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The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on November 18, 2009). Thesis advisor: Dr. Signe Cohen. Includes bibliographical references.

One hundred years ago, Max Weber postulated in his seminal work The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism that after a tremendous development, capitalism would either reach a dead end, or would enter a new era of development through the guidance of new prophets (Weber, [1904] 2003:182). The tremendous development foreseen has occurred but have Weber’s new prophets appeared? Through a close analysis of the context in which the word prophet is found in the Bible and through the description that Weber gave to the concept of prophet in The Sociology of Religion (Weber, 1963) a prophet’s ideal type was constructed with fourteen specific characteristics. This ideal type was then used as a grid of analysis to put to the test the nineteen most renowned leadership gurus, potential candidate to the title of prophet.

This dissertation is an ethnography about the men and women who take up the practice and performance of a Hindustani (North Indian) drum called tabla, as a way of life. Learning tabla means that percussionists must find a guru, a learned master of the tradition who will guide them in their life long study of this instrument. The relationships formed between gurus and disciples are distinctively different in kind from teacher-student relations in Western knowledge systems. The guru-disciple tradition is a very specific, culturally dependent mode of learning originating from the Indian Brahmanical tradition of religious study. Discipleship is a form of apprenticeship which offers no easy translation, philosophically, culturally or spiritually. My ethnography and analysis of tabla as a way of life is presented from my own situated perspective as a tabla disciple of two tabla masters, Ustad Alia Rakha Khan, his son Ustad Zakir Hussain and as a visiting tabla enthusiast with another teacher of tabla, Ritesh Das. I offer a multi-local ethnography which centres on tabla communities based in Bombay, India, Toronto, Ontario, Vancouver, British Columbia, Seattle, Washington and the Bay Area of California. As tabla travels around the globe, outside of India, the learning and teaching of this tradition changes somewhat in its new environments. However, learning to play tabla whether in Indian or diaspora cultures necessitates adopting Indian ways of knowing, learning and being. For those musicians of non-Indian ethnicity who become dedicated to this art form learning tabla also means learning to embody Indian cultural ways of doing and knowing. I posit that learning the cultural, as in learning tabla, begins in the body and the embodied mind. Knowing through and with the body requires re-conceptualizing anthropological concepts of culture, memory and tradition. Grounding an analytic concept of the body in the emerging critical Anthropology of the Body and the Anthropology of the Senses allows for an examination of the social as something more than cognitive and language based.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Canterbury, 2007. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (p. 406-429) and index. Also available via the World Wide Web.

This dissertation is an ethnography about the men and women who take up the practice and performance of a Hindustani (North Indian) drum called tabla, as a way of life. Learning tabla means that percussionists must find a guru, a learned master of the tradition who will guide them in their life long study of this instrument. The relationships formed between gurus and disciples are distinctively different in kind from teacher-student relations in Western knowledge systems. The guru-disciple tradition is a very specific, culturally dependent mode of learning originating from the Indian Brahmanical tradition of religious study. Discipleship is a form of apprenticeship which offers no easy translation, philosophically, culturally or spiritually. My ethnography and analysis of tabla as a way of life is presented from my own situated perspective as a tabla disciple of two tabla masters, Ustad Alia Rakha Khan, his son Ustad Zakir Hussain and as a visiting tabla enthusiast with another teacher of tabla, Ritesh Das. I offer a multi-local ethnography which centres on tabla communities based in Bombay, India, Toronto, Ontario, Vancouver, British Columbia, Seattle, Washington and the Bay Area of California. As tabla travels around the globe, outside of India, the learning and teaching of this tradition changes somewhat in its new environments. However, learning to play tabla whether in Indian or diaspora cultures necessitates adopting Indian ways of knowing, learning and being. For those musicians of non-Indian ethnicity who become dedicated to this art form learning tabla also means learning to embody Indian cultural ways of doing and knowing. I posit that learning the cultural, as in learning tabla, begins in the body and the embodied mind. Knowing through and with the body requires re-conceptualizing anthropological concepts of culture, memory and tradition. Grounding an analytic concept of the body in the emerging critical Anthropology of the Body and the Anthropology of the Senses allows for an examination of the social as something more than cognitive and language based. / Arts, Faculty of / Sociology, Department of / Graduate

Nos anos 1990, o mercado editorial brasileiro observou a ascensão dos livros de autoajuda entre eles os livros de autoajuda voltada a negócios às listas de livros mais vendidos. Fortemente criticados no início de sua ascensão pela grande mídia, esses livros não só enxamearam as listas de mais vendidos nos anos 1990, como conquistaram o status de nicho editorial no Brasil, com sucesso até os dias de hoje. O sucesso e a emergência desse nicho foram compreendidos, nesse trabalho, através da teoria dos campos. Com base nessa teoria, analisaram-se as posições dos atores incumbentes (autores e editores), suas estratégias para obter e manter as posições dominantes no campo, bem como as relações por eles travadas com outros campos, pertinentes para o desenvolvimento do nicho editorial. A agência de certos autores de autoajuda, os gurus, constitui-se como elemento-chave para entender o triunfo desses livros no mercado editorial brasileiro. Gurus são atores socialmente hábeis que tornaram possível a emergência desse novo mercado. Eles são autores de livros de autoajuda, consultores e palestrantes que têm em seus livros apenas um dos meios para legitimar suas ideias perante o seu público. Através do estudo da trajetória de um guru brasileiro conhecido (Roberto Shinyashiki), percebe-se que a conjunção de suas estratégias, atividades e maneiras de apresentar a si mesmo lhe permitiram construir sua reputação como guru, o que, combinado com seu trânsito contínuo entre o mundo editorial e corporativo, e suas atuações na mídia, tiveram papel chave na emergência deste nicho editorial no Brasil dos nos 1990. / On the 1990s, Brazilians editorial market watched the rise of self help books including light business to the best sellers book charts. Initially harshly criticized by the main press, these books not only pullulated in the charts on the 1990s, but have gathered the status of an editorial niche in Brazil, successful to this day. The success and the emergency of this editorial niche were understood in this research through field theory. Based on this theory, the positions of the incumbents actors (authors and editors), as well as their strategies to gain and maintain dominants positions on the field and their relations to other fields pertinent to its development were analyzed. Certain self-help books authors agency was perceived as a key element to understand the triumph of these books on Brazilians editorial market. Gurus are social skilled actors that made possible the emergence of this new market. They are the authors of self-help books, consultants and speakers, whom use their books as only one of their means to legitimate their ideas to their audience. Through the study of one well-known Brazilian guru trajectory (Roberto Shinyashiki), it is shown how the conjunction of their strategies, activities and self-presentation has acquired him his reputation as a guru, which, combined with his continuous transit throughout editorial and corporative worlds and his performances on media, play key roles to the emergence of a new editorial niche in the 1990s on Brazil.

Nos anos 1990, o mercado editorial brasileiro observou a ascensão dos livros de autoajuda entre eles os livros de autoajuda voltada a negócios às listas de livros mais vendidos. Fortemente criticados no início de sua ascensão pela grande mídia, esses livros não só enxamearam as listas de mais vendidos nos anos 1990, como conquistaram o status de nicho editorial no Brasil, com sucesso até os dias de hoje. O sucesso e a emergência desse nicho foram compreendidos, nesse trabalho, através da teoria dos campos. Com base nessa teoria, analisaram-se as posições dos atores incumbentes (autores e editores), suas estratégias para obter e manter as posições dominantes no campo, bem como as relações por eles travadas com outros campos, pertinentes para o desenvolvimento do nicho editorial. A agência de certos autores de autoajuda, os gurus, constitui-se como elemento-chave para entender o triunfo desses livros no mercado editorial brasileiro. Gurus são atores socialmente hábeis que tornaram possível a emergência desse novo mercado. Eles são autores de livros de autoajuda, consultores e palestrantes que têm em seus livros apenas um dos meios para legitimar suas ideias perante o seu público. Através do estudo da trajetória de um guru brasileiro conhecido (Roberto Shinyashiki), percebe-se que a conjunção de suas estratégias, atividades e maneiras de apresentar a si mesmo lhe permitiram construir sua reputação como guru, o que, combinado com seu trânsito contínuo entre o mundo editorial e corporativo, e suas atuações na mídia, tiveram papel chave na emergência deste nicho editorial no Brasil dos nos 1990. / On the 1990s, Brazilians editorial market watched the rise of self help books including light business to the best sellers book charts. Initially harshly criticized by the main press, these books not only pullulated in the charts on the 1990s, but have gathered the status of an editorial niche in Brazil, successful to this day. The success and the emergency of this editorial niche were understood in this research through field theory. Based on this theory, the positions of the incumbents actors (authors and editors), as well as their strategies to gain and maintain dominants positions on the field and their relations to other fields pertinent to its development were analyzed. Certain self-help books authors agency was perceived as a key element to understand the triumph of these books on Brazilians editorial market. Gurus are social skilled actors that made possible the emergence of this new market. They are the authors of self-help books, consultants and speakers, whom use their books as only one of their means to legitimate their ideas to their audience. Through the study of one well-known Brazilian guru trajectory (Roberto Shinyashiki), it is shown how the conjunction of their strategies, activities and self-presentation has acquired him his reputation as a guru, which, combined with his continuous transit throughout editorial and corporative worlds and his performances on media, play key roles to the emergence of a new editorial niche in the 1990s on Brazil.

O objeto desta dissertação são as atividades motivacionais modernas, ou seja, atividades voltadas para a criação de um estímulo em indivíduos que, supõe-se, necessitam de um sentido para seu trabalho e/ou sua vida. Tais atividades demandam interrupções da rotina e uma reflexão sobre a própria trajetória do praticante, e há uma oferta variada de produtos com esse fim, oferecidos por empresas especializadas. Neste trabalho nos concentramos em analisar palestras motivacionais, um grupo de encontro de fim de semana chamado Leader Training e o coaching associado à programação neurolinguística (PNL). Buscamos realizar observações participantes, entrevistas e análises de material de divulgação, livros, vídeos e sítios da internet a fim de conseguir apreender essas práticas em suas diversas facetas. Nossa análise e interpretação buscou compreender os mecanismos e estratégias dessas atividades para construção de sua eficácia, por meio de narrativas e performances que buscam realinhar as intenções dos participantes com uma noção convencional de sucesso e felicidade, observando as diferentes maneiras como o discurso científico é acionado e o religioso é sutilmente sugerido na elaboração de seus conteúdos. Operando comparações das descrições de campo com a teoria antropológica, em intersecção com uma análise baseada nos pressupostos dos science studies na sua forma de conceber o moderno em suas simetrias com o não-moderno, acreditamos ter contribuído com a ampliação do olhar sobre o objeto. / The object of this dissertation are the \"modern motivational activities\", i.e. activities aimed at creating an incentive in individuals who, one assumes, require a meaning to their work and/or their life. Such activities require routine interruptions and a reflection on the participants own trajectory, and there is a wide range of products for this purpose, offered by specialized companies. In this dissertation, we focus on analyzing motivational talks, a weekend group meeting called Leader Training and coaching associated with Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). We seek to conduct participant observation, interviews and analysis of promotional materials, books, videos and websites in order to be able to understand these practices in its various facets. Our analysis and interpretation sought to understand the mechanisms and strategies of these activities to build their effectiveness through narratives and performances, that seek to realign the intentions of the participants with a conventional notion of success and happiness, noticing the different ways in which scientific discourse is triggered and the religious is subtly suggested in the development of its contents. We believe that we have contributed to broaden the view on the subject, operating comparisons of field descriptions with the anthropological theory, in intersection with an analysis based on the assumptions of Science Studies in their way of conceiving the modern in its symmetries with the non-modern.

O objeto desta dissertação são as atividades motivacionais modernas, ou seja, atividades voltadas para a criação de um estímulo em indivíduos que, supõe-se, necessitam de um sentido para seu trabalho e/ou sua vida. Tais atividades demandam interrupções da rotina e uma reflexão sobre a própria trajetória do praticante, e há uma oferta variada de produtos com esse fim, oferecidos por empresas especializadas. Neste trabalho nos concentramos em analisar palestras motivacionais, um grupo de encontro de fim de semana chamado Leader Training e o coaching associado à programação neurolinguística (PNL). Buscamos realizar observações participantes, entrevistas e análises de material de divulgação, livros, vídeos e sítios da internet a fim de conseguir apreender essas práticas em suas diversas facetas. Nossa análise e interpretação buscou compreender os mecanismos e estratégias dessas atividades para construção de sua eficácia, por meio de narrativas e performances que buscam realinhar as intenções dos participantes com uma noção convencional de sucesso e felicidade, observando as diferentes maneiras como o discurso científico é acionado e o religioso é sutilmente sugerido na elaboração de seus conteúdos. Operando comparações das descrições de campo com a teoria antropológica, em intersecção com uma análise baseada nos pressupostos dos science studies na sua forma de conceber o moderno em suas simetrias com o não-moderno, acreditamos ter contribuído com a ampliação do olhar sobre o objeto. / The object of this dissertation are the \"modern motivational activities\", i.e. activities aimed at creating an incentive in individuals who, one assumes, require a meaning to their work and/or their life. Such activities require routine interruptions and a reflection on the participants own trajectory, and there is a wide range of products for this purpose, offered by specialized companies. In this dissertation, we focus on analyzing motivational talks, a weekend group meeting called Leader Training and coaching associated with Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). We seek to conduct participant observation, interviews and analysis of promotional materials, books, videos and websites in order to be able to understand these practices in its various facets. Our analysis and interpretation sought to understand the mechanisms and strategies of these activities to build their effectiveness through narratives and performances, that seek to realign the intentions of the participants with a conventional notion of success and happiness, noticing the different ways in which scientific discourse is triggered and the religious is subtly suggested in the development of its contents. We believe that we have contributed to broaden the view on the subject, operating comparisons of field descriptions with the anthropological theory, in intersection with an analysis based on the assumptions of Science Studies in their way of conceiving the modern in its symmetries with the non-modern.