεία ΑΠΚ προς διαφύλαξη; Η παρούσα εργασία επιχειρεί μια πρώτη ανίχνευση του σύνθετου αυτού θέματος. Περιπτώσεις μελέτης από τον ελληνικό και διεθνή χώρο διερευνώνται με κριτήρια αξιολόγησης τα αναφερόμενα στη Σύμβαση για (...) τη Διαφύλαξη της ΑΠΚ (UNESCO, 2003). Βάσει αυτών δεν γίνονται αποδεκτές εθιμικές πρακτικές ΑΠΚ που αναζωπυρώνουν μνήμες βίαιων συγκρούσεων μεταξύ μελών κοινότητας/κοινοτήτων, αποκλείουν με βίαιο ή/και υποτιμητικό τρόπο μέλη εξαιτίας του φύλου, της ηλικίας, της επαγγελματικής ιδιότητας, ή του σεξουαλικού τους προσανατολισμού, καθώς και εθιμικές πρακτικές που περιλαμβάνουν κακομεταχείριση ή/και βασανισμό ζώων. Η εφαρμογή των παραπάνω στην πράξη παραμένει αχαρτογράφητο πεδίο. Απαραίτητες φάσεις μιας συστηματικής μελέτης αποτελούν α) η αναγνώριση και η ευαισθητοποίηση των τοπικών κοινωνιών και του ευρύτερου κοινωνικού συνόλου για τις αξίες της ΑΠΚ, β) η έρευνα, τεκμηρίωση και αξιολόγηση των επιμέρους στοιχείων της, γ) η υποστήριξη των διαδικασιών μεταβίβασής της στις νεότερες γενιές, μέσω της τυπικής και μη εκπαίδευσης, δ) η ανάδειξη της σημασίας της σε τοπική, περιφερειακή, εθνική ή/και παγκόσμια κλίμακα. Η ΑΠΚ μετεξελίσσεται και μεθερμηνεύεται διαρκώς μέσω σύνθετων κοινωνικών και πολιτισμικών διεργασιών. Απόπειρες εξαναγκασμένης «αναβίωσης» κάποιας «αυθεντικής» ή «γνήσιας» μορφής μιας έκφανσής της συχνά αποτυγχάνουν, ενώ παραμένουν μεθοδολογικά μετέωρες. Ο ρόλος της εκπαιδευτικής διαδικασίας στην ανάπτυξη σχετικών ηθικών αρχών και κριτικής σκέψης είναι κρίσιμης σημασίας. Λέξεις κλειδιά: άυλη πολιτιστική κληρονομιά, κοινότητες, αξίες, ηθικές αρχές, εκπαίδευση For educational purposes, we may claim that heritage is whatever each one of us individually or collectively wishes to preserve and pass on to the next generation. However, should violent or other disturbing forms of expression, preserved in customary practices, be safeguarded, if the whole or part of the ‘community’ decides to do so? The present paper attempts a first approach to this complex issue. Case studies from Greece and worldwide are investigated and appraised on the basis of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the ICH (UNESCO, 2003). According to the Convention criteria, customary practices that refresh memories of violent conflicts between members of the community/communities, or exclude members with an aggressive and pejorative way because of their gender, age, professional status or sexual orientation, as well as practices involving the ill-treatment and/or torture of animals do not deserve safeguarding. The implementation of the above criteria in practice, however, remains an uncharted area. A systematic study, therefore, should: (a) include initiation, recognition and awareness on the part of local communities and societies about the values of the ICH; (b) promote research, documentation and evaluation of heritage components; (c) support the transition to the younger generations through formal and non-formal educational events; (d) highlight its importance on the local, regional, national and international context. ICH is evolving and constantly interpreted through complex social and cultural processes. Any forced attempt to revive an ‘authentic’ or ‘genuine’ version of ICH cultural expression, besides appearing fake, is methodologically challenged. The role of education in developing ethical principles and a critical approach to heritage is undoubtedly crucial. Keywords: Intangible cultural heritage, communities, values, ethical principles, education. (shrink)

This essay frames systemic patterns of mental abuse against women of color and Indigenous women on Turtle Island (North America) in terms of larger design-of-distribution strategies in settler colonial societies, as these societies use various forms of social power to distribute, reproduce, and automate social inequalities (including public health precarities and mortality disadvantages) that skew socio-economic gain continuously toward white settler populations and their descendants. It departs from traditional studies in gender-based violence research that frame mental abuses such as gaslighting--commonly (...) understood as mental manipulation through lying or deceit--stochastically, as chance-driven interpersonal phenomena. Building on structural analyses of knowledge in political epistemology (Dotson 2012, Berenstain 2016), political theory (Davis and Ernst 2017), and Indigenous social theory (Tuck and Yang 2012), I develop the notion of cultural gaslighting to refer to the social and historical infrastructural support mechanisms that disproportionately produce abusive mental ambients in settler colonial cultures in order to further the ends of cultural genocide and dispossession. I conclude by proposing a social epidemiological account of gaslighting that a) highlights the public health harms of abusive ambients for minority populations, b) illuminates the hidden rules of social structure in settler colonial societies, and c) amplifies the corresponding need for structural reparations. (shrink)

To reach sustainability transitions, we must learn to leverage social systems into tipping points, where societies exhibit positive-feedback loops in the adoption of sustainable behavioral and cultural traits. However, much less is known about the most efficient ways to reach such transitions or how self-reinforcing systemic transformations might be instigated through policy. We employ an agent-based model to study the emergence of social tipping points through various feedback loops that have been previously identified to constitute an ecological approach to (...) human behavior. Our model suggests that even a linear introduction of pro-environmental affordances (action opportunities) to a social system can have non-linear positive effects on the emergence of collective pro-environmental behavior patterns. We validate the model against data on the evolution of cycling and driving behaviors in Copenhagen. Our model gives further evidence and justification for policies that make pro-environmental behavior psychologically salient, easy, and the path of least resistance. (shrink)

Studies on difficulties in understanding scientific terms have shown that the problem is more serious among non-Western learners. The main reasons for this are the learners' pre-existing knowledge of scientific terms, their native language incommensurability with Western languages, and the polysemy of the words used to denote scientific concepts. The current study is an analysis of the conceptualisation of scientific concepts in two culturally different languages, i.e. Arabic and French, which represent a non-Western language and a Western language respectively. Physics (...) concepts which are considered as some of the most challenging concepts for non-Western languages (Loo 2005; Aranador 2005) were selected for analysis. To this end, the terms that refer to two physics concepts, "weight" and "mass" in Arabic وَزْن (wazn) and كُتْلَة (kutla) and in French poids and masse were semantically analysed. The analysis of the concepts in both languages is informed by the prototype theory by Rosch (1973; 1975), idealised cognitive models (ICMs) by Lakoff (1987), and conceptual metaphor and conceptual metonymy by Lakoff and Johnson (2003). The data for analysis were retrieved from two comparable Arabic and French corpora, namely the ArabiCorpus and the Concordancier-Corpus Français. The results suggest that there are both similarities and differences between the Arabic and French concepts in terms of meanings, prototypes, and metaphorical as well as metonymic semantic extensions. These findings support the argument that the human conceptual system is related to our environmental and cultural experiences and also importantly, validate previous claims on the need for educators to be cognizant of the culturally relevant meanings of scientific words found in everyday language that may impede learners' understanding of scientific concepts. (shrink)

Out of all the possible categories of protected areas, the most widely used around the world has been the national park. The reasons behind this predominance have colored the entire international conservation movement. I look at the ethical implications of the national park ideal ’s phenomenal global success. Working from two assumptions-that human cultural diversity is good and desirable, and that there is a definite relation between such diversity and protected area conservation-I suggest that what is needed most right (...) now is a clarification and refocusing of the debate on this issue. (shrink)

The Mindsponge culture can be defined as a set of thinking processes, beliefs, and behaviors that is result- or target-driven. It is an entrepreneurship culture that urges me to overcome hardship with a transparent mind about my target. Adopting this culture is a tough process, but its fruitful results are worth the cost. Especially in the next decades, humanities have to acquire two crucial targets for sustainable development: curbing climate change and reducing biodiversity loss. To accomplish these targets, shifting the (...) eco-deficit mindset to the eco-surplus mindset at the individual level and building eco-surplus culture at the organization level (e.g., business sectors) are required. Obtaining the Mindsponge culture can help us progress and actualize these objectives through creative performance. (shrink)