Kinship Essays (Examples)

Kinship Systems

It is important to note that a kinship system can be taken to be a rather complex feature that determines the role of individuals, their relations to each other as well as their obligations and responsibilities. In this text, I concern myself with the Australian Aborigines' kinship system. I further discuss the impact of the Australian Aborigines' kinship system on the behavior of the culture and lastly give my opinion on whether the kinship system in regard to my own society impacts the way I behave.

A Brief Description of the Culture

It can be noted that when it comes to the Australian Aboriginal culture, quite a number of variations exist as far as cultural practices are concerned. The variations in this case are as a result of the significant number of language groups as well as tribal divisions that are contained in Aboriginal Australia. However, it is…

Kinship categories are fundamental to the study of anthropology, as they are the basis by which societies and cultures are formed. Family kinship categories are broad and generally universal, as human beings must pass on their genes in the same ways regardless of culture. For example, family kin categories include kin types such as mother, father, son, daughter, aunt, uncle, grandmother, and so forth. Even in modern industrialized cultures in which many kinship ties are irrelevant for the social fabric of the society, kinship categories still exist. However, each culture will ascribe a different meaning, role, and function to various kin types. Regardless of how the kin types function and what their roles are within the society, the kinship categories remain the same. A mother will be a mother in any society, and a brother. Nevertheless, some cultures use far different kinship terminologies: for example, the mother's brother will be…

This, then, essentially generates the same types of behaviors towards the social group, despite thousands of miles of distance and a completely different attitude and perspective on life. Australian Aboriginals do share a complex practice with American societies. They include skin types and names for members of the social group that are not of direct blood relation. Even strangers and foreigners who have spent enough time with a particular group can be assigned a specific skin name from within that group that they are familiar with. People and families in American society do the same thing. For example, I am not related to my sister-in-law or a father-in-law, yet we enter them into our family structure under a certain position and title because of their close proximity to the family one would actually share blood relations with. This generates a common behavior, where we adopt people not of blood relation…

Referring to prominent women in positions of power in derogatory terms, Farmer revealed his prejudicial beliefs that an ideal role for woman is wife or mother, not leader or activist. I concluded that Farmer's generation represented a key transition between patriarchal values and more egalitarian ones. After all, Farmer was born soon after suffrage and women were gradually becoming more visible in the public sphere.

Farmer's responses answered the second research question in the negative. The informant did not oppose women's presence in the public sphere or in positions of power. However, Farmer has trouble reconciling the belief that women are inferior social subjects with the realization that women are equal as human beings. Farmer's beliefs were informed partly by his parents. His mother and father both worked on their family farm n Pennsylvania. Although both parents visibly worked, Farmer notes that his father retained most of the political authority…

Kinship in Australian Aborigines

The individuality promoted by American and other esternized societies makes one often forget the kinship, extended-family-based networks present in most other societies, and especially those in which the main way of life revolves around foraging and horticulture systems. Yet kinship exists, and it is present in many communities, one of which is the Australian Aboriginal community located throughout the continent, but focused mostly in the Northern Territory in Australia. The community has been indigenous to the continent since before its settlement by the Dutch and British, and continues to thrive to this day, mainly due to its distinct way of life. This way includes the concept of kinship, a strategy for keeping families together so that they may better fare during harsh times, be they social, political, or economic. This paper will explore the aboriginal kinship system in detail, and will describe its impact on the…

Iroquois Kinship System

THE IOQUOIS

Iroquois kinship system was initially identified by Morgan, 1871, as the system to define family. Iroquois is among the six main kinship systems namely Eskimos, Hawaiian, Sudanese, Crow, Omaha and Iroquois. The horticulture societies are subsistence-based so as the foraging societies. In the foraging society, the foremost component is the composition and existence of the nuclear family. The nuclear family is together irrespective of their shift to any geographical location or band of cultures. However, in the horticulture society they live in extended family structures which are comprised of three generations including grandparents, parents, children, married siblings with their spouses and children, all adapted to the external environment. In the Iroquois, women are the key food producers and they are joint owners of the land. Because of this, women's central role in food production matrilineal groups is more common in horticulture societies.

There exists many…

Kinship

There are many different models that currently exist of kinship and gender. Traditionally approaches to gender and kinship focused on biological and folk models. Kinship and gender models have gone through profound changes in the last few decades. While biological studies in kinship are important, anthropological and socio-cultural models help provide a more comprehensive model of kinship. These models provide interpretations of universals provided by biology (Parkins, 1997). There is much variety in humanity much as there is in kinship systems, which is why it is important to look at kinship and gender from more than simply a biological or folk approach (Parkins, 1997). This paper will review kinship and gender from a socio-cultural and anthropological approach, compared with a biological and folk perspective of kinship and gender. This demonstrates the relevance of comparing these models to derive a better interpretation of the broad spectrum of meaning that kinship…

Kinship and Politics

One interesting thing a scholar can investigate is the similarities and differences between ancient texts, especially those that operate on the basis of different moral and religious assumptions and beliefs. One such comparison can occur between the Euminides by Aeschylus and the New Testament book omans by the Apostle Paul in the Bible. The main difference is that the Euminides is based upon the ancient Greek morality, involving a polytheistic system, while omans is based upon the monotheistic system. This main difference also manifests in specific differences and similarities, involving kinship, politics, the law, and the acceptability of violence.

In the Euminides, for example, the concepts of kinship and politics are separate and contested. In the first scene of the play, where the Pythian Priestess enters, she indicates that the throne is not necessarily the birthright of those who are born into royal homes. Thrones can be…

The San society in general and the kinship system in particular are very different from contemporary American society. In the U.S., it is highly unusual for adult children to continue living with their families, although this phenomenon has increased recently strictly as a function of the current economic recession and the comparative difficulty of finding employment after graduation. Americans do sometimes name children after relatives, but this is much less common and does not have the same connotations and rules that are associated with shared names in kinship societies. On the other hand, certain Western subcultures do have restrictions about naming children after living relatives.

In American families, it is normally expected that children will leave the family and start their own separate family, often far away from their birth places. Extended families may sometimes include multiple generations within a household, but it is usually as a function of necessity,…

Iroquois Kinship

Iroquois horticultural kinship

The Iroquois or Haudenosaunee are a matrilineal horticultural society based on longhouse clans where the women traditionally farm, own the output of their labor, and have decision power in a decentralized, consensus-based and Association of clans called the Iroquois League. What has often been called the Iroquois Confederation in the past but has always been and is currently called the League is a balanced-reciprocity group of 50 male chiefs who are selected, monitored, overseen and if necessary demoted by the Clan Mothers. Local decision making takes place in small clan groups based around the longhouse, by male and female councils who then agree on policy but which the women ultimately arbitrate (Iroquois Indian Museum 2011a). The Clan Mothers also have religious authority and redistribute private property upon a member's death (Iroquois Indian Museum 2011a). This entails institutions of private property, which women acquire through grain…

Family & Kinship (Anthropology)

Kinship in Chinese Culture and Matriarchy (Dominance of Women) among Chinese Families: Case Studies in Southwestern China and Taiwan

Anthropology, as the study of human life and culture, has developed through various studies and researches that have been conducted initially by Western social scientists. These researches have mainly centered on the "exotic" and native cultures of societies and nations located in the East, such as islands in the Pacific and countries in Asia and the Middle East. Although these studies have provided a Western-centric view of various cultures in the world, they have contributed to the development of theory and methodology in anthropology.

Anthropological studies often provide a description of features unique within the culture and analyze these features in the context of human life (in general) as perceived by the anthropologists (in this case, a Western-centric view of human life).

This paper discusses particular incidences…

Kinship structures, then, are not normative, but is actually consisted of the mother and child alone, illustrating how the role of males have been gradually decreasing to being 'suppliers' of sperm cells for the women's use in assisted reproduction.

Studies from Carsten and Stone demonstrate the aspects demonstrated in Kahn's research. Carsten's research centers primarily on the kinship system extant in Malaysia, while Stone looks at how females have managed to gradually increase and assert their role in human society, eventually having their own choice to actively participate in the process of reproduction or not.

Carsten's analysis of the Malaysian kinship system shows that the concept of family goes beyond the traditional distinction of blood relations -- that is, people consider an individual as part of the family even though they are not related in blood. Being considered as part of family, then, happens through a process of constant interaction…

Navajo Indians

Navejo Indians

The Navajo Indians also referred to as Dine are semi-nomadic people. It is interesting to note that Navajo people are at times known as 'Holy Earth People (Iverson, 2002). This comes from their beliefs in supernatural beings as well as traditional practices of ritual songs and dance. Navajo people are found in north-eastern areas of Arizona and north-western region of New Mexico (Iverson, 2002) .the regions where the Navajo people live in arid and desert areas that have minimal rainfall. The Navajo people are highly family oriented people, and have a rich culture that is full of ceremonies and other traditions. This paper looks at the history of pastoralists of the Navajo people, their beliefs and religious practices and kinship, sickness and healing, which are important elements with the culture of Navajo people.

Pastoral ways

The traditions and practices of a society, which are to some…

460). This research focuses more on the latter as displaying more indigenous cultural subsistence evidence, which is nonetheless indicated and measured against more modern developments in the less traditional periphery. The result is a one-stable culture experiencing major structural transition or demic change, resulting primarily from population density changes driven by resource scarcity and subsistence mode of different cultures, specifically "everyone else," i.e. The global demand for forest and mineral resources (oil) located under the Huaorani home range (Belaunde, 2008, p. 460). The traditional Huaoranis resisted invasion by neighbors while those neighbors were peer tribal cultures, but are having more difficulty resisting invasion by industrialized nations themselves driven by subsistence mode constraints. One major cultural change has become the necessity for a more articulated central 'government' to represent Waos against encroachment by the states that have arisen around them, where their previous subsistence mode allowed less formal norms and roles…

Sex and Marriage:

When a person gets married to another, one of the first rules is that there should be 'exogamy' in the selection of the partner, which also means that the partner has to belong to a well defined outside group, or there should be 'endogamy', which means that the partner must be within some large defined group of people, and both of these two rules work within any given society at any given time, so that there are limits maintained as to the preferability and the acceptability of the marriage partner. The number of spouses that an individual is allowed to marry, however, is generally dictated by the culture and the religion to which the individual belongs. In most of Europe as well as in America, the general rule followed by almost everyone is that of 'monogamy', and this means that one person is only allowed one spouse…

Mbuti Pygmies of the Ituri Forest

The Mbuti pygmies are a nomadic tribe who inhabit the southern and central portions of the Ituri forest, in the epublic of Congo. They are an ethnocentric and homogenous society whose traditions, gender relations, kinship, social organization have remained unchanged until the last fifty years. The Mbuti tribe is divided into two sub-groups, the Efe and the Mbuti. Currently there are between 20,000 and 50,000 Mbuti people in the Congo (Ojo, 1996). The Mbuti pygmies are hunter-gatherers and have practiced hunting and foraging for thousands of years. Many of the foods they find in hunting and foraging expeditions, especially meat and wild honey, are used as trade items with neighboring tribes like the Bila or Bira people. The Mbuti pygmies are primarily net hunters while the Efe sub-groups of the Mbuti tribe use the bow and arrow. According to Denslow and Padoch (1988) in…

Yanomamo people of Central Brazil are one of the oldest examples of the classic pre-Columbian forest footmen. They are believed to be the most primitive, culturally intact people in existence in the world. They are literally a Stone Age tribe. Cataloged by anthropologists as Neo-Indians with cultural characteristics that date back more than 8000 years. They have never discovered the wheel and the only metal they use is what has been traded to them from the outside. Their numbering system is one, two, and more than two.

The Yanomamo live in almost complete seclusion in the Amazon rain forests of South America. Apart from their periodic warfare, they have managed to build and sustain their unique culture through adaptations to their environment for generations.

There are approximately 23,000 Yanomamo spread among roughly 225 villages in the Amazon Basin. Each village acts autonomously, but has alliances with other villages that carry…

"..."

In a Pakistani family, a person who get married with kin, will be having a life long obligation with the relatives from the same caste. In this frame work, there is a bit of flexibility but as socio economic considerations are significant for particular marriage choices. In such cases, an individual who is involved in such situation, calls upon an idea of a shared blood concept even if there is no inherited relationship. This way, participants considers themselves as the nature of the relationship between the inherited kinship and the household. This however, it effect's the rule of fraternal solidarity, which is explained in various ways. It highlights the give and take concept forming a mutual bond between the households. This concept does involve the members of family or friends clearly reflecting both kinship relationships plus fraternal solidarity between kin and non-kin.

Anthropologists describe the exchanging of gift as…

Enga

The culture plays a vital role in the society. In this paper we have researched the different aspects of the society and the effect of culture on the society. The primary mode of subsistence is that of culture values and belief. Culture is usually taken for granted by many societies. However, it affects the way people act and belief in a particular society. Culture sets the norms and it is the primary mode of subsistence in a society. The behavior of the society is also according to the culture. The in depth analysis has been conducted on Enga society. This society is unique in its culture and beliefs. The tradition that is followed by the Enga has some pros and cons. The aspects studied in details of Enga are the kinship, values and belief, and gender relations. (Glazer, 2000)

The Enga primary mode of subsistence is that of agrarian…

Primordialism

Ethnicity is one of the more fluid concepts in sociology because one's ethnicity is largely defined by membership in a social group. The social group shares a common background, whether through experience or ancestry and they share characteristics that set them apart from other groups. Many times these characteristics are stereotyped, but the stereotypes are derived from a reality where the majority of members of the group do, indeed, share those characteristics. Moreover, one's ethnicity is not limited to a single background. A person can have multiple ethnicities by having a family that derives from multiple different ethnic traditions. However, a person can also have multiple ethnicities because larger ethnic groups can be further subdivided into smaller ethnic groups, sometimes referred to as tribes.

Ethnicity is also intertwined with race, which is an interesting concept. Genetic analysis has revealed that there is greater similarity than difference among humans from…

characteristic features of the Basseri of Iran. Its first part will identify and classify "pastoralism" as the Basseri culture's primary mode of subsistence. He second part will show that "tribal chiefship" is underlies the organization of the Basseri society. Furthermore it will show that agriculture and trading determine the Basseri economic organization. Finally, as regards to gender relations, the paper will point out that the importance of the male contribution to subsistence in sheep herding leads to an emphasis on male social roles and patrilineality

Identify and classify the selected culture's primary mode of subsistence

The Basseri are a prime example of a pastoral tribe that is not self-sufficient (Pastoralism, p. 2). They are a tribe of nomads who inhabit the Iranian province of Fars and migrate along the steppes and mountains near the town of Shiraz (Johnson (1996), p. 1). In general, societies specializing in animal husbandry requiring periodic…

Anthro

If Anna Tsing, author of In the ealm of the Diamond Queen, were to apply her methodologies, theories, and approaches to ethnography to the Nuer people, the result would be a far different book than E.E.E. Pritchard's (1969) The Nuer. Flipping the perspective would completely alter Tsing's goals in the research, and the view the researcher takes on what the appropriate role of the ethnographer is to provide context and meaning to the work. Both Tsing and Pritchard would remain concerned about issues like kinship, lineage, and basic socio-political structures. Both would also include explication of economic institutions and processes, and might mention gender roles, norms, and hierarchies, too. However, Tsing would bring multiple dimensions to the Nuer study that Pritchard misses. Tsing starts her analysis of the Meratus people by describing how they are perceived not by the foreign ethnographer, but by the modern nation-state in which they…

Btsisi & Sav "h Ga Cultures

Comparative Analysis: Btsisi and Savannaha Ga (Sav" h Ga) Cultures

Differences in geographic location of societies gave birth to different cultures and traditions, influenced by the people living in a specific geographic area, and the way of life they have developed over time. One of the salient features of cultural differences is the kind of kinship system established within the culture, which includes the behavior, actions and lifestyle within. In this paper, two cultures will be compared in terms of the kinship system, behavior, actions, and lifestyle established within each culture. The cultures under study are the Btsisi of Selangor, Malaysia, and the author's own cultural/ethnic group, the Savannah Ga (Sav" h Ga).

As a cultural group, the Btsisi traces its heritage from a primarily matriarchal society, wherein villages are led by a woman leader called Batin. The significance of women and the Batin…

African and Native Americans

When discussing the experience of minorities in early America, it is tempting to fall into one of two extremes, either by imagining that the treatment of minorities by European colonizers was equal across the board, or else was so different that one cannot find congruities between experiences. Like most things in history, however, the truth is far more complex, because although the same religious, political, and economic ideologies motivated Europeans' treatment of Native Americans and Africans, the effects were mixed. In some instances Native Americans were treated to the same kind of brutality and disregard as those Africans caught up in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but more frequently, European colonizers attempted to treat Native Americans as something closer to equals in an attempt to manipulate them into favorable actions, such trade alliances or military support. Furthermore, the experiences of Native Americans and Africans in America prior…

Ethnographic Perspective: Guests of the Sheik

Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village -- analysis

Elizabeth Fernea's book "Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village" provides readers with a complex description of women in Iraqi village during the 1950s. The text is meant to enable people to abandon stereotypes they might have considered when coming across Iraqi women. The book should not necessarily be understood as a form of criticism with regard to society's understanding of this particular community, as it is actually meant to inform readers and to make it possible for them to employ more open-minded attitudes with regard to the group. The fact that the writer provides a personal account regarding Iraqi women during the 1950s contributes to the overall authenticity of the manuscript.

The book is based on Fernea's experiences in Iraq during her stay there with her husband, an…

The communities that they form are tribes, not societies. There is a general frame of organization, a leadership, but no government in the real sense. If there is a hierarchical scale of leadership, most likely it is not set as in modern societies. ut some facts described by Toth are very much similar to a society. For example, Toth describes one enclave under Grand Central with showers using hot water from a leaky stream pipe, with cooking and laundry facilities, and even an exercise room. Each person has its own role in the community, some go outside to gather food and such, and other stay underground and cook, do laundry, nurture children and such. This organization resemblances very much with a tribe, as it has far too few members and it has few of the attributes of a society. Most of these people live like animals, though. As described in…

A woman who has yet to make a son is the lowest of the low, far beneath her mother-in-law. Once she produces a male heir, she increases her status in the family, in her husband's eyes, and as the mother of the father's child, thus reducing the status of the mother in law and her power over the girl as well. Before, her own mother only spoke of the future without her, in her brother's terms, and only when married does she have a future -- but with a past door of her childhood "slamming shut."(243)

Question

This creates a fragmented household, pitting woman against woman, all eyes turned to the husband for authority. And before, in a house with daughters, no "matter how fond of his daughter the father may be" she is a temporary member of his household, with no ties to him, and she will not protect…

Anthropology

One of the major organizational consequences of matrilineal descent is that it results to the dominance of women while at the same time eradicating the "territorial" nature of males. This important feature of a matrilineal organization is vital, especially in the case of the Mosuo tribe, wherein the absence of territoriality discourages the practice of marriage. That is, women are bound only to their families and not their husbands or male relatives; the dominance of women in the tribe and dependence of males to females creates a matriarchal society instead of a patriarchal one.

The men's role in a matriarchal society is parallel with women's role in a patriarchal society, that is, to aid women in the process of procreation. Apart from his role as a father (but not a husband, as in the context of the Mosuo culture), males also help in daily household chores and to serve…

The ritual is the most important aspect of Shinto; thus performing the ritual the right way is the most important part of worship in Shinto. The rituals serve to bind Japanese to their past as well; since the rituals themselves are sacred they do not change.

The other key element of Shinto is purification. iping clean restores the natural process, which is clean and beautiful, and free from pollution. For the Japanese, purity and religion are one and the same (Boyd & illiams, 1999).

Festivals are also important in Shinto. Adherents use festivals as a means to bring the community together. Festivals also become celebrations of ritual, or are held to ask the spirits for prosperity in a profession, or for a harvest.

orks Cited:

No author. (2009). Shinto at a glance. British Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved November 28, 2009 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/shinto/ataglance/glance.shtml

Boyd, J. & illiams, J. (1999). Artful means: An…

Socrates and Plotinus also have very similar ideas on how Beauty is recognized, which though intimately related to their ideas on the nature of Beauty are somewhat different, also. For both men, Beauty was connected to the eternal. Socrates, being at least somewhat (and perhaps completely) atheistic, does not immediately or necessarily connect the concept of the eternal with the concept of the divine, however, but rather recognizes the inherent Beauty in the only act of immortality that mortals can engage in -- procreation and generation, which leads to "beauty in birth." The physical act of love between a man and a woman is described by Socrates -- through the voice of Diotima -- as an act of supreme beauty, and its effects are equally beautiful, as it causes immortality and hence touches upon the eternal. Beauty is also connected to love because love cannot occur with deformity; the closer…

Students would undertake self-directed research projects, guided or led by teachers at their request. Agency would enable students to play a few hours of sports instead of read, or to read instead of play the piano. Teachers expressing their agency could hold classes outdoors, and teach about any subject they wish.

2.What contradictions might result?

The teacher's agency can easily conflict with that of the student. The teacher's agency might also clash with prevailing social values and norms. For example, a teacher who wanted to include Intelligent Design in the course curriculum could do so if all structure to the educational system were removed. With that structure in place, the teacher cannot teach Intelligent Design. The contradiction between structure and agency becomes poignant in an educational setting.

Between teacher and student, conflicts would arise between what is being taught and what is being learned; between what students want to learn…

Mbuti

Unmovable: The Mbuti of the Ituri Forest

For more than 2,000 years, the world has been aware of the Mbuti (Pygmy) hunter-gatherers that reside in the Ituri Forest of northern Zaire. References have been made to Pygmies that date as far back as Ancient Egypt, with mentions made by Herodotus, Aristotle and Homer (McDonald, 2004). Little however, was known about the daily lives of the Mbuti Pygmies until the 1950's. In an effort to find the values of goodness in the world post World War II, the public became interested in an isolated people who seemed far freer and more egalitarian than most self described "civilized societies (McDonald, 2004).The Mbuti are part of a larger group of forest dwellers referred to as the ambuti. According to the most recent statistics, there are reportedly less than 20,000 pure blood ambuti remaining in the world (Turnbull, 1998).

The Mbuti are described…

Nuer People and Cattle

Three of the most prominent pieces of literature to explore the relationship between the Sudanese tribe of Nuer people and cattle include Sharon Hutchinson's "Nuer ethnicity militarized," the same author's "The cattle of money and the cattle of girls among the Nuer," and E.E. Evans-Pritchard's The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People. All of these works examine, either directly or indirectly, the relationship between this particular tribe and cattle from a variety of perspectives. The first mentioned work of Hutchinson's does so through examining the exacting civil war in Sudan during the 1990's and its causes in the time period preceding that decade. The second mentioned work of Hutchinson's does so by considering the social and economic implications of this relationship while primarily focusing on this latter aspect. Evans-Pritchard's book covers this topic extensively from a variety…

Company Critical Elements

Business Continuity is a vibrant industry dedicated to identifying, prioritizing and safeguarding critical business functions. From small businesses such as neighborhood bakeries to business titans such as Microsoft, each entity that can name, rate and guarantee the continued functionality of its required systems can survive in crisis. As the following analysis shows, the critical processes of all modern businesses fall into common basic categories that are vital to survival.

The Bakery

A bakery has several critical functions, some common to all businesses and some unique. "Agility Recovery" generally identifies "business critical functions" as those that: "(1) are most sensitive to downtime; (2) fulfill legal or financial obligations to maintain cash flow; (3) play a key role in maintaining your business' market share and reputation; (4) safeguard an irreplaceable asset" (Agility Recovery, 2010, p. 1). Simplifying the process somewhat for small businesses, CSO defines critical areas as those…

seasons of life" that are characteristic of Western societies. Name the rites of passage that mark the transitions from one period of life to the next.

Seasons of life: Childhood, Adolescence, Adulthood, Old Age, and Dying.

Rites of Passage: Puberty and struggling to gain independence and learn their own identies in the transition from Child to Adult (some religions have Bar and Bat Mitzvahs or Communion); marriage, maintaining a family, and participating in all aspects of society in Maturity; Status as matriarch or patriarch and declining health mark the passage of Elder to Death.

Over half of all women over 65 are widows, whereas only 13.6% of men over age 65 are widowed. What factors account for these statistics?

Answer: As socialization takes over men become more aggressive, and more individualistic which results in higher rates of accidents, violence, suicide, and hazardous behaviors like smoking and drinking in excess leading…

History U.S. Criminal Justice Systems/Police

It is undeniable that criminal justice and police activities are integral parts of every relatively peaceful nation in the world. ithout the actions and standards set forth by the agencies that "protect and serve" many wrongs would go not only unpunished but possibly unnoticed as well.

The basic purposes of policing in democratic societies are: 1. To prevent and investigate crimes; 2. To apprehend offenders; 3. To help ensure domestic peace and tranquility; and 4. To enforce and support the laws (especially the criminal laws) of the society of which the police are a part." (Schmalleger Chapter 5 Summary)

Though the developmental history of modern policing and criminal justice there have been many changes, changes in focus and standard, and even crime and justice. The very term professionalism has completely evolved across the board, more so in the policing industry than almost anywhere else. A…

Mythology

Tales of love begin with the creation of humans, and continue to the graphic media driven "reality TV" shows that televise the private lives of the bachelor and bachelorette and all the people competing for their love. Love is a feeling everyone can relate to, but it is unlikely most people would claim to understand love. ithin almost every literary genre there are myths about love that fuel ideals that are rarely if ever realized. There is no place where this is truer than in the stories of mythology.

The perpetual love myths that exist in classical mythology demonstrate ideals that are confronted even today by individuals searching for love today. The ideals of love that will be explored in this work are: love at first sight, the myth of one true love and the human phenomenon of over idealizing unobtainable love. The stories of classical mythology charter the…

Grandparents as Caregivers

An Introduction to the Skipped Generation

Families in the late 20th and early 20th century are not the same as they were prior to World War II and even up into the 1960s. The idea of marriage is both a social and religious contract that is sanctioned by society as a valid contract and event. Depending on the particular society and culture, marriage combines the institution of family with intimate and sexual relationships, and the idea of the unit growing from this union. Traditionally, marriage has been with a man and a woman with the potential of having children, thus creating kinship ties to extended families. Historically, this was also an economic unit; families joined forces with land or property, or even joined nations together. Over the past few decades, though, marriage has weakened as the prime social institution of family life. There are a number of…

My own take on Treadwell and his 12 summers among the bears in Alaska is similar to Herzog’s. I feel that Treadwell on some fundamental level had sentimentalized nature and thought that he could be one with this brute force. In reality, he had to keep some measure of distance at least during the rougher times of years when the bears were less likely to be as non-interested in Treadwell as they were in the summer when food was plentiful. For a hungry bear, Treadwell is not a friend but a source of food. Unfortunately that is the reality.

The opening shot of Timothy talking to the camera and describing his manifesto displays his lack of maturity and his own ego. He is often grinning out his own perceived greatness and poeticism and he gets excited about his love for the bears and his feeling of kinship with them. It…

Kafr El-Elow is based upon the novel Kafr El-Elow: Continuity and Change in an Egyptian community written by Hani Fakhouri. This paper takes into account two chapters from the novel and explains why both of them are absolutely essential in understanding the social structure of the village, Kafr El-Elow. The paper also highlights some very important traditions and customs followed by the villagers.

Kafr El-Elow

The writer of the novel, Kafr El-Elow chose the village of Kafr El-Elow for the ethnographic research not because of its close association with Cairo but because of its location in the middle of Egypt's colossal mercantile complex. According to the author, the small village of Kafr El-Elow is bound to experience a lot of changes due to its most central location, as it is the industrial complex of a country that experience advancement. The people of Kafr El-Elow as result of urbanization and industrialization…

Of course, Western culture often holds material consumer products in high regard as status symbols, such as homes, automobiles, elaborate clothing, and the like. In the case of the Nepalese, however, the case is vastly different. In the mountain villages, land is the primary commodity that is held in the highest regard as a symbol of status, wealth and power. This is so for very specific reasons, given the fact that land is in short supply in Nepal, land is vital in a mostly agrarian society such as that of the Nepalese villages, and the very simple way of life that the villagers lead makes many of the common Western status symbols unnecessary at best and outright ridiculous at the very least.

The status symbol of land in Nepal seems to be mostly centered on the males of the culture; for the females, who are generally prohibited from owning land,…

Affirmative action policies grew out of a need to address the historic discrimination against minorities and women. Since its inception, affirmative action has helped open the door for many minorities seeking gainful employment and higher education. However, the same policies have also spawned charges of reverse discrimination against others and, paradoxically, of harming the very people they were intended to help.

This paper looks at whether affirmative action policies remain relevant today, with a particular focus on racial minorities such as African-Americans and Latinos. In the first part, the paper defines affirmative action, traces the policies' history and examines their goals. The second part is a critical examination of the arguments of affirmative action supporters. The third part studies the arguments against affirmative action by evaluating both the policies' effectiveness and their deleterious consequences for African-Americans and other racial minorities.

In the conclusion, this paper maintains that though they were…

Yanomamo

The Yanomami are an indigenous tribe also called Yanomamo, Yanomam, and Sanuma who live in the tropical rain forest of Southern Venezuela and Northern razil. The society is composed of four subdivisions of Indians. (Yanomami Indians) Each subdivision has its own language. "They include the Sanema which live in the Northern Sector, the Ninam which live in the southeastern sector, the Yanomam which live in the southeastern part and the Yanomamo which live in the southwestern part of Yanomami area."

(ibid)

The Yanomamo are one of the largest unacculturated aboriginal groups left in South America, with a total population of around 12,000. Their subsistence is based on hunting and slash-and-burn agriculture. The predominant crops are plantains and bananas. Their diet includes yams, sweet potatoes and the fruit of the peach palm. (eierle, J.M.)

The social construction of the culture is composed of small groups numbering approximately 75 people in…

They are therefore not determined or restricted by factors such as norms, morals or external principles. A concise definition of this view is as follows:

Constructivism views all of our knowledge as "constructed," because it does not reflect any external "transcendent" realities; it is contingent on convention, human perception, and social experience. It is believed by constructivists that representations of physical and biological reality, including race, sexuality, and gender are socially constructed

Constructivist epistemology)

Another theoretical and philosophical stance that is pertinent to the understanding of the status of the family in modern society is the post-structural or deconstructive view. This is allied to a certain extent with the constructivist viewpoint, which sees society as a social construction and denies the reality of transcendent factors. This view therefore sees the family as a structure which is not fixed or static but is relative in terms of the norms and values…

Management

Karl Marx is highly regarded as one of the foremost authorities in economics and social structure. It is through his beliefs that the thought process of Marxism was created. Although very controversial in this thoughts and beliefs, Marx outlined, what he believed to be, a social framework for society. According to Marx, society often begins a series of transformations directly related to the primary flow of labor and production (Singer, 200). Through division of labor each organizational structure has a central conflict. According to Marx, each organizational structure is characterized with conflict among different parts of society with particular emphasis on economic status. Marx focused a disproportionate amount of his research on the social relationships between the economic classes prevailing in society (Marx, 1990). Marx tended to focus on the relationships between entry level workers and those of their immediate supervisor. Marx identified historical epochs from the beginning of…

(Musil, 1998)

Although there has been some examination of the stresses and supports of grandmothers with primary or partial responsibility for raising grandchildren, there have been no comparisons between grandmothers in these two types of care giving situations. Longitudinal studies are lacking, and the few published cross-sectional studies have highlighted the difficulty in obtaining a sample from this population. (Musil, 1998)

There may be particular stressors and consequences of care giving for custodial grandmothers with primary responsibility that differ from those who live with the grandchild but do not assume primary responsibility for their care. For example, lack of reciprocal support by the middle generation, the need to care for multiple children (of multiple children), and conflict ridden relationships with the grandchild's parent(s) are likely to affect primary grandparent caregivers. Further, grandparents with primary responsibility have reported high degrees of role restriction, social isolation, and financial difficulty. Yet because the…

Aborigines are Australia's original inhabitants and until the late 1700's -1800's the aborigine had little contact with Western civilization. Local dialects and the territorial nature of bands provided the different social groups their distinctive identity. The Mardudjara (Mardu) aborigines are part of the Western Desert cultural block in Australia (Tonkinson, 1978). The Mardu culture, societal system, etc. has never been recorded in its pristine state as anthropologic researchers did not study the group until well after alien influences had occurred. Nonetheless, the nomadic lifestyle of the Mardu was dictated by the harsh climate in which they live and they are an extremely interesting group. Nomadic groups like the Mardu often have a perception of gender or a cultural gender schema that fits in functionally with their lifestyle and is based on a division of labor and status that allows the group to maintain an identify, clearly defined roles, and survive…

Close is Too Close: What is Wrong with Incest?

This paper outlines incest as a social taboo with reference to the Jewish, Native American, and Malagasy cultures and identifies what is wrong with the practice of incest. It has 7 sources.

Definition of Incest

Incest or the sexual relations between persons to whom marriage is prohibited by custom or law because of close kingship [Kottak 2002] is a social phenomenon that differ from culture to culture and by definition too they differentiate from one group to the next. The reason being that customs, traditions and cultures all vary due to the accepted norms as well as religion found in these groups and hence the prohibition or the allowance for people to marry siblings differs greatly. Inter-marriage to close relatives in the American culture for instance is considered taboo while in the Jewish it is considered compulsory. What triggers such social…

Family and the Land" addresses gender roles and social structures in traditional rural Irish society. "Systems of kinship" are discussed liberally, as is the social construction of identity. Each individual maintains a network of social ties, and plays different roles in the society depending on the relationship and its ascription of status and hierarchy. Thus, a son is inferior to the father but superior to his own son or daughter.

Marriage in traditional Irish society forms the backbone of family and community life. Marriages are matches made for social expediency and political reasons, as well as for economic purposes. The marriage ritual confers adult status upon the young person and reaffirms a patriarchal social order. Moreover, marriage enables the legal transactions of inherited estates. Generally, large families hope for at least one son to marry well enough to create a situation in which the family farm possesses a clear heir.…

But Nazism was, in fact, an internationalist movement of expansion, much like the expansionist aims of the Soviet state. Similarly, what is most feared today is not Islamic nationalism, but rather Islamic fundamentalist internationalism, the result of the Arab Muslim world's "shallow-rooted, kleptocratic" authorities that preside over disenfranchised "impoverished Moslem populations" with little sense of national loyalty (Wiebe 204). In his conclusion, Wiebe argues for a weaker nation state with more deeply-rooted local and less expansionistic ties as the antidote to the negative effects of nationalism.

At the end of Wiebe's preface to his book, he writes: "my hope is not that you will come to like nationalism -- I am not its advocate -- but that you will come to see it as so thoroughly human that no simple judgment does it justice" (Wiebe xvii). However, while Wiebe may be fair in reproaching most American's poor sense of history…

... further, that it would be only a question of time until the entire Pacific coast region would be controlled by the Japanese.' Yet Japan's ultimate aim was not limited to California or the Pacific Coast but was global domination achieved through a race war. 'It is the determined purpose of Japan,' the report stated, 'to amalgamate the entire colored races of the world against the Nordic or white race, with Japan at the head of the coalition, for the purpose of wrestling away the supremacy of the white race and placing such supremacy in the colored peoples under the dominion of Japan.'

The presence of sizeable numbers of persons of Japanese origin in California and other Western states was seen as but the beginnings of a Japanese attempt to not merely expand territorially into the United States, but to literally substitute the existing racial order with a new scheme…

According to the concept of homoousion, Christ the Son was consubstantial (sharing the same substance) with the Father." (Gill, 2006) Only then was it resolved that although Jesus was the Son of God, the unique nature of Jesus as Son meant that Jesus, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit all were won.

The interpretation of the term "Son of God" continues to divide Judaism from Christianity, theologically and linguistically, as well as provided a source of division amongst Christians themselves. And interpretations of the phrase continue to change in emphasis, even amongst fellow Christians. Recent interpretations of Jesus in the American cultural context have used the notion of 'sonship' to personalize Jesus, rather than to alienate Jesus, in an attempt to have a more accessible divinity. (Prothero, 2003) In its original theological context, the notion of God's dual spiritual and physical essence was just exciting and divisive as it…

youth transition out of foster care as they "age-out" of the system. This can prove to be a very challenging and difficult phase for young people as they are expected to take on adult responsibilities and make their own way in the world. Whether youth successfully transition from foster care to independent living is multifaceted, and requires detailed investigation in order to illuminate how the foster care system can facilitate change throughout the "aging-out" process.

Keller et al. (2007) utilized person-oriented research methods in order to investigate how well adolescents transition from life as part of the child welfare system to independent living as adults. This research method was chosen for the study in order to appropriate capture and understand the various and diverse ways these youth may be prepared for the transition among a sample that is large and representative of the population of youth aging-out from foster care.…

Jewish History

The Hebrews do not actually appear in history until about 1224-1211 B.C.E. during the reign of Marniptah, king of Egypt (Ancient pg). Marniptah was the son of Raamses I, 1290-1223 B.CE, who is thought to be the kind of Egypt at the time of the Hebrew exodus (Ancient pg). In an account of Marniptah's military campaign in Asia, 1220 B.C.E., inscribed in granite is listed all the conquered peoples including the Israelites, who are mentioned as "now living in Canaan" (Ancient pg). Before this, the only history is that which was written by the Hebrews themselves who trace their origins to a "single individual, Abraham, who comes originally from Mesopotamia" (Ancient pg). This pre-Egyptian Hebrew history is referred to as the age of the patriarchs, which means father-ruler (Ancient pg). More than a thousand years had passed before this era of history was written down, and although it…

Talcott Parsons' analysis U.S. sex roles 1940s essay, "Sex oles Amer

Parsons' essay "Sex oles in the American Kinship Theory," analyzes the American social structure of the 1940's from several different perspectives. Specifically, the author examines societal structure from a familial or "kinship" (Parsons 1943:300) perspective, an occupational perspective and, finally from a perspective between the two sexes. The primary focus of his argument is that the unit of the family is the basic foundation of society but the effects of romantic relationships and occupational perceptions ultimately contribute to a "tension" (Parsons 1943:303) that is inherently manifested between the sexes. He largely bolsters this viewpoint with a functionalist perspective that was far from unique at the time, and which would have readily supplied a conflict theorist with the means to likely overturn his conclusions -- which partly explains later trends in gender relations.

The principle point of departure in this…

Ceremonies and Celebrations

The Coast Salish people are people from Nations and Tribes whose traditional roots are found along the west coast of British Columbia and ashington State. Actually, the Coast Salish region expands from the northern Vancouver Island and Lower Mainland regions to western part of the ashington State. Most of the Coast Salish First Nations Groups are found in British Columbia and ashington State ("Coast Salish Fast Facts," p.1). The Coast Salish people seemingly have some similarities with other cultures in the Pacific Northwest Coast. An analysis of their traditions and customs and ceremonies and celebrations demonstrates that they are different from the other cultures, which make them distinct people. The process of proving this thesis will entail examining a brief history of Coast Salish people and thorough evaluation of their traditions and customs as well as ceremonies and celebrations.

The Coast Salish People of British Columbia

As…

If we can study these thematic relationships, and understand how persons with disorders are interpreting and judging these relationships, then we can perhaps intercede in those interpretations and judgments by way of thematic relationships that help train people with disorders to respond differently, or to process the relationship in a way that treats them away from cognitive processes that impair them, and towards processing these relationships in ways that help them move forward as healthier adults with a higher or improved quality of life.

Thematic similarity relationships are worthy of further study in adults. There is much room for progress in this regard as an applied science, and we should strive to gain as much clinical and practical information about its usefulness as a therapeutic approach as possible.

eference List

Cottrell, G. (1996). Proceedings From the Eighteenth Annual

Conference of the Cognitive Science. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Gray,…

Nwoye, however, is attracted by the external trappings of Christian rhetoric, that promise him peace and a way out of a society in which he cannot compete because of his physical, emotional, and spiritual weaknesses. For Okonkwo, of course, the religion of Christianity is completely antithetical to his principles.

Q8. The end of the novel did surprise me. I expected that there would be a final, bloody clash between the tribesmen and the British. However, the real conflict occurs within Okonkwo's soul, when he is frustrated that his people will not fight with him, as they know they cannot overcome the superior military technology of the British. Okonkwo's suicide, however, once it is clear that his tribesmen will not stand with him, is not surprising, given that it is consistent with his militaristic and inflexible character -- he would rather die than submit. However, the fact that suicide is considered…

Finally it also represented an important means of conducting the foreign policy from the point-of-view of the French occupation. In this sense, "the North America fur trade of the 17th and 18th centuries had usually been viewed, until recently, as merely another commercial enterprise governed by the premise "buy cheap, sell dear" in order to rip the maximum of profit. Of late the Canadian end of the trade has come to be regarded as having been more a means to a noncommercial end than a pursuit conducted solely for economic gain. As European penetration and dominance of the continent progressed, the trade, which had begun as an adjunct of the Atlantic shore fishery, became a commercial pursuit in its own right. After 1600 (...) it became a means to finance and further the tragic drive to convert the Indian nations to Christianity."

Aside from the Algonquin tribes, the Huron tribes…

Interestingly, the Politics of Passion proves that just the opposite is true. Women who reject traditional paradigms also reject Western idealisms about sexuality, marriage, families, desire and identity. Through their sexual activities, the mati women described by Wekker embody each of these elements, and liberate themselves sexuality, which in turn leads to greater power, greater autonomy and greater independence. Women are encouraged in this environment to rely on their own instincts, knowledge and expertise to do what they feel is best for them. They are encouraged, contrary to what most women experience, to do what makes them feel good. In this way they escape the chains that bind and subordinate many women living in other cultures who are brought up to believe gender distinctions exist and women have certain responsibilities and places.

If one were to adopt the mati perspective and apply it to their life, they would find that…