Nacirema

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Various sociologists have used the term Nacirema to examine (with a degree/pretense of anthropological self-distancing) aspects of the behavior and society of American people — citizens of the United States of America. The word Nacirema offers a form of word play by spelling "American" backwards.

1 Body Ritual Among the Nacirema
2 The Mysterious Fall of the Nacirema
3 Nacirema vs Teamsterville
4 External links
5 Bibliography

[edit] Body Ritual Among the Nacirema

Body Ritual Among the Nacirema satirizes anthropological papers on "other" cultures, and the culture of the United States. Horace Miner wrote the paper and originally published it in the June 1956 edition of American Anthropologist.

In the paper, Miner describes the Nacirema, a little-known tribe living in North America. The way in which he writes about the curious practices that this group performs distances readers from the fact that the North American group described actually corresponds to modern-day Americans. The article sometimes serves as a demonstration of a gestalt shift with relation to sociology.

Miner presents the Nacirema as a group living in the territory between the Canadian Cree, the Yaqui and Tarahumare of Mexico, and the Carib and Arawak of the Antilles. The paper describes the typical Western ideal for oral cleanliness, as well as providing an outside view on hospital-care and on psychiatry.

Miner's article became a popular work, reprinted in many introductory anthropology and sociology textbooks. The article itself received the most reprint permission requests of any article in American Anthropologist, but has become part of the public domain. [1]

Some of the popular rituals of the nacirema include: Medicine Men and Women Facial Modification Ritual Shrine Box Mouth-Rite Ritual

[edit] The Mysterious Fall of the Nacirema

In 1972 Neil B. Thompson revisited the Nacirema after the fall of their civilization. Thompson's paper, unlike Miner's, primarily offered a social commentary focused on environmental issues. Thompson paid special attention to the Elibomotua Cult and their efforts to modify the environment.

The high esteem of the cult is demonstrated by the fact that near every population center, when not disturbed by the accumulation of debris, archeologists have found large and orderly collections of the Elibomotua Cult symbol. The vast number of these collections has given us the opportunity to reconstruct with considerable confidence the principal ideas of the cult. The newest symbols seem to have nearly approached the ultimate of the Nacirema's cultural ideal. Their colors, material, and size suggest an enclosed mobile device that corresponds to no color or shape found in nature, although some authorities suggest that, at some early time in the development, the egg may have been the model. The device was provided with its own climate control system as well as a system that screened out many of the shorter rays of the light spectrum.

The above refers to an automobile.

[edit] Nacirema vs Teamsterville

Gerry Philipsen (1992) studies what he terms "speech codes" among the Nacirema, which he contrasts with the speech codes of another semi-fictionalized group of Americans, the inhabitants of Teamsterville. His Nacirema comprises primarily middle-class west-coast Americans.