Introduction

Syncretism has a long and fractured history within the anthropological study of religions. This edition of TAJA offers readers a critical reanalysis of the enduring anthropological enchantment with syncretism as contributors reassess the value of this theoretical concept in their own work in Melanesia, Aboriginal Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia and India. The authors examine a range of cultural contexts in which syncretism occurs and outline the theoretical possibilities and limitations when the concept is recast and taken beyond existing paradigms. In this broadened sense, syncretism may today be viewed as an indication of indigenous creativity, agency and autonomy, a view far removed from its earlier association with cultural inauthenticity, pollution and even debasement.     

Introduction

Conclusion The editor and authors contributing to this special issue ofExperimental and Applied Acarology, which is dedicated to Professor Alex Fain, have compiled a very complete collection of articles about the various aspects of the allergenic house-dust mites. The result is a valuable document, worth the dedication to the acarologist who since November 1964 has contributed so much to our knowledge of the Pyroglyphidae.     

Introduction

In this and the next issue of Soviet Psychology, the international readership will have an opportunity to gain access to the work of Russian developmental psychologist Mikhail Basov, whose relevance for developmental psychology in Russia and, later, the Soviet Union has been profound (see Valsiner, 1988, chap. 5). Basov's intellectual development paralleled that of his contemporary Lev Vygotsky, whose ideas are currently increasingly mentioned in the international discourse of psychologists and educators, and whose synthesis of ideas from various sources in international social sciences continues to command respect (see Kozulin, 1990; van der Veer and Valsiner, 1991).