Search results for "Anthropology"

Consultation in Traditional Medicine and Western Medicine for Cases of Rite of Passage During Epidemics A Medical Anthropological Study

By G. A. A. N. Srishan, P. N. Abhayasundere, A. A. J. Jayasiri

During the epidemic season, the normal daily life of people changes completely. In order to control the spread of disease, people have to move from their familiar lifestyles. In an epidemic situation, the instructions given to control the disease in Western medicine are issued to the people in a legal form. For example, the laws imposed by the health sector for things like lockdown, and quarantine can be mentioned. Other health tips are made known to the public using various media. In the past, this situation takes a different form. In many cases, the traditional medicine emphasizes the ways in which people’s lifestyles should change during an epidemic, through rituals and cultural social practices. Apart from marriage, other rites of passage cannot be postponed due to an epidemic situation. A birth, a puberty, and a death should be done hygienically, even in an epidemic situation, following restrictive practices. What are traditional and Western medicine recommendations to deal with cases of human rites of passage during the epidemic? What are their similar inequalities? These are the research questions of this research. This research aims to comparatively study the advice given in traditional medicine and Western medicine in performing rites of passage cases during the epidemic period. This study falls within the descriptive research category, which is situated between social science and anthropology research. Colombo district and Monaragala district of Sri Lanka were selected as the study area of the research and 05 traditional practitioners and 05 Western medicine doctors from one district were selected as the total sample of 20 data contributors under the purposive sampling method. According to this research, it seems that during epidemic conditions, more attention was given to dealing with health advice for birth, puberty, marriage and death. Restrictions on rituals, food preparation, and even other routine practices can be seen in both traditional and Western medicine. Similarities can be seen in traditional and Western medicine when it comes to imposing social restrictions. Nonetheless it can be concluded that these restrictions are directed to the people in the form of rituals related to cultural characteristics in the traditional system, and in legal form as health advice in the Western system.

The Digital Buddhism: Modern Decisive Moment in Sri Lankan Popular Buddhism

By W.K.M. Wijayarathna, P.N. Abhayasundere, P.M. Jayaweera, D.M.K.G.K. Dissanayake

Culture is a rich and comprehensive term that is dynamic and always developing rather than stagnant. Religion, a fundamental component of culture, includes beliefs, rituals, values, and a higher power that control human conduct and society’s purpose. This paper attends to interpret the transformation of Sri Lankan Buddhism through the impact of digitalization. The study’s fundamental research question is how to create a complete Digital Buddhism manifestation from popular Buddhism in a cultural anthropological background, and the main research objective is to provide a new definition for the modern popular Buddhism in Sri Lanka, impacted by digitization. As a qualitative exploratory research based on qualitative data, the interpretive paradigm was utilized by the researchers with a phenomenological research design. As a theoretical foundation, the first principle of digital anthropology (dialectic nature of digital culture) proposed by Daniel Miller and Heather Horst in 2012 was applied. Key cases from digital platforms pertaining to digital Vesak celebrations were purposively selected and critically analyzed to achieve the research objectives. According to the key findings of this research we concluded that the modern popular Buddhism of Sri Lanka promptly changing due to the impact of digitization and the existing cultural change can be examined through the principles of digital anthropology. As a conclusion of the research, we identified the prominent academic gap in contributing new knowledge in modern Sri Lankan Buddhism. This study paves the path for numerous new research subjects in humanities, social sciences, and etc.

Dhamma Sermon and Popular Buddhism within the Confront of Digitization

By Mr. W.K.M. Wijayarathna

Along with era 4.0 digitalization involves several aspects of modern social context and religion is one of the prominent. When it comes to Sri Lankan popular Buddhism numerous changes can be identified through digital platforms like social media. This research attends to understand the evolutionary patterns of Buddhist Dhamma sermons applying two cases selected from Facebook. Attaragama Pragyalankara Thero, also known as “Kotuwe Podi Hamuduruwo” is a key figure which emphasizes the characteristics of modern popular Buddhism. Two posts regarding his propagations of Dhamma browsed through random Facebook pages applied to understand the characteristics of the modern evolutionary process of Buddhism. The main objective of this study is to introduce a new-found model for digital religious studies by utilizing digital anthropological knowledge to understand the digital behavior of Sri Lankan religious contexts. For the analysis of this phenomenon researcher applied the 5th principle of digital anthropology named, ambivalence and the principle of openness and closure, proposed by Daniel Miller and Heather Horst in 2012 through their work titled, “Digital Anthropology”. Different patterns in language, as well as the variations compared to traditional Dhamma sermons identified through literature, were identified from the data collected from the relevant posts. As an examination based on qualitative data, this research considered various literature to fulfill the research gap. One of the key conclusions that arise from the research is that digital anthropological knowledge is a way to understand modern popular Buddhism. Comparing traditional customs with modern-day and analyze them utilizing digital anthropological principles emphasize the evolutionary patterns of contemporary Dhamma sermons.