Celebrating life customs around the world : from baby showers to funerals by 
A Dignified Passage Through the Gates of Hades by
Archaeological excavations at the Eleuthernian burial ground of Orthi Petra continue to yield significant elements of the archaeo-anthropological record, the subject matter of continuous interdisciplinary research, outreach, national and international acclaim. Among a plethora of features discovered, unearthing components of a unique nexus to the Geometric-Archaic Periods, was an unspoiled time capsule in astonishing contextual preservation, a hand carved tomb with a dr#65533;mos into the softer bedrock material of Orthi Petra. Designated in short as contextual association A1K1, the tomb as a funerary activity area yielded a remarkable collection of jar burials in complex internal tomb stratification, containing cremated human bones accompanied by a most noteworthy assembly of burial artifacts of exquisite wealth, along a multitude of traces of "fossilized" behavior left resolutely behind by the ancients in their transactions on the paths of their perceived realities and obligations of life norms, but also of the arcane matters of afterlife. Such evidentiary data of funerary behavior in conjunction with the rest of the archaeo-anthropological record afford the opportunity to document where possible and deduce where pertinent aspects of the transitional period, overlapping the end of life's journey and the unfolding of death in light of a number of the principles, the values, and the modes that guided the lives of the ancients as mortuary habits may have the transcending power to be revealing of certain codes of ante mortem conduct, of main beliefs, of ideologies and viewpoints, characteristic of their ideational world and hence of their attitudes toward, and expectations of, post mortem life. Such understandings, based on critical and deductive thinking combined with the data offered through the scope of anthropological archaeology and forensics by the decoding of traces permanently recorded on bone and dental surfaces, construct a persuasive dialectic, regarding important facets of the human condition in Eleutherna from Geometric through Archaic times.
Anthropomorphic Representations in the Cucuteni-Tripolye Culture by
Dan Monah (11 February 1943 - 21 September 2013) was a specialist in the Neo-Eneolithic of Romania and, in particular, of the Precucuteni-Cucuteni-Tripolye cultural complex, last affiliated with the Iași Institute of Archaeology of the Romanian Academy. His core body of work, consisting of seven books and more than one hundred articles published, primarily deals with coroplastic analysis as a mean of insight into the religion and art of the Neo-Eneolithic communities. With a unique approach to the study of what he formally named 'the religious life of Cucuteni-Tripolye communities', Dan Monah was a staunch critic of the dominant cultural-historic paradigm and its natural interpretative consequences: the supremacy of typological description, the Cartesian ranking of religious systems from simple to complex, and the avoidance of 'unclassable' occurrences. The present volume embodies his vision applied to the analysis of the Cucuteni-Tripolye anthropomorphic representations, resting on two structural pillars: an in-depth knowledge of a large body of history of religion literature, and an almost exhaustive inventory of the Cucuteni- Tripolye anthropomorphic representations, the result of over three decades of personal, patient and meticulous examination of the archaeological data. For those in his wake, Dan Monah's open and unprejudiced approach to the prehistoric imagery enclosed in this book constitutes a solid cornerstone on which further work can be built. Its pages should be turned, if not on account of the wealth of information inside, but for the author's pleasant and refreshing style at least.
Javanese Culture and the Meanings of Locality by
Javanese Culture and the Meanings of Locality: Studies on the Arts, Urbanism, Polity, and Society is an examination of the social and cultural geography of Java. This book penetrates and surveys the Javanese world, and examines the traditions, customs, arts, urban habitation, polity, history, and belief systems of people who speak the Javanese language and live on Java Island in the Indonesian archipelago. A primary focus in these essays is to analyze the meanings of locality in the context of arts, architecture, polity, and society, with the hope of unveiling the potential of local culture in enriching and strengthening the diversity of the global world.
The Latinos of Asia by
Is race only about the color of your skin? In The Latinos of Asia, Anthony Christian Ocampo shows that what "color" you are depends largely on your social context. Filipino Americans, for example, helped establish the Asian American movement and are classified by the U.S. Census as Asian. But the legacy of Spanish colonialism in the Philippines means that they share many cultural characteristics with Latinos, such as last names, religion, and language. Thus, Filipinos' "color"--their sense of connection with other racial groups--changes depending on their social context. The Filipino story demonstrates how immigration is changing the way people negotiate race, particularly in cities like Los Angeles where Latinos and Asians now constitute a collective majority. Amplifying their voices, Ocampo illustrates how second-generation Filipino Americans' racial identities change depending on the communities they grow up in, the schools they attend, and the people they befriend. Ultimately, The Latinos of Asia offers a window into both the racial consciousness of everyday people and the changing racial landscape of American society.
Local, Intensive and Diverse? by
This study argues that early farming life may have been more multifaceted than previously thought, and puts forward a reinterpretation of the traditional views on farming, wild plant gathering and social relationships during the Neolithic in the North East of the Iberian Peninsula. The archaeobotanical data from 17 archaeological sites is presented (Sardo Cave; Camp del Colomer; Serra del Mas Bonet; La Dou Codella, 120; Cave La Draga; Bòbila Madurell; Carrer Reina Amàlia, 31âe33; Prehistoric Mines of Gavà; Can Sadurní Cave; Sant Llorenç Cave; Espina C; Pla del Gardelo; Puig del Collet; CIM "El Camp"; Fosca Cave). For each site, pioneering methods of investigating the origin and the representativeness of the data are applied. Following these evaluations, palaeoeconomic issues are targeted at diff erent scales, ranging from the context to the regional level. The detailed investigations performed at the site of La Draga particularly stand out, as this is the only Neolithic site with waterlogged conditions of preservation in the Iberian Peninsula. Innovative data on the history of crops like tetraploid naked wheat, tworow barley, naked barley and opium poppy as well as on the role of wild fruits in the economy is revealed, completing an important piece in the puzzle of the investigations concerning the Neolithic in Europe.
From World City to the World in One City by
From World City to the World in One City examines changing geographies of Liverpool through and across the lives of Malay seamen who arrived in the city during its final years as a major imperial port. Draws upon life histories and memories of people who met at the Malay Club in Liverpool until its closure in 2007, to examine changing urban sites and landscapes as well as the city's historically shifting constitutive connections In considering the historical presence of Malay seamen in Liverpool, draws attention to a group which has previously received only passing mention in historical and geographical studies of both that city, and of multi-ethnic Britain more widely Demonstrates that Liverpool-based Malay men sustained social connections with Southeast Asia long before scholars began to use terms such as 'globalization' or 'transnationalism' Based on a diverse range of empirical data, including interviews with members of the Malay Club in Liverpool and interviews in Southeast Asia, as well as archival and secondary sources Accessibly-written for non-academic audiences interested in the history and urban social geography of Liverpool
Religion in Britain from the Megaliths to Arthur by
The Druids and the Arthurian legends are all most of us know about early Britain, from the Neolithic to the Iron Age (4500 BC-AD 43). Drawing on archaeological discoveries and medieval Welsh texts like the Mabinogion, this book explores the religious beliefs of the ancient Britons before the coming of Christianity, beginning with the megaliths--structures like Stonehenge--and the role they played in prehistoric astronomy. Topics include the mysterious Beaker people of the Early Bronze Age, Iron Age evidence of the Druids, the Roman period and the Dark Ages. The author discusses the myths of King Arthur and what they tell us about paganism, as well as what early churches and monasteries reveal about the enigmatic Druids.
Digital Tradition by
Istanbul is home to a multimillion dollar transnational music industry, which every year produces thousands of digital music recordings, including widely distributed film and television show soundtracks. Today, this centralized industry is responding to a growing global demand for Turkish, Kurdish, and other Anatolian ethnic language productions, and every year, many of its top-selling records incorporate elaborately orchestrated arrangements of rural folksongs. What accounts for the continuing demand for traditional music in local and diasporic markets? How is tradition produced in twenty-first century digital recording studios, and is there a "digital aesthetics" to contemporary recordings of traditional music? In Digital Traditions: Arrangement and Labor in Istanbul's Recording Studio Culture, author Eliot Bates answers these questions and more with a case study into the contemporary practices of recording traditional music in Istanbul. Bates provides an ethnography of Turkish recording studios, of arrangers and engineers, studio musicianship and digital audio workstation kinesthetics. Digital Traditions investigates the moments when tradition is arranged, and how arrangement is simultaneously a set of technological capabilities, limitations and choices: a form of musical practice that desocializes the ensemble and generates an extended network of social relations, resulting in aesthetic art objects that come to be associated with a range of affective and symbolic meanings. Rich with visual analysis and drawing on Science & Technology Studies theories and methods, Digital Traditions sets a new standard for the study of recorded music. Scholars and general readers of ethnomusicology, Middle Eastern studies, folklore and science and technology studies are sure to find Digital Traditions an essential addition to their library.
Encyclopedia of Giants and Humanoids in Myth, Legend and Folklore by
Every culture has in its folklore and mythology beings of immense size and strength, as well as other preternatural humanoids great or small who walk among us, serving the divine or fulfilling their own agendas. This book catalogs the lore and legends of more than 1,000 different humanoid species and individual beings, including the Titans, Valkyries, Jotnar, y'kai, biblical giants, elves, ogres, trolls and many more.
The Invention of Culture by
In anthropology, a field that is known for its critical edge and intellectual agility, few books manage to maintain both historical value and contemporary relevance. Roy Wagner's The Invention of Culture, originally published in 1975, is one. Wagner breaks new ground by arguing that culture arises from the dialectic between the individual and the social world. Rooting his analysis in the relationships between invention and convention, innovation and control, and meaning and context, he builds a theory that insists on the importance of creativity, placing people-as-inventors at the heart of the process that creates culture. In an elegant twist, he shows that this very process ultimately produces the discipline of anthropology itself. Tim Ingold's foreword to the new edition captures the exhilaration of Wagner's book while showing how the reader can journey through it and arrive safely--though transformed--on the other side.
On Doing Fieldwork in Palestine by
This book, based on the author's ethnographic fieldwork in the Palestinian West Bank from 1995 to 1996, aims to provide an honest, authentic, and accurate accounting of the nitty-gritty, day-to-day challenges, rewards, failures, and successes of doing fieldwork in a conservative village setting. By focussing on the intimate, typically obscured aspects of the fieldwork experience this memoir is intended for students planning to do fieldwork in any locale.
Visual Cultures of the Ethnic Chinese in Indonesia by
Visual Cultures of the Ethnic Chinese in Indonesia explores how visual representations shaped and were shaped by how the ethnic Chinese confronted the period of economic dislocation and radical social change during Dutch colonialism and the nationalist struggles in the decolonized Indonesia (including the post-1965 and 1998 social environments). How did the ethnic Chinese communities (re)present themselves to both their domestic and outside world under the changing regimes of representation? How did they visualize, symbolically, their place in Indonesian society? How did the visual shape the ambiguities of the Chinese, the perception of the economic identity, and the forgetting of their involvement in politics, cultures and histories of the nation? More broadly, how did the visual address the interconnectedness of domestic life, the urban cultural milieu, and ideologies of the state and the ruling class? The book is a response to two paradoxical socio-political phenomena whose convergence is shaping the experience and conceptualization of ethnic Chinese in Indonesia. On the one hand, the economic, technological and cultural forces of colonialism and globalization have created conditions for the formation of ethnic Chinese capital(ists), while on the other, the state generated identity and identification constituted the discourses of othering the ethnic Chinese as foreign minority."
Metabolic Living by
The popular narrative of "globesity" posits that the adoption of Western diets is intensifying obesity and diabetes in the Global South and that disordered metabolisms are the embodied consequence of globalization and excess. In Metabolic Living Harris Solomon recasts these narratives by examining how people in Mumbai, India, experience the porosity between food, fat, the body, and the city. Solomon contends that obesity and diabetes pose a problem of absorption between body and environment. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Mumbai's home kitchens, metabolic disorder clinics, food companies, markets, and social services, he details the absorption of everything from snack foods and mangoes to insulin, stress, and pollutants. As these substances pass between the city and the body and blur the two domains, the onset and treatment of metabolic illness raise questions about who has the power to decide what goes into bodies and when food means life. Evoking metabolism as a condition of contemporary urban life and a vital political analytic, Solomon illuminates the lived predicaments of obesity and diabetes, and reorients our understanding of chronic illness in India and beyond.
Destination Dissertation by
Destination Dissertation: A Traveler's Guide to a Done Dissertation is a handbook that helps students successfully complete their dissertations. It uses a metaphor of travel to frame the dissertation process as an exciting trip of twenty-nine steps that can be completed in less than nine months. Designed for use by students in all disciplines and for both quantitative and qualitative dissertations, the book shows concrete and efficient processes for completing those parts of the dissertation where students tend to get stuck: conceptualizing a topic, developing a pre-proposal, writing a literature review, writing a proposal, collecting and analyzing data, and writing the last chapter.
History of Archaeology: International Perspectives by
The present volume gathers the communications of the three sessions organized under the auspices of the Commission 'History of Archaeology' at the XVII UISPP World Congress Burgos 2014. The first part deals precisely with 'International relations in the history of archaeology'. The eleven contributions tackle a particularly productive topic in the field today. In actual fact, this seminal research field currently echoes in a way the strong trend of scholarship about the influence of nationalism on the discipline, which since the end of the 1980s, has greatly contributed to the takeoff and overall recognition of the history of archaeology. The second part, entitled 'The Revolution of the Sixties in prehistory and protohistory', is the outcome of a partnership with the Commission 'Archaeological Methods and Theory'. The seven contributions strive to document and analyze a recent past, which is still often burdened with the weight of teleological and presentist appraisals. The inclusion in this volume of this session significantly dedicated to the genealogy of schools of thought and to the study of complex methodological and technical issues illustrates the editors' commitment to tackling historical issues as well, which are closely linked to current theoretical debates within archaeology. Such is also the aim of the third part, which addresses 'Lobbying for Archaeology'. As shown by the five contributions of this session, archaeology has not only been instrumentalized by political powers and ideological interests. It has also found fruitful alliances with economic agents or bodies, where mutual advantages were gained on practical, technical bases. This volume suggests a reflexive, critical approach to these various forms of lobbying should ensure a useful awareness regarding the structural problems archaeology faces today, regarding its funding methods.
Out for Blood by
Frames menstruation as a site of resistance, defiance, and shamelessness, showcasing the work of those who fight back against shame and silence.
Humans by
Based on the latest scientific discoveries, this "unauthorized biography" of the Humans recounts the story of our distant ancestors during the past 6 million years, since the line of our extended family separated from that leading to modern chimpanzees. The book explains how different species evolved, both anatomically and cognitively, and describes the impacts of climatic and environmental change on this process. It also explores the nature of relationships within and between species, describes their everyday lives, and discusses how isolated individuals became members of larger social groups. The concluding chapters highlight the paramount importance of the emergence of symbolic thought and discuss its contribution to the formation of institutions, societies, and economies. The multifaceted picture that emerges will help the reader to make sense not only of "what we were", but also of "what we are", here and now. The book is both entertaining and rigorous in integrating results from a wide selection of disciplines. It will be particularly suitable for people with a curious and open mind, keen to overcome long-standing prejudices on man's place in nature.
Food, Health, and Culture in Latino Los Angeles by
Contemporary Los Angeles can increasingly be considered a part of Latin America. Only 200 miles from the border with Mexico, it has the largest, most diverse population of Latinos in the United States and reportedly the second largest population of Mexicans outside of Mexico City. It also has one of the most diverse representations of Latino gastronomy in the United States, featuring the cuisine of nearly every region of Mexico, countries such as Peru, Argentina, Guatemala and El Salvador, as well as an incredible variety of Asian-Latin fusion cuisine. Despite the expansion of Latino cuisine's popularity in Los Angeles and the celebrity of many Latino chefs, there is a stark divide between what is available at restaurants and food trucks and what is available to many low-income, urban Latinos who live in food deserts. In these areas, access to healthy, affordable, culturally appropriate foods is a daily challenge. Food-related diseases, particularly diabetes and obesity, plague these communities. In the face of this crisis, grassroots organizations, policy-makers and local residents are working to improve access and affordability through a growing embrace of traditional cuisine, an emergent interest in the farm-to-table movement, and the work of local organizations. Angelinos are creating alternatives to the industrial food system that offer hope for Latino food culture and health in Los Angeles and beyond. This book provides an overview of contemporary L.A. s Latino food culture, introducing some of the most important chefs in the Latino food scene, and discussing the history and impact of Latino street food on culinary variety in Los Angeles. Along with food culture, the book also discusses alternative sources of healthy food for low-income communities: farmers markets, community and school gardens, urban farms, and new neighborhood markets that work to address the inequalities in access and affordability for Latino residents. By making the connection between Latino food culture and the Latino communities food related health issues, this study approaches the issue from a unique perspective."
Marital Breakdown among British Asians by
Against long-standing characterizations of British Asians as 'flying the flag' for traditional life, this book identifies an increase in marital breakdown and argues to reorient debates about conservatism and authoritarianism in British Asian families. Qureshi draws on a rich ethnographic study of marital breakdown among working class Pakistani Muslims in order to unpick the grounds of marital conflict, the manoeuvres couples undertake in staying together, their interactions with divorce laws and their moral reasonings about post-divorce family life. Marital Breakdown among British Asians argues against individualization approaches, demonstrating the embeddedness of couples in extended family relations, whilst at the same time showing that Pakistani marriages and divorces do not deviate in all respects from wider marital separation trajectories in Britain. Providing new insights into how marital breakdown is changing the contours of British Asian families, this book will be essential reading for scholars and students, clinicians working in couple or family therapy, social workers and legal practitioners.
Tragic Encounters and Ordinary Ethics by
For over four decades, events in Palestine-Israel have provoked raging conflicts within British universities around issues of free speech, "extremism", antisemitism and Islamophobia. But why is this conflict so significant for student activists living at such a geographical distance from theregion itself? And what role do emotive, polarised communications around Palestine-Israel play in the life of British academic institutions committed to the ideal of free expression? This book draws on original ethnographic research with student activists on different sides of this conflict to initiate a conversation with students, academics and members of the public who are concerned with the transnational politics of Palestine-Israel and with the changing role of the publicuniversity. It shows how, in an increasingly globalised world that is shaped by entangled histories of European antisemitism and colonial violence, ethnography can open up ethical responses to questions of justice.
Democracy's Slaves by
The ancient Greek statesman is a familiar figure in the Western political tradition. Less well known is the administrator who ran the state but who was himself a slave. Challenging the modern belief that democracy and bondage are incompatible, Paulin Ismard directs our attention to the cradle of Western democracy, ancient Athens, where the functioning of civic government depended crucially on highly skilled experts who were literally public servants-slaves owned by the city-state rather than by private citizens. Known as dēmosioi, these public slaves filled a variety of important roles in Athenian society. They were court clerks, archivists, administrators, accountants, and policemen. Many possessed knowledge and skills beyond the attainments of average citizens, and they enjoyed privileges, such as the right to own property, that were denied to private slaves. In effect, dēmosioi were Western civilization's first civil servants-though they carried out their duties in a condition of bound servitude. Ismard detects a radical split between politics and administrative government at the heart of Athenian democracy. The city-state's managerial caste freed citizens from the day-to-day responsibilities of running the state. By the same token, these public servants were unable to participate in the democratic process because they lacked the rights of full citizenship. By rendering the state's administrators politically invisible, Athens warded off the specter of a government capable of turning against the citizens' will. In a real sense, Ismard shows, Athenian citizens put the success of their democratic experiment in the hands of slaves.
Making Faces by
Humans possess the most expressive faces in the animal kingdom. Adam Wilkins presents evidence ranging from the fossil record to recent findings of genetics, molecular biology, and developmental biology to reconstruct the fascinating story of how the human face evolved. Beginning with the first vertebrate faces half a billion years ago and continuing to dramatic changes among our recent human ancestors, Making Faces illuminates how the unusual characteristics of the human face came about-both the physical shape of facial features and the critical role facial expression plays in human society. Offering more than an account of morphological changes over time and space, which rely on findings from paleontology and anthropology, Wilkins also draws on comparative studies of living nonhuman species. He examines the genetic foundations of the remarkable diversity in human faces, and also shows how the evolution of the face was intimately connected to the evolution of the brain. Brain structures capable of recognizing different individuals as well as "reading" and reacting to their facial expressions led to complex social exchanges. Furthermore, the neural and muscular mechanisms that created facial expressions also allowed the development of speech, which is unique to humans. In demonstrating how the physical evolution of the human face has been inextricably intertwined with our species' growing social complexity, Wilkins argues that it was both the product and enabler of human sociality.
Contributions to Alternative Concepts of Knowledge by
In the past, the European social sciences labelled and discredited knowledge that did not conform to their own definition of scientific knowledge as an alternative kind of knowledge, as 'indigenous' knowledge. Perception has changed with time: not only has indigenous knowledge become an entrance ticket to the world of European social science, but the indigenization of European theories is seen by some as the contribution of peripheral social sciences to join the theories of the centers. This book offers contributions to the conversation on alternative concepts of knowledge, inviting the reader to decide if they are truly alternative, indigenous, or European types of knowledge.
Sami Customary Rights in Modern Landscapes Global Influences on Nature Conservation and Indigenous Rights by
This book examines the diverse use of Indigenous customary rights in modern landscapes from a multidisciplinary perspective. Divided into two parts, the first deals explicitly with S#65533;mi customary rights in relation to nature conservation in the Nordic countries and Russia from a legal and historical perspective. The authors investigate how longstanding S#65533;mi customary territorial rights have been reassessed in the context of new kinds of legislation regarding Indigenous people. They also look at the ideas behind the historical models of nature conservation. The second part deals with the ideas and implementation of new kinds of postcolonial models of nature conservation. The case of the S#65533;mi is compared with other Indigenous people internationally with cases from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and India. The work investigates how the governance of protected areas has been influenced by the principles of equality and positive discrimination, and how it has affected the possibilities of establishing adaptive co-management arrangements for specific areas. How the legal situation of Indigenous peoples has been recognised in an international context is also investigated. The volume provides a multidisciplinary analysis of how the customary livelihood of Indigenous people has adapted to modern industrialised landscapes and also how postcolonial approaches have contributed to global changes of Indigenous rights and nature conservation models.
Needless Suffering by
Needless Suffering offers a sociological examination of a complex medical problem: chronic pain and the inability of doctors and other health professionals to understand and manage it in their patients. People in pain, writes Dr. David Nagel, are the poor of the medical world. Like the poor, they are stigmatized and left at the mercy of powerful social actors who tend to work in their own self-interest, frequently at the expense of those they propose to serve. This leaves those who suffer with little control over their own destinies and creates a dysfunctional status quo that harms instead of helps. Drawing on his own experience witnessing his mother’s chronic pain and numerous clinical stories from over thirty years’ expertise as a pain management specialist, Nagel looks first at patients, their families, and their doctors (usually not trained in pain management), and then broadens his canvas to elaborate a pain power structure that includes the entire healthcare community, insurers, lawyers, government regulators, employers, politicians, law enforcement agencies, and painkilling drugs. Concluding with concrete reforms to create more effective and compassionate pain care, this book is designed for pain patients and their families, healthcare providers, legislators and other public policymakers, judges, personal injury and other attorneys, insurers, government regulators, law enforcement personnel, and health care businesspeople. Hardcover is un-jacketed.
Mystical Anthropology by
The question of the 'structure' of the human person is central to many mystical authors in the Christian tradition. This book focuses on the specific anthropology of a series of key authors in the mystical tradition in the medieval and early modern Low Countries. Their view is fundamentally different from the anthropology that has commonly been accepted since the rise of Modernity. This book explores the most important mystical authors and texts from the Low Countries including: William of Saint-Thierry, Hadewijch, Pseudo-Hadewijch, John of Ruusbroec, Jan van Leeuwen, Hendrik Herp, and the Arnhem Mystical Sermons. The most important aspects of mystical anthropology are discussed: the spiritual nature of the soul, the inner-most being of the soul, the faculties, the senses, and crucial metaphors which were used to explain the relationship of God and the human person. Two contributions explicitly connect the anthropology of the mystics to contemporary thought. This book offers a solid and yet accessible overview for those interested in theology, philosophy, history, and medieval literature.
The Land of Gold by
In the village of Funar, located in the central highlands of Timor-Leste, the disturbing events of the twenty-four-year-long Indonesian occupation are rarely articulated in narratives of suffering. Instead, the highlanders emphasize the significance of their return to the sacred land of the ancestors, a place where "gold" is abundant and life is thought to originate. On one hand, this collective amnesia is due to villagers' exclusion from contemporary nation-building processes, which bestow recognition only on those who actively participated in the resistance struggle against Indonesia. On the other hand, the cultural revival and the privileging of the ancestral landscape and traditions over narratives of suffering derive from a particular understanding of how human subjects are constituted. Before life and after death, humans and the land are composed of the same substance; only during life are they separated. To recover from the forced dislocation the highlanders experienced under the Indonesian occupation, they thus seek to reestablish a mythical, primordial unity with the land by reinvigorating ancestral practices. Never leaving out of sight the intense political and emotional dilemmas imposed by the past on people's daily lives, The Land of Gold seeks to go beyond prevailing theories of postconflict reconstruction that prioritize human relationships. Instead, it explores the significance of people's affective and ritual engagement with the environment and with their ancestors as survivors come to terms with the disruptive events of the past.
Comparative Bone Identification by
Building on the success, and maintaining the format, of the best-selling Human and Nonhuman Bone Identification: A Color Atlas (ISBN:978-1-4200-6286-1), Comparative Bone Identification: Human Subadult to Nonhumanpresents new images of human bones representing many states of maturation from neonate to 20 years old. It also extends the scope of the former work by focusing on the smaller bones of fetuses and young humans and comparing them to bones of birds, reptiles, marine mammals, fish, and a frog that may be confused with those of a subadult human. The book begins with a section on general osteology and explains the major anatomical differences between humans and other animals. The second section compares human and nonhuman bones, categorized by type of bone, and includes most of the major bones in humans and nonhumans. The third section presents skeletons within species. Containing nearly 3,500 color photographs, the book provides examples of similar bones in nonhuman species that may be confused with the human bone in question. The bone images are also taken from different angles to enhance detailed understanding. A practical comparative guide to the differences among species for nearly all bones in the body, this book is a valuable resource for the laboratory or in the field. It uses a visual approach with annotations pointing out salient features of the most commonly discovered bones, giving clear examples for use by law enforcement, medicolegal death investigators, forensic anthropologists, students, and readers who wish to distinguish between human bones and those of the a variety of animal species.
Estudio Antropologico de Las Estructuras Cefalicas en una Coleccion Osteologica Procedente de Chinchero (Peru) by
This work presents an anthropological study of crania and mandibles from the osteological collection from Chinchero (Peru), currently housed at the American Archaeological and Ethnological Museum of the Complutense University of Madrid. From 1968 to 1971, a team of archaeologists of the Spanish Scientific Mission in Hispanic America excavated the site of Chinchero, a small village located in the Andean high plateau near Cusco. As the result of this mission, remains from 8 single burials and two ossuaries dated to pre-colonial times were exhumed and brought to Spain. The excavated area included an ancient palace and several administrative and religious structures built by Tupac Yupanqui, who ruled the Inca Empire between 1471 and 1493. The surroundings of the catholic church, erected over one of these buildings, were excavated as well.
The Archaeology of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and Adjacent Regions by
The burgeoning of archaeological research in the Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq is one of the great success stories of world archaeology today. For twenty years it was impossible for western archaeologists to work in Iraq, and for most of this time there were also heavy restrictions on the activity of Iraqi archaeologists. In addition to this Kurdistan remains a region never systematically explored. The conference presented the first opportunity for the leading figures in this renaissance of research in the area to gather and present all the key new projects which are revolutionising our understanding of the region.
The Ethics of Care by
Beginning with a focus on the ethical foundations of caregiving in health and expanding towards problems of ethics and justice implicated in a range of issues, this book develops and expands the notion of care itself and its connection to practice. Organised around the themes of culture as a restraint on caregiving in different social contexts and situations, innovative methods in healthcare, and the way in which culture works to position care as part of a rhetorical approach to dependency, responsibility, and justice, The Ethics of Carepresents case studies examining institutional responses to end-of-life issues, the notion of informed consent, biomedicine, indigenous rights and postcolonialism in care and theoretical approaches to the concept of care. Offering discussions from a variety of disciplinary approaches, including sociology, communication, and social theory, as well as hermeneutics, phenomenology, and deconstruction, this book will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in healthcare, medicine, justice and the question of how we think about care as a notion and social form, and how this is related to practice.
Bridge over Blood River by
Nelson Mandela is dead and his dream of a rainbow nation in South Africa is fading. Twenty years after the fall of apartheid the white Afrikaner minority fears cultural extinction. How far are they prepared to go to survive as a people? Kajsa Norman's book traces the war for control of SouthAfrica, its people, and its history, over a series of December 16ths, from the Battle of Blood River in 1838 to its commemoration in 2011. Weaving between the past and the present, the book highlights how years of fear, nationalism, and social engineering have left the modern Afrikaner strugglingfor identity and relevance. Norman spends time with residents of the breakaway republic of Orania, where a thousand Afrikaners are working to construct a white-African utopia. Citing their desire to preserve their language and traditions, they have sequestered themselves in an isolated part of the arid Karoo region. Here, theycan still dictate the rules and create a homeland with its own flag, currency and ideology. For a Europe that faces growing nationalism, their story is more relevant than ever. How do people react when they believe their cultural identity is under threat? Bridge Over Blood River's haunting andsubversive evocation of South Africa's racial politics provides some unsettling answers.
Food, Identity and Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Ancient World by
Greco-Roman diet and cuisine has recently received considerable attention, resulting in a wide array of studies on food production and consumption, cooking techniques, purchasing power and idealized diets. The current volume brings together a collection of papers investigating the nexus between food and identity in cross-cultural settings from Classical Greece until the rise of Christianity. Whenever different cultures engage in a process of exchange, food and cuisine are among the first aspects of identity to meet, clash and enrich each other. The authors analyse the various channels of mutual influence between different cultures and the deliberate choices made by producers and consumers. Because choice always carries information on people's standing in society, their willingness (or refusal) to adapt and their view on the 'other', this volume contributes to the study of cultural interaction and integration in Antiquity through the lens of one of the most accessible items of exchange, viz. food.
Returned by
Returned follows transnational Mexicans as they experience the alienation and unpredictability of deportation, tracing the particular ways that U.S. immigration policies and state removals affect families. Deportation--an emergent global order of social injustice--reaches far beyond the individual deportee, as family members with diverse U.S. immigration statuses, including U.S. citizens, also return after deportation or migrate for the first time. The book includes accounts of displacement, struggle, suffering, and profound loss but also of resilience, flexibility, and imaginings of what may come. Returned tells the story of the chaos, and design, of deportation and its aftermath.
Climate and Cultural Change in Prehistoric Europe and the near East by
Rich case studies examining responses to climatic events in ancient Europe and the Near East.
Dividing the Reservation by
Alice Cunningham Fletcher was both formidable and remarkable. A pioneering ethnologist who penetrated occupations dominated by men, she was the first woman to hold an endowed chair at Harvard¿s Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology--during a time the institution did not admit female students. She helped write the Dawes General Allotment Act of 1887 that reshaped American Indian policy, and became one of the first women to serve as a federal Indian agent, working with the Omahas, the Winnebagos, and finally the Nez Perces.
Charged with supervising the daunting task of resurveying, verifying, and assigning nearly 757,000 acres of the Nez Perce Reservation, Fletcher also had to preserve land for transportation routes and restrain white farmers and stockmen who were claiming prime properties. She sought to "give the best lands to the best Indians," but was challenged by the Idaho terrain, the complex ancestries of the Nez Perces, and her own misperceptions about Native life. A commanding presence, Fletcher worked from a specialized tent that served as home and office, traveling with copies of laws, rolls of maps, and blank plats. She spent four summers on the project, completing close to 2,000 allotments.
This book is a collection of letters and diaries Fletcher wrote during this work. Her writing illuminates her relations with the key players, as well as her internal conflicts over dividing the reservation. Taken together, these documents offer insight into how federal policy was applied, resisted, and amended in this early application of the Dawes General Allotment Act.
Sex, Shame, and Violence by
For more than three decades, Kathleen Cash has lived and worked with impoverished people, learning about their lives. Listening to them talk about their feelings of shame, Cash heard how people suffered from being unable to change what was happening to them--HIV infection, sexual and domestic violence, violence toward children, and environmental degradation. She saw that many interventions lacked emotional and cultural integrity and thus did little to alleviate these hardships. So Cash went outside the conventional approaches to health promotion and social justice and devised a community narrative practice, a strategy for engaging people through storytelling. From numerous ethnographic interviews, she pieced together cultural stories in a way that resonated with community people and revealed the paradoxes in their suffering. Cash recruited local artists to illustrate the stories in a form resembling a graphic novel and distributed these booklets for community discussion. (This book includes excerpts from these illustrated stories.) In Thailand, Bangladesh, Haiti, Uganda, and the United States, people learned to talk about forbidden subjects and say what they could never say before. They stood up to each other, reconciled, and made health-seeking decisions. By helping others, they repaired themselves. In cathartic conversations they acknowledged shame, which led to acts of courage and generosity.
The Turtle's Beating Heart by
"Grandchildren meet their grandparents at the end," Denise Low says, "as tragic figures. We remember their decline and deaths. . . . The story we see as grandchildren is like a garden covered by snow, just outlines visible." Low brings to light deeply held secrets of Native ancestry as she recovers the life story of her Kansas grandfather, Frank Bruner (1889-1963). She remembers her childhood in Kansas, where her grandparents remained at a distance, personally and physically, from their grandchildren, despite living only a few miles away. As an adult, she comes to understand her grandfather's Delaware (Lenape) legacy of persecution and heroic survival in the southern plains of the early 1900s, where the Ku Klux Klan attacked Native people along with other ethnic minorities. As a result of such experiences, the Bruner family fled to Kansas City and suppressed their non-European ancestry as completely as possible. As Low unravels this hidden family history of the Lenape diaspora, she discovers the lasting impact of trauma and substance abuse, the deep sense of loss and shame related to suppressed family emotions, and the power of collective memory. Low traveled extensively around Kansas, tracking family history until she understood her grandfather's political activism and his healing heritage of connections to the land. In this moving exploration of her grandfather's life, the former poet laureate of Kansas evokes the beauty of the Flint Hills grasslands, the hardships her grandfather endured, and the continued discovery of his teachings.
Verbs, Bones, and Brains by
The last few decades have seen an unprecedented surge of empirical and philosophical research into the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens, the origins of the mind/brain, and human culture. This research and its popular interpretations have sparked heated debates about the nature of human beings and how knowledge about humans from the sciences and humanities should be properly understood. The goal of Verbs, Bones, and Brains: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Human Nature is to engage these themes and present current debates, discussions, and discourse for a range of readers. The contributors bring the discussion to life with key experts outlining major concepts paired with cross-disciplinary commentaries in order to create a novel approach to thinking about, and with, human natures. The intent of the contributors to this volume is not to enter into or adjudicate complex philosophical issues of an epistemological or metaphysical nature. Instead, their common concern is to set aside the rigid distinctions between biology and culture that have made such discussions problematic. First, informing their approach is an acknowledgment of the widespread disagreement about such basic metaphysical and epistemological questions as the existence of God, the nature of scientific knowledge, and the existence of essences, among other topics. Second, they try to identify and explicate the assumptions that enter into their conceptualizations of human nature. Throughout, they emphasize the importance of seeking a convergence in our views on human nature, despite metaphysical disagreements. They caution that if convergence eludes us and a common ground cannot be found, this is itself a relevant result: it would reveal to us how deeply our questions about ourselves are connected to our basic metaphysical assumptions. Instead, their focus is on how the interdisciplinary and possibly transdisciplinary conversation can be enhanced in order to identify and develop a common ground on what constitutes human nature. "Editors Fuentes and Visala have led their contributors in producing a benchmark collection of essays on the contemporary understanding of human nature. Their work engages very different fields of study, from biology and anthropology to theology and philosophy, yet the authors clearly convey the idea that they are dealing with a shared set of questions while making the case for this transdisciplinary approach to the problem. Engaging and accessible, the volume opens up many opportunities for further exploration." --Robin W. Lovin, Cary M. Maguire University Professor of Ethics emeritus, Southern Methodist University
Ephemeral Hunter-Gatherer Archaeological Sites by
Archaeological Geophysics for Ephemeral Human Occupations: Focusing on the Small-Scale combines technological advances in near-surface geophysics with recent archaeological scholarship and underlying archaeological premises to provide a practical manual for guiding archaeo-geophysical research design. By proposing the amelioration of communication gaps between traditional and geophysical archaeologists, this book will foment dialogue and participate in bringing about new ways of thinking anthropologically about archaeological geophysics, especially in relation to prehistoric open-air ephemeral sites. Offering a way to begin a dialogue between archaeology and geophysics, Archaeological Geophysics for Ephemeral Human Occupations is an important reference for practicing professionals, instructors, and students in geophysics and anthropology/archaeology, as well as geology. Serves as a practical manual for guiding archaeo-geophysical research design Bridges the communication gap between traditional and geophysical archaeologists to contribute to new ways of thinking anthropologically about archaeological geophysics Provides a focus on prehistoric open-air ephemeral sites, which are often underrepresented Offers an important reference for practicing professionals, instructors, and students in geophysics and anthropology/archaeology, as well as geology
Colored Travelers by
Americans have long regarded the freedom of travel a central tenet of citizenship. Yet, in the United States, freedom of movement has historically been a right reserved for whites. In this book, Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor shows that African Americans fought obstructions to their mobility over 100 years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus. These were "colored travelers," activists who relied on steamships, stagecoaches, and railroads to expand their networks and to fight slavery and racism. They refused to ride in "Jim Crow" railroad cars, fought for the right to hold a U.S. passport (and citizenship), and during their transatlantic voyages, demonstrated their radical abolitionism. By focusing on the myriad strategies of black protest, including the assertions of gendered freedom and citizenship, this book tells the story of how the basic act of traveling emerged as a front line in the battle for African American equal rights before the Civil War. Drawing on exhaustive research from U.S. and British newspapers, journals, narratives, and letters, as well as firsthand accounts of such figures as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and William Wells Brown, Pryor illustrates how, in the quest for citizenship, colored travelers constructed ideas about respectability and challenged racist ideologies that made black mobility a crime.
Crafting Secular Ritual by
Answering the call for new rituals in our secular age, this book recognises the essential importance of rituals to the psychological, physical, and spiritual health of individuals, families, organizations, and society as a whole. The book examines and explains the history, function, and place of emerging rituals in different cultures, as well as providing practical guidance for creating your own secular rituals. The author includes examples, risk factors, and checklists for the stages of planning new rituals for life events such as birth, marriage, and death, as well as for public occasions such as graduation and protest marches.
Hygiene, Sociality, and Culture in Contemporary Rural China by
This book presents a new perspective on attempts by the contemporary Chinese government to transform the diverse conditions found in countless rural villages into what the state's social welfare program deems "socialist new villages." Lili Lai argues that an ethnographic focus on the specifics of village life can help destabilize China's persistent rural-urban divide and help contribute to more effective welfare intervention to improve health and hygienic conditions of village life.
Dust of the Ground and Breath of Life (Gen 2:7) - the Problem of a Dualistic Anthropology in Early Judaism and Christianity by
Issues such as the immortality of the soul, the debate about matter versus life, and whether one was capable of knowing the outside world were all being extensively discussed in many religions and cultures in both East and West. The present volume addresses the concept of an immortal soul in a mortal body, and focuses on early Judaism and Christianity, where this issue is often related to the initial chapters of the book of Genesis. The papers are devoted to the interpretation of Gen 2:7 in relation to the broader issue of dualistic anthropology. They show that the dualism was questioned in different ways within the context of early Judaism and Christianity.
Yo' Mama, Mary Mack, and Boudreaux and Thibodeaux by
Jeanne Soileau, a teacher in New Orleans and south Louisiana for more than forty years, examines how children's folklore, especially among African Americans, has changed. From the tumult of integration to the present, her experience afforded unique opportunities to observe children as they played. With integration in New Orleans during the 1960s, Soileau notes how children began to play with one another almost immediately. Children taught each other play routines, chants, jokes, jump-rope rhymes, cheers, taunts, and teases--all the folk games that happen in normal play on the street and playground. When adults--the judges and attorneys, the parents, and the politicians--haggled and shouted, children began to hold hands in a circle, fall down together to "Ring around the Rosie," and tease each other in new and creative ways. Children's ability to adapt can be seen not only in their response to social change, but in how they adopt and utilize pop culture and technology. Vast technological changes in the last third of the twentieth century influenced the way children sang, danced, played, and interacted. Soileau catalogs these changes and studies how games evolve and transform as much as they are preserved. She includes several topics of study: oral narratives and songs, jokes and tales, and teasing formulae gleaned from mostly African American sources. Because much of the field work took place on public school playgrounds, this body of oral narratives remains of particular interest to teachers, folklorists, linguists, and those who study play. In the end, Soileau shows that despite the restrictions of air-conditioning, shorter recess periods, ever-increasing hours of television watching, the growing popularity of video games, and carefully scripted after-school activities, many children in south Louisiana sustain traditional games. At the same time, they invent varied and clever new ones. As Soileau observes, children strive through their folk play to learn how to fit into a rapidly changing society.
The Use and Development of the Xinkan Languages by
Once spoken only in Santa Rosa Department, Guatemala, the Xinkan language family is unique within Mesoamerica, comprising four closely related languages that are unrelated to any of the other language groups used within the region. Descriptions of Xinkan date to 1770 but are typically only sketches or partial word lists. Not even the community of indigenous people who identify as Xinka today--the last speakers--have had access to a reliable descriptive source on their ancestral tongue. Preserving this endangered communication system in accurate, thorough detail, The Use and Development of the Xinkan Languages presents a historical framework, internal classifications, and both synchronic and diachronic descriptions, incorporating all elements of grammar based on extensive unpublished data collected in the 1970s by Lyle Campbell and Terrence Kaufman. This valuable contribution is enhanced by author Chris Rogers's emphasis on contextualizing the findings. Introducing the languages, Rogers presents important information regarding the social and cultural milieu of the speakers. He also traces a phonological reconstruction of Proto-Xinkan and reconstructs historical morphology and syntax. These revelations are of particular interest because the development of Xinka and the many aspects of Xinka morphosyntax have not been well understood. A sample text, "Na Mulha Uy," is included as well. Solving numerous complex, centuries-old linguistic puzzles, The Use and Development of the Xinkan Languages unlocks new potential for the rediscovery of a rich cultural history.
Colonization, Proselytization, and Identity by
This book examines the formation of identity of the Nagas in northeast India in light of the proselytizing efforts by the Americans and the colonization by the British in their search for control over areas inhabited by the Nagas which were perfect for tea plantations. The author explores the westernization of Naga culture, its effect on the Naga Nationalist movement, and how it has led to the formation of modern Naga identity. As a unique indigenous group, the colonization of the Naga people offers fresh insights into our understanding of the processes and effects of colonization in India, as well as its long-term negative effects, particularly with regards to the preservation of traditional beliefs and customs.
Antiquities by
The destruction of ancient monuments and artworks by the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has shocked observers worldwide. Yet iconoclastic erasures of the past date back at least to the mid-1300s BCE, during the Amarna Period of ancient Egypt's 18th dynasty. Farmore damage to the past has been inflicted by natural disasters, looters, and public works.Art historian Maxwell Anderson's Antiquities: What Everyone Needs to KnowRG analyzes continuing threats to our heritage, and offers a balanced account of treaties and laws governing the circulation of objects; the history of collecting antiquities; how forgeries are made and detected; how authenticworks are documented, stored, dispersed, and displayed; the politics of sending antiquities back to their countries of origin; and the outlook for an expanded legal market. Anderson provides a summary of challenges ahead, including the future of underwater archaeology, the use of drones, remotesensing, and how invisible markings on antiquities will allow them to be traced.Written in question-and-answer format, the book equips readers with a nuanced understanding of the legal, practical, and moral choices that face us all when confronting antiquities in a museum gallery, shop window, or for sale on the Internet.
Subversives and Mavericks in the Muslim Mediterranean by
Subaltern studies, the study of non-elite or underrepresented people, have revolutionized the writing of Middle Eastern history. Subversives and Mavericks in the Muslim Mediterranean represents the next step in this transformation. The book explores the lives of eleven nonconformists who became agents of political and social change, actively organizing new forms of resistance--against either colonial European regimes or the traditional societies in which they lived--that disrupted the status quo, in some cases, with dramatic results. These case studies highlight cross-border connections in the Mediterranean world, exploring how these channels were navigated. Chapters in the book examine the lives of subversives and mavericks, such as Tawhida ben Shaykh, the first Arab woman to receive a medical degree; Mokhtar al-Ayari, a radical Tunisian labor leader; Nazli Hanem, Kmar Bayya, and Khiriya bin Ayyad, three aristocractic women who resisted the patriarchal structures of their societies by organizing and participating in intellectual salons for men and women and advocating social reform; Qaid Najim al-Akhsassi, an ex-slave and military officer, who fought against French and Spanish colonial expansion; and Boubeker al-Ghandjawi, a nearly illiterate trader who succeeded, though his diverse connections, in establishing important relations between the Moroccan sultan and the representative of the British government. Although based on individual and local perspectives, Subversives and Mavericks in the Muslim Mediterranean reveals new and unrecognized trans-local connections across the Muslim world, illuminating our understanding of these societies beyond narrow elite circles.
Mountains and Lowlands by
- Mountains and Lowlands is an engaging exploration of the history of ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) and Iran from 6000 BC-AD 650Ancient Mesopotamia and Iran are usually treated separately or as part of a much broader 'Ancient Near East'. However, the developments that lie at the root of our own world - farming, cities, writing, organized religion, warfare - were forged in the tensions and relations between the inhabitants of lowland Mesopotamia (ancient Iraq) and the highlands of Iran. Mountains and Lowlands explores this relationship providing a detailed but accessible account covering the period 6000 BC AD 650, from the development of the first agricultural communities to the coming of Islam. The story is told through the superlative Ancient Near Eastern collections in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, supplemented by images of photographs of archaeological sites and of iconic pieces in other collections including the Louvre, Paris. The discussion is further supported by six maps commissioned especially for this publication. Contents: 1. Introduction 2. From Village to City: 6000-3000 BC 3. From City to Kingdom: 3000-1500 BC 4. From Kingdom to Empire: 1500-500 BC 5. From India to Egypt: 500 BC-AD 650
Household Mobility and Persistence in Guadalajara, Mexico by
1821 Guadalajara, Mexico exhibited surprising mobility within its population. Using data from the back-to-back censuses of 1821 and 1822, this study argues that mobility affected almost every individual who lived in Guadalajara during that time period. The methodology used traces individuals who persisted from one year to the next to determine overall rates of mobility. An analysis of short-term stability and change within this set of historically identifiable individuals, families and households reveals a process of mobility that not only has been neglected by studies based on aggregate data, but that is often at variance with the findings of those studies. The evidence shows that a significant portion of the extensive movement of individuals to and from the wards is short term and often cyclical, rather than long term and permanent. Additionally, data sets from 1811 1813 and 1839 1842 are used as "control groups" to conclude that the mobility in 1821 1822 was not a unique historical event based on circumstances, but an overarching trend throughout the nineteenth century."
Sacred Consumption by
Aztec painted manuscripts and sculptural works, as well as indigenous and Spanish sixteenth-century texts, were filled with images of foodstuffs and food processing and consumption. Both gods and humans were depicted feasting, and food and eating clearly played a pervasive, integral role in Aztec rituals. Basic foods were transformed into sacred elements within particular rituals, while food in turn gave meaning to the ritual performance. This pioneering book offers the first integrated study of food and ritual in Aztec art. Elizabeth Mor#65533;n asserts that while feasting and consumption are often seen as a secondary aspect of ritual performance, a close examination of images of food rites in Aztec ceremonies demonstrates that the presence--or, in some cases, the absence--of food in the rituals gave them significance. She traces the ritual use of food from the beginning of Aztec mythic history through contact with Europeans, demonstrating how food and ritual activity, the everyday and the sacred, blended in ceremonies that ranged from observances of births, marriages, and deaths to sacrificial offerings of human hearts and blood to feed the gods and maintain the cosmic order. Mor#65533;n also briefly considers continuities in the use of pre-Hispanic foods in the daily life and ritual practices of contemporary Mexico. Bringing together two domains that have previously been studied in isolation, Sacred Consumption promises to be a foundational work in Mesoamerican studies.
Exoticisation Undressed by
Exoticisation undressed is an innovative ethnography that makes visible the many layers through which our understandings of indigenous cultures are filtered and their inherent power to distort and refract understanding. The book focuses in detail on the clothing practices of the Embera inPanama, an Amerindian ethnic group, who have gained national and international visibility through their engagement with indigenous tourism. The very act of gaining visibility while wearing indigenous attire has encouraged among some Embera communities a closer identification with an indigenousidentity and a more confident representational awareness. The clothes that the Embera wear are not simply used to convey messages, but also become constitutive of their intended messages. By wearing indigenous - and-modern clothes, the Embera - who are often seen by outsiders as shadows of avanishing world - reclaim their place as citizens of a contemporary nation. Through reflexive engagement, Exoticisation undressed exposes the workings of ethnographic nostalgia and the Western quest for a singular, primordial authenticity, unravelling instead new layers of complexity that reverse and subvert exoticisation.
Jungle of Stone by
New York Times Bestseller (Expeditions) “Thrilling. … A captivating history of two men who dramatically changed their contemporaries’ view of the past.” — Kirkus (starred review) "[An] adventure tale that make[s] Indiana Jones seem tame.” — Library Journal In 1839, rumors of extraordinary yet baffling stone ruins buried within the unmapped jungles of Central America reached two of the world’s most intrepid travelers. Seized by the reports, American diplomat John Lloyd Stephens and British artist Frederick Catherwood—both already celebrated for their adventures in Egypt, the Holy Land, Greece, and Rome—sailed together out of New York Harbor on an expedition into the forbidding rainforests of present-day Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico. What they found would upend the West’s understanding of human history. In the tradition of Lost City of Z and In the Kingdom of Ice, former San Francisco Chronicle journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist William Carlsen reveals the remarkable story of the discovery of the ancient Maya. Enduring disease, war, and the torments of nature and terrain, Stephens and Catherwood meticulously uncovered and documented the remains of an astonishing civilization that had flourished in the Americas at the same time as classic Greece and Rome—and had been its rival in art, architecture, and power. Their masterful book about the experience, written by Stephens and illustrated by Catherwood, became a sensation, hailed by Edgar Allan Poe as “perhaps the most interesting book of travel ever published” and recognized today as the birth of American archaeology. Most important, Stephens and Catherwood were the first to grasp the significance of the Maya remains, understanding that their antiquity and sophistication overturned the West’s assumptions about the development of civilization. By the time of the flowering of classical Greece (400 b.c.), the Maya were already constructing pyramids and temples around central plazas. Within a few hundred years the structures took on a monumental scale that required millions of man-hours of labor, and technical and organizational expertise. Over the next millennium, dozens of city-states evolved, each governed by powerful lords, some with populations larger than any city in Europe at the time, and connected by road-like causeways of crushed stone. The Maya developed a cohesive, unified cosmology, an array of common gods, a creation story, and a shared artistic and architectural vision. They created stucco and stone monuments and bas reliefs, sculpting figures and hieroglyphs with refined artistic skill. At their peak, an estimated ten million people occupied the Maya’s heartland on the Yucatan Peninsula, a region where only half a million now live. And yet by the time the Spanish reached the “New World,” the Maya had all but disappeared; they would remain a mystery for the next three hundred years. Today, the tables are turned: the Maya are justly famous, if sometimes misunderstood, while Stephens and Catherwood have been nearly forgotten. Based on Carlsen’s rigorous research and his own 1,500-mile journey throughout the Yucatan and Central America, Jungle of Stone is equally a thrilling adventure narrative and a revelatory work of history that corrects our understanding of Stephens, Catherwood, and the Maya themselves.
Intellectual and Spiritual Expression of Non-Literate Peoples by
This volume presents the proceedings of the session 'Intellectual and Spiritual Expression of Non-literate Peoples' part of the XVII World UISPP Congress, held in Burgos (Spain), the 4th September 2014. The session brought together experts from various disciplines to share experience and scientific approaches for a better understanding of human creativity and behaviour in prehistory.
The Use and Reuse of Stone Circles by
The study of stone circles has long played a major role in British and Irish archaeology, and for Scotland most attention has been focused on the large monuments of Orkney and the Western Isles. Several decades of fieldwork have shown how these major structures are likely to be of early date and recognised that that smaller settings of monoliths had a more extended history. Many of the structures in Northern Britain were reused during the later Bronze Age, the Iron Age and the early medieval period. A series of problems demand further investigation including: when were the last stone circles built? How did they differ from earlier constructions? How were they related to henge monuments, especially those of Bronze Age date? How frequently were these places reused, and did this secondary activity change the character of those sites? This major new assessment first presents the results of fieldwork undertaken at the Scottish recumbent stone circle of Hillhead; the stone circles of Waulkmill and Croftmoraig, the stone circle and henge at Hill of Tuach at Kintore; and the small ring cairn at Laikenbuie in Inverness-shire. Part 2 brings together the results of these five projects and puts forward a chronology for the construction and primary use of stone circles, particularly the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age examples. It considers the reuse of stone circles, long after they were built, and discusses four neighbouring stone circles in Aberdeenshire which display both similarites and contrasts in their architecture, use of raw materials, associated artefacts and structural sequences. Finally, a reassessment and reinterpretation of Croftmoraig and its sequence is presented: the new interpretation drawing attention to ways of thinking about these monuments which have still to fulfil their potential.
Holocene Prehistory in the Télidjène Basin, Eastern Algeria by
Kef Zoura D and Aïn Misteheyia are stratified Capsian escargotières (one openair, the other a rockshelter) in the Télidjène Basin, Eastern Algeria. They were excavated in the 1970s but have remained incompletely published. The sites are the only modern excavations of a Capsien Typique/Capsien Supérieur sequence, demonstrating that this is indeed a chronological progression related to the 8200 cal BP climate event. The technological (introduction of pressure flaking), palaeoeconomic and palaeoecological changes related to this event are examined in these contributions.
The Informal Post-Socialist Economy by
From smugglers to entrepreneurs, blue-collar workers and taxi drivers, this book deals with the multitude of characters engaged in informal economic practices in the former socialist regions. Going beyond a conception of informality as opposed to the formal sector, its authors demonstrate the fluid nature of informal transactions straddling the crossroads between illegal, illicit, socially acceptable and symbolically meaningful practices. Their argument is informed by a wide range of case studies, from Central Europe to the Baltics and Central Asia, each of which is constructed around a single informant. Each chapter narrates the story of a composite person or household that was carefully selected or constructed by an author with long-standing ethnographic research experience in the given field site. Wide in geographical, empirical and theoretical scope, the book uses ethnographic narrative accounts of everyday life to make links between ordinary meanings of informality. Challenging reductively economistic perspectives on cross-border trading, undeclared work and other informal activities, the authors illustrate the wide variety of interpretive meanings that people ascribe to such practices. Alongside getting by and getting ahead in recently marketised societies, these meanings relate to sociality, kinship-ties and solidarity, along with more surprising political and moral reasonings."
An Archaeological Study of Human Decapitation Burials by
This is an in depth yet accessible study of human decapitation burials in Roman Britain. Dr Katie Tucker studied this subject for her doctorate and so is a leading expert in the area. Her findings go against conventional views of human decapitation burials of this period, which traditionally favor the view of a post-mortem removal of the head. Instead, Katie found the majority of the evidence did not support this theory and so concluded that most decapitations were likely to have been performed prior to death, potentially as a result of execution or human sacrifice. In order to gain a full insight into the ways in which these burials were formed and the reasoning behind these practices, Katie compares the decapitation burials to the burials of the wider Romano-British cemetery population. In doing this, Katie is able to better understand the differences between decapitated individuals and the rest of the population in terms of burial practice, demographics and ante-mortem health status.Decapitation burials are not only confined to the Roman period and so Katie also discusses the context of them in the Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Early Medieval, Medieval and Post Medieval periods in order to assess whether there is continuity between periods.
Vivir junto al Turia hace 4.000 años : la lloma de Betxí by 
Unsettled by
In 1963, Kenya gained independence from Britain, ending decades of white colonial rule. While tens of thousands of whites relocated in fear of losing their fortunes, many stayed. But over the past decade, protests, scandals, and upheavals have unsettled families with colonial origins, reminding them that their belonging is tenuous. In this book, Janet McIntosh looks at the lives and dilemmas of settler descendants living in post-independence Kenya. From clinging to a lost colonial identity to pronouncing a new Kenyan nationality, the public face of white Kenyans has undergone changes fraught with ambiguity. Drawing on fieldwork and interviews, McIntosh focuses on their discourse and narratives to ask: What stories do settler descendants tell about their claim to belong in Kenya? How do they situate themselves vis-a-vis the colonial past and anti-colonial sentiment, phrasing and re-phrasing their memories and judgments as they seek a position they feel is ethically acceptable? McIntosh explores contradictory and diverse responses: moral double consciousness, aspirations to uplift the nation, ideological blind-spots, denials, and self-doubt as her respondents strain to defend their entitlements in the face of mounting Kenyan rhetorics of ancestry.
Asian Sacred Natural Sites by
Nature conservation planning tends to be driven by models based on Western norms and science, but these may not represent the cultural, philosophical and religious contexts of much of Asia. This book provides a new perspective on the topic of sacred natural sites and cultural heritage by linking Asian cultures, religions and worldviews with contemporary conservation practices and approaches. The chapters focus on the modern significance of sacred natural sites in Asian protected areas with reference, where appropriate, to an Asian philosophy of protected areas. Drawn from over 20 different countries, the book covers examples of sacred natural sites from all of IUCN's protected area categories and governance types. The authors demonstrate the challenges faced to maintain culture and support spiritual and religious governance and management structures in the face of strong modernisation across Asia. The book shows how sacred natural sites contribute to defining new, more sustainable and more equitable forms of protected areas and conservation that reflect the worldviews and beliefs of their respective cultures and religions. The book contributes to a paradigm-shift in conservation and protected areas as it advocates for greater recognition of culture and spirituality through the adoption of biocultural conservation approaches.
Miraculous Images and Votive Offerings in Mexico by
Mexican statues and paintings like the Virgen de Guadalupe and the Senor de Chalma are endowed with sacred presence and the power to perform miracles. Millions of devotees visit their shrines to request miracles for health, employment, children, and countless everyday matters. When miraclesare granted, devotees reciprocate with votive offerings. Collages, photographs, documents, texts, milagritos, hair and braids, clothing, retablos, and various representative objects cover walls at many shrines.Miraculous Images and Votive Offerings in Mexico explores such petitionary devotion in depth through extensive fieldwork supported by research in a vast body of interdisciplinary scholarship. The study's principal themes include sacred power and human agency, reification, projective animation, faithas a cognitive filter, sacred power transfer, social and narrative construction, positive framing, collaborative and deferred control, vows (juramentos), and miracle attribution.The book is written in two alternating voices, one interpretive to provide an understanding of miracles, miraculous images, and votive offerings, and the other narrative to illustrate the interpretive chapters and to bring the reader closer to experiences at the shrines. Among the many miraculousimages treated in the book are the Cristo Negro de Otatitlan, Nino del Cacahuatito, Senor de Chalma, Senor de la Misericordia (Tepatitlan), Senor del Rayo, Senor de las Tres Caidas (Teotilalpam), Virgen de los Dolores de Soriano, Virgen de Guadalupe, Virgen del Pueblito, Virgen de Juquila, Virgen delos Remedios, Virgen de San Juan de los Lagos, Virgen de Talpa, Virgen de Tonatico, and Virgen de Zapopan.
Handbook of Forensic Anthropology and Archaeology by
With contributions from 70 experienced practitioners from around the world, this second edition of the authoritative Handbook of Forensic Archaeology and Anthropology provides a solid foundation in both the practical and ethical components of forensic work. The book weaves together the discipline's historical development; current field methods for analyzing crime, natural disasters, and human atrocities; an array of laboratory techniques; key case studies involving legal, professional, and ethical issues; and ideas about the future of forensic work--all from a global perspective. This fully revised second edition expands the geographic representation of the first edition by including chapters from practitioners in South Africa and Colombia, and adds exciting new chapters on the International Commission on Missing Persons and on forensic work being done to identify victims of the Battle of Fromelles during World War I. TheHandbook of Forensic Anthropology and Archaeology provides an updated perspective of the disciplines of forensic archaeology and anthropology.
The Burden of the Ancients by
In Maya theology, everything from humans and crops to gods and the world itself passes through endless cycles of birth, maturation, dissolution, death, and rebirth. Traditional Maya believe that human beings perpetuate this cycle through ritual offerings and ceremonies that have the power to rebirth the world at critical points during the calendar year. The most elaborate ceremonies take place during Semana Santa (Holy Week), the days preceding Easter on the Christian calendar, during which traditionalist Maya replicate many of the most important world-renewing rituals that their ancient ancestors practiced at the end of the calendar year in anticipation of the New Year's rites. Marshaling a wealth of evidence from Pre-Columbian texts, early colonial Spanish writings, and decades of fieldwork with present-day Maya, The Burden of the Ancients presents a masterfully detailed account of world-renewing ceremonies that spans the Pre-Columbian era through the crisis of the Conquest period and the subsequent colonial occupation all the way to the present. Allen J. Christenson focuses on Santiago Atitl#65533;n, a Tz'utujil Maya community in highland Guatemala, and offers the first systematic analysis of how the Maya preserved important elements of their ancient world renewal ceremonies by adopting similar elements of Roman Catholic observances and infusing them with traditional Maya meanings. His extensive description of Holy Week in Santiago Atitl#65533;n demonstrates that the community's contemporary ritual practices and mythic stories bear a remarkable resemblance to similar cultural entities from its Pre-Columbian past.
Prevention Diaries by
How do trees help reduce violence? What do roads have to do with chronic disease? Prevention Diaries examines the unexpected yet empirically predictable relationships that shape our health, providing the keys to realizing vitality and health across our society. With passion, wisdom, andhumor, internationally recognized prevention expert Larry Cohen draws on his three decades of experience to make a case for building health into the everyday fabric of our lives-from health care to workplaces, urban planning to agriculture. Prevention Diaries envisions an alternate model of American health care, one less predicated on treating sickness and more focused on preventing it. Doing so requires a shift in how our society perceives and approaches health -- first recognizing our overreliance on individual solutions, thenbuilding an environment conducive to preventing problems before they occur. Through first-person vignettes and scientific data, Cohen shows that prevention is the cure for what ails us. By creating greater opportunities for health and safety - things like safe access to parks and healthful housing - the US sets a foundation for a healthier country. Prevention Diaries makesit clear that as the US works to ensure everyone can access medical services, we also must make health, not just health care, the ultimate goal.
Documenting the World by
Imagine the twentieth century without photography and film. Its history would be absent of images that define historical moments and generations: the death camps of Auschwitz, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Apollo lunar landing. It would be a history, in other words, of just artists' renderings and the spoken and written word. To inhabitants of the twenty-first century, deeply immersed in visual culture, such a history seems insubstantial, imprecise, and even, perhaps, unscientific. Documenting the World is about the material and social life of photographs and film made in the scientific quest to document the world. Drawing on scholars from the fields of art history, visual anthropology, and science and technology studies, the chapters in this book explore how this documentation--from the initial recording of images, to their acquisition and storage, to their circulation--has altered our lives, our ways of knowing, our social and economic relationships, and even our surroundings. Far beyond mere illustration, photography and film have become an integral, transformative part of the world they seek to show us.
Invisible Nation by
"By the second or third day that you're homeless, in the car with all your clothes, your pots and pans, everything, having to wash yourself in a public rest room, you logically start to feel dirty. You prefer to use the drive-through [at fast-food restaurants] where no one will see you. You begin to hide your family."--Invisible Nation More than 2.5 million children are homeless in the United States every year. In every state, children are living packed in with relatives, or in cars, or motel rooms, or emergency shelters, the only constant being too many people in too little space. In a vividly-written narrative, experienced journalist Richard Schweid takes us on a spirited journey through this "invisible nation," giving us front-row dispatches. Based on in-depth reporting from five major cities, Invisible Nation looks backward at the historical context of family homelessness, as well as forward at what needs to be done to alleviate this widespread, although often hidden, poverty. Invisible Nation is a riveting must-read for anyone who wants to know what is happening to the millions of families living at the bottom of the economy.
Consumer Culture and Society by
Consumer Culture and Society offers an introduction to the study of consumerism and consumption from a sociological perspective. Author Wendy Wiedenhoft Murphy examines what we buy, how and where we consume, the meanings attached to the things we purchase, and the social forces that enable and constrain consumer behavior. Opening chapters provide a theoretical overview and history of consumer society and featured case studies look at mass consumption in familiar contexts, such as tourism, food, and higher education. The book explores ethical and political concerns, including consumer activism, indebtedness, alternative forms of consumption, and dilemmas surrounding the globalization of consumer culture.
Material Vernaculars by
The role of objects and images in everyday life are illuminated incisively in Material Vernaculars, which combines historical, ethnographic, and object-based methods across a diverse range of material and visual cultural forms. The contributors to this volume offer revealing insights into the significance of such practices as scrapbooking, folk art produced by the elderly, the wedding coat in Osage ceremonial exchanges, temporary huts built during the Jewish festival of Sukkot, and Kiowa women's traditional roles in raiding and warfare. While emphasizing local vernacular culture, the contributors point to the ways that culture is put to social ends within larger social networks and within the stream of history. While attending to the material world, these case studies explicate the manner in which the tangible and intangible, the material and the meaningful, are constantly entwined and co-constituted.
Italian Modernities by
This book argues that Italy represents a privileged entry point into the comparative analysis of ideologies and experiences of modernity. The book compares how thinkers and politicians belonging to different ideological clusters - Liberalism, Communism, Fascism, Chistian Democracy - came to formulate multiple and often antagonistic visions of Italy's road to the modern. By revisiting Italian political history from the late nineteenth century until the present with a focus on transition periods, Italian Modernities explores how competing historical narratives influenced shifting understandings of Italian nationhood, thus foregrounding the active role of memory politics in the formulation of multiple modernities.
Starting Fieldwork by 
A Critical Auto/Ethnography of Learning Spanish by
The premise that intercultural contact produces intercultural competence underpins much rationalization of backpacker tourism and in-country language education. However, if insufficiently problematized, pre-existing constructions of cultural 'otherness' may hinder intercultural competence development. This is nowhere truer than in contexts in which wide disparities of power, wealth, and privilege exist, and where such positionings may go unproblematized. This study contributes to theoretical understandings of how intercultural competence develops through intercultural contact situations through a detailed, multiple case study of three conceptually comparable contexts in which Western backpackers study Spanish in Latin America. This experience, often 'bundled' with home-stay, volunteer work, social, and tourist experiences, offers a rich set of empirical data within which to understand the nature of intercultural competence and the processes through which it may be developed. Models of a single, context-free, transferable intercultural competence are rejected. Instead, suggestions are made as to how educators might help prepare intercultural sojourners by scaffolding their intercultural reflections and problematizing their own intersectional identities and their assumptions. The study is a critical ethnography with elements of autoethnographic reflection. The book therefore also contributes to development of this qualitative research methodology and provides an empirical example of its application.
Grape, Olive, Pig by
Amazon Best Book of November (2016): Cookbooks, Food and Wine The author of Rice, Noodle, Fish now celebrates the delectable and sensuous culture and cuisine of Spain with this beautifully illustrated food-driven travel guide filled with masterful narration, insider advice, and nearly 200 full-color photos. Grape, Olive, Pig is a deeply personal exploration of Spain, a country where eating and living are inextricably linked. Crafted in the "refreshing" (Associated Press), "inspirational" (Publishers Weekly) and "impeccably observed" (Eater.com) style of the acclaimed Rice, Noodle, Fish, and written with the same evocative voice of the award-winning magazine Roads & Kingdoms, this magnificent gastronomic travel companion takes you through the key regions of Spain as you’ve never seen them before. Matt Goulding introduces you to the sprawling culinary and geographical landscape of his adoptive home, and offers an intimate portrait of this multifaceted country, its remarkable people, and its complex history. Fall in love with Barcelona’s tiny tapas bars and modernist culinary temples. Explore the movable feast of small plates and late nights in Madrid. Join the three-thousand-year-old hunt for Bluefin tuna off the coast of Cadiz, then continue your seafood journey north to meet three sisters who risk their lives foraging the gooseneck barnacle, one of Spain’s most treasured ingredients. Delight in some of the world’s most innovative and avant-garde edible creations in San Sebastian, and then wash them down with cider from neighboring Asturias. Sample the world’s finest acorn-fed ham in Salamanca, share in the traditions of cave-dwelling shepherds in the mountains beyond Granada, and debate what constitutes truly authentic paella in Valencia. Grape, Olive, Pig reveals hidden gems and enduring delicacies from across this extraordinary country, contextualizing each meal with the stories behind the food in a cultural narrative complemented by stunning color photography. Whether you’ve visited Spain or have only dreamed of bellying up to its tapas bars, Grape, Olive, Pig will wake your imagination, rouse your hunger, and capture your heart.
From Myth to Creation by
Lavishly illustrated with over 100 photos, the second edition of From Myth to Creation offers a dramatic insider's view of the cognitive and symbolic worlds of indigenous potters and woodworkers in a region undergoing radical change. By placing Canelos Quichua art in social and cultural context, the text invites readers to better understand and appreciate the art, aesthetics, and the historical and contemporary consciousness of indigenous Americans. This new edition includes a new foreword and chapter.
The Archaeology of Mediterranean Placemaking by
Butrint has been one of the largest archaeological projects in the Mediterranean over the last two decades. Major excavations and a multi-volume series of accompanying scientific publications have made this a key site for our developing understanding of the Roman and Medieval Mediterranean. Through this set of interwoven reflections about the archaeology and cultural heritage history of his twenty-year odyssey in south-west Albania, Richard Hodges considers how the Butrint Foundation protected and enhanced Butrint's spirit of place for future generations. Hodges reviews Virgil's long influence on Butrint and how its topographic archaeology has now helped to invent a new narrative and identity. He then describes the struggle of placemaking in Albania during the early post-communist era, and finally asks, in the light of the Butrint Foundation's experience, who matters in the shaping of a place - international regulations, the nation, the archaeologist, the visitor, the local community or some combination of all of these stakeholders? With appropriate maps and photographs, this book aims to offer an unusual but important new direction for archaeology in the Mediterranean. It should be essential reading for archaeologists, classical historians, medievalists, cultural heritage specialists, tourism specialists as well as those interested in the Mediterranean's past and future.
Salvage by
In Salvage, Krisna Uk draws on extensive research in a Cambodian village she calls Leu to provide a unique ethnography of the Jorai, an ethnic minority group that lives in Vietnam and in the most heavily bombed region of northeast Cambodia. The Jorai inhabit a remote region largely beyond the reach of the nation-state but have suffered the devastating effects of battles between and within states. Uk focuses on the experience of a Jorai community that experienced violent and protracted international and domestic conflicts the Vietnam War and the Khmer Rouge regime. These conflicts had enduring effects on the community's moral fabric, the villagers activities, and the physical and spiritual environments with which they engage daily. Uk s ethnography is an exploration of a resilient communal life that refuses to surrender its integrity to the blind, destructive forces of modern aerial warfare and that struggles to come to terms with the unintelligible violence unleashed by Cambodia s revolutionary movement. It examines the destructive power and enduring harm that explosive remnants of war inflict on the human body and the social relations. But it also reveals how the local Jorai villagers turn these treacherous and fatal products of foreign technology into precious subsistence items as well as aesthetic and ritualistic objects that will take the souls of the dead on their journey to a better life. Uk demonstrates how the Jorai of Leu can, through their creative and traditional labor, revive the legend of the formidable Jorai warriors by transforming deadly modern weapons into their own war trophies."
Diversity of Sacrifice by
Explores sacrificial practices across a range of contexts from prehistory to the present.
Autoethnography As Feminist Method by
Autoethnography is an ideal method to study the 'feminist I'. Through personal stories, the author reflects on how feminists negotiate agency and the effect this has on one's political sensibilities. Speaking about oneself transforms into stories of political responsibility - a key issue for feminists who function as cultural mediators.
Hunter-Gatherers in a Changing World by
This book compiles a collection of case studies analysing drivers of and responses to change amongst contemporary hunter-gatherers. Contemporary hunter-gatherers' livelihoods are examined from perspectives ranging from historical legacy to environmental change, and from changes in national economic, political and legal systems to more broad-scale and universal notions of globalization and acculturation. Far from the commonly held romantic view that hunter-gatherers continue to exist as isolated populations living a traditional lifestyle in harmony with the environment, contemporary hunter-gatherers - like many rural communities around the world - face a number of relatively new ecological and social challenges to which they are pressed to adapt. Contemporary hunter-gatherer societies are increasingly and rapidly being affected by Global Changes, related both to biophysical Earth systems (i.e., changes in climate, biodiversity and natural resources, and water availability), and to social systems (i.e. demographic transitions, sedentarisation, integration into the market economy, and all the socio-cultural change that these and other factors trigger). Chapter 10 of this book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.
Feasting in Southeast Asia by
Feasting has long played a crucial role in the social, political, and economic dynamics of village life. It is far more than a gustatory and social diversion from daily work routines: alliances are brokered by feasts; debts are created and political battles waged. Feasts create enormous pressure to increase the production of food and prestige items in order to achieve the social and political goals of their promoters. In fact, Brian Hayden argues, the domestication of plants and animals likely resulted from such feasting pressures. Feasting has been one of the most important forces behind cultural change since the end of the Paleolithic era. Feasting in Southeast Asia documents the dynamics of traditional feasting and the ways in which a bewildering array of different types of feasts benefits hosts. Hayden argues that people's ability to marry, reproduce, defend themselves against threats and attacks, and protect their interests in village politics all depend on their ability to engage in feasting networks. To be excluded from such networks means to be subject to attack by social predators, perhaps even leading to enslavement. As an archaeologist, Hayden pays specific attention to the materials involved in feasting and how feasting might be identified and interpreted from archaeological remains. His conclusions are based on his own ethnographic field studies in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Indonesia, as well as a comparative overview of the regional literature on feasting. Hayden gives particular attention to the longhouses of Vietnam, an unusual but important social unit that hosts feasts, in an attempt to understand why they became established. This unique volume is the culmination of fifteen years of fieldwork among tribal groups in Southeast Asia. Until now no one has examined feasting as a general phenomenon in Southeast Asia or tried to synthesize its underlying dynamics from a theoretical perspective. The book will be of interest to cultural anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, and others involved in food studies.
A Whakapapa of Tradition by
Maori carving went through a rapid evolution from 1830 to 1930. Beginning around 1830, three dominant art traditions - war canoes, decorated storehouses and chiefly houses - declined and were replaced by whare karakia (churches), whare whakairo (decorated meeting houses) and wharekai (dining halls). In A Whakapapa of Tradition, Ngarino Ellis examines how and why that fundamental transformation took place by exploring the Iwirakau school of carving - an ancestor who lived in the Waiapu Valley around 1700, Iwirakau is credited for reinvigorating carving on the East Coast. The six major carvers of his school went on to create more than thirty important meeting houses and other structures, which Ngarino Ellis explores to tell this story of Ngati Porou carving and a profound transformation in Maori art. A Whakapapa of Tradition also attempts to make sense of Maori art history, exploring what makes a tradition in Maori art; how traditions begin and, conversely, how and why they cease. Beautifully illustrated with new photography by Natalie Robertson, and drawing on the work of key scholars to make a new synthetic whole, A Whakapapa of Tradition will be a landmark volume in the history of writing about Maori art.
Intangible Cultural Heritage in Contemporary China by
This edited book examines the significance of intangible cultural heritage to local communities and the state in Hong Kong and China. Through ethnographic studies, the various chapters in this edited book argue for the role of the local community in the creation and conservation of the intangible cultural heritage and traditions. Irrespective of whether they are selected and listed as regional, national or UNESO intangible cultural heritage, they are part of the living traditions unique to that particular local community. This edited book argues that there are threefold significance of intangible cultural heritage to the local community and the state. First, intangible cultural heritage is seen as a social prestige. Second, it acts as socio-cultural and economic capital for members of the community to tap into to ensure socio-cultural and economic sustainability of the community. Finally, the intangible cultural heritage serves as a depository of the collective memories of the community, linking the past to the present and the future.