Establishing mutual misunderstanding: a Buryat shamanic ritual in Ulaanbaatar

This article discusses a strange case of shamanic ritual performed for a Buryat family in Mongolia's capital city Ulaanbaatar. This performance not only differs from those described in the regional literature, but it also seems to challenge some of the models used to account for ritual efficacy. Indeed, while the cathartic use of Buryat traumatic history to deal with a patient's misfortune in shamanic rituals is quite well documented, this performance stands out for the uncompassionate hopelessness with which spirits spoke of the family's fate as exiles in Mongolia. Meanwhile, the ever‐growing tension between participants, which culminated in an open crisis, would be a sure sign of a ritual failure had it not been the clear result of the shaman's own efforts to establish mutual misunderstanding between the spirits, the patients, and herself. Drawing on a pragmatic approach to ritual efficacy, this article ponders on the specific purpose of a performance which seems to be aimed at creating a context of miscommunication between participants.     

When ‘blood speaks’: naming the father and the mystics of kinship in Dominica,Eastern Caribbean

This article explores the mystical implication of fathers in reproduction in Dominica, Eastern Caribbean. It traces naming acts that assign paternity at various points in the filial life course, each attempting to disambiguate paternity. Confronting a recurring anthropological problematic – the problem of paternity (paternity's inherent putativity) – the article argues that Dominicans contest uncertain physical fatherhood through the proverb ‘blood speaks’. The article elaborates how relatedness reveals itself in the subtle bodies of kin at three moments: through a local version of the couvade (‘sympathetic pregnancy’); in elders’ post-partum ritual scrutiny of children's bodies for familial resemblances; and during serendipitous encounters in later life. The article highlights how physical fatherhood is disclosed in fathers’ and children's symptoms, appearances, and sensations, revealing their kinship in transpersonal terms. Therefore, blood ‘speaks’ to counter broad-brushed narratives of Caribbean fatherly absence by revealing the physical and spiritual significance of fatherhood. Herein, the article revives classic anthropological debates on legitimacy, the couvade, and Caribbean kinship, whilst contributing to contemporary theorizations of blood and naming.     

Extended lives in global spaces: the anthropology of Yolngu pre‐burial ceremonies⋆

The focus is on a recently developed Yolngu ritual, the memorial or memorial service, which celebrates the lives of Yolngu who have achieved a national reputation. Held before the burial ceremony, the memorial service is orientated ‘both‐ways’ – to the outside as well as to the Yolngu world. Memorial services are analysed in the context of the articulation between Yolngu and the wider Australian society. A diachronically orientated analysis takes into account the longue durée to show how Yolngu create and understand the performance from a historical position and basis of knowledge very different to those of most non‐Yolngu who attend the event. Anthropological research can reveal the durability of local value creation processes that result in very different trajectories of being in an environment of dynamic change.     

Ethnic school context and the national and sub-national identifications of pupils

In various European countries, policy-makers strive for educational desegregation to enhance pupils' national identifications. Since little empirical evidence supports such a policy and social identity theorists emphasize the importance of context, this article examines the impact of ethnic school composition – measured by the proportion of non-natives and ethnic heterogeneity – on the national (Belgian) and sub-national (Flemish) identifications of pupils. Multi-level data analyses from the surveying of 2,845 pupils (aged 10–12) in sixty-eight Flemish primary schools reveal differential effects for natives and non-natives. While the proportion of non-natives at school is negatively associated with non-native pupils' identifications, it is positively related to native pupils' identifications. In general, the ethnic heterogeneity of the school is negatively associated with pupils' national and sub-national identifications. Our findings indicate that the relation between ethnic school composition and pupils' identifications is mediated by the latter's inter-ethnic friendships. The consequences of these findings for educational policy are discussed.     

Science‐Based Carbon Targets for the Corporate World: The Ultimate Sustainability Commitment,or a Costly Distraction?

Dr. Alice Stewart conclusively demonstrated, in 1958, that pediatric X‐rays doubled the risk of childhood leukemia. Nevertheless, doctors continued X‐raying mothers‐to‐be until 1980. Margaret Heffernan's (2011) book, Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril, documents this and numerous other examples of our skill at ignoring information that points to something we don't want to know. Specifically, on the topic of climate change, Heffernan notes: “[I]n failing to confront the greatest challenge of our age – climate change – all the forces of willful blindness come together, like synchronized swimmers in a spectacular water ballet.” When it comes to corporate sustainability, we're seeing some recent efforts to get past willful blindness. In 2013, we saw examples such as Auden Schendler (co‐author of this piece) and Michael Toffel's (2013) publication in Grist, Corporate Sustainability is Not Sustainable, which itself built upon Professor Robin Craig's (2012) article provocatively entitled “Climate Change Means the Death of Sustainability.” More recently, in Lima, Unilever's Paul Polman said that “.. most CEOs…know that their companies cannot prosper in a world with runaway climate change.” Perhaps, after years of corporate sustainability flag waving, it is no longer possible to ignore the fact that much of what companies classify as “sustainability” is, at best, green fluff that is fundamentally out of touch with the realities of anticipated climate change. Significantly, chief executive officers (CEOs) themselves are questioning the historic focus on corporate sustainability policies and targets. As summarized in the CEO Study on Sustainability, jointly published by the United Nations (UN) Global Compact and Accenture (2013): “Business leaders [now] believe that only with greater government intervention — at global, national and local levels — can sustainability move from sporadic incremental advances to a collective and transformative impact.”     

National ceremonies: the pursuit of authenticity

Abstract

This article asks what, if any, impact national ceremonies have on the formation of national identities. Why are some ceremonies perceived as national and persistent through time, while others fail to achieve that status? It argues that national ceremonies can only be examined as specific types of situations – performances, rather than rituals – characterized by the relationship between performers and their audiences. Following Jeffery Alexander's cultural pragmatics theory, national ceremonies are seen as successful only when a performance is perceived as authentic. A ceremony's authenticity is, at best, a quality of experience among its audience. Only when the audience is transformed into willing participants through a performance's mise-en-scène can a national ceremony be seen as a ritual-like performance. The paper will conclude that the efficacy of these performances is temporary, and that even when a performance succeeds in creating a community of shared experience, that community dissolves with the end of the performance.     

Dancing with a Difference: Reconfiguring the Poetic Politics of Aboriginal Ritual as National Spectacle1

This paper argues that indigenous dance is a poetic politics of cross‐cultural encounter that engages Aboriginal identities with those of the Australian nation. I question the nature of this encounter in terms of a performative dialogue that is both musically and kinesically presented by indigenous communities and ‘translated’ into political discourse by the government. The sentiments of ‘translation’ raise questions as to how local ritual expressions of Aboriginal dance can mediate dialogue when presented as national spectacle. What is being meditated? What is happening in the process of evocation? In this performative nexus, I focus specifically on the poetic politics of Yolngu ritual as spectacle; the nature of performative dialogue in terms of shared dance forms between indigenous communities; the problem of the authentication of dance identities; and how corporeal dispositions of indigenous dance genres influence national sentiment by their symbolic power. I pursue these issues through an analysis of how ancestral dances have been repositioned in national performance venues, such as concerts, cultural centres and ritual arenas, as a means of asserting performative statements about indigenous positioning within the nation‐state. The nature of this dialogue raises questions of authenticity and processes of authentication. It highlights indigenous concerns to control representations of indigeneity as national event, as well as a desire to convey something of the sentiment and sentience embodied in the poetics of their ancestral performances.     

Intention and Moral Enhancement

Recently philosophers have proposed a wide variety of interventions referred to as ‘moral enhancements’. Some of these interventions are concerned with helping individuals make more informed decisions; others, however, are designed to compel people to act as the intervener sees fit. Somewhere between these two extremes lie interventions designed to direct an agent's attention either towards morally relevant issues – hat‐hanging – or away from temptations to do wrong – hat‐hiding. I argue that these interventions fail to constitute genuine moral enhancement because, although they may result in more desirable outcomes – more altruism, more law‐following, and/or less self‐destructive behavior, they ignore a person's intentions, and often what makes an action right or wrong is the intent behind it.     

A relational approach to a Papua New Guinea male ritual cycle

The article analyses the male ritual cycle of the Ankave‐Anga in Papua New Guinea. In the 1980s, male initiations in this region were interpreted as institutions for the reproduction of male domination. And yet, looking at the ritual gestures performed at the same time by the men in the forest and by the women in the village, it becomes possible to offer another interpretation, one that, following Marilyn Strathern, underscores a relational dimension. But, whereas Strathern saw these rituals as times when boys went from a ‘cross‐sex’ state to a ‘single‐sex’ state capable of reproduction, following a process of extraction, the article argues that the Ankave ritual cycle can be read as an ordered series of transformations of the relations between the boys and their mothers and sisters, in the presence of these female relatives. At the heart of these initiations lies the boys' accession to the capacity to act for others. Such an analysis of specific ethnographic Melanesian material makes possible a critical appraisal of the Strathernian notions of partibility and detachability, which have often been taken as given by researchers outside the region.     

The crisscrossed agency of a toast: Personhood,individuation and de‐individuation in Luzhou,China

This article addresses debates over individuation in China through consideration of guanxi‐relational feasting in Luzhou, Sichuan. I draw on Ortner's theorisation of subjectivity and agency to probe the often taken‐for‐granted question of cultural personhood which informs social action. Although the social imaginary in Luzhou is increasingly colonised by symbolic individualism, I propose that dominant local notions of personhood and agency, operating within feast practice, continue to define this process. By attending to three aspects of Yan's ‘individualisation thesis’, I demonstrate how local models of person and agency are indispensible to a fuller understanding of social life. Considering the important role ritual speech habits (largely trained in de‐individuating feasting) continue to play in socialising actors to economic institutions and power relationships more generally, individuation in China today remains a largely nominal and aspirational, if symbolically potent and potentially transformative, project.     

Kannibalismus in Herxheim

Extreme rituals including anthropophagy In a settlement of the early Neolithic in Herxheim (South Palatinate) the manipulated remains of more than 500 human individuals were detected during excavations in an enclosure surrounding the settlement of the earliest farmers in this region; the human skeleton elements date to the time around 5000 B.C. Meticulous examinations of the in most cases extremely smashed bones yielded cut marks in significant places, comparable to similar traces on butchered animals. This observation and further evidence on the bone material brought forth the interpretation of ritual cannibalism in the frame of an hitherto unknown ceremony – an inimitable situation for prehistory so far. Luxury ceramic, precious stone tools and grinding stones – all of them intentionally destroyed – amplify the spectrum of findings, emphasizing the highly ritual character of the mysterious actions that took place in Herxheim 7000 years ago.     

‘Signs of the times’: confession and the semiotic production of inner truth

How is it that confession – a highly ritualized, dialogically structured speech act – appears to transparently reflect and reveal the inner states of confessants? This article explores this question by closely engaging select post‐Vatican II defences of the Sacrament of Penance, which lay out the requirements of ‘modern’ confession in striking detail. A close reading of these theological texts demonstrates that felicitous confession is the product of three correlated (meta‐)semiotic processes: (1) the figuration of the pentinent memory as a storehouse for sin; (2) the management of ritual time into discrete stages of ‘private’ meaning‐making and ‘public’ pronouncement; and (3) the erasure of the social scenery of the confessional utterance. In concert, these processes render indexical signs as iconic ones and, in so doing, naturalize confession as the cathartic revelation of inner truths, already constituted as such.     

The Interdiction of Music in Islam

There is no authorisation in the Qur'an for the interdiction on music. That interdiction, when it is voiced, is the product of a conviction among some Muslims, supported by hadith (just as it is opposed with hadith) that Islam does not countenance music. In a country such as Pakistan, with a strong tradition of devotional music which (taken with the poetry, with which it is always associated) has become entwined with the identity politics of the provinces or sub‐‘nations’ which make up the vaster nation, a comprehensive ban on music would be impossible to enforce, though there are ‘ulamā’ and sectarian parties who desire it. This paper focuses on an instance where music is even harder to extricate from an accompanying text: the recitation of the Qur'ān. In the eyes of Muslims, Qur'anic recitation is not music. This denial raises further questions about the nature of music and, in particular, its involvement with the ‘extramusical’. Adorno's observations on the relation of music to language, and the anthropologist Friedson's complaint that ethnographers focus on text, at the expense of music, are examined in the light of the circumstance that the world over, music is associated with texts of one kind or another. Even when, as in the case of the ‘curing’ ritual described by Friedson, words are unimportant, or missing, music is seldom a phenomenological whole. Music ‘leans’, or is ‘leant on’: it lends its unrivalled ‘eloquence’ to many a cause, from commodity marketing to the structured working out of ritual, or, among lovers, to the remembered quality of experience. All these potentialities of music are relevant to the question of its interdiction and to the Muslim denial that the recitation of the Qur'ān is music.     

EXISTENCE: WHO NEEDS IT? THE NON‐IDENTITY PROBLEM AND MERELY POSSIBLE PEOPLE

In formulating procreative principles, it makes sense to begin by thinking about whose interests ought to matter to us. Obviously, we care about those who exist. Less obviously, but still uncontroversially, we care about those who will exist. Ought we to care about those who might possibly, but will not actually, exist? Recently, unusual positions have been taken regarding merely possible people and the non‐identity problem. David Velleman argues that what might have happened to you – an existent person – often doesn't merit moral consideration since the alternative person one would have been had what might have happened actually happened is a merely possible person about whom one has no reason to care. He argues that his way of thinking can eliminate the non‐identity problem. Caspar Hare argues that merely possible people have interests and are morally relevant. He argues that we can solve the non‐identity problem by rejecting the view that merely possible people are morally irrelevant. Both Hare and Velleman argue that focusing on one's de dicto rather than on one's de re children can help us avoid the non‐identity problem. I analyze the role that merely possible, nonexistent hypothetical entities ought to play in our moral reasoning, especially with regard to procreation. I refute both Velleman's and Hare's views and demonstrate the difficulties we encounter when we try to apply their views to common non‐identity cases. I conclude with the common‐sense view regarding who matters, morally: only those who do, did, or will exist.     

Distinct roles of immunoreceptor tyrosine‐based motifs in immunosuppressive indoleamine 2,3‐dioxygenase 1

The enzyme indoleamine 2,3‐dioxygenase 1 (IDO1) catalyses the initial, rate‐limiting step in tryptophan (Trp) degradation, resulting in tryptophan starvation and the production of immunoregulatory kynurenines. IDO1's catalytic function has long been considered as the one mechanism responsible for IDO1‐dependent immune suppression by dendritic cells (DCs), which are master regulators of the balance between immunity and tolerance. However, IDO1 also harbours immunoreceptor tyrosine‐based inhibitory motifs, (ITIM1 and ITIM2), that, once phosphorylated, bind protein tyrosine phosphatases, (SHP‐1 and SHP‐2), and thus trigger an immunoregulatory signalling in DCs. This mechanism leads to sustained IDO1 expression, in a feedforward loop, which is particularly important in restraining autoimmunity and chronic inflammation. Yet, under specific conditions requiring that early and protective inflammation be unrelieved, tyrosine‐phosphorylated ITIMs will instead bind the suppressor of cytokine signalling 3 (SOCS3), which drives IDO1 proteasomal degradation and shortens the enzyme half‐life. To dissect any differential roles of the two IDO1's ITIMs, we generated protein mutants by replacing one or both ITIM‐associated tyrosines with phospho‐mimicking glutamic acid residues. Although all mutants lost their enzymic activity, the ITIM1 – but not ITIM2 mutant – did bind SHPs and conferred immunosuppressive effects on DCs, making cells capable of restraining an antigen‐specific response in vivo. Conversely, the ITIM2 mutant would preferentially bind SOCS3, and IDO1's degradation was accelerated. Thus, it is the selective phosphorylation of either ITIM that controls the duration of IDO1 expression and function, in that it dictates whether enhanced tolerogenic signalling or shutdown of IDO1‐dependent events will occur in a local microenvironment.     

Affect,creativity, and community‐making in a Congolese song‐dance performance: or how to follow the movement of the social

In rural Punu society, song‐dance performances of rejoicing are deeply connected with forces of regeneration; they not only celebrate the sexual encounter but also, in their constituent dynamic, aim progressively to awaken a shared feeling of joy that leads to the intensification of the dancing and to the creation and diffusion of new songs. I seek to account for this regenerative potential by pursuing Turner's processual view of ritual performance, which acknowledges moments of structure and lack of structure. In this regard, I develop the dynamic of community‐making and creative flow in the performances with reference to Collins's reading of Durkheim's collective effervescence and Tarde's idea of imitation. As a whole, I argue that paying attention to rhythm and affect, inasmuch as they are a lived realization of structure and flow, is essential for understanding the revitalizing articulation between these terms and for following the ongoing movement of the social.     

Invasive grass litter facilitates native shrubs through abiotic effects

Questions: Plant invasions are considered one of the top threats to the biodiversity of native taxa, but clearly documenting the causal links between invasions and the decline of native species remains a major challenge of invasion biology. Most studies have focused on impacts of invaders' living biomass, rather than on mechanisms mediated by litter. However, invasive plant litter, which is often of a very different type and quantity than a system's native plant litter, can have multiple important effects on ecosystem processes – such as nitrogen cycling and soil microclimate – that may influence native plants. Location: We studied effects of litter of invasive grass species that are widespread throughout western North America on native shrubs in southern California's semi‐arid habitat of coastal sage scrub. Methods: We combined a 3‐year field manipulation of non‐native litter with structural equation modeling to understand interacting effects on non‐native grasses, native shrubs, soil nitrogen (available and total), and soil moisture. Results: Litter addition facilitated non‐native grass growth, revealing a positive feedback likely to enhance invasion success. Contrary to a major paradigm of invasion biology – that competition with invasive plant species causes declines of native plants – we found that litter also facilitated growth of the native dominant shrub, a result supported by observational trends. Structural equation models indicated that enhanced soil moisture mediated the positive effects of litter on shrub growth. Conclusions: We demonstrate that invasive plants, via their litter, can facilitate dominant native plants by altering soil moisture. Our results highlight that understanding the impacts and mechanisms of plant invasions may be enhanced by considering the role of invasive plant litter on native plants and ecosystem properties.     

Nationalism,nation and territory: Jacint Verdaguer and the Catalan Renaixença

This paper seeks to explain the historic importance to Catalan nationalism of the nineteenth-century poet and priest, Jacint Verdaguer. In order to do so, rather than focus on his contribution – and that of the wider cultural revival, the Renaixença – to the development of the Catalan language as the basis for national political mobilization, this paper argues that we cannot fully understand Verdaguer's importance without reference to his role in constructing a geographical narrative linking nation and territory. At the same time, given that national meanings are always contested, the paper proposes a dialectical approach to nationalism that situates the work of writers within the context of power struggles between social groups. Consequently, Veradguer's centrality to Catalan nationalism is ultimately explained by his role in producing a geographical narrative capable of attracting important sectors of rural Catalonia to the hegemonic project of the industrial bourgeoisie.     

Bazar,Big Kites and Other Boys' Things: Distinctions of Gender and Tradition in Balinese Youth Culture

Balinese society is undergoing rapid change, but remains discursively situated in a ‘timeless’ ethos of cultural tradition. This tension can be observed in relation to the cultural activities of the island's young people, particularly the young men. The staging of bazar (neighbourhood fundraising parties), the making of ogoh‐ogoh (giant papier‐mâché effigies to mark Nyepi, the Balinese New Year) and the competitive flying of oversize kites are–despite their sometimes contentious reception from older generations—popularly dubbed as ‘traditional’ expressions of Balinese youth culture. This recourse to tradition must be viewed in relation to two pervasive discourses: that of adat (customary law) and ajeg (a new protectionist ethos in the discourse on Balinese cultural identity). This paper argues that in contemporary urban Bali, male youth culture finds its most visible expressions in relation to the abiding standards of established public ritual and the equally abiding gender divisions that serve to guarantee the reproduction of ‘traditional’ social life. Rather than fighting aggressively against the grown‐up norm, these expressions replicate the public culture of the adult world—while drawing on global and national youth styles—and strive towards the expression of a specifically ‘Balinese’ youth culture.