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36552 results in Social and population history

Page 196 of 1828

  • CSS volume 57 issue 2 Cover and Back matter

  • Journal:
    Comparative Studies in Society and History / Volume 57 / Issue 2 / April 2015
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    20 March 2015, pp. b1-b5
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  • Sovereign Violence: Temple Destruction in India and Shrine Desecration in Iran and Central Asia

  • A. Azfar Moin
  • Journal:
    Comparative Studies in Society and History / Volume 57 / Issue 2 / April 2015
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    20 March 2015, pp. 467-496

  • Was the destruction of Sufi and ‘Alid saint shrines as a rite of conquest in Iran and Central Asia a phenomenon comparable to the desecration of temples in war in India? With this question in mind, this essay examines the changing nature of Islamic kingship in premodern Iran and Central Asia and compares it to developments in Indic kingship. It begins with the thesis that the decline of the caliphate and the rise of Muslim saints and shrines in thirteenth-century Iran and Central Asia led to a new form of “shrine-centered” sovereignty practiced by the rulers of these regions. This development, in turn, gave rise to a notable pattern in which Muslim kings threatened or attacked the shrines of their enemies’ patron saints in times of war. A focus on this ritual violence, which remains neglected in the studies of Islamic iconoclasm and jihad, reveals how the protocols of violence and accommodation that governed these Muslim milieus became analogous to those enacted by Indic kings who also sacked temples of rival sovereigns in times of war. With the spread of Muslim shrines and the related belief that the “real” sovereign was not the caliph but the enshrined saint, Islam and Hinduism developed comparable grammars of “gifting” and “looting.” This argument allows for a new, transcultural perspective to examine the premodern history of India, Iran, and Central Asia, connected by the rise of Muslim saints and their shrines.

  • Nationality Medicines in China: Institutional Rationality and Healing Charisma

  • Lili Lai, Judith Farquhar
  • Journal:
    Comparative Studies in Society and History / Volume 57 / Issue 2 / April 2015
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    20 March 2015, pp. 381-406

  • This article describes emergent Chinese regimes of knowledge about “minority nationality medicines.” We adopt Weberian terms of rational and charismatic authority to better understand ethnic healing as it is developing among minorities in southwestern China. In the course of uneven development among diverse ethnic groups over recent decades, modern information regimes and institutional models have started to transform the many forms of healing and heritage that can be found “on the ground” in minority areas. We delineate a shifting border between official (or rational) and wild (or charismatic) forms of medicine, and argue that every healing situation results from a dynamic and sometimes destructive relation between these forms of authority. We draw from research conducted among seven minority nationalities scattered in five provinces in China's south and southwest. After an overview of relevant scholarly work that circulates nationally, we discuss views and practices of three healers belonging to Zhuang, Tujia, and Yao groups, respectively. Ultimately we suggest that all healing, including that taking place in biomedical clinics, relies on some contact with “the wild,” and forges a relationship between rationality and charisma.

Page 196 of 1828