The Toronto Star discusses the research of Jennifer Lansford, a professor of psychology and cultural anthropology at Duke University.  Lansford conducts cross-cultural research on motherhood. 

 “Universally, one of the key tasks of motherhood is to make children feel loved, accepted and valued, and that’s regardless of cultural context…Mothers who are able to do this successfully will have children who are better adjusted,” she says.

“In the U.S., for example, a good mother is reactive… She responds to the child’s needs, feeding or changing him when he cries. In contrast, a good mother in Japan is proactive, attempting to anticipate the needs of her baby before he cries.”

 “Lansford acknowledges that her research makes cultural generalizations, and cautions against drawing sweeping conclusions because there is significant variation within countries and cultures.”

Read more at thestar.com

Mothers love differently around the world

New research explores the different ways mothers show they love their babies in countries around the world.

Marco Chown Oved, May 09 2013

Writing for NPR, the anthropologist Barbara King observes: “some parents, mostly in one area of New York City, as far as I can tell, are raising their children from birth without diapers.” She speaks to Meredith Small, an anthropologist from Cornell University, who explains: "Only Westerns make such a big deal about toilet training," and adds that the lack of diaper use in many cultures does not reflect a lack of diapers:  “Of course they could use any cloth, but often this is the much easier way.”

Read more at NPR:

Gina Athena Ulysse, a Prof. of Anthropology & African American Studies at Wesleyan University, writes at the huffingtonpost about the oppression of Vodouists in Haiti: 

Read the rest here:

Gina Athena Ulysse, Defending Vodou in Haiti, 10/18/2012 

Think football, and odds are you think tailgate party. And with good reason — the tailgate party is among the most time-honored and revered American sporting traditions, what with the festivities, the food and the fans. And the beer. Don’t forget the beer.

 

To the untrained eye, these game-day rituals appear to be little more than a wild party, a hedonistic excuse to get loaded and eat barbecue. Not at all. They are, according to Notre Dame anthropologist John Sherry, bustling microcosms of society where self-regulatory neighborhoods foster inter-generational community, nurture tradition and build the team’s brand.

 

Sherry didn’t always feel this way. There was a time when he considered tailgating a boisterous nuisance, little more than a gauntlet of unrelated and unruly celebrations to be run if he were to reach his seat in Notre Dame Stadium. But then he had an epiphany: What if there was meaning to the madness?

 

“One day I slowed down and paid attention to things that were going on that weren’t individual celebrations,” he said of research presented in A Cultural Analysis of Tailgating. “It was much more nuanced that I had thought before.”

Adrienne Pine was in a jam. The assistant anthropology professor at American University was about to begin teaching “Sex, Gender & Culture,” but her baby daughter woke up in the morning with a fever. The single mother worried that she had no good child-care options.

 

So Pine brought her sick baby to class. The baby, in a blue onesie, crawled on the floor of the lecture hall during part of the 75-minute class two weeks ago, according to the professor’s account. The mother extracted a paper clip from the girl’s mouth at one point and shooed her away from an electrical outlet. A teaching assistant held the baby and rocked her at times, volunteering to help even though Pine stressed that she didn’t have to. When the baby grew restless, Pine breast-fed her while continuing her lecture in front of 40 students.

American University professor breast-feeds sick baby in class, sparking debate

By Nick Anderson, Published: September 11

For both Jews and Muslims, circumcision is a religious and cultural practice. Within the last few weeks, Germany outlawed the practice of male circumcision for any but the strictest medical reasons. An atypical alliance of Jews and Muslims successfully challenged the German court's ruling and Chancellor Angela Merkel has promised to make religious circumcision practices (on males, but not females) legal once again.

Read more from William M. O'Barr at huffingtonpost.com

Is Infant Circumcision a Violation of Human Rights?

William M. O'Barr 

Spirituality is not what it once was – that much is certain, according to anthropologist Peter van der Veer. Working at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen, he has examined the significance of the spiritual and its transformation processes in modern societies using the example of China and India. He has found that contradictions to the concept of spirituality are part of this and have by no means stood in the way of an international career. However, many of the modern trends contradict the original idea of spirituality.

Read more at Phys.org or here.

Spirituality on the way to globalisation

August 21, 2012

Jeanne Arnold talks to the Boston Globe about cluster, stress and he latest book:

With the 21st century’s constantly evolving technological innovations and the wild success of bulk-shopping stores, our hoarding habits have gotten worse. Some of us feel like we’re drowning every time we take a moment to look around our homes.

A recently published book called Life at Home in the 21st Century indicates that we’re living in more clutter than ever before: our shelves are jammed with dozens of jars of tomato sauce bought on sale at Costco or with outdated electronics that we can’t bear to throw away because they’re too valuable.

Of the 32 middle-class families from Los Angeles who were studied for the book, only one-quarter could use their garage to store their cars since they were so packed with unused junk.

[...]“We were able to identify a troubling health trend,” said Arnold. “The physiological stress that occurs among women who see their homes as cluttered may have some long-term health consequences.”

Read more at Boston.com:

Feeling overwhelmed by clutter? 7 stress-reducing tips

By Deborah Kotz, Globe Staff

08/09/2012

Kieran Kesner, a photographer, attended the Jewish ritual at the MetLife Stadium. You can view his beautiful images and video clips at AMAGANSETT.

I had never heard of Siyum HaShas. After a 6 hour drive on the morning of from Boston to NJ, I found myself immersed in the collective gathering of nearly 100,000 Jews.

This celebration marked the 12th celebration of Siyum HaShas, signifying the completion of Daf Yomi, a seven and a half year journey some take studying Talmud, the body of Jewish civil and ceremonial law cycle of studying texts from the Talmud, the canon of Jewish religious law. The event took place at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey on August 1, 2012. The event involved speeches, dancing, singing, praying and celebration

This specific video clip, unedited, was shot through the crevice of my sleeve as everyone turned to face Jerusalem and Daven.

©2012 Kieran Kesner. All Rights Reserved

 

AMAGANSETT

Dr. David J. Landes is an anthropologist studying Orthodox Jewish culture. Last Wednesday David joined 90,000 orthodox Jews in a spectacular religious ritual at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. He shared his fascinating field notes with The Talmud Blog:

Over the past several decades a new ritual has taken hold within the Orthodox community, the daily learning of a prescribed daf, or double sided page, of the Talmud Bavli. The nature of this ritual, though, has yet to be fully investigated.

[...] A genuine feeling of community was felt within the stadium. It was easy to strike up conversations with complete strangers, everyone seemed eager to share with one another where they lived and whether they were being me’sayem (completing the Talmud). The crowd was laid-back and comfortable. People mostly sat quietly and listened to the speeches, but there were many quiet conversations going on. On the playing field, where I was sitting, the aisles were filled with people milling about, chatting on their smartphones. Everyone seemed to be taking pictures. In front of the dais there was a constantly changing cluster of people jockeying for position in order to snap shots of the various gedolim (revered sages).

[...] Everyone danced or swayed in their rows, except, of course, the women who were sitting very still in their seats high up in the third tier. The work of establishing solidarity is inevitably partial and obscures the work of exclusion that is its complement. It was a given that no women could participate in the learning of daf yomi – they were thanked, though, for making it possible for their men to learn — and there were no women in the program or in the videos, including the historical footage from pre-War Europe.  

Read more at The Talmud Blog:

Solidarity and Redemption at MetLife Stadium: Notes from the Siyum Ha-Shas- Guest Post by David J. Landes

Posted on August 3, 2012 by The Talmud Blog

David J. Landes is an independant academic living in the New York area. His dissertation, which he wrote in Princeton University’s Department of Anthropology, is based on fieldwork that he conducted at Yeshiva University and in the Modern-Orthodox community.