peaceful traditions
Collective Spirit of Tristan da Cunha
A “collective spirit” still sustains Tristan da Cunha, the New York Times argues in a wonderfully illustrated story published on the Times website on May 20. The descriptive text and the photos of the island and its inhabitants are by Andy Isaacson, who spent a month there in 2009. He supplemented his investigation with recent […]
Climate Change and Peacefulness [journal article review]
Over the past ten years, policies related to climate change in the Arctic have increasingly focused on approaches that might help the Inuit adapt to the inevitability of change. Instead, some scholars have recently argued, everyone might be better off if the traditional Inuit concepts that foster peacefulness—their firm beliefs in restoring harmony and promoting […]
Altruistic Values of the Orang Asli
An anthropologist who has studied the Orang Asli for 40 years advises Malaysians to expose themselves more effectively to their lifestyles and cultures in order to better understand them. Professor Alberto Gomes argues that societies such as the Semai, Batek, and Chewong are not respected as they should be by the broader population of Malaysians—the […]
Ifaluk Atoll Has an Uncertain Future
A prominent educator from Massachusetts spent some time on Ifaluk Island 40 years ago so now he has decided to return there to live out the rest of his life. John Chittick was born and raised in the small city of Fitchburg, completed an Ed.D. from Harvard, and went on to have a career as […]
Thailand Celebrates its Peaceful Traditions
An AP report last Thursday explained that the recent protests in Thailand have been caused by deep divisions between the peaceful rural Thai and urban residents of the country. Protesters in Bangkok resent the elected government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, the sister of exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. He was driven out of […]
Buid Retain their Peaceful Society [anthology chapter review]
In a recently published article, Thomas Gibson makes it clear that the Buid still retain the “radically pacifistic and egalitarian” society that he studied from 1979 through 1981. He revisited the Buid, also spelled Buhid in many publications, again in May 2009 for the first time in many years. While a new description of Buid […]
Tristan Islanders Enjoy Excitement
The news on Tristan da Cunha, a peaceful community of less than 300 people, normally focuses on births, deaths, and weddings—and occasional changes in the local structures of authority. The island, which proudly bills itself as the world’s most isolated inhabited community, has no airport, so the arrival of ships provides special excitement for the […]
