Abstract Technology has become a decisive force reshaping the practices, livelihoods, and identities of indigenous artists. Gond paintings, once confined to the walls and floors of homes in Central India, now circulate globally through exhibitions, digital marketplaces, and online platforms. Drawing on 96 interviews and qualitative fieldwork conducted in Patangarh Mal village and Bhopal, this study investigates how technological pathways intersect with cultural expression, economic survival, gendered experiences, and power dynamics among Gond artists. Framed by Appadurai’s theory of global cultural flows, Gell’s concept of art as agency, Jain’s work on popular aesthetics, Abu-Lughod’s situated cultural analysis, and Sen’s capability approach, the article demonstrates how technology simultaneously expands opportunities and reproduces inequalities. The findings reveal three interrelated processes through which technology transforms Gond painting. First, technology expands livelihood opportunities through new markets, collaborations, and design innovations. Second, these changes strengthen artistic identity as Gond painting acquires greater symbolic capital in national and global cultural spaces. Third, unequal access to digital resources reproduces persistent inequalities that disproportionately affect women and less literate artists. Together, these processes demonstrate that technology functions not only as a medium of artistic circulation but also as a transformative force that reshapes cultural value, social inclusion, and the future development of Gond painting. The study contributes to anthropological debates on technological mediation by showing how technology reorganises power, inclusion, and cultural value within indigenous communities.
Abstract For India, the construction of the nation has been a core task in its pursuit of internal integration and sustained stability as a modern nation-state. Built upon an exceptionally diverse social foundation, this process has been marked by inherent tensions and contested trajectories. In the case of India, a paradigmatic postcolonial and emerging state, the idea of the Indian nation has undergone four major shifts since the modern era. From the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century, anti-colonial struggles fostered a trans-communal vision, enabling Hindus and Muslims, the two principal religious communities, to articulate a shared project of a united “Hindustan.” From the early twentieth century to the Partition of India in 1947, however, under the combined impact of the colonial “divide and rule” policy and intensifying communal mobilization, divergences between the Indian National Congress (INC) and the All-India Muslim League over the construction of the nation and its political arrangements became increasingly pronounced. Social and religious differences between Hindus and Muslims were progressively politicized and exacerbated, ultimately culminating in the Partition of India. From independence to the full assumption of power by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014, India, drawing on the painful historical lessons of Partition, motivated by the pragmatic imperative of maximizing unity among the country’s diverse groups, and deeply influenced by Western liberal democracy and modern conceptions of the state, established through its Constitution the principles of the “civic nation,” centered on secularism and civic equality, which in turn guided the country’s integration process for several decades. Since the BJP came to power in 2014, India has increasingly turned toward reconstructing national identity around the framework of a “Hindu national community.” While this idea has strengthened cohesion among the Hindu majority, it has also intensified tensions among different religious communities and posed persistent challenges to the stability and coordination of state governance. The evolution of the idea of the Indian nation encapsulates the deep-seated tension between the imperative of national integration and the long-term coexistence of religious and social differences in a plural society. Through the spillover effects generated in political and governance practices, India’s trajectory offers important insights into national identity formation and governance in other multiethnic states.
Abstract Circular migration has long been pivotal to rural survival, yet its moral, aspirational, and sociospatial dimensions remain underexamined compared to large-scale, economic, and demographic patterns. This article investigates how aspirations are shaped, recalibrated, and acquire meaning over the life course, drawing on a single case narrative reconstruction from a larger doctoral research project. Following the trajectory of Mustafa, a seasonal laborer turned informal broker in Turkey, the analysis demonstrates how migration under structural precarity can operate as a form of capital, converted and re-invested into location-specific capabilities through translocal infrastructures, reputational credit, moral economies, and embeddedness in multi-sited social worlds of brokerage. Findings trace this vicarious mobility within the ongoing recalibration of aspirations as a moral practice rooted in lived hardship, blurred lines of care and complicity expressed through protective responsibility, and the authority derived from them. This study thus extends the aspirations-capabilities framework by situating temporal recalibration across the life course, beyond the pre-migration stage. It also methodologically demonstrates the value of single-case narrative reconstruction for analytical generalization, offering thick, empirically transferable insights for theoretical assessment in constructivist-interpretivist migration research.
Abstract This article traces the transformation of modern American anthropology through its Moroccan field, examining the discipline’s passage from colonial representation to dialogical encounter. Emerging from anthropology’s postwar crisis of conscience, the interpretive and literary turns displaced claims to objectivity with reflexivity and recast fieldwork as a moral and relational practice. Rather than presenting this shift as a linear disciplinary advance, the article situates it within enduring structures of coloniality, where epistemic authority, voice, and representation remained deeply contested. While Clifford Geertz and Paul Rabinow provided key theoretical frameworks for this reorientation, the analysis centers on six American ethnographers whose Moroccan works most vividly enacted it in practice: Dale F. Eickelman, Vincent Crapanzano, Kevin Dwyer, Henry Munson, Daisy Hilse Dwyer, and Deborah A. Kapchan. Their ethnographies—ranging from social biography and psychological portraiture to oral history, dialogical exchange, and gendered performance—redefined fieldwork as an art of listening, negotiation, and co-creation. Through close textual and theoretical reading of these works, the article treats their monographs as both ethnographic experiments and disciplinary interventions, situating them within the broader epistemological debates that reshaped twentieth-century American anthropology. By reading Morocco as both an ethnographic site and a crucible of theoretical renewal, the article shows how encounter itself became a mode of interpretation. At the same time, it argues that dialogical and ethical anthropology did not mark a clean rupture from colonial epistemologies, but rather a critical reworking of their legacies within new textual, ethical, and institutional frameworks. Collectively, these case studies reveal how anthropology’s moral and narrative reconfiguration unfolded from empire to encounter, culminating in an ethics of voice that reshaped what it means to write—and to know—the Other.
The impact of World War II on Africa remains significant to this day. Africa was drawn into the war through three main avenues. The injustice of colonial rule was laid bare during the war, accelerating the process of national independence. A little over a decade later, almost all African countries gained independence. Three events played a crucial role: the unjust treatment of former colonies by European powers, the inspiration of the Bandung Conference, and Egypt’s firm stance in the Suez Canal crisis. The awakening of African national consciousness was particularly prominent in the post-war period. This “national consciousness” has multiple meanings in the African context, encompassing Pan-African consciousness, Black consciousness, a sense of African unity, regionalism, state-nation consciousness, sub-national consciousness, and cross-state national consciousness. The ambiguous and diverse “national consciousness” is a product of history, expressing Africans’ resistance to racial discrimination, yearning to break free from colonial rule, exploration of national/state independence, and a wish for African unity. It cannot be ignored that post-independence nation-building has encountered difficulties in many countries for various reasons. Inter-ethnic conflicts involve the continuation of history, the aftereffects of colonial rule, the consequences of realpolitik, and internal factors such as policies, etc. Nation-building requires integrating various elements, not only national consciousness, but also political authority, civil rights, electoral procedures, economic resources, administration and laws, ethnic policies, culture and language, and social harmony.
Abstract Traditional healing practices hold significant social and cultural significance in Bangladesh. While numerous traditional jaundice treatments exist across the country, detailed documentation of these methods is lacking. Therefore, this study aimed to explore and examine the various traditional healing methods used to treat jaundice in Bangladesh. The study was conducted in two phases. The first phase involved interviewing 400 jaundiced patients at two healthcare facilities, while the second phase consisted of overt naturalistic observations of traditional healers in their practice settings. Among the 400 jaundiced patients, 211 (52.75%) sought treatment from traditional healers. The study revealed a diverse range of traditional healing practices for jaundice, spanning ritualistic and spiritual approaches to physical interventions. The healing procedures were categorized as either noninvasive or invasive. Common noninvasive procedures included scalp and hand cleansing rituals, jaundice garlands, talismans or amulets, chewing herbs, roots, bark, or leaves, liver katano, ear candling, pet tana, and the application of chanted substances such as bananas, coconut water, or lemons. Two invasive procedures—liver khilano and cauterization—were found to cause dry burns on the skin, leading to severe complications. Upon thorough investigation, certain healing techniques appeared to result from chemical reactions or the application of physical processes rather than being supported by scientific evidence of their medical effectiveness. Understanding these practices is crucial for modern healthcare providers to facilitate culturally sensitive communication with patients and guide communities toward scientifically validated jaundice treatments. Further research is recommended to evaluate the efficacy and safety of these traditional methods from a scientific perspective.
On December 4, 2024, the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) was officially inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, signifying international recognition of its cultural value. As the most grand, important, and ceremonious traditional festival in China, the Spring Festival embodies the values, ethics, thinking patterns, behavioral norms, and aesthetic tastes of the Chinese nation, serving as a vital carrier of its culture. This study employs structural analysis to interpret how the conceptual origins of “Yuandan” (Chinese New Year’s Day, now celebrated as the Spring Festival), the series of related folk activities, and the symbolic meanings of traditional Chinese New Year foods together demonstrate the dualistic and dynamic thinking structure centered on “the harmony of Yin and Yang.” Furthermore, by examining sacrificial customs during the Spring Festival such as ancestor worship, deity veneration, and the welcoming of the Wulu Shen (Five-Road Wealth Deities), this study reveals the triadic (Sancai) and pentadic (Wuxing) thinking patterns in ancient Chinese thought. The author posits that these underlying cognitive frameworks and core concepts are manifested across diverse cultural phenomena, including Spring Festival rituals and customs. Therefore, a profound understanding of traditional Chinese culture requires grasping these foundational cognitive frameworks and conceptual cores, which in turn enables a more comprehensive interpretation of the culture and its people.
This article engages reflexivity at two levels—methodological and epistemic—to emphasize two specific issues important for qualitative research in the social sciences. The first methodological point is to demonstrate how the researcher’s habitus plays a critical role in the selection or neglect of evidence that informs knowledge production. The second issue, a theoretical contribution, is to show that important roles played by non-elite actors in the ongoing construction of collective identity can be submerged by “Western” perspectives used to study religious communities and by disproportionate attention paid to macro-structural factors. This paper is produced through a deferred, reflexive interpretation of qualitative data and demonstrates how “ordinary” individuals in Hyderabad, India, play extraordinarily critical roles in shaping their religious communities and collective identity, both in the eyes of in-groups and out-groups. This paper argues that collective identities are constructed, maintained, and reconstructed not only by macrostructural processes, the state, and elites, but equally by mundane actions embedded in the everyday lives of ordinary individuals.
As the main eastern theater of the World Anti-Fascist War, the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1931–1945) was not only of great military and political significance but also represented a profound cultural and spiritual resistance. The period of the War of Resistance also marked a critical phase in the formation of the self-awareness, or conscious collective identity, of the Chinese nation. Taking the Resistance songs (1931–1945) as its research focus, this article examines their distinctive role against the backdrop of global anti-fascist cultural resistance, exploring how aspects such as lyrical content, musical dissemination, and the practice of collective singing conveyed and popularized the concept of the Chinese nation and fostered a widespread identification with it. It begins by reviewing forms of cultural resistance in the European theater, including songs, language, and the spread of knowledge, then shifts to the Chinese context. The analysis highlights how the songs of Resistance against Japanese Aggression promoted the transformation of the concept of the Chinese nation from an intellectual discourse into a popular emotional identity through historical narrative, spiritual exaltation, and the fostering of a sense of community. The conclusion traces the trajectory from the inscription and dissemination of the concept of the Chinese nation through Resistance Songs to how such cultural practices during the War of Resistance contributed to the Communist Party of China’s eventual formulation of the fundamental theory of the Chinese nation. It further explicates the establishment and core connotations of this theory.
India faces its worst water crisis, with 600 million people under extreme water stress and 70
The concept of “Great Unity” originates from China’s “Great Unity” political practice, which is primarily embodied in the “great unity” state form and structure. Therefore, to examine the genesis and evolution of the Chinese “Great Unity” ideology, we must begin with the historical evolution of the form and structure of ancient Chinese states. From the Qin and Han Dynasties to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the “Great Unity” ideology was built upon the state form and structure of the commandery-county system. After Qin Shi Huang unified the six states, successive dynasties regarded unification as the highest political achievement. Even during periods of division, the ideology of unity persisted, with contending regimes often claiming legitimacy and pursuing unification as their ultimate goal. Tracing back from the Qin and Han to the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, an era of social transformation, the “Great Unity” ideology encompassed both ideals of unity and the historical foundation of the composite dynastic state structure of Xia, Shang, and Western Zhou dynasties, which integrated plurality into a unified whole. Further back, during the Five Emperors period, powerful Clan-State Confederations were established in the Central Plains. Thus, from the times of Yao, Shun, and Yu, through the Three Dynasties of Xia, Shang, and Western Zhou, to the Qin and Han, changes in state forms and structures gave rise to three distinct conceptions of “Great Unity”: the concept of “tianxia unity” (unification under heaven), aligned with the Clan-State Confederation of the Yao, Shun, and Yu era; the concept of “unity,” aligned with the “composite dynastic state structure” of the Xia, Shang, and Western Zhou; and the concept of “Great Unity,” aligned with the centralized imperial state under the commandery-county system from the Qin and Han dynasties onward. This constitutes the origin and evolution of the “Great Unity” ideology in China.
From ancient times to the early twentieth century, nearly 40 distinct ancient writing systems of China’s ethnic minorities coexisted with Chinese characters, forming a richly diverse “garden of scripts.” From the perspective of the general theory of writing systems, this paper examines the relationship between language and mnemonic symbols as exemplified by the Poya Songbook, the Ersu Shaba pictographs, and the Naxi Dongba pictographs. It argues that the evolution from mnemonic symbols to syllabic writing systems inherently involves the process of homophonic borrowing. The antiquity of a writing system should not be evaluated solely based on its appearance or communicative function; rather, greater emphasis should be placed on its connection to fixed speech units. Furthermore, this paper explores how the word-formation methods of these ancient writings have enriched the traditional Chinese theory of Liushu (the “Six Methods” of character formation) and investigates the factors and primary motivations driving an ethnic group’s decision to adopt a script for recording their native language.
As a consciously identified modern concept, the Chinese nation is rooted in a self-being multi-ethnic community that developed over millennia among the various ethnicities within China. Its formation stems from the historical integration and expansion of the Hua-Xia ethnicity within a “Pattern of Pluralistic Unity.” While the trajectory of the Hua-Xia is relatively clear from the Qin and Han dynasties onward, even before this era, diverse ethnicities and cultures within China had already undergone multiple waves of profound integration—overlapping, merging, and converging repeatedly—through prolonged interaction. This process gradually established the unique developmental path of Chinese civilisation, which transcends kinship ties and locality, coalescing around cultural identity as its core cohesive force. Drawing on archaeological discoveries and related research, this article focuses on the pivotal period from the rise of agricultural sedentism cultures around 10,000 years ago to the unification under the Qin and Han dynasties. It systematically examines six major episodes of ethnic and cultural convergence within the territory of early China, driven by the interplay of environmental, economic, and social factors. Through this analysis, the article examines the formation of the Hua-Xia ethnicity and its distinctive consciousness of subjectivity, shedding light on the early mechanisms behind the evolution of Chinese civilization.
This paper does not intend to present results of an empirical study but rather those of theoretical, epistemological, and historiographical reflections about the heterogeneity of the field of social sciences, a field fragmented into objects, methods, and concepts that are mutually ignorant across disciplines and languages. From the author’s historical perspective, the roots of the blockages lie in the historical conditions surrounding the formation of the social sciences, particularly their initial disciplinary configurations aimed at population control (social engineering). Subsequently, once these initial conditions were overcome (thanks to the scientistic moment), the disciplinary structure — enabled by decomposing the object of social science into various dimensions (time, space, language, culture, kinship, etc.) assigned to distinct disciplines — helped mitigate the critical risk that they embodied. The author maintains that the object of social science cannot be anything other than the explanation of the dynamics of human societies, as expressed in social change. However, this object is largely neglected in favor of empirical work on specific aspects of social functioning, to the detriment of studying transformation. Concepts and models for understanding transformation remain inadequate, even among historians. Although historians are theoretically the only ones who fully incorporate the dimension of time (hence the reference to Markov and the question of scales), they do so in a strictly backward-looking manner. After having presented the methodological frame of this analysis (2.), the paper will address the historical genesis of the cacophony within the social sciences (3.1.); the dynamics of social change as a desirable yet underexplored theoretical horizon (3.2.); and propose concrete steps to advance toward this objective (3.3.).
The Japanese-American political scientist Francis Fukuyama described the Chinese as familists and Chinese society as a low-trust society. Such allegations about family values and social virtues stem from the discourse of cultural determinism, which was prevalent in Italian social research during the second half of the twentieth century. In 1958, American political scientist Edward C. Banfield proposed the hypothesis of “amoral familism” to explain the inability of residents in a small southern Italian town to form associations for collective interests. This hypothesis later inspired another political scientist, Robert D. Putnam, who quantitatively tested it through his study of the performance of democratic institutions across Italy’s regions. Banfield and Putnam focused on political organization and democratic institutions, respectively, and attributed their underdevelopment to local culture and history. In this way, they contributed to the discourse of cultural determinism, which is theoretically rooted in the political philosophies of Hobbes and Tocqueville. Drawing on diverse social practices, his ethnography reveals the complexity and integrality of local Roman society, offering both a critical reflection on and a transcendence of the discourse of cultural determinism.
The debate between explanation and interpretation is the fundamental controversy in the history of hermeneutics, rooted in the presupposed dualism of nature and spirit. Philosophical hermeneutics seeks to transcend this dualism through three “expansion” strategies: an expanded concept of truth, an expanded concept of existence, and an expanded concept of art. These correspond to three core questions: method or truth? history or future? technology or art? Fundamentally, these expansions are forms of resistance against the logic of identity inherent in science and technology. Today, facing a more complex existential situation and epistemic landscape, new technologies are opening new modes of existence—namely, digital-virtual existence characterized by universal algorithms and intelligence. Meanwhile, the spiritually expressive system based on the embodied existence of traditional natural humanity (the human sciences) is in decline. This raises the question: Can a hermeneutics oriented towards the universal method of the human sciences, grounded in the three expansions, still serve as the method of future philosophy or the humanities at large? With this question, we can reexamine various contemporary hermeneutic proposals.
To what extent do foreign actors impact local communities? Specifically, how do cultural translations between two fundamentally opposed worlds—the Yanomami universe and the U.S. Western universe—manifest and reveal different regimes of meaning? This article analyzes cultural translation as a meaning-making process, highlighting interlocutors’ efforts to establish a mutually intelligible and satisfactory communicative bridge. Methodologically, the author triangulates Lotman’s semiosphere boundaries with Landowski’s interaction regimes, mapping: (1) asymmetric programming; (2) adjustment via embodied practices; (3) indigenous critiques. Texts were coded for: (a) lexical gaps; (b) affective semiosis; (c) power markers. The findings reveal how translation enacts Asad’s ‘epistemological violence’ when Western categories overwrite indigenous lifeworlds. However, when translation is approached as a dynamic act of meaning production—rooted in affectivity and guided by the semiotic framework of adjustment—it offers new possibilities for engaging with otherness in more equitable and meaningful ways.
Gender is essential to the organization of labor, especially among non-state societies. Cross-culturally, craft production is socially prescribed by gender; depending on the cultural group, either men or women dominate a particular craft’s production. This is true for pottery and textile-related crafts such as weaving and basketry. However, the production of cordage (synonymous with rope, string, twine, and yarn), the most basic unit in weaving, is typically not considered a craft product in and of itself in deference to the view that it is ‘merely’ raw material to produce other objects. Using the electronic Human Relations Area Files database, I here examine the evidence for gendered cordage production cross-culturally from ethnographic research over the last 150 years. Based on a sample of 120 cultural groups with data on plant—and animal—based cordage production, cordage production is a gendered task, with female-dominated production characterizing 57.5
Indigenous peoples have knowledge systems that have sustained cultural teachings and lifeways for thousands of years. Settler colonial logics and systems have disrupted and threatened Indigenous knowledge systems through multiple forms of oppression, including land dispossession, linguicide, and disrupting traditional kinship relationships. Western education systems are central and foundational to this violent process; our paper describes efforts to challenge these colonial legacies of harm through the Sapsik’ʷałá Program, an Indigenous education program. The three focus areas are: 1) Relationality, 2) Community, and 3) Intergenerational teaching and learning. Through these efforts, the Program is instrumental in reclaiming Indigenous knowledge systems. We conclude that such efforts are important for Indigenous peoples and all peoples who have been harmed by the violence of imperialism and colonialism.
China maintains the most enduring and uninterrupted cultural tradition and civilizational system among major ancient civilizations. As a unified multi-ethnic nation since ancient times, throughout historical development, China’s vast territory was jointly pioneered by all its ethnicities, its enduring history collectively authored, its splendid culture co-created, and its great national spirit mutually cultivated—thereby forging an inseparable community of the Chinese Nation. This community, bound by shared subjective and objective characteristics, derives its foundational cohesion from commonalities, which are the crucial catalyst for fostering communal consciousness among its members. To conduct rigorous research into Chinese history, particularly the formative processes of the Chinese Nation, adherence to the correct historical perspective of the Chinese Nation is paramount. However, under the influence of Western cultural hegemony, exogenous historiographies and theories such as the “New Qing History”—under the guise of theoretical or discursive innovation—systematically deconstruct China’s historical narratives and the Chinese Nation’s historical discourse, either attacking or undermining the correct understanding of Chinese history, which poses challenges to a proper grasp of ethnic relations in Chinese history and the construction of the community of the Chinese Nation. Through critical analysis of the so-called “New Qing History” and similar “new historical paradigms,” this article exposes their inherent historical and logical flaws, while demonstrating the necessity to uphold the correct historical perspective of the Chinese Nation.
