Multiculturalism And The Point Of View Of Political Anthropology

Multiculturalism and the point of view of political anthropology

Introduction

The issue that I have decided to choose to perform this anthropological essay is multiculturalism, which I will discuss from the point of view of political anthropology, because I have opted to find out how cultural diversity affects legal relations between distinct countries, that is,, if any fault or crime committed by an individual is sanctioned equally in different countries.

First of all, it would not be bad to make a small paragraph at the beginning of political anthropology, which according to José A. González Alcantud in his work Anthropology (Y) Policy: On the cultural formation of power (1998: 12), "it has very precise beginnings". “Since, of the best known manuals and authors of this plot of anthropological knowledge such as Balandier, 1964;Lewellen, 1983;Vincent, 1990, it is extracted that the first ancestors of political anthropology carried out their production between 1862-1864, a time of publication of the Cité Antique de Fustel de Couulanges and Ancient Law of Henri Maine, and 1877, when I would be edited Ancient Society of LewisH. Morgan ".

In addition, José A. González Alcantud (1998: 19) points out that “Lewis H. Morgan is the first declared ethnographer, with concrete and particular incidence in political anthropology, which will do what in modern anthropological slang is known as field work ”.

After knowing the origin of political anthropology that is related to our issue, let’s go to why I have decided to choose that issue, multiculturalism.

And it is due to the interest that arouses me to know how a person’s behavior or action can be seen as "normal" and in another country, due to cultural differences between one and the other. In addition, the matter presents a certain connection with this double degree in Law and Criminology.

To carry out the development of the chosen topic, the first of all will be to try to clarify three basic concepts for the development of the anthropological essay such as the concept of norms, values and law. Next, I will present the reasons for why these three concepts are fulfilled by society, and then I will focus on the main theme, multiculturalism. This exhibition of the matter will be accompanied by a clear example of the relationship between multiculturalism and the legal. To terminate the essay I will carry out a series of conclusions about everything treated. All this based on what I learned during this last semester in the subject of Social Anthropology, and supporting me on the texts that are exposed at the end of the essay, in the bibliography.

Developing

Before immersing ourselves fully within the main theme of this anthropological essay, we should handle three concepts such as standard, values and law.

Thus, anthropologists use a notion of fairly relaxed norm, but there is a common aspect of the norm, which is, that no society has been known from them. Therefore, all societies have rules or rules that are responsible for adjusting individual and collective behaviors that impose a social order, in order to prevent conflicts in relation to a series of specific values and socio -economic situations.

From this definition, two aspects can be differentiated, one universal, referring to the fact that in all societies there are norms arising from the contrast of interests, which achieve the permanence and reproduction of the group over individual interests;And another particular aspect, which refers to the fact that there are no two societies with equivalent regulations.

Therefore, we could say that the norms are a concrete regulation that allows or prohibits a certain behavior, so our actions are conditioned. On the other hand, the values could be defined as those guides that frame and mark the direction of our behaviors, although on the contrary, they would not have a mandatory nature as are the norms, but most of us internalize them and self-object to ourselvesFulfill them, because it is what we have been imposed during our education and development, either by our families, by the State, by the authorities … becoming what "we must do".

As for the concept of law, it is understood as the set of fixed norms, decreed by a legislative body, which allow social control.

These values values, and set of norms are complied with by us, that is, by citizens, for different reasons such as: first, because we are socialized since childhood, which leads to the internalization of certain behaviors as logical and normal, and when we fulfill them, we ourselves do not consider "good citizens", "good people", so we do not contemplate their non -compliance;Second, they are fulfilled, therefore, they emanate from some authority superior to us, that is, by people and institutions with greater powers than us, citizens. By power it could be considered, according to Georges Balandier (1969: 42-43), which collects in his work political anthropology different definitions given by different authors: “As M. G. Smith, who specifies that power is the ability to effectively influence people and things, resorting to a range of means that extend from persuasion to coercion;or like j. Beattie, that for him, power is a specific category of social relations, which implies the possibility of forcing others within this or that system of relations between individuals and groups ”. G. Balandier (1969: 44) also points out that "power", which the authorities possessing us possess, "causes respect for the rules" of society, that is, of these norms and values;and finally, for the sanctions or of the whole society or part of it as a reaction against a form of conduct that is approved or censored. These sanctions can be: on the one hand, positive, where it is rewarded for the fulfillment of a certain behavior, which induces us to behave in such a way;And on the other hand, the negative sanctions, which are responsible for punishing or disapproving the behaviors of individuals. Among the latter we could differentiate between organized negative sanctions and diffuse. The former would be those that are regulated and directed by the competent authorities, while the diffuses are disorganized sanctions that express the disapproval of the whole society or part of it.

These norms and values vary according to societies, since the behavior of a person can be considered in our society as an opposite behavior, when in another society, it could be accepted as something completely normal. This, more "the waves of immigration of the last decades, have resulted in a considerable increase in cultural diversity," or in other words, there has been an increase of a great multiculturalism that as Christian Giordano points (2010: 357), has caused different “conflicts of legal order” to arise between different societies and countries.

Raúl Carnevali Rodríguez (2007: 1) also points out that "the increase in migratory flow has resultedCondition. But in addition, according to Raúl Carnevali Rodríguez (2007: 1) “the so -called multiculturalism has meant challenges for criminal law, since the valuation that a certain behavior may have will vary according to the cultural context to which the author belongs”. In other words, what an action or behavior can be sanctioned in our country, in another it is possible that it is not sanctioned or has a different sanction.

An example of what we have just dealt with, that is, how this multiculturalism affects law, we would find it in a part of Christian Giordano’s writing (2010: 359-360), where Sicily’s escape to Germany from two young people in love, being the minor girl still. But both are discovered, and the boy is accused by the Prosecutor’s Office, according to the provisions of German law, “having abduced, without the consent of his parents, a young woman under 18 who was not her fiancee, having had,Without being married to her, sexual relations, and having, by force, forced to surrender to the sexual act ". As Christian Giordano (2010: 360) points out, starting from what the German attorney, the Sicilian boy “had committed the following infractions: rape (crime), kidnapping with the victim’s consent (crime) and coercion (crime). These infractions enter into competition (perfect and imperfect) according to §§ 240 inc. 1, 238 inco. 1, 236, 177 inco. 1, 53, 52 of the Criminal Code ".

According to German law, what is available is totally correct, but it must be borne in mind that German culture is very different from Siciliana, because according to C. Giordano (2010: 360) “For decades, the bride’s abduction was a common practice in Sicily, especially when two lovers wanted to marry and one of the families opposed this union;either because they were considered too young, because they depended economically on the family or simply because they came from too different social strata. Thus, the beloved was kidnapped by her partner, sometimes even with the complicity of her family members ". “The kidnapping was often accompanied by the defloration of the young woman;However, she had to remain virgin to marriage, which is why the sexual relations she had before her marriage brought her and her family dishonor. Being inadmissible this situation, it was generally.

Therefore, the behavior of the young man, accused of such infractions according to German law, is a behavior that was common on the island of Sicily, so the boy causing the girl’s abduction, acted according to her cultural logic. In other words, the boy accused of the German State, performed such action from the point of view of the logic of his society, with a culture and customs very different from the German.

It could then be said that criminal law is the main harmed of this cultural diversity that has increased in the states, since as Raúl Carnevali Rodríguez (2007: 2) points out “the criminal legal system is built on the basis of a state”, which aims to collect "those values recognized by a society considered culturally homogeneous". So when other different cultures appear on which the criminal law of a country is based, different legal conflicts appear, since an action is considered criminal and sanctioned in a way according to the country in which it is judged.

conclusion

In spiteof images, ideas, thoughts, goods, people … between some cultures and others, which cause each society, that each culture is even more homogeneous. This phenomenon is known as globalization, causing societies to become more similar and close, giving rise, it could be said, that to greater uniformity and equality.

Also, it should be noted that international law has helped to bring positions between different countries that have different cultural origins, through a series of norms, behaviors and guidelines, leading to greater uniformity.

Despite this greater homogenization, cultural differences between different societies remain clear, so they should be taken into account at the legal level when judging actions and behaviors of those individuals who have another cultural logic.

Bibliography

• Balandier, Georges (1969), Political Anthropology, Barcelona: Peninsula Editions.
• Carnevali Rodríguez, Raúl, Multiculturalism: a challenge for modern criminal law, political. Crim. Nº3, 2007. A6, p. 1-28.
• Giordano, Christian, criminal offenses and cultural logic: the anthropologist in court, criminal control system and cultural differences, Criminal Law Yearbook 2010.
• González Alcantud, José A. (1998), Anthropology (Y) Policy: On the cultural formation of power, Barcelona: Anthropos Editorial.