what is play?
- Play is a generalized form of behavioral openness
- Openness is the ability to think about, speak about, and do different things in the same way or the same thing in different ways.
how does play aid children? (4 ways)
- Develop and practise skills needed for physical survival as adults
- Development of cognitive and motor skills
- Fosters learning and behavioural versatility (through exploration)
- Play can allow children to comment on and criticize the world of adults
what is art?
• Art is “play with form producing some aesthetically successful transformation-representation.”
What does art form relate to?
• Form relates to the cultural restrictions or rules regarding how art is carried out in time and place.
what assumptions about art are made due to ethnocentrism ?
- Ethnocentrism limits western art experts’ perspective to only view as art what fits their own definition
- Anthropologists argue that all humans have a capacity for art, but not all societies separate art from non art.
describe tattoos as an art form
- Body art: tattoos
- Range from play to ritual
- Role in identity
- Read as symbols
- Socially acceptable verses un acceptable
what is a myth?
• Recounts how the world came to be the way it is and make life meaningful for those who accept them
what is a ritual?
- A repetitive social practice, composed of a sequence of symbolic activities
- Set off from the social routines of everyday life
- Takes its power from an accepted authority, such as the state, a divine being, ancestors, etc.
what is a rite of passage?
• Rites of passage are rituals that move individuals from one position in the social structure to another.
3 stages of rites of passage
- Separation from old social position from normal time
- Transition into a position of liminality, neither part of the old nor of the new social position
- Reaggregation or reintroduction, of the individual into his or her new social position
• How are world view and symbolic practice related?
- Humans develop understandings of everyday experiences through language, play, art, myth, and ritual
- These encompassing pictures of the reality are called world views.
what are symbols?
• Can be actions, words, or images that stand for something else
what is religion?
• Anthropologists have struggled with a definition of religion that encompasses all human societies
Religion can be defined broadly as “ideas and practices that postulate reality beyond that which is immediately available to the senses”
what is witchcraft?
- Witchcraft, oracles, and magic among the Azande
- Witchcraft is the performance of magic by humans, often through innate supernatural powers, whether intentional or self aware or not.
what is magic?
• Magic involves practices designed to control aspects of the world for specific purposes.
describe azande witchcraft and magic
- Evans-Pritchard (1937) describes azande witchcraft beliefs and practices.
- Witchcraft was only countered by further magic
- To identify witches the azande consulted oracles
what may lead to a shift in one’s world view?
- Drastic changes in experience may lead people to create new interpretations:
- If confronted with a new religion, people may choose to convert
what is syncretism?
• Old and new religious practices may become synthesized through a process called syncretism
what is revitalization?
• In the face of oppression and radical transformation a more satisfying religion may be created through revitalization
what is nativism?
• Another response may be to reject new ideas and return to a former golden age through nativism
can different world views coexist?
Different world views may coexist within a given society with one becoming the official or dominant world view.
