Cultural Anthropology for Missions

CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY FOR MISSIONS
M.M.NINAN
Among the unconscious communications are shaking with fear.
trembling with emotion, crying for joy or sorrow, ecstatic utterances
as talking in tongues under spirit, perspiring under anxiety etc.
Those communications that involve muscle or body movement are
called kinesis communications. Eye contacts also communicate.
Staring, keeping eye contact continuously, looking down to avoid
eye contact, avoider: eye contact, smiling while looking, winking the
eye, twinkling the eye etc are all kinesis communications forms.
There are movements of the body which convey meaning. Where
and what part of the body may be moved in what fashion is
conventional. Dancing forms (permissible and non permissible and
conditional forms), also praying patterns, singing movements etc
are also conventions.
Proxemic communications implies distance, territory and perception
of these on the part of the participants. Standing patterns can be
intimate, personal and public. How far a person may approach
another without violating their person? In intimacy of course a
person may move closer, but otherwise there is a conventional
distance to be maintained.
A boy and a girl may not stand too close facing each other in public,
but they may stand side by side touching each other. All these are
determined by the culture.
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