Orlando Patterson

Cross-National Cultural Diffusion: The Global Spread of Cricket

This article explores the dynamics of cross-national cultural diffusion through the study of a case in which a symbolically powerful cultural practice, the traditionally English sport of cricket, successfully diffused to most but not all countries with close cultural ties to England. Neither network ties, nor national values, nor climatic conditions account for this disparity. Our explanation hinges instead on two key factors: first, the degree to which elites chose either to appropriate the game and deter others from participating or actively to promote it throughout the population for hegemonic purposes; and second, the degree to which the game was “popularized” by cultural entrepreneurs looking to get and keep spectators and athletes interested in the sport. Both outcomes relate to the nature of status hierarchies in these different societies, as well as the agency of elites and entrepreneurs in shaping the cultural valence of the game. The theoretical significance of this project is thus the observation that the diffusion of cultural practices can be promoted or discouraged by intermediaries with the power to shape the cultural meaning and institutional accessibility of such practices.

Persistence, Continuity, and Change in the Jamaican Working-Class Family

One of the most difficult prob lems facing the student of culture is that of deciding whether two corresponding pat terns, separated by time and/or space, are continuous, or whether they resemble each other purely by coincidence. The problem is quite familiar to students of cultural transmission and cultural change (see Steward, 1972:88-92; Social Science Re search Council, 1954:973-1002; Heine- Geldern, 1968:169-173). Historians and sociologists concerned with social change in a general way, how ever, tend to overlook the extreme impor tance of this problem, operating, instead, within an implicitly dogmatic criterion of continuity. The object of this paper is to attempt to clarify this problem and to indicate its importance to all students of social and cul tural change. Toward this end, we propose to define and distinguish between three closely related concepts centering on the problem of correspondence, to establish reasonably rigorous criteria for using them, and finally, to indicate their importance by applying them to a case study of social change in the familial patterns of lower- class Jamaicans.

From one Out-In to another: What’s missing in Wacquant’s structural analysis

Loic Wacquant’s trenchant and much needed structural analysis owes its originality, in part, to the fact that he is an intellectual Out-In. That is, someone who observes and analyses from the perspective of both the outsider (a Frenchman who has studied ethnoracial dynamics in his native land) and an insider (a Franco-American who has studied and lived long enough in America to be able to claim true insider status). I too am an Out-In (a Jamerican who can claim equal intellectual engagement in Jamaican and American academic and social life), which is perhaps why I can better appreciate the strengths of his analysis and what is missing.

Slavery: Comparative Aspects

In the comparative study of slavery it is important to distinguish between slave holding societies and large-scale, or what Moses Finley called ‘genuine,’ slave societies. The former refers to any society in which slavery exists as a recognized institution, regardless of its structural significance. Genuine slave societies belong to that subset of slave holding societies in which important groups and social processes become heavily dependent on the institution. The institution of slavery goes back to the dawn of human history. It remained important down to the late nineteenth century, and persisted as a significant mode of labor exploitation in some Islamic lands as late as the second half of the twentieth century. Remnants of it are still to be found in the twenty-first century in a few areas. Yet it was only in a minority of cases that it metastasized socially into genuine slave societies, though in far more than the five cases erroneously claimed by Keith Hopkins. Thus, the institution existed throughout the ancient Mediterranean, but only in Greece and Rome (and, possibly, Carthage) did genuine slave societies emerge. It was found in every advanced precapitalist society of Asia, but only in Korea did it develop into large-scale slavery. All Islamic societies had slavery, but in only a few did there emerge structural dependence on the institution. In all, there were approximately 50 cases of large-scale slavery in the precapitalist world. With the rise of the modern world, slavery became the basis of a brutally efficient variant of capitalism. There were at least 40 such cases, counting the Caribbean slave colonies as separate units. This article examines two sets of problems. The first concerns those factors associated with the presence of institutionalized slaveholding. The critical question here is: why is the institution present in some societies yet not in other, apparently similar, ones? The second set of problems begins with the assumption that slavery exists, and attempts to account for the growth in significance of slavery. More specifically, such studies attempt to explain the origins, structure, dynamics, and consequences of genuine slave societies.

Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study.

Introducing a new hobby for other people may inspire them to join with you. Reading, as one of mutual hobby, is considered as the very easy hobby to do. But, many people are not interested in this hobby. Why? Boring is the reason of why. However, this feel actually can deal with the book and time of you reading. Yeah, one that we will refer to break the boredom in reading is choosing slavery and social death a comparative study as the reading material.