ANTH 1120 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Zande People, Participant Observation, Dene Tha' First Nation
8 May 2018
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Department
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ANTH 1120
November 6, 2017
How do worldviews form? What causes them to change?
Review:
● Shared cultural assumptions on how the world works
● There are many forms we can access worldviews: language, myth, song
○ Depict meaning shared by people
● Key metaphors, one way to access worldviews
○ Taking from one domain of language to express another domain
○ Metaphors of war to talk about health, time and economy
● Witchcraft and magic, rituals show dramatic renderings of belief
○ Key metaphor: metaphor of stratification of place, how the world works on
different plains
● Myths are good to think with, symbolic action so we can see how people experience
their world
○ Zombies are a fear of contagion, our own fear of consumption
● Cult economy - there are some south africans who are becoming angered by their
exclusion so they take old stories and remake them
● Witchcraft among the Azande - groundbreaking for its time
The formation of Worldviews
● How are different worldviews change?
● The organization of social, economic and political influences form our worldview
● Our material world affects our worldview and our worldview affects our material world
● Mother Nature - our family relationship to nature and we’re gendering it. “Getting
back to nature.” We think of land as a commodity or something that is owned.
Creating a division between lived space and natural/wild space.
○ We believe that technology can master all nature
● Reflecting our worldview; technology can solve whatever problems we have
● All worldviews are involved with thinking about power and control in relation to other
aspects in the world around them
● Dene Tha - talk about the land having power; nature can be powerful. Animals,
plants, birds have power that isn’t different from the power human beings have.
○ Have to be very respectful to all manifestations of this other land
○ When you see an animal or tree it is not much different from yourself
○ Reciprocity - if the hunter kills an animal, they must show respect for the other
land by offering something
● Worldviews about nature and the human power dynamic are related to the political,
economic and social environments which they are born
● The rest of the universe reflects the family dynamic in these places
● In a hierarchy - Roman empire - the Gods are hierarchal and reflect the society
Document Summary
Shared cultural assumptions on how the world works. There are many forms we can access worldviews: language, myth, song. Key metaphors, one way to access worldviews. Taking from one domain of language to express another domain. Metaphors of war to talk about health, time and economy. Witchcraft and magic, rituals show dramatic renderings of belief. Key metaphor: metaphor of stratification of place, how the world works on different plains. Myths are good to think with, symbolic action so we can see how people experience their world. Zombies are a fear of contagion, our own fear of consumption. Cult economy - there are some south africans who are becoming angered by their exclusion so they take old stories and remake them. Witchcraft among the azande - groundbreaking for its time. The organization of social, economic and political influences form our worldview. Our material world affects our worldview and our worldview affects our material world.
