Cell phones for the spirits: ancestor worship and ritual economies in vietnam and its diasporas

Religion has been thriving in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam since ??i m?i, the onset of market reforms in the late 1980s. Votive paper offerings, part of spiritual and economic well-being, play a crucial role in performing religious practices in the socialist country as well as among diasporic Vietnamese. In urban Hanoi, material objects made from paper are traded in marketplaces and later burned in the streets, in temples and pagodas, in private yards and other places on special occasions in order to be transmitted to the ancestors. In the past few years, the range of votive paper offerings produced, traded, and sent to the deceased has expanded to include new forms and references to new media. Drawing on recent debates in the role of media in religion and in particular on technologies of mediation, I focus on the use of votive paper offerings in the sociocultural context of the Vietnamese spirit world. I explore how new media and media technologies are embedded in multilayered processes of mediation in Vietnam and its diasporas. Taking religious practices of burning votive paper offerings as an ethnographic example, this essay aims to contribute to ongoing debates on popular religion and the sacred life of material goods in late socialist Vietnam, on its transnational ties, and on the entanglements between religion, media and materiality.     

Rearranging Things: How Protestant attitudes shake the objects in the piety of Eastern Christian Women

This article considers the objects in the piety of Lebanese women who originally come from Antiochian Orthodox and Maronite traditions and who by marriage join the Protestant Church. Objects that are normally inconspicuous – even “invisible” – in their faith collide with Protestant attitudes and are shaken by dissonant theological concepts. Yet these objects and images retain something of the holy in them and the women hesitate about their total elimination. In this murky situation, things are de-familiarized and yet re-emerge as active, flexible agents with which individual theologies are written and connections are achieved. It explains how the things that furnish the lives of these women are shifted and re-centered rather than destroyed or eliminated.     

Between the Sacred and Secular: The Role of Chinese Popular Deities in Creating Thirdspaces in Chinese Restaurants of Santiago de Chile

Abstract

Material manifestations of the Chinese popular deities, Guanyin and Guan Gong, are ubiquitous in Cantonese-Chinese restaurants globally. Yet studies of Chinese popular religion among overseas Chinese have seldom focused on the diverse significance of these deities to Chinese migrants, nor the use of restaurant-spaces to house these deities. This article examines the presence and powers of such deities in Chinese restaurants of Santiago de Chile. We seek to understand how the presence or absence of Guanyin and Guan Gong figures specifically shapes migrant Chinese restauranteurs and workers’ experience of the restaurants as particular kinds of protected, sacred/secular spaces, and how these deities might also affectively shape the restauranteurs’ ways of being and inhabiting the restaurants. Based on semi-structured interviews with Chinese shopkeepers and workers, observation and photography of the spatial organization of 26 restaurants and the aesthetics of their deities, we argue that these restaurants are more than just their primary sources of livelihood. We argue that they approximate Soja’s “thirdspaces” (1996), which on the one hand mediate their interactions with the city and its other residents, and on the other hand mediate relationships between humans in the earthly world and deities in the “other” parallel world.     

Mary's rain and god's umbrella: religion,identity, and modernity in the visionary art of a chicana painter

ABSTRACT

Heritage formation involves some kind of sacralization, through which cultural forms are lifted up and set apart. But success is not guaranteed in the making of heritage, and the cultural forms that are singled out may well fail to persuade. Heritage formation is a complicated, contested political—aesthetic process that requires detailed scholarly explorations and comparative analysis. Which aesthetic practices are involved in profiling cultural forms as heritage? What are the politics of authentication that underpin the selection and framing of particular cultural forms? To which contestations does the sacralization of particular cultural forms—in particular, those derived from the sphere of religion—give rise? Which aesthetics of persuasion are invoked to render heritage sacred for its beholders? Calling attention to various facets of the relation between heritage and the sacred, this special issue offers detailed explorations of how form, style, and appearance seek to vest selected objects and performative practices with sacrality.     

The Plymouth Rock of the American West: Remembering,Forgetting, and Becoming American in Utah

Abstract

This paper examines how Utah’s 1947 This Is The Place Monument functioned in two contradictory ways: First, it confirmed the Mormon narrative of their entry into the Salt Lake Valley as a mythic narrative about a chosen people entering into their promised land. Second, it reinforced Mormonism as one among many traditions participating in the civil religion of Utah and the American West. In its exploration of these contradictory impulses, the paper examines the intersections of historical memory and the creation of sacred space.     

A conceptual model for project management of exploration and production in the oil and gas industry: The case of a Brazilian company

The objective of this study was to obtain a better understanding of factors that influence Exploration and Production (E&P) project management success and corporate financial performance. The study follows structural equation modeling (SEM) methodology to achieve greater understanding of the intricate network of relationships between variables involved in E&P project management. A comprehensive theoretical framework was needed to formulate the conceptual basis of research. Observation of the real world and practical experiences were also important. To that end, we conducted a case study in a large Brazilian oil company. Field research was essential because of the lack of similar studies in the oil and gas sector. The model developed is a theoretical construct known as a structural and measurement model (set of latent variables, observed variables and hypotheses, depicted in a path diagram). This model contributes significantly to the company because it is a global representation of the main factors for improving E&P project management. However, the findings should be interpreted with caution because adjustment and validation of the theoretical model were not performed.     

资本、权力与空间的生产——珠三角战略地区发展路径及展望

在界定“战略地区”概念的基础上,应用新马克思主义学派“空间的生产”理论,将珠三角战略地区的发展划分为“工业化主导(改革开放至1990年代末)”、“城镇化主导(2000年代以来)”和“创新驱动主导(新时期)”三个阶段,并对各阶段战略地区“空间的生产”的背景、过程和特征进行了分析.指出战略地区是全球化和市场化背景下,地方政府城市经营的重要手段,是资本与权力联盟下“空间的生产”的典型代表.不同发展阶段和政策导向下,社会资本在不同领域的积累和循环则造就了不同类型的战略地区.战略地区的发展必须顺应客观市场规律,只有政府权力引导、市场资本投入和社会大众消费需求协调一致才能最大限度地促进战略地区的发展,从而有效带动区域经济、社会的发展.而在传统工业化和城镇化发展遭遇瓶颈的背景下,各类“创新空间”或许是今后一段时期战略地区发展的重点.     

适宜性 低耗能 多用途--陕西关中农村养殖生产建筑设计思考

针对陕西关中地区农村现代化进程中出现的大量养殖生产建筑所存在的各种问题,通过对这一地区农村现有养殖生产建筑的实地调研,提出适宜性、低能耗和多用途的新型养殖生产建筑的设计策略原则。结合当地的环境特点、经济条件、施工技术和资源特点,适当融入现代建筑技术,具体从改进养殖生产建筑平面布局,减小体形系数,减小维护结构传热系数,融入被动式太阳能系统和引入植物遮阳,减小夏季能耗等几方面进行设计,同时进行了建筑造价估算,提出在关中地区具有推广价值的养殖生产建筑的设计策略和方法。