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AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF Volume 39, no. 1 (Winter 2000) |
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THE CULTURAL BASIS OF A REGIONAL ECONOMY: THE VEGA BAJA DEL SEGURA IN SPAIN Susana Narotzky
The Vega Baja del Segura is a region in southeastern Spain with a long history of combining commercial agriculture and labor-intensive manufacturing (producing footwear, wooden boxes, fishing nets, carpets, and other items). At present, manufacturing firms competing in a global market put pressure on the local subcontractors for lower costs. Creating wealth here depends on producing cultural and social differences among people who otherwise share feelings of belonging to the same family, village, region, or class. Further, history is an active force in the construction of present-day social relations and of the practical consciousness called culture. (Spain, regional culture, informal economy, work, global economy) |
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ALMS, ELDERS, AND ANCESTORS: THE SPIRIT OF THE GIFT AMONG THE TUAREG Susan J. Rasmussen
Throughout much anthropological literature, there are debates concerning the nature of social relationships in gift-giving (Mauss 1925; Parry 1986; Parry and Bloch 1989; Godelier 1999). There are also debates concerning the nature of personal relationships and social and ritual communication between humans and ancestors (Kopytoff 1971; Brain 1973; Fortes 1976; Steadman, Palmer, and Tilley 1996). Few works, however, have explored the interconnections between these domains: gift-giving, aged social and ritual status, and mortuary rituals addressing ancestors. This essay explores the relationship between alms, elders, and ancestor beliefs among the Tuareg of Niger, West Africa. Many Tuareg explicitly associate elderhood with takote, a term denoting alms or charity. Elders predominate during the condolence phase of Tuareg mortuary rituals. This phase features commemorative meals conceptualized as takote alms offerings and believed to confer benediction. The prominence of takote in Tuareg mortuary rituals expresses communication between the dead and their descendants. I explore this communication as a reflection on changing relations between the generations, local religion, and historical memory. The goal is to contribute to integrating age, ancestor beliefs, and gift-giving in anthropological theory. (Ancestors, age, life course, ritual, gift-giving) |
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NATIVE EVANGELISM IN CENTRAL MEXICO Hugo G. Nutini
As part of ongoing research on Protestant evangelism in Central Mexico, this article focuses on two native evangelical congregations in the Córdoba-Orizaba region in the state of Veracruz: one of very recent inception, the other founded five decades ago. The aim of the presentation is threefold: 1) to describe the doctrinal configuration and organization of the congregation; 2) to ascertain their evangelical lineage and modifications; and 3) to compare them with respect to motivation for and modes of conversion. This exercise should illuminate a religious tide that is not well understood, and appears bound to spread under the increasing proselytism of Protestant evangelism in most countries of Latin America. (Protestantism, Catholicism, Protestant evangelism, Central Mexico, Latin America, conversion, catechization) |
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ACTING BRAZILIAN IN JAPAN: ETHNIC RESISTANCE AMONG RETURN MIGRANTS Takeyuki (Gaku) Tsuda
This article examines the performative enactment of a Brazilian nationalist identity among Japanese-Brazilian return migrants in Japan as a form of autonomous ethnic resistance against Japanese assimilative pressures. By appropriating and reconstituting Brazilian nationalist symbols abroad and by intentionally acting Brazilian, the Japanese-Brazilians assert their cultural differences in Japan, thereby engaging in an active struggle for ethnic recognition as a distinct minority group that cannot be subsumed under racially essentialized Japanese assumptions in which shared descent is understood to produce cultural commonalities. (Migration, ethnicity, national identity, resistance, performance) |
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ACTING BRAZILIAN IN JAPAN: ETHNIC RESISTANCE AMONG RETURN MIGRANTS Takeyuki (Gaku) Tsuda
This article examines the performative enactment of a Brazilian nationalist identity among Japanese-Brazilian return migrants in Japan as a form of autonomous ethnic resistance against Japanese assimilative pressures. By appropriating and reconstituting Brazilian nationalist symbols abroad and by intentionally acting Brazilian, the Japanese-Brazilians assert their cultural differences in Japan, thereby engaging in an active struggle for ethnic recognition as a distinct minority group that cannot be subsumed under racially essentialized Japanese assumptions in which shared descent is understood to produce cultural commonalities. (Migration, ethnicity, national identity, resistance, performance) |
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“YOU CAN BUY ALMOST ANYTHING WITH POTATOES”: AN EXAMINATION OF BARTER DURING ECONOMIC CRISIS IN BULGARIA Barbara A. Cellarius
This article investigates bartering practices in rural Bulgaria during 1997, an exceptionally bad year in the nation's economy. First, it describes the types of barter transactions observed in terms of participant identities, the goods and services exchanged, their sources, and the circumstances of the transactions. Second, it considers the extent to which these exchanges were the result of near hyperinflation and economic chaos early in 1997. Alternative explanations view barter as part of a longer-term social and historical context or as a function of general postsocialist economic conditions. Thus, barter may be one solution to some of the problems of a money-based economy under conditions of economic restructuring. The article also considers barter's implications for understandings of life in postsocialist Bulgaria more generally. (Barter, economic restructuring, exchange, Eastern Europe, Bulgaria) |
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