Sociology

Theorizing suggesting that liberation requires that women avoid rather than embrace the litany of cultural rituals that in the past have served to oppress them. And yet, the field is premised on theoretical frameworks that are heavily focused in its pursuit of uncovering resistance against patriarchal orders in religious engagements of women in gender-traditional religions, thereby failing to account for the dialectical nature of such engagements. Employing Bourdieu’s theory of  habitus to investigate religious fasting practices of forty-one Bengali Hindu women, I argue that the impetus for active negotiations, that entail a more dialectical engagement with meanings of cultural rituals, is located in a set of class-based predispositions that are fostered and reinforced in the experiences and opportunities that women encounter in their daily lives. Ritualistic fasting practices of Bengali Hindu women were strongly linked to resources—both cultural and material--- at the disposal of women, especially those associated with class-gender-body expectations, practices, and inclinations which, here as elsewhere, can be viewed as forms of capital.

In general, the body as a machine requires surveillance under appropriate 'Diaetetick Management. ' Turner 1982a: 261 I eat every three or four hours -lots of vegetables and salad. I drink at least ten glasses of water.What I am doing is a kind of balanced and managed eating -you know, a kind of diet management. 20-year-old woman, sales executive in Kolkata, India (Talukdar 2012:113) These two quotations have an uncanny resemblance. In the first,Turner (1982a) documents the nomenclature "diaetetick management" that was popularized by George Cheyne, a physician in eighteenth-century England, to promote healthy eating habits among affluent British men. Cheyne's contention was that the body was like a hydraulic system and human beings must avoid a heavy diet of meat products to prevent it from clogging. The second quote is from a young Indian woman I interviewed for my study of urban, upper-middle class Indian women's dieting practices. Like many of the women I interviewed, she spoke of dieting and religious fasting as scientific practices that enabled her to become energetic and healthy (Talukdar 2012, Talukdar and Linders 2013). Similar to Cheyne's contention, the women I interviewed believed that their bodies are objects that would yield better results if subjected to the control and modification of a managed diet. In spite of being separated by a large landmass, a span of two centuries, and other obvious differences, the similarity in responses between Cheyne and the women in my study point to critical periods in modern history when cultures discover and embrace "new" sciences of body and food that promise great physical benefits. The historical moment when the women in my study were discovering new sciences of the body and diet is, however, drastically different from the time when Cheyne was writing his books on dietary restrictions based on food charts. The last several decades -starting perhaps with the discovery of the recombinant DNA (rDNA) technology in the 1970s 1 -has seen the morphing of fields of technology, engineering, medicine, and biology into one large conglomerate field, typically referred to as biomedical technological sciences (hereafter biotechnological sciences), which produce intricate knowledge of how the human body functions. In this system, 140

With western companies spreading the “never too thin” body ideal to non-western societies, many expect a global increase in the pathology of eating. This study examines the dieting and slimming practices of 27 women living in urban India. Though the women were involved in various dieting routines and wanted thin bodies, they set limits to the ideal of an ultra-thin body. Instead, the women directed their dieting and slimming practices toward embellishing their contemporary identity as educated, well-informed clients of a burgeoning health indus- try and as cultural agents responsible for protecting generational beliefs surrounding food and body. Grounding my research in theories that understand women's negotiations of their bod- ies in contexts that have been impacted by forces of globalization, yet regulated by their famil- ial worlds, I provide a culturally nuanced argument of why and how urban Indian women set limits on the ultra-thin ideal. The women used cultural strategies, or what I refer to as specu- lative modernity, that rely on traditional notions of beauty and well-being to filter and selec- tively adopt new beliefs of food and body.

With its capacity to link many people interactively across great distances, the Internet seems to be the ultimate tool for dispersed ethnic groups wishing to sustain identity in an 'alien' land and work in solidarity with those facing challenges at 'home'. Some theorists speak of the creation of diasporic public spheres arising from creative use of Internet technologies. Nevertheless, scholars working in this area rarely embed their analyses within existing work on the public sphere. In the present study I use insights from public sphere theory to evaluate participants' use of a Haiti Global Village forum. After examining Haiti Global Village, I conclude that such forums offer needed space for civic deliberation and provide a valuable infrastructure for networking. Participants' difficulty in translating these assets into an off-line project, however, highlights the importance of place-based social ties. Consideration of the experience of other Haitian forums reinforces the importance of such ties.

In recent decades, education reform has focused on student achievement and school choice as a new means of allowing non-governmental organizations to improve schooling. Who is learning and how much they are learning are the major areas of interest in George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind and Barack Obama's Race to the Top initiative with its stress on Common Core State Standards. Measures of school success are grounded in student achievement on standardized tests, with little attention given to the actual processes of schooling.

Few cities have adopted charter schools more rapidly than New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Although the Orleans Parish School Board still operates a few traditional public schools as well as its own charter schools, the Recovery School District run by the state has just become the first district in the country to have only charter schools. Many scholars regard New Orleans as an important site for studying many kinds of educational reforms, and we have done our own study of two community-oriented charter schools that opened in 2010 and 2013.

a great way to open their dialogue on the possibility of god and the supernatural. The main understanding the two are trying to reach is whether the universe and everything of existence is purely physical, or does it transcend into the realm of the supranatural. Although John and David's dialogue on religion and spirituality does become more complex as the book goes on, their first discussion is vital because it makes us ask the age old question of whether or not there is something beyond the physical-that which we can only see. The debate question of this chapter asks is there anything beyond the physical universe. David-a physicalist and a naturalist takes the negative position on the issue. David is anti-religious and believes that science can answer all of our questions relating to the universe and its mysteries. This position contrasts that of the religious John. John takes the affirmative position on the debate question and can be described as a supranaturalist. He is a supranaturalist because he ​ does ​ believe in a higher power as well as the spiritually transcendent. From the beginning of the dialogue, both philosophers challenge each other with the task of explaining their points of view. This is called " bearing the onus. " John and David's perspective differ the most in regards to their respective supranaturalism and naturalism. This simply means that John

The Inca: A Culture of Architectural and Infrastructural Excellence The ancient Inca People of modern day Peru are regarded as one of the most architecturally advanced societies in history. The Inca's complex history of land conquest, with its unique high elevation aided in its creation of successful architecture and infrastructure. Initially, shifts in climate forced populations to accommodate to their changing environments by seeking higher elevations. The results of this brought forth agricultural surpluses and enabled thriving populations to devote more time to developing infrastructure. These factors culminated into architectural and agricultural innovations that currently shed light on Incan craftsmanship. An example of Incan architecture I will be discussing is the ancient city of Phuyupatamarca or " Town of the Clouds. " Elevation is one of the major factors of the Inca's history that ultimately contributed towards its utilitarian architecture, agricultural surpluses, and its growth of infrastructure. After the fall of the Huari tribe in the 1100s due to a severe drought, the Inca was the only state left near the Andes mountain range. A survival of the fittest was necessary if they were going to survive or not. This survival of the fittest regime forced the Inca to acclimate to environmental changes by seeking higher altitudes.