In very simple terms animism could be described as a form of religion. There is much to indicate that many thousands of years ago, at the beginning of the Palaeolithic period, animism already constituted the basis of the religious behaviour of people living at that time. Today animistic forms of religion are still widely prevalent in all parts of the world among preliterate societies characterised by oral tradition, such as hunter-gatherers, planters and cattle-breeders (nomads). Traces of animism in the literature-based religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism etc.) are also not...
In very simple terms animism could be described as a form of religion. There is much to indicate that many thousands of years ago, at the beginning of...
In recent decades foreign cultures have not just loomed large for Europeans seeking holiday destinations. Since the 1960s increasing numbers of professionals such as teachers, doctors, agronomists, and other professional workers and missionaries from Europe and America have been partnering local churches in Africa, Asia and Latin America whose fellowships are often very differently organised. When preparing these specialists, development agencies and missions often overlook the knowledge and insights that ethnology and cultural anthropology have to offer, help that makes it easier for...
In recent decades foreign cultures have not just loomed large for Europeans seeking holiday destinations. Since the 1960s increasing numbers of profes...
People in non-western societies conceive of personhood and personality in ways which overlap with but are not at all identical with western (European, American) conceptions. In their desire to comprehend the concept of man belonging to different societies and cultures ethnographers mostly started from the features defining their own concept of man, including particularly their own concept of the soul, and looked for comparable elements in the culture they studied. In this way they did indeed find material which when pieced together produced something which had similarities with their own...
People in non-western societies conceive of personhood and personality in ways which overlap with but are not at all identical with western (Europe...
