Interpretation of Culture

Lecture # 19
3/29/17

Matted Hair Shaven Hair

A sign of being blessed by the deity, a Part of a greater institution
sign of relationship No individual choice
Who believes this? Avaude Orthodoxy came out from
Celibacy Im married to Christ theological systems, its an established
Symbol of individual choice part (rooted in system)
(obeyesekere) Castration/anti sexuality
Separation from the normative High status
society- you can jump over Asceticism
Marginal status hair denotes Separation from the normative
smelliness, and disorder society
Ascetisim
The deity is fundamentally not the
avande.
Penis (obyesekere) the
relationship bw the avande and the
deity it is the penis of the deity
whereas the husbands penis
disapppear (o is interested in the
individual doesnt want a collateral
damage like analysis)

Both are committed by deity while one is well trained, orthodoxy, educated whereas
one is illiterate, low class, etc.
Patterns
Can we identify common structural patterns in all of the cases?
o Misfortunate
o sexual
o Having to leaving home early/ isolated/unstable family
o Men are dogs
o Slow transformaition
o Uncertianity misunderstanding
o Reluctance
o Suffering
o Guilt
o Recognition
o Resolution they know who they are, people know and accept including
husband
Narrative means it has to be pattern
 Ob- 1) interested in individual things 2) these individual things are
highly similar
What does the author take from these features?
Why is husband beating or other misfortune evnets why isnt it
just particular to you?
o Fundamental threat
Not being able to go back after betraying them by
marrying a piece of shit who causes pain in the
family
You are shamed to go back, now in the wild
o
Common feature for all of them
- A repretur of things
o Criticism of Durkheim
Who states there isnt individual choice its all pre determined
o For obey- that isnt the case, there are structures, but individual choice also
reflects
A range of options allows them to distinguish between public and
private symbols
- Myth model
o Pattern ways to protest, the form that the protest is culturally patterened and
well distinct
Like in Iraq, throwing shoes as a form of protest
o If something happens to you, what to do?
Go to doctor because you have an ideology of what has happened to
you
o Pg 102
In a ritual of exorcism, a ..grand cosmic drama
A greater gramma
o 1) meaningful
culture- a broad patterned behavior r
o doesnt want a Durkheim idea
doesnt believe in the passivity of people
there is actually a wiggle room
o when something deeply personally
happens, then it becomes culturally
patterened
cultural script
creating something in common
o curses, being cursed and being shamed with the person
you find yourself with this
becoming overwhelmed
pg 110 / 111
 shared behavior creates shared action
o creating the individual passive
how could be there be any change how do you
accomdate change?
Does the possession change?
o Then what possible mechanism can
be used for this?
Then it needs to see
individual action/choices
Reconcile the distreet things that hapepend to
people authors goal
As a consequence of this trauma
o Others come and crowd in to offer an explaination
Possession by different sort of spirits
105 there are two roads to recovery
o if misfortunate happens in Sri Lanka
then you can blame socrecery,
your neighbor, sins of past life, etc.
o there are different consequences to
each of this claim
all of this about fixing the
suffering of what people are
going through and leading
them to a position
has social residences
it involves reconciliation with
the person you just offended
like offering to your mom
betel leaves and tell them
youre being possessed by a
deity if youre angry at me,
then youre mad at the deity
the authencity / the prove of this is the
matted hair
o rejected by society, you are
marginalized, you dont eat
accepting that legimtacy
publicly perform acesticstic practices, prove it
real privations
to demonstrate the legitimacy
o you can go back to your mom and affect some sort of
reconciliation
 a reintergration in society, and repairing the earlier
trauma
expeditation of guilt/shame
allowed to deal with the physical guilt withmental
exhausation
pg 104/105
o the internal conflict of the patient curing ritual
how something deeply personal can be expressed
in public others recognize and legitmate it
a means of heal an option
if culture is a set of meanings ppl set on the world
o then it is 112 religious idea of karma
karma powerful influence but doesnt provide
predictable behavior or behavioral regulateries
cultural grammar
o concept of karma cultural concept
connmon
universally believed
operating from Freudian idea we have
deep sexual yearings, we have tense forms
of anger and desires
o this si the heart of producing our
culture
to hate ones mom, to desire ones bf, to
bring suffering to someone..what does this
do to someone?
o Why is the author interested in the
move from the public to the private?
1. Theory of cultue where
individual remains central
1. always a selection of
repreteur of actions
creates a choice
1. it isnt like a force it is
always sa wiggle room
a reivison of Durkhiem
1. offers new modes of actions
allowing changes
can be seen as an acton of
encounter
o innovation happens in 2 ways
o 1) borrow a different way Hindu form for the Buddhist
imitation of the surrounding
 o 2) act of trance itself
access to divine encounters that gives you
instructions that can change whats going on
hisotircal innovation comes from cultural changes
o the root of religious actions comes from inidivudal
traumatic ideas, that is shown in dream sequences, then
becomes rootinalized into practices
o profoundly offers a way to escape the normative order a patrichical order
is the pressure to conform felt more by women
men dont see the trauma, when they run away with women
but women do when do they run away with men
o real fundamental ambivalence an interruption
threatens the social order
why sexuality is so controlled
o normative order of sexuality
cultural grammar allows a legitimate way to stand
outside of the border