Spelling suggestions: "subject:"ismailites -- british columbia"" "subject:"ismailites -- british kolumbia""
1 |
Ritual and daily life : transmission and interpretation of the Ismaili tradition in VancouverDossa, Parin Aziz January 1985 (has links)
This dissertation explores, within a framework provided by tradition and change, how Ismailis in Vancouver, primarily a religious community, formerly localized and spatially concentrated in East Africa, have been affected by migration into a secular state where they are spatially dispersed. Ismaili tradition is explicated through history and a recourse to documentary materials including the Qur'an, gināns or compositions, firmāns or guidances of the Imām (spiritual leader), and the rituals of the community. The chief feature of tradition may be identified as an overarching cosmology dichotomized as zāhir and bātin, glossed respectively as material (multiplicity and activity) and spiritual (unity and repose) in strict complementarity, the parts of which are activated through a spatial and a temporal movement from and to exteriority (zāhir) and interiority (bāţin). Daily life, family, kin, community rituals and prayers at Jamā'āt Khāna (place of assembly), and the firmāns reflect the complementarities and mediate them. Change is examined in relation to the same features as well as culinary practices which, as do the rituals, further reveal the complementarities between material and spiritual and the ways in which they are mediated. The changing roles and interrelationships of elders, men and women, and youth emphasize changes taking place. The major finding of the study is that the tradition, which was a complex of strict complementarities, has now become compartmentalized, diluting the force of the complementary relationship. This appears as a function of increased participation in the "technical" time (confining social relationships) of external public life as opposed to the "core culture" time (promoting social relationships) of the internal home life of families, and in the attitudes of Ismailis who are accommodating to the larger society and are exclusive in their community life. In addition, women's entry in the public labour force, and a growing separation between youth and adults as well as elders, have significantly affected community rituals, attendance in Jamā'āt Khāna, and familial relationships. While it might be thought that new sets of dialectics are being engaged, this does not in fact appear to be the case. Contraries and contradictions, which might have been thought to imply a dialectic, remain as they were enforcing a further compartmentalization of life choices. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate
|
2 |
Pirbhai’s blessings : a narrative quest towards a pedagogy of virtuesVellani, Al-Munir 11 1900 (has links)
Metaphors of "journey" or "rootlessness" are often used to describe
movements of people across cultural and social spaces, and physical geographies.
Such journeys whilst revealing stories that speak of a people's voice, are rarely
seen as embodying an implicit quest for a narrative unity with a teleology and
pedagogy, sui generis. This inquiry focuses upon the narrative journey of one
such community of "travellers," the Indian Ismailis, who left their timeworn
homeland in the North Western region of the Indian Subcontinent at the end of
the nineteenth century and travelled to colonial Eastern Africa to make the land
their new home. In the early 1970' s , however, political unrest in this now
"postcolonial" region prompted the succeeding generations of the earlier pioneers
to once again uproot their African home and undertake yet another journey, this
time towards the so-called modern societies of Canada and other Western
countries. This historical and often turbulent intergenerational voyage of over a
hundred years is also a continuous journey of a modern selfhood in aporia as it
experiences and traverses the various institutions, practices, and milieus of
modernity, while attempting to engage with or update its own biographical
narrative.
Using the important and primary genre of shared conversations implicit
within a narrative and hermeneutical inquiry, this project acts as witness and
delves into the narratives of a diverse group of individuals from four generations
of these travellers. It is proposed that in these intergenerational conversations
and stories lie experiences and expressions of praxis that also reveal or point
towards moral enablements of practices and virtues, and arguments that make
present a "living tradition." This tradition, it is felt, can act as a significant and
inescapable horizon - a robust historical consciousness - from which a modern
selfhood in aporia can once again begin to update its own narrative as part of a
continuous story of a community with a teleology, and which the current and
future generations of these "travellers" can recognize, argue, update, and
ultimately possess as they venture purposefully into the community's shared
future.
|
3 |
Pirbhai’s blessings : a narrative quest towards a pedagogy of virtuesVellani, Al-Munir 11 1900 (has links)
Metaphors of "journey" or "rootlessness" are often used to describe
movements of people across cultural and social spaces, and physical geographies.
Such journeys whilst revealing stories that speak of a people's voice, are rarely
seen as embodying an implicit quest for a narrative unity with a teleology and
pedagogy, sui generis. This inquiry focuses upon the narrative journey of one
such community of "travellers," the Indian Ismailis, who left their timeworn
homeland in the North Western region of the Indian Subcontinent at the end of
the nineteenth century and travelled to colonial Eastern Africa to make the land
their new home. In the early 1970' s , however, political unrest in this now
"postcolonial" region prompted the succeeding generations of the earlier pioneers
to once again uproot their African home and undertake yet another journey, this
time towards the so-called modern societies of Canada and other Western
countries. This historical and often turbulent intergenerational voyage of over a
hundred years is also a continuous journey of a modern selfhood in aporia as it
experiences and traverses the various institutions, practices, and milieus of
modernity, while attempting to engage with or update its own biographical
narrative.
Using the important and primary genre of shared conversations implicit
within a narrative and hermeneutical inquiry, this project acts as witness and
delves into the narratives of a diverse group of individuals from four generations
of these travellers. It is proposed that in these intergenerational conversations
and stories lie experiences and expressions of praxis that also reveal or point
towards moral enablements of practices and virtues, and arguments that make
present a "living tradition." This tradition, it is felt, can act as a significant and
inescapable horizon - a robust historical consciousness - from which a modern
selfhood in aporia can once again begin to update its own narrative as part of a
continuous story of a community with a teleology, and which the current and
future generations of these "travellers" can recognize, argue, update, and
ultimately possess as they venture purposefully into the community's shared
future. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate
|
Page generated in 0.3051 seconds