Pioneros de la antropología en Michoacán : mexicanos y estadounidenses en la región tarasca by 
Qualitative Data Analysis with NVivo by
Engaging and accessible, this book offers students a complete guide to using NVivo for qualitative data analysis. Drawing on their wealth of expertise, the authors offer detailed, practical advice that relates to students' own experience and research projects. Packed with real-world examples and case studies, the book supports students through every stage of qualitative data analysis. The Third Edition: Contains fully integrated instructions for using NVivo on both Mac and PC, with screenshots and click-by-click guidance. Seamlessly interweaves theory and practice in easy-to-follow steps. Empowers students to develop their critical thinking. Accompanied by video tutorials for both Mac and PC, web links and a host of other helpful online resources, this step-by-step book removes students′ anxiety about tackling data analysis. Whether for advanced researchers or those approaching the task for the first time, this clear, yet comprehensive guide is the perfect companion for anyone doing qualitative data analysis with NVivo.
Child Sacrifice in Ancient Israel by
Among the many religious acts condemned in the Hebrew Bible, child sacrifice stands out as particularly horrifying. The idea that any group of people would willingly sacrifice their own children to their god(s) is so contrary to modern moral sensibilities that it is difficult to imagine that such a practice could have ever existed. Nonetheless, the existence of biblical condemnation of these rites attests to the fact that some ancient Israelites in fact did sacrifice their children. Indeed, a close reading of the evidence-biblical, archaeological, epigraphic, etc.-indicates that there are at least three different types of Israelite child sacrifice, each with its own history, purpose, and function. In addition to examining the historical reality of Israelite child sacrifice, Dewrell's study also explores the biblical rhetoric condemning the practice. While nearly every tradition preserved in the Hebrew Bible rejects child sacrifice as abominable to Yahweh, the rhetorical strategies employed by the biblical writers vary to a surprising degree. Thus, even in arguing against the practice of child sacrifice, the biblical writers themselves often disagreed concerning why Yahweh condemned the rites and why they came to exist in the first place.
Methods of Desire by
Since the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, Indonesia has undergone a radical program of administrative decentralization and neoliberal reforms. In Methods of Desire, author Aurora Donzelli explores these changes through an innovative perspective--one that locates the production of neoliberalism in novel patterns of language use and new styles of affect display. Building on almost two decades of fieldwork, Donzelli describes how the growing influence of transnational lending agencies is transforming the ways in which people desire and voice their expectations, intentions, and entitlements within the emergent participatory democracy and restructuring of Indonesia's political economy. She argues that a largely overlooked aspect of the Era Reformasi concerns the transition from a moral regime centered on the expectation that desires should remain hidden to a new emphasis on the public expression of individuals' aspirations. The book examines how the large-scale institutional transformations that followed the collapse of the Suharto regime have impacted people's lives and imaginations in the relatively remote and primarily rural Toraja highlands of Sulawesi. A novel concept of the individual as a bundle of audible and measurable desires has emerged, one that contrasts with the deep-rooted reticence toward the expression of personal preferences. The spreading of foreign discursive genres such as customer satisfaction surveys, training sessions, electoral mission statements, and fundraising auctions, and the diffusion of new textual artifacts such as checklists, flowcharts, and workflow diagrams are producing forms of citizenship, political participation, and moral agency that contrast with the longstanding epistemologies of secrecy typical of local styles of knowledge and power. Donzelli's long-term ethnographic study examines how these foreign protocols are being received, absorbed, and readapted in a peripheral community of the Indonesian archipelago. Combining a telescopic perspective on our contemporary moment with a microscopic analysis of conversational practices, the author argues that the managerial forms of political rationality and the entrepreneurial morality underwriting neoliberal apparatuses proliferate through the working of small cogs, that is, acts of speech. By examining these concrete communicative exchanges, she sheds light on both the coherence and inconsistency underlying the worldwide diffusion of market logic to all domains of life.
Privilege at Play by
While most research on inequality focuses on impoverished communities, it often ignores how powerful communities and elites monopolize resources at the top of the social hierarchy. In Privilege at Play, Hugo Ceron-Anaya offers an intersectional analysis of Mexican elites to examine the waysaffluent groups perpetuate dynamics of domination and subordination. Using ethnographic research conducted inside three exclusive golf clubs and in-depth interviews with upper-middle and upper-class golfers, as well as working-class employees, Ceron-Anaya focuses on the class, racial, and genderdynamics that underpin privilege in contemporary Mexico. His detailed analysis of social life and the organization of physical space further considers how the legacy of imperialism continues to determine practices of exclusion and how social hierarchies are subtlety reproduced through distinctionssuch as fashion and humor, in addition to the traditional indicators of wealth and class. Adding another dimension to the complex nature of social exclusion, Privilege at Play shows how elite social relations and spaces allow for the resource hoarding and monopolization that helps create andmaintain poverty.
Image-Makers by
Rock art images around the world are often difficult for us to decipher as modern viewers. Based on authentic records of the beliefs, rituals and daily life of the nineteenth-century San peoples, and of those who still inhabit the Kalahari Desert, this book adopts a new approach to hunter-gatherer rock art by placing the process of image-making within the social framework of production. Lewis-Williams shows how the San used this imagery not simply to record hunts and the animals that they saw, but rather to sustain the social network and status of those who made them. By drawing on such rich and complex records, the book reveals specific, repeated features of hunter-gatherer imagery and allows us insight into social relations as if through the eyes of the San themselves.
Storytelling As Narrative Practice by
Telling stories is one of the fundamental things we do as humans. Yet in scholarship, stories considered to be "traditional", such as myths, folk tales, and epics, have often been analyzed separately from the narratives of personal experience that we all tell on a daily basis. In Storytelling as Narrative Practice, editors Elizabeth Falconi and Kathryn Graber argue that storytelling is best understood by erasing this analytic divide. Chapter authors carefully examine language use in-situ, drawing on in-depth knowledge gained from long-term fieldwork, to present rich and nuanced analyses of storytelling-as-narrative-practice across a diverse range of global contexts. Each chapter takes a holistic ethnographic approach to show the practices, processes, and social consequences of telling stories.
Biculturalism at New Zealand's National Museum by
The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa has been celebrated as an international leader for its bicultural concept and partnership with Māori in all aspects of the museum, but how does this relationship with the indigenous partner work in practice? Biculturalism at New Zealand's National Museum reveals the challenges, benefits and politics of implementing a bicultural framework in everyday museum practice. Providing an analysis of the voices of museum employees, the book reflects their multifaceted understandings of biculturalism and collaboration. Based on a year of intensive fieldwork behind the scenes at New Zealand's national museum and drawing on 68 interviews and participant observations with 18 different teams across the organisation, this book examines the interactions and cultural clashes between Māori and non-Māori museum professionals in their day-to-day work. Documenting and analysing contemporary museum practices, this account explores how biculturalism is enacted, negotiated, practised and envisioned on different stages within the complex social institution that is the museum. Lessons learnt from Te Papa will be valuable for other museums, NGOs, the public service and organisations facing similar issues around the world. Biculturalism at New Zealand's National Museum addresses a gap in the literature on biculturalism and reaffirms the importance of ethnography to the anthropological enterprise and museum studies research. As such, it will be essential reading for academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of cultural anthropology, museum anthropology, museum studies, and Māori studies or indigenous studies. It should also be of great interest to museum professionals.
Development Anthropology by
In Development Anthropology: Putting Culture First, Hari Mohan Mathur highlights the role of culture--and anthropological work more broadly--in development outcomes. Anthropologists' contributions in this area have traditionally received little attention, but this changed when the World Bank released the 2015 World Development Report. This report focused on the social, cultural, and psychological influences which affect the development process, and like Mathur, stressed the criticality of anthropological and other social sciences' knowledge for the success of development efforts. A major contribution to development anthropology, this book will interest anthropologists, economists, sociologists, other social scientists, policy makers, planners, development practitioners, researchers and trainers, and will be particularly useful for graduate students planning their career in the field of development.
Situational Breakdowns by
In our everyday lives, we rely on routines that make tasks and interactions easier and provide a sense of order - routines of greeting each other, getting to work, organizing the things we do on the job, at the gym, or during family dinners. Yet, we have all experienced situations whereroutines fail and people behave contrary to expectations.In Situational Breakdowns, Anne Nassauer demonstrates that when routines break down, surprising outcomes often emerge. Focusing on detailed accounts of peaceful and violent protests from the 1960s until 2010, violent uprisings such as Ferguson 2014, and armed store robberies caught on CCTV, Nassauerargues that by systematically looking at the way situations unfold, clear patterns can be identified for how and why routine interactions break down. Employing over 1,000 visual recordings, documentary sources, interviews with participants, and participant observation with police, she shows whichfactors can draw us into violent situations and discusses how and why we make uncommon individual and collective decisions. Drawing on insights from sociology, psychology, primatology, international relations, and neuroscience, Nassauer compares situational dynamics with human motivations todemonstrate that our interactions, interpretations, and emotions greatly influence the outcome of situations.A novel interpretation of surprising social outcomes, Situational Breakdowns reveals that, despite the course of events overriding motivations, people can avoid being caught up in violence, if they know what to look for.
Making Meaningful Lives by
What makes for a meaningful life? In the Japanese context, the concept of ikigai provides a clue. Translated as "that which makes one's life worth living," ikigai has also come to mean that which gives a person happiness. In Japan, where the demographic cohort of elderly citizens is growing, and new modes of living and relationships are revising traditional multigenerational family structures, the elderly experience of ikigai is considered a public health concern. Without a relevant model for meaningful and joyful older age, the increasing older population of Japan must create new cultural forms that center the ikigai that comes from old age. In Making Meaningful Lives, Iza Kavedžija provides a rich anthropological account of the lives and concerns of older Japanese women and men. Grounded in years of ethnographic fieldwork at two community centers in Osaka, Kavedžija offers an intimate narrative analysis of the existential concerns of her active, independent subjects. Alone and in groups, the elderly residents of these communities make sense of their lives and shifting ikigai with humor, conversation, and storytelling. They are as much providers as recipients of care, challenging common images of the elderly as frail and dependent, while illustrating a more complex argument: maintaining independence nevertheless requires cultivating multiple dependences on others. Making Meaningful Lives argues that an anthropology of the elderly is uniquely suited to examine the competing values of dependence and independence, sociality and isolation, intimacy and freedom, that people must balance throughout all of life's stages.
Capoeira, Mobility, and Tourism by
In Capoeira, Mobility, and Tourism: Preserving an Afro-Brazilian Tradition in a Globalized World, Sergio Gonz lez Varela examines the mobility of capoeira leaders and practitioners. He analyzes their motivations and spirituality as well as their ability to reconfigure social practices. Varela draws on tourism mobilities, multisited ethnography, global networks, heritage, and the anthropology of ritual and religion in order to stress the commitment, dedication, and value that international practitioners bring to capoeira.
Language, the Singer and the Song by
The relationship between language and music has much in common - rhythm, structure, sound, metaphor. Exploring the phenomena of song and performance, this book presents a sociolinguistic model for analysing them. Based on ethnomusicologist John Blacking's contention that any song performed communally is a 'folk song' regardless of its generic origins, it argues that folk song to a far greater extent than other song genres displays 'communal' or 'inclusive' types of performance. The defining feature of folk song as a multi-modal instantiation of music and language is its participatory nature, making it ideal for sociolinguistic analysis. In this sense, a folk song is the product of specific types of developing social interaction whose major purpose is the construction of a temporally and locally based community. Through repeated instantiations, this can lead to disparate communities of practice, which, over time, develop sociocultural registers and a communal stance towards aspects of meaningful events in everyday lives that become typical of a discourse community.
Northwest Voices by
The Pacific Northwest has long been a linguistically-rich area, yet few books are devoted its linguistic heritage. The essays collected in Northwest Voices examine the historical background of the Pacific Northwest, the contributions of Indigenous languages, the regional legacy of English, and the relationship between our perceptions of people and the languages they speak. The Pacific Northwest has had a surprising number of influences on the English language, and a great number of other languages have left their mark. Individual essays examine linguistic diversity, explore the origins and use of place names, and detail efforts to revive indigenous languages.
The Anthropology of the Future by
Study of the future is an important new field in anthropology. Building on a philosophical tradition running from Aristotle through Heidegger to Schatzki, this book presents the concept of 'orientations' as a way to study everyday life. It analyses six main orientations - anticipation, expectation, speculation, potentiality, hope, and destiny - which represent different ways in which the future may affect our present. While orientations entail planning towards and imagining the future, they also often involve the collapse or exhaustion of those efforts: moments where hope may turn to apathy, frustrated planning to disillusion, and imagination to fatigue. By examining these orientations at different points, the authors argue for an anthropology that takes fuller account of the teleologies of action.
Narrow Fairways by
India remains a country mired in poverty, with two-thirds of its 1.2 billion people living on little more than a few dollars day. Just as telling, the country's informal working population numbers nearly 500 million, or approximately 80 percent of the entire labor force. Despite these figuresand the related structural disadvantages that imperil the lives of so many, the Indian elite hold fast to the idea that the poor need only work harder and show some discipline and they, too, can become rich. The results of this ambitious ten-year ethnography at exclusive golf clubs in Bangaloreshatter such self-serving illusions.In Narrow Fairways, Patrick Inglis combines participant observation, interviews, and archival research to show how social mobility among the poor lower-caste golf caddies who carry the golf sets of wealthy upper-caste members at these clubs is ultimately constrained and narrowed. The book highlightshow elites secure and extend class and caste privileges, while also delivering a necessary rebuke to India's present development strategy, which pays far too little attention to promoting quality health care, education, and other basic social services that would deliver real opportunities to thepoor.
Countless Blessings by
How do women in Niger experience pregnancy and childbirth differently from women in the United States or Europe? Barbara M. Cooper sets out to understand childbirth in a country with the world's highest fertility rate and an alarmingly high rate of maternal and infant mortality. Cooper shows how the environment, slavery and abolition, French military rule, and the rapid expansion of Islam have all influenced childbirth and fertility in Niger from the 19th century to the present day. She sketches a landscape where fear of infertility generates intense competition between communities, ethnicities, and co-wives and creates a culture where concerns about infertility dominate concerns about overpopulation, where illegitimate children are rejected, and where the education of girls is sacrificed in the name of avoiding shame. Given a medical system poorly adapted to women's needs, a precarious economy, and a political context where it is impossible to address sexuality openly, Cooper discovers that it is little wonder that pregnancy and birth are a woman's greatest pride as well as a source of grave danger.
Los manuscritos de Uka = Me'e rarahi o te Kainga by
Este libro es el resultado de un largo trabajo de recopilación de los manuscritos de Uka, contenidos en 75 cuadernos donde anotó pacientemente sus recuerdos en lengua rapanui, que ahora presentamos en versión bilingüe. Son escritos espontáneos, al fluir de la memoria, en que deja constancia de las enseñanzas, relatos e informaciones recibidas especialmente de sus abuelos Juan Tepano y Engepito y de su bisabuela Veriamo, junto a quienes vivió durante su niñez y juventud, así como de su padre Estevan Tepano, hijo mayor de Juan Tepano, informante de Metraux y Routledge
Eastern Cherokee Stories by
"Throughout our Cherokee history," writes Joyce Dugan, former principal chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, "our ancient stories have been the essence of who we are." These traditional stories embody the Cherokee concepts of Gadugi, working together for the good of all, and Duyvkta, walking the right path, and teach listeners how to understand and live in the world with reverence for all living things. In Eastern Cherokee Stories, Sandra Muse Isaacs uses the concepts of Gadugi and Duyvkta to explore the Eastern Cherokee oral tradition, and to explain how storytelling in this tradition--as both an ancient and a contemporary literary form--is instrumental in the perpetuation of Cherokee identity and culture. Muse Isaacs worked among the Eastern Cherokees of North Carolina, recording stories and documenting storytelling practices and examining the Eastern Cherokee oral tradition as both an ancient and contemporary literary form. For the descendants of those Cherokees who evaded forced removal by the U.S. government in the 1830s, storytelling has been a vital tool of survival and resistance--and as Muse Isaacs shows us, this remains true today, as storytelling plays a powerful role in motivating and educating tribal members and others about contemporary issues such as land reclamation, cultural regeneration, and language revitalization. The stories collected and analyzed in this volume range from tales of creation and origins that tell about the natural world around the homeland, to post-Removal stories that often employ Native humor to present the Cherokee side of history to Cherokee and non-Cherokee alike. The persistence of this living oral tradition as a means to promote nationhood and tribal sovereignty, to revitalize culture and language, and to present the Indigenous view of history and the land bears testimony to the tenacity and resilience of the Cherokee people, the Ani-Giduwah.
At the bridge : James Teit and an anthropology of belonging by
Every once in a while, an important historical figure makes an appearance, makes a difference, and then disappears from the public record. James Teit (1864-1922) was such a figure. A prolific ethnographer and tireless Indian rights activist, Teit spent four decades helping British Columbia's Indigenous peoples in their challenge of the settler-colonial assault on their lives and territories. Yet his story is little known. At the Bridge chronicles Teit's fascinating story. From his base at Spences Bridge, British Columbia, Teit practised a participant- and place-based anthropology - an anthropology of belonging - that covered much of BC and northern Washington, Idaho, and Montana. Whereas his contemporaries, including famed anthropologist Franz Boas, studied Indigenous peoples as the last survivors of "dying cultures" in need of preservation in metropolitan museums, Teit worked with them as members of living cultures actively asserting jurisdiction over their lives and lands. Whether recording stories and songs, mapping place-names, or participating in the chiefs' fight for fair treatment, he made their objectives his own. With his allies, he produced copious, meticulous records; an army of anthropologists could not have achieved a fraction of what Teit achieved in his short life. Wendy Wickwire's beautifully crafted narrative accords Teit the status he deserves. At the Bridge serves as a long-overdue corrective, consolidating Teit's place as a leading and innovative anthropologist in his own right
The Selfish Ape by
Weaving together stories of science and sociology, The Selfish Ape offers a refreshing response to common fantasies about the ascent of humanity. Rather than imagining modern humans as a species with godlike powers, or Homo deus, Nicholas P. Money recasts us as Homo narcissus--paragons of self-absorption. This exhilarating story offers an immense sweep of modern biology, leading readers from earth's unexceptional location in the cosmos to the story of our microbial origins and the innerworkings of the human body. It explores human genetics, reproduction, brain function, and aging, creating an enlightened view of man as a brilliantly inventive, yet self-destructive animal. The Selfish Ape is a book about human biology, the intertwined characteristics of our greatness and failure, and the way that we have plundered the biosphere. Written in a highly accessible style, it is a perfect read for those interested in science, human history, sociology, and the environment.
Reinventing Love? by
Affective and sexual intimacy are sensitive issues in the Arab World. However moments of closeness between men and women have always been possible, perhaps even more so today, thanks to the spread of mixed-gender social spaces and new communication technologies. Further, while undeniably embedded in gendered relations of power, love is a highly ambivalent field of experience that involves a good deal of negotiation between partners and with family and can stand in tense relationship to patriarchal domination. Often, however, romantic love is contrasted with love after marriage. This book precisely explores the relationship between love and marriage in the contemporary Arab world. By sketching the paths of amorous encounters in the Arab world, it introduces the reader to the conflicting configurations that shape love practices, providing new insights into a still-emerging field of inquiry. It examines notions of gender, intimacy and love through ethnographic case studies that offer an insight into current dynamics in Egypt, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates.
Archaeology from Space by
National Geographic Explorer and TED Prize-winner Dr. Sarah Parcak welcomes you to the exciting new world of space archaeology, a growing field that is sparking extraordinary discoveries from ancient civilizations across the globe. InArchaeology from Space, Sarah Parcak shows the evolution, major discoveries, and future potential of the young field of satellite archaeology. From surprise advancements after the declassification of spy photography, to a new map of the mythical Egyptian city of Tanis, she shares her field's biggest discoveries, revealing why space archaeology is not only exciting, but urgently essential to the preservation of the world's ancient treasures. Parcak has worked in twelve countries and four continents, using multispectral and high-resolution satellite imagery to identify thousands of previously unknown settlements, roads, fortresses, palaces, tombs, and even potential pyramids. From there, her stories take us back in time and across borders, into the day-to-day lives of ancient humans whose traits and genes we share. And she shows us that if we heed the lessons of the past, we can shape a vibrant future. Includes Illustrations
Partisans, Guerillas, and Irregulars by
Essays that explore the growing field of conflict archaeology Within the last twenty years, the archaeology of conflict has emerged as a valuable subdiscipline within anthropology, contributing greatly to our knowledge and understanding of human conflict on a global scale. Although archaeologists have clearly demonstrated their utility in the study of large-scale battles and sites of conventional warfare, such as camps and forts, conflicts involving asymmetric, guerilla, or irregular warfare are largely missing from the historical record. Partisans, Guerillas, and Irregulars: Historical Archaeology of Asymmetric Warfare presents recent examples of how historical archaeology can contribute to a better understanding of asymmetric warfare. The volume introduces readers to this growing study and to its historic importance. Contributors illustrate how the wide range of traditional and new methods and techniques of historiography and archaeology can be applied to expose critical actions, sacrifices, and accomplishments of competing groups representing opposing philosophies and ways of life, which are otherwise lost in time. The case studies offered cover significant events in American and world history, including the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, Indian wars in the Southeast and Southwest, the Civil War, Reconstruction, Prohibition, and World War II. All such examples used here took place at a local or regional level, and several were singular events within a much larger and more complex historic movement. While retained in local memory or tradition, and despite their potential importance, they are poorly, and incompletely addressed in the historic record. Furthermore, these conflicts took place between groups of significantly different cultural and military traditions and capabilities, most taking on a "David vs. Goliath" character, further shaping the definition of asymmetric warfare.
Gods of the Upper Air by
"Elegant and kaleidoscopic . . . This looks to be the perfect moment for King's resolutely humane book." --Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times "Captivating." --NPR.org From an award-winning historian comes a dazzling history of the birth of cultural anthropology and the adventurous scientists who pioneered it--a sweeping chronicle of discovery and the fascinating origin story of our multicultural world. A century ago, everyone knew that people were fated by their race, sex, and nationality to be more or less intelligent, nurturing, or warlike. But Columbia University professor Franz Boas looked at the data and decided everyone was wrong. Racial categories, he insisted, were biological fictions. Cultures did not come in neat packages labeled "primitive" or "advanced." What counted as a family, a good meal, or even common sense was a product of history and circumstance, not of nature. In Gods of the Upper Air, a masterful narrative history of radical ideas and passionate lives, Charles King shows how these intuitions led to a fundamental reimagining of human diversity. Boas's students were some of the century's most colorful figures and unsung visionaries: Margaret Mead, the outspoken field researcher whose Coming of Age in Samoa is among the most widely read works of social science of all time; Ruth Benedict, the great love of Mead's life, whose research shaped post-Second World War Japan; Ella Deloria, the Dakota Sioux activist who preserved the traditions of Native Americans on the Great Plains; and Zora Neale Hurston, whose studies under Boas fed directly into her now classic novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Together, they mapped civilizations from the American South to the South Pacific and from Caribbean islands to Manhattan's city streets, and unearthed an essential fact buried by centuries of prejudice: that humanity is an undivided whole. Their revolutionary findings would go on to inspire the fluid conceptions of identity we know today. Rich in drama, conflict, friendship, and love, Gods of the Upper Air is a brilliant and groundbreaking history of American progress and the opening of the modern mind.
The Folktales of Palestine by
Folktales are instrumental in ensuring the survival of oral traditions and strengthening communal bonds. Both the stories and the process of storytelling itself help to define social, cultural and political identity. For Palestinians, the threat of losing their heritage has engendered a sense of urgency among storytellers and Palestinian folklorists. Yet there has been remarkably little academic scholarship dedicated to the tradition.Farah Aboubakr here analyses a selection of folktales edited, compiled and translated by Ibrahim Muhawi and Sharif Kanaana in Speak, Bird, Speak Again (1989). In addition to the folktales themselves, Muhawi and Kanaana's collection is renowned for providing readers with extensive folkloric, historical and anthropological annotations. Here, for the first time, the folktales and the compilers' work on them, are the subject of scholarly analysis. Synthesising various disciplines including memory studies, gender studies and social movement studies, Aboubakr uses the collection to understand the politics of storytelling and its impact on Palestinian identity. In particular, the book draws attention to the female storytellers who play an essential role in transmitting and preserving collective memory and culture. The book is an important step towards analysing a significant genre of Palestinian literature and will be relevant to scholars of Palestinian politics and popular culture, gender studies and memory studies, and those interested in folklore and oral literature.
Public Engagement and Education by
The world's collective archaeological heritage is threatened by war, development, poverty, climate change, and ignorance. To protect our collective past, archaeologists must involve the general public through interpersonal experiences that develop an interest in the field at a young age and foster that interest throughout a person's life. Contributors to this volume share effective approaches for engaging and educating learners of all ages about archaeology and how one can encourage them to become stewards of the past. They offer applied examples that are not bound to specific geographies or cultures, but rather, are approaches that can be implemented almost anywhere.
Neolithic Cave Burials by
This is the first book-length treatment of Neolithic burial in Britain to focus primarily on cave evidence. It interprets human remains from forty-eight caves and compares them to what we know of Neolithic collective burial elsewhere in Britain and Europe. It reviews the archaeology of these cave burials and treats them as important evidence for the study of mortuary practice. Drawing on evidence from archaeology, anthropology, osteology and cave science, the book demonstrates that cave burial was one of the earliest elements of the British Neolithic. It also shows that Early Neolithic cave-burial practice was highly varied, with many similarities to other burial rites. However, by the Middle Neolithic, a funerary practice which was specific to caves had developed.
Converging on Cannibals by
In Converging on Cannibals, Jared Staller demonstrates that one of the most terrifying discourses used during the era of transatlantic slaving--cannibalism--was coproduced by Europeans and Africans. When these people from vastly different cultures first came into contact, they shared a fear of potential cannibals. Some Africans and European slavers allowed these rumors of themselves as man-eaters to stand unchallenged. Using the visual and verbal idioms of cannibalism, people like the Imbangala of Angola rose to power in a brutal world by embodying terror itself. Beginning in the Kongo in the 1500s, Staller weaves a nuanced narrative of people who chose to live and behave as "jaga," alleged cannibals and terrorists who lived by raiding and enslaving others, culminating in the violent political machinations of Queen Njinga as she took on the mantle of "Jaga" to establish her power. Ultimately, Staller tells the story of Africans who confronted worlds unknown as cannibals, how they used the concept to order the world around them, and how they were themselves brought to order by a world of commercial slaving that was equally cannibalistic in the human lives it consumed.
Democracy and Community by
The concept of community is tainted by the events of the twentieth century, frequently appropriated by totalitarian regimes for the purposes of exclusion and oppression. In this dialogue with Peter Engelmann, philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy attempts to reframe community as central to a reconceptualization of politics and democracy. Observing that all our interactions are in some way shared experiences, Nancy demonstrates that a common sense of life precedes our existence as individuals: we can only truly make sense of life in a plurality. Democracy is typically concerned with establishing political unity, yet its greater task lies in community: creating a space in which sense can realize itself and circulate. This conversation with one of France's foremost thinkers will be of great interest to all readers of contemporary philosophy and political theory.
Signs of Difference by
How are peoples' ideas about languages, ways of speaking and expressive styles shaped by their social positions and values? How is difference, in language and in social life, made - and unmade? How and why are some differences persuasive as the basis for action, while other differences are ignored or erased? Written by two recognised authorities on language and culture, this book argues that ideological work of all kinds is fundamentally communicative, and that social positions, projects and historical moments influence, and are influenced by, people's ideas about communicative practices. Neither true nor false, ideologies are positioned and partial visions of the world, relying on comparison and perspective; they exploit differences in expressive features - linguistic and otherwise - to construct convincing stereotypes of people, spaces and activities. Using detailed ethnographic, historical and contemporary examples, this outstanding book shows readers how to analyse ideological work semiotically.
The Archive of Loss by
Mumbai's textile industry is commonly but incorrectly understood to be an extinct relic of the past. In The Archive of Loss Maura Finkelstein examines what it means for textile mill workers--who are assumed not to exist--to live and work during a period of deindustrialization. Finkelstein shows how mills are ethnographic archives of the city where documents, artifacts, and stories exist in the buildings and in the bodies of workers. Workers' pain, illnesses, injuries, and exhaustion narrate industrial decline; the ways in which they live in tenements exist outside and resist the values expounded by modernity; and the rumors and untruths they share about textile worker strikes and a mill fire help them make sense of the industry's survival. In outlining this archive's contents, Finkelstein shows how mills, which she conceptualizes as lively ruins, become a lens through which to challenge, reimagine, and alter ways of thinking about the past, present, and future in Mumbai and beyond.
Kumeyaay Ethnobotany by
For thousands of years, the Kumeyaay people of northern Baja California and southern California made their homes in the diverse landscapes of the region, interacting with native plants and continuously refining their botanical knowledge. Today, many Kumeyaay Indians in the far-flung ranches of Baja California carry on the traditional knowledge and skills for transforming native plants into food, medicine, arts, tools, regalia, construction materials, and ceremonial items. Kumeyaay Ethnobotany explores the remarkable interdependence between native peoples and native plants of the Californias through in-depth descriptions of 47 native plants and their uses, lively narratives, and hundreds of vivid photographs. It connects the archaeological and historical record with living cultures and native plant specialists who share their ever-relevant wisdom for future generations. Book jacket.
Design by the Book by
Today, China's classical antiquity is often studied through recovered artifacts, but before this practice became widespread, scholars instead reconstructed the distant past through classical texts and transmitted illustrations. Among the most important illustrated commentaries was the Sanli tu, or Illustrations to the Ritual Classics, whose origins are said to date back to the great commentator Zheng Xuan. Design by the Book, which accompanies an exhibition at Bard Graduate Center Gallery, discusses the history and cultural significance of the Sanli tu in medieval China. The Sanli tu survives in a version produced around 960 by Nie Chongyi, a professor at the court of the Later Zhou (951-960) and Northern Song (960-1127) dynasties. It is now mostly remembered--if at all--for its controversial entries and as a quaint predecessor of the more empirical antiquarian scholarship produced since the mid-eleventh century. But such criticism hides the fact that the book remained a standard resource for more than 150 years, playing a crucial role in the Song dynasty's perception of ancient ritual and construction of a Confucian state cult. Richly illustrated, Design by the Book brings renewed focus to one of China's most fascinating medieval works.
How Water Makes Us Human by
How Water Makes Us Human provides a novel cross-disciplinary approach to water, demonstrating the role water plays in shaping human lives. It uses anthropological information about water in Kenya, Wales and Spain to show how what water does in those areas has influenced the way that people can be with it. With ethnographically rich content, this book uses a novel approach to human relationships with the environment and offers a new method for thinking about sustainability.
Against State, Against History by
Living in the shadow of state is not a dark, static and silent world. It was the world in full radiance, involving multiple process of reenactment to life, lifeways and relationship. If state and history demonized the hill people as the "pest" and "nuisance" to civilization, and the hillpractices as the "relics" of the "primitive", the hillmen's narratives celebrated them as their core cultural collective. Against State, Against History is a radical reevaluation of the dominant civilizational narratives on the "tribe" and attempts to recast their history in the light of recenthistoriography that presents the hillmen as state evading population.Bringing together both conventional and oral narratives, and from the counter-perspectives of the margin, the book explores the conditions in which section of valley population escaped to the hills, their migration history, how they reenact their space, society, culture and economy in the hills.Their physical dispersion in the highland terrain, choosing an independent village polity, defended by trained warriors, fortressed at the top of hills, connected by repulsive pathways, following jhum economy, and adopting a pliable social, cultural, ethnic and gender formations, are their countercultural collective at the margins of state. They were reenacted to prevent state control and the emergence of domination relations in the hills. This process is understood as unstate involving the process of disowning state and becoming an egalitarian society where freedom of individuals waslocated at the core of their cultural collective.
Documentary Research in the Social Sciences by
From diaries and letters to surveys and interview transcripts, documents are a cornerstone of social science research. This book guides you through the documentary research process, from choosing the best research design, through data collection and analysis, to publishing and sharing research findings. Using extensive case studies and examples, it situates documentary research within a current context and empowers you to use this method to meet new challenges like digital research and big data head on. In a jargon-free style perfect for beginner researchers, this book helps you to: · Interrogate documentary material in meaningful ways · Choose the best research design for your project, from literature reviews to policy research · Understand a range of approaches, including quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods. Accessible, clear and focused, this book gives you the tools to conduct your own documentary research and celebrates the importance of documentary analysis across the social sciences.
Anthropology and Ethnology During World War II by
The volume presents a collection of texts describing contemporary research findings into the documentation of the Sektion Rassen und-Volsktumsforschung of the Institut für Deutsche Ostarbeit (IDO)--a Nazi-led institution that was established in occupied Poland during World War II. The research project was carried out by anthropologists from the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology together with representatives of other disciplines: historians, sociologists, and physical anthropologists from Jagiellonian University. The studies and papers are based on an analysis of a vast body of documents and photographs. It is first of all a vast collection of sources connected with research carried out by Sektion Rassen-und Volkstumsforschung IDO, kept at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. The authors refer as well to previously unknown documents discovered during queries conducted over the last few years. The available sources provide greater insight into the activities of the Institut für Deutsche Ostarbeit as well as make it possible to verify the existing information concerning the character of research carried out by Sektion Rassen-und Volkstumsforschung. The book contains a rich number of illustrations: Photographs, medical and anthropological questionnaires, psychological tests, and questionnaires containing sociological and ethnographic information not only help visualize, but in a significant way complement the text of the publication.
Family Sacrifices by
Fifty-two percent of Chinese Americans report having no religious affiliation, making them the least religiously-identified ethnic group in the United States. But that statistic obscures a much more complex reality. Family Sacrifices reveals that Chinese Americans employ familism, notreligion, as the primary narrative by which they find meaning, identity, and belonging. As a transpacific lived tradition, Chinese American familism prioritizes family above other commitments and has roots in Chinese Popular Religion and Confucianism. The spiritual and ethical systems of Chinaemphasize practicing rituals and cultivating virtue, whereas American religious research usually focuses on belief in the supernatural or belonging to a religious tradition. To address this gap in understanding, Family Sacrifices introduces the concept of liyi, translated as ritual propriety andrighteous relations. Re-appropriated from its original Chinese usage,liyi offers a new way of understanding Chinese religion and a new lens for understanding the emergence of religious "nones" in the United States. The first book based on national survey data on Asian American religious practices,Family Sacrifices is a seminal text on the fastest-growing racial group in the United States.
Sethy I, King of Egypt by
King Sethy I (also transcribed as Seti, Sethi and Sethos) ruled for around a decade in the early thirteenth century BC. His lifetime coincided with a crucial point in Egyptian history, following the ill-starred religious revolution of Akhenaten, and heralding the last phase of Egypt's imperial splendor. As the second scion of a wholly new royal family, his reign did much to set the agenda for the coming decades, both at home and abroad. Sethy was also a great builder, apparently with exquisite artistic taste, to judge from the unique quality of the decoration of his celebrated monuments at Abydos and Thebes. This richly illustrated book tells the story of Sethy's career and monuments, not only in ancient times, but in modern history, and the impact of his legacy on today's understanding and appreciation of ancient Egypt.
Aristotle's Anthropology by
This is the first collection of essays devoted specifically to the nature and significance of Aristotle's anthropological philosophy, covering the full range of his ethical, metaphysical and biological works. The book is organised into four parts, two of which deal with the metaphysics and biology of human nature and two of which discuss the anthropological foundations and implications of Aristotle's ethico-political works. The essay topics range from human nature and morality to friendship and politics, including original discussion and fresh perspectives on rationalism, the intellect, perception, virtue, the faculty of speech and the differences and similarities between human and non-human animals. Wide-ranging and innovative, the volume will be highly relevant for readers studying Aristotle as well as for anyone working on either ancient or contemporary philosophical anthropology.
From Stonehenge to Mycenae by
This book reconsiders how we can understand archaeology on a grand scale by abandoning the claims that material remains stand for the people and institutions that produced them, or that genetic change somehow caused cultural change. Our challenge is to understand the worlds that made great projects like the building of Stonehenge or Mycenae possible. The radiocarbon revolution made the old view that the architecture of Mycenae influenced the building of Stonehenge untenable. But the recent use of 'big data' and of genetic histories have led archaeology back to a worldview where 'big problems' are assumed to require 'big solutions'. Making an animated plea for bottom-up rather than top-down solutions, the authors consider how life was made possible by living in the local and materially distinct worlds of the period. By considering how people once built connections between each other through their production and use of things, their movement between and occupancy of places, and their treatment of the dead, we learn about the kinds of identities that people constructed for themselves. Stonehenge did not require an architect from Mycenae for it to be built, but the builders of Stonehenge and Mycenae would have shared a mutual recognition of the kinds of humans that they were, and the kinds of practices these monuments were once host to.
The Shanghai Free Taxi by
As any traveler knows, some of the best and most honest conversations take place during car rides. So, when a long-time NPR correspondent wanted to learn more about the real China, he started driving a cab--and discovered a country amid seismic political and economic change. China--America's most important competitor--is at a turning point. With economic growth slowing, Chinese people face inequality and uncertainty as their leaders tighten control at home and project power abroad. In this adventurous, original book, NPR correspondent Frank Langfitt describes how he created a free taxi service--offering rides in exchange for illuminating conversation--to go beyond the headlines and get to know a wide range of colorful, compelling characters representative of the new China. They include folks like "Beer," a slippery salesman who tries to sell Langfitt a used car; Rocky, a farm boy turned Shanghai lawyer; and Chen, who runs an underground Christian church and moves his family to America in search of a better, freer life. Blending unforgettable characters, evocative travel writing, and insightful political analysis, The Shanghai Free Taxi is a sharply observed and surprising book that will help readers make sense of the world's other superpower at this extraordinary moment.
All Data Are Local by
How to analyze data settings rather than data sets, acknowledging the meaning-making power of the local. In our data-driven society, it is too easy to assume the transparency of data. Instead, Yanni Loukissas argues in All Data Are Local, we should approach data sets with an awareness that data are created by humans and their dutiful machines, at a time, in a place, with the instruments at hand, for audiences that are conditioned to receive them. The term data set implies something discrete, complete, and portable, but it is none of those things. Examining a series of data sources important for understanding the state of public life in the United States--Harvard's Arnold Arboretum, the Digital Public Library of America, UCLA's Television News Archive, and the real estate marketplace Zillow--Loukissas shows us how to analyze data settings rather than data sets. Loukissas sets out six principles: all data are local; data have complex attachments to place; data are collected from heterogeneous sources; data and algorithms are inextricably entangled; interfaces recontextualize data; and data are indexes to local knowledge. He then provides a set of practical guidelines to follow. To make his argument, Loukissas employs a combination of qualitative research on data cultures and exploratory data visualizations. Rebutting the "myth of digital universalism," Loukissas reminds us of the meaning-making power of the local.
Africa and Mathematics by
This volume on ethnomathematics in Central Africa fills a gap in the current literature, focusing on a region rarely explored by other publications. It highlights the discovery of the Ishango rod, which was found to be the oldest mathematical tool in humanity's history, thereby shifting the origin of mathematics to the heart of Africa, and explores the different scientific hypotheses that emerged as a result. While it contains some high-level mathematics, the non-mathematical reader can easily skip these portions and enjoy the book's survey of African history, culture, and art.
An Ethnography of Football and Masculinities in Jamaica by
What can football among young men in Jamaica tell us about class, wealth, age, and concepts of masculinity? William Tantam presents an ethnographic study of the impact of football on men's lives in contemporary Jamaica. He illuminates how the football field relates to social and economic inequalities, and whether playing football in a mixed group has the effect of levelling the playing field between the more and less economically wealthy. Tantam presents insights into the life histories and football biographies of individuals, the relationship between wealth, education, and class, and explores how socioeconomic inequalities are embodied and enacted. With rich ethnographic detail, he analyses how the experience of watching international football matches and the English Premier League locates groups of spectators in relation to wider movements of capital. The book features case studies of individuals who play football in Jamaica, and penetrates an under-examined area in academic discussion of sport and masculinity. This will be a valuable addition to students of anthropology, sociology, football studies, cultural studies and gender studies.
The Sociolinguistics of Survey Translation by
The Sociolinguistics of Survey Translationpresents an overview of challenges in survey translation, introduces a sociolinguistic framework to overcome these challenges and demonstrates step-by-step how this framework works to guide and evaluate survey translation. Topics covered in the book include the relationship between linguistic rules, cultural norms, and social practices and their impact on survey translation, the role of orthography and semiotic symbols in translation, translation of different types of survey materials, and various stages of translation review and evaluation. This accessible book not only demonstrates how sociolinguistics can be a useful framework to address thorny survey translation problems, but also provides practical and useful tools to guide survey translators and survey practitioners as they conduct and evaluate survey translations. Presenting easy to implement yet comprehensive survey translation methodology and providing practical tools for survey translators, practitioners and students, this book is the essential guide to this fast-growing area. comprehensive survey translation methodology and providing practical tools for survey translators, practitioners and students, this book is the essential guide to this fast-growing area.
The Uncaring, Intricate World by
In the 1950s the colonial British government in Northern and Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zambia and Zimbabwe) began construction on a large hydroelectric dam that created Lake Kariba and dislocated nearly 60,000 indigenous residents. Three decades later, Pamela Reynolds began fieldwork with the Tonga people to study the lasting effects of the dispossession of their land on their lives. In The Uncaring, Intricate World Reynolds shares her field diary, in which she records her efforts to study children and their labor and, by doing so, exposes the character of everyday life. More than a memoir, her diary captures the range of pleasures, difficulties, frustrations, contradictions, and grappling with ethical questions that all anthropologists experience in the field. The Uncaring, Intricate World concludes with afterwords by Jane I. Guyer and Julie Livingston, who critically reflect on its context, its meaning for today, and relevance to conducting anthropological work.
Blood Work by
What is blood? How can we account for its enormous range of meanings and its extraordinary symbolic power? In Blood Work Janet Carsten traces the multiple meanings of blood as it moves from donors to labs, hospitals, and patients in Penang, Malaysia. She tells the stories of blood donors, their varied motivations, and the paperwork, payment, and other bureaucratic processes involved in blood donation, tracking the interpersonal relations between lab staff and revealing how their work with blood reflects the social, cultural, and political dynamics of modern Malaysia. Carsten follows hospital workers into factories and community halls on blood drives and brings readers into the operating theater as a machine circulates a bypass patient's blood. Throughout, she foregrounds blood's symbolic power, uncovering the processes that make the hospital, the blood bank, the lab, and science itself work. In this way, blood becomes a privileged lens for understanding the entanglements of modern life.
Anthropos and the Material by
The destructive effects of modern industrial societies have shaped the planet in such profound ways that many argue for the existence of a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene. This claim brings into relief a set of challenges that have deep implications for how relations between the human, the material, and the political affect contemporary social worlds. The contributors to Anthropos and the Material examine these challenges by questioning and complicating long-held understandings of the divide between humans and things. They present ethnographic case studies from across the globe, addressing myriad topics that range from labor, economics, and colonialism to technology, culture, the environment, agency, and diversity. In foregrounding the importance of connecting natural and social histories, the instability and intangibility of the material, and the ways in which the lively encounters between the human and the nonhuman challenge conceptions of liberal humanism, the contributors point to new understandings of the capacities of people and things to act, transform, and adapt to a changing world.
Indonesian Megaliths: a Forgotten Cultural Heritage by
Indonesian Megaliths: A forgotten cultural heritage' highlights aspects of Indonesian culture which are currently misunderstood and sometimes threatened by destruction. Although they are relatively recent in origin, the Indonesian megaliths offer similarities to their counterparts in the Middle East and Arabia: they reflect the rise to prominence of local chiefs in a context of acculturation which prompted the need to build megalithic monuments to bury the dead, and to honour, commemorate and communicate with ancestors. In societies of oral tradition, these stones punctuate the landscape to transmit the memory of men and social structure from one generation to the next. Based on scientific documents (articles, archaeological reports) and field visits, this new exploration clarifies various elements of the Indonesian megaliths, including their function in the daily life of the tribes and the use of certain stones for musical purposes (lithophony). In Nias, Sumba and Toraya, the megalith tradition is still alive and ethno-anthropological studies of these three regions provide a unique chance to complement the archaeological perspectives on megalithic monuments abandoned for several centuries in the rest of the Archipelago. The book includes numerous photographs documenting the monuments which were taken during the author's stay in Indonesia (2010-2013).