Abstract
This paper looks at the production of social memory, using case studies from NE Africa. It seeks to examine the process through which social memory is created and the uses to which it is put. It traces the differences between narratives and historical tradition as embodied both in ritual and in objects and argues that one can discern a difference between the sense of history embodied in oral narrative, which can often shift quickly in response to the demands of the present and the sense of history present in habitus.

Outline
Memories, Spoken and Silent
Speaking History
Silent Memories
Practice

From the Paper
"To understand the myriad of uses people have for social memory, it is perhaps wise to consider the uses that anthropologists have put such social memory to in the past. Cunnison (1971), in his analysis of the problematic genealogy of the Baqqara belt, notes that one of the foremost tools of the anthropologist has been the construction of genealogical lists. These oral histories have enabled anthropologists to construct historical continuities and group categories. However, these lists best reflect the local political organisation. As groups move away, and strangers are incorporated, oral genealogies change to reflect the demands of the present. That is to say, while these lists are indeed useful, they are useful not in establishing categorical group lines that reassert a sense of timeless boundary, but in understanding the contemporary social being of truth - the requirements of organisation and politics at the time the oral genealogy is taken."

Tags:geneaology, refugee, tradition, sudan

Abstract
This paper analyses five local hermeneutics from the Sudan and their relationship with Islam. It argues that to understand Islamic practice in North East Africa, it must be understood as a way of life (or rather, as a series of ways of life, the practice(s) drawn from a cultural heteroglossia), not as a religion. It looks at how in the Sudan, the relationship of communities to Islam is intricately entangled with a change in material culture and it examines the changes that Arabicisation brings. It also explores how this relationship to the outsider brings up a whole set of considerations about exteriority: interiority in these communities that helps one to see one of the characterising features of Islamic practice in the Sudan in the 20th century.

From the Paper
"The contours of the centre have often been thought to be hegemonic in Islam. Indeed, Islam may be said to be hegemonic in the sense that the sacred quality of the central texts and the necessity or correctness of reciting them in critical contexts are unquestioned. However, these enunciations, as noted in the introduction, are situated in social practice. That said, Islam does have a tendency to encapsulate or explicitly devalue other forms of thought and practice so they will be legitimated by reference to Islam. In the case studies we will analyse we will observe a tension between the necessity for other forms of thought to be legitimated by Islam, and the equally compelling need for them to remain apart."

Tags:anthropology, global, hegemony, religion, resistance, sudan

Abstract
This paper reviews the history of ethnographic field research methodology used by anthropologists, from interviewing travelers to modern immersion into the culture.. The paper points out that B. Mallinowski and E. E. Evans-Pritchard felt that role of the anthropologist is not as a passive observer, detached from the culture which is being studied. Rather, they believed that the field anthropologist should be an active participant whose sole task is to understand the group by becoming part of it. Modern anthropologists, the paper relates, need to engage with the culture they are studying, sometimes even to immerse themselves within it at the temporary cost of their own identity in order to fully experience and understand the culture of the 'other'.

From the Paper
"However Oakley's, and in fact any anthropologist's, observation and participation within any culture carries the risk of influencing the behavior of the people are studying, resulting in an artificial vision of their world. In "Anthropology Today", Paul (1953) wrote that the researcher's social role in the field was a determining factor in the information that would be gathered. This is where contemporary researchers seemed to have learned from Malinowski and early anthropologists."

Tags:travelers, expeditions, role, demeanor, other

Abstract
In this article, the writer first explains that the Byzantine emperor was the protector of the Christian faith and depicted as being the only legitimate ruler on earth, to coincide with the notion that Byzantium was the only legitimate empire on earth. The writer maintains that this ideology was never contested within the Orthodox faith, precisely because of the power constructed by the image of the emperor. This essay examines how this image of the Byzantine emperor was created. The paper includes color figures.

From the Paper
"Continually, the image of the emperor is associated, and his position solidified, by the blessing of God on his leadership. John Mauropous praised the emperor Constantine IX for his blessed divinity when a cross appeared in the sky to aid in bringing victory against the Pechenegs in 1046-7. It was essential that the reign of the Byzantine emperor was judged to be upon the approval of God. Consequently, there was a need for the image of the emperor to be permeated with divine connotations. If the emperor was to be seen as God's agent on earth, and is portrayed in this manner, then it was an imperative of the emperor to act in a manner that justified this ideology. Byzantium, in other words, required the emperor to be the epitome of Christian ideals and virtues since it is God who divinely chose the emperor."

Tags:Byzantine, Commonwealth, Emperor, God, sacred, ideology

Abstract
In this article, the writer discusses that the three works reviewed in this paper are all varying responses to the problems that multiculturalism, both in theory and in practice, has produced. The writer notes that, published all within the last decade, Tariq Modood's 'Is Multiculturalism Appropriate for the Twenty-First Century', Bhikhu Parekh's 'Rethinking Multiculturalism, Cultural Diversity and Political Theory', and Sasja Templeman's 'Constructions of Cultural Identity: Multiculturalism and Exclusion', address the fundamental question of what one means by multiculturalism, uncover both the explicit and implicit problems this essentially woolly doctrine embodies, and point to a more inclusive, refined and sophisticated way in which multiculturalism can be advocated as a political ideal. The writer concludes that ultimately, the writers of these works feel that multiculturalism, as it is understood and propagated today, is unsatisfactory as a doctrine of inclusion.

From the Paper
"Much of the awkwardness arises, perhaps, less from the underdeveloped nature of multiculturalism than from the difficulties it presents to conventional political philosophy. Since traditional political theory believes in the universal validity of a good life, acceptance of multiculturalism necessarily presupposes a plurality of goods that would not be the same for everyone. By contrast to monists, who claimed to arrive at one true or rational way of understanding man and the world and the leading of the good life, pluralists, inspired initially by the German romantics, took a more relativist view of human nature that did not see one size fitting all. But the problem even with the romantic movement, which had been responsible for promoting the specificities of a nation, is that its basic assumption of cultural homogeneity within one nation has been cast into doubt by the variety of different cultural entities that co-exist in modern nations."

Tags:diversity, tensions, nation, conflict, differences

Abstract
This essay examines the advantages and disadvantages in communication across cultures in light of a globalizing world. Three areas in particular are focused upon: News and internet, film and documentaries and trade and business.

From the Paper
"Globalization is the quintessential 'buzzword' of the times. Politicians speak at length about it, academic journals are filled with material on it, and it seems as though a new book is published daily dealing with its subject matter. Terms such as the 'global village,' 'global governance' and 'global transformations' have all been coined in the past few decades in an attempt to make sense of and to further explain the phenomenon of globalization. With the proliferation of capitalism since the Cold War, an influx of multi-national corporations and their products into areas never before reached, and technological advancements increasing at a breakneck speed, there is not a single corner of the world that is left untouched or uninfluenced by the 'Western' world."

Tags:email, new, york, nairobi, expedient, efficient, boundaries, geographical, spaces, gaps

Abstract
This paper examines how feminist anthropology emerged in the latter half of the twentieth century and attempted to combat the representation (or lack of it) of women in anthropological writing. It looks at how in doing so, it moved through several stages, from trying to redress the imbalance in ethnographic knowledge, through a critique of the theoretical praxis of anthropology to the uncertain place that it has at present. It examines the background to the feminist movement in anthropology and attempts to see it in historical perspective. It then analyses each of the stages of feminist anthropology and assesses their contribution to the broader subject.

From the Paper
"Feminist anthropology has allowed two great ethnocentric divides to be broken down. The first is that between nature/culture. Running through all the work of feminist anthropology is the rejection of the place women have been assigned as somehow preordained or organic. Fatima Mernissi shows that the passive role of the women in some Muslim societies, who is seen as potentially more sexually aggressive than the male, is a cultural construct: ?what is feared in Muslim marriage is the growth of the involvement between a man and a woman into the all-encompassing love, satisfying the sexual, emotional and intellectual needs of both partners.? Such as involvement would be seen as a direct threat to man's relationship with Allah."

Tags:economy, foucault, culture, kinship, political

Abstract
This paper examines the arguments over how one can formulate a cross-cultural definition of marriage. Through a literature review, it looks at some some definitions of marriage as well as some of the ethnographies that subvert and call into question how we actually conceptualise marriage. These include the Na of Lijang, the Nayar of central Kerala, the debate over the Virgin Birth and Bourdieu?s work on marriage with a parallel patrilateral cousin. It attempts to show how these case studies call into question some of the basic understandings of kinship and marriage as formulated by both descent and alliance theorists. It concludes by looking at some of the more recent developments in kinship theory and how they can help us work towards a definition of marriage.

From the Paper
"The economic and social factors involved in marriage have tended to be reified by many kinship theorists. One can trace some of the origin for why marriage definitions and kinship studies of marriage have been reified and abstracted in an attempt to produce harmonious wholes in the Virgin Birth debate. Dogma and ritual, Leach (1968) points out, to not necessarily correspond to internal states. One could equally argue that the reified systems of kinship studies show little relationship to how marriage actually works in all of its ambiguities."

Tags:anthropology, endogamy, exogamy, family, kinship

Abstract
This paper explains that culture shock is often an inevitable roadblock that is faced by individuals relocating or studying in a foreign country. Next, the paper describes the six distinct stages most people go through when dealing with cultural shock and discusses strategies for coping with the feelings associated with culture shock.

What is Culture Shock?
Various Stages of Cultural Shock
First Stage - Honeymoon Period or "Look, They Serve Fish and Chips
Here. Lovely!"
Second Stage - Culture Shock or "Ugh...I Hate Fish and Chips!"
Third Stage - Recovery, or "I Don't Mind Fish and Chips So Much"
Fourth Stage - Renewed Culture Shock, or "I Take It Back, Fish and
Chips Stink"
Fifth Stage - Breakthrough, or "I Still Don't Like Fish and Chips, But I
Can See Why You Like Them"
Sixth Stage - Re-integration, or "Where Can I Buy Fish and Chips Around
Here?"
Factors Crucial to Intercultural Adjustments
Conclusions

From the Paper
"Culture can be defined in a number of different ways and through a myriad of various examples. It is a fluid concept; one that is constantly evolving due to factors such as globalization and the media. Neither every person one encounters nor every country one visits is going to hold fast to the stereotypes typically associated with them. Each person will display their own unique behavior or way of viewing things. However, it is important to understand that culture, as a concept, is something that a person or groups of people are born into. It is a set of norms, values and beliefs that one learns through the process of socialization. Culture, therefore, forms a conceptual lens, through which groups of people see themselves, their country, and the rest of the world."

Tags:condition, confusion, anxiety, exposed, alien, milieu, oberg, strain, loss, deprivation

Abstract
This essay applies the thoughts of critical theorists such as Barthes and Eagleton to the concept of music and it?s cultural roots and present day entity.

Tags:barthes, eagleton, elton, john, lennon, tempest