Over the past three decades, the veterinary profession has faced a cultural shift towards postspeciesism that requires a reassessment of the foundations of the existing distinctions between human and ...non-human animals proclaimed by the speciesism paradigm, which represents institutionalized discrimination against species and recognizes only the subjectivity of humans. Based on ethnographic observations in anthropological fieldwork and using speciesism/postspeciesism distinction, we aimed to explain the main causes of small animal practitioners’ work-related stress and apply humanistic knowledge to recommend ways to alleviate the negative effects of the work environment. The explanatory model of disease, illness, and sickness, the example of the concept of family, and the circumstances of the feminization of the veterinary profession are discussed to illustrate the divergence between speciesist naturalistic veterinary knowledge and the postspeciesist cultural framework and its consequences. By failing to accommodate the changing values towards animals and by failing to challenge the anthropocentric hierarchy of values, the speciesist rationale of the veterinary profession contributes to many of the problems faced by practicing veterinarians. The incorporation of a modern moral-philosophical mindset towards animals may not even be possible because veterinary science is subject to a paradigm that is irreversibly tied to institutional discrimination against species and defies reflection on veterinary science itself. However, the veterinary profession has a privileged position in establishing an alternative ontological thinking and an alternative conception of “animal life.” Anthropological knowledge was applied to anticipate further intervention of social and cultural sciences in the problems of small animal practitioners. Rather than further diversifying and increasing expectations towards veterinarians by expecting them to acquire additional skills, we propose another practitioner who can support, mediate, and enhance veterinary performance – the cultural anthropologist. With their deep knowledge of cultural differences and social dynamics, they can collaborate with veterinarians to act as a liaison between cultures, paradigms, and species.
Predisposing factors for different types of urinary tract infections (UTI) were evaluated and prevalence of causative agents and their resistance were identified. A prospective epidemiologic study ...(2007 to 2012) included 191 dogs with signs of urinary tract disease. Anamnestic data were collected and clinical examination, abdominal ultrasonography, urinalysis and aerobic bacteriologic urine culture were performed in all dogs. Other diagnostic procedures were conducted when indicated. UTI was more common in neutered female dogs, older dogs and dogs with concurrent diseases. Using culture as the gold standard, sensitivity of urine sediment examination to detect bacteriuria increased from 89.9% to 98.1% with staining and specificity increased from 69.8% to 96.4%. A single species of microorganism was isolated in 90.7%. Most common causative agents of UTI were E. coli (39.0% of isolates), staphylococci (27.3% of isolates), Proteus sp. (13.5% of isolates), and enterococci (8.5% of isolates). Prevalence of the causative agents varied in regard to sex and concurrent diseases. The causative agents were in 29.4% susceptible to all tested antimicrobials and were multi-drug resistant in 27.7%. All methicillin resistant Staphylococcus pseudintermedius (MRSP) strains were isolated in 2010-2012. Resistant bacteria were more common in dogs previously treated with antimicrobials. Due to increased specificity and sensitivity of urine sediment examination, staining the sediment in practice is mandatory. Data on uropathogens and their resistance in regard to concurrent diseases is of crucial importance for diagnosis, treatment and prevention of complications in dogs with UT. Wide intercountry variability in bacterial susceptibility has been confirmed. Also, the onset of MRSP urinary strains in the country has been identified.
In the article, we compare the interpretational paradigms of conspiratorial, magical and scientific reasoning. We conclusively demonstrate that rationalism, scientific progress and the postmodern ...condition did nothing to prevent people from mystical, irrational and paranoid reasoning, which is embodied in conspiratorial thought. To the contrary, it is our thesis that the conspiratorial ideation is, in the final analysis, actually a full blown realization of the ideals of the scientific Enlightenment, one of the few still ordered, uniform and in ternally coherent ways of th inking in "disenchan ted" societies of the West. There exists a greatly generalized paranoid attitude that, as we will show, can contextualize and/or elucidate the tendency of an ever rising conspiratorial ideation. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
This paper compares the (cultural) necessity of death/dying, perceived as a sequence of Imaginary—Real—Symbolic, to Van Gennep's three-staged rite of passage. If this logic is disrupted, the subject ...responsible necessitates attribution of special social status and can come to embody the imagery of a life worth living. This philosophical framework, which includes epistemologies borrowed from medical anthropology, demonstrates there is more for humans to lose than biological (Real) life; a far greater loss is to exist without (Symbolic) reason to live. A critique of prevalent quantitative methodology in assessing links between spirituality and the human body is added.
Theoretical psychoanalysis, as developed from Jacques Lacan to Slavoj Zizek, provides us with adequate conceptual tools to rethink Obama's political rhetoric as a postmodern marketing discourse, ...which aims not at fulfilling consumers' needs and/or satisfying their demands but rather aims at a discursive entrapment of their desire and/or its phantasmatic scenario. The article analyses the 2008 and 2012 Obama presidential campaign, and his renown Cairo speech by demonstrating the three catchphrases Yes We Can!, Hope, and Forward! as embodiment of the three unconscious scenarios of the American dream. The three sound bites are designated as master-signifiers of Obama's empty speech, the Lacanian concept that enabled understanding the ups and downs of the zeal and spell of the charismatic Obama Effect.
V prispevku poročamo o rezultatih analize medijskega pojavljanja kandidata in kandidatke na parlamentarnih volitvah 2018 v dveh slovenskih dnevnoinformativnih tiskanih medijih v obdobju dveh mesecev ...in pol pred volitvami in o rezultatih etnografske analize javnega komuniciranja obeh z volivci in volilkami na javnem dogodku. Na osnovi rezultatov ugotovljamo, koliko se kažejo odstopanja v medijskem poročanju o kandidatki in kandidatu ter kako je artikulacija spola del njune kampanje. Na podlagi nekaterih pozitivnih tendenc v slovenskem političnem prostoru smo predvidevale, da bo medijsko poročanje manj seksistično, kot je bilo v preteklosti. To lahko na podlagi kritične diskurzivne in besedilne analize medijskega poročanja tudi potrdimo, vsaj za Delo, manj za tabloidne Slovenske novice. Rezultati etnografske metode spremljanja pa kažejo, da igra spol veliko vlogo v javni predstavitvi politikov in političark ter odnosu javnosti do njune prisotnosti.
The Scientific Content Analysis (SCAN) was – despite its name –
often reproached for not being enough or not at all “scientific”. Sapir and
his followers tried to demonstrate its scientific validity ...by relying mainly
on statistics and psychology. This article proposes a different approach:
in the first step epistemologically rethink SCAN through the humanistic
science of linguistics as founded by de Saussure and further developed by
Jakobson, Derrida and others – while in the second step enhance it with
theoretical psychoanalysis in the variant of Ljubljana’s Lacanian School
of Psychoanalysis. All the theoretical work of the first part of this article
will be then tested on a case study taken from Slovenian contemporary
murder investigations, the so-called “Radan case”.
Mana-type concepts are a key socioanthropological approach to cosmological analysis & to the broader system of mental hypotheses of so-called primitive peoples. Mana is viewed in accordance with ...religious & magic systems & in relation to gifts & similar concepts. A literature review examines anthropological explanations, which are largely unsuccessful in exhausting &/or synthesizing all the implications & ethnographic features of the mana-type concept. Attention is focused on Claude Levi-Strauss's The Elementary Structures of Kinship (1949) & other structuralist works. His introduction of theoretical linguistic methods & later psychoanalytical approach established a uniform position for mana within his overall system where it became a condition for the activity of symbolic thought, comparable to the position enjoyed by the floating marker in linguistics & the desire motive in psychoanalysis. 83 References. Adapted from the source document.
