When Science Sheds Light on History by
Did Richard the Lionheart really die from a simple crossbow wound, or was there foul play? Who are the two infants buried in Tutankhamun's tomb? Could a skull found in a tax collector's attic be the long-lost head of Henri IV? In When Science Sheds Light on History, Philippe Charlier, the "Indiana Jones of the graveyards," travels the globe to unravel these and other unsolved mysteries of human history. To get answers, Charlier looks for clues in medical records, fingerprints, and bloodstains. He reconstructs the face of Robespierre from masks molded from his body after death and analyzes charred bones to see if they really are Joan of Arc's. He discovers lethal levels of gold in the hair and bones of King Henry II's mistress Diane de Poitiers, who used gold salts to "preserve her eternal youth." Charlier also pieces together the stories of people whose names and lives have long been forgotten. He investigates Stone Age graves, medieval necropolises, and museum collections. Playing the role of both crime-scene investigator and forensic anthropologist, Charlier diagnoses a mummy with malaria, an ancient Greek child with Down syndrome, and a stately Roman with encephalitis. He also delves into ancient miracles and anomalies: a mute boy able to speak after making sacrifices to the gods, a woman pregnant for five years, and a serpent that cured a broken toe with its tongue. Exploring how our ancestors lived and how they died, the forty cases in this book seek to answer some of history's most enduring questions and illustrate the power of science to reveal the secrets of the past.
Embodying Cape Town by 
Sasanian Persia by
The Sasanian Empire (3rd -7th centuries) was one of the largest empires of antiquity, stretching from Mesopotamia to modern Pakistan and from Central Asia to the Arabian Peninsula. This mega-empire withstood powerful opponents in the steppe and expanded further in Late Antiquity, whilst the Roman world shrunk in size. Recent research has revealed the reasons for this success, notably population growth in some key territories, economic prosperity and urban development, made possible through investment in agriculture and military infrastructure on a scale unparalleled in the late antique world. Our volume explores the empire's relations with its neighbours and key phenomena which contributed to its wealth and power, from the empire's armed forces to agriculture, trade and treatment of minorities. The latest discoveries, notably major urban foundations, fortifications and irrigations systems, feature prominently. An empire whose might and culture rivalled Rome and foreshadowed the caliphate will be of interest to scholars of the Roman and Islamic world.Challenges our Eurocentric world view by presenting a Near-Eastern empire whose urban culture and military apparatus rivalled that of Rome . Covers the latest discoveries on foundations, fortifications and irrigation systems. Includes case studies on Sasanian frontier walls and urban culture in the Sasanian Empire
Undead Uprising by
Tracking the zombie from Hollywood back to its origins in the voodoo folklore of Haiti. There are zombies among us! From the rotting hordes of TV's The Walking Dead to the blockbuster nightmares of World War Z and 28 Days Later, our popular culture is overrun with the ravenous undead. But where do these strange creatures come from, and what peculiar tales of mesmerism, freemasonry, pig sacrifice and revolution would they tell if they could talk? Artist and writer John Cussans tracks the zombie from Hollywood back to its origins in the voodoo folklore of Haiti, a Caribbean island with a history that is a strange composite of fact and fantasy in the long struggle for independence from colonial intrusion. Turning a keen eye on the way Haiti has provoked mysterious images in the popular culture of the twentieth century, Cussans asks how the sensational imaginings of William Seabrook, Graham Greene, and Wes Craven, among others, have served to inform impressions of the country on the world stage, and in turn, how these representations might have influenced the way that Haiti formulates an image of itself. Cussans weaves fascinating stories from the most significant moments of the country's past, through the slave uprisings of the Bois Ca#65533;man in the eighteenth century to Papa Doc Duvalier's reign of terror in the 1960s and beyond. At once a visceral analysis of dubious racial myth, pop-cultural history and philosophical provocation, Undead Uprising asks how ecstatic ritual, voodoo possession, zombie labourers, and meddling spirits have come to meld Haiti's f national identity for better or worse.
Computing Bodies by
Claude Draude analyzes embodied software agents - interface solutions that are designed to talk back and give emotional feedback - from a gender and media studies perspective. She addresses technological and sociocultural concepts in their interplay of shifting the boundary between what is considered as human and what as machine. The author discusses the technological realization of specific personality models that define the design of embodied software agents - emotion and gaze models, in particular. Finally, she explores these models in their broader cultural context by relating them to the prominent topic of the Turing test and the notion of the Uncanny Valley.
Afflictions by
This book is one of the first to integrate psychological and medical anthropology with the methodologies of visual anthropology, specifically ethnographic film. It discusses and complements the work presented in Afflictions: Culture and Mental Illness in Indonesia, the first film series on psychiatric disorders in the developing world, in order to explore pertinent issues in the cross-cultural study of mental illness and advocate for the unique role film can play both in the discipline and in participants' lives. Through ethnographically rich and self-reflexive discussions of the films, their production, and their impact, the book at once provides theoretical and practical guidance, encouragement, and caveats for students and others who may want to make such films.
Monastic Wanderers by
How have the premodern Shaiva ascetic sect of the N#65533;th Yog#65533;s (known also as the Yog#65533;s with splitted ears) succeeded in maintaining its presence and importance until today? This book intends to give a general survey of this samprad#65533;ya which is said to have been founded by the Siddha Gorakhn#65533;th, known for his strong link to Ha#65533;ha Yoga. However, rather than to Yoga, the history and expansion of the N#65533;th sect are linked to its rich legendary corpus. Dealing first with the marks of belonging (such as the huge earrings worn by the fully initiated Yog#65533;s) which give the sect its unity, the book then focuses on its organization and explores the dialectics between the wandering Yog#65533;s and the monastic settlements. The N#65533;th monasteries belong to two categories: the pa#65533;c#65533;yati ma#65533;hs, collectively owned and managed by the sectarian authorities, which ensure the permanency of the sect, and the n#65533;j#65533; ma#65533;hs, owned on a personal basis and transmitted from guru to disciple, which permits innovative initiatives The book gives a detailed account of two pa#65533;c#65533;yati monasteries, the Kadri Ma#65533;h of Mangalore where its head#65533;s enthronement is spectacularly performed every twelve years, and the Caughera Ma#65533;h of Dang Valley in Nepal, the royal foundation of which gives a glimpse of the complex relationships that can exist between monasteries and kingdoms. It then focuses on three n#65533;j#65533; ma#65533;hs: Amritashram in Fatehpur (Rajasthan), Ashtal Bohar in Rohtak (Haryana) and the Gorakhpur mandir (UP). Each of them shows a different mode of adaptation to a modern context and attests of the present importance and continuity of this pluri-secular tradition of asceticism.
The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines by
Figurines dating from prehistory have been found across the world but have never before been considered globally. The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines is the first book to offer a comparative survey of this kind, bringing together approaches from across the landscape of contemporaryresearch into a definitive resource in the field. The volume is comprehensive, authoritative, and accessible, with dedicated and fully illustrated chapters covering figurines from the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australasia and the Pacific laid out by geographical location and written by the foremost scholars in figurine studies; whereverprehistoric figurines are found they have been expertly described and examined in relation to their subject matter, form, function, context, chronology, meaning, and interpretation. Specific themes that are discussed by contributors include, for example, theories of figurine interpretation, meaningin processes and contexts of figurine production, use, destruction and disposal, and the cognitive and social implications of representation. Chronologically, the coverage ranges from the Middle Palaeolithic through to areas and periods where an absence of historical sources renders figurines "prehistoric" even though they might have been produced in the mid-2nd millennium AD, as in parts of sub-Saharan Africa. The result is a synthesisof invaluable insights into past thinking on the human body, gender, identity, and how the figurines might have been used, either practically, ritually, or even playfully.
Tides of innovation in Oceania : value, materiality and place by 
Ways of Seeing, Ways of Being by
The aim of this volume is to give voice to the various and different perspectives in the investigation of tourism discourse in its written, spoken, and visual aspects. The chapters particularly focus on the interaction between the participants involved in the tourism practices, that is the promoters of tourist destinations, on the one hand, and tourists or prospective tourists on the other. In this dialogic interaction, tourism discourse, while representing and producing tourism as a global cultural industry, shows it to be on the move. Language movement in the tourism experience is here highlighted in the various methodological approaches and viewpoints offered by the investigations gathered in this volume.
War in the Blood by
First published in 1998, Chris Beyrer's ground-breaking work War in the Blood provides a vivid and eye-opening account of the HIV epidemic in Southeast Asia, drawing on the author's extensive experience working and travelling throughout the region. Since its original publication, significant gains have been made in HIV prevention, but the region continues to face profound challenges in both the treatment and containment of the disease. The new edition looks beyond Southeast Asia to compare the region's experience of HIV with that of Russia, North Africa, and elsewhere, and broadens the analysis to include migration and the experiences of the trans community. The author is one of the leading experts on HIV prevention, with extensive experience both across Southeast Asia and around the world. Drawing on Beyer's own experiences working to promote HIV prevention in Burma, the book provides a powerful look at the human impact of the virus, while charting significant recent developments and the challenges ahead.
Zika by
The Zika virus has devastated lives and countless communities, leaving children across the Americas with severe disabilities as a result of the epidemic. Nowhere has this devastation been more deeply felt than in Alagoas, a small rural province in northeast Brazil. It was here that the most recent outbreak was first identified before spreading across the continent and beyond, with the region's poverty providing fertile ground for the Zika-bearing mosquitoes. In this thought-provoking and poignant work, anthropologist and filmmaker Debora Diniz travels throughout northeastern Brazil, tracing the virus's origin and spread while observing its powerful impact on local communities. By interviewing doctors and listening to expectant mothers in waiting rooms, Diniz paints a vivid picture of the Zika epidemic as experienced by ordinary Brazilians. In this frontline account, Diniz exposes the Brazilian government's complicity in allowing the virus to spread through their inaction and denial, and she champions the efforts of local doctors and mothers who, working together, have made great strides in raising awareness of the virus, and in fighting for the rights of children affected by Zika. The result is a timely and provocative look at an epidemic that continues to threaten many families and communities.
Working with the Past - Towards an Archaeology of Recycling by
Recycling is a basic anthropological process of humankind. The reutilization of materials or of ideas from the Past is a process determined by various natural or cultural causes. Recycling can be motivated by a crisis or by a complex symbolic cause like the incorporation of the Past into the Present. What archaeology has not insisted upon is the dimensional scale of the process, which operates from the micro-scale of the recycling of the ancestors' material, up to the macro-scale of the landscape. It is well known that there are direct relations between artifacts and landscapes in what concerns the materiality and mobility of objects. An additional relation between artifact and landscape may be the process of recycling. In many ways artifact and landscape can be considered as one aspect of material culture, perceived at a different scale, since both have the same materiality and suffer the same process of reutilization. This book invites archaeologists to approach the significant process of recycling within the archaeological record at two different levels: of artifacts and of landscape.
Hillforts, Warfare and Society in Bronze Age Ireland by
The later part of the Bronze Age (1500-700 BC) was a time of settlement expansion and economic prosperity in Ireland. This was a landscape of small autonomous farming communities but there is also evidence for control of territory and population, involving centralized organization of trade and economy, ritual, and military force. That concentration of power was connected to the emergence of chiefdom polities active in the consolidation of large regional territories. Their competitive tendencies led on occasion to conflict and warfare, at a time of growing militarism evident in the mass production of bronze weaponry, including the first use of swords. Hillforts are another manifestation of a warrior culture that emerged not only in Ireland but across Europe during the Middle and Late Bronze Age. They were centers for high-status residence, ceremony, and assembly and represented an important visual display of power in the landscape. This is the first project to study hillforts in relation to warfare and conflict in Bronze Age Ireland. New evidence for the destruction of hillforts is connected to territorial disputes and other forms of competition arising from the ambitions of regional warlords, often with catastrophic consequences for individual communities. This project combines remote sensing and GIS-based landscape analysis with conventional archaeological survey and excavation to investigate ten prehistoric hillforts across southern Ireland. These include a cluster of nine examples at Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow, often termed 'Ireland's hillfort capital'. The results provide new insights into the design and construction of these immense sites, as well as details of their occupation and abandonment. The chronology of Irish hillforts is reviewed with a new understanding of origins and development. The project provides a challenging insight into the relationship of hillforts to warfare, social complexity, and the political climate of late prehistoric Ireland.
Donald Trump by
We in the U.S. have deserved someone like Donald Trump as our president for some time. Until now, by a string of luck, we had mostly centrist presidents, both Republican and Democratic, some with only a modicum of intelligence and humanity. With Donald Trump, however, we finally ran out of luck and he is our sitting president. Now, the spotlight is focused on him, but we easily forget that he is, after all, a product of his own society. Trump's rise to power owes itself to its own social-historical circumstances: For decades now America's Consumer Society had prepared the American voters, mostly White, to find someone like Trump as their leader, by supplying them with around-the-clock distractions that made them feel good, happy and falsely powerful. Trump's ascendancy could not be possible without our consumption of daily entertainment which makes us selfish, childish and idiotic human beings. Such minds are easily affected by anxiety, anger and vengefulness. In our daily sea of popular entertainment of mass circulation, we have become trash cans--Mental Trash Cans--that exist just to process trash that enters and leaves our minds almost at the same time. This wasted mind, America's most celebrated symbol of success that is created by its best and brightest, keeps us away from one another as we become privatized citizens and neighbors in our individual cocoons, lonely, scared, dumbed down, living and dying our solitary unconnected lives. Into this vacuum of intelligence and humanity, enter Donald Trump, the entertainer-billionaire, now the President, who, with his brand of populist Fascism, challenges the powers of entrenched Corporate America and all of its mind-captivating arsenal. He successfully conquered White Americans by separating them from non-whites, thus revealing America's nationalism and racism, hitherto papered over in its Liberal-Capital consumer paradise. The common Americans, whether White or non-white, possess two prized items that Corporate and Political America covets and wants to take from them, the dollar and the vote: The American Masses, now as garbage-fed children, are neither smart nor united enough to protect the two critical weapons of their democracy. Trump's presidency proves it.
Subtle Sexism by
Systematically examining and documenting the range of discriminatory behaviour that many women experience on a daily basis, the editor of this volume demonstrates how subtle sexism devalues women and limits their work. Nijole V Benokraitis also explains how these practices can be challenged and changed. The four parts cover: the continuing significance of sexism; subtle sexism in organizational settings; subtle sexism as social control; and how to change subtle sexism practices.
Corridor Talk to Culture History by
The Histories of Anthropology Annual series presents diverse perspectives on the discipline's history within a global context, with a goal of increasing awareness and use of historical approaches in teaching, learning, and doing anthropology. Critical, comparative, analytical, and narrative studies involving all aspects and subfields of anthropology are included. This ninth volume of the series, Corridor Talk to Culture History, showcases geographic diversity by exploring how anthropologists have presented their methods and theories to the public and in general to a variety of audiences. Contributors examine interpretive and methodological diversity within anthropological traditions often viewed from the standpoint of professional consensus, the ways anthropological relations cross disciplinary boundaries, and the contrast between academic authority and public culture, which is traced to the professionalization of anthropology and other social sciences in the nineteenth century. Essays showcase the research and personalities of Alexander Goldenweiser, Robert Lowie, Harlan I. Smith, Fustel de Coulanges, Edmund Leach, Carl Withers, and Margaret Mead, among others.
The Last House at Bridge River by 
The Great Han by
The Great Han is an ethnographic study of the Han Clothing Movement, a neotraditionalist and racial nationalist movement that has emerged in China since 2001. Participants come together both online and in person in cities across China to revitalize their utopian vision of the authentic "Great Han" and corresponding "real China" through pseudotraditional ethnic dress, reinvented Confucian ritual, and anti-foreign sentiment. Analyzing the movement's ideas and practices, this book argues that the vision of a pure, perfectly ordered, ethnically homogeneous, and secure society is in fact a fantasy constructed in response to the challenging realities of the present. Yet this national imaginary is reproduced precisely through its own perpetual elusiveness. The Great Han is a pioneering analysis of Han identity, nationalism, and social movements in a rapidly changing China.
Taste and the Ancient Senses by
Olives, bread, meat and wine: it is deceptively easy to evoke ancient Greece and Rome through a few items of food and drink. But how were their tastes different from ours? How did they understand the sense of taste itself, in relation to their own bodies and to other modes of sensory experience? This volume, the first of its kind to explore the ancient sense of taste, draws on the literature, philosophy, history and archaeology of Greco-Roman antiquity to provide answers to these central questions. By examining the literary and material remains from the Archaic period to late antiquity, contributors excavate the cultural and intellectual development of attitudes towards and theories about taste. These specially commissioned chapters also open a window onto ancient thinking about perception and the body. Importantly, these authors go beyond exploring the functional significance of taste to uncover its value and meaning in the actions, thoughts and words of the Greeks and Romans. Taste and the Ancient Senses presents a full range of interpretative approaches to the gustatory sense, and is an indispensable resource for students and scholars of classical antiquity and sensory studies.
Meanings of Maple by
In Meanings of Maple, Michael A. Lange provides a cultural analysis of maple syrup making, known in Vermont as sugaring, to illustrate how maple syrup as both process and product is an aspect of cultural identity. Readers will go deep into a Vermont sugar bush and its web of plastic tubes, mainline valves, and collection tanks. They will visit sugarhouses crammed with gas evaporators and reverse-osmosis machines. And they will witness encounters between sugar makers and the tourists eager to invest Vermont with mythological fantasies of rural simplicity. So much more than a commodity study, Meanings of Maple frames a new approach for evaluating the broader implications of iconic foodways, and it will animate conversations in food studies for years to come.
Knossos and the near East by
In this book, Dr Vyron Antoniadis presents a contextual study of the Near Eastern imports which reached Crete during the Early Iron Age and were deposited in the Knossian tombs. Cyprus, Phoenicia, North Syria, and Egypt are the places of origin of these imports. Knossian workshops produced close or freer imitations of these objects. The present study reveals the ways in which imported commodities were used to create or enhance social identity in the Knossian context. The author explores the reasons that made Knossians deposit imported objects in their graves as well as investigates whether specific groups could control not only the access to these objects but also the production of their imitations. Dr Antoniadis argues that the extensive use of locally produced imitations alongside authentic imports in burial rituals and contexts indicates that Knossians treated both imports and imitations as items of the same symbolic and economic value.
Piman Shamanism and Staying Sickness (Ká:cim Múmkidag) by
Piman shamanism is based on the belief that morality and some forms of sickness are interrelated. The shaman, or medicine man, has a dual role in the Piman Indian culture. He is the guardian of the Pimans' health and their consciousness of cultural identity. This definitive study of shamanic theory and practice was developed through a four-person collaboration: three Tohono O'odham Indians--a shaman, a translator, and a trained linguist--and a non-Indian explicator. It provides an in-depth examination of the Piman philosophy of sickness as well as an introduction to the world view of an entire people. Using the most highly developed techniques of modern ethnolinguistics, anthropologist Bahr investigates the culturally based concept of staying sickness. He conducted extensive discussions in the Piman language with shaman Gregorio. The native informant theorized at length about the cause of staying sickness, the d#65533;ajida (divination), and ritual prayers. The translator and the linguist analyzed the content and style of Gregorio's discussions. Texts in the Piman language of Gregorio's discussions are included, as well as literal and idiomatic English translations. American Anthropologist cites "the infinite care with which each utterance has been analyzed" and "the richness of cultural expression captured in the texts themselves and in their explanation. To read Piman Shamanism and Staying Sickness is to become familiar with the unique properties of Piman thinking and modes of expression: abstract, elliptical, contracted, and yet filled with a rich and natural imagery." The University of Arizona Press's Century Collection employs the latest in digital technology to make previously out-of-print books from our notable backlist available once again. Enriching historical and cultural experiences for readers, this collection offers these volumes unaltered from their original publication and in affordable digital or paperback formats.
Ritual Landscapes and Borders Within Rock Art Research by
Ritual landscapes and borders are recurring themes running through Professor Kalle Sognnes' long research career. This anthology contains 13 articles written by colleagues from his broad network in appreciation of his many contributions to the field of rock art research. The contributions discuss many different kinds of borders: those between landscapes, cultures, traditions, settlements, power relations, symbolism, research traditions, theory and methods. We are grateful to the Department of Historical studies, NTNU; the Faculty of Humanities; NTNU, The Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters and The Norwegian Archaeological Society (Norsk arkeologisk selskap) for funding this volume that will add new knowledge to the field and will be of importance to researchers and students of rock art in Scandinavia and abroad.
Meetings by
This book is an exploration of how this remarkably efficient and familiar form of gathering operates, in different times and places, and how it comes to be recognised by those who experience or deploy it. Throws the spotlight on the epistemological and ontological basis of coming together through formal meetings of different kinds Demonstrates how meetings - socially and institutionally prescribed spaces for coming together - are important and ubiquitous organisational forms in various political, religious and economic settings Shows how meetings feature prominently in classic anthropological accounts, and in more contemporary ethnography, particularly in relation to studies of documents, organizations, policy, development, politics, and science and technology
Guarani Linguistics in the 21st Century by
In Guarani Linguistics in the 21st CenturyBruno Estigarribia and Justin Pinta bring together a series of state-of-the-art linguistic studies of the Guarani language. Guarani is the only indigenous language of the Americas that is spoken by a non-indigenous majority. In 1992, it achieved official status in Paraguay, on a par with Spanish. Current language planning efforts focus on its standardization for use in education, administration, science, and technology. In this context, it is of paramount importance to have a solid understanding of Guarani that is well-grounded in modern linguistic theory. This volume aims to fulfil that role and spur further research of this important South American language.
Sami Art and Aesthetics by
During the last five decades we have witnessed an increase in activity among artists identifying themselves as Sami, the only recognised indigenous people of Scandinavia. At the same time, art and duodji (traditional Sami art and craft) have been organized and institutionalized, not least by the Sami artists themselves. Sami Art and Aesthetics discusses and highlights these developments and places them in historical and contemporary contexts for an international audience. At stake are complex, changing terms regarding the creative and the political agencies. The question is not how indigeneity, identity, people, art, duodji, and aesthetics correspond to conventional Western ideas, rather it is how they interact with the Sami and their neighbouring cultures and societies. The volume is written by some of the foremost art historians and literary scholars in Sami art, craft, architecture, culture, and indigenous studies. Artists presented include Johan Turi, Ivar Jaks, Outi Pieski, Folke Fjellstrom, Katarina Pirak Sikku, Geir Tore Holm, and Silje Figenschou Thoresen.
Marriage, Love, Caste and Kinship Support by
This book makes use of interesting case studies and photographs to describe everyday life in a squatter settlement in Delhi. The book helps to understand the marital experiences of these people most of whom belong to the Scheduled Caste and live in one identified geographical space. The author describes the shifts within their marriages, remarriages and other kinds of unions and their striking diversities, which have been described with care. Shalini Grover also examines the close ties of married women with their mothers and natal families. An important contribution of the book lies in the unfolding of the role of women-led informal courts, Mahila Panchayats and their influence in conflict resolution. This takes place in a distinctly different mode of community-based arbitration against the backdrop of mainstream legal structures and male-dominated caste associations. The book will be of interest to students of sociology and social anthropology, gender studies, development studies, law and psychology. Activists and family counsellors will also find the book useful.
Treasures from the Oxus by
The great river civilization of the Oxus is one of the forgotten jewels of the ancient world. In history, this grand arterial 1,500-mile waterway was always seen as the natural frontier between the northern provinces of the Iranian empires and the outer Turanian lands. It was for centuries central to Achaemenid and later Persian power. But, as the author shows, it has a prehistory which goes very much further back: and a succession of skilled yet still elusive Bronze Age cultures flourished here well before the rise of Cyrus the Great in the 6th century BCE. This richly illustrated book explores the fascinating history, art, and archaeology of the region, including its primal trade in silk and foodstuffs; the mineral wealth of the Oxus basin; its exotic myths and beliefs; and the converging tribes and peoples which led to a new stability, economic growth and urbanism. The volume contains 150 full-color photographs of notable artefacts, including silver decorated vessels, inlaid stone pots, agate beads, and 25 "Bactrian Princesses:" remarkable statuettes made in chlorite and limestone. Most of these rare objects have never been seen, let alone published, until now.
Imdeduya by
This volume presents five variants of the Imdeduya myth: two versions of the actual myth, a short story, a song and John Kasaipwalova's English poem "Sail the Midnight Sun". This poem draws heavily on the Trobriand myth which introduces the protagonists Imdeduya and Yolina and reports on Yolina's intention to marry the girl so famous for her beauty, on his long journey to Imdeduya's village and on their tragic love story. The texts are compared with each other with a final focus on the clash between orality and scripturality. Contrary to Kasaipwalova's fixed poetic text, the oral Imdeduya versions reveal the variability characteristic for oral tradition. This variability opens up questions about traditional stability and destabilization of oral literature, especially questions about the changing role of myth - and magic - in the Trobriand Islanders' society which gets more and more integrated into the by now "literal" nation of Papua New Guinea.
Transdisciplinary Environmental Research by
This book explores the practice of transdisciplinary research through the narratives of different individuals taking part in a project investigating local water management. The research project ran for one year and brought seven university scientists together with seven local residents to explore relationships between water quantity, water quality, abstraction of water resources and how to reduce pollution.Landstr#65533;m presents three conversations that convey the experience of transdisciplinary practice in natural language in order to offer insights into the workings of a transdisciplinary Environmental Competency Group. The conversations highlight Environmental Competency Groups as tools enabling collaboration between knowledgeable individuals who do not share a common scientific vocabulary.Transdisciplinary Environmental Research will appeal to natural and social scientists interested in working collaboratively with each other and the general public on environmental research projects.
The Bioarchaeology of Social Control by
Taking a bioarchaeological approach, this book examines the Ancestral Pueblo culture living in the Four Corners region of the United States during the late Pueblo I through the end of the Pueblo III period (AD 850-1300). During this time, a vast system of pueblo villages spread throughout the region creating what has been called the Chaco Phenomenon, named after the large great houses in Chaco Canyon that are thought to have been centers of control. Through a bioarchaeological analysis of the human skeletal remains, this volume provides evidence that key individuals within the hierarchical social structure used a variety of methods of social control, including structural violence, to maintain their power over the interconnected communities.
Easter Island, Earth Island by
Easter Island, isolated deep in the South Pacific and now a World Heritage Site, was home to a fascinating prehistoric culture--one that produced massive stone effigies (the moai) and the birdman cult--and yet much of the island's past remains shrouded in mystery. Where did the islanders come from, and when? How did Rapa Nui culture evolve over the centuries? How, and why, did their natural environment change over time? Paul Bahn and John Flenley guide readers through the mysteries and enigmas of Rapa Nui, incorporating the records of early explorers, folk legends, and archaeological evidence along the way. They cover the island's geological and environmental history and explore its flora and fauna, illustrating how human actions affected the natural environment of the island. This fourth edition draws in: recent DNA studies of ancient human and animal bones as well as plant remains; evolving understandings of how the moai were transported; and current efforts to reforest the island.
Archaeological and Paleontological Research in Lagoa Santa by
This groundbreaking volume presents, for the first time in English, a broad historical review of the researches carried out over 170 years in the region of Lagoa Santa, Brazil, one of the most important archaeological regions in the Americas. From the pioneering work of the Danish naturalist Peter Lund in the XIX century to the recent research on the dispersion of early humans across South America, led by Walter A. Neves and colleagues, Lagoa Santa has offered remarkable findings, the largest collections of early human skeletons in the Americas, and has contributed to the overall discussions about the settlement of the Americas. This edited volume aims to fill the lack of publications in English about Lagoa Santa and gathers representatives of all the main Brazilian institutions directly involved in the archaeological and paleontological investigations in the region, in order to provide the international scientific community a comprehensive and complete account of the researches that contributed to rewrite the history of the peopling of the Americas. The book is organized in two parts. The first consists of chapters describing each of the interventions in the region, beginning with the pioneering work of Peter Lund and culminating with the latest intervention led by Walter A. Neves and his team. The second part of the book consists of reviews of current relevant research foci in the region, such as migrations, health, mortuary rituals, paleontology, rock art and technology.
Health and Health Care Concerns among Women and Racial and Ethnic Minorities by
This volume covers macro-level system issues and micro-level issues involving health and health care concerns for women, and racial and ethnic minorities. Topics covered include examination of health and health care issues of patients or of providers of care especially those related to concerns for women and for racial and ethnic minorities in different countries. This volume is divided into four sections. The first section introduces the volume. The second section covers women and reproductive related health and health care concerns, using data sources from the United States and the UK. The third section examines health care practitioners, health and health care, relating to issues of women or racial and ethnic minorities, using data sources from the US and Canada. The last section relates specifically to racial and ethnic minorities and health and health care. Chapters focus on Black men, on Asian Americans, on Mexican Americans, and across racial and/or ethnic differences.
Antiquarianisms by
Antiquarianism and collecting have been associated intimately with European imperial and colonial enterprises, although both existed long before the early modern period and both were (and continue to be) practiced in places other than Europe. Scholars have made significant progress in the documentation and analysis of indigenous antiquarian traditions, but the clear-cut distinction between "indigenous" and "colonial" archaeologies has obscured the intense and dynamic interaction between these seemingly different endeavours. This book concerns the divide between local and foreign antiquarianisms focusing on case studies drawn primarily from the Mediterranean and the Americas. Both regions host robust pre-modern antiquarian traditions that have continued to develop during periods of colonialism. In both regions, moreover, colonial encounters have been mediated by the antiquarian practices and preferences of European elites. The two regions also exhibit salient differences. For example, Europeans claimed the "antiquities" of the eastern Mediterranean as part of their own, "classical," heritage, whereas they perceived those of the Americas as essentially alien, even as they attempted to understand them by analogy to the classical world. These basic points of comparison and contrast provide a framework for conjoint analysis of the emergence of hybrid or cross-bred antiquarianisms. Rather than assuming that interest in antiquity is a human universal, this book explores the circumstances under which the past itself is produced and transformed through encounters between antiquarian traditions over common objects of interpretation.
The Anthropology of Conservation NGOs by
This book explores how NGOs have been influential in shaping global biodiversity, conservation policy, and practice. It encapsulates a growing body of literature that has questioned the mandates, roles, and effectiveness of these organizations-and the critique of these critics. This volume seeks to nurture an open conversation about contemporary NGO practices through analysis and engagement.
Anthropology of Our Times by
This anthology represents the culmination of a series of public discussions with some of the leading international anthropologists of today --organized by the editor, Sindre Bangstad--at the House of Literature in Oslo, Norway. Thus, it provides fresh and original insights into the lives and work of these leading scholars. It features conversations with Didier Fassin, Angelique Haugerud, Ruben Andersson, Claudio Lomnitz, David Price, Magnus Marsden, Richard Ashby Wilson, and Parvis Ghassem-Fachandi, in addition to an introduction by Sindre Bangstad and a preface by Thomas Hylland Eriksen.
Quantum Anthropology by
Quantum Anthropology offers a fresh look at humans, cultures, and societies that builds on advances in the fields of quantum mechanics, quantum philosophy, and quantum consciousness. Radek Trnka and Radmila Lorencov#65533; have developed an inspiring theoretical framework that transcends the boundaries of individual disciplines, and in this book they draw on philosophy, psychology, sociology, and consciousness studies to redefine contemporary sociocultural anthropological theory. Quantum anthropology, they argue, is a promising new perspective for the study of humanity that takes into account the quantum nature of our reality. This meta-ontology offers novel pathways for exploring the basic categories of our species' being.
A Day at Home in Early Modern England by
This fascinating book offers the first sustained investigation of the complex relationship between the middling sort and their domestic space in the tumultuous, rapidly changing culture of early modern England. Presented in an innovative and engaging narrative form that follows the pattern of a typical day from early morning through the middle of the night, A Day at Home in Early Modern England examines the profound influence that the domestic material environment had on structuring and expressing modes of thought and behaviour of relatively ordinary people. With a multidisciplinary approach that takes both extant objects and documentary sources into consideration, Tara Hamling and Catherine Richardson recreate the layered complexity of lived household experience and explore how a family's investment in rooms, decoration, possessions, and provisions served to define not only their status, but the social, commercial, and religious concerns that characterised their daily existence.
Down Girl by
Misogyny is a hot topic, yet it's often misunderstood. What is misogyny, exactly? Who deserves to be called a misogynist? How does misogyny contrast with sexism, and why is it prone to persist --or increase-- even when sexist gender roles are waning? This book is an exploration of misogyny in public life and politics, by the moral philosopher and writer Kate Manne. It argues that misogyny should not be understood primarily in terms of the hatred or hostility some men feel toward all or most women. Rather, it's primarily about controlling, policing, punishing, and exiling the "bad" women who challenge male dominance. And it's compatible with rewarding "the good ones," and singling out other women to serve as warnings to those who are out of order. It's also common for women to serve as scapegoats, be burned as witches, and treated as pariahs. Manne examines recent and current events such as the Isla Vista killings by Elliot Rodger, the case of the convicted serial rapist Daniel Holtzclaw, who preyed on African-American women as a police officer in Oklahoma City, Rush Limbaugh's diatribe against Sandra Fluke, and the "misogyny speech" of Julia Gillard, then Prime Minister of Australia, which went viral on YouTube. The book shows how these events, among others, set the stage for the 2016 US presidential election. Not only was the misogyny leveled against Hillary Clinton predictable in both quantity and quality, Manne argues it was predictable that many people would be prepared to forgive and forget regarding Donald Trump's history of sexual assault and harassment. For this, Manne argues, is misogyny's oft-overlooked and equally pernicious underbelly: exonerating or showing "himpathy" for the comparatively privileged men who dominate, threaten, and silence women.
Everyday Life in Tudor London by
Under the Tudors, London was a vibrant, growing city, whose population quadrupled during the course of the sixteenth century, despite devastating epidemics. It was by far the largest city in the country; the centre of government and the principal residence of the royal court; a thriving port that was also the focus of inland trade, with a range of manufacturing and service trades; the arena where the gentry and newly rich mercantile classes paraded their affluence; and the hub of English cultural life.The mid-Tudor period saw the far-reaching changes brought by the Reformation and the dissolution of the monasteries, with the accompanying persecutions, and there was fighting in the streets during attempted coups. Yet it grew remorselessly and became so dominant that the government introduced measures to try to prevent its further expansion. The Tudor era was a boisterous and enthralling phase in the rise to greatness of this enduringly fascinating city.
An Archaeology of Skill by
Material is the mother of innovation and it is through skill that innovations are brought about. This core thesis that is developed in this book identifies skill as the linchpin of #65533; and missing link between #65533; studies on craft, creativity, innovation, and material culture. Through a detailed study of early bronze age axes the question is tackled of what it involves to be skilled, providing an evidence based argument about levels of skill. The unique contribution of this work is that it lays out a theoretical framework and methodology through which an empirical analysis of skill is achievable. A specific cha#65533; op#65533;toire for metal axes is used that compares not only what techniques were used, but also how they were applied. A large corpus of axes is compared in terms of what skills and attention were given at the different stages of their production. The ideas developed in this book are of interest to the emerging trend of #65533;material thinking#65533; in the human and social sciences. At the same time, it looks towards and augments the development in craft-studies, recognising the many different aspects of craft in contemporary and past societies, and the particular relationship that craftspeople have with their material. Drawing together these two distinct fields of research will stimulate (re)thinking of how to integrate production with discussions of other aspects of object biographies, and how we link arguments about value to social models.
Tortillas, Tiswin, and T-Bones by
In this entertaining history, Gregory McNamee explores the many ethnic and cultural traditions that have contributed to the food of the Southwest. He traces the origins of the cuisine to the arrival of humans in the Americas, the work of the earliest farmers of Mesoamerica, and the most ancient trade networks joining peoples of the coast, plains, and mountains. From the ancient chile pepper and agave to the comparatively recent fare of sushi and Frito pie, this complex culinary journey involves many players over space and time. Born of scarcity, migration, and climate change, these foods are now fully at home in the Southwest of today'and with the ?southwesternization? of the American palate at large, they are found across the globe. McNamee extends that story across thousands of years to the present, even imagining what the southwestern menu will look like in the near future.
Helter-shelter : security, legality, and an ethic of care in an emergency shelter
Abusir by
At the center of the world-famous pyramid field of the Memphite necropolis lies a group of pyramids, temples, and tombs named after the nearby village of Abusir. Long overshadowed by the more familiar pyramids at Giza and Saqqara, this area has nonetheless been the site, for the last fiftyyears, of an extensive operation to discover its past.This thoroughly updated in-depth study documents the uncovering by a dedicated team of Czech archaeologists of a hitherto neglected wealth of ancient remains dating from the Old Kingdom to the Late Period. This is Abusir, realm of Osiris, God of the dead, and its story is one of both modernarchaeology and the long-buried mysteries that it seeks to uncover.
At the Northern Frontier of near Eastern Archaeology by
35 papers, originally presented by an international group of researchers at a conference held in Venice in January 2013, present the results of the last 20 years of archaeological research about the pre-classical cultures of the Caucasus and Anatolia, and analyse the latter in the wider framework of their changing relations with those of the Ancient Near East and of the Eurasian steppes. The volume covers a wide chronological span - from the late 5th to the early 1st millennium BC, and includes contributions about a wide range of topics (reports of archaeological excavations and surveys, chronology, economy, social organisation of the ancient populations, technology, long-distance exchange of raw materials and artefacts, archaeometallurgy, landscape archaeology, etc.). According to the most recent developments of research, these are investigated in a remarkably interdisciplinary perspective. The participation to the conference of well-recognised experts working not only in different countries of the Southern Caucasus and in Anatolia (in present-day Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey) but also in the North-Caucasian republics of the present-day Russian Federation offered a rare opportunity to compare and discuss recent trends of archaeological research in these different regions. Therefore, this volume represents a fundamental contribution to both Near Eastern and Caucasian Archaeology.
Use-Wear Analysis of Flaked Stone Tools by
This major contribution to archaeological method details the use-wear analysis of a set of stone tools recovered during the excavation of Cassegros Cave, in southwestern France. The study combines low-power and high-power microwear approaches and develops their potential for use on a wider range of lithic and contact materials than have been reported previously. The University of Arizona Press's Century Collection employs the latest in digital technology to make previously out-of-print books from our notable backlist available once again. Enriching historical and cultural experiences for readers, this collection offers these volumes unaltered from their original publication and in affordable digital or paperback formats.
Human Dispersal and Species Movement by
How have humans colonised the entire planet and reshaped its ecosystems in the process? This unique and groundbreaking collection of essays explores human movement through time, the impacts of these movements on landscapes and other species, and the ways in which species have co-evolved and transformed each other as a result. Exploring the spread of people, plants, animals, and diseases through processes of migration, colonisation, trade and travel, it assembles a broad array of case studies from the Pliocene to the present. The contributors from disciplines across the humanities and natural sciences are senior or established scholars in the fields of human evolution, archaeology, history, and geography.
Remembering the Dead in the Ancient near East by
Remembering the Dead in the Ancient Near East is among the first comprehensive treatments to present the diverse ways in which ancient Near Eastern civilizations memorialized and honored their dead, using mortuary rituals, human skeletal remains, and embodied identities as a window into the memory work of past societies. In six case studies, teams of researchers with different skillsets--osteological analysis, faunal analysis, culture history and the analysis of written texts, and artifact analysis--integrate mortuary analysis with bioarchaeological techniques. Drawing upon different kinds of data, including human remains, ceramics, jewelry, spatial analysis, and faunal remains found in burial sites from across the region’s societies, the authors paint a robust and complex picture of death in the ancient Near East. Demonstrating the still underexplored potential of bioarchaeological analysis in ancient societies, Remembering the Dead in the Ancient Near East serves as a model for using multiple lines of evidence to reconstruct commemoration practices. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian societies, the archaeology of death and burial, bioarchaeology, and human skeletal biology.
Family Jigsaws by
This exciting ethnographic study spotlights the multiple identities of three third generation British-born Bangladeshi children in London's East End as they learn with their teachers, mothers and grandmothers. The book reveals for the first time the remarkable ability of young bilingual children to compartmentalize their learning and become flexible learners. It is the first to show how it is children's interactions with their grandmothers -- who often speak no English -- that most powerfully enhance and extend their educational and cultural experiences. Teachers and teacher educators take heed: these new insights have profound implications for policy, classroom practice and pedagogy.
How Lifeworlds Work by
Michael Jackson has spent much of his career elaborating his rich conception of lifeworlds, mining his ethnographic and personal experience for insights into how our subjective and social lives are mutually constituted. In How Lifeworlds Work, Jackson draws on years of ethnographic fieldwork in West Africa to highlight the dynamic quality of human relationships and reinvigorate the study of kinship and ritual. How, he asks, do we manage the perpetual process of accommodation between social norms and personal emotions, impulses, and desires? How are these two dimensions of lived reality joined, and how are the dual imperatives of individual expression and collective viability managed? Drawing on the pragmatist tradition, psychology, and phenomenology, Jackson offers an unforgettable, beautifully written account of how we make, unmake, and remake, our lifeworlds.
Seminole Burning by
In 1898 after the murder of a white woman, two young Seminoles were chained and burned alive. Hiding behind a wall of silence and fearing reprisal for identifying their executioners, virtually the entire white community became involved with the ghastly execution. In this absorbing narrative Daniel F. Littlefield, Jr., captures the horror and details the events that incited this alarming act of mob violence and community complicity. Seminole Burning not only gives an account of a dramatic, violent event in Indian-white relations but also provides insights into the social, economic, and legal history of the times. Although occurring during the heyday of lynching in America, the execution of the young Seminoles proved to be not just another sad episode in the history of injustice. Apparently a vendetta organized by the extended family of the dead woman's husband, it was orchestrated by landless whites, who for a week after her murder, had harassed and terrorized more than twenty Seminole men and boys in selecting victims. For having taken them out of Indian Territory and into Oklahoma for execution, the mob leaders became the target of federal authorities. In the first successful prosecution of lynchers in the Southwest, a special prosecutor revealed underlying motives for the crime and convicted six. Seminole Burning is not just the story of a lynching and an account of how landless Americans invaded Indian Territory. By placing this tragic case in context and against the large backdrop of history, Littlefield connects it to federal expansion of court jurisdiction, to federal attempts to dissolve land titles of the Five Civilized Tribes, and indeed to the establishing of the state of Oklahoma.
Mistaking Africa by
For manyAmericans the mention of Africa immediately conjures up images of safaris,ferocious animals, strangely dressed "tribesmen," and impenetrable jungles.Although the occasional newspaper headline mentions authoritarian rule,corruption, genocide, devastating illnesses, or civil war in Africa, thecollective American consciousness still carries strong mental images of Africathat are reflected in advertising, movies, amusement parks, cartoons, and manyother corners of society. Few think to question these perceptions or how theycame to be so deeply lodged in American minds. Mistaking Africa looks at the historical evolution of this mind-setand examines the role that popular media plays in its creation. The authorsaddress the most prevalent myths and preconceptions and demonstrate how theseprevent a true understanding of the enormously diverse peoples and cultures ofAfrica.Updatedthroughout, the fourth edition covers the entire continent (North andsub-Saharan Africa) and provides new analysis of topics such as social mediaand the Internet, the Ebola crisis, celebrity aid, and the Arab Spring. Mistaking Africa is an important bookfor African studies courses and for anyone interested in unraveling Americanmisperceptions about the continent.
Myths about Rock Art by
Rather than considering the myths supposedly depicted in the world's rock art, this book examines the myths archaeologists and others have created about the meanings and significance of rock art. This vast body of opinions dominates our concepts of the principal surviving cultural manifestations of early worldviews. Here these constructs are subjected to detailed analysis and are found to consist largely of misinterpretations. From the misidentification of natural rock markings as rock art to mistaken interpretations, from sensationalist claims to pareidolic elucidations of iconographies, the book presents numerous examples of myths researchers have created about pre-Historic 'art'. The claims about a connection between rock art and the neuropathologies of its producers are assessed, and the neuroscience of rock art interpretation is reviewed. The book presents a comprehensive catalogue of falsities claimed about palaeoart, and it endeavours to explain how these arose, and how they can be guarded against by recourse to basic principles of science. It therefore represents a key resource in the scientific study of rock art.
Measuring Cultural Complexity in Protohistoric Hunter-Fisher-Gatherer Societies by
This new work seeks to restore the Northwest Coast societies and their cultures to their proper places in an understanding of hunter-fisher-gatherer societies and cultural developments, using an integrated archaeological and ethnographic analysis of the Haida, who still live in the Haida Gwaii archipelago off the coast of British Columbia, Canada. The ultimate goal is the measurement and interpretation of socio-cultural complexity in protohistoric hunter-fisher-gatherer societies in northwestern North America by statistical analyses of all the available archaeological, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic data. Comparisons are then made with bordering Northwest Coast and neighboring Northern Athapaskan, Eyak, Yupik, and Inupiat.
Orion's Guiding Stars by
The myth of the hero, the grand motif of folklore, is a three-part story that is found in human cultures across time and terrain, ever since we were hunter-foragers. Here, a veteran teacher shows that The myth of the hero best reveals itself through a jewel of many facets rather than a single clear lens. You have to stand back at the proper distance from the painting in order to see the myth of the hero pop out. He explores the essential features of the myth, where these stories came from and what they are really about and analyzes how regular people see these stories, revealing an unexamined dimension.
Jul : Swedish American holiday traditions by
Christmas traditions, particularly those involving food, often honor our ancestors. Throughout the Midwest where Swedish immigrants settled, the dishes placed on the julbord (Christmas table) tell stories about who we are, where we come from, and where we are heading. In exploring these holiday customs, Patrice Johnson begins with her own family's Christmas Eve gathering, which involves a combination of culinary traditions: allspice-scented meatballs, Norwegian lefse served Swedish style (warm with butter), and the American interloper, macaroni and cheese. Just as she tracks down the meanings behind why her family celebrates as it does, she reaches into the lives and histories of other Swedish Americans with their own stories, their own versions of traditional recipes, their own joys of the season. The result is a fascinating exploration of the Swedish holiday calendar and its American translation. Featured dishes include yellow pea soup (#65533;rtsoppa) and Swedish pancakes (Svenska pl#65533;ttar); assorted Swedish cookies like pepparkakor, rosettes, and meringues; meatballs with pickled cucumber; the julh#65533;g, a breakfast pyramid of bread, cheese, fruit, and cookies; and so much more. Come, raise a glass of punsch, hear tell of holidays past, snack on cardamom bread, and celebrate jul the midwestern way.
Human Nature and Social Life by
What distinguishes humans from nonhuman 'others'? And how do these distinctions shape human sociality and the ways that humans relate to their others? Human Nature and Social Life brings together a collection of articles by prominent anthropologists to address these questions. The articles show how the fundamentally social nature of humans results in an extension of sociality to virtual, semiotic-material and nonhuman spheres, with humans therefore becoming part of 'extended socialities'. However, as the book's contributors demonstrate, human distinctness significantly bears upon these extended socialities, and the manner in which humans partake in them. Taking an ethnographic approach to its subject, this book demonstrates the continued value of studying the specificities of the human condition, and sets itself as a counterweight to current refutations of human exceptionalism.
The Oxford Handbook of Human Development and Culture by
The Oxford Handbook of Human Development and Culture provides a comprehensive synopsis of theory and research on human development, with every chapter drawing together findings from cultures around the world. This includes a focus on cultural diversity within nations, cultural change, andglobalization. Expertly edited by Lene Arnett Jensen, the Handbook covers the entire lifespan from the prenatal period to old age. It delves deeply into topics such as the development of emotion, language, cognition, morality, creativity, and religion, as well as developmental contexts such asfamily, friends, civic institutions, school, media, and work. Written by an international group of eminent and cutting-edge experts, chapters showcase the burgeoning interdisciplinary approach to scholarship that bridges universal and cultural perspectives on human development. This "cultural-developmental approach" is a multifaceted, flexible, and dynamic wayto conceptualize theory and research that is in step with the cultural and global realities of human development in the 21st century.
Birth in Ancient China by
Reveals cultural paradigms and historical prejudices regarding the role of birthing and women in the reproduction of society.
Counterfeit Itineraries in the Global South by
At the end of the 1970s, Chinese merchandise moved to Brazil via Paraguay, forming an on-the-margins-of-the-law trade chain involving the production, distribution, and consumption of cheap goods. Economic changes in the 21st century, including the enforcement of intellectual property rights and the growing importance of emerging economies, have had a dramatic effect on how this chain works, criminalizing and dismantling a trade system that had previously functioned in an organized form and stimulated the circulation of goods, money, and people at transnational levels. This book analyses how exchange networks that produced, distributed and sold cheap manufactured products animated a huge and vibrant system from China to Brazil, examining the process at global, national and local levels. From a global perspective, intellectual property is a powerful discourse that governs the world system by framing the notion of piracy as a criminal activity. But at the national level, how do nation-states resist and/or endorse, interpret, and apply a global perspective? And what effect does that have on how ordinary people organize their lives around this system? Interweaving discourse on transnational flow of small capital, petty capitalism, non-hegemonic globalization and globalization from below, the book presents low-income traders not as passive victims of globalization, but as active actors in the distribution of cheap goods across borders in the Global South. Based on fifteen years of ethnographic field work in China and Brazil, Counterfeit Itineraries in the Global South will be of interest to scholars of economic anthropology, development studies, political economy, Latin America studies, Chinese studies, and socio-legal studies.
Home, Domestic Space and Sexuality by
This book explores the meanings and experiences of home among a group of lesbians who over the past five decades have sought to create alternative intimate and public living spaces. The protagonists who enact the ethnographic narrative are a small group of older lesbians, mainly feminist activists, residing in the metropolis of London. The meaning of home and domestic space emerges from unique life histories informed by the wider social and political context, and moves from the earliest memories of their childhood kitchens to their contemporary domestic lives. Leaping from the radical lesbian feminist collectives and squats of the 1980s to the ordinariness of home life, the kitchen emerged as a tangle of cultural norms, customs, duties, ideas, aspirations, expectations, and values that tells us about the thinking process and behaviour of this specific group of older lesbians. In this context, the kitchen brings out the experiences of social inequalities experienced by these older lesbians, mainly brought out by the hegemonic institution of heteronormativity and patriarchy. This ethnography will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines in anthropology, sociology, geography and feminism.
Growing up Working Class by
This enlightening auto-ethnography examines how social class (and other social institutions and structures) affect how people grow up. Primarily, the book investigates how American children and young adults are impacted by the "hidden injuries" of class, and offers a rich description of how these injuries manifest and curdle later in life. Thomas J. Gorman provides sociological explanations for the phenomenon of the so-called "angry white man," and engages with this phenomenon as it relates to the rise of recent populist political figures such as Donald J. Trump. He also examines how and why white working class people tend to lash out at the wrong social forces and support political action that works against their own interests. Finally, the book demonstrates the connections between working-class attitudes toward schooling, sports, politics, and economics.
Distortion by
Distortion occurs between the intentions of actions and their outcomes. It can also occur between thoughts and actions; between words and how they are interpreted; between a statement of law and its enactment; between a vision and its artistic representation; and between a cultural tradition or habitus and its animation in contemporary contexts. Escaping the bounds of relationality, of structuration and of systemics, distortion is a form of complex connectedness that has seldom been addressed in the social sciences as a phenomenon in its own right. This volume argues for the key importance of distortion as a concept in the social sciences, and attempts to refine it as a concept. Each chapter examines distortion in the context of an ethnographic case study, examining how its conceptualization can further comprehension of a particular ethnographic situation. It is contended that distortion is an account of the emergent or revolutionary nature of human life, an emergence that can be attached to particular antecedent conditions in a processual or temporal way yet is a transformation of the essential nature of those conditions. Coming to terms with distortion adds significantly to the social-scientific appreciation of human activity and creativity, of conscious experience, of the nature of social interaction and exchange, and of the complexity of social milieu. Distortion should be essential reading on advanced undergraduate and postgraduate modules on social theory, contemporary issues and methodologies, communication, sociality, materiality, and intersectionality.
Yoruba Philosophy and the Seeds of Enlightenment by
For upwards of 25 years, Yemi D. Prince (also known as Yemi D. Ogunyemi) has systematically devoted himself to the education, research and reason of Creative Writing and from Creative Writing to Creative Thinking and from Creative Thinking to Yoruba narrative, cultural, folk philosophy. On realizing that Creative Thinking has become his area of focus and interest, he succeeds in cultivating big ideas, combining them with his life-long experiences in the Humanities, transforming them into new ways of writing, thinking or reasoning. (Some of his big ideas have led to the publication of booklets such as Yoruba Idealism, We Should All Be Philosophers, The Artist-Philosophers in Yoruba land, Codes of Morality and Pursuit of Wisdom.) Thus his big ideas have helped him separate Yoruba folk philosophy from Yoruba autochthonous religion. With his love for big ideas, born out of Creative Thinking and Critical Thinking, he has been able to put a new face on Yoruba Philosophy.
Darwinism, Democracy, and Race by
Darwinism, Democracy, and Race examines the development and defence of an argument that arose at the boundary between anthropology and evolutionary biology in twentieth-century America. In its fully articulated form, this argument simultaneously discredited scientific racism and defended free human agency in Darwinian terms. The volume is timely because it gives readers a key to assessing contemporary debates about the biology of race. By working across disciplinary lines, the book#65533;s focal figures--the anthropologist Franz Boas, the cultural anthropologist Alfred Kroeber, the geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky, and the physical anthropologist Sherwood Washburn--found increasingly persuasive ways of cutting between genetic determinist and social constructionist views of race by grounding Boas#65533;s racially egalitarian, culturally relativistic, and democratically pluralistic ethic in a distinctive version of the genetic theory of natural selection. Collaborators in making and defending this argument included Ashley Montagu, Stephen Jay Gould, and Richard Lewontin. Darwinism, Democracy, and Race will appeal to advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and academics interested in subjects including Philosophy, Critical Race Theory, Sociology of Race, History of Biology and Anthropology, and Rhetoric of Science.
Flavors of Empire by
With a uniquely balanced combination of salty, sweet, sour, and spicy flavors, Thai food burst onto Los Angeles's and America's culinary scene in the 1980s. Flavors of Empire examines the rise of Thai food and the way it shaped the racial and ethnic contours of Thai American identity and community. Full of vivid oral histories and new archival material, this book explores the factors that made foodways central to the Thai American experience. Starting with American Cold War intervention in Thailand, Mark Padoongpatt traces how informal empire allowed U.S. citizens to discover Thai cuisine abroad and introduce it inside the United States. When Thais arrived in Los Angeles, they reinvented and repackaged Thai food in various ways to meet the rising popularity of the cuisine in urban and suburban spaces. Padoongpatt opens up the history and politics of Thai food for the first time, all while demonstrating how race emerges in seemingly mundane and unexpected places.
Disciplinary Spaces by
This volume looks at spaces such as reservations, model villages, and collective towns as spatial and disciplinary techniques - implemented in order to disempower and radically alter the behavior of people who were perceived as ill-suited to fit into the hegemonic concept of "the nation" from the 19th century onwards. Comparing examples from the Americas, Australia, Eastern Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia, the book considers the acts and legitimizing narratives of the powerful alongside the agency of the subaltern, who are often misrepresented as passive victims of violent assimilation strategies.
Rural Isolation and Dual Cultural Existence by
This book studies the Japanese-American coffee farmers in Kona, Hawaii. Specifically, it sheds light on the role of first and second generation immigrants in the emergence of the Kona coffee agricultural economy, as well as factors that contributed to the creation of the Japanese community in Kona. The people there have survived much turmoil, including harsh treatment on the sugar plantations, economic instability, Pearl Harbor and racial stigma, and ethnic and religious identity crises. Despite these challenges, the pillars of the Japanese coffee community have remained stable.
Shopping Mall by
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. The mall near Mat thew Newton's childhood home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was one of the state's first enclosed shopping malls. Like all malls in their heyday, this one was a climate-controlled pleasuredome where strangers converged. It boasted waterfalls, fish ponds, an indoor ice skating rink larger than Rockefeller Center's, and a monolithic clock tower illuminated year-round beneath a canopy of interconnected skylights. It also became the backdrop for filmmaker George A. Romero's zombie opus Dawn of the Dead. Part memoir and part case study, Shopping Mall examines the modern mythology of the mall and shows that, more than a collection of stores, it is a place of curiosity, ritual, and fantasy. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.
Marcus Simaika Pasha by
Marcus Pasha Simaika (1864-1944) was born to a prominent Coptic family on the eve of the inauguration of the Suez Canal and the British occupation of Egypt. From a young age, he developed a passion for Coptic heritage and devoted his life to shedding light on centuries of Christian Egyptianhistory that had been neglected by ignorance or otherwise belittled and despised. He was not a professional archaeologist, an excavator, or a specialist scholar of Coptic language and literature. Rather, his achievement lies in his role as a visionary administrator who used his status to pursue relentlessly his dream of founding a Coptic Museum and preserving endangeredmonuments. During his lengthy career, first as a civil servant, then as a legislator and member of the Coptic community council, he maneuvered endlessly between the patriarch and the church hierarchy, the Coptic community council, the British authorities, and the government to bring them together inhis fight to save Coptic heritage.This fascinating biography draws upon Simaika's unpublished memoirs as well as on other documents and photographs from the Simaika family archive to deepen our understanding of several important themes of modern Egyptian history: the development of Coptic archaeology and heritage studies,Egyptian-British interactions during the colonial and semi-colonial eras, shifting balances in the interaction of clergymen and the lay Coptic community, and the ever-sensitive evolution of relations between Copts and their Muslim countrymen.
Greek Marseille and Mediterranean Celtic by
This unique collection of essays contains a synthesis of recent works by distinguished archaeologists and historians in their field, illuminating extensive research in the Southern Gaul and on the territory of the Greek city of Marseille. Investigating the occupation of Massalia territory before the foundation of the Greek city to the Roman period, these findings provide an overview of the diverse issues behind the circulations between Greeks from Phocaea and Celtic populations. This reflection on a key region of the Euro-Mediterranean space rests on the analysis of archaeological findings, including: urban excavations, spatial studies, analysis of necropolis, submarine remains, paleo-environmental data, and reviewing the ancient literary documentation. These new and innovative findings in Greek Marseille and Mediterranean Celtic Region will be of particular interest to both students and scholars exploring the political, economic and cultural fields of relationships between the Greek migrants and the populations they started to meet at the end of the seventh century BC.
Uncovering Paris by
From 1889 to 1914 nude spectacles increased at an astonishing rate as a result of burgeoning artistic experimentation, the commercialization of the female body, and the rise of urban nightlife. In particular, artists' balls and music halls provided creative spaces in which women, artists, impresarios, and the illustrated press could cast the natural body as a source of sexual pleasure, identity, and reform. Emphasizing the role of erotic entertainment as an outlet and agent of modern sensibilities, Uncovering Paris: Scandals and Nude Spectacles in the Belle #65533;poque offers a fresh approach to important topics of the period--Bohemian artists, the New Woman, and press censorship--and reinterprets them through the lens of la femme nue. Having inherited her name from the pictorial female Nude and the Nude's real-life counterpart, the artist's model, la femme nue operated as a screen onto which various groups projected their artistic drives, sexual desires, monetary interests, and cultural anxieties. A struggle to define pornography and art, freedom and censorship, and public and private spheres ensued among artists, theater directors, and moral leagues as a century-long tradition of equating civilization with clothing broke down in the face of performative challenges. In posing, singing, acting, and dancing in naturalist presentations, the artist's model-turned-erotic entertainer engendered crises in ways of seeing the female body that contributed to and was indicative of a changing moral climate within which women were accorded more freedom to corporeally express themselves. Once denigrated and denounced as a sign of vulgar working-class sexuality, the revelation of female flesh became an integral aspect of twentieth-century French body culture. Drawing upon a range of colorful commentaries, dramatic debates, and evocative photos, Lela F. Kerley highlights the importance of nudity in the redrawing of moral boundaries as she uncovers key moments that amounted to a "culture war" in the years leading up to World War I. Through an investigation of street riots, court cases, and anti-pornography campaigns, Uncovering Paris offers an interdisciplinary approach to the scholarship on Belle #65533;poque sexual politics and a rich glimpse into the social construction of morality in Belle #65533;poque France.
Mothers in public and political life by 
Conservation of Featherwork from Central and South America by
Conservation of featherwork from Central and South America is edited by Ellen Pearlstein, with an Introduction by Judith Levinson, and case studies presented by Colette Badmagharian, Elizabeth Burr, Lesley Day, Thomas McClintock, William Shelley, and Heather White. The volume editor reviews and updates the philosophical and scientific state of the conservation of feathered cultural heritage, through an exploration of intangible and tangible properties of feathers, and a comprehensive review of relevant scientific and conservation literature. The book includes a template designed to guide collection stewards through the examination and documentation of feathers, and presents six case studies in which examination methods are applied to Central and South American featherwork from the collections of the Fowler Museum at UCLA. The book includes over 200 images in full color.
Reading the Bones by
What can bones tell us about past lives? Do different bone shapes, sizes, and injuries reveal more about people's genes or about their environments? Reading the Bones tackles this question, guiding readers through one of the most hotly debated topics in bioarchaeology. Elizabeth Weiss assembles evidence from anthropological work, medical and sports studies, occupational studies, genetic twin studies, and animal research. Examining the most commonly utilized activity pattern indicators in the field, she reevaluates the age-old question of genes versus environment. While cross-sectional geometries frequently inform on mobility, Weiss asks whether these measures may also be influenced by climate-driven body shape adaptions. Entheseal changes--at the locations of muscle attachments--and osteoarthritis indicate wear and tear on joints but are also among the best predictors of age and can be used to reconstruct activity patterns. Weiss also examines the most common stress fractures, such as spondylolysis and clay-shoveler's fracture; stress hernias or Schmorl's nodes; and activity indicator facets like Poirier's facets, Allen's facets, and Baastrup's kissing spines. Probing deeper into the complex factors that result in the varying anomalies of the human skeleton, this thorough survey of activity indicators in bones helps us understand which markers are mainly due to human biology and which are truly useful in reconstructing lifestyle patterns of the past.
The Mesoamerican Codex Re-Entangled by
This innovative work aims to piece together the cultural biography of Mesoamerica's precolonial codices. Today, fewer than twenty manuscripts are all that remain of the Mesoamerican book-making tradition. These pictographic and hieroglyphic texts have often been researched according to their content, but such studies have ignored their nature as material objects. By tracing the paths these books have followed over the past five hundred years, Ludo Snijders offers fascinating insights into their production, use and reuse, destruction, rediscovery, and reinvention.
Birds, Beasts and Burials by
The human-animal relationship is one that has been pondered by scholars for ages. It has been used to define both what it means to be human and what it means to be animal. Birds, Beasts and Burials examines human-animal relationships as found in the mortuary record within the area of Verulamium that is now situated in the modern town of St. Albans. Once considered a major centre, the mortuary rites given to its people suggest high variabilities in the approach to the personhood of certain classes of both people and animals. While 480 human individuals were examined, only a small percentage was found to have been afforded the rite of a human-animal co-burial. It is this small percentage that is examined in greater detail. Of major concern are the treatments to both the human and animal pre- and post- burial and the point at which the animal enters into the funerary practice.
The Archaeology of Time Travel by
This volume explores the relevance of time travel as a characteristic contemporary way to approach the past. If reality is defined as the sum of human experiences and social practices, all reality is partly virtual, and all experienced and practiced time travel is real. In that sense, time travel experiences are not necessarily purely imaginary. Time travel experiences and associated social practices have become ubiquitous and popular, increasingly replacing more knowledge-orientated and critical approaches to the past. Papers discuss the implications and problems associated with the ubiquity and popularity of time travelling and whether time travel is inherently conservative because of its escapist tendencies, or whether it might instead be considered as a fulfilment of the contemporary Experience or Dream Society. Whatever position one may take, time travel is a legitimate and timely object of study and critique because it represents a particularly significant way to bring the past back to life in the present.
American Indian Medicine Ways by
Indigenous people of wisdom have offered prayers of power, protection, and healing since the dawn of time. From Wovoka, the Ghost Dance prophet, to contemporary healer Kenneth Coosewoon, medicine people have called on the spiritual world to help humans in their relationships with each other and the natural world. Many American Indians--past and present--have had the ability to use power to access wisdom, knowledge, and spiritual understanding. This groundbreaking collection provides fascinating stories of wisdom, spiritual power, and forces within tribal communities that have influenced the past and may influence the future. Through discussions of omens, prophecies, war, peace, ceremony, ritual, and cultural items such as masks, prayer sticks, sweat lodges, and peyote, this volume offers examples of the ways in which Native American beliefs in spirits have been and remain a fundamental aspect of history and culture. Drawing from written and oral sources, the book offers readers a greater understanding of creation narratives, oral histories, and songs that speak of healers, spirits, and power from tribes across the North American continent. American Indian medicine ways and spiritual power remain vital today. With the help of spirits, people can heal the sick, protect communities from natural disasters, and mediate power of many kinds between the spiritual and corporeal worlds. As the contributors to this volume illustrate, healers are the connective cloth between the ancient past and the present, and their influence is significant for future generations. CONTRIBUTORS R. David Edmunds Joseph B. Herring Benjamin Jenkins Troy R. Johnson Michelle Lorimer L. G. Moses Richard D. Scheuerman Al Logan Slagle Clifford E. Trafzer
Between Magic and Rationality by
In Between Magic and Rationality, Vibeke Steffen, Steffen J#65533;hncke, and Kirsten Marie Raahauge bring together a diverse range of ethnographies that examine and explore the forms of reflection, action, and interaction that govern the ways different contemporary societies create and challenge the limits of reason. The essays here visit an impressive array of settings, including international scientific laboratories, British spiritualist meetings, Chinese villages, Danish rehabilitation centers, and Uzbeki homes, where we encounter a diverse assortment of people whose beliefs and concerns exhibit an unusual but central contemporary dichotomy: scientific reason vis-#65533;-vis spiritual/paranormal belief. Exploring the paradoxical way these modes of thought push against reason’s boundaries, they offer a deep look at the complex ways they coexist, contest each other, and are ultimately intertwined.
Treasures from the Sea by
This interdisciplinary volume presents a collection of 17 papers which treat the current state of research on two marine resources used in ancient textile manufacture, shellfish purple dye and sea silk. Purple dye is extracted from the glands of the molluscs Hexaplex trunculus, Bolinus Brandaris and Stramonita Haemastoma which through a chemical reaction of photosynthesis produces hues ranging from dark red to bluish purple colour. The importance of purple dye since ancient times as a status symbol, a sign of royal and religious power is well documented. Papers include the study of epigraphical and historical sources, practical experiments as well as, highlighting the presence of purple dye in the Mediterranean area in select archaeological data. Less well known is sea silk, a precious fibre derived from the tufts of the pen shell, Pinna nobilis, with which the mollusc anchors itself to the seabed. These tufts once cleaned and bleached take the aspect of golden thread. Only a handful of artisans on Sardinia still have the knowledge of how to work these fibres from the pen shell, a species protected by the EU Habitats Directive, the knowledge having been transmitted orally for generations. Papers include linguistic issues pertaining to terminology, archaeological investigation, the study of the physical and chemical properties of sea silk and the step-by-step practical working of sea silk fibres. The comprehensive multifaceted overview makes this book a valuable resource for anyone interested in ancient textiles, dyes and textile technology.
Medical Anthropology and the World System by
Now in its third edition, this textbook serves to frame understandings of health, health-related behavior, and health care in light of social and health inequality as well as structural violence. It also examines how the exercise of power in the health arena and in society overall impacts human health and well-being.
Children, Death and Burial by
Children, Death and Burials assembles a panorama of studies with a focus on juvenile burials; the 16 papers have a wide geographic and temporal breadth and represent a range of methodological approaches. All have a similar objective in mind, however, namely to understand how children were treated in death by different cultures in the past; to gain insights concerning the roles of children of different ages in their respective societies and to find evidence of the nature of past adult-child relationships and interactions across the life course. The contextualisation and integration of the data collected, both in the field and in the laboratory, enables more nuanced understandings to be gained in relation to the experiences of the young in the past. A broad range of issues are addressed within the volume, including the inclusion/exclusion of children in particular burial environments and the impact of age in relation to the place of children in society. Child burials clearly embody identity and 'the domestic child', 'the vulnerable child', 'the high status child', 'the cherished child', 'the potential child', 'the ritual child' and the 'political child', and combinations thereof, are evident throughout the narratives. Investigation of the burial practices afforded to children is pivotal to enlightenment in relation to key facets of past life, including the emotional responses shown towards children during life and in death, as well as an understanding of their place within the social strata and ritual activities of their societies.
The Archaeology of the Solomon Islands by
Archaeology of the Solomon Islands presents the outcome of twenty years' research in the Solomon Islands undertaken jointly by Richard Walter and Peter Sheppard, both leaders in the field of Pacific archaeology. At the time of first European encounter, the peoples of Melanesia exhibited some of the greatest diversity in language, sociopolitical organization and culture expression of any region on earth. This extraordinary diversity attracted scholars and resulted in coastal Melanesia becoming the birthplace of modern anthropology, and yet the area remains one of the least well-documented regions of the Pacific in archaeological terms. This synthesis of Solomon Island archaeology draws together all the research that has taken place in the field over the past fifty years. It uses a multidisciplinary theoretical and methodological approach and considers the work of archaeologists, environmental scientists, anthropologists, and historians. At the same time, this volume highlights the results of the authors' own considerable field research. Until recently, much Pacific archaeological research focused primarily on colonization events and cultural-ecological interactions. Walter and Sheppard are interested too in the long-term development of diversity in coastal Melanesia and in the evolution of "traditional" Melanesian societies. As a case study they focus on the Roviana Chiefdom, an aggressive but highly successful polity based around headhunting, slave raiding, and ritual violence that dominated the political economy of the Western Province into the early twentieth century. The authors also integrate the Solomon Islands into ongoing models and debates around Pacific culture-history, including in such key areas as human expansion during the Pleistocene, the spread of Austronesians, Lapita colonization, the development of food production, the role of exchange systems, the concept and meaning of culture areas, and human impact on landscapes and ecosystems. This fascinating and very readable book is written for an archaeological audience but is also designed to be accessible to all readers interested in Pacific archaeology, anthropology, and history. Featuring more than a hundred maps and figures, Archaeology of the Solomon Islands represents a groundbreaking contribution to Pacific archaeology.
Narrative Research in Applied Linguistics by
This book brings together contributions from various researchers, providing an overview of narrative research approaches and demonstrating how these work in practice. A broad range of approaches are covered, from well-established and well-known thematic analysis (particularly of 'big stories'), to the more recent sociolinguistic discourse analysis of 'small stories', and the innovative analysis and presentation of visual and performance data such as drawings and drama. This overview includes not just an illustration of narrative research, but the methodological processes which underpin it, relating these to relevant narrative theory. The book, therefore, is both a how-to-do narrative research text and a presentation of narrative studies, providing case study examples and ideas for further research.
New Perspectives on the Bronze Age by
The Nordic Bronze Age Symposium began modestly in 1977 with 13 participants, and has now expanded to over 120 participants: a tenfold increase that reflects the expanding role of Bronze Age research in Scandinavia, not least amongst younger researchers. From having taken a back seat in the 1970s, it is now in the driver's seat in terms of expanding research themes, publications and international impact. This collection of articles helps to explain why the Bronze Age has come to hold such a fascination within modern archaeological research. By providing new theoretical and analytical perspectives on the evidence new interpretative avenues have opened, it situates the history of the Bronze Age in both a local and a global setting.
Archaeologies of Gender and Violence by
Uros Matić and Bo Jensen have brought together a team of both young and senior researches from many different countries in this first volume that aims to explore the complex intersection between archaeology, gender and violence. Papers range from theoretical discussions on previous approaches to gender and violence and the ethical necessity to address these questions today, to case studies dealing on gender and violence from prehistoric to early medieval Europe, but also including studies on ancient Egypt, Persia and Peru. The contributors deal both with representations of violence and its gendered background in images and text, and with bioarchaeological evidence for violence and trauma with a gendered background. The volume is rich both in examples and approaches and includes opening and closing chapters by senior scholars in the field assessing the current state of work and addressing the scholarship to continue on the line of this volume.
Entangled pieties : Muslim-Christian relations and gendered sociality in Java, Indonesia, Indonesia by
This book explores the social life of Muslim women and Christian minorities amid Islamic and Christian movements in urban Java, Indonesia. Drawing on anthropological perspectives and 14 months of participant observation between 2009 and 2013 in the multi-religious Javanese city of Salatiga, this ethnography examines the interrelations between Islamic piety, Christian identity, and gendered sociability in a time of multiple religious revivals. The novel encounters between multiple forms of piety and customary sociality among "moderate" Muslims, puritan Salafists, born-again Pentecostals, Protestants, and Catholics require citizens to renegotiate various social interactions. En-Chieh Chao argues that piety has become a complex phenomenon entangled with gendered sociality and religious others, rather than a preordained outcome stemming from a self-contained religious tradition.
The Anthropology of Sustainability by
This book compiles research from leading experts in the social, behavioral, and cultural dimensions of sustainability, as well as local and global understandings of the concept, and on lived practices around the world. It contains studies focusing on ways of living, acting, and thinking which claim to favor the local and global ecological systems of which we are a part, and on which we depend for survival. The concept of sustainability as a product of concern about global environmental degradation, rising social inequalities, and dispossession is presented as a key concept. The contributors explore the opportunities to engage with questions of sustainability and to redefine the concept of sustainability in anthropological terms.
Rapa Nui by
Rapa Nui, one of the world#65533;s most isolated island societies and home to the notable moai, has been at the centre of a tense debate for the past decade. Some see it as the site of a dramatic cultural collapse occurring before Western contact, where a self-inflicted ecocide was brought on by the exhaustion of resources. Others argue that the introduction of Western pathogens and the slave raids of 1862 were to blame for the near extinction of the otherwise resilient Rapa Nui people.#65533; Cultural and Environmental Change on Rapa Nui#65533;brings together the latest studies by prominent Rapa Nui researchers from all over the world to explore the island#65533;s past and present, from its discovery by Polynesians, through the first documented contact with Western culture in 1722, to the 20thcentury. The exiting new volume looks beyond the moai to examine such questions as: was there was a cultural collapse; how did the Rapa Nui react to Westerners; and what responses did the Rapa Nui develop to adjust to naturally- or humanly-induced environmental change? This volume will appeal to scholars and professionals in the fields of history, archaeology and ecology, as well as anyone with an interest in the challenges of sustainable resource management, and the contentious history of Rapa Nui itself.
Wittgenstein's Anthropological Philosophy by
This book explores how Wittgenstein's personal life provided more of a reference point for his philosophical work than has been previously thought. Focusing on two key phases in Wittgenstein's life during which he dramatically changed his philosophical orientation and reinvented both his intellectual methods and himself, the author presents and alternative understanding of Wittgenstein and his work. The book firstly addresses the period of his "anthropological turn" (1929-1932), in which Wittgenstein developed one of his central arguments concerning the role of the body in the acquisition of language and the rules of social practice. The second key phase, commencing after the end of the Second World War, was one of introspection, during which Wittgenstein became intensely preoccupied by inner events, sensations, and his own personality. As his work evolved, the anthropological aspects became the primary focus of his work by the end of his life. Providing an accessible and novel insight into Wittgenstein's work and his interest in 'continental' philosophy, this translation will appeal to a wide audience.
Monuments Matter by
-This book's publication marks the 70th year of India's Independence -Celebrates the country's ancient history, exploring the societies that have flourished there in the distant past through the imprint they have left on India's monuments -Will undoubtedly be of interest to students of architecture, based in the featured region and elsewhere India's success in conserving its archaeological heritage will be assessed, in a book that does not shy from the question of what has been lost in the past. It begins with looking at the impact of Partition on monuments, museum collections and the nature of archeological research itself. It will provide an overview and an analysis of archeological investigations, as well as methods and ideas used in collecting and processing data. Along with work done by government institutions, attention will be drawn to community practices that have helped preserve objects of antiquarian interest. This book is a simultaneous homage to India's rich history, and a treatise on archeological practice itself.
Multidisciplinary Studies on the Environment and Civilization by
Multidisciplinary Studies on the Environment and Civilization draws on research from a diverse range of fields across the humanities, social and natural sciences to discover what is needed to develop an affluent, sustainable and resilient world for the twenty-first century and beyond. The contributions throughout this volume build and promote frameworks for an interdisciplinary approach to sustainability both in and beyond Japan. Utilizing research efforts from a broad range of fields such as zoology, biological anthropology and archaeology, these multidisciplinary studies are brought together to assess the impacts humans have had on the environment as well as the role of civilization, culture and heritage in environmental history. This book provides a truly multidisciplinary approach to environmental issues and will be of great interest to graduate students and researchers in fields such as climate, geology, plant taxonomy and marine science as well as those with an interest in Japanese history, archaeology, art and literature.
The Once And Future Liberal by
From one of the country's most admired political thinkers, an urgent wake-up call to American liberals to turn from the divisive politics of identity and develop a vision of our future that can persuade all citizens that they share a common destiny. In The Once and Future Liberal, Mark Lilla offers an impassioned, tough-minded, and stinging look at the failure of American liberalism over the past two generations. Although there have been Democrats in the White House, and some notable policy achievements, for nearly 40 years the vision that Ronald Reagan offered--small government, lower taxes, and self-reliant individualism--has remained the country's dominant political ideology. And the Democratic Party has offered no convincing competing vision in response. Instead, as Lilla argues, American liberalism fell under the spell of identity politics, with disastrous consequences. Driven originally by a sincere desire to protect the most vulnerable Americans, the left has now unwittingly balkanized the electorate, encouraged self-absorption rather than solidarity, and invested its energies in social movements rather than in party politics. With dire consequences. Lilla goes on to show how the left's identity-focused individualism insidiously conspired with the amoral economic individualism of the Reaganite right to shape an electorate with little sense of a shared future and near-contempt for the idea of the common good. In the contest for the American imagination, liberals have abdicated. Now they have an opportunity to reset. The left is motivated, and the Republican Party, led by an unpredictable demagogue, is in ideological disarray. To seize this opportunity, Lilla insists, liberals must concentrate their efforts on recapturing our institutions by winning elections. The time for hectoring is over. It is time to reach out and start persuading people from every walk of life and in every region of the country that liberals will stand up for them. We must appeal to - but also help to rebuild - a sense of common feeling among Americans, and a sense of duty to each other. A fiercely-argued, no-nonsense book, enlivened by Lilla's acerbic wit and erudition, The Once and Future Liberal is essential reading for our momentous times.
Cultural Landscape Transaction and Values of Nupe Community in Central Nigeria by
The book provides readers with insights on how cultural landscapes are conceptualised under two major realms of tangible and intangible values as exemplified in this study of a rural Nupe community in central Nigeria. Equally important are the people-space and place relationship which results in a sense of place. The cultural values of communities are a product of both natural as well as the social setting which begins with the family. Accordingly, this book showcases how the concept of family structure shapes the architecture of the domestic space. Similarly, it also exemplifies how tangible and intangible cultural values are constituted within the domestic space as well as the entire cultural landscape. The uniqueness of this book is on the empirical evidence which is based on the documentation of an eight-month ethnographic study which brought about the native¿s resident perception of their cultural landscape. This aligns with the global call in which UNESCO is at the forefront advocating the need for the preservation of values and identities of cultural landscapes. More also is that scholars in Human geography, Anthropology, Ethnography, Architecture and Cultural landscape studies can relate to the cultural transactions discussed in different chapters this book. The concluding chapter of this book gives the deductions drawn from the cultural landscape values of Nupe community which resulted in the formulation of Grounded Theory with spatial implications.
Archaeological Remote Sensing in North America by
The latest on the rapidly growing use of innovative archaeological remote sensing for anthropological applications in North America. Updating the highly praised 2006 publication Remote Sensing in Archaeology, edited by Jay K. Johnson, Archaeological Remote Sensing in North America: Innovative Techniques for Anthropological Applications is a must-have volume for today's archaeologist. Targeted to practitioners of archaeological remote sensing as well as students, this suite of current and exemplary applications adheres to high standards for methodology, processing, presentation, and interpretation. The use of remote sensing technologies to address academic and applied archaeological and anthropological research problems is growing at a tremendous rate in North America. Fueling this growth are new research paradigms using innovative instrumentation technologies and broader-area data collection methods. Increasingly, investigators pursuing these new approaches are integrating remote sensing data collection with theory-based interpretations to address anthropological questions within larger research programs. In this indispensable volume, case studies from around the country demonstrate the technically diverse and major remote sensing methods and their integration with relevant technologies, such as geographic information systems (GIS) and global positioning systems (GPS), and include various uses of the "big four": magnetometry, resistivity, ground-penetrating radar (GPR), and electromagnetic induction. The study explores four major anthropological themes: site structure and community organization; technological transformation and economic change; archaeological landscapes; and earthen mound construction and composition. Concluding commentary from renowned expert Kenneth L. Kvamme overviews the practices, advances, and trends of geophysics and remote sensing in the past decade.