International journal of anthropology and ethnology最新文献

This paper investigates how different institutions of Loba communities of the Upper Mustang work together and facilitate the community to cope with the environmental dynamics in the region. The indigenous institutions are place-based, and their evolution is concerned with reducing vulnerability and enhancing the resilience capacity of place-based communities to cope with and adapt to local natural and socio-cultural environmental dynamics. The paper is based on anthropological fieldwork. Qualitative data were collected by applying observation and interviews. The paper presents the role of the galbo, (Lo King), ghenba (Village Chief), Lama (Monk), and dhongba (Household) as local institutions that act in close relation and make community-level decisions. The findings reveal that the King is seen as the leader whose governance best suited to the local natural environment, cultural practices, and economy. The Lama plays a major role in reinforcing local rules, while the Ghenba is an agent who mediates the Lo King and people in materializing rules and operationalizing institutional mechanisms. The Dhongbas are units of production of the local social-ecosystem that are entitled to use local resources within the context of the institution's agreed rules, norms, and values. These local institutions are cooperating well, successfully regulating, managing, and protecting agricultural, forest, and pasture lands, and maintaining the monuments in Lo-manthang for centuries. However, recent social-environmental dynamics such as climate change, migration, and modernization are reducing the relevancies of traditional norms and practices. Nevertheless, the institutions are working hard to continue their existence by frequently modifying their rules and norms.

Rituals of territorial belonging as established practices of inclusion improve dynamics of belonging and coexistence. They are particularly significant in the city where people need rituals to trust each other. But what happens when rituals disappear? The Covid-19 pandemic is an experiment on a societal level on the role of rituals. We will analyze three canceled or strongly modified traditional events in Geneva, Zurich, and Turin. We conclude that these cancellations of rituals in urban public spaces generated a lack of territorial belonging and produced mistrust and anger, but at the same time pushed people to develop new dynamics to fill this void. Frustration over the cancellation was transformed into agency. This sense of emptiness was filled through the multiplication of personal and social rituals, through the rediscovery of the city's territory alone or with their groups of affiliation, and through new digital rituals linked to the urban ritual.

As the domestic interprovincial migrants, Uygur traders have been engaged in the Hetian jade trade from Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to the city of Nanyang in Henan Province. Having lived in the private rented houses around the market in the early days, they moved into the government-built public rental housing in 2017, an independently managed community. They have maintained their past residential pattern of living around the market, and gradually develop the community into an inter-embedded multi-ethnic community together with other ethnic groups. Through the history of the formation of the Uygur community in Nanyang Stone Town, this paper presents the process of interaction between the ethnic minority migrants and the local community, examines the responses and influence of the market, society, government, and individuals in this process, aiming to understand how the minority community was formed, to deepen understanding of the "inter-embedded multi-ethnic community", and, in turn, to promote research and reflection on the development of the ethnic community during urbanization in China. This study suggests that such communities surrounding the market are socially extended based on inter-embedded livelihood. The open national market is the core of the social structure of inter-embedded ethnic groups, and market exchange is one of the main relations generated in the current interactions between the ethnic groups. The government's efforts to build inter-embedded communities are conducive to transforming the relationships among ethnic groups from limited interaction to comprehensive and balanced development. Moreover, the improvement of common living environments and increase in exchanges are conducive to upgrading interactions between individuals to extensive and in-depth exchanges among different ethnic groups.

Mobility and interlinkage have become the most important characteristics of our time. The mobility and interlinkage of people, material and information constitute the way and rules of the operation of today's world. Internet links, cloud computing, complex database and human computation have changed the way people relate to the world, thus the anthropology for understanding and interpretation of human cultures have changed correspondingly. Cultures in the state of mobility and interlinkage, such as spatial changes, the evolution of interpersonal relationships and the new cultural order, have become a new subject.