By the year 2000, more than one-third of Americans will be persons of color, and by 2050 non-white persons will constitute 45% of the population. Immigration from European countries has decreased, but the number of migrants from countries of non-white ancestry has increased. Consequently, many Americans are showing a growing interest in knowledge about the values and behaviors of their diverse associates. This book offers an insight into the diverse lifestyles for some cultures of color in American society. Although all members of these cultures may not identify themselves as persons of color, the cultures were selected because they incorporate a significant number of non-white individuals. Each chapter presents an overview of a cultural group that includes a brief history, migration trends, traditional and modern family practices, religious beliefs, concepts about death and dying, nutritional preferences, health behaviors, and diseases often found among its members. The cultures discussed are Africans, African Americans, Alaskans, Asians, Haitians, Hawaiians, Native Americans, Puerto Ricans, and West Indians. This book should be of interest to academics, health care professionals, sociologists, clergy, and laypersons. Its goal is to alleviate fear and prejudice through informed understanding.

This book is based on a study of the strategies and tactics applied by municipal bureaucrats and local politicians in the pursuit of political goals in two small Norwegian municipalities. The enactment of a bureaucracy within these small and close-knit communities offer an insight into how formal and informal relations intersect during the production of public policy. By analysing the relation between normative and pragmatic rules regulating political action, Christian Lo demonstrates how the efforts to resolve these tensions and dilemmas involve a balancing of alternative sources of political legitimacy. Through ethnographic accounts of policy-making in action, When politics meets bureaucracy offers novel perspectives to the interdisciplinary debate about local governance. Most significantly, these accounts demonstrate how processes of hierarchical government are inextricably intertwined with broader processes of governance during policy processes, thereby dissolving the theoretical and normative separation between the two concepts characterising large parts of the literature. By centring its focus on the interconnections between government and governance, Lo explores the cultural and historical conditions informing this intertwinement, which, the author argues, enable horizontal alignments that can modify the hierarchical logic of bureaucratic organisations. Combining approaches and perspectives from political science, sociology and anthropology, this book is essential reading for those interested in the inner workings of bureaucratic organisations and how such organisations interact with their societal surroundings. -- .

No one likes us, we don't care' is the anthem of the most notorious fans in British football. But little is known about the actual people who generated and continue to maintain this most infamous of working-class subcultures. In addition to the voices of the fans themselves, this book provides a rich and original account of the historical background, social sources, expressive culture and ritual practices of Millwallism, a far more complex, meaningful and anthropologically compelling phenomenon than the media stereotypes suggest. The author argues that Millwall functions in the popular consciousness as a powerful symbol: specific understandings of 'football hooliganism', working-class masculinity, and violent 'neo-fascism' are triggered by its use in the media and in everyday social interaction. There are, it follows, few social groups as heavily mythologized as Millwall fans. Further, the generation and maintenance of this myth has significance far beyond the club itself, and is rooted in the meanings attached to working-class identities and modernity, masculinity and the body. This book will be essential reading for anyone interested in Millwall, the issues of 'football hooliganism' or working-class masculinity, sociology, anthropology, or sports studies.Shortlisted for the Philip Abrams Memorial Book Prize 2001

The best-selling author of The Shock of the New, The Fatal Shore, and Barcelona here delivers a withering polemic aimed at the heart of recent American politics and culture.
Culture of Complaint is a call for the re-knitting of a fragmented and over-tribalized America--a deeply passionate book, filled with barbed wit and devastating takes on public life, both left and right of center. To the right, Hughes fires broadsides at the populist demagogy of Pat Buchanan, Pat Robertson, Jesse Helms and especially Ronald Reagan ("with somnambulistic efficiency, Reagan educated America down to his level. He left his country a little stupider in 1988 than it had been in 1980, and a lot more tolerant of lies"). To the left, he skewers political correctness ("political etiquette, not politics itself"), Afrocentrism, and academic obsessions with theory ("The world changes more deeply, widely, thrillingly than at any moment since 1917, perhaps since 1848, and the American academic left keeps fretting about how phallocentricity is inscribed in Dickens' portrayal of Little Nell"). PC censoriousness and "family-values" rhetoric, he argues, are only two sides of the same character, extrusions of America's puritan heritage into the present--and, at root, signs of America's difficulty in seeing past the end of the Us-versus-Them mentality implanted by four decades of the Cold War.
In the long retreat from public responsibility beaten by America in the 80s, Hughes sees "a hollowness at the cultural core"--a nation "obsessed with therapies and filled with distrust of formal politics; skeptical of authority and prey to superstition; its language corroded by fake pity and euphemism." It resembles "late Rome...in the corruption and verbosity of its senators, in its reliance on sacred geese (those feathered ancestors of our own pollsters and spin-doctors) and in its submission to senile, deified emperors controlled by astrologers and extravagant wives."
Culture of Complaint is fired by a deep concern for the way Hughes sees his adopted country heading. But it is not a relentless diatribe. If Hughes lambastes some aspects of American politics, he applauds Vaclav Havel's vision of politics "not as the art of the useful, but politics as practical morality, as service to the truth." And if he denounces PC, he offers a brilliant and heartfelt defence of non-ideological multiculturalism as an antidote to Americans' difficulty in imagining the rest of the world--and other Americans.
Here, then, is an extraordinary cri de coeur, an outspoken call for the reconstruction of America's ideas about its recent self. It is a book that everyone interested in American culture will want to read.

This volume considers the New Testament in the light of anthropological study, in particular the current trend towards theological anthropology. The book begins with three essays that survey the context in which the New Testament was written, covering the Old Testament, early Jewish writings and the literature of the Greco -Roman world. Chapters then explore the anthropological ideas found in the texts of the New Testament and in the thought of it writers, notably that of Paul. The volume concludes with pieces from Brian S. Roser and Ephraim Radner who bring the whole exploration together by reflecting on the theological implications of the New Testament's anthropological ideas. Taken together, the chapters in this volume address the question that humans have been asking since at least the earliest days of recorded history: what does it mean to be human? The presence of this question in modern theology, and its current prevalence in popular culture, makes this volume both a timely and relevant interdisciplinary addition to the scholarly conversation around the New Testament.

This book covers the ethnobiology and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) of the Solega people of southern India. Solega TEK is shown to be a complex, inter-related network of detailed observations of natural phenomena, well-reasoned and often highly accurate theorizing, as well as a belief system, derived from cultural norms, regarding the relationships between humans and other species on the one hand, and between non-human species on the other. As language-based studies are strongly biased toward investigations of ethno-taxonomy and nomenclature, the importance of studying TEK in its proper context is discussed as making context and encyclopedic knowledge the objects of study are essential for a proper understanding of TEK.

Drawing on extensive research and national survey data, sociologist Donald I. Warren here presents an in-depth analysis of the Middle American Radicals, who they are, what they believe, the major targets of their grievances, and the likelihood of their political mobilization. The evidence indicates that as many as one in five Americans shares the Radical Center perspective, including people who outwardly seem to have very little in common by way of economic, occupational, or education status. Of particular significance are the findings concerning potential support for the various presidential candidates and for a third national political party.

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.

This first volume of The Society Pages series focuses on politics. Drawn largely from feature content, posts, and exchanges provoked by the elections of 2012, the chapters are organized into three main sections. "Core Contributions" exemplifies how sociologists and other social scientists think about otherwise familiar political phenomena like power, polling, and social movements. Chapters in the "Cultural Contexts" section draw out the political content and implications of cultural realms-from religion and race, to sports, humor, and new media technologies-that are often ignored or taken for granted. And the "Critical Takes" rubric gathers pieces on inequalities embedded in and reproduced through the political system, how sociological tools and insights are employed in the public sphere, and the role of government in shaping society through public policy.

"...A compelling and horrifying account of how Polish institutions intervened and gained command over women's lives." -Joanna Regulska, coeditor of Women and Gender in Postwar Europe: From Cold War to European Union After the hope and enthusiasm that followed the collapse of Poland's state socialism in 1989, political forces that had lain concealed emerged and established a new religious-nationalist orthodoxy. As the Catholic Church emerged as a political force in the Polish government, it precipitated a rapid erosion of reproductive rights, especially the right to abortion, which had been relatively well established. In The Politics of Morality, Joanna Mishtal explores this expansion of power by the religious right, along with the little-studied implications of the new reproductive governance for women. She examines the contradiction between an emerging democracy on one hand, and a declining tolerance for reproductive rights, women's rights, and political and religious pluralism on the other. At the same time, women resist these strictures by pursuing abortion illegally, defying religious prohibitions on contraception, and forming advocacy groups. Surveillance, control, and abuse of power are persistent themes in this revealing ethnography, which will speak to scholars of women's rights, political history, and Eastern Europe.

To open this volume Jean Comaroff, one of the most important voices in the anthropology of religion over the past 30 years, reflects on the development of her thought on religion, the colony and the postcolony, in terms both personal and scholarly. Her work and interests echo in this volume through subsequent discussions of community, politics and morality in the Occupy movement in London; religion and diaspora; the cultural logics behind Afro-Brazilian cults; and the 'anthropology of missions' on both sides of the Atlantic. Other contributions explore an almost forgotten tradition of cosmological studies; hyperbole and sacredness in the dramatic case studies of 9/11 and the Holocaust; and the somewhat counterintuitive links between religion and sport. This volume's debate section considers the place and role of religion in revolutionary contexts, from 'Tahrir politics' to the Tamil conflict, from the implicit historicity and structure of jihadism to the conflation of international political developments and religious movements. The volume is rounded out by discussions of Manuel Vazquez's Beyond Belief, a book that picks up longstanding debates concerning practice, belief, materiality and cognition; a teaching section; and an extensive set of book reviews.

The Central Asian Republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan won their independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Now they are emerging from the shadow of dominance and are subjects of intense interest from the West. The modern culture and customs of the various peoples in these geopolitical hotspots, straddling the far reaches of Europe into Asia, are revealed to a general audience for the first time. This will be the must-have volume for a broad, authoritative overview of these traditional civilizations as they cope with globalization.

This volume features forty-two essays written in honor of Joseph Agassi. It explores the work and legacy of this influential philosopher, an exciting and challenging advocate of critical rationalism. Throughout six decades of stupendous intellectual activity, Agassi called attention to rationality as the very starting point of every notable philosophical way of life. The essays present Agassi's own views on critical rationalism. They also develop and expand upon his work in new and provocative ways. The authors include Agassi's most notable pupils, friends, and colleagues. Overall, their contributions challenge the received view on a variety of issues concerning science, religion, and education. Readers will find well-reasoned arguments on such topics as the secular problem of evil, religion and critical thinking, liberal democratic educational communities, democracy and constitutionalism, and capitalism at a crossroad.

This unique book applies concepts from the field of anthropology to clinical settings to result in a powerful and dynamic model/theory of clinical anthropology. These clinical settings could include hospitals, police and probation situations, individual and marriage and family counseling, as well as cross-cultural issues, governmental policy, and other instances of educational delivery of concepts and behaviors that allow individuals/groups to reduce stress and move toward personal/group health. In addition to appealing to anthropology and other social/behavioral science scholars, this book will be useful to clinicians of many specialities within Western biomedicine including physicians, nurses, and health care administrators.

Zito argues that although meanings change with time, at the end of the 20th century we are witnessing not a change in meanings, but the demise of meaning itself. He presents evidence of the ever decreasing use of word language, upon which meaning is predicated, and the increase in iconographic impacts (Macintosh and television, for example); the routinization of ritual; the efforts to control information (as during the Gulf War); and the ideological competition among groups to dominate definitions of social situations by the use of oversimplified rhetorics. Zito pays particular attention to language, employing empirical data with classical and contemporary theoretical perspectives to argue that as the meanings of language change, the relations among persons change, and vice versa. Recommended for scholars of sociology and language.

Modern Spain is a revelation in this up-to-date overview. Stanton vibrantly describes the startling variety of landscape, people, and culture that make up Spain today. Included are a context chapter and others on religion, customs, media, cinema, literature, performing arts, and visual arts. Students of Spanish and a general audience will be rewarded with engrossing insights into what writer Ernest Hemingway called the very best country of all.

Spain is a modern European nation, yet Spaniards are fiercely tied to their individual towns and regions--with their distinct social customs, dialects or languages, foods, landscape, and lifestyles--more than to a united country. "Culture and Customs of Spain" conveys the extremes, such as the hard-working Catalan contrasted to the leisurely paced Castilian, coexisting in first and third world conditions, and the love/hate relationship with the Catholic Church. Spain's institutions are described, and its contributions to the world--from unparalleled literature and cuisine to flamenco and filmmaker Pedro Almodovar--are celebrated. A chronology and glossary complement the text.

This work is an examination of borderless markets where national boundaries are no longer the only relevant criteria in making international marketing, economic planning, and business decisions. Understanding political and nonpolitical borders is especially important for products and industries that are culture bound and those that require local adaptation. National culture is one critical factor that affects economic development, demographic behavior, and general business policies around the world. Over 75,000 statistics are provided for over 230 national groups covering a number of social, economic, and business variables. A significant review of literature is also included.

Part of a series that offers mainly linguistic and anthropological research and teaching/learning material on a region of great cultural and strategic interest and importance in the post-Soviet era.

Brazil, like several countries in Africa, has become a major destination for African American tourists seeking the cultural roots of the black Atlantic diaspora. Drawing on over a decade of ethnographic research as well as textual, visual, and archival sources, Patricia de Santana Pinho investigates African American roots tourism, a complex, poignant kind of travel that provides profound personal and collective meaning for those searching for black identity and heritage. It also provides, as Pinho's interviews with Brazilian tour guides, state officials, and Afro-Brazilian activists reveal, economic and political rewards that support a structured industry. Pinho traces the origins of roots tourism to the late 1970s, when groups of black intellectuals, artists, and activists found themselves drawn especially to Bahia, the state that in previous centuries had absorbed the largest number of enslaved Africans. African Americans have become frequent travelers across what Pinho calls the ""map of Africanness"" that connects diasporic communities and stimulates transnational solidarities while simultaneously exposing the unevenness of the black diaspora. Roots tourism, Pinho finds, is a fertile site to examine the tensions between racial and national identities as well as the gendered dimensions of travel, particularly when women are the major roots-seekers.