Cordelia Beattie
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199283415
- eISBN:
- 9780191712616
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199283415.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Medieval History
This conclusion reflects on how the power of classification resides as much in language, in dominant cultural ideas that influence and inflect language use, as with individual classifiers. Key ...
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This conclusion reflects on how the power of classification resides as much in language, in dominant cultural ideas that influence and inflect language use, as with individual classifiers. Key factors affecting the cultural construction of categories include dominant religious and legal ideas in particular historical contexts, although the specific intentions of particular texts do affect how categories are deployed. The category ‘single woman’ has been shown to interact with those of ‘maiden’ and ‘widow’, whatever language is used, from the 13th century and into the 17th century. Its analysis pointed out various paths through the labyrinthine world of social classification, illustrating the interconnectedness of medieval culture, the complex relationship between representation and social reality, and the competing and overlapping nature of social categories.Less
This conclusion reflects on how the power of classification resides as much in language, in dominant cultural ideas that influence and inflect language use, as with individual classifiers. Key factors affecting the cultural construction of categories include dominant religious and legal ideas in particular historical contexts, although the specific intentions of particular texts do affect how categories are deployed. The category ‘single woman’ has been shown to interact with those of ‘maiden’ and ‘widow’, whatever language is used, from the 13th century and into the 17th century. Its analysis pointed out various paths through the labyrinthine world of social classification, illustrating the interconnectedness of medieval culture, the complex relationship between representation and social reality, and the competing and overlapping nature of social categories.
Cordelia Beattie
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199283415
- eISBN:
- 9780191712616
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199283415.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Medieval History
This book is a focused study of the use of the category ‘single woman’ in late medieval England. In a culture in which marriage was the desirable norm and virginity was particularly prized in ...
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This book is a focused study of the use of the category ‘single woman’ in late medieval England. In a culture in which marriage was the desirable norm and virginity was particularly prized in females, the categories ‘virgin’ and ‘widow’ held particular significance. But the law gave unmarried women legal rights and responsibilities that were generally withheld from married women. The pervasiveness of religion and the law in people's day-to-day lives led to a complex interplay between moral and economic concerns in how medieval women were conceptualized. The result is different unmarried women are marked out as ‘single women’ in different contexts. This study is therefore revealing of the multiplicity of ways in which dominant cultural ideas impacted on medieval women. It also offers a way into the complex process of social classification in late medieval England. All societies use classificatory schemes in order to understand and to impose order on society. This study views classification as a political act: those classifying must make choices about what divisions are most important or about who falls into which category, and such choices have repercussions. When those classifying choose what defines a group or how an individual should be labelled, they choose between certain variables, such as social status, gender, or age, and decide which to prioritize. This study does not isolate gender as a variable, but examines how it relates to other social cleavages.Less
This book is a focused study of the use of the category ‘single woman’ in late medieval England. In a culture in which marriage was the desirable norm and virginity was particularly prized in females, the categories ‘virgin’ and ‘widow’ held particular significance. But the law gave unmarried women legal rights and responsibilities that were generally withheld from married women. The pervasiveness of religion and the law in people's day-to-day lives led to a complex interplay between moral and economic concerns in how medieval women were conceptualized. The result is different unmarried women are marked out as ‘single women’ in different contexts. This study is therefore revealing of the multiplicity of ways in which dominant cultural ideas impacted on medieval women. It also offers a way into the complex process of social classification in late medieval England. All societies use classificatory schemes in order to understand and to impose order on society. This study views classification as a political act: those classifying must make choices about what divisions are most important or about who falls into which category, and such choices have repercussions. When those classifying choose what defines a group or how an individual should be labelled, they choose between certain variables, such as social status, gender, or age, and decide which to prioritize. This study does not isolate gender as a variable, but examines how it relates to other social cleavages.
Beth A. Conklin
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520228511
- eISBN:
- 9780520935815
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520228511.003.0007
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Anthropology, Global
This chapter draws a parallel between Amazonian rituals of death and life to the killing of people, and how people can transcend or regulate biological forces of morbidity and mortality. A number of ...
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This chapter draws a parallel between Amazonian rituals of death and life to the killing of people, and how people can transcend or regulate biological forces of morbidity and mortality. A number of ethnographers have noted that the South American warriors' seclusion involves cultural ideas and practices similar to those surrounding menstruation, pregnancy, or childbirth. A key link between the experiences of women and of warriors is the idea that all these processes involve blood flowing across body boundaries, and that the individual must control or deal with this blood properly. The chapter focuses on the notions of body, power, and gender invoked by the enemy killing rites. “Pseudo-procreative” imagery is a recurrent theme in initiation rituals worldwide and in men's maturation rituals in particular. Finally, thw chapter emphasizes that men's rituals cannot be analyzed in isolation. Female and male rites are interrelated, so that analysis should focus on this complex whole.Less
This chapter draws a parallel between Amazonian rituals of death and life to the killing of people, and how people can transcend or regulate biological forces of morbidity and mortality. A number of ethnographers have noted that the South American warriors' seclusion involves cultural ideas and practices similar to those surrounding menstruation, pregnancy, or childbirth. A key link between the experiences of women and of warriors is the idea that all these processes involve blood flowing across body boundaries, and that the individual must control or deal with this blood properly. The chapter focuses on the notions of body, power, and gender invoked by the enemy killing rites. “Pseudo-procreative” imagery is a recurrent theme in initiation rituals worldwide and in men's maturation rituals in particular. Finally, thw chapter emphasizes that men's rituals cannot be analyzed in isolation. Female and male rites are interrelated, so that analysis should focus on this complex whole.
Michael Goebel
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846312380
- eISBN:
- 9781846317149
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846317149
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This book is a challenging new study about the production, spread, and use of understandings of national history and identity for political purposes in twentieth-century Argentina. Based on extensive ...
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This book is a challenging new study about the production, spread, and use of understandings of national history and identity for political purposes in twentieth-century Argentina. Based on extensive research of primary and published sources, it analyses how nationalist views about what it meant to be Argentine were built into the country's long-drawn-out crisis of liberal democracy from the 1930s to the 1980s. Eschewing the notion of any straightforward relationship between cultural customs, ideas, and political practices, the study seeks to provide a more nuanced framework for understanding the interplay between popular culture, intellectuals, and the state in the promotion, co-option, and repression of conflicting narratives about the nation's history. Particular attention is given to the conditions for the production and political use of cultural goods, especially the writings of historians. The intimate linkage between history and politics, it is argued, helped Argentina's partisan past of the period following independence to cast its shadow onto the middle decades of the twentieth century. This process is scrutinized within the framework of recent approaches to the study of nationalism, in an attempt to communicate the major scholarly debates of this field with the case of Argentina.Less
This book is a challenging new study about the production, spread, and use of understandings of national history and identity for political purposes in twentieth-century Argentina. Based on extensive research of primary and published sources, it analyses how nationalist views about what it meant to be Argentine were built into the country's long-drawn-out crisis of liberal democracy from the 1930s to the 1980s. Eschewing the notion of any straightforward relationship between cultural customs, ideas, and political practices, the study seeks to provide a more nuanced framework for understanding the interplay between popular culture, intellectuals, and the state in the promotion, co-option, and repression of conflicting narratives about the nation's history. Particular attention is given to the conditions for the production and political use of cultural goods, especially the writings of historians. The intimate linkage between history and politics, it is argued, helped Argentina's partisan past of the period following independence to cast its shadow onto the middle decades of the twentieth century. This process is scrutinized within the framework of recent approaches to the study of nationalism, in an attempt to communicate the major scholarly debates of this field with the case of Argentina.
Jane B. Tornatore
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226734125
- eISBN:
- 9780226734118
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226734118.003.0008
- Subject:
- Sociology, Urban and Rural Studies
This chapter presents a case study of the failure of newcomers to make significant influence on the rural town of Splitville, Illinois. It discusses the struggle between village status groups ...
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This chapter presents a case study of the failure of newcomers to make significant influence on the rural town of Splitville, Illinois. It discusses the struggle between village status groups motivated by nonmaterialistic issues of cultural ideas, respect and dignity and suggests that Splitville represents perhaps a worst-case contested-territory scenario for a postagrarian community. This chapter argues that what has occurred in Splitville represents a lost opportunity in the transforming of rural countryside because the death of a sense of community seems to have been hastened, rather than reversed, via the transformation by newcomers.Less
This chapter presents a case study of the failure of newcomers to make significant influence on the rural town of Splitville, Illinois. It discusses the struggle between village status groups motivated by nonmaterialistic issues of cultural ideas, respect and dignity and suggests that Splitville represents perhaps a worst-case contested-territory scenario for a postagrarian community. This chapter argues that what has occurred in Splitville represents a lost opportunity in the transforming of rural countryside because the death of a sense of community seems to have been hastened, rather than reversed, via the transformation by newcomers.
