Lifeway is a term used in the disciplines of

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...

and

archeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

, particularly in North America.

History

Literature

From the mid 19th century, the word was used with the meaning 'way through life' or 'way of life'. It appears, for example, in literary contexts in the stories of

Clara Lee Clara Lee (; born Lee Sung-min () on 14 January 1985), better known by her mononym Clara, is a Swiss-born British actress and model based in South Korea. Career Clara (born Lee Sung-Min，李成敏) made her entertainment debut under her birt ...

and

Rose Porter Rose Porter (December 6, 1845 - September 10, 1906) was an American religious novelist who wrote or edited more than 70 books. Biography Porter was born in New York, New York, December 6, 1845. Her father, David Collins Porter, was a wealthy N ...

, in the verse of Frank L. Stanton, and in editor and politician

Edgar Howard Edgar Howard (September 16, 1858 – July 19, 1951) was a Nebraska editor and Democratic politician. He was the 15th lieutenant governor of Nebraska and served six terms in the United States House of Representatives. Early life and education ...

's opinion pieces on other political figures.

Anthropology and archeology

Arthur C. Parker Arthur Caswell Parker (April 5, 1881 – January 1, 1955) was an American archaeologist, historian, folklorist, museologist and noted authority on Native American culture. Of Seneca and Scots-English descent, he was director of the Roc ...

, American archaeologist of

Seneca Seneca may refer to: People and language * Seneca (name), a list of people with either the given name or surname * Seneca people, one of the six Iroquois tribes of North America ** Seneca language, the language of the Seneca people Places Extrat ...

and Scots-English descent, was one of the earliest to use the term in reference to Native American ways of life, saying in an article published by the Binghamton Press in 1930, "Our key to the future is locked in the life-ways of our Indian predecessors". Use of the term in anthropology was established with the publication of

Morris Edward Opler Morris Edward Opler (May 3, 1907 – May 13, 1996), American anthropologist and advocate of Japanese American civil rights, was born in Buffalo, New York. He was the brother of Marvin Opler, an anthropologist and social psychiatrist. Morris ...

's 1941 study ''An Apache Life-Way: The Economic, Social, and Religious Institutions of the Chiricahua Indians''.
Recent explanations of the term in the field of Native American and other Indigenous studies "suggest the close interaction of worldview and economy in small-scale societies". The word 'lifeway' "emphasizes the road of life as indigenous people see it. Such a perspective can be associated with the concept "worldview," a distinct way of thinking about the cosmos and of evaluating life's actions in terms of those views", and focuses on "an interpretive effort to express indigenous understandings of human-earth relations as an interactive and pervasive context that outsiders might label religion."

Sociology

The field of sociology also adopted the word 'lifeway', with one sociologist explaining that "the definition of status differences and the conceptualization of lifeway patterns ... reflect the central significant of economic referents;" "each lifeway pattern would appear .. as a linked values system

hich Ij ( fa, ايج, also Romanized as Īj; also known as Hich and Īch) is a village in Golabar Rural District, in the Central District of Ijrud County, Zanjan Province, Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also ...

... would exhibit customs, sanctions, habits, and meanings". Urban as well as rural lifeways could be analysed and described (for example, a 1950 thesis on ''A Sociological Analysis of the Chicago Skid Row Lifeway'').

References

Anthropology Cultural anthropology Sociological terminology Urban economics Anthropological linguistics {{word-stub de:Lebensweise

History

Literature

Anthropology and archeology

Sociology

See also

References