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Marcel Mauss’ works on the social facts of sacrifice, gift and pray formed the fundamental concepts and theories for anthropological studies about the reciprocity between humans and gods and the contract principal in gift exchange. This paper will focus on a sacrificial ritual to mountain god in a Tibetan tribe and discuss the relations between the three concepts, to illustrate that in this kind of ritual, although sacrificesare nonliving beings rather than animals, the intensity of other steps still stay at asimilar level with classical sacrificial ritual with animal sacrifices; and in the ethics of reciprocal principal, the form of gift exchange in this sacrificial ritual shows obvious „merit“ and „karma“ values which has representativeness in Buddhist societies.
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The urbanized society through a number of technical systems changes imperceptibly the established vital processes, brings diversity and need of mobility, and spreads influence also on the subject environment. The urban society methodically forms urban life, different from the traditional one. This fact has signaled for the need of pre-school age child of application inconvenient way to explore the roots and the richness of our folklore plastic heritage with a view to rationalization of the organized educational process, the family spirituality and the traditional purity of the national community. The works of the traditional applied art are sensory image of time and are transferred into the aesthetic reality in which they are created. An appropriate model for the perception has been developer to disclose their originality, with possibilities for application in the educational practice.
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The article deals with the life of Olaudah Equiano, also known as Gustavus Vassa – one of the most prominent Africans involved in the British movement of the abolition for the slave trade in Britain in the late 18th century. His autobiography, first published in 1789, was a valuable source for the abominable slave trade as one of the few texts that presented slavery from the point of view of a victim. The author narrated about his kidnapping in Africa asa child, his sufferings during the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, his service asa slave of an officer in the British Navy for ten years and his participation in the Seven Years’ War, as well as his life after he purchased his freedom in 1766. As a free man he worked as a merchant and explorer in the New World, the Arctic, and the United Kingdom. However, he became most famous with his book which was a first-hand and vivid description of the inhumanity of slavery. It contributed to a great extent to the success of the abolitionist movement in Britain with the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807.
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As the European Union’s Strategy for people with disabilities has been extended to 2030, emphasising the need for these people’s social inclusion, which also comprises accessibility to different information and documents, Romania has to align its legislation and best practices in order to solve its problems concerning this topic. Therefore, this paper focuses on an important aspect of social inclusion, namely Easy-to-Read (E2R) language, which is paramount for the disabled people’s access to information, culture and education. It starts by presenting the concept of Easy-to-Read across Europe, its perception and implementation by various countries, to finally delve into the current situation of Easy-to-Read in Romania. By looking at the analysis and reports on the previous governmental strategies regarding people with disabilities (and especially reading disabilities, for the purpose of this paper), it can be said that Romania still faces challenges in this respect and needs to work on making documents and information accessible by first creating E2R guidelines and then implementing them in printed documents (e.g. adapted textbooks, healthcare leaflets) as well as in the electronic information (e.g. government websites). The paper also traces some future perspectives concerning Easy-to-Read in Romania, namely the Train2Validate “Professional training for Easy-to-Read facilitators and validators” (T2V) project, an Erasmus+ programme, a collaboration between various European countries, that Romania is part of, which goes one step further into helping people with reading disabilities and creating professional roles for them, i.e. facilitators and validators, in order to integrate them on the employment market. Moreover, this research will hopefully raise awareness of the importance of conducting other studies on creating Easy-to-Read guidelines and on simplifying the text according to the different target groups of people with reading disabilities or difficulties and to different text types.
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The widespread notion of a unique national humour involves an impulse to apply thecommonplace assumptions of national identity that demand uniqueness of identity, history,language and culture for a political society. What is deemed true and distinctive of the nationmust be also be true and distinctive of its national humour, goes the thinking.However, such cultural exclusivity has not been reconciled with cultural exchangesbetween nations. Paradoxically, conceptions of national humour have been formulated indynamic tension with such exchanges during the various phases of globalization that havetaken place since the 19th century. The Americanisation of humour, in particular, has been animportant component of such transmissions and resulted from the commercial popular culturedominated by America since the nineteenth century. Australia is a prime example examinedhere along with examples from Britain. To complicate matters of transmission,Americanisation sometimes arrived in Australia via Britain as well as directly from Americaitself.Australians and Britons periodically reacted against American culture, includinghumour, as a threat to national identity. But this was part of a dynamic tension played outbetween modern and traditional, imported and local in their selections and adaptations ofhumour imports from America.There is a huge and historic complexity of cultural anxiety and cultural transfer lyingbehind the apparent cultural comforts of belonging to a nation-state. Moreover, humour hasplayed its part in the continual discursive recreation of the nation in the form of constantsearches for the unique national humour of a people.
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The article is dedicated to one of the fundamental social problems – the problem of inequality in the field of education and the mechanisms of its reproduction. The author's view of the problem is related to understanding the evolution of the institute of education in the light of the accompanying scientific discourse, which usually starts with the issue of equal access to educational resources, and then emphasizes on discussing the possibilities for equality of educational outcomes. The author traces several main stages that reveal the progressive movement of the institutional nature of education, especially in the direction of expanding its accessibility, openness and efficiency, which at the same time remains firmly embedded in the existing system of stratification. Attention is paid mainly to the analysis of the way in which the institutional instruments in the form of selection and differentiation are materialized in the complex mechanisms and realities of the pedagogical process and contribute to the exacerbation of educational inequalities.
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Homi Baba, American-Indian literary theorist and philosopher of cul- ture, is one of the key figures in postcolonial theory. His original contribution is in the introduction of the terms „hybridization“, „mimicry“, „cultural difference“,„ambivalence of colonial discourse“ and „third space“, which enriches the repertoire of postcolonial theories and problematizes these theories in the key of poststructur- alist philosophies, especially those of Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault. As a postcolonial literary and cultural theorist, Baba opposes binary divi- sions of theories / policies in The Location of Culture (1994) to try to show the true meaning of postcolonial theories. Of course, in order to arrive at this new practice, it was necessary to discuss some aporia into which his thought often falls, especially to develop a complicated dialectic of the ambivalence of post/colonial discourse. In parallel with postcolonial thought, Baba develops philosophy of culture, which is thematized in the second part of the text. In the essay „DissemiNation“ (1990), as a poststructuralist-inspired thinker he does not derive a systematic transcultural theory, but only deconstructively points to the „splitting points“ of the unison-understood Culture as a monolithic and monopolistic Western narrative.
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The historical causes, genetic roots and status of elite privileges in Ancient Rome are examined. A significant part of the various economic privileges during the three main periods at that time – the Imperial period, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire – have been distinguished and substantiated. A detailed classification of the types of royal, republican, imperial and class privileges of the elite during the indicated historical era is made. The most relevant conclusions about the role of privileges in ancient Roman society and their impact on its development are also drawn.
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Confronted more and more with unemployment, deviance and anarchism, daily life in Romanian communism since the early 1970s entered a new stage of re-disciplining. This process was supposed to mold society in line with the demands required by the new ideological program announced at the 10th Congress of the PCR, „The Program for the Creation of a Multilaterally Developed Socialist Society”.Refusal to work, vagrancy, hooliganism, alcoholism, prostitution, profiteering, from and other forms of were associated with the behavior of young people. These problems were targeted by a special law, the "law of social parasitism", as it remained in the collective mind until today, so as not to contradict socialist lifestyles.The restriction of rights and freedoms, the generalized shortage did not make society an ally of this law. On the contrary, a series of antisocial practices that the population resorted to in the name of survival, often placed it under its influence.The lack of goods and food in the shops of towns and villages, the time wasted waiting for them, the poor quality of the products, together with other difficulties and humiliations of everyday existence created a „black market”, a parallel supply network based on profiteering, from overpriced goods. The lack of services, including social ones, kept alive the institution of favors, a system of relationships in which access to medical services, housing, education or a job had to be additionally rewarded in order to pass the customs of corruption in the public administration. The compression of incomes, the regimentation in increasingly difficult occupations, also destroyed the civilizing myth of work. Unemployment, non-existent in official reports, became a recurrence among the youth.The „law of social parasitism” was nothing more than a way in which the state tried to re-discipline the behavior of a generation that, for a short time, had looked through the folds of the Iron Curtain. The law countered the ideological dilemmas generated by the relaxation of the 1960s and the 1970s as well as the fallout from the severe economic recession of the 1980s.
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The aim of the study is to provide directors of educational institutions, experts from regional education departments, as well as specialists in municipalities with an accessible model for researching families with varying degrees of vulnerability with a view to more effective organization and management of learning and participation. of children and students from these families. Identifying and getting acquainted with the specific features of the living environment of communities and especially the most at-risk families between them, allows each teacher to change themselves and the educational environment to make it more inclusive and meet the individual needs of every child. The model allows every pedagogical specialist who finds himself in such a cultural and educational environment to organize and purposefully subordinate his activity to get to know the specifics of life of his graduates and put his work on a scientific basis. The research can be reproduced with each formed problem community in urban or rural environment.
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The concept of ‘public sphere’ remains one of the most disputed landmarks within the inquiries and debates upon sources and legacies of Romanian transition. Drawing on the arguments of Frazer, Hauser, and others, the present article argues that nowadays reconfiguration of the public sphere in Romania is influenced by ascent of hybrid public-private arenas enabled by a rhetorical function of the internet. The article discusses the sources, genesis context and evolutions of Romanian public sphere, tackling issues as role of diasporic communities in reshaping publics’ categories, democratic balance, and the notion of legitimacy, highlighting also possible outcomes stemmed from ongoing multiplication of modernity. The research employs a two-step methodology: the first section of the article proposes a conceptual reconstruction of the public sphere term, exploiting the peculiar casuistry of Romanian communist and post-communist scenarios, while the second part analyses the evolution prospects of public sphere in the Eastern Europe and not only.
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Focusing on two theoretical concepts, sociability, driven from Maurice Agulhonʼs theory, and social networked as developed in Georg Simmelʼs formal sociology, the present article aims to discuss the Romanian socialist circles from the 19th century in a twofold manner. On the one hand, it explores the social imaginary and the transferable social forms due to the existence of the “weak ties” (Mark Granovetter), such as clandestinity, the anti-bourgeois attitude, the idealism, and the generic portrait of the socialist. On the other hand, the article analyses the forms of life that are specific and dependent on the material spaces, shaping the particularities of different socialist groups. Such elements of shared life are, for example, the exaltation in Neculai Beldiceanuʼs cenacle from Iași, the anti-intimacy in Nădejdeʼs house on Sărărie, the farce at „Adevărul” magazine, but also the experience of drinking tea, common to the majority of the socializing groups, and the relationship between men and women, considered as the myth of the 19th century socialist movement.
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“The flea market” was a place intended for the old furniture trade, but also other items that today we generically call second-hand goods, which appeared on the Bucharest trade map in the second half of the 19th century. It was erected in a disadvantaged area, densely populated, marked by the Jewish singularity. For more than half a century(1876-1930), the activity in the flea market, coordinated exclusively by Jewish merchants,had an undeniable role in the capital’s economy. Regarding its image, it was painted in the context of new socio-political realities in the Old Kingdom of Romania, such as the awakening of nationalistic feelings and xenophobia, especially antisemitism. In the last decades of the 19th century, the “Jewish Question” became an intellectual problem with an essential political stake, the emancipation of the Jews being in an irreconcilable position with Romanian nationalism. The anti-Semitic discourse used by the political, intellectual,and cultural elite presented the Jews as unassimilable, anti-national elements that could undermine the Romanian character. Examples from the periphery of life, including the Jewish merchants in Lazăr Street and the “Flea market”, constitute the extreme otherness and a potential danger to the nation’s body, thus emphasizing the opposing nature discourse and favoring an ideology of excluding Jews from Romanian culture and society.The research aims to capture the flea market atmosphere and the image of the Jewish community nearby, as reflected in the writings of some personalities (politicians, historians,prose writers, journalists) of times past Bucharest. The perspectives exhibit a wide range of observations, from objective ones, in contrast to the circulated stereotypes, to subjective ones, filtered through emotions, all pieces of the collective mind’s mosaic. Examples in the press oscillate between fin-de-siècle anti-Semitism and the anti-Semitism of the early 20thcentury, infused with scientific claims, all using the flea market as a symbol of inadequacy for an entire ethnic community
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The theme of well-being and health through culture, heritage, and museums is already established in the European museum world, as evidenced by the fact that the International Council of Museums (ICOM)has proposed this theme as the objective for the year 2023. It is only natural, therefore, that at the national level, the subject generates discussions and interest. In this article, we aim to provide a case study regarding how this generous theme has been approached within acultural institution in Bucharest. A small museum, but one that aims to constantly evolve, the Maps Museum has initiated a project in order to explore the impact of heritage on individuals with cognitive disabilities. An insight into this endeavor might be useful for other small but enterprising museums, by showcasing the developmental journey of the idea as well as the challenges encountered.
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Starting from the exceptional importance of civil society for political/democratic theory, the paper critically analyzes its position in various theoretical discourses, trying to detect the most current changes in its understanding. Along these lines, the paper examines the premodern, modern and postmodern paradigms of civil society. The most important findings are that its interpretation must include: (1) cultural procedurality and diversity against the abstract and repressive given of the Western matrix; (2) the fact that externally controlled non-genuine non-governmental organizations of neoliberal civil society have weak support from citizens and a low level of responsibility; (3) dialogue with neo-traditional associations; and (4) the idea that civil society cannot be freed in a utopian manner from the redistribution of power, which implies its politicization, hierarchization and civil society elites.
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Numerous “free speech” platforms have been launched in recent years as a form of protest against content moderation practices on mainstream social media. This paper asks the question of how the issue of these emerging right-wing alternative social media is discursively constructed, taking as an example the Polish conservative media debate over the American service Parler and its Polish equivalent Albicla. Taking a critically discursive approach, the article provides an analysis of the discursive strategies applied, and critically embeds the findings in the broader socio-political context, as well as in the alternative media theory. The results show that, drawing on the wartime rhetoric and numerous references to Poland’s non-democratic past, the discourse creates a populist narrative of identity conflict between two opposing groups: “them” – hostile “leftists” seeking to impose a radical, progressive social order and “us” – oppressed protectors of freedom and common-sense values. The study additionally indicates that the issue is also utilised for the purposes of rivalry between domestic right-wing factions. Furthermore, the data contains frequent reference to issues of political economy and thus, intriguingly, overlaps to some extent with left-wing media critique, in that both agree on the necessity of contesting a monopolised media market and developing alternative means of communication.
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