Mobile Lifeworlds by
Mobile Lifeworlds illustrates how the imaginaries and ideals of Western travellers, especially those of untouched nature and spiritual enlightenment, are consistent with media representations of the Himalayan region, romanticism and modernity at large. Blending tourism and pilgrimage, travel across Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, and Northern India is often inspired and oriented by a search for authenticity, adventure and Otherness. Such valued ideals are shown, however, to be contested by the very forces and configurations that enable global mobility. The role ubiquitous media and mobile technologies now play in framing travel experiences are explored, revealing a situation in which actors are neither here nor there, but increasingly are 'inter-placed' across planetary landscapes. Beyond institutionalised religious contexts and the visiting of sacred sites, the author shows how a secular religiosity manifests in practical, bodily encounters with foreign environments. This book is unique in that it draws on a dynamic and innovative set of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives, especially phenomenology, the mobilities paradigm and philosophical anthropology. The volume breaks fresh ground in pilgrimage, tourism and travel studies by unfolding the complex relationships between the virtual, imaginary and corporeal dynamics of contemporary mobile lifeworlds.
Beyond Text? by
Beyond Text: Critical Practices and Sensory Anthropology addresses a series of questions concerning the relationship between anthropological understandings of the world, sensory perception and aesthetic practices. The book suggests that if different sensory experiences embody and facilitatedifferent kinds of knowledge, then we need to develop new methods and more appropriate forms of representation that are not based solely around text or on correspondence theories of truth. As such, Beyond Text: Critical Practices and Sensory Anthropology brings together leading figures in anthropology, visual, sound and film studies to explore how knowledge, sensation and embodied experiences can be researched and represented by combining different visual, aural, and textual forms -for example text and image, image and sound, body and voice. What we ask is the relationship between the interiority of a person's experience and its exteriority that is present to the eye, the ear and other sense organs that make the experience "open" to anthropological forms of documentation,theorisation and representation? We argue that there is a necessary, critical development in our ways of knowing that must take place not merely at the level of theory and representation but also through innovative fieldwork methods and media practices. The collected papers and audio-visualmaterials presented on a DVD, explore the potential for a more sensorially-grounded, critically aware and creative approach to cultural analysis, media production and field research.
The Himalayan Border Region by
Drawing fromextensive archival work and long-term ethnographic research, this book focuseson the so-called Bhotiyas, former trans-Himalayan traders and a Scheduled Tribeof India who reside in several high valleys of the Kumaon Himalaya. The area islocated in the border triangle between India, the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR,People's Republic of China), and Nepal, where contestations over politicalboundaries have created multiple challenges as well as opportunities for localmountain communities. Basedon an analytical framework that is grounded in and contributes to recentadvances in the field of border studies, the author explores how theBhotiyas have used their agency to developa flourishing trans-Himalayan trade under British colonial influence; to assertan identity and win legal recognition as a tribal community in the politicalsetup of independent India; and to innovate their pastoral mobility in thecontext of ongoing state and market reforms. By examining theBhotiyas' trade, identity and mobility thisbook shows how and why the Himalayan border region has evolved as an agentive siteof political action for a variety of different actors.
Muslim Women of the Fergana Valley by
Muslim Women of the Fergana Valley is the first English translation of an important 19th-century Russian text describing everyday life in Uzbek communities. Vladimir and Maria Nalivkin were Russians who settled in a "Sart" village in 1878, in a territory newly conquered by the Russian Empire. During their six years in Nanay, Maria Nalivkina learned the local language, befriended her neighbors, and wrote observations about their lives from birth to death. Together, Maria and Vladimir published this account, which met with great acclaim from Russia's Imperial Geographic Society and among Orientalists internationally. While they recognized that Islam shaped social attitudes, the Nalivkins never relied on common stereotypes about the "plight" of Muslim women. The Fergana Valley women of their ethnographic portrait emerge as lively, hard-working, clever, and able to navigate the cultural challenges of early Russian colonialism. Rich with social and cultural detail of a sort not available in other kinds of historical sources, this work offers rare insight into life in rural Central Asia and serves as an instructive example of the genre of ethnographic writing that was emerging at the time. Annotations by the translators and an editor's introduction by Marianne Kamp help contemporary readers understand the Nalivkins' work in context.
Gender and Diasporic Identities in Transnational Migration by
The book analyses contemporary transnational migration through a group of mainland Chinese female expatriates in Britain. The author adopts a multi-sited approach by following individual migrants and moving between different fieldwork sites. Contextualised in the light of both British and Chinese economic, political, and socio-cultural perspectives, the findings reflect the active role that China's massive economic rise has played in promoting Sino-British bilateral cooperation, as well as its influence on the lives of these Chinese female migrants in Britain. In brief, transmigration strategies have become indispensable for their economic integration into the British middle-class. Xujie Jin graduated from the University of Klagenfurt in Austria. She also studied and worked at universities in England and Hong Kong; currently, she is an English lecturer at East China University of Science and Technology in Shanghai. (Series: Ethnologie / Anthropology) [Subject: Sociology, Asian Studies, Migration Studies, Anthropology]
Molas by
Molas, the distinctive blouses made and worn by Kuna women in Panama, are collected by thousands of enthusiasts as well as by anthropological museums all over the world. They are recognized everywhere as an identifier of the Kuna people and also of Panama. This book, based on original research, explores the origin of the mola in the early twentieth century, how it became part of the everyday dress of Kuna women, and its role in creating Kuna identity. Images drawn from more than twenty museums as well as private collections show the development of designs and techniques and highlight changes in the garment as an item of indigenous fashion. Applying an interdisciplinary approach'fusing historical, ethnographic, and material culture studies'author Diana Marks contributes to ongoing debates on cultural authenticity, the invention of traditions, and issues of gender and politics.
Meaning in Action by
In this important new book Rein Raud develops an original theory of culture understood as a loose and internally contradictory system of texts and practices that are shared by intermittent groups of people and used by them to make sense of their life-worlds. This theory views culture simultaneously in two ways: as a world of texts, tangible and shareable products of signifying acts, and as a space of practices, repeatable activities that produce, disseminate and interpret these clusters of meaning. Both approaches are developed into corresponding models of culture which, used together, are able to provide a rich understanding of any meaning in action. In developing this innovative theory, Raud draws on a wide range of disciplines, from anthropology, sociology and cultural studies to semiotics and philosophy. The theory is illustrated throughout with examples drawn from both ?high? and popular culture, and from Western and Asian traditions, dealing with both contemporary and historical topics. The book concludes with two case studies from very different contexts ? one dealing with Italian poetry in the 13th century, the other dealing with the art scene in Eastern Europe in the 1990s. This timely and original work makes a major new contribution to the theory of culture and will be welcomed by students and scholars throughout the social sciences and humanities.
Articulating dinosaurs : a political anthropology by 
Living with Disasters by
This book is a critical account of the disconnected nature of governance, conservation and livelihood initiatives in the Indian Sundarbans, an active delta that spreads over 25,500 sq. km across India and Bangladesh and lies in the Bay of Bengal. It draws a holistic picture of the disaster-prone delta in eastern India, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and also one of the largest tracts of mangrove forests in the world. The author juxtaposes the vulnerable lives and frequently displaced existence of the islanders against the dominant strategies of conservation and development followed by the state.
Grave Matters by
Grave Matters examines the universal subject of death - looking at the particular experience of death, burial and commemoration in Dublin since the 16th century. Using death as a way of understanding social conditions, these essays consider the role of the public funeral in establishing political hierarchies, the fate of the city's poor during the era of the penal laws and the survival of the death penalty to 1990. Contributions also explore the meanings behind humble headstones and elaborate memorials and investigate post-mortem photography. [Subject: Death & Burial, History, Social Class & Social Customs, Ireland]
Folklore: the Basics by
Folklore: The Basicsis an engaging guide to the practice and interpretation of folklore. Taking examples from around the world, it explores the role of folklore in expressing fundamental human needs, desires, and anxieties that often are often not revealed through other means. Providing a clear framework for approaching the study of folklore, it introduces the reader to methodologies for identifying, documenting, interpreting and applying key information about folklore and its relevance to modern life. From the Brothers Grimm to Internet Memes, it addresses such topics as: What is folklore? How do we study it? Why does folklore matter? How does folklore relate to elite culture? Is folklore changing in a digital age? With case studies, suggestions for reading and a glossary of key terminology, Folklore: The Basicssupports readers in becoming familiar with folkloric traditions and interpret cultural expression. It is an essential read for anyone approaching the study of folklore for the first time.
Personal Religion and Magic in Mamasa, West Sulawesi by
In Personal Religion and Magic in Mamasa, West Sulawesi, Kees Buijs describes the traditional culture of the Toraja s, which is rapidly vanishing. The focus is on personal religion as it has its centre in the kitchen of each house. In the kitchen and also by the use of magical words and stones the gods are sought for their powers of blessing. This book adds important information to Buijs earlier Powers of Blessing from the Wilderness and from Heaven (Brill, 2006)."
Institutionalizing Illness Narratives by
This book is an ethnographic work that uses a critical medical anthropology approach to examine the concept of fever care in the context of southern India. Through a study of fevers, the study provides a critical overview to medical practice itself, as it is said that the history of fevers is also the history of medicine. This association between fevers and medicine is as relevant today, as this in-depth study of fever care reveals. Acknowledging the central role of health institutions in creating and propagating notions about illness in society, the author examines fever care through a study of hospitals. The study examines various discourses on fevers prevalent in the southern state of Kerala, which influence policy and programmatic dimensions of the state health services system. Fever care implies those aspects related to provisioning and cost involved among public and private sector hospitals. A second and more important dimension of this book is a critique of the culture of biomedical practice, informed by the social constructivist framework and approaches in the field of science studies. Overall, the book studies the processes by which physical symptoms like fever are treated as epidemics to be controlled, and are therefore brought within a biomedical system, thereby opening up options for commercialization of care.
Baroque Antiquity by
Why were seventeenth-century antiquarians so spectacularly wrong? Even if they knew what ancient monuments looked like, they deliberately distorted the representation of them in print. Deciphering the printed reconstructions of Giacomo Lauro and Athanasius Kircher, this pioneering study uncovers an antiquity born with print culture itself and from the need to accommodate competitive publishers, ambitious patrons and powerful popes. By analysing the elements of fantasy in Lauro and Kircher's archaeological visions, new levels of meaning appear. Instead of being testimonies of failed archaeology, they emerge as complex architectural messages responding to moral, political, and religious issues of the day. This book combines several histories - print, archaeology, and architecture - in the attempt to identify early modern strategies of recovering lost Rome. Many books have been written on antiquity in the Renaissance, but this book defines an antiquity that is particularly Baroque.
The Native World-System by
Based on years of fieldwork, this ethnography of the Bolivian Aymara trading system and its networks and economic strategies examines one of the most up-and-coming forms of indigenous entrepreneurship on the American continent, in a region where the indigenous population is still stigmatizedfor being associated with poverty and backward ways. In doing so, it illuminates a critical dynamic of globalization that is taking place behind the scenes. By analyzing Aymara economic institutions and networks and their concepts and practices of business management, The Native World-Systemdescribes a system in which indigenous sociopolitical structures and religious values and beliefs are interwoven with an advanced economic practice, specialized technological know-how, and global networks. The Native World-System is a volume in the ISSUES OF GLOBALIZATION: CASE STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY ANTHROPOLOGY series, which examines the experiences of individual communities in our contemporary world. Each volume offers a brief and engaging exploration of a particular issue arising fromglobalization and its cultural, political, and economic effects on certain peoples or groups.
Charleston by
"An amazing book, representing years of work and dozens of excavations and presenting a continuous chronology of a colonial city from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. No other city in America has this kind of archaeological record."--Nan A. Rothschild, coauthor of The Archaeology of American Cities "A must-read for those interested in food and foodways, urbanization, and the untold history of one of America's oldest cities."--Russell K. Skowronek, coeditor of Pieces of Eight: More Archaeology of Piracy "Provides a unique guided tour of the city's vibrant legacy, skillfully weaving a complex tapestry of archaeological and historical discoveries. Charleston is not to be missed."--Jerald T. Milanich, author of Laboring in the Fields of the Lord: Spanish Missions and Southeastern Indians Charleston, South Carolina, is one of the most storied cities of the American South. Widely recognized for its historic buildings, its thriving maritime culture, and its role in the Civil War, Charleston is also considered the birthplace of historic preservation. Martha Zierden and Elizabeth Reitz--whose archaeological fieldwork in the city spans more than three decades--explore the evolution of the urban environment, the intricacies of provisioning such a robust city, and the urban foodways that continue to inspire Charleston's culture. In Charleston, Zierden and Reitz weave archaeology and history to illuminate this vibrant, densely packed Atlantic port city. They detail the residential, commercial, and public life of the city, the ruins of taverns, markets, and townhouses, including those of Thomas Heyward, shipping merchant Nathaniel Russell, and William Aiken. The authors shed light on the dynamics of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services that linked the city with rural neighbors and global markets. They also trace fish and game from the woods and waters to the kitchens where the food was prepared and the tables where it was served. Zierden and Reitz reveal how global trade goods combined with indigenous flavors to create a cuisine that was uniquely Charleston. The artifacts unearthed show how Charleston continued to grow and develop as it contended with public health initiatives necessitated by post-Civil War changes, the fire of 1861, and the earthquake of 1886. They also testify to the city's arts and finery and to the challenges experienced by laboring slaves, house servants, and other underprivileged citizens. By reminding us that urban areas shape and are shaped by their inhabitants, Charleston evokes the essence of the deeply complex city whose influence was felt throughout the Atlantic World.
Spell of the Urubamba by
This work examines the valley of the Urubamba River in terms of vertical zonation, Incan impact on the environment, plant use, the history of exploration and the notion of discovery, the idea of land reform, and cultural contact with the European world. Winding its path northward from the Andean Highlands to the Amazon, the valley has served as the stage of pre-Columbian civilizations and focal point of Spanish conquest in Peru. "Gade leftbehind not only a superb body of scholarly work, but a network of colleaguesand students who remain indebted to his example. This book should serve as aninspiration for all scholars who wish to pursue the Sauerian, counterenlightenment or post development agendas of understanding and respecting particularplaces in all their historical and cultural complexity, including ambiguitiesand contradictions." -- The Geographical Review, American Geographical Society
Reluctant Intimacies by
Based on seventeen months of ethnographic research among Indonesian eldercare workers in Japan and Indonesia, this book is the first ethnography to research Indonesian care workers' relationships with the cared-for elderly, their Japanese colleagues, and their employers. Through the notion of intimacy, the book brings together sociological and anthropological scholarship on the body, migration, demographic change, and eldercare in a vivid account of societal transformation. Placed against the background of mass media representations, the Indonesian workers' experiences serve as a basis for discussion of the role of bodily experience in shaping the image of a national "other" in Japan.
Geometries of Crime by
This book explores how young people perceive the severity of crime and delinquency. It particularly addresses whom or what they consider to be the victims of crime and delinquency, how they analyze and assess appropriate responses by the criminal justice system, as well as their place within it. The book proposes tools for developing a more elaborate and robust understanding of what constitutes crime, identifying those affected by it, and what is deemed adequate or appropriate punishment. In so doing, it offers thick description of young peoples' conceptions of and experiences with crime, delinquency, justice and law, and uses this description to interrogate the role of the state in influencing - indeed, shaping - these perceptions.
Signal Traffic by
The contributors to Signal Traffic investigate how the material artifacts of media infrastructure--transoceanic cables, mobile telephone towers, Internet data centers, and the like--intersect with everyday life. Essayists confront the multiple and hybrid forms networks take, the different ways networks are imagined and engaged with by publics around the world, their local effects, and what human beings experience when a network fails. Some contributors explore the physical objects and industrial relations that make up an infrastructure. Others venture into the marginalized communities orphaned from the knowledge economies, technological literacies, and epistemological questions linked to infrastructural formation and use. The wide-ranging insights delineate the oft-ignored contrasts between industrialized and developing regions, rich and poor areas, and urban and rural settings, bringing technological differences into focus. Contributors include Charles R. Acland, Paul Dourish, Sarah Harris, Jennifer Holt and Patrick Vonderau, Shannon Mattern, Toby Miller, Lisa Parks, Christian Sandvig, Nicole Starosielski, Jonathan Sterne, and Helga Tawil-Souri.
Shichigosan by
This book presents a case study of shichigosan, an extremely popular childhood family ritual in contemporary Japan. It is an interesting example of a custom with very ancient roots (going back to the tenth century), that has undergone several transformations during the course of its history, adapting to changing socio-economic and cultural circumstances. Within the study, the ritual unfolds as a shared platform where basic social values, views on children and family life, and individual perceptions emerge, are expressed and moulded at the same time. This book offers a multidisciplinary approach to the study of a ritual practice in the intensely urbanized context of present-day Japan.
Century of Transnationalism by
This collection of articles by sociologically minded historians and historically minded sociologists highlights both the long-term persistence and the continuing instability of home country connections. Encompassing societies of origin and destination from around the world, A Century of Transnationalism shows that while population movements across states recurrently produce homeland ties, those connections have varied across contexts and from one historical period to another, changing in unpredictable ways. Any number of factors shape the linkages between home and destination, including conditions in the society of immigration, policies of the state of emigration, and geopolitics worldwide. Contributors: Houda Asal, Marie-Claude Blanc-Chal#65533;ard, Caroline Douki, David FitzGerald, Nancy L. Green, Madeline Y. Hsu, Thomas Lacroix, Tony Michels, Victor Pereira, M#65533;nica Raisa Schpun, and Roger Waldinger
Human Evolution by
The story of human evolution has fascinated us like no other: we seem to have an insatiable curiosity about who we are and where we have come from. Yet studying the "stones and bones" skirts around what is perhaps the realest, and most relatable, story of human evolution - the social and cognitive changes that gave rise to modern humans. In Human Evolution: Our Brains and Behavior, Robin Dunbar appeals to the human aspects of every reader, as subjects of mating, friendship, and community are discussed from an evolutionary psychology perspective. With a table of contents ranging from prehistoric times to modern days, Human Evolution focuses on an aspect of evolution that has typically been overshadowed by the archaeological record: the biological, neurological, and genetic changes that occurred with each "transition" in the evolutionary narrative. Dunbar's interdisciplinary approach - inspired by his background as both an anthropologist and accomplished psychologist - brings the reader into all aspects of the evolutionary process, which he describes as the "jigsaw puzzle" of evolution that he and the reader will help solve. In doing so, the book carefully maps out each stage of the evolutionary process, from anatomical changes such as bipedalism and increase in brain size, to cognitive and behavioral changes, such as the ability to cook, laugh, and use language to form communities through religion and story-telling. Most importantly and interestingly, Dunbar hypothesizes the order in which these evolutionary changes occurred-conclusions that are reached with the "time budget model" theory that Dunbar himself coined. As definitive as the "stones and bones" are for the hard dates of archaeological evidence, this book explores far more complex psychological questions that require a degree of intellectual speculation: What does it really mean to be human (as opposed to being an ape), and how did we come to be that way?
No Place for Grief by
Westerners 'know' Palestine through images of war and people in immediate distress. Yet this focus has as its consequence that other, less spectacular stories of daily distress are rarely told. Those seldom noticed are the women behind the men who engage in armed resistance against the military occupation: wives of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention and the widows of the martyrs. In Palestine, being related to a detainee serving a sentence for participation in the resistance activities against Israel is a source of pride. Consequently, the wives of detainees are expected to sustain these relationships through steadfast endurance, no matter the effects upon the marriage or family. Often people, media, and academic studies address the dramatic violence and direct affliction of the Palestinians. Lotte Buch Segal takes a different approach, and offers a glimpse of the lives, and the contradictory emotions, of the families of both detainees and martyrs through an in-depth ethnographic investigation. No Place for Grief asks us to think about what it means to grieve when that which is grieved does not lend itself to a language of loss and mourning. What does it mean to "endure" when ordinary life is engulfed by the emotional labor required to withstand the pressures placed on Palestinian families by sustained imprisonment and bereavement? Despite an elaborate repertoire of narrative styles, laments, poetry, and performance of bodily gestures through which mourning can be articulated, including the mourning tied to a political cause, Buch Segal contends that these forms of expression are inadequate to the sorrow endured by detainees' wives. No Place for Grief reveals a new language that describes the entanglement of absence and intimacy, endurance and everyday life, and advances an understanding of loss, mourning, and grief in contemporary Palestine.
Sentient Relics by
Sentient Relicsexplores museums through cinema and challenges the dominant focus of museum theory as an inclusion-exclusion debate. The author responds to the Enlightenment, 'rational' museum of reason contrasting this with the museum of affect and reveals these 'two museums' operating alongside one another in a productive paradox. In structuralist-orientated museum theory the affective realm is often subsumed within the imperatives of Marxist theory and practice, identity politics, semiology and psychoanalysis. Sentient Relics, while valuing the insights of ideologically focused meaning-making, turns to the capacity of the affective realm of experience to transform the passive subject and object relation. The author uses museum encounters and cinematic affect to engage with problems of difference, temporality, emotion and the sublime. In so doing the book advances research in museum studies by demonstrating what is at stake in pragmatically working toward a deeper understanding of the museum socially, culturally and philosophically.
Corruption in Public Administration by
Despite the growth in literature on political corruption, contributions from field research are still exiguous. This book provides a timely and much needed addition to current research, bridging the gap and providing an innovative approach to the study of corruption and integrity in public administration. The volume contributors provide insights from eight different countries, all drawing on extensive fieldwork data and following ethnographic methodologies. The topics discussed in this book include: the role of anti-corruption legislation; organizational change and integrity; party corruption; socio-cultural dimensions of corruption; gift-exchange; and clientelism. Analyzing these topics comparatively, the volume concludes that in countries where public perception of corruption is high, citizens are well aware of the generalized damage of these practices and the loss of trust they cause for public administrations. On the other hand, corruption in public administration takes place following patterns that mirror some of the fundamental social and cultural features that characterize interactions among citizens and institutions.Scholars and students from fields including public policy, public administration, sociology and anthropology will find this book to be of use to their research and studies. It will also be of interest to policy makers internationally and public sector practitioners.
Food and Power in Hawaii by
What are the challenges to the food system in Hawai'i? Food and Power in Hawai'i explores issues facing the way we eat and produce (or do not produce) food in Hawai'i. Given its island geography, high dependence on imported food has been portrayed as the primary problem, and localization has been proposed as the dominant solution in Hawai'i. But the book argues that much more is needed to transform the food system into one that is just, equitable, secure, and healthy. The book points out the diversity of the challenges Hawai'i faces-energy-intensive farming; gendered and racialized farming populations; controversies over the ownership, costs, and benefits of biotechnology; high food insecurity for marginalized communities; and stratified access to nutritious foods. Defying the reductive approach that looks only at calories or tonnage of food produced and/or consumed in the state as the indicator of the soundness of the food system, the book points out how the food problems are necessarily layered with other sociocultural and economic problems and uses food democracy as the guiding framework. Food and Power in Hawai'i explores various issues, including agriculture, land use, colonialism, biotechnology, agricultural tourism, and farmers' markets; and explains how these issues relate to movements toward food democracy.
A Faith in Archaeological Science: Reflections on a Life by
This is the first memoir by an internationally known archaeological scientist, and one who has been particularly research active for over fifty years in the broad field of bioarchaeology. Written with humour and a critical concern to understand the nature of his life and that of our species. It provides a very readable and original account of a life embracing field and laboratory work from Orkney to Egypt and Mongolia to Peru. The diverse research extends from human fossils, to cemetery studies and bog bodies, to dogs, hair chemistry, bone pathology, soils and vitrification. He has similarly been concerned about the nature of culture, the impact of stress on individuals, and theoretical issues in archaeological science. He argues that we are advanced primates, and can't be divorced from a scientific and ethological perspective. Indeed, he sees culture as derived from a complex interwoven range of thought, from the usefully adaptive to the highly maladaptive creative thinking which can grade into destructive social pathology. Our limited ability to perceive accurately has resulted in the creation of a plethora of dubious beliefs, from religions to political elitism and fanaticism. Placed in the world of today, with the perspective of our long past, the author feels that it is difficult not to feel coldly sober and doubtful about the future of our species. But we are not extinct yet! Beginning life as a traumatised baby and school failure, Don retired as emeritus professor of archaeological science in the University of York.
Landscapes of Accumulation by
Over the past few decades, India has experienced a sudden and spectacular urban transformation. Gleaming business complexes encroach on fields and villages. Giant condominium communities offer gated security, indoor gyms, and pristine pools. Spacious, air-conditioned malls have sprung up alongside open-air markets. In Landscapes of Accumulation, Llerena Guiu Searle examines India's booming developments and offers a nuanced ethnographic treatment of late capitalism. India's land, she shows, is rapidly transforming from a site of agricultural and industrial production to an international financial resource. Drawing on intensive fieldwork with investors, developers, real estate agents, and others, Searle documents the new private sector partnerships and practices that are transforming India's built environment, as well as widely shared stories of growth and development that themselves create self-fulfilling prophecies of success. As a result, India's cities are becoming ever more inaccessible to the country's poor. Landscapes of Accumulation will be a welcome contribution to the international study of neoliberalism, finance, and urban development and will be of particular interest to those studying rapid--and perhaps unsustainable--development across the Global South.
Osaka Archaeology by
Ōsaka, now a city of 19 million inhabitants, was the economic powerhouse of Japan for two thousand years and remains an important international center. In an unusual archaeological treatment of regional long-term history, Richard Pearson proposes that a kind of entrepreneurial mentality motivated leaders to expand the economy through projects of all kinds. He summarizes results of decades of Japanese intensive archaeological study of these projects and introduces some local museums conserving and interpreting cultural heritage in the face of overwhelming urbanization. The Ōsaka Plain was the scene of vigorous Palaeolithic and Jōmon hunting and gathering communities and large agricultural villages during the Yayoi Period, and was the political center of Japan for parts of the Kofun, Asuka and Nara Periods. In the 5th century AD some of the largest burial mounds in the world were built there. Later it was an area of rich and powerful manors in the Heian and Kamakura Periods. At the end of the Chūsei (Mediaeval) Period, the city of Sakai emerged as the financial center of Japan. and Ōsaka Castle briefly dominated the region. Working in tandem with the adjacent Nara and Kyōto Basins, Ōsaka was a center of innovation and economic, social, and cultural exchange between the Japanese Islands and coastal Asia.
The Fabric of Indigeneity by
In present-day Japan, Ainu women create spaces of cultural vitalization in which they can move between ?being Ainu? through their natal and affinal relationships and actively ?becoming Ainu? through their craftwork. They craft these spaces despite the specter of loss that haunts the efforts of former colonial subjects, like Ainu, to reconnect with their pasts. The author synthesizes ethnographic field research, museum and archival research, and participation in cultural-revival and rights-based organizing to show how women craft Ainu and indigenous identities through clothwork and how they also fashion lived connections to ancestral values and lifestyles. She examines the connections between the transnational dialogue on global indigeneity and multiculturalism, material culture, and the social construction of gender and ethnicity in Japanese society, and she proposes new directions for the study of settler colonialism and indigenous mobilization in other Asian and Pacific nations.
The Archaeology of Human-Environment Interactions by
The impacts of climate change on human societies, and the roles those societies themselves play in altering their environments, appear in headlines more and more as concern over modern global climate change intensifies. Increasingly, archaeologists and paleoenvironmental scientists are looking to evidence from the human past to shed light on the processes which link environmental and cultural change. Establishing clear contemporaneity and correlation, and then moving beyond correlation to causation, remains as much a theoretical task as a methodological one. This book addresses this challenge by exploring new approaches to human-environment dynamics and confronting the key task of constructing arguments that can link the two in concrete and detailed ways. The contributors include researchers working in a wide variety of regions and time periods, including Mesoamerica, Mongolia, East Africa, the Amazon Basin, and the Island Pacific, among others. Using methodological vignettes from their own research, the contributors explore diverse approaches to human-environment dynamics, illustrating the manifold nature of the subject and suggesting a wide variety of strategies for approaching it. This book will be of interest to researchers and scholars in Archaeology, Paleoenvironmental Science, Ecology, and Geology.
Encyclopedia of Beasts and Monsters in Myth, Legend and Folklore by
Here there be dragons--this notation was often made on ancient maps to indicate the edges of the known world and what lay beyond. Heroes who ventured there were only as great as the beasts they encountered. This encyclopedia contains more than 2,200 monsters of myth and folklore, who both made life difficult for humans and fought by their side. Entries describe the appearance, behavior, and cultural origin of mythic creatures well-known and obscure, collected from traditions around the world.
Warzone Tourism in Sri Lanka by
An ethnographic study on internal travel analysed through the perspectives of Sinhala tourists going from the South to the war-ravaged North. Warzone Tourism in Sri Lanka explores travellers' narratives that reflect the experiences and interactions of those going to northern Sri Lanka, and argues that the discourses that emerge are not simply based on leisure and innocence of travel. Rather, they have much to do with the thirty-year civil war in Sri Lanka and how it has impacted the inter-ethnic relations in the country, creating two mutually antagonistic forms of nationalism--Tamil and Sinhala. This book is a significant contribution to academia in light of the disruption of civilian travel to northern Sri Lanka during the civil war, effectively barring face-to-face access between citizens, and the narratives which emerge from post-war travel, highlighting the resentment between the two main ethnic groups.
Performing Indigenous Culture on Stage and Screen by
Examining corporeal expressions of indigenousness from an historical perspective, this book highlights the development of cultural hybridity in New Zealand via the popular performing arts, contributing new understandings of racial, ethnic, and gender identities through performance. The author offers an insightful and welcome examination of New Zealand performing arts via case studies of drama, music, and dance, performed both domestically and internationally. As these examples show, notionsof modern New Zealand were shaped and understood in the creation and reception of popular culture. Highlighting embodied indigenous cultures of the past provides a new interpretation of the development of New Zealand's cultural history and adds an unexplored dimension in understanding the relationships between Maori (indigenous New Zealander) and Pakeha (non-Maori) throughout the late nineteenth and into the early twentieth centuries.
Challenging the Dichotomy by
Challenging the Dichotomy explores how dichotomies regarding heritage dominate the discourse of ethics, practices, and institutions. Examining issues of cultural heritage law, policy, and implementation, editors Les Field, Crist#65533;bal Gnecco, and Joe Watkins guide the focus to important discussions of the binary oppositions of the licit and the illicit, the scientific and the unscientific, incorporating case studies that challenge those apparent contradictions. Utilizing both ethnographic and archaeological examples, contributors ask big questions vital to anyone working in cultural heritage. What are the issues surrounding private versus museum collections? What is considered looting? Is archaeology still a form of colonialization? The contributors discuss this vis-#65533;-vis a global variety of contexts and cultures from the United States, South Africa, Argentina, New Zealand, Honduras, Colombia, Palestine, Greece, Canada, and from the Nasa, Choctaw, and Maori nations. Challenging the Dichotomy underscores how dichotomies--such as licit/illicit, state/nonstate, public/private, scientific/nonscientific--have been constructed and how they are now being challenged by multiple forces. Throughout the eleven chapters, contributors provide examples of hegemonic relationships of power between nations and institutions. Scholars also reflect on exchanges between Western and non-Western epistemologies and ontologies. The book's contributions are significant, timely, and inclusive. Challenging the Dichotomy examines the scale and scope of "illicit" forms of excavation, as well as the demands from minority and indigenous subaltern peoples to decolonize anthropological and archaeological research.
Artificial intelligence for cultural heritage by 
3D recording, documentation and management of cultural heritage by