The Body Ritual Of The Nacirema Summary

In order to understand any culture, it is essential to acknowledge the importance of taking a holistic view. This approach, which gained recognition and validation in the twentieth century, stresses the importance of accounting for all of the components of a culture. The concept requires an understanding of each subsystem, which dictates certain aspects of the culture being studied. With this theory as basis for her approach, Myerhoff is faced with the difficult task of piecing together the many parts contributing to the formation of the culture at the Center, while simultaneously recognizing the distinctions between the acting subsystems. Sometimes it seems that realizing what leads to specific cultural constructs would be extremely difficult; this is especially the case with traits that have become so naturalized that only an outsider would recognize them as distinct and significant. That said, it is obvious that there are advantages to studying a completely exotic culture, as the majority of anthropologists do; however, Myerhoff chose to do her fieldwork in a culture that is centered

In 1956 a professor from the University of Michigan, Horace Miner, wrote an article in The American Anthropologist that has become a mainstay of learning for anthropology students. Miner published the article to show a fictional exotic society called “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” as an example of how one’s own limited perspective might affect the perception of a foreign culture (Miner, 1956, p. 503). The article uses subtle humor to make the reader more comfortable in examining cultural behaviors, physical appearance, and health as the reader soon discovers that the actual society being examined is the American society. To the reader, the article begins to sound very familiar after each paragraph is

The daily ceremonies, like the rites of the holy-mouth-men, involve discomfort and torture. With ritual precision, the vestals awaken their miserable charges each dawn and roll them about on their beds of pain while performing ablutions, in the formal movements of which the maidens are highly trained. At other

In the essay “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema”, anthropologist Horace Miner depicts a group of people known as the “Nacirema”, but is referring to Americans, whose cultural beliefs are deeply rooted in the perspective that the human body is prune to sickness and disfiguration. Consequently, a substantial part of their lives is spent on unusual rituals and customs to improve conditions of the body that are filled with magical components. Moreover, Miner uses the Nacirema’s unusual culture to establish his view that we simply could not judge another culture that it is different from our own, as opposed to another anthropologist Malinowski’s point that we can judge another culture since we are

Horace Minor applied satire in his article “Body Ritual among the Nacirema.” to the culture of the American people. Several ways in which “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” relate to the core concepts of sociology are through the use of sociological imagination, ethnocentrism and cultural relativism. The American culture is described by Minor in a very unique and humorous way. The author uses satire to examine the rituals that are every day in American culture. The reader thinks at the beginning of the article that they are reading about some uncivilized tribe of people but soon realized that the “rituals” that are being performed are just everyday events that take place in every American household.

In this article, Miner takes the role of an outsider and judges the Nacirema just as we judge other cultures. Miner does an exceptional job of wording things in such a way that we don’t even recognize our own culture. Miner wants us to realize that when someone, such as an anthropologist describes another culture, we can interpret that into being abnormal but in actuality, it is, by all means, very normal.

After reading Horace Miner’s Body Ritual Among the Nacirema I cannot say that I would want to be part of the tribe. A huge reason would be that I could never go from my own Christian faith to the religious practices of the Nacirema. My second reason for not wanting to be part of the tribe is that I could never be subjected to the horrific medical practices and “magical potions” used on every citizen in the tribe.

"Body Ritual Among the Nacirema" is significant as it establishes the issue of representation in ethnography. The purpose of the article is to raise the question of how can we study a different culture from the outside and how can we understand our own culture from within. Culture can be defined in many ways, Tylor (1871) stated that culture is; “…that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” Therefore, the article presents the topic of cultural relativism, arguing that there is no impartial viewpoint from which to assess cultures, that every culture should be interpreted and understood from the

In the Body Rituals Among the Nacirema, both men and women believe that “they lack frequency.” In order for them to believe that they are to their standards and others standards perceived as beautiful, they undergo sadism and masochistic rituals performed by highly trained specialist to enhance one’s look. The people of the tribe change their bodies via enhancement to look like a representation of a doll “outside the range of human variation,” says Miner.

Clifford Geertz in “Deep Play” gives us a detailed account of the Balinese cockfight which he defines as a sociological entity and a simulation of social matrix. Persistently ignored by the natives, anthropologist and his wife were only accepted into the community after demonstrating solidarity by fleeing from the cockfight like other villagers. Through his interaction with the Balinese and observation, Geertz attempts to disentangle the meaning and nature of cockfight which appears to play a significant role in Balinese society. At first, he analyzes the cockfight from general and universal perspective, assuming that cocks are “magnifications of the narcissistic male ego”, but then considers the particularities of the Balinese culture: Its

In the third grade, I remember bringing noodles to lunch, and all of my white classmates looking at me strangely. Little did I know, Americans did not bring noodles to lunch, but rather simpler things, such as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and lunchables. Although my introduction to the western culture was nothing as close to the Ibo people’s introduction to the western culture, it is clear that different cultures often have a hard time understanding the customs of another culture. Okonkwo’s response to new western influences spreading through his clan depicts how the introduction of different cultures can lead to disagreement because of contrasting religious values and customs.

The author’s purpose in writing this article was not to show the “Nacirema” as an example of how extreme human behavior can become, but how an outside perspective can affect your perception of an alien culture. If one were to look at the “Nacirema’s” cultural behaviors regarding physical appearance and health without any insight or knowledge of the specific beliefs or values of that culture, they might seem bizarre and even incomprehensible. By showing behaviors and “rituals” performed by this unknown tribe, Miner allowed others to see that the way studies were representing distinctive cultures was narrowminded and defective. Without the proper comprehension of the basis of any society, huge cultural misunderstandings could occur. Of

Meaning and understanding is a crucial component of human communication. From a philosophical perspective, meaning can broadly be defined as the way in which the relationship of an object, idea, or word is understood – of the object’s “application to things in the world”, and how one should react to its presence or presentation (Honderich 2005). Cultural meaning refers to this form of comprehension of the significance of cultural artifacts: of cultural traditions, religion, language, objects, and documents. This relationship of understanding can be summarized into one between the signified and the signifier - where the cultural artifact is the signifier, signifying a number of perceived facts, ideas, and emotion. These relationships, however, are not intrinsic within an artifact itself; they are socially constructed, shaped by the environment, and informed by external sources. In this essay, I will explore the formation, transmission, and transformation of cultural meaning within societies, and how they interact with physical and socioeconomic environments. Through drawing examples from the study of Aboriginal cultures, I will explore the advantages and pitfalls of cultural meaning.

Watching these two videos, you can see the problems in their societies and how they are alike. The first video focusing on the culture of hunting and gathering people who have to fight to survive, and the second video focusing on the untouchables of a society. The cultural discrimination in these two cultures are unthinkable. In this essay I will compare and contrast between these two cultures and how they include our terms from the course. The difference between these two cultures is vast as one seems to be a calm and worshipping culture, where the other is violent and unorganized.

When one thinks of Bali, one will most possibly envision the white sand beaches, clear blue skies, calming water and the huge number of Western tourists there. Chances that one will jump into the idea of cockfighting in Bali villages would probably be very low. Cockfighting plays a pivotal role in the life of numerous Balinese men. As Geertz (2005), an American anthropologist suggested, cockfighting is considered as a part of “The Balinese Way of Life”. A cockfight, in a straightforward explanation, means a fight between two roosters in a caged ring until one of them dies for the amusement of spectators (PETA, n.d.). However, to Balinese men, it means so much more than this – it is an obsession that has been passed down through generations.