During 1928-9 the renowned anthropologist Raymond Firth visited Tikopia, a small island in the east of Solomon Islands, for the first time. This book takes the collection he made as its subject, and explores how through its acquisition, Firth ceased to be a stranger and became a respected figure incorporated into Tikopia society. The objects were originally viewed by Firth as data in a scientific record of a culture, and evidence challenging the belief that complex economic transactions could only take place in a recognizable market economy. Elizabeth Bonshek, however, revisits the collection's documentation and the ethnography of Tikopia with a different intent in mind: to highlight the social relations the collecting process illuminates and to acknowledge Tikopia voices, past and present. She argues that Firth downplayed the impact of contact with outsiders - whalers, traders and missionaries calling for the abandonment of the Work of the Gods - yet this context is vital for understanding why local people actively contributed to his collecting and research. She follows the life of the collection after leaving the island in institutions that attributed different meanings to its significance, in a failed repatriation request and in a new role in the transmission of 'cultural heritage' along with Firth's writings. She concludes that Firth's exchanges of objects with other high-ranking men were culturally appropriate to the social values dominant in that time and place. Indeed, she suggests that while Firth was acquiring Tikopia artefacts, the Tikopia were perhaps acquiring him. On what ethical and economic terms does an anthropologist acquire other people's things? Collecting Tikopia deftly applies the insights of contemporary material culture studies to a historically important case. Bonshek coaxes ethnographic documents and museum artefacts to reveal how objects both materialize cultural identities over time and mediate social relations across worlds of difference. Professor Robert Foster, University of Rochester, President of the Society for Cultural Anthropology. Richly supported by documentation this skilful and insightful analysis reveals the complexity of cross-cultural interactions and highlights important concerns for the interpretation and management of cultural heritage in museum 'treasure places' worldwide. Dr Robin Torrence, Senior Principal Research Scientist, Anthropology Research, Australian Museum.

This is the first ethnography to be written about a Campeche Maya community. It examines the surviving Maya traditional technologies and sacred cosmologies and discusses the potential for combining these with modern knowledge and technologies to form an efficient new system that will not only provide for ecologically responsible development but will also make possible the cultural survival of this threatened indigenous population.

An anthropological study of the health system of the Dagara people of northern Ghana and southern Burkina Faso, Of Life and Health develops a cultural and epistemological lexicon of Dagara life by examining its religious, ritual, and artistic expressions. Consisting of ethnographic descriptions and analyses of six Dagara cultic institutions, each of which deals with different aspects of sustaining and transmitting life, the volume gives a holistic account of the Dagara knowledge system.

This book presents a new way to understand human-animal interactions. Offering a profound discussion of topics such as human identity, our relationship with animals and the environment, and our culture, the author channels the vibrant Italian traditions of humanism, materialism, and speculative philosophy. The research presents a dialogue between the humanities and the natural sciences. It challenges the separation and oppression of animals with a post-humanism steeped in the traditions of the Italian Renaissance. Readers discover a vision of the human as a species informed by an intertwining with animals. The human being is not constructed by an onto-poetic process, but rather by close relations with otherness. The human system is increasingly unstable and, therefore, more hybrid. The argument it presents interests scholars, thinkers, and researchers. It also appeals to anyone who wants to delve into the deep animal-human bond and its philosophical, cultural, political instances. The author is a veterinarian, ethologist, and philosopher. He uses cognitive science, zooanthropology, and philosophy to engage in a series of empirical, theoretical, and practice-based engagements with animal life. In the process, he argues that animals are key to human identity and culture at all levels.

The use of visual art is relatively common in scientific literature, and academic publications sometimes reproduce famous paintings to attract potential readers. When used in this manner, artwork is just a marginal adornment. In The Painted Mind, however, each chapter is inspired by an artistic masterpiece. Throughout the book, Dr. Troisi highlights the artistic significance of each painting and introduces the reader to their creators' biographical stories. The Painted Mind has a scientific focus on the evolutionary analysis of human mind and behavior. Its discussion of emotions and behaviors integrates a variety of perspectives that can ultimately be reduced to the evolutionary distinction between proximate mechanisms and adaptive functions. Although Dr. Troisi is primarily a clinical psychiatrist, his eclectic scientific background-ranging from primate ethology to neuroscience, from behavioral biology to molecular genetics, and from Darwinian psychiatry to evolutionary psychology-gives his writing a unique perspective. In addition to integrating data and findings from each of these disciplines, the book's presentation of evolutionary theories of the human mind is also intermixed with lively discussion of individual cases. Some are clinical cases from Dr. Troisi's own psychiatric practice; others reference the psychological profiles of historical figures and fictional characters.

The longstanding European conception that Roma and non-Roma are separated by unambiguous socio-cultural distinctions has led to the construction of Roma as "non-belonging others." Challenging this conception, Textures of Belonging explores how Roma negotiate and feel belonging at the everyday level. Inspired by material culture, sensorial anthropology, and human geography approaches, this book uses ethnographic research to examine the role of domestic material forms and their sensorial qualities in nurturing connections with people and places that transcend socio-political boundaries.

At a time of rising global economic precarity and social inequality, the field of economic anthropology offers solutions through the study of local and contextualized economic practices. This book is made up of an exciting collection of succinct essays authored by leading scholars primarily from the field of economic anthropology, but also featuring contributions from sociology and history. The chapters engage with debates at the cutting edge of research on the topics of Eurasia, the anthropology of postsocialism and the embeddedness of economic practices.

This short volume is an ideal starting point for anyone wanting to learn about, arguably, the most famous anthropologist of the twentieth century. "Since her death, a steady drip of books about Mead, one of the most significant women in twentieth century social science and American society, has appeared, some interesting, many quite a bit less so. While Shankman's biography makes use of them, it nevertheless stands out among the better ones, not only for its well-informed and balanced view of Mead, but also for its concision."-Times Literary Supplement Tracing Mead's career as an ethnographer, as the early voice of public anthropology, and as a public figure, this elegantly written biography links the professional and personal sides of her career. The book looks at Mead's early career through the end of World War II, when she produced her most important anthropological works, as well as her role as a public figure in the post-war period, through the 1960s until her death in 1978. The criticisms of Mead are also discussed and analyzed. From the introduction: After her death, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter.... On the other side of the world, Mead's passing was remembered in a very different context. On the island of Manus off the coast of New Guinea, the people of Pere village also mourned her death. Mead first studied the people of Pere in the late 1920s, returning in the 1950s with further visits thereafter. Over a span of five decades, she touched their lives, and they touched hers. Such was Mead's stature that they commemorated her death with a ceremony befitting a great leader.

Using some of his landmark publications on kinship, along with a new introduction, chapter and conclusion, Robert Parkin discusses here the changes in kinship terminologies and marriage practices, as well as the dialectics between them. The chapters also focus on a suggested trajectory, linking South Asia and Europe and the specific question of the status of Crow-Omaha systems. The collection culminates in the argument that, whereas marriage systems and practices seem infinitely varied when examined from a very close perspective, the terminologies that accompany them are much more restricted.

Social scientists have generally remained impervious to a major economic and cultural adaptation--namely, the peripatetic lifestyle--although this adaptation has been an integral part of developments within the socioeconomic and cultural networks that social scientists study. This lack of interest derives perhaps from the ambiguous integration of peripatetics into these networks as well as the often negatively charged constructs -Gypsies, outsiders, or marginal others--imposed on peripatetics by dominant cultures. As peddlers of the strange to borrow a phrase from Clifford Geertz, peripatetics are situated at the fringes of their host societies and many students of the social ecological and behavioral sciences still continue to overlook the roles of peripatetic peoples.

This collection presents the latest in cross-cultural comparative research on the nature of peripatetic peoples. Contributors examine the place of peripatetic peoples in the everyday lives and diverse cognitive maps of client communities. Relying on Georg Simmel's construct of The Stranger, the contributors to this volume suggest that peripatetic peoples are simultaneously outsiders and insiders, but most important, they are entrepreneurial middlemen traders par excellence. All told, the essays provoke vital reassessments of the anthropological focus on the role and status of cultural brokers and go-betweens in political, economic, and social interactions.

Most of the literature dealing with the origins of modern humans concentrates on the European sequence, where the Levant is referred to in passing as being problematic because it does not fit with the sequence of events documented in Europe. This is the first book that attempts to examine the issues specifically from the Levant, viewing it as central rather than peripheral to the problem. It also discusses in some depth the ramifications of possible interactions between the different hominids in the region.

Rather than viewing the transition from the Middle to Upper Paleolithic as the time at which fully modern adaptive systems came to the forefront, emphasis is placed on the Middle Paleolithic itself in order to test hypotheses that hominids of this period were culturally archaic. Through an analysis of the archaeological evidence, it is concluded that by at least 100,000 years ago people of the period, usually regarded as being somewhat less than human were, on the contrary, fully modern in terms of their behavioral and cultural systems. This conclusion applies to both the Neanderthals and their anatomically modern contemporaries. The author further concludes that the cultural and behavioral differences between the two types were minimal and that there was a potential for interaction and acculturation between them. The possibility is raised that the Near East is the region in which modern human cultural adaptation arose and then dispersed to other regions.

Third in the series Sociocultural Studies of Educational Policy Formation and Appropriation, this volume brings together scholars from North America, South America, and Europe to examine the relationship between ethnographic research and educational policy. The product of papers and discussions originally taking place at the Interamerican Symposium on Ethnographic Educational Research, the book presents both original empirical research reports and theoretical-methodological proposals for using ethnography to study and influence educational policy. After an introduction and opening chapter that highlight the different ways of conceptualizing education, education policy, and diversity across American borders, five full chapters address the relationship between ethnography and educational policy through sustained empirical attention to specific research sites and projects.

The next section of the book presents shorter position statements that relate specific research or policymaking experiences and reflect on the ways that ethnography can be involved in a project of formulating or revising policy. In this section, edited transcriptions of workshop discussions give the reader a vibrant sense of the challenging issues facing educational ethnographers attempting to address policy. The book closes with a commentary by a veteran educational ethnographer. Of interest to educators, researchers, and policymakers across the Americas, this volume contributes to an ongoing dialogue about how ethnographic research can intersect advantageously with the policymaking enterprise.

This book explores how culture functions and intersects with religious groups, particularly Christians. It explores the way electronic communications, especially film and television, shape our world of meaning. Using the theories of British thinker Raymond Williams as his framework, Warren focuses on the actual process by which versions of reality are produced, the production of signification. He also draws on the ideas of Paulo Freire pointing out that cultural agency happens when individuals decide to exercise some judgment and control over the kinds of cultural material they will accept or resist.

If culture is a signifying system, says Warren, then religion is too. Contrasting values from the wider culture create dilemmas for those trying to follow a religious life. Choices either mirror the wider culture or reflect a culture of resistance. Warren seeks to help the reader develop the skills of cultural analysis by paying attention to the images that support culture, examining the life structures that support culture, and paying attention to how any particular aspect of culture is produced. Beyond all this, however, the author calls for a stance of resistance to all that violates human dignity and unity--all the aspects of culture that persons with high religious ideals cannot accept.

The yearning to remember who we are is not easily detected in the qualitative dimensions of focus groups and ethnographic research methods; nor is it easily measured in standard quantified scientific inquiry. It is deeply rooted, obscured by layer upon layer of human efforts to survive the impact of historical amnesia induced by the dominant policies and practices of advanced capitalism and postmodern culture. Darder's introduction sets the tone by describing the formation of Warriors for Gringostroika and The New Mestizas. In the words of Anzaldua, those who cross over, pass over . . . the confines of the normal.' Critical essays follow by Mexicanas, poets, activists, and educators of all colors and persuasions. The collection coming out of the good work of the Southern California University system relates to all locales and spectrums of the human condition and will no doubt inspire excellent creativity of knowing and remembering among all who chance to read any part thereof.

Psyche-Genetics, as the title implies, is concerned with the intimate atomic relationship between the body and soul of MAN: It examines the on-going cycle of mankind's social and spiritual evolution - from the infancy of our Stone Age, all the way to the end of our cycle as transcendental Cosmic sages in a future Age yet to come, when no more children will be born: It provides a unique portrait of all three Great Houses of MAN and the journey through Time and Space that we are taking. It tells us who we are; why we exist; and where we are going: It brings attention to the nuclear threat of the present moment and the great difficulty we are all having in letting go of the pseudo-intellectual teenage arguments and reckless gambles of a dying Steel Age.

Since the Iraq war, the Middle East has been in continuous upheaval, resulting in the displacement of millions of people. Arriving from Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, and Syria in other parts of the world, the refugees show remarkable resilience and creativity amidst profound adversity. Through careful ethnography, this book vividly illustrates how refugees navigate regimes of exclusion, including cumbersome bureaucracies, financial insecurities, medical challenges, vilifying stereotypes, and threats of violence. The collection bears witness to their struggles, while also highlighting their aspirations for safety, settlement, and social inclusion in their host societies and new homes.

Examining human-animal relations among the reindeer hunting and herding Dukha community in northern Mongolia, this book focuses on concepts such as domestication and wildness from an indigenous perspective. By looking into hunting rituals and herding techniques, the ethnography questions the dynamics between people, domesticated reindeer, and wild animals. It focuses on the role of the spirited landscape which embraces all living creatures and acts as a unifying concept at the center of the human and non-human relations.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have become ubiquitous in the development sector in Africa and attracting more academic attention. However, the fact that NGOs are an integral part of the everyday lives of men and women on the continent has been overlooked thus far. In Africa, NGOs are not remote, but familiar players, situated in the midst of cities and communities. By taking a radical empirical stance, this book studies NGOs as a vital part of the lifeworlds of Africans. Its contributions are immersed in the pasts, presents and futures of personal encounters, memories, decision-making and politics.

Proposing a series of innovative steps towards better understanding human lives at the interstices of water and land, this volume includes eight ethnographies from deltas around the world. The book presents 'delta life' with intimate descriptions of the predicaments, imaginations and activities of delta inhabitants. Conceptually, the collection develops 'delta life' as a metaphor for approaching continual and intersecting sociocultural, economic and material transformations more widely. The book revolves around questions of hydrosociality, volatility, rhythms and scale. It thereby yields insights into people's lives that conventional, hydrological approaches to deltas cannot provide.

A senior editor at Mother Jones dives into the lives of the extremely rich, showing the fascinating, otherworldly realm they inhabit-and the insidious ways this realm harms us all. Have you ever fantasized about being ridiculously wealthy? Probably. Striking it rich is among the most resilient of American fantasies, surviving war and peace, expansions and recessions, economic meltdowns and global pandemics. We dream of the jackpot, the big exit, the life-altering payday, in whatever form that takes. (Americans spent $81 billion on lottery tickets in 2019, more than the GDPs of most nations.) We would escape "essential" day jobs and cramped living spaces, bury our debts, buy that sweet spread, and bail out struggling friends and relations. But rarely do we follow the fantasy to its conclusion-to ponder the social, psychological, and societal downsides of great affluence and the fact that so few possess it. What is it actually like to be blessed with riches in an era of plagues, political rancor, and near-Dickensian economic differences? How mind-boggling are the opportunities and access, how problematic the downsides? Does the experience differ depending on whether the money is earned or unearned, where it comes from, and whether you are male or female, white or black? Finally, how does our collective lust for affluence, and our stubborn belief in social mobility, explain how we got to the point where forty percent of Americans have literally no wealth at all? These are all questions that Jackpot sets out to explore. The result of deep reporting and dozens of interviews with fortunate citizens-company founders and executives, superstar coders, investors, inheritors, lottery winners, lobbyists, lawmakers, academics, sports agents, wealth and philanthropy professionals, concierges, luxury realtors, Bentley dealers, and even a woman who trains billionaires' nannies in physical combat, Jackpot is a compassionate, character-rich, perversely humorous, and ultimately troubling journey into the American wealth fantasy and where it has taken us.