Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is steadily becoming a tameable, mild communicable disease globally. In the Western countries and some countries in Asia, such as China, for example, this milestone is owed to a high response to vaccination programmes. The same cannot be said of Africa, where the uptake of vaccines has not been encouraging. In Zimbabwe, for example, the government had intended to vaccinate at least 10 million of its estimated 16 million population in order to reach herd immunity. The (...) figures are still very small, indicating vaccine hesitancy. In this article, it is contended that vaccination campaigns must be adapted to local religious culture and engage critically with the elderly women in particular. Indigenous religio-cultural beliefs and practices can either mobilise or immobilise individuals and communities in implementing the COVID-19 containment measures, depending on how they are approached. To this end, any response to the pandemic should never be exclusively unidirectional. This article employs cultural hermeneutics as its lens of analysis. It does not only seek to promote life-giving values associated with elderly women in African religio-cultures but also to interrogate negative practices driven by religio-culture that put their lives at risk in the era of COVID-19. Elderly women are at worst vulnerable to the disease, and at best they are the hub of communities’ health services. Packaging the vaccination campaigns in the religio-cultural and spiritual consciousness of a people has a potential to increase vaccine uptake in line with the spirit of Goal 3 of the United Nations Agenda 2030. This article is both theoretical and empirical. It uses the Ndau of south-eastern Zimbabwe to ascertain the meaning that they create about the elderly women’s interaction with the public health call for vaccination in the context of their religio-culture. The term ‘religio-culture’ has been used because throughout Africa, religion and culture are inseparably tied together. Data are generated through interviews with key informants.Contributions: Elderly women are vulnerable to COVID-19. Despite their vulnerability, Ndau elderly women find themselves compelled by their religio-culture to respond to the crisis in their communities. There is no literature that addresses the paradox and its attendant opportunities and challenges that characterise the circumstances of elderly women in the context of COVID-19 in the efforts to motivate vaccine uptake. The article shows that indigenous religio-cultural beliefs and practices can either mobilise or immobilise individuals and communities in taking the COVID-19 vaccines, depending on how they are approached. (shrink)

Bio‐banking in research elicits numerous ethical issues related to informed consent, privacy and identifiability of samples, return of results, incidental findings, international data exchange, ownership of samples, and benefit sharing etc. In low and middle income (LMICs) countries the challenge of inadequate guidelines and regulations on the proper conduct of research compounds the ethical issues. In addition, failure to pay attention to underlying indigenous worldviews that ought to inform issues, practices and policies in Africa may exacerbate the situation. In (...) this paper we discuss how the African context presents unique and outstanding cultural thought systems regarding the human body and biological materials that can be put into perspective in bio‐bank research. We give the example of African ontology of nature presented by John Samwel Mbiti as foundational in adding value to the discourse about enhancing relevance of bio‐bank research in the African context. We underline that cultural rites of passage performed on the human body in majority of communities in Africa elicit quintessential perspective on beliefs about handling of human body and human biological tissues. We conclude that acknowledgement and inclusion of African indigenous worldviews regarding the human body is essential in influencing best practices in biobank research in Africa. (shrink)

The Mapuche people are a native group from the extreme south of Latin America. Their culture is based on the interconnectedness between the cohabitants of the environment, including human and non-human categories of life. The closest concept to consciousness for them would be Mapuche rakizuamor Mapuche thinking, which is defined as a particular kind of reflexivity or state of awareness of the interdependence of people with natural and spiritual entities. This understanding of the human condition represents a relational ontology, which (...) cannot be translated to the predominating individualistic approach. Although the mind–body distinction is not a central point within Mapuche culture, these dimensions can be explored through crucial processes of the life cycle such as socialization, illness, and death. Contributions from cultural psychology and Indigenous psychology are taken into account regarding the challenge to address the interplay between culture and the human psyche more appropriately. (shrink)

Life among most African families and communities revolves around women. In both African religion and culture, women’s lives oscillate between two opposite extremes of being at the centre and periphery at the same time. Women are both the healers and the often wounded by the system that respects them when there are problems and displaces them whenever there are opportunities. Their central role is expressed by a Shona proverb musha mukadzi (the home is a woman). This proverb expresses how women (...) endure the pain of both religion and culture to create a decent society. Women also endure the pain of pandemics such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and COVID-19 and at times succumb to the same while taking care of some family members who would have fallen victim to the epidemic. Countless married women have been made susceptible to HIV and AIDS as they try to live according to the African cultural dictates of mothering and/or motherhood. Other women and girls also contract the disease because of how religion and culture exert them to some unbearable circumstances. For example, women and girls nurse their ill relatives without protective equipment and clothing. At times they are abused by men because of some cultural beliefs that unprotected sex is a remedy for HIV and AIDS. In addition, most women and girls were also victims of COVID-19 while serving their family members. In doing all the good work to serve families, women are driven by the proverb musha mukadzi. Using desk research methodology, this paper argues that musha mukadzi is both a toolkit for women’s resilience to endure pandemics and at the same time a subtly oppressive statement often used to manipulate and abuse women to stand in places that are too difficult for their capabilities. Contribution: African women bear the brunt of pandemic burdens such as HIV, AIDS and COVID-19. Sometimes they become susceptible to the same while taking care of their family members affected by pandemics in the name of fulfilling the Shona proverb, musha mukadzi. The topic has contributed to the scope of the journal as it advocates to inculcate a peaceful society. The article also challenges African societies not to use musha mukadzi to ill-treat women as objects of African religio-cultural patriarchal ideology. (shrink)

This paper explores small-scale farmers’ cultural beliefs about the causes of drought events and the reasoning behind their beliefs. Cultural beliefs vary across countries, regions, communities, and social groups; this paper takes the case of farmers from Gaza Province in southern Mozambique as its focus. Findings show that the farmers have a limited knowledge and understanding of the scientific explanation about drought. Thus, farmers’ beliefs about the causes of drought are strongly based on the (...) indigenous and Christian philosophies that attribute drought to supernatural forces, such as ancestors or God, and as a punishment for wrongdoings. Farmers have a distinct and under-explored repertoire of possible wrongdoings to justify the punishments driven by those cultural beliefs. Some of their reasoning is static, while some is mutable, and is based on their observation and perception of the negative, unexpected, or harmful recent or current events which happen in their surrounding environment, and which they believe could be avoided or prevented. Farmers’ beliefs about drought causes, and their underlying reasoning for those beliefs, are what will primarily influence their perception of their own capacity to adapt, their motivation to respond, and their behavioral responses. Yet, their social groups exert a great influence on their choices of response. The paper concludes that more context-specific investigations into the socio-psychological nature of farmers’ beliefs are required prior to interventions in order to better help farmers to respond to future drought risks. (shrink)

Indigenous health is becoming a top priority globally. The aim is to ensure equal health opportunities, with a focus on Indigenous populations who have faced historical disparities. Effective health interventions in Indigenous communities must incorporate Indigenous knowledge, beliefs, and worldviews to be culturally appropriate.

In settler societies, upward social mobility by Indigenous people is seen in the growth of successful professional and entrepreneurial classes where both wealth creation and social power are significant resources. Yet, public and academic discourses perpetuate the belief that social mobility impacts negatively on Indigenous people by placing cultural identity in conflict with capitalist business practices. Using data from an international comparison consisting of interviews with 220 Indigenous entrepreneurs in research sites across three countries, this article (...) shows that the belief is unfounded and reveals how this duality creates an impossible tension when Indigenous cultural identity is framed as “at risk” because of social mobility. A discursive colonial mind-set remains a central, enduring and problematic organizing principle of the field of Indigenous social mobility, one that requires a shift in the kinds of research questions that are asked and the ways in which social mobility is ultimately defined. (shrink)

While the linguistic influence of India’s indigenous languages on the Indo- Aryan language is well understood, the cultural impact of the autochthonous Munda, Dravidian and Tibeto-Burman speaking peoples is much harder to evaluate, due to the lack of indigenous coeval records, and later historicization of the Buddha’s life and teachings. Nevertheless, there are cultural remnants of the indigenous belief systems discoverable in the Buddhist scriptures. In this article we examine 1) The longstanding hostility between the (...) IA immigrants and the eastern ethnic groups, especially the Buddha’s Sakya clan. 2) The Sakyas’ socio-political organization, religious and cultural values which differ significantly from those of the immigrants. 3) The concept of the Mah?puru?a which was likely an historicization of an indigenous Indian belief. 4) Indigenous belief structures like serpent- and tree-worship and the culture of sacred groves, and 5) Indigenous funeral rites in the story of the Buddha’s parinibb?na. (shrink)

Circumcision originated from ancient religious and cultural societies. Study has shown that in both the biblical context and among the Karanga people in Zimbabwe circumcision emerged as a rite of passage for a boy child’s entry into manhood. Modern societies promulgate circumcision as a preventive method against HIV and AIDS. The present study argues that circumcision tends to promote irresponsible sexual behaviour and trivialises the sacredness of sex. To safeguard societies against the belief that circumcision prevents HIV and AIDS. (...) To sensitise societies that abstinence and condom usage will serve as preventive methods against HIV and AIDS. The study utilises two complimentary methods: comparative literary method which examines both biblical and cultural initiation procedures and qualitative research method in which an interview forms part of the data pool. The potential of a scientific contribution towards transforming both the mind and lifestyle can be guaranteed. The number of individuals opting to be circumcised will decline, and abstinence and condom usage should be promoted towards the prevention of HIV and AIDS. In both ancient Israel and among the Karanga people of Zimbabwe, circumcision was performed as a religious and cultural procedure. In both contexts circumcision was regarded as a rite of passage to prepare a boy child for entry into manhood. The article argued that circumcision does not prevent HIV and AIDS. To the contrary, circumcision tends to endorse promiscuity and unprotected sex, with a potential of increasing HIV and AIDS prevalence. (shrink)

Human genomics research with indigenous peoples has often been characterised by tension between the ‘western’ science ideologies and indigenous peoples’ cultural beliefs in relation to their human genetic resources and data. This article explores this tension from the lens of the concept of indigenous peoples’ human genomic sovereignty and tests the applicability of the concept in Africa. The article achieves this by first highlighting the tension between ‘western’ science and indigenous peoples through three case (...) studies from Canada, the USA, and South Africa. It then analyses indigenous peoples’ human genomic sovereignty in the USA and Canada and compares it with the notion of indigenous peoples’ sovereignty in Africa. The article concludes by highlighting lessons that indigenous groups in Africa can draw from the USA and Canada in their quest for human genomic sovereignty. (shrink)

China has achieved economic prominence but damaged the natural environment. Can religions excite pro-environmental actions? Chinese religion encompasses Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, native Taoism, and indigenous folk beliefs (GuanDi and Mazu). We theorize that believers demonstrate more sustainable HOPE (Help Ourselves Protect the Environment) than non-believers. Religions with standardized and formal liturgy show more pro-environmental HOPE than those without it. We challenge the myth that the believers of Christianity and Islam display more sustainable HOPE than other faith. The 2013 (...) Chinese General Social Survey (involving 10,017 randomly selected participants across 28 provinces) revealed that 11.10% of them have faith. Believers display higher levels of HOPE than atheists, demonstrating the __religion__ effect. Among believers, native Taoism and Buddhism exhibit more ecological HOPE than other religions, supporting the __dogma__ effect in the Chinese culture. Religions with formalized liturgy demonstrate more pro-environmental HOPE than generalized folk beliefs—GuanDi and Mazu, validating the __liturgy__ effect. Females, married, and people with good income, education, health, and country-domicile—the haves—exhibit robust ecological HOPE. The rich get richer and greener. However, those who are older, males, urban residents, and the Han majority do not. We empirically demonstrate the Matthew Effect in Religious Social Responsibility: Religious faith facilitates believers’ pro-environmental behaviors—HOPE and ethical behaviors in China. (shrink)

In addition to the aim of mapping and sequencing one human's genome, the Human Genome Project also intends to characterise the genetic diversity of the world's peoples. The Human Genome Diversity Project raises political, economic and ethical issues. These intersect clearly when the genomes under study are those of indigenous peoples who are already subject to serious economic, legal and/or social disadvantage and discrimination. The fact that some individuals associated with the project have made dismissive comments about indigenous (...) peoples has confused rather than illuminated the deeper issues involved, as well as causing much antagonism among indigenous peoples. There are more serious ethical issues raised by the project for all geneticists, including those who are sympathetic to the problems of indigenous peoples. With particular attention to the history and attitudes of Australian indigenous peoples, we argue that the Human Genome Diversity Project can only proceed if those who further its objectives simultaneously: respect the cultural beliefs of indigenous peoples; publicly support the efforts of indigenous peoples to achieve respect and equality; express respect by a rigorous understanding of the meaning of equitable negotiation of consent, and ensure that both immediate and long term economic benefits from the research flow back to the groups taking part. (shrink)

Indigenous understandings of consciousness represent an important inspiration for scientific discussions about the nature of consciousness. Despite the fact that Indigenous concepts are not outputs of a research driven by rigorous, scientific methods, they are of high significance, because they have been formed by hundreds of years of specific routes of cultural evolution. The evolution of Indigenous cultures proceeded in their native habitat. The meanings that emerged in this process represent adaptive solutions that were optimal in (...) the given environmental and social milieu. We argue that it would not be appropriate to handle these meanings as something that science considers to be wrong, or outdated relics of the human past. In contrast, Indigenous concepts and their meanings may be considered to be an important heritage of native human populations, but moreover, they are also an interesting material for analyses and inspiration for recent scientific debates. Furthermore, it is also necessary to mention another reason why the exploration of Indigenous concepts has been so topical recently. Thus far, much psychological theoretical development has been published in English as a result of research conducted in Western countries. The dominance of English and the superiority of research conducted by researchers from Western countries may be considered as a kind of barrier toward other ways of knowing. We argue that the traditional cultural knowledge coming from Indigenous societies may offer an interesting source of new thought for science. The weakening of the strong dependence of science on well-established academic circles dominated by Western theoretical perspectives may be beneficial for stimulating its further development (Sidik, 2022). Therefore, this special symposium of the Journal of Consciousness Studies aims to open the doors for other ways of knowing, For the knowing that emerged in native Indigenous cultures. We argue that the rich cultural heritage of these societies may stimulate the emergence of new analytical perspectives for scientific theorising about the nature of consciousness. For all these reasons, the Indigenous concepts of consciousness captured our interest, and we decided to start investigating them. In 2020 and 2021, we retrieved and analysed pieces of information from past ethnographical field evidence gathered in various Indigenous cultures. After removal of data about the cultures showing a high acceptance of influences from external religious traditions (e.g. Christianity, Islam or Buddhism), a comparative analysis of data from 55 Indigenous groups was conducted and published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies (Trnka and Lorencova, 2022). This primary project revealed many interesting results, but more importantly, it also showed many unexplored avenues that called for further exploration. This special symposium of the Journal of Consciousness Studies is a continuation and new development of research on the Indigenous understanding of consciousness. Past ethnographical evidence involved some valuable pieces of knowledge about Indigenous concepts of consciousness, but the relevant information was often fragmentary or even totally missing in some cases. Moreover, many authors of past ethnographic records applied a strong etic approach that clouded the understanding of native Indigenous thoughts. Therefore, the main goal of the recent symposium was to broaden the overall information basis for the analysis of Indigenous concepts of consciousness or closely related phenomena. In other words, the symposium aimed to bring more detailed knowledge of Indigenous concepts of consciousness, mind and body and their relations in various groups of Indigenous people. In 2022, we contacted potential contributors and were pleased by their positive reactions, which reflected the topicality of this research focus. The authors were asked to draft their papers with a special focus on (a) a cultural Indigenous understanding of the concept of consciousness, (b) a cultural Indigenous understanding of the mind-body differentiation (or consciousness-body differentiation) and (c) cultural metaphors and cultural beliefs related to consciousness, mind and body. Many of contributors were native members of Indigenous cultures that made the descriptions of Indigenous concepts more accurate and reliable. This enabled many truly emic, in-depth insights into the Indigenous concepts of consciousness and related phenomena to be gained. As a result, this issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies introduces eight papers, each focused on a different geographical region/Indigenous groups: Nahua and Maya (Mexico), Guna (Panama), Mapuche (Chile), Maori (New Zealand), Telingit (Altai), Mongolian groups, Igbo (Nigeria) and Asabano (New Guinea). These papers are followed by one more general paper discussing magical consciousness on the case of an Aboriginal wise man (Australia). The symposium closes with our concluding editorial essay, which generalises the findings and introduces three theoretical models of understandings of consciousness inspired by the analysis of Indigenous concepts of consciousness. Aside from the importance for basic research, the exploration of Indigenous concepts of consciousness is also very important for informing practitioners from many applied spheres. Many current methods for treating addictions, traumatic life events, professional burnout and other mental health problems use features of Indigenous healing practices. A proper understanding of meanings related to mind, body and consciousness are quite important for Western psychotherapists to adapt the Indigenous practices to particular Western cultural milieus. Furthermore, a proper understanding of meanings related to mind, body, and consciousness is also important for treating ethnic, linguistic and culturally diverse populations (APA, 1990). For therapists, psychologists and physicians, understanding the meanings of these concepts may promote their own better care of their clients from various Indigenous ethnic groups. Last but not least, Indigenous concepts, meanings and languages are closely related to the continuation of the heritage of Indigenous people (United Nations, 2016). The world’s Indigenous languages have recently been under threat of disappearing; many Indigenous languages are endangered globally, and the rate of loss is high (United Nations, 2016). Importantly, recent research has also shown that the retention of Indigenous languages may be protective for the psychological and physical health of their speakers. All these areas represent fields for potential use of the findings presented in this symposium of the Journal of Consciousness Studies. As a concluding note, the editors of this symposium hope that this collection of papers will inspire academic scholars while also providing important information for practitioners from various spheres. (shrink)

Background Many indigenous people have died or been harmed because of inadequately monitored research. Strong regulations in Human Research Ethics (HRE) are required to address these injustices and to ensure that peoples’ participation in health research is safe. Indigenous peoples advocate that research that respects indigenous principles can contribute to addressing their health inequities. This scoping literature review aims to analyze existing peer reviewed and grey literature to explore how indigenous values and principles from countries of (...) Oceania are incorporated into HRE and the governance of research involving human participants. Methods A scoping literature review framework was used for this study. A search for peer reviewed and grey literature from Google, bibliographies, and electronic databases such as SCOPUS, SPRINGER, Medline (Ovid) and JBI Database of Systematic Reviews was conducted, limited to the years 2002–2020. Sixty (60) documents that focused on indigenous knowledge from Oceania region and HRE were included, from which key findings and themes were synthesized. Results Charting the data showed that more than half the eligible documents were peer-reviewed journal articles (54%). Other sources included: International Declarations on Human Research (8%); book chapters (8%); government documents (8%); HRE Guidelines or protocols (13%); news articles (7%) and PhD thesis (2%). The literature was from Australia, Cook Islands, Guam, New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu, some of which focused specifically on HREs in the Pacific Region. Issues emerging from the literature were grouped into five themes (i) indigenous and cultural principles of HRE; (ii) informed consent in indigenous settings in Oceania; (iii) vulnerability and minority status of indigenous populations exploited for research; (iv) research ethics governance for Oceania indigenous peoples; and (v) research ethics committees in Oceania. Respect, relationship building, and trust were priority indigenous HRE principles that encompass the principles of partnership, capacity building, reciprocity, and equality. Relationship building and trust imply the equal distribution of benefits for indigenous population and researchers. Conclusion Indigenous principles of HRE identified were interconnected and interdependent. Recommendations were to incorporate indigenous principles of research in HRE regulations and processes of all countries with indigenous populations. This is especially pertinent for emerging national research committees in LMIC countries, including Fiji and Tonga. Relationship building among researchers and indigenous populations is key to successful research with indigenous populations. HRE principles important for relationship building include respect that is reciprocal among researchers and indigenous people. Elements of the principle of respect highlighted are empathy, collaboration, sharing of benefits, reciprocity, appreciation, empowerment, protection, safety and awareness of culture and languages. Indigenous ontology from the Oceania region involves spirituality, connectedness to land, religious beliefs and a participatory approach to HRE and should be respected in research. An ethical governance mechanism of HRE is one that incorporates indigenous principles and applications for the purpose of maximizing the protection of the dignity and rights of indigenous peoples of Oceania. (shrink)

Globalization has changed almost every facet of life for people around the world, and today the flow of influence is no longer uni-directional. It is argued that East Asian societies are anchored in an indigenous form of hierarchical relationalism where social structure is produced by relational obligations of an ethical and normative nature that have slowed its traditional culture “melting into air” as prophesied by Marx. The successfully modernization of East Asia has involved hybridization, compartmentalization, and sequencing of traditional (...) psychological features of Confucianist societies such as delay of gratification and respect for education, paternalistic leadership, filial piety, and beliefs in harmony or benevolence. Features of hierarchical relationalism are adaptable to creating niches for East Asian societies that thrive under globalization as characterized by the paradoxical coupling of economic inequality in fact with discourses of equality in principle. Moral, ethical demands for enlightened leadership constrain East Asian elites to at least attempt to protect subordinates and protect societal well-being. A fundamental contribution of East Asia to global society may be in the articulation of how to ameliorate economic inequality using Confucian principles of hierarchical relationalism. (shrink)

With the increased acceptance of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) within society, new research reflects deeper folk health histories beyond formal medical spaces. The contested relationships between formal and informal medicine have deep provenance and as scientific medicine began to professionalise in the 19th century, lay health knowledges were simultaneously absorbed and disempowered (Porter 1997). In particular, the ‘medical gaze’ and the responses of informal medicine to this gaze were framed around themes of power, regulation, authenticity and narrative reputation. These (...) responses were emplaced and mobile; enacted within multiple settings by multiple agents and structures over time. The work is drawn from secondary material from Ireland, which identify more indigenous narratives of health and act as potential sources for medical humanities. While assumptions have been made as to the place of folk-medicine being essentially rural, evidence will be presented which shows a more complex network of health beliefs and practices. The narratives of informal practice and folk-medicine drawn from evidence from Ireland point to more fluid and hybrid relations with formal medicine and suggest that the complementary nature of the two models reflected wider cultural debates and models of belief (Del Casino Jnr., Health & Place 10:59-73, 2004). (shrink)

Despite the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, assimilationist policies continue, whether official or effective. Such policies affect more than the right to group choice. The concern is whether indeed genocide or “only” ethnocide (or culturecide)—the elimination of a traditional culture—is at work. Discussions of the distinction between the two terms have been inconsistent enough that at least one commentator has declared that they cannot be used in analytical contexts. While these terms, I contend, have distinct (...) senses, yet in cases of governmental and other institutional assimilationist policy for indigenous peoples, such ethnocide effectively entails genocide. Insofar as any people’s cultural practices and beliefs are essential for life and health, individuals in groups value, if tacitly, their culture as highly as their language or any artifact: Thus, attempts to eradicate a culture through assimilation in fact eradicate individuals’ lives and health and so are effectively murderous. Acknowledgement by worldwide organizations that assimilationist ethnocide is effectively genocide should affect policy concerning indigenous peoples and thus has significance for international law. (shrink)

A Amazônia constituiu-se, ao longo de sua formação histórica e sociocultural, em importante território de crenças em saberes de cura que expressam interculturalidades entre humanos e sobrenaturais. Nas fronteiras que separam e interligam o período colonial e os tempos contemporâneos, fios de memórias escritas e orais trazem à tona experiências em que religiosidades nativas, coloniais e diaspóricas se conformam em profunda bricolagem com a natureza, erigindo um panteão de divindades afroindígenas na região. Neste artigo, sob a orientação teórica dos Estudos (...) Culturais, do Pensamento Pós-Colonial e da Antropologia das Religiões, exploramos diálogos realizados com memórias de um pai de santo, um curandeiro, uma irmã consagrada e uma “pajé”, além de percepções de um sacerdote católico e escritos de uma outra pajé. A análise dessas fontes evidencia que crenças em saberes de cura, aspectos constituintes das cosmologias afroindígenas, traduzem modos específicos com os quais populações amazônicas, com destaque para a Amazônia Marajoara, lidam com encantados, espíritos, santos, orixás em seu fazer religioso. Por esse ângulo, a cultura é apreendida como território de experiências intersticiais e a natureza se refaz como paisagem cultural, pois sofre intervenções e interfere na configuração do sistema religioso local. Palavras-chave : Saberes de Cura. Natureza. Afroindígena. Interculturalidade. Amazônia Marajoara.The Amazon has been constituted, throughout its historical and socio-cultural formation, in an important area of beliefs towards healing knowledges that express interculturalism between the humans and the supernatural. Within the borders that separate and connect the colonial and contemporary times, written and oral memories bring up experiences where the native, colonial and diasporic religiosity configure themselves into a deep tinkering with nature and erect a pantheon of Afroindigenous deities in the region. In this article, under the theoretical guidance of Cultural Studies, Postcolonial Thought and Anthropology of Religions, we explore dialogues conducted with memories of a saint father, a medicine man, a Catholic nun and a “Pajé” (a female shaman or witch-doctor), besides the perceptions of a Catholic priest and writings of another female Shaman. The analysis of these sources shows that beliefs in healing knowledges, constituent aspects of Afro-indigenous cosmologies, translate specific modes with which Amazonian populations, especially the Marajoara Amazon ones, deal with enchanted beings, spirits, saints, African orishas in their religious practices. From this perspective, culture is perceived as a territory of interstitial experiences and nature is remade as a cultural landscape, once it suffers interventions and also interferes within the local religious system configuration. Keywords : Healing Knowledges. Nature. Afroindigenous. Interculturalism. Marajoara Amazon. (shrink)

Indigenous women in Canada face a range of health and social issues including domestic violence. Indigenous women (First Nations, Inuit and Métis) are six times more likely to be killed than non-Aboriginal women (Homicide in Canada, 2014 ; Miladinovic and Mulligan, 2015 ). Aboriginal women are 2.5 times more likely to be victims of violence than non-Aboriginal women (Robertson, 2010 ). These and other statistics highlight a significant difference in the level of violence experienced by Indigenous women (...) to that experienced by women in the mainstream population in Canada. The historical impacts of colonization and forced assimilation are viewed as the main social determinant of health for aboriginal people in Canada, as they led to intergenerational trauma, with communities struggling today against discrimination, stigma, poverty and social exclusion. Most disturbing and damaging are the outcomes of domestic violence, mental health and addiction issues (Prussing, 2014 ). First Nation's women who want to leave a violent situation have limited access to helping services, as most are located in large cities and towns, far from remote reserves where many of the women live. Services were originally designed by and for the mainstream population. First Nation's women who manage to access these programs often find staff with limited cultural competence and program supports that have little cultural safety or relevance for them. Indigenous culture is defined in various levels of legislation as having a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular region, with cultural or historical distinctiveness from the mainstream and other populations (Indigenous Peoples at the UN, 2014 ). In Canada, indigenous cultural beliefs are closely tied to belief in a creator, ancestors and the natural world, influencing their spirituality and their political perspectives (Waldram et al., 2006 ). Cultural safety, a concept that emerged in the 1980's in New Zealand, is viewed as an environment that is spiritually, socially, emotionally and physically safe for people; where cultural identity is recognized and valued through shared respect, meaning, knowledge and the experience of learning together. This paper will explore current evidence-based literature to determine if there is empirical evidence to support program policies and practices that reflect culturally safe, competent and relevant domestic violence services to address the cultural needs of Indigenous women in Canada. (shrink)

First published in 1986, Knowledge, Belief, and Witchcraft remains the only analysis of indigenous discourse about an African belief system undertaken from within the framework of Anglo-American analytical philosophy. Taking as its point of departure W. V. O. Quine's thesis about the indeterminacy of translation, the book investigates questions of Yoruba epistemology and of how knowledge is conceived in an oral culture.

Do cultural models facilitate particular ways of perceiving interactions in nature? We explore variability in folkecological principles of reasoning about interspecies interactions. In two studies, Indigenous Panamanian Ngöbe and U.S. participants interpreted an illustrated, wordless nonfiction book about the hunting relationship between a coyote and badger. Across both studies, the majority of Ngöbe interpreted the hunting relationship as cooperative and the majority of U.S. participants as competitive. Study 2 showed that this pattern may reflect different beliefs about, (...) and perhaps different awareness of, plausible interspecies interactions. Further probes suggest that these models of ecological interaction correlate with recognition of social agency in nonhuman animals. We interpret our results in terms of cultural models of nature and nonhuman agency. (shrink)

Like philosophy itself, Dune explores everything from politics to art to life to reality, but above all, the novels ponder the mysteries of mind. Voyaging through psychic expanses, Frank Herbert hits upon some of the same insights discovered by indigenous people from the Americas. Many of these ideas are repeated in mainstream American and European philosophical traditions like pragmatism and existential phenomenology. These outlooks share a regard for mind as ecological, which is more or less to say that minds (...) extend beyond the brain into the rest of the body and the surrounding environment. -/- The cross-cultural strands in Dune tie closely to Herbert’s life and interests. An outdoorsman born in the Pacific West, he had an abiding bond with a friend from the Quileute tribe, Howie Hansen. Herbert advocated for aboriginal rights and crafted well-intentioned if slightly stereotypical tales about indigenous characters, partly based on his visits with Northwest tribes. Carl Jung (1875-1961), whose idea of collective consciousness echoes aboriginal views, was among Herbert’s European influences. So was existential phenomenology, especially as developed by Martin Heidegger (1889-1976). The names of characters in one of Herbert’s novels—The Santaroga Barrier—in fact coincide with terms that Heidegger used to articulate how emotionally colored coping with our environment defines our existence. Many indigenous philosophers have treated phenomenology and its American cousin pragmatism in approving ways. Indeed, the ideas of North America’s first inhabitants seem to have been absorbed by pragmatists and even earlier by transcendentalists like Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) and Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862). -/- These different philosophies all advance a place-based psychology. Anne Waters, herself of mixed tribal heritage, generalizes the mindset of her people this way: “American Indian consciousness, and hence American Indian identity is … interdependent with our land base.” Lee Hester, a Choctaw thinker, adds that practices—not mere beliefs—are most important for native thought. American transcendentalists and pragmatists, as well as European phenomenologists, similarly see hands-on practices and environmental interactions as the core of experience. Extending this a little, they sometimes suggest experience isn’t individual but instead cultural. “Culture” is here understood as interactions within communities that define our worlds and experiences, as when we talk about the “French experience,” “culture” or “world,” or the “experience of parenthood.” This theme also shows up in indigenous thought. -/- Exploring the Dune universe, we find everything from land-based concepts of personal identity, to the idea of sharpening the mind through hands-on training, to collective notions of experience in cooperative tribes or through the genetic memory of central characters. The stories explore fate versus free will in cosmic contexts, introducing views from indigenous thought and the pragmatic philosophy of William James (1842-1910). Different forms of spiritualism mingle to shape minds and cultural mixtures around the globe, and the same occurs in the Dune series. The customs and personalities of characters fuse elements from Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Taoism, and especially Islam. The series not only highlights that religion shapes psychology, but also that faith connects to place, especially paralleling Judeo-Christian-Islamic desert faiths. In capturing these points, the Dune novels show that “our values, our lifestyles and even the ways we think and feel have been strongly influenced by our locations in history and geography. The study of the human mind is fundamentally the study of place.”. (shrink)

This essay argues that the inherent value of Indigenous African Religions, which ensures that the belief in different gods does not eclipse the fact of common humanity might be of importance to contemporary Africa plagued by ceaseless conflicts. The IAR ideology contrasts, for example, with that of Christianity which views the Christian God as the one true God and regards those who worship a different God as pagans and gentiles. It also contrasts with the ideology of Islam, which views (...) Allah as the one true God and regards those who worship different God as infidels. The essay claims that social orientation in contemporary Africa is mostly influenced by the divisive ideologies of these two foreign religions that have come to dominate. These divisive ideologies are to a large extent, indirectly responsible for some of the violent conflicts on the continent. This divisive religious orientation bifurcates humanity into in and out-groups that are extended to the social sphere where people from different religious, ethnic and linguistic groups are treated as outsiders and are made targets for attacks like in South Africa and Nigeria today. Further, if we interpret such violent conflicts as evil and consider its source in light of the perennial problem of evil, what would be our response? Using the conversational method, the essay argues that both good and evil are part of the universe, and that if we want more good, then a change from a divisive to a complementary orientation based on the relational values of the IARs is imperative. (shrink)

In philosophical terms, the African encounter with Western modernity defines the context within which much of what unfolds in postcolonial Africa can be understood, including even its ethical and social problems. This work utilizes Foucault’s theory of panopticism to reflect on the challenges of social control and harmony in contemporary African society. It establishes the link between panopticism and indigenous African cultures from the fact that indigenous societies deployed mechanisms of instituting social control and harmony similar to the (...) phenomena of panoticism and the technologies of control that it symbolizes today. African metaphysical thought, its beliefs, and mythological paraphernalia played the important role of providing an overarching framework within which questions of social control, relations, ethics and even harmony with nature were defined and understood in the past. Modern institutions and technologies of surveillance, whilst crucial to social control, may need to be supported by re-strengthening indigenous interpretive and normative cultural frameworks that promoted elements of self-surveillance and responsible being in traditional communities. (shrink)

In this chapter, we focus on animism and how it is studied in the cognitive science of religion and cultural anthropology. We argue that philosophers of religion still use (outdated) normative notions from early scientific studies of religion that go back at least a century and that have since been abandoned in other disciplines. Our argument is programmatic: we call for an expansion of philosophy of religion in order to include traditions that are currently underrepresented. The failure of philosophy (...) of religion to discuss and accommodate different perspectives means a large part of human religious beliefs, practices, and experiences remains outside its purview. As a point of focus, we examine animism in two cultures as a way to think about what sorts of questions and ideas an expansion of philosophy of religion into lesser-explored traditions could offer. (shrink)

Conflict is inevitable in the workplace and manifests in different ways. It is a common dysfunction when working in teams. A diversity of thoughts, ideologies, and beliefs always creates a risk of disagreement and misalignment. When examining identity and positionality in the workplace, conflict is usually resolved in favor of those who have identities within the dominant White culture. In light of this common reality, an opportunity is created to examine and determine how conflict can be resolved from an (...) inclusive and equitable approach. This case study is designed to outline the tools and resources the Center for Equity and Inclusion uses with its clients when guiding organizations to resolve conflict, advance equity, and center Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) in the workplace. (shrink)

A general dearth of theoretical engagements with the embodied, historical, and especially the religious dimensions of disablement pervades the social sciences. Paradoxically, the religious heritage of the West is commonly identified as the implicit catalyst of many disabling attitudinal barriers impinging on impaired bodies. Addressing this inconsistency, this article extends dominant disability conceptualizations through combining embodiment theories and humanities perspectives. Ultimately the article seeks to demonstrate how interdisciplinary investigation can produce fresh insights into the relationships between attitudes towards physical impairment (...) and Christianized forms of Western sociality. First, the radicalization of the definition of disability in the field of disability studies is briefly discussed. Second, aspects of the sociology of the body are examined in order to illustrate how the concepts of ‘effervescent’ and ‘emergent’ embodiment, through highlighting the persistence of the sacred in ‘somatic society’, can assist in the formulation of an analytical framework, suitable for analysing the religio-cultural dimensions of impairment. Finally, the dynamism of Christian attitudes towards physical impairment is illustrated through a survey of historical and contemporaneous theological examples. The confluence of these fields, it is argued, enables the interconnected terrain between impairment, embodiment and the sacred to be mapped. (shrink)

This article, based on a desk study, connects African spirituality to the phenomenon of poverty and argues that mundane poverty alleviation strategies that ignore the cultural perspective of a people are doomed to fail, especially in the African context. Within this context, a domain such as transcendence is as ‘real’ to the people as the material world. This article delves into the alchemy of the traditions of African people from a Zimbabwean perspective in an attempt to understand some of (...) the causes of poverty. The authors aver that development practitioners stand to gain if they take into account such (African) worldviews. The article shows that there is a disconnect between western culture and indigenous cultural beliefs and suggests that it is necessary to use phenomenological methods to unpack this disconnect because the spiritual world can support or limit the extent to which poverty alleviation programmes are effective. This means that the notion of development rooted in western knowledge frames may require opening discourses that imagine different social ontologies to find solutions in an (African) context. Thus, the challenge for phenomenologists is to research culturally-appropriate approaches to development using phenomenology. (shrink)

Our society currently faces many complex and perplexing issues related to biotechnology, including the need to define the outer boundaries of genetic research on human beings and the need to protect individual and group rights to human tissue and the knowledge gained from the study of that tissue. Scientists have increasingly become interested in studying so-called “population isolates” to discover the nature and location of genes that are unique to particular groups. Indigenous peoples are often targeted by scientists because (...) “the relative isolation of the communities ensures minimal gene flow.” Such studies raise a number of issues related to privacy rights, property rights, informed consent, and group rights versus individual rights. These issues recently came to light in a case brought by the Havasupai Tribe and its members over the use of blood samples, handprints, and genealogy information initially taken by researchers at Arizona State University for a diabetes project. These materials were then allegedly used by researchers at ASU and other institutions for a multitude of unauthorized purposes, including research into the frequency of mental health disorders and the origin of human populations. Consequently, the affected members sued for damages under several legal theories. However, underlying all of these claims was the allegation that this unauthorized use of genetic resources and data not only injured the individuals who gave samples, but also caused a collective harm to the Havasupai Tribe and the cultural and spiritual beliefs of its members. (shrink)

Multicultural Counseling: Responding With Cultural Humility, Empathy, and Advocacy is divided up into three sections. The first section is comprised of four chapters and explores the counselors' worldview. The second section is made up of 19 chapters that encapsulate the clients' worldview. The third section includes four chapters that demonstrate the application of multicultural counseling by broaching race and culture; providing culturally responsive assessment, diagnosing, and treatment planning; finding a supervisor who prepares advocates; and designing a culturally sensitive workplace. (...) Each chapter opens with questions designed to have counselors consider their beliefs, attitudes, and judgments and how they might show up in their work with diverse clients. Chapters include clinical case scenarios where students can conceptualize cases using empathy, humility, and advocacy. A distinguishing feature of this book is that it includes cultures that may have been overlooked elsewhere. The authors also sought to include various faiths in this text-such as agnosticism, atheism, and indigenous spiritual practices-with hopes that counselors' first experience with such would be in this book rather than on their couches with clients. Another chapter is dedicated specifically to transgender people. The goal of this book is to give learners the framework to begin to understand who the people are that they will be serving. (shrink)

Surrogacy as a practice is supported by science, technology, morality and legality. It follows that the issues concerning it cut across all facets of life. And different arguments have being advanced for and against this practice. The belief espouse in this paper is that one cannot discuss successfully the moral, the science or the legality of surrogacy without delving into the cultural question of who is a mother. In other words, it is possible to have simple scientific and legal (...) understandings of the practice and still disagree on the cultural level because of its stronger emotional appeal. The purpose of this work is to expose the Yoruba-African religio-cultural beliefs that have bearing on the understanding of motherhood or ownership of a child. This will be done through a critical analysis of Yoruba cultural beliefs about personhood and the metaphysical underpinning between birth and the ontology of life itself. Theargument here is that given some Yoruba ontological belief about life, motherhood and personhood it may be difficult for the products of surrogacy to fit-in into the society in terms of personal and social development. This work goes further to recommend that cultural beliefs should be taking into consideration when making laws to guide surrogacy in order to avoid conflict between the mothers and the child. (shrink)

The articles collected in this volume document the eighth conference organized by the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The conference in which Indologists, Theologians and Philosophers participated in, took place in september 2004 under the title "Certainty of Believe and Truth in Religious Tradition". Against the background of Gerhard Oberhammer's hermeneutics of religious traditions the contributors challenge from their professional viewpoint the traditional understanding of the relationship between certainty of (...) belief and truth and give reasons that certainty of belief found in a special religious tradition cannot claim absolute truth, even if its validity within a tradition is not to be denied. (shrink)

The nature of creative thinking is complex and multifaceted, often involving cognitive processes and dispositions modulated by implicit cultural belief systems and ways of thinking. In this article, we build on existing research on the relations of creative thinking and culture, and explore how specific cultural resources can be harnessed to foster creative problem-solving in education. We first review the recent changes in our understanding of creative thinking, from an exclusive focus on cognitive processes to a more inclusive (...) view of creative problem-solving as socially negotiated and culturally modulated, carrying important cultural functions. We then introduce a pedagogical model, QEOSA, to illustrate how cultural resources, particularly culture-specific ways of thinking about the world, can be harnessed to foster creative thinking in education, and what developmental and pedagogical considerations are involved to make it effective. We finally conclude this article by indicating the value of this line of work that integrates psychological, cultural, developmental, and educational principles in fostering the development of a creative mind-set with relevant knowledge, skills, dispositions, and values. (shrink)

One of the best ways to pursue and go beyond the programme of Writing Culture (Clifford and Marcus 1986), I suggest, takes as its point of departure the cognitive anthropology of anthropology. Situating Writing Culture with regard to this field of research can contribute to its further development. It is, after all, sensible to start the anthropological study of anthropology with an analysis of its own cultural productions: ethnographic texts. The analyst can then identify the relevant properties of such (...) cultural products and track down their causes. These causes include especially the cognitive processes of working ethnographers. Starting with textual analysis, I will argue that some of the rhetorical conventions that are viewed critically by contributors to Writing Culture, rather than being misleading, actually serve to inform the reader about the cognitive genesis of the ethnography. The information conveyed when complying with these conventions enables readers to evaluate the reliability of ethnographic accounts and anthropological analyses. Following the textual analysis, I specify some of the cognitive processes at work in the production of ethnographies. These include, for example, a reflexive and critical cognition that is distributed among the community of anthropologists and also 'mind-reading' – a cognitive process, much studied by cognitive psychologists, that enables ethnographers to make sense of the behaviour of indigenous people by attributing mental states to them (beliefs, intentions, desires, feelings). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Exploring Visual Culture: Definitions, Concept, ContextsPaul DuncumExploring Visual Culture: Definitions, Concept, Contexts, edited by Matthew Rampley. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005, 257 pp., $32.00 paper.I review this new introductory text in light of its competition as a textbook for undergraduates and as an introduction for graduate students. Other such texts include Barnard, Elkins, Mirzeoff, Walker and Chaplin, and Sturken and Cartwright,1 which appears to be the most widely (...) used. Rampley's anthology stands up well among these competitors, especially for those who wish to transition from art to contemporary popular visual culture rather more gently than other texts that, for many students, might come as too abrupt a disjuncture from mainstream practice in schools of art and design. As Matthew Rampley states in his excellent introduction, if the book has an original contribution to make, it is to situate an acknowledgment of traditional practices and issues into the makeup of visual culture studies. Unlike other texts, mentioned above, which tend to stress screen and print media, Rampley's agenda is to remind readers of the historical origins of many recent developments as well as the contribution of cultural forms other than two-dimensional ones. Thus, chapters are included that trace the history and continuing contribution of traditional media; art, design, craft, and architecture each receive individual chapters. MacDonald, for example, describes the complex meanings of craft and its relationship to fine art and design from classical times to today, as well as summarizes the characteristics and politics of craft today. Furthermore, the influence of technology is charted principally through conventional art, and the chapters on photography, film, and fashion are likewise cast largely in terms of historical accounts of whether these forms should be considered to be art.The historical bias is equally evident in the pictures used to illustrate the text. While, for example, there are contemporary popular images, such [End Page 118] as a cover of the Sun newspaper and a photograph of Punks, there are as many crossover images—postcards of famous art portraits and a Michelangelo on a T shirt—as well as many conventional artworks. Delacroix, Corbert, Rauschenberg, David, Fuseli, and Van Goyen are each featured. Some of the popular images are also historical, such as George Mêlées 1902 classic film Voyage to Moon and advertisements from the1930s.Sometimes the historical material takes up much of the space, with recent developments given only cursory treatment, and sometimes the material is dealt with in ways that seem rather old-fashioned to this reader. For example, Glyn Davis's chapter on photography and film is primarily a potted historical account of the relationships between these two cultural forms and art. Further, Davis does not just describe the arguments for and against their inclusion as art but is clearly engaged with these issues himself, an engagement that many proponents of visual culture would find rather quaint—that is, rather less interesting than the particular contribution that these forms make to contemporary life and for whom the question, "Is it art?" is no longer of any particular interest. This art orientation also colors Davis's view of Hollywood films. Clearly preferring "art" films, he completely ignores the role of popular film in exploring the fears, anxieties, beliefs, and so on of the wider public. By contrast, Richard Williams argues against architecture as a form of art, with its limited concerns with aesthetics, style, and canonical buildings, in favor of architecture as discourse and spatial experience. He is more interested in the reception of architecture than its production—first with architecture as signs, as meanings that are mutable, contingent, and arbitrary; and, secondly, as ordinary urban lived experience, with how architecture is but one element within the experience of urban environments.Typical of the avoidance of technical terms in the book as a whole, Williams beautifully describes the difference between structuralism and poststructuralism without once mentioning either of these terms, and in a chapter on architecture he manages to use the term "postmodern" only once. Similarly, in Neil Mulholland's chapter on representation and realism, cultural border crossing and indigenization are both described, albeit briefly, though without recourse to these terms... (shrink)

This paper builds on Max Charlesworth’s evolving interest in aboriginal spirituality by reflecting on potential affinities, as well as great differences, between the notion of the indigenous songline and sacred texts. In particular I suggest possible parallels between the travels of a spirit ancestor along a particular route, and the account of the journey of a specific early Irish saint, itself modelled on the motif of the pilgrim within Jewish and Christian Scripture. Charlesworth always insisted that religion could never (...) be studied as an abstraction, outside its specific manifestation in a culture. I argue that a core element of any religious tradition is constituted not by belief, but by song. Sacred texts themselves record oral traditions, transmitted through song or chanted recitation. While songlines and sacred texts delineate the sacred in very different ways, they both can provide maps of reality, relating to sacred geography and the values of a community. They can be described, in Charlesworth’s phrase as ‘religious inventions’, providing a cultural code necessary for survival, perhaps in a similar way to genetic code within a living organism. (shrink)

Efforts to build research capacity and capability in low and middle income countries (LMIC) has progressed over the last three decades, yet it confronts many challenges including issues with communicating or even negotiating across different cultures. Implementing global research requires a broader understanding of community engagement and participatory research approaches. There is a considerable amount of guidance available on community engagement in clinical trials, especially for studies for HIV/aids, even culturally specific codes for recruiting vulnerable populations such as the San (...) or Maori people. However, the same cannot be said for implementing research in global health. In an effort to build on this work, the Pakistan Institute of Living and Learning and University College London in the UK sought to better understand differences in beliefs, values and norms of local communities in Pakistan. In particular, they have sought to help researchers from high income countries (HIC) understand how their values are perceived and understood by the local indigenous researchers in Pakistan. To achieve this end, a group discussion was organised with indigenous researchers at Pakistan Institute of Living and Learning. The discussion will ultimately help inform the development of a cultural protocol for researchers from HIC engaging with communities in LMIC. This discussion revealed five common themes; (1) religious principles and rules, (2) differing concepts of and moral emphasis on autonomy and privacy, (3) importance of respect and trust; (4) cultural differences (etiquette); (5) custom and tradition (gift giving and hospitality). Based on the above themes, we present a preliminary cultural analysis to raise awareness and to prepare researchers from HIC conducting cross cultural research in Pakistan. This is likely to be particularly relevant in collectivistic cultures where social interconnectedness, family and community is valued above individual autonomy and the self is not considered central to moral thinking. In certain cultures, HIC ideas of individual autonomy, the notion of informed consent may be regarded as a collective family decision. In addition, there may still be acceptance of traditional professional roles such as ‘doctor knows best’, while respect and privacy may have very different meanings. (shrink)

In the psychological sciences, mindfulness practices are increasingly being used, studied, and theorized, but their indigenous theoretical foundations in Buddhist accounts of the dynamics and psychology of personal identity tend to be overlooked. This situation is mirrored in the discipline of philosophy: here, Buddhist views on personal identity are beginning to draw attention, but almost invariably in a way which entirely blanks out the role of mindfulness practices in cultivating Buddhist insights on selfhood. The aggregate result is a failure, (...) in the West, to reflect upon and seriously consider Buddhist theory and Buddhist practice in an integrated, holistic fashion. In its effort to overcome the compartmentalization of Buddhist theory (in philosophy) versus Buddhist practice (in psychology) and to embrace the challenges this might pose to fundamental Western beliefs about the self, this paper is intended both as a plea for and an exercise in greater, more venturesome cosmopolitanism. (shrink)

Before the intervention of the missionaries in Bapedi society, the traditional beliefs, customs and practices, such as traditional healing, circumcision, polygamy, indigenous music and rituals, had a vibrant existence. These practices had been prevalent for centuries before the arrival of Christianity. After the missionaries of all church denominations were welcomed in Bapedi society to establish churches and schools as the main vehicles for the dissemination of European culture, confusion started to build. In this article, I will highlight the (...) reaction of Bapedi people of Sekhukhune district, Limpopo province, South Africa, to the missionary activities of Berlin Mission Society, Germany, from 19 July 1860 to 08 July 2018. The purpose of this study was to explain the conflict or integration of different cultural norms and the missionary influence on the Bapedi indigenous way of life. The questions that I attempt to answer in this article are: how do people understand one another when they do not share a common cultural experience? and who are to blame, the missionaries or the Bapedi people themselves? I address this question by analysing the missionary influence on Bapedi traditional beliefs, customs and practices. Primary data were collected through video recordings of cultural and religious rituals, interviews and observations. Secondary data include publications. It was concluded that in spite of fundamental and multi-consequential changes that Christianity brought about in Bapedi society, a large percentage of Bapedi people, independent churches inclusive, have used and are still following their traditional beliefs, taboos, customs and practices. (shrink)

This study is an important contribution to the intellectual history of Victorian England which examines the religio-aesthetic theories of some central writers of the time. Dr Fraser begins with a discussion of the aesthetic dimensions of Tractarian theology and then proceeds to the orthodox certainties of Hopkins' theory of inscape, Ruskin's and Arnold's moralistic criticism of literature and the visual arts, and Pater's and Wilde's faith in a religion of art. The author identifies significant cultural and historical conditions (...) which determined the interdependence of aesthetic and religious sensibility in the period. She argues that certain tensions in the thought of Wordsworth and Coleridge - tensions between poetry and religion, rebellion and reaction, individualism and authority - continued to manifest themselves throughout the Victorian age, and as society became increasingly democratic, religion in turn became increasingly personal and secular. (shrink)

1492. The American continent was drawing Europeans on. Some saw in it the chance of a utopia, others saw it as utopia already coming about, in its natural state. All at once two processes of domination were triggered: one supported by the force of arms, and the other by the power of ideas and beliefs. If the defenders of utopian thinking were able to create a lasting achievement, it is because they managed to make their ideas fit with the (...) principles governing the social life of the indigenous peoples: thus a substantial part of what remains from the period of Don Vasco de Quiroga had preceded it. Cultures will not be able to transcend nationalisms and rise to the level of concerns shared by the whole of humanity until they can stand up for their own particular character against ‘globalizing’ trends. (shrink)

Global forest loss is highest in the tropical region, an area with high biological biodiversity. As some of these forests are part of indigenous forest management, it is important to pay attention to such management, its values and practices for better conservation. This paper focuses on sacred freshwater swamp forests of the Western Ghats, India, and with it a faith-based approach to nature conservation. Drawing on fieldwork and focus groups, we present the rituals and rules that structure the governance (...) of sacred swamps. We also discuss in depth the ecological, socio-cultural and economic valuation of these freshwater swamps by various local groups. In this way, we show overlaps and differences of valuation among different groups. In the context of a secular state with a diversity of faith groups and migration dynamics, we propose that faith-based governance of sacred swamps can benefit from the emphasis of faith-independent, ‘accessible’ ecological, socio-cultural and economic values to foster a dialogue around sacred swamps and their place for livelihoods and nature conservation. (shrink)

The indigenous people of sub-Saharan Africa approach their Supreme Being and express their reverence in diverse ways, as depicted in the different local names that describe this supernatural being. The African cultural worldview foregrounds that virtuous rapport with the Supreme Being provides wisdom and facilitates good cohabitation among humans. It is argued in this article that teachings from the Christian Bible contribute negatively to the disintegration, fragmentation and death of indigenous knowledge systems, which include African cultural (...) values, memory and oral traditions. Recently, some African scholars have begun to create awareness of some of Africa’s lost treasures. However, such contributions are disappointingly few. This study argues that memory and orality among Africans should be promoted and supported through various platforms, such as academic writing. This article will discuss memory, orality and ‘God-talk’ in terms of the following: teachings on moral values (e.g. relationships, marriage, humaneness [ubuntu or hunhu]) and the preservation of cultural heritage. The discussion uses qualitative analysis of secondary data and personal observation.Contribution: Firstly, the present study will provide for the readership in general, and academia in particular, a new perspective on African customs and indigenous belief systems about a Supreme Being. For example, Musiki as a Shona local dialect name for ‘God’ was already in use before the emergence of Christianity in Southern Africa. Secondly, previous contributions have not sufficiently explored memory and orality. This investigation serves as a resource or starting point for further research on memory and orality. (shrink)

Soul belief is a universal of human culture and belief in multiple souls is common, especially in pre-modern traditions. This essay illustrates how a three-folded structure appears in the soul concepts of Mongolian shamanistic traditions. The reported accounts of the three souls among various Mongolian ethnic groups are somewhat divergent — especially in their consciousness-related attributes — which may reflect the cultural bias of data collectors, inconsistencies between data providers, and the evolution of these concepts due to historical events, (...) socio-economic changes, and external cultural influences. Despite these confounding effects, the soul concept of Mongolian shamanism is similar in its pluralism to the beliefs of many other cultures. Mongolian Indigenous concepts and their descriptions reveal key elements of consciousness. Although these soul concepts evoke spiritual interpretations, they nevertheless reflect aspects of an innately-disposed mindset which extends conceptualizations of consciousness beyond mind-body dualism. (shrink)

Indonesia has received Islam over the past millennium During this period, Islam has intermingled in varying degrees with Buddhism, Hinduism, and indigenous animism in different parts of the archipelago. Consequently, beliefs and practices diverge. Nevertheless, Islam has an overwhelming if diverse presence in Indonesia. The paper will examine the resultant diverse versions of Islam that currently coexist in Indonesia. These versions are the modernist, traditional, devotional, and syncretic aspects of Islam. Each version will be analyzed in terms of (...) both differences and similarities. (shrink)

The intersection of religion, culture and gender-based violence (GBV) continues to provoke critical debates in feminist scholarship and activism. Although substantial steps are noticeable in terms of addressing numerous forms of violence against women, religion and culture in the African context continue to promulgate harmful practices. Chika Unigwe’s novel, The Middle Daughter, highlights a world where religion, GBV, social norms, rape myths, silence and agency intersect, shaping women’s lived experiences. Nani, the protagonist, overwhelmed by the loss of her sister and (...) father merely 2 years apart, is lured by a preacher – a wolf in sheep’s clothing – who shoves her into an abusive marriage. Raped but determined to keep the assault under the tongue, Nani further drifts away from her family, friends and community. Imprisoned and battered, yet, Nani’s silent resilience emerges – a quiet but radical strength that defies religio-sociocultural norms. This study is a review of African feminism in eradicating GBV. It discusses how Unigwe’s radical feminist lens unveils the competing female strength and the limits of silence as a form of women’s agency, thereby critiquing the dominant ‘soft’ African feminist approaches.Contribution: This study adopts a radical feminist theory to critique the ‘soft’ African feminisms which fail to serve women facing the intersectional forces of religion, culture and GBV. It argues that feminist activism in Africa has been going on for a lengthy period, yet the double standards embedded in religio-sociocultural beliefs and practices sustain women’s oppression. (shrink)

Despite its use to exemplify how the world is “flat,” India is in many ways “spiky.” Hyderabad is a prosperous hub of information–communication technology while its impoverished agricultural hinterland is best known for dysfunctional agriculture and farmer suicide. Based on the belief that a lack of knowledge and skill lay at the root of agrarian distress, the “e-Sagu” project aimed to leverage the city’s scientific expertise and ICT capability to aid cotton farmers. The project fit with a national surge of (...) “last mile” projects bringing ICT to the village, but it was unique in using ICT to connect farmers directly with agricultural scientists acting as advisors. Such projects fit the interests of many actors, which has led to an unrealistic national enthusiasm about their impacts. This article uses the first five years of the project as a lens to view the cultural nature of both indigenous agricultural knowledge and “scientific” agricultural advising. Unlike lay publics whose uptake of science is better known, with farmers the invention and adoption of agro-scientific knowledge is deeply embedded in daily productive activities and sociocultural interactions. E-Sagu eventually had to abandon its construction of agricultural science as objective and acultural, resorting to rural methods of persuasion. It also found that it could only survive by joining forces with companies promoting commodification of agricultural inputs, which was a cause of the agrarian distress it sought to alleviate. (shrink)

Theology as a science reflects the phenomena that in some way constitute the experience of faith in society, that is, looking at the world and the various periods of history with the help of the various sciences: anthropology, the sciences of religion and sociology. With the black traffic of the African continent, came the various customs lived in Africa: culture, religiosity, African myths, beliefs in the Orixás, all these elements constituted the Brazilian cultural imaginary. Thus syncretism arises as (...) a form of resistance and survival of faith. The Church with the Second Vatican Council and the post-conciliar declarations opens a new way of being in the world, valuing dialogue with other religions and cultures. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Omissions and Chronological ComplexitiesJyoti Mohan (bio)The stated purpose of Chinese and Indian Ways of Thinking in Early Modern European Philosophy: The Reception and the Exclusion by Selusi Ambrogio is "to examine the European understanding of China and India within the histories of philosophy from 1600 to 1744."1 Specifically, Ambrogio sets out to investigate the antecedents of the "othering" of non-Western philosophies. How far back did the notion go, that (...) non-Western philosophies were inferior? While Ambrogio often extends his argument to non-Western philosophies in general, in this monograph he examines only what he defines as "orientalist" philosophies—the philosophies of India and China. Since Ambrogio is investigating the histories of philosophy written in Europe, this choice makes sense: India and China were the two philosophical giants that most European philosophers needed to include in their works in order to claim to be universalist. No philosopher who wrote about world philosophies—and by extension no historian of philosophy—could ignore India and China, whether it was to dismiss the philosophies emanating from these geographic regions as inferior, or to extol them as proof that Europe was not the birthplace of "original thought."Ambrogio has chosen a time span from 1600 to 1744 c.e. to represent "the year 1600 … [,] the publication of Barbaricae philosophae antiquitatum by Otto van Heurn[,] and 1744[,] the year of the publication of the last book of the Historia critica by Jakob Brucker."2 Within the limits of this time [End Page 220] span, Ambrogio examines the work of several scholars who included Indian and Chinese philosophies in their "world histories of philosophies" and delineates three major historiographical trends. His rationale for ending his study with Brucker's work is that after this eighteenth-century opus, "Asians were usually excluded from the histories of philosophy."3 This time span seems puzzling to me. I know that most, if not all, of the authors Ambrogio cites had successors in their individual traditions well into the nineteenth century, if not the twentieth. While many histories of philosophy focused solely on the Western and classical traditions (as they did during the period under review by Ambrogio as well), the work of historians and scholars on Orientalist philosophies continued to multiply. To the extent that Ambrogio diligently studies his sources and constructs his argument, his work is commendable, but as a historian my questions for Ambrogio have to do with the underlying rationale for the time span he has chosen, and, by that extension, by the choices of his sources. Below I collect evidence that Asians continue to be included in the histories of philosophy past 1744, and in so doing suggest that this fact has an impact on his historiographical model.For instance, I would like to understand why, in his choice of sources, he has omitted all colonial works, especially since he engages with the argument that descriptions and understandings of Indian and Chinese philosophies were meditated through lenses of proselytization and of conquest. Granted, he is beginning with historians of philosophy, but as the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries progressed, historians also diversified their writings—as Ambrogio acknowledges—into histories of religion for instance. The connections between, and descriptions of, non-Western religions and philosophies were so muddled that it is impossible to separate them, save by attending to the titles of individual authors' works as being about religion or philosophy, respectively.The contents of such works are so closely related, at least in the Indian context, that contemporary historians, especially of the colonial period and of Indology, do not quibble over whether these works are about religion or philosophy. For instance, Paul Masson-Oursel wrote in 1923 that the development of Indian philosophy was integral to and proceeded alongside the development of religion.4 Systems of philosophical thought in India operated within larger systems of religious practice. Based on this model, Masson-Oursel describes the development of Indian philosophy as proceeding from the needs of religion. So, for example, he theorized that the mix of an Indo-Iranian religion and a pastoral, fire-worshipping people with an older indigenous Dravidian culture of agriculture, Goddess worship, and belief in amulets, spells, talismans, and other... (shrink)

This paper endeavors to explore and expand the communicative potential of silence from non-Western cultural spaces, of Asian-indigenous worldviews as hermeneutical key to critical and cosmic consciousness. Specifically, it speaks of the llokano cosmic Nakem (cosmic self or cosmic sense of being). At the core of the llokano Nakem is a cosmic impulse that situates this indigenous culture's resilience within the dissipating ecological integrity. Just like in other Asian classical texts, e.g., Taoism where it speaks of a (...) heavenly Dao which is the origin and the law that sustains everything in the world, the Ilokano cosmic self lays at core of cultural belief-an ontology that is deeply founded on the tradition of silence. By seeking out a decisive break from dominant frameworks, this paper argues for the possibility of articulating alternative cultural and linguistic experiences as a political imperative towards a democratized world. (shrink)