Search Results (35)

Gacheon Village, a traditional rice-terrace community in Korea, possesses ecological, cultural, and anthropological significance but is confronted by population decline and loss of ecological function. This study investigates the interrelationship between space and human activities in a traditional village through an integrated approach involving a cognitive perspective and spatial syntax analysis. Using Lynch’s five image elements, we analyzed social and cultural meanings through cognitive maps and interviews with 25 indigenous people. We applied detailed tools of spatial syntax analysis to analyze quantitative structures associated with cognitive representations and confirmed that cognitive space and syntax analysis are mutually complementary. In particular, segment analysis revealed symbolic places that were not identified in the general axis analysis, and we confirmed that these places were based on sociocultural contexts. By encompassing the complex functions of cognitive space and the quantitative elements of syntax analysis, we hypothesize that meaningful insights into spatial characteristics and taking an integrated approach to qualitative and quantitative data can enable spatial interpretation beyond the limitations of existing studies. The results of this study can be used to establish sustainable urban planning and preservation measures that consider the cultural and environmental contexts of traditional villages. Full article

This article explores the transformative changes in Catholic liturgy during the twentieth century and their implications for the stability of religious meaning and cultural identity in the West. In critical dialogue with Chantal Delsol’s diagnosis of the decline of Christianitas, this study argues that the reform of ritual following the Second Vatican Council, rather than political entanglements, played a decisive role in weakening the public credibility of Catholic truth claims. Drawing on Roy A. Rappaport’s theory of ritual as a stabilizer of cultural meaning, the author analyzes how this postconciliar liturgical reform altered the semiotic structure of Catholic worship—shifting communication from indexical to symbolic forms and reorienting the liturgy from a vertical–concentric order to a more decentralized horizontal dynamic. The chosen method combines theoretical reflection with liturgical anthropology to assess how changes in the Roman Missal, ritual posture, and spatial arrangement disrupted the transmission of canonical messages. The conclusion suggests that this semiotic transformation undermined the liturgy’s capacity to ritually confirm the truths of faith, contributing to the broader civilizational disintegration observed by Delsol. Ultimately, this article contends that any future revitalization of Catholic culture will depend less on political influence and more on recovering the liturgy’s ritual capacity to sustain belief in transcendent truth. Full article

This paper is an introduction to the Humanities Special Issue on ‘The Phenomenology of Travel and Tourism’. It is made up of four sections, the first two of which provide the main focus of discussion. We start by considering the idea of travel ‘in comfort’, which, as we show, has been historically bound up with cultures of the mobile virtual gaze. Comfort, by this reckoning, reflects a phenomenological disposition whereby the act of gazing at an object of spectacle is understood not in purely visual terms but as a spatial and somatic prefiguring of that object as an object of spectacle. A phenomenology of comfort, we argue, steers consideration towards the way forms of travel or tourism practice reflect embodied or disembodied modes of engagement with the world. This line of enquiry brings with it the need for more fine-grained analyses of questions of experience, which is picked up and developed in the second section. Here, we examine some of the important and foundational work that has helped push forward scholarship oriented towards the development of a phenomenological anthropology of travel and tourism experiences. Accordingly, a key aim of this paper, and of the Special Issue it provides the introduction to, is to push further and more resolutely towards these ends. The third section is an overview of the nine Special Issue contributions. The paper ends with Kay Ryan’s short poem, ‘The Niagara River’, a quietly foreboding meditation on the hazards of travelling in too much comfort and of reducing the world to little more than ‘changing scenes along the shore’, all the while remaining blind to what awaits downstream. Full article

Drawing on patristic sources and modern Orthodox authors, this paper explores the paradoxes of the heart as the deepest and most hidden place of the human being. The heart can be both the highest and deepest point of an encounter with God, as well as the highest and deepest place of the secret self. The paper describes the difficulty of searching for the place of the heart in the context of the philosophies of interiority, subjectivity, and self and examines the spatial metaphors involving the centrality of the heart. The paper also considers the dynamics of purification, which places the heart at the crossroads between purifying the body and achieving the transparency of intellect through divine illumination. The heart is revealed as the coincidence of dispassion (apatheia) and the purest and most intense charity (agape), which means regaining the purity of desire (oriented to God). As a space of both hiddenness and revelation, the heart invites an apophatic anthropology. Full article

Starting from the concept of death in contemporary Serbian culture (in the context of thanatological and anthropological studies), the author focuses on the analysis of communication with the deceased in dreams, which is still perceived as an important form of contact with the otherworldly. The analysis of material collected during field research at various locations in Serbia and in Serbian communities in Romania (from 2017 to 2024), supplemented by dream narratives from the internet, has shown that based on the main messages conveyed by the deceased to the living, dreams can be divided into: (1) dreams about “the unappeased deceased” (who lack something in the otherworld, usually due to an omission by the living related to funerary rituals); (2) dreams in which the deceased show the otherworld and provide verbal assessments of it; (3) dreams in which the deceased inform of their departure or final passing into the world of the dead; (4) dreams in which the deceased demonstrate their presence in the world of the living, i.e., providing information pertaining to the sphere of the dreamer’s social reality; (5) dreams in which the deceased convey their messages, advice or warnings to the living; and (6) dreams interpreted as the deceased person’s call to the dreamer to join them in the otherworld. Basic element analysis of the spatial world image, projected via the dream, highlights the importance of the locus perceived as a border space. Dreams about the deceased seem to be ambivalent in this respect, given that, on the one hand, they are perceived as an important means of communication between this world and the otherworld, and on the other hand, through the ideas on which they are founded and that they further transmit, they are also part of the narrative strategies of the boundary between this concept of two worlds. Full article

This study delves into the profound impact and significance of religious culture on the urban spatial configuration and local cultural essence of Macau amidst contemporary societal transformations. Emphasis is placed on how religious sites undergo functional reshaping and role redefinition within the urban fabric, thereby influencing residents’ quality of life, cityscape, and cultural identity. Adopting a spatial anthropological lens, this research employs a multitude of methodologies including city walking, participatory observation, and historical analysis to investigate the spatial configurations and developmental trajectories of Macau’s diverse religious sites and their immediate environments. The aim is to unearth the historical drivers behind the formation and dissemination of religious culture in Macau and to elucidate its intricate interactions with urban space. The findings reveal that religious sites in Macau not only physically delineate unique urban spatial patterns but also serve as vital hubs for fostering local cultural cohesion and weaving social networks through routine religious practices, community engagements, and a plethora of festive and ritualistic events. The pervasive influence of these sites extends across multiple domains of society, culture, and economy, playing a pivotal role in maintaining regional stability and harmony, enriching cultural diversity, and propelling socioeconomic transformation. Full article

A spatial turn is increasingly being recognised across education, the humanities, and social sciences to critique Western Cartesian assumptions treating space as either empty or a diametric opposition bringing dualistic splits between reason/emotion and mind/body. Bacon’s vision of human subjugation of nature as a tool for human progress is examined as a diametric spatial projection, where humans are above and apart from nature, in a mirror-image inverted symmetry of above/below hierarchy and side-by-side assumed separation as diametric space. Building on an interdisciplinary synthesis between an aspect of the structural anthropology of Lévi-Strauss, De Beauvoir’s othering, and Bronfenbrenner’s social-ecological systems in psychology, allied with a Heideggerian critique of being as needing a mode of ‘being alongside the world’, a shift in experiential and conceptual space is proposed in this conceptual review article for education. This shift is towards a framework of concentric spatial systems of sustainability. Concentric relational spaces of assumed connection and relative openness and away from diametric spaces of splitting and closure have been developed recently for sustainability concerns regarding inclusion in education. This article goes further to interrogate systems of concentric relational space for belonging with and encountering the natural world for environmental sustainability. Full article

Interactions between people and large carnivores on shared landscapes can have harmful social and ecological consequences. Human–carnivore coexistence depends on an assemblage of sociological factors including effective management institutions that address the social costs of carnivore conservation and promote tolerance toward wildlife. In East Africa, large carnivores are particularly troublesome for herders who depend on livestock for subsistence and wellbeing. This paper provides an overview of human–hyena conflict in the Tarangire ecosystem of northern Tanzania. It presents descriptive results from a questionnaire survey (n = 1076) administered as part of an anthropological study (2019–2020; 2022; 2023) of human–wildlife interactions across twelve villages inhabited by Maasai agropastoralists. The survey instrument was designed through community-based participatory research methods to convey herder concerns about the impacts of spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) on the livestock economy. Based on the perceptions and local ecological knowledge of Maasai interlocutors, the paper provides an overview of the spatial and temporal patterns of human–hyena interactions. Perceived frequencies of hyena attacks on kraaled livestock were unevenly distributed geographically, with those homesteads surrounding Manyara Ranch most heavily affected. Based on herder-reported livestock losses, the costs of depredation by spotted hyenas across the study area were estimated at approximately USD 904.84 per household per year. Most homesteads lacked fortified bomas and would benefit from the provision of lights and fencing materials to improve kraal structures. The paper’s central finding is that spotted hyenas represent a pressing, everyday concern for local pastoralists. Unsurprisingly, herders despise hyenas and are intolerant of sharing landscapes with them. For carnivore conservation outside protected areas to thrive in Tanzania, conservationists and policy makers must engage more meaningfully with the lived experiences of local herders who bear the brunt of conservation costs on their livelihoods. Full article

Through an exploration of meal regulations, dining rituals, and monastic rules of Han Buddhist and Cistercian monks, this article discusses how food affects space formation, layout organization, and site selection in monastic venues using Guoqing Si and Poblet Monastery as detailed case studies. The dining rituals, such as guotang and the Refectory, transform daily routines into acts of worship and practice, particularly within the palace-like dining spaces. Monastic rules and the concept of cleanliness influence the layout of monastic spaces, effectively distinguishing between sacred and secular areas. The types of food, influenced by self-sufficiency and food taboos, impact the formation of monasteries in the surrounding landscape, while the diligent labor of monks in cultivating the wilderness contributes to the sanctity of the venues. By employing anthropology as a tool for field observation and considering architectural design as a holistic mindset, this article concludes that due to the self-sufficiency of monastic lives, monks establish a sustainable agri-food space system. This ensures that food production, waste management, water utilization, food processing, and meal consumption can be sustainable practices. Food taboos are determined by the understanding of purity in both religions, leading to the establishment of a distinct spatial order for food between the sacred and secular realms. Ultimately, ordinary meals are consumed within extraordinary dining spaces, providing monks with a silent and sacred eating atmosphere. Under the overall influence of food, both monasteries have developed their own food spatial systems, and the act of dining has transformed from a daily routine to a sacred worship. Full article

Vegetation is an important type of land cover. Long-term, large-scale, and high-precision vegetation monitoring is of great significance for ecological environment investigation and regional sustainable development in protected areas. This paper develops a long-term remote sensing monitoring method for vegetation by calculating the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) based on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud platform and Landsat satellite remote sensing images. First, based on Landsat long-term satellite images and GEE, the spatiotemporal distribution map of the NDVI is accurately drawn. Subsequently, the NDVI is accurately classified, and the time trend analysis of the NDVI is conducted based on the NDVI mean trend graphs, transition matrices, etc. Then, combined with Moran’s I, high/low clusters, and other methods, the spatial pattern characteristics of the NDVI are analyzed. Finally, climate factors, terrain factors, and anthropologic factors are considered comprehensively. An analysis of the factors affecting the evolution of the NDVI is performed. Taking Zhoushan Island, China, as an example, an experiment is conducted, and the results reveal that (1) the average NDVI exhibits a decreasing trend from 1985 to 2022, decreasing from 0.53 in 1985 to 0.46 in 2022. (2) Regarding vegetation index transitions, the high NDVI areas (0.6–1) exhibit the most substantial shift toward moderately high NDVI values (0.4–0.6), covering an area of 83.10 km². (3) There is an obvious spatial agglomeration phenomenon in the NDVI on Zhoushan Island. The high-high NDVI clusters and the significant hot spots are predominantly concentrated in the island’s interior regions, while the low-low NDVI clusters and the significant cold spots are mainly situated along the coastal areas. (4) The DEM, slope, and temperature have a greater influence among the single factors on the spatial pattern distribution of the NDVI in 2015. There are significant differences in the spatial pattern distribution of the NDVI between the temperature and DEM, temperature and slope, DEM and precipitation, slope and precipitation, aspect and population, and aspect and gross domestic product (GDP). The DEM and slope, DEM and temperature, and DEM and population are three sets of factors with a strong influence on spatial pattern interaction. This study provides data support for the scientific management of vegetation resources on Zhoushan Island and is of great significance to the sustainable development of the island region. Full article

(1) Background: Bacillus cereus biovar anthracis (Bcbva) was the causative agent of an anthrax-like fatal disease among wild chimpanzees in 2001 in Côte d’Ivoire. Before this, there had not been any description of an anthrax-like disease caused by typically avirulent Bacillus cereus. Genetic analysis found that B. cereus had acquired two anthrax-like plasmids, one a pXO1-like toxin producing plasmid and the other a pXO2-like plasmid encoding capsule. Bcbva caused animal fatalities in Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic between 2004 and 2012. (2) Methods: The pathogen had acquired plasmids in the wild and that was discovered as the cause of widespread animal fatalities in the early 2000s. Primate bones had been shipped out of the endemic zone for anthropological studies prior to the realized danger of contamination with Bcbva. Spores were isolated from the bone fragments and positively identified as Bcbva. Strains were characterized by classical microbiological methods and qPCR. Four new Bcbva isolates were whole-genome sequenced. Chromosomal and plasmid phylogenomic analysis was performed to provide temporal and spatial context to these new strains and previously sequenced Bcbva. Tau and principal component analyses were utilized to identify genetic and spatial case patterns in the Taï National Park anthrax zone. (3) Results: Preliminary studies positively identified Bcbva presence in several archival bone fragments. The animals in question died between 1994 and 2010. Previously, the earliest archival strains of Bcbva were identified in 1996. Though the pathogen has a homogeneous genome, spatial analyses of a subset of mappable isolates from Taï National Park revealed strains found closer together were generally more similar, with strains from chimpanzees and duikers having the widest distribution. Ancestral strains were located mostly in the west of the park and had lower spatial clustering compared to more recent isolates, indicating a local increase in genetic diversity of Bcbva in the park over space and time. Global clustering analysis indicates patterns of genetic diversity and distance are shared between the ancestral and more recently isolated type strains. (4) Conclusions: Our strains have the potential to unveil historical genomic information not available elsewhere. This information sheds light on the evolution and emergence of a dangerous anthrax-causing pathogen. Full article

This research concerns the issue of landscape risk due to the progressive spread of construction in rural areas through the creation of a “site-specific” analysis and evaluation model and its application to the context of the municipal area of Noto (Italy). The phenomenon of construction in rural areas was facilitated by the regulatory evolution of the Sicilian Region, which supported the construction of artifacts in agricultural areas to boost cultivation and production, but which, for the most part, was intended for seasonal residential use. In particular, the municipal territory of Noto is characterized by remarkable landscape values, including very low building density, large portions of the territory remaining almost uncontaminated, and the widespread presence of cultural and ethno-anthropological assets. Consequently, the demand for localization in rural areas, now also driven by the tendency to decongest dense urban areas in order to contain the effects of the pandemic, is a phenomenon that must be countered, on the one hand, and addressed and regulated on the other. The objective of this study is to provide the local administration with a planning tool to determine permissible interventions in various areas of the landscape context. This has guided the process of representing the phenomenon in quantitative and spatial terms, and of evaluating the territory targeted. A large set of data, coordinated in a hierarchical set of indices by means of a multidimensional valuation approach, allows us to provide an orderly and robust representation of the resilience of the landscape at risk from building pressure while considering multiple perspectives. Full article

Putting to work the dialectical concept of ‘un/mapping’, this paper examines the immateriality of cultural memory as coalescent in and around songlines: spatial stories woven from the autobiogeographical braiding of music and memory. Borrowing from Erll’s concept of ‘travelling memory’ (2011), the idea of songlines provides a performative framework with which to both travel with music memory and to map/unmap the travelling of music memory. The theoretical focus of the work builds on empirical studies into music, place and cultural memory in the form of interviews conducted across the UK in 2010–2013. The interviews were designed to explore the way peoples’ musical pasts—memories of listening to music in the domestic home, for example, or attendance at concerts and festivals, music as soundtracks to journeys, holidays or everyday commutes to work or school, music at key rite of passage moments—have coloured and given shape to the narratives that structure a sense of embodied selfhood and social identity over time. Songlines, it is shown, tether the self to spaces and temporalities that map a tangled meshwork of lives lived spatially, where the ghosts of musical pasts are as vital and alive as the traveller who has invoked them. Analysis and discussion is centred around the following questions: How should the songlines of memory be mapped in ways that remain true and resonant with those whose spatial stories they tell? How, phenomenologically, can memory be rendered as an energy that remains creatively vital without running the risk of dissipating that energy by seeking to fix it in space and time (to memorialise it)? And if, as is advocated in the paper, we should not be in the business of mapping songlines, how do we go about the task of singing them? Pursuing these and other lines of enquiry, this paper explores a spatial anthropology of movement and travel in which the un/mapping of popular music memory mobilises phenomenological understandings of the entanglements of self, culture and embodied memory. Full article

Along the Mediterranean coast of Israel, two near-shore dolphin species are prevalent; Tursiops truncatus (least concern, IUCN) and Delphinus delphis (endangered, IUCN). Ship-board surveys and sporadic sightings over the last two decades have shown that the two differ in distribution—T. truncatus is found along the entire coast and D. delphis only in the south. The environmental and anthropological factors affecting these species’ spatial distribution and determining their habitat preferences in this area are largely unknown. This work is a first attempt at summarizing 20 years of observations and studying habitat preferences for both species, by use of Generalized Additive Models. T. truncatus was found to be present in all areas of the continental shelf where survey effort coverage was sufficient, with a high affinity towards bottom trawlers. Model results showed D. delphis distribution to be associated to (shallow) water depths, though the factors driving their limited latitudinal distribution currently remain unknown. It is evident that T. truncatus and D. delphis are present in segregated areas of the Israeli continental shelf and T. truncatus currently sustains a delicate balance with continuously shifting human activities, while the drivers of D. delphis distribution are more specified, yet still not fully understood. Full article

Forests are essential for global environmental well-being because of their rich provision of ecosystem services and regulating factors. Global forests are under increasing pressure from climate change, resource extraction, and anthropologically-driven disturbances. The results are dramatic losses of habitats accompanied with the reduction of species diversity. There is the urgent need for forest biodiversity monitoring comprising analysis on $\mathsf{\alpha }$, $\mathsf{\beta }$, and $\mathsf{\gamma }$ scale to identify hotspots of biodiversity. Remote sensing enables large-scale monitoring at multiple spatial and temporal resolutions. Concepts of remotely sensed spectral diversity have been identified as promising methodologies for the consistent and multi-temporal analysis of forest biodiversity. This review provides a first time focus on the three spectral diversity concepts “vegetation indices”, “spectral information content”, and “spectral species” for forest biodiversity monitoring based on airborne and spaceborne remote sensing. In addition, the reviewed articles are analyzed regarding the spatiotemporal distribution, remote sensing sensors, temporal scales and thematic foci. We identify multispectral sensors as primary data source which underlines the focus on optical diversity as a proxy for forest biodiversity. Moreover, there is a general conceptual focus on the analysis of spectral information content. In recent years, the spectral species concept has raised attention and has been applied to Sentinel-2 and MODIS data for the analysis from local spectral species to global spectral communities. Novel remote sensing processing capacities and the provision of complementary remote sensing data sets offer great potentials for large-scale biodiversity monitoring in the future. Full article