Westernization

About: Westernization is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1154 publications have been published within this topic receiving 15791 citations. The topic is also known as: occidentalization.

Zulu Heritage between Institutionalized Commemoration and Tourist Attraction

Abstract: This article engages critically with an aspect of the flourishing post-apartheid heritage sector in South Africa, shaped by the confluence of conservation objectives, political agendas, and tourism development strategies. It focuses on a number of memorials and new heritage sites in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) that officially commemorate and celebrate Zulu cultural heritage. Rural KZN is home to a complex, rapidly transforming society caught between a global trend toward Westernization and official policies or community forces that promote indigenous Africanist values. This is also a society characterized by the coexistence, or more often fusion, of Christian beliefs on the one hand and traditionalist ancestral beliefs and associated ritual practices on the other. This article investigates how such cross-cultural influences affecting rural populations in KZN are reflected in the symbolic realm of monuments and memorials honoring the dead. The article first focuses on the recent trend toward the upgrading of buria...

Eating disorders in different cultures

Abstract: Summary The epidemiology of eating disorders in non-western cultures and among ethnic minorities in the west is reviewed. The evidence from case reports and the few epidemiology studies suggests that eating disorders are rare in thesepopulations. However, high rates have been found in Japan and among South Asian schoolgirls in Britain. The use of western questionnaires and western diagnostic criteria in non-western cultures raises major methodological issues. Questionnaires designed for western populations when used cross culturally, must be evaluated for linguistic, conceptual and scale equivalence. This will clan. whether the questionnaire is satisfactory, whether modifications are required, or whether a new instrument needs to be developed. The validity of western diagnostic criteria also needs critical evaluation, since eating disorders may have dtflerent characteristics in non-western cultures. The question has been raised whether eating disorders are culture bound syndromes, specific to modern western culture. High rates of eating disorders have been reported in groups undergoing rapid westernization. Whether eating disorders occur in cultures untouched by western influence is still unknown. However, there is considerable historical evidence for self-inflicted fasting syndromes occurring in Europe in previous centuries. The importance of current western attitudes towards dieting and body shape in the aetiology of eating disorders may have been over-stated.

Economic Development versus Cultural Transformation: Projects of Modernity in Japan and Turkey

Abstract: In Turkey, Japan has often been perceived as an industrial country that developed economically while keeping to its traditions. This perception has been especially strong among Islamists and conservatives who have been critical of the process of Westernization since the nineteenth century. In their view, Turkey understood modernity as imitation of Western culture but failed to industrialize. Japan, on the other hand, proved that it was possible to modernize while preserving one's tradition, religion, and culture. Hence, according to this analysis, Japan's successful transition from agrarian to industrial society was in stark contrast to the Turkish course of modernization.

Chinese Encounters with Other Civilizations

Abstract: This article is a comparison of two cases of introducing foreign faiths in China. One case is that of Buddhism being brought from Central Asia and then directly from India. This Indian faith was ad...