Nacirema Essay

Horace Miner’s article “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” is an amazing article that makes people that do not believe their unique grasp the concept that everyone is indeed unique. Miner wrote this article about Americans as Americans generally believe that other countries have rituals while we are just plain with no uniqueness. Miner uses a language that is not typical among american literature. He has a strategy of using words such as: Supplicant, Witch doctor, household shrine, etc in order to make

Although many cultures have strong historical traditions that relate to dressing up around the time of Halloween as well as exchanging various forms of food, very few traditions involve children going door-to-door asking for candy with the words ‘Trick or Treat’. This is a strange practice that is common in the US, and its origin is identified with the early Roman Catholics holidays, Celtic festivals, British politics, and the medieval practices. (Michael Kaplan, 2015). The practice is not only strange

Nacirema is a perfect example in which different ways humans can live and how extreme their beliefs can go. With that being said, I believe that Miner wants us, the readers, to understand the different ways in which people live their lives. The underlying message of Nacirema is that the people in which believe in this, spend most of their day in ritual activity because they believe that

nor have I learned about the Nacirema, but I am certain that Latin American cultures have a strong belief in the supernatural. I believe that the description was accurate. I would however like to do more research before deciding how accurate the descriptions of the norms and customs were. While the text mentions several rituals, I do not feel I fully understand them in their entirety, but it did provide the reader with a bit of insight on the culture of the Nacirema. But I do believe it does accurately

Rites of Passage Relativism reminds us that all culture has customs that seem bizarre or repugnant to outsiders, though we tend to favor and support our own culture. Cultural relativism grew out of recognition that cultures can be quite diverse in the meanings they assign to the same behaviors and values they embody (Crapo, 2013 sec 1.2). In other words, what is required of us is that we should not confuse our feelings about such a custom without investigating the real understanding of that particular

I enjoyed reading all my sources, and I have learned a lot. Especially when reading Van Gennep’s explanation of “the common view of human life is birth is the start of life passages is that they are separate and linear events: birth is the start of life, sexual maturation marks the end to childhood; and death, inevitably awaits at the end of life”. (Visser, 2012 ,para.2). The Japanese culture has a lot of positive things in their culture. I love the way that they celebrate the older generation’s

Macionis defines ethnocentrism as “The practice of judging another culture by the standards of one’s own culture”. An example of this is the way some Americans criticize traditional Middle Eastern veils as being oppressive to the women who wear them. In American culture, clothing is valued as a way to express yourself and wearing revealing clothing is generally accepted as a way to show off sex appeal. When Americans see a woman walking down the street wearing a burka, hijab, or niqab they might

Within the world of sociology there are sociological paradigms that can be applied to human’s perception of the world. The three major sociological paradigms are functional, conflict and symbolic interactionism each playing key different roles when dealing with social issues. These paradigms exist in order to have a basic understanding of how society functions, the role of sociology, and how different things affect social life. Social paradigms have the ability to impact social issues if they are

“Body Rituals Among the Nacirema,” is a satirical article written by Horace Miner in 1956. The article is about a North American tribe named Nacirema and goes into detail about the tribe’s body rituals. Nacirema (word play for American) customs are set in an unfamiliar environment and presented as exotic. The demonstration of how one may perceive other cultures was by describing American culture differently. The unfamiliarity allows an outsider perspective; it increases the ability to see the strange

While Roy Wagner takes the anthropologist view and dissects it. Both writers use find culture through anthropology, while Miner concludes with a result in Body Ritual Among the Nacirema, Wagner dissects the process of which is being used, The Idea of Culture. Throughout the essay Body Ritual Among the Nacirema, Miner creates a definition of the American culture from an outsiders perspective. Miner himself was born and raised in the United States, but takes the approach of an