This paper examines, by means of some concepts and methodological tools offered in the great œuvre of Lévi-Strauss, the mytho-logical ideologemes of certain forms of orientalism, using the example of Austria. A so-called “frontier orientalism” is contrasted against classic colonial orientalism, in order to identify its particularities. The figure of the “nearby stranger” jeopardizes the boundaries of the own, ever uncertain national identity and serves right-wing populists and neo-nationalists as an indispensable ingredient of their own aspirations.

Since independence, the Indian State has shown a voluntarist approach in the judicial domain. This has led to the introduction of severe laws against customary relations of exploitation, harassment, and discrimination that rest on caste, gender, or religious differences. While this policy has enhanced a deeper legal culture, and provoked a new legal activism within the Indian population, it has not extirpated the local relations of dominance and exploitation. This paper provides an ethnographic account of how the rape of a young girl from a lower caste in Himachal Pradesh (Northern India) was dealt with in the judicial domain. It will thus provide an analysis of the interplay between traditional power relations and new forces that oppose those power relations through the rule of law. It will show how this interplay is visible in trial, and how it interferes with criminal procedures followed by the court.

This paper focuses on the political meaning of structuralism from the point of the view of the unusual link between Marxism and Buddhism established by Claude Lévi-Strauss in the final pages of Sad Tropics. Marxism appears here as a Western attempt to start a process of social transformation that is traditionally embedded in the core of Eastern cultures. Comparing these different worlds allows Lévi-Strauss to identify an internal yet unrecognized differentiation of Western culture, and provides a remarkable example of how the structural method applies to deep cultural analysis.

Human beings are not an artificial creation nor are genetically modified organisms. They are bodies which share in life with plants and animals and which possess certain characteristics such as language and the capacity for thought which provide the freedom to attain knowledge, to project and realize intentions, to act upon the world. They inhabit a world where men and women reveal themselves as human, or conversely, as inhuman. Humans, with male and female following their own particular paths, behave according to norms specific to their group. The question which remains unanswered is whether it is possible to derive a universal ethic which is valid for all, whatever one's distinct culture might be. This paper focus on this particular issue, providing philosophical as well as literary references, taken both from the Western and the African traditions.

This paper examines the “policies of sign” developed in several African countries, describing some of the main emblems that are used to mark national or group identities: flags, coins, banknotes, and philately. It tries to bring to light the implicit narratives that belong to the way how these emblems are shaped, and draws conclusions that are relevant to the political, social, and cultural life of the involved communities.

For a half a century, Claude Lévi-Strauss multiplied statements about the demographic situation of humanity and its anthropological consequences. Those statements, often seen as shocking, were interpreted as a kind of aberration which defied rational understanding. Current opinion held was that the analysis of such idiosyncratic ideas overstepped the competence of anthropologists and historians. In fact, as shown in my text based on newly discovered archival materials, quite the opposite is true. Firstly, Lévi-Strauss became interested in demography very early in his career. Secondly, his conception of demographic trends and their effects was based on scholarly knowledge. Thirdly, far from being an idiosyncratic extravagance, his demography corresponded to widely shared concerns, central to the cultural policies of UNESCO, in which Lévi-Strauss was involved as Secretary general of the International Social Science Council (from 1952 to 1961). These facts are necessary if one is to grasp the cosmological outlook underlying the works of Claude Lévi-Strauss. The principles of Lévi-Straussian cosmology, in which demography plays an important role, are not reducible to the axioms of his structural theory. Without taking this cosmological infrastructure into account we are unable to correctly understand the moral message that Lévi-Strauss endeavoured to deliver, which concerned the extreme dangers humanity could face in the near future.

The paper examines three factors that are driving and constraining the development of rural legal services delivery in China: geographic limitation, professional interest and political intervention. Firstly, regarding geographic limitation: geography matters, and rurality creates natural barriers for rural residents in limiting the access to legal services. There is an inherent spatial inequality for rural population when it comes to the distribution of legal services, and geographic isolation and remoteness nurture a particular type of legal culture among rural residents. Secondly, regarding professional interest: professionalism matters. There are strong ideological and economic forces which pull the rural legal service providers away from their grass-roots. The calling of an emerging legal professionalism (and the related financial incentives) demands a certain degree of legal knowledge and qualification, rules of procedures, code of conduct and regularity in legal practice. In order to survive in an increasingly competitive legal market, rural legal service providers have to run legal practices as a business, considering the ‘bottom line’ and following the logic of a legal market. Finally, regarding political intervention: politics matters. To overcome geographic barriers and correct market failure, the government would need to step in to provide or supplement legal services in rural areas by introducing a public dimension of legal services. Politics may ameliorate where the legal service market fails.

This paper offers a reconstruction of Descartes's theory of the emotions, with special focus on the virtue “generosity” (générosité) which he proposed as the master virtue to help humans manage and control their desires so that they can achieve the highest level of happiness which transcends the unpredictability and arbitrariness of fate. It first provides an analysis of Descartes's notion of “divine providence,” “vain desires,” and “regret;” then proceeds to offer an investigation of “générosité” both as an emotion and as a virtue; and concludes with an examination of “générosité” as a tool to master and control the emotions.

Islamic reconciliation spaces in Burkina Faso take a significant place within the plurality of informal agencies of conflict resolution. Yet this place remains barely visible. This article studies the forms of Islamic justice in the country: it shows how the Islamic authorities dealing with the resolution of family conflicts tend to integrate the Islamic norms with local practices and the demands of justiciable persons. In the Sufi rural environment, the concept of sulufu expresses the need for a friendly conciliation that diverges from literalistic reading of the Quran. In town, the role of the ‘settlement’ plays against the proliferation of divorce: while the Islamic elites agree that the divorce is authorized within the Muslim law, in practice they refuse to endorse it. This shows the force of social injunctions in relation to marriage and to the indissolubility of the couple.

No anthropologist has been as influential outside the own discipline as Lévi-Strauss. From philosophy to history, from politics to literary criticism, from linguistics to sociology, from psychoanalysis to poetry, from art to contemporary music, the œuvre of the author of Tristes Tropiques has fallen on these fields like a beneficial rain, giving them new life. Such a great influence has several reasons. The design of a wide-ranging anthropological project, its philosophical implications, an immense and precious erudition which allows to build connections between the most different fields of humanistic and scientific knowledge, and lastly a great writing, rich of literary vibrations. All the great questions of the present, from the world's overpopulation to cultural relativism, from the resurgence of the myth to the return of localisms, from the war of the veil to genetic manipulations, all subjects appear in the œuvre of Lévi-Strauss, always in a provocative and anticipatory formulation which represents the precious heritage of the last of the classics.

This paper analyzes the interrelations of the customary practices of sulh, the reconciliation, and the work of courts of justice in Algeria and Sudan. It focuses on the idea that the courts’ work partly integrates the tradition of sulh – a practice grounded in custom and in Islamic normativities. The plurality of actors as well as of places – the place of the crime, the place of reconciliation, the court of justice – is taken into account to describe the interplay of official law enforcement and customary practices.

Geoffrey Hill's prose has prompted longstanding critical controversy, much of which turns on the perceived difficulty, intransigence and anachronism of his oeuvre as a whole. This paper proposes that new ways to navigate this controversy can be found in Hill's preoccupation with the exemplary dimensions of writing – that is, in his interest in the poet's capacity to offer examples (positive and negative) to a community of readers. The discussion pays particular attention to the connections Hill's reviews establish between style and ethical choice and between literary difficulty and democracy; connections which are intertwined with his ethics of exemplarity in fundamental ways. The paper also engages with those dimensions of literary exemple-use which emerge in new or unusual ways in his prose: his presentation of “models” or ideals for the organisation of civil society; his treatment of certain literary works as exemplars or embodiments of philosophical ideas; and his procedural tic of “sampling” regularly for the purpose of chastisement the “bad example” set by some of the works he criticises.

This paper presents the concept of transversality as a possible key notion to explain the cultural and social phenomena that are peculiar to postmodernity.

In this article I trace the events around a murder case in the regions inhabited by the Bhils in Southern Rajasthan. The manner in which the case is addressed reveals the intersection between panchayat (village councils), police and court practices. The case also demonstrates how everyday legal practices make visible political affiliations, loyalties, and associations among tribal leaders, and reveals shifts that have taken place in the local formations of power and authority.

The term ‘customary law’ has many layers of meaning when applied to the African experience. This article gives a vivid example of a practice of the Chagga people of Kilimanjaro which they regard as a matter of custom. But the paper also makes clear that the idea of customary law has had changing significance in the British colonial period, in the post-colonial present, and in anthropological theory. The article presents some of the concepts which the author has found useful in analyzing this complex topic.

This paper presents the Humanities promotion policies implemented by the Korean government in the last years. It underlines the growing importance given to these disciplines in the current context of Korea's economic development. It explains why a background in the humanities is seen as a critical tool to enhance the national capacity of compete on global scale. The main actions and programmes for the upcoming years are presented here, along with medium- and long-term plans.