The Body As A Metaphor For Society

In my quest to study the life of the ancient California inhabitants, I visited the San Diego Museum of Man which is an anthropological museum situated in Balboa Park, San Diego, California. The museum was established in the year 1915 as a result of the Panama-California Exposition where several exhibits were displayed with ‘The Story of Man through Ages’ being the first. At the culmination of the exposition, San Diego Museum Association sought to retain the available collection and start a permanent museum. As a result, the collection was named Museum of Man in

In the essay “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema”, anthropologist Horace Miner depicts a group of people known as the “Nacirema”, but is referring to Americans, whose cultural beliefs are deeply rooted in the perspective that the human body is prune to sickness and disfiguration. Consequently, a substantial part of their lives is spent on unusual rituals and customs to improve conditions of the body that are filled with magical components. Moreover, Miner uses the Nacirema’s unusual culture to establish his view that we simply could not judge another culture that it is different from our own, as opposed to another anthropologist Malinowski’s point that we can judge another culture since we are

Upon reading, I noticed the thesis had 2 arguments even though and I understood that this essay pertained to how social media caused body image issues for teens. One of the topics consisted of how social media causes teens to have "excessive concern[s] on looking perfect," and another subject matter on how phones allowed for photographs to occur anywhere. Therefore, I find it unnecessary to include the phrase - "with their phones it is easier to to take pictures everywhere." Aside from that and a couple grammatical errors, the thesis is well-written with a clear standpoint, which holds social media as the culprit in this

The book The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine by Shigehisa Kuriyama overall felt like it was about perceptions of ancient medicine between the east and west. The author goes back and forth comparing and contrasting the different approaches of the Greek and Chinese, where even though both cultures have different approaches there actually are some similarities, which was believed due to, “the movements of people” (page 204). The book is separated into three parts: styles of touching, styles of seeing and styles of being.

Having an emotional focus in regards to the ayllu is a part of the Runakuna identity. Through this common relationship, a hierarchy system exists. In fact, the hierarchy of ayllus follows the hierarchy of the Tirakuna. In the book, The Hold Life Has, the hierarchy system of the ayllus is as follows: neighborhood → community → district → province. Since an ayllu coheres as a social entity when decisions are to be made it is the ayllu’s responsibility. Within each ayllu, a cargo exist. As a member of the cargo, one find’s their duties time-consuming and also expensive. However, when it comes down to decisions regarding rituals, only one person presides, the alcalde. The most important duty of the alcalde is to keep the community culture alive. The alcalde is the human symbol of collective existence and will. Even outside of a political aspect, a hierarchy system is an evident aspect of Andean culture because it exists even in the daily routines of the Runakuna. For instance, both coca chewing and the consumption of alcohol coincide with a hierarchy when being shared. Specifically, spatial hierarchy coincides with the religious hierarchy, which is also the hierarchy of the Andean’s social

Horace Miner’s “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” was a very entertaining essay. The essay made made fun of American culture without directly stating the name of the culture, other than including the word American spelled backwards. Miner bring to the readers attention the odd rituals practiced in America that the normal citizen would not find strange at all. However, by presenting his essay in the this form he shows how strange American customs are from the view of someone in a different country.

Miner’s article presents numerous anthropological concepts including culture, social behaviors, symbols, material culture and holism. While providing us with a synchronic view of an unexplored culture, Miner tackles the principle mindset that governs the “Nacirema’s” social customs and “rituals”, looks at key symbols and material possessions as the focus of the culture, and highlights the importance of studying a culture in its entirety to gain a full and accurate understanding.

Although, no credible information regarding burials has been discovered, Headrick claims the highest-ranking ancestors underwent mortuary bundles, a treatment in which their remains are wrapped in assemblages (chapter 3). Mortuary bundles have not been found at Teotihuacan, thus, Headricks supports her claims by presenting information regarding mortuary bundles found in the Classical Maya and the Mixtec. Assimilating information about the treatment in those cultures and the discovery of the three stone masks, Headrick proposes that stone masks were likely tied to mortuary bundles as they are largely depicted in the city’s artistic record (chapter 3). Moreover, Headrick further supports her claim by comparing an archeological find of a ceramic bust with a mask to a similar one elsewhere in Mesoamerica (chapter 3). Headrick’s argument regarding mortuary bundles is convincing and the evidence to support her claim is

In this article, Sarah C. Clayton examines the gender roles and ideologies in ancient Teotihuacan. Stated in her thesis, this work will provide for a better understanding of social organization and diversity. Anthropologists separate gender (cultural) with sex (biological). For example, there were differences in different places in Teotihuacan, were the “mainstream” society had males with a higher power than females, and in Tlailotlacan, there were equal social status. People were buried underneath the apartment compounds, where archeologists examine the gender and the age and if social status may intersect with gender. Burial brings are essential information to gender roles, as Clayton views different numerical data. The author went more in

Estetica de Las Proporciones En La Naturaleza y Las Artes (Spanish Edition) (Spanish) Paperback use pre formatted date that complies with legal requirement from media matrix – August, 2000

This anthropologist and archeologist have discovered the existence of this fascinating connection between culture and art among hunter-gather societies dating back to the 19th century. For anthropologist, culture is the foundation that many societies are built on; it is recognized as a community shared values, religions, traditions, sense of communication and behaviours (Creese, 2011 pg. 5). The knowledge and understanding a society culture is beneficial for determining the motivation or actions of a particular group and can be used to discover the communities’ way of living. Cultural aspects of life are critically important for hunter-gathers particularly the Native Americans and are the inspiration for many forms of art. Art is closely related to culture, as it is universal characteristic and behavior of humankind. For the Native American the use of art moved past the aesthetics and became a reflection of their culture brought into reality through painting, drawing and carvings. These exceptional forms of art became a heavily respected element of aboriginal’s ceremonies, traditions, religion, and social behaviors (Creese, 2011 pg. 5). The theory of a close relationship between art and culture is currently by supported by multiple archeologists who are continuously discovering caves covered in

Norgan (2013) studies the ritual activity associated with ancestor veneration in the Peruvian Andes. Her method mainly relies on survey and landscape archaeology. She surveyed and collected the data about the structure, size, and artifacts of eighty tombs at the site of Hualcayan, located in the Callejon de Huaylas. She also used the GPS coordinates of each tomb to create a map in AutoCAD showing the distribution of the tombs as a whole. This facilitates her spatial analysis of the tomb. Her results show great variation in size and complexity among the tombs and evidences of ancestor veneration from the structure of tombs, associated artifacts and the use of space surrounding the

In the early twentieth century there was a notion to see the cultural evolution between the present bodies and the primitive excavated bodies. The bodies were analyzed to understand the migration and movement. New Archeology was the turning point in the study of the body. New Archeology focused on ethnographic observation to understand unobservable human behavior. There was a ‘Loss of innocence’, which highlighted the role of the body in development with New Archeology. The actions of people was expressed by the body was the overall meaning. There was a rise in the ‘archeology of death’, which put the dead body in the reflected social position that was found to understand the body’s social personal. There was a strive to understand social organization with the use of skeletal analysis. The body shows movement, and expansion of culture. The body exemplifies history. There is a large fracture between the difference with the biophysical body and the culturally constructed body. There is a tension with constructionist and biophysical views. Osteoarchaeologists focus more on the physical body taken out of cultural context and the do not focus as much on the past social life. There is a vast different in interpretative

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Sociology of the body examines how our modern world affects our physical and symbolic bodies. Institutional forces play a major role in the changes that our physical and symbolic bodies go through. In fact, sociology of the body can be seen through our health, body image, and sexuality. Many people spend countless hours unsatisfied with their appearance, and some actually believe that it actually affects how people view themselves as human beings. However, people really only remember you how your treat them. The most important category within the sociology of the body is health and illness. Without health, our body wouldn’t function normally. In addition, a growing number of people feel ashamed about their bodies and tend to diet too often