McKim Marriott

Bio: McKim Marriott is an academic researcher from University of Chicago. The author has contributed to research in topics: Hinduism & Caste. The author has an hindex of 12, co-authored 23 publications receiving 955 citations.

Constructing an Indian Ethnosociology

Abstract: New paradigms need critical discussion, and six scholars have helpfully stepped forward (in ConrribwiollS 24, 2, 1990) to co,nment on 'Toward an ethnosociology of India' (Comribwions 23, I. 1989).' Two of these dis­ cussants, L.A, Babb and Gerald James Larson, enler deeply into the details of my own proposals. and I here respond mainly to their valuable remarks, Two others, R,S. Khare and Michael Moffatt, situate my work within their histories of Indian cultural sociology, while K,N. Sharma contributes Indological corrections, I am grateful to all these for showing where my exposition has been insufficit::nt or unclear, and I look forward to further multilateral discussion.

Village India: Studies in the Little Community.

Abstract: By reading, you can know the knowledge and things more, not only about what you get from people to people. Book will be more trusted. As this village india studies in the little community, it will really give you the good idea to be successful. It is not only for you to be success in certain life you can be successful in everything. The success can be started by knowing the basic knowledge and do actions.

Causal attribution across cultures: Variation and universality.

Abstract: Growing cross-cultural evidence suggests that East Asians are less likely to show the correspondence bias, or a preference for explanations of behavior in terms of traits, dispositions, or other internal attributes of the target. The scope of this evidence spans several research paradigms and diverse methodologies. The cultural difference, however, appears not to be caused by an absence of dispositional thinking in East Asian cultures. Indeed, extensive ethnographic and psychological data indicate that "dispositionism" is a cross-culturally widespread mode of thinking, although East Asians believe dispositions to be more malleable and have a more holistic conception of the person as being situated in a broad social context. The East-West split in attribution thus originates primarily from a stronger "situationism" or belief in the importance of the context of behavior in East Asia. Consequently, East Asians are more likely than Westerners to avoid the correspondence bias as long as situational constraints are salient.

Putting Hierarchy in Its Place

Abstract: On the face of it, an exploration of the idea of the "native" in anthropological discourse may not appear to have much to do with the genealogy of the idea of hierarchy. But I wish to argue that hierarchy is one of an anthology of images in and through which anthropologists have frozen the contribution of specific cultures to our understanding of the human condition. Such metonymic freezing has its roots in a deeper assumption of anthropological thought regarding the boundedness of cultural units and the confinement of the varieties of human consciousness within these boundaries. The idea of the "native" is the principal expression of this assumption, and thus the genealogy of hierarchy needs to be seen as one local instance of the dynamics of the construction of natives. Although the term native has a respectable antiquity in Western thought and has often been used in positive and self-referential ways, it has gradually become the technical preserve of anthropologists. Although some other words taken from the vocabulary of missionaries, explorers, and colonial administrators have been expunged from anthropological usage, the term native has retained its currency, serving as a respectable substitute for terms like primitive, about which we now feel some embarrassment. Yet the term native, whether we speak of "native categories," or "native belief-systems" or "native agriculture," conceals certain ambiguities. We sense this ambiguity, for example, in the restricted use of the adjective nativistic, which is typically used not only for one sort of revivalism, but for revivalism among certain kinds of population. Who is a "native" (henceforth without quotation marks) in the anthropological usage? The quick answer to this question is that the native is a person who is born in (and thus belongs to) the place the anthropologist is observing or writing about. This sense of the word native is fairly narrowly, and neutrally, tied to its Latin etymology. But do we use the term native uniformly to refer to people who are born in certain places and, thus, belong to them? We do not. We have tended

“Animism” Revisited: Personhood, Environment, and Relational Epistemology

Abstract: “Animism” is projected in the literature as simple religion and a failed epistemology, to a large extent because it has hitherto been viewed from modernist perspectives. In this paper previous theories, from classical to recent, are critiqued. An ethnographic example of a hunter‐gatherer people is given to explore how animistic ideas operate within the context of social practices, with attention to local constructions of a relational personhood and to its relationship with ecological perceptions of the environment. A reformulation of their animism as a relational epistemology is offered.

is homo hierarchicus

Abstract: Fluid Signs: Being a Person the Tamil Way. E. VALENTINE DANIEL. The Untouchable as Himself: Ideology, Identity and Pragmatism among the Lucknow Chamars. RAVINDRA S. KHARE. The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism. ASHIS NANDY.

Understanding early civilizations : a comparative study

Abstract: This book offers the first detailed comparative study of the seven best-documented early civilizations: ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, Shang China, the Aztecs and adjacent peoples in the Valley of Mexico, the Classic Maya, the Inka, and the Yoruba. Unlike previous studies, equal attention is paid to similarities and differences in their sociopolitical organization, economic systems, religion, and culture. Many of this study's findings are surprising and provocative. Agricultural systems, technologies, and economic behaviour turn out to have been far more diverse than was expected. These findings and many others challenge not only current understandings of early civilizations but also the theoretical foundations of modern archaeology and anthropology. The key to understanding early civilizations lies not in their historical connections but in what they can tell us about similarities and differences in human behaviour.