Nacirema
Nacirema (read backwards "American", English for "American") is a name under which the population of the United States became the subject of ethnological research.
description
It goes back to the essay Body Ritual among the Nacirema by Horace Miner , which was published in the journal American Anthropologist in 1956 . In it, Miner explained American society in a way that ethnology would otherwise describe ethnic groups. For example, he described cruel rituals in which men maltreat their facial skin with sharp blades every day (shaving) or women regularly bake their heads (hairdresser).
Readers are said to have been horrified by such body rituals of the Nacirema ethnic group without realizing that it was an abstract description of their own society. The aim of the article was to criticize current scientific notation that distorted social reality. Miner wanted to criticize how far the type of observation misses reality.
Trivia
During the Third Gulf War , US air forces used the air force base at Seeb International Airport in Oman and the resulting living area as Camp Nacirema .
literature
- Horace Miner: Body Ritual among the Nacirema . In: American Anthropologist, New Series . Vol. 58, No. 3 . Blackwell Publishing, 1956, pp. 503-507 .
- Barley, N 1993: Sad Islanders. As an ethnologist with the English, Stuttgart. (Translation)
Web links
- Body Ritual among the Nacirema at Wikisource .
- The Mysterious Fall of the Nacirema ( Memento August 7, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) from Natural History , December 1972
Individual evidence
- ↑ Michigan State University: Horrific, Sadistic, and Vulgar Rituals
- ↑ Uni Karlova (CZ): Horace Milner (English, accessed on March 30, 2012; MS Word ; 20 kB)
- ↑ https://www.dvidshub.net/image/2532875/boots-hung-far-done