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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Anthropology
From July 3-6, 1986, Americans hailed the 4th of July and the centennial of the Statue of Liberty in a celebration that became officially known as Liberty Weekend. In this study, David Procter analyzes the process of enacting political culture by examining how various political, religious, and ethnic groups transformed the experience of Liberty Weekend into a validation of their own individual social and political agendas. Broader in scope than any previous published work on political culture and the political ideal of liberty, Procter's work vividly demonstrates the rhetorical process by which American politicians, pundits, and community spokespersons convert political celebration into motivation for sociopolitical goals. Following an introductory chapter on the relationship between symbols and culture, Procter provides an overview of the analysis of political culture as well as general comments on Liberty Weekend itself. Subsequent chapters analyze how specific groups used the weekend to further their own sociopolitical goals. Procter explains how blacks transformed the celebration into competing statements of community identity, explores how Ronald Reagan converted the event into a celebration of his Revolution, and examines how a nationalist group cast the event into a motive for an involved or confrontational American foreign policy. He then synthesizes the significant themes and symbolic clusters from these three chapters to determine what these webs of discourse can tell us about American political culture. Procter concludes that each group called on the ideograph Liberty to justify their specific, yet diverse, political agendas and that these disparate groups were able to use this common symbol because fundamentally Liberty represents America's cultural persona of pursuing a dream of success and achievement. Ideal as supplemental reading for courses in political communication and rhetorical criticism, this book represents a major contribution to our understanding of the complex nature of American political culture.
This is the first book to systematically describe the formation and historical changes of the Monpa people's area (Monyul) through its nature, society, culture, religion, agriculture and historically deep ties with Bhutan, Tibet and the Tibetan Buddhist faith. The state of Arunachal Pradesh is located in the northeastern part of India, surrounded by the borders of Assam, Bhutan, and Tibet (China). There has been a long history of conflict over the sovereignty of this area between India and China. Foreigners were prohibited from entering the state until the 1990s and the area has been veiled in secrecy until recently. Thus, there are not many academically researched works on the region. This book serves as an essential guide for anyone who would like to learn about a unique geographical area of Monpa.
This book takes food parcels as a vehicle for exploring relationships, intimacy, care, consumption, exchange, and other fundamental anthropological concerns, examining them in relation to wider transnational spaces. As the contributors to this volume argue, food and its related practices offer a window through which to examine the reconciliation of people's localised intimate experiences with globalising forces. Their analyses contribute to an embodied and sensorial approach to social change by examining migrants and their families' experiences of global connectedness through familiar objects and narratives. By bringing in in-depth ethnographic insights from different social and economic contexts, this book widens the understanding of the lived experiences of mobility and goes beyond the divide between origin and destination countries, therefore contributing to new ways of thinking about migration and transnationalism that take into consideration the materiality of global connections and the way such connections are embodied and experienced at the local level.
Across the life course, new forms of community, ways of keeping in contact, and practices for engaging in work, healthcare, retail, learning and leisure are evolving rapidly. Breaking new ground in the study of technology and aging, this book examines how developments in smart phones, the internet, cloud computing, and online social networking are redefining experiences and expectations around growing older in the twenty-first century. Drawing on contributions from leading commentators and researchers across the world, this book explores key themes such as caregiving, the use of social media, robotics, chronic disease and dementia management, gaming, migration, and data inheritance, to name a few.
This book reinvigorates the philosophical treatment of the nature, purpose, and meaning of thought in today's universities. The wider discussion about higher education has moved from a philosophical discourse to a discourse on social welfare and service, economics, and political agendas. This book reconnects philosophy with the central academic concepts of thought, reason, and critique and their associated academic practices of thinking and reasoning. Thought in this context should not be considered as a merely mental or cognitive construction, still less a cloistered college, but a fully developed individual and social engagement of critical reflection and discussion with the current pressing disciplinary, political, and philosophical issues. The editors hold that the element of thought, and the ability to think in a deep and groundbreaking way is, still, the essence of the university. But what does it mean to think in the university today? And in what ways is thought related not only to the epistemological and ontological issues of philosophical debate, but also to the social and political dimensions of our globalised age? In many countries, the state is imposing limitations on universities, dismissing or threatening academics who speak out critically. With this volume, the editors ask questions such as: What is the value of thought? What is the university's proper relationship to thought? To give the notion of thought a thorough philosophical treatment, the book is divided into in three parts. The focus moves from an epistemological perspective in Part I, to a focus on existence and values in higher education in Part II, and then to a societal-oriented focus on the university in Part III. All three parts, in their own ways, debate the notion of thought in higher education and the university as a thinking form of being.
The first book to address the classic anthropological theme of property through the ethnography of Amazonia, Ownership and Nurture sets new and challenging terms for anthropological debates about the region and about property in general. Property and ownership have special significance and carry specific meanings in Amazonia, which has been portrayed as the antithesis of Western, property-based, civilization. Through carefully constructed studies of land ownership, slavery, shamanism, spirit mastery, aesthetics, and intellectual property, this volume demonstrates that property relations are of central importance in Amazonia, and that the ownership of persons plays an especially significant role in native cosmology.
Philosophy and the Mixed Race Experience is a collection of essays by philosophers about the mixed race experience. Each essay is meant to represent one of three possible things: (1) what the philosopher sees as the philosopher's best work, (2) evidence of the possible impact of the philosopher's mixed race experience on the philosopher's work, or (3) the philosopher's philosophical take on the mixed race experience. The book has two primary goals: (1) to collect together for the first time the work of professional, academic philosophers who have had the mixed race experience, and (2) to bring these essays together for the purpose of adding to the conversation on the question of the degree to which factical identity and philosophical work may be related. The book also examines the possible relationship between the mixed race experience and certain philosophical positions.
This book provides an in-depth study of Japanese whaling culture, emphasizing how the Japanese have considered whales and whaling in relation to their understanding of nature and religion. It examines why and how the Japanese have mourned the deaths of whales, treating them as if they were human beings, and assesses the relevance of this culture to nature conservation and management of sustainable use of natural resources. It also sheds new light on Japanese whaling, one of the most controversial issues in the contemporary world, by highlighting the hitherto unknown aspects of Japanese beliefs about whales and whaling, which constitute an integral part of their core concept of how they should coexist with nature. Through cross-examining previous studies of Japanese whaling, as well as analyzing new documents and conducting field research on location, this book presents a comprehensive survey of Japanese whaling culture and memorial rites for whales and offers viable insights on how the Japanese whaling culture can be applied to solving current global issues, including nature conservation, management of sustainable use of natural resources, and protection of wildlife and its habitats.
To this date, efforts to document the scholarly contributions of exclusively African American criminologists are nonexistent. This is a reference work which offers contemporary Afrocentric perspective on critical issues of crime and justice by focusing on the contributions of African American criminologists whose interests and responses to crime arguably differ from those of mainstream white criminologists. This reference will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate students and faculty in criminal justice and practitioners in policy making. Most of the abstracts can be cross-referenced to publications within mainstream criminal justice journals. In addition, selected books, manuscripts, and an array of state and government documents are included and provide rare Afrocentric perspectives on issues of crime and justice. In the process, it credits many Caucasians and ethnic minorities as important contributors to a given publication. This reference book consists of five chapters: (1) an introductory article on issues that define (and confront) African American criminologists, (2) an alphabetical listing of published abstracts for each contributing author, (3) selected references to each publication, (4) an appendix containing titles to doctoral dissertations for all contributing African American scholars, and (5) an author and subject index.
What if history had a sound track? What would it tell us about ourselves? Based on a thirty-part BBC Radio series and podcast, Noise explores the human dramas that have revolved around sound at various points in the last 100,000 years, allowing us to think in fresh ways about the meaning of our collective past. Though we might see ourselves inhabiting a visual world, our lives have always been hugely influenced by our need to hear and be heard. To tell the story of sound--music and speech, but also echoes, chanting, drumbeats, bells, thunder, gunfire, the noise of crowds, the rumbles of the human body, laughter, silence, conversations, mechanical sounds, noisy neighbors, musical recordings, and radio--is to explain how we learned to overcome our fears about the natural world, perhaps even to control it; how we learned to communicate with, understand, and live alongside our fellow beings; how we've fought with one another for dominance; how we've sought to find privacy in an increasingly noisy world; and how we've struggled with our emotions and our sanity. Oratory in ancient Rome was important not just for the words spoken but for the sounds made--the tone, the cadence, the pitch of the voice--how that voice might have been transformed by the environment in which it was heard and how the audience might have responded to it. For the Native American tribes first encountering the European colonists, to lose one's voice was to lose oneself. In order to dominate the Native Americans, European colonists went to great effort to silence them, to replace their "demonic" "roars" with the more familiar "bugles, speaking trumpets, and gongs." Breaking up the history of sound into prehistoric noise, the age of oratory, the sounds of religion, the sounds of power and revolt, the rise of machines, and what he calls our "amplified age," Hendy teases out continuities and breaches in our long relationship with sound in order to bring new meaning to the human story.
PC or Political Correctness has received bad press, according to Choi and Murphy. Indeed, the body of ideas and concepts embodied in PC have been trivialized by conservatives seeking to defend their own positions and by a press catering to a public put off by philosophical discussions. Choi and Murphy seek to analyze the key facets of the debate over PC. Starting with an examination of the key concepts of PC, Choi and Murphy review the essentials of neo-conservative social philosophy and the Postmodern Alternative as well as neo-conservative critiques of postmodernism. By providing a comprehensive examination of PC from its historical and philosophical underpinnings, Choi and Murphy show what is at stake in the controversy. This book is an important synthesis for researchers and students of contemporary philosophy and social policy.
In an era of intensifying globalization and transnational connectivity, the dynamics of cultural production and the very notion of creativity are in transition. Exploring creative practices in various settings, the book does not only call attention to the spread of modernist discourses of creativity, from the colonial era to the current obsession with 'innovation' in neo-liberal capitalist cultural politics, but also to the less visible practices of copying, recycling and reproduction that occur as part and parcel of creative improvization.
The collapse of the Soviet Union and its totalitarian system has resulted in instability and conflict among its many ethnic groups. In this volume, a distinguished group of scholars from the Russian Center for Strategic Research and International Studies examines the ethnic conflicts roiling Central Asia and Transcaucasia today--the roots and dynamics of these conflicts, their possible consequences, and the possibilities for resolution. The analyses are based upon extensive field studies, interviews, local press accounts, and other sources unavailable in the West. The work presents an inside view of the conflicts, describes the forces involved, and provides a prognosis for future developments in the region.
In an era of intensifying globalization and transnational connectivity, the dynamics of cultural production and the very notion of creativity are in transition. Exploring creative practices in various settings, the book does not only call attention to the spread of modernist discourses of creativity, from the colonial era to the current obsession with 'innovation' in neo-liberal capitalist cultural politics, but also to the less visible practices of copying, recycling and reproduction that occur as part and parcel of creative improvization.
Human Origins brings together new thinking by social anthropologists and other scholars on the evolution of human culture and society. No other discipline has more relevant expertise to consider the emergence of humans as the symbolic species. Yet, social anthropologists have been conspicuously absent from debates about the origins of modern humans. These contributions explore why that is, and how social anthropology can shed light on early kinship and economic relations, gender politics, ritual, cosmology, ethnobiology, medicine, and the evolution of language.
Bringing together major archaeological research projects from Virginia to Alabama, this volume explores the rich prehistory of the Southeastern Coastal Plain. Beginning 50,000 years ago, contributors consider how the region's warm weather, abundant water, and geography have long been optimal for the habitation of people. They highlight demographic changes and cultural connections across this wide span of time and space. New data are provided here for many sites, including evidence for human settlement before the Clovis period at the famous Topper site in South Carolina. Contributors track the progression of sea level rise that gradually submerged shorelines and landscapes, and they discuss the possibility of a comet collision that triggered the Younger Dryas cold reversion and contributed to the extinction of mammoths and mastodons. Essays also examine the various stone materials used by prehistoric foragers, the location of chert quarries, and the details stone tools reveal about social interaction and mobility. Addressing many controversial questions in the archaeology of the early Southeast, this volume adds new evidence to the ongoing discussions and debates.
In this book, scholars from across the world explore the appearance, portrayal and significance of the suburb on film. By the mid-20th Century, supported by changes in transportation, suburbs became the primary location of entire national populations and films about the suburbs began to concertedly reflect those suburbs' significance as well as their increasingly lively cultures! Suburbia very soon became filmurbia, as films of the suburbs and those made in the suburbs reflected both the positive and the negative aspects of burgeoning suburban life. Film-makers explored the existences of new suburbanites, their interests, their newly emerging neighbourhood practices, their foibles, their fantasies and their hopes. Whether depicting love, ambition, commerce, family, home or horror, whether traveling to or living in suburban spaces, whether exhibiting beauty, brazenness or brutality, the films of suburbia capture human life in all its diverse guises.
This book focuses on the migration strategies of Chinese women who travel to Mexico City in search of opportunities and survival. Specifically, it explores the experiences and contributions of women who have placed themselves within the local and conflictive networks of Mexico Citys downtown street markets (particularly in Tepito), where they work as suppliers and petty vendors of inexpensive products made in China (specifically in Yiwu). Street markets are the vital nodes of Mexican "popular" economy (economia popular), but the people that work and live among them have a long history of marginalization in relation to formal economic networks in Mexico City. Despite the difficult conditions of these spaces, in the last three decades they have become a new source of economic opportunities and labor market access for Chinese migrants, particularly for women. Through their commerce, these migrants have introduced new commodities and new trade dynamics into these markets, which are thereby transformed into alternative spaces of globalization.
Huaorani of the Western Snippet documents changes that the Huaorani culture of eastern Ecuador underwent over a period of fifty years. Part I focuses on the geographical, historical, sociological and economical background of the Ecuadorian Amazon as well as the problems that indigenous groups of this region face. Part II describes different aspects of Huaorani culture, and its consecutive subsections present research completed by anthropologists in different decades of twentieth century, and the data is reviewed and supplemented with data gathered during my research (2007-2013). Part III explores the life of a Huao man, Mine, who serves as a local shaman. His different social roles are discussed in consecutive subsections in order to understand what shaped him as a person of the Huaorani group.
Shamanism has always been of great interest to anthropologists. More recently it has been "discovered" by westerners, especially New Age followers. This book breaks new ground byexamining pristine shamanism in Greenland, among people contacted late by Western missionaries and settlers. On the basis of material only available in Danish, and presented herein English for the first time, the author questions Mircea Eliade's well-known definition of the shaman as the master of ecstasy and suggests that his role has to be seen as that of a master of spirits. The ambivalent nature of the shaman and the spirit world in the tough Arctic environment is then contrasted with the more benign attitude to shamanism in the New Age movement. After presenting descriptions of their organizations and accounts by participants, the author critically analyses the role of neo-shamanic courses and concludes that it is doubtful to consider what isoffered as shamanism.
How are ethnographic knowledge and anthropological theory created out of field experiences? Working in the Field explores emplacement and experience-centered narratives as the modes in working in places brings anthropology to life. Stewart and Strathern show how first impressions of an area carry depths of meanings which can gradually be unpacked in later analysis and how the fieldworker's memories may become blended with those of the people studied as a result of long-term engagement with them. Spanning Papua New Guinea, Taiwan, and Scotland, and Ireland, Stewart and Strathern show how fieldwork in apparently different areas can lead to unexpected comparisons and discoveries of similarities in human cross-cultural patterns of behavior.
Now a global and transnational phenomenon, hip hop culture continues to affect and be affected by the institutional, cultural, religious, social, economic and political landscape of American society and beyond. Over the past two decades, numerous disciplines have taken up hip hop culture for its intellectual weight and contributions to the cultural life and self-understanding of the United States. More recently, the academic study of religion has given hip hop culture closer and more critical attention, yet this conversation is often limited to discussions of hip hop and traditional understandings of religion and a methodological hyper-focus on lyrical and textual analyses. Religion in Hip Hop: Mapping the Terrain provides an important step in advancing and mapping this new field of Religion and Hip Hop Studies. The volume features 14 original contributions representative of this new terrain within three sections representing major thematic issues over the past two decades. The Preface is written by one of the most prolific and founding scholars of this area of study, Michael Eric Dyson, and the inclusion of and collaboration with Bernard 'Bun B' Freeman fosters a perspective internal to Hip Hop and encourages conversation between artists and academics.
This book examines how computer-based programs can be used to acquire 'big' digital cultural heritage data, curate, and disseminate it over the Internet and in 3D visualization platforms with the ultimate goal of creating long-lasting "digital heritage repositories.' The organization of the book reflects the essence of new technologies applied to cultural heritage and archaeology. Each of these stages bring their own challenges and considerations that need to be dealt with. The authors in each section present case studies and overviews of how each of these aspects might be dealt with. While technology is rapidly changing, the principles laid out in these chapters should serve as a guide for many years to come. The influence of the digital world on archaeology and cultural heritage will continue to shape these disciplines as advances in these technologies facilitate new lines of research. serif">The book is divided into three sections covering acquisition, curation, and dissemination (the major life cycles of cultural heritage data). Acquisition is one of the fundamental challenges for practitioners in heritage and archaeology, and the chapters in this section provide a template that highlights the principles for present and future work that will provide sustainable models for digital documentation. Following acquisition, the next section highlights how equally important curation is as the future of digital documentation depends on it. Preservation of digital data requires preservation that can guarantee a future for generations to come. The final section focuses on dissemination as it is what pushes the data beyond the shelves of storage and allows the public to experience the past through these new technologies, but also opens new lines of investigation by giving access to these data to researchers around the globe. Digital technology promises significant changes in how we approach social sciences, cultural heritage, and archaeology. However, researchers must consider not only the acquisition and curation, but also the dissemination of these data to their colleagues and the public. Throughout the book, many of the authors have highlighted the usefulness of Structure from Motion (SfM) work for cultural heritage documentation; others the utility and excitement of crowdsourcing as a 'citizen scientist' tool to engage not only trained students and researchers, but also the public in the cyber-archaeology endeavor. Both innovative tools facilitate the curation of digital cultural heritage and its dissemination. Together with all the chapters in this volume, the authors will help archaeologists, researchers interested in the digital humanities and scholars who focus on digital cultural heritage to assess where the field is and where it is going.
While typically the victims of war, civilians are not necessarily passive recipients of violence. What options are available to civilians in times of war? This book suggests three broad strategies - flight, support, and voice. It focuses on three conflicts: Aceh, Indonesia; Patani, southern Thailand; and Mindanao, southern Philippines.
In "The Story-Time of the British Empire," author Sadhana Naithani examines folklore collections compiled by British colonial administrators, military men, missionaries, and women in the British colonies of Africa, Asia, and Australia between 1860 and 1950. Much of this work was accomplished in the context of colonial relations and done by non-folklorists, yet these oral narratives and poetic expressions of non-Europeans were transcribed, translated, published, and discussed internationally. Naithani analyzes the role of folklore scholarship in the construction of colonial cultural politics as well as in the conception of international folklore studies. Since most folklore scholarship and cultural history focuses exclusively on specific nations, there is little study of cross-cultural phenomena about empire and/or postcoloniality. Naithani argues that connecting cultural histories, especially in relation to previously colonized countries, is essential to understanding those countries' folklore, as these folk traditions result from both internal and European influence. The author also makes clear the role folklore and its study played in shaping intercultural perceptions that continue to exist in the academic and popular realms today. "The Story-Time of the British Empire" is a bold argument for a twenty-first-century vision of folklore studies that is international in scope and that understands folklore as a transnational entity. |
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