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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Anthropology
In 1909, the US Circuit Court in Cincinnati set out to decide "whether a Turkish citizen shall be naturalized as a white person"; the New York Times article on the decision, discussing the question of Turks' whiteness, was cheekily entitled "Is the Turk a White Man?" Within a few decades, having understood the importance of this question for their modernization efforts, Turkish elites had already started a fantastic scientific mobilization to position the Turks in world history as the generators of Western civilization, the creators of human language, and the forgotten source of white racial stock. In this book, Murat Ergin examines how race figures into Turkish modernization in a process of interaction between global racial discourses and local responses.
Since 1648, Eastern Jews have moved west in large numbers. They brought with them skills learned in ghettos that could be adapted to fit social problems and commercial niches in the industrialized societies of the west. Jews from Eastern Europe played a particularly strong role in the fields of social work, the fur trade, textiles, and entertainment. They have also played a major part in the ideologies of Zionism and Marxism. This book examines the migration of Jews from the east and describes the roles they have taken in the west.
The issue of patronage-clientelism has long been of interest in the social sciences. Based on long-term ethnographic research in southern Italy, this book examines the concept and practice of raccomandazione: the omnipresent social institution of using connections to get things done. Viewing the practice both from an indigenous perspective - as a morally ambivalent social fact - and considering it in light of the power relations that position southern Italy within the nesting relations of global Norths and Souths, it builds on and extends past scholarship to consider the nature of patronage in a contemporary society and its relationship to corruption.
How does design and innovation shape people's lives in the Pacific? Focusing on plant materials from the region, How Materials Matter reveals ways in which a variety of people - from craftswomen and scientists to architects and politicians - work with materials to transform worlds. Recognizing the fragile and ephemeral nature of plant fibres, this work delves into how the biophysical properties of certain leaves and their aesthetic appearance are utilized to communicate information and manage different forms of relations. It breaks new ground by situating plant materials at the centre of innovation in a region.
This book explores recent developments in Institutional Ethnography (IE) and offers reflective accounts on how IE is being utilised and understood in social research. IE is a sociological sub-discipline developed by Dorothy E. Smith that seeks to explicate the textual mediation of people's everyday experiences in their local sites of being. As an approach, IE is growing in significance across the globe, particularly in Canada, USA, Australia and UK. This collection includes contributions from those involved in the early development of IE alongside Smith as well as early career researchers, new to the sociology, theory and method of IE. Chapters focus on IE as a sociological theory and qualitative research method; the relationship between data generation and analysis in IE; implications from its findings for policy; and IE as a significant methodological approach. This involves explication of the theoretical, the operationalization of IE, and links between the theoretical and the empirical. It illuminates the relationship between data generation and analysis and includes consideration of its own textual relations of ruling.
Before the emergence of anthropology around the middle of the nineteenth century, there was no ethnography as such. But the discipline owes its formation to certain strands that go back into the remoter past of the ancient world, as far back as Homeric epic, and range over such themes as the Greek views of non-Greeks and indeed of the boundaries of what it is to be human. These classical structural polarities have provided an enduring interpretative framework for configuring the 'other' in very different societies and places. Reaching across a remarkable time span, Mason's approach does not attempt a unified narrative, but uses case studies from the ancient world, the early modern era and the Enlightenment, many of them related to the difficulties of comprehending the cultures of the New World, to pinpoint startling continuities and changes. In this way, Mason reveals 'embedded ethnographies' in the works of a diverse set of writers, from giants of their age such as Sextus Empiricus, Columbus, Montaigne, the Marquis de Sade and Goethe, to little-known authors of the sixteenth century such as Jan Huygen van Linschoten (tales of sex and drugs in Goa) and Adriaen Coenen (encountering Eskimos in The Hague). Drawing his conclusions from a wealth of sources, the author deftly moves from travellers' accounts, encyclopaedias, cosmographies and natural history compilations, to literary works of fiction, translating them from seven languages. Many are presented here to English readers for the first time. Whether non-European peoples are demonized or idealized, the author asks, can any trace of a native voice still be found in these European texts? An outstanding work by a scholar with an eye for extraordinary case studies and unexpected cultural connections, which contribute to opening up new paths of research and reinvigorate the field. Francisco Bethencourt - Charles Boxer Professor of History, King's College London The Ways of the World is an elegant, lucid, exemplary piece of intellectual history by an author who is as much at home in philosophy and literary criticism as he is in anthropology and history. Peter Burke - Emeritus Professor of Cultural History, Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge
The question of ignorance occupies a central place in anthropological theory and practice. This volume argues that the concept of ignorance has largely been pursued as the opposite of knowledge or even its obverse. Though they cover wide empirical ground - from clients of a fertility treatment center in New York to families grappling with suicide in Greenland - contributors share a commitment to understanding the concept as a productive, social practice. Ultimately, The Anthropology of Ignorance asks whether an academic commitment to knowledge can be squared with lived significance of ignorance and how taking it seriously might alter anthropological research practices.
Modern treatments of Rome have projected in highly emotive terms the perceived problems, or the aspirations, of the present: "race-mixture" has been blamed for the collapse of the Roman empire; more recently, Rome and Roman society have been depicted as "multicultural." Moving beyond these and beyond more traditional, juridical approaches to Roman identity, Emma Dench focuses on ancient modes of thinking about selves and relationships with other peoples, including descent-myths, history, and ethnographies. She explores the relative importance of sometimes closely interconnected categories of blood descent, language, culture and clothes, and territoriality. Rome's creation of a distinctive imperial shape is understood in the context of the broader ancient Mediterranean world within which the Romans self-consciously situated themselves, and whose modes of thought they appropriated and transformed.
This book paints an image of sociality in duress, describing how new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) bring possible changes in political engagement and civic-ness. The political branch of the field of ICT-for-Development (ICT4D) is firmly convinced that this translates in civic engagement and democratisation. This book questions this conception, by showing that mistrust greatly increases through new ICT in a society where mistrust has been internalised. These processes are examined in the society encountered in Sokode, the capital of the Central Region of Togo, in the period between 2015 and 2020, when the mobile phone became widespread among young people. This ethnographic research provides a snapshot of the changes brought about by new ICT in the social fabrics and the lives of these young people. The place and period are highly relevant for getting a better understanding of the forms that civic engagement can take, and the roles that new ICT can play in settings of political repression. Togo has been ruled by the same family for over half a century, and Sokode is one of the rare places of fierce political opposition. However, young people do not persevere in massive street protests like in other countries, even though they appear to have every reason to do so. How can the circumstances and social processes be understood that are leading to this 'political silence', and how do frustration and anger find their way? The link between new ICT and civic engagement has more often been made, but mostly quantitative and volatile, lacking empirical grounding. This book demonstrates that there is indeed a connection between new ICT and social change. Through their phones, young people inform themselves in different ways, and they react differently to social and political changes. Their reflection on politics has also altered, minimal as it may seem. By closely regarding the context and mechanisms by which the trustworthiness of information is valued, this book contributes to the nascent research field of communication and political anthropology.
Nursing home reform, Professor Farmer asserts, calls for increased emphasis upon issues related to life rather than care. Organizational climate, which reflects the nursing home's unique position to impact life issues, provides a conceptual framework for effective interventions, evaluations, and ultimately meaningful reform. The general atmosphere of most nursing homes remains overwhelmingly negative in spite of those few homes that are credited with excellence. Professor Farmer believes that the concept of organizational climate holds promise for better understanding the complexities and impact of atmosphere in any one nursing home. At the same time, organizational climate as a concept is poorly understood. There is a need to rethink the concept and return to the original notion of weather as its metaphor. Farmer attempts this in her case study by describing organizational climate where it can best be captured. Practitioners of long-term care, from the fields of administration, geronotology, nursing, nutrition, policy makers, occupational and physical therapy, social work, and therapeutic recreation will find the insights of this study of great value, as will graduate students, scholars, and others concerned with organizational studies and issues in gerontology.
Japanese culture is inscrutable-but then, so is American culture seen from the viewpoint of the Japanese. As Hayashi and Kuroda make clear, the problem is one of perspective. Neither is really an enigma if the viewer can free him- or herself from the mother culture and look at the other culture from within its own context. Along the way, the authors answer many questions about Japan from the never-ending nature of its trade disputes to the reasons for the misconceptions of many Western writers. The authors challenge those who think every culture perceives, thinks, and expresses alike. They also challenge those who believe that Japanese culture has changed significantly in recent years. Hayashi and Kuroda look at ancient poems and 7th-century documents as well as the writings of Japan's Nobel laureate, Oe, to show that the essence of Japanese culture remains unchanged. By examining the use of language as well as analyzing modern statistical data, Hayashi and Kuroda show how the Japanese concept of self is indistinct and how the Japanese live in a mental world of multiple truths. Along the way the authors provide new interpretations and insights that are invaluable to all students of Japan, from policy makers to poets and painters.
Behind every leader is an instructive life story. It often promotes a public image that inspires others to live by it. And, sometimes, even to live or to die for it. As leadership qualities and image issues gain significance in the public discourse, the psychological study of leadership is a critical factor in any discussion. With its trenchant insights into leaders past and present, The Leader: Psychological Essays, Second Edition, updates a pioneering text in this field and provides a solid basis for ongoing dialogue on this important subject. Within the context of the ever-evolving disciplines of psychoanalysis and psychodynamics, this thought-provoking volume examines the lives of several prominent leaders from ancient Greece through the start of the 21st century. The authors explore how these leaders imposed their individual missions and mystiques on others, thereby fulfilling -- and, sometimes, creating -- distinct needs in their followers. The volume brings into vivid focus issues with the potential for devastating consequences on the global stage. Coverage includes: * Biblical times, ancient Greeks and the seeds of leadership. * Lincoln during the 1850s, leading a dividing nation. * Thomas A. Kohut on Kaiser Wilhelm II and the German national character. * George W. Bush, atonement/redemption narratives and the American Dream. * Bin Laden, man and myth. * A study of paranoid leadership and its implications for future politics and policy. This must-have Second Edition is indispensable reading for researchers, professors, and graduate students across many disciplines, including political psychology, psychoanalysis, history and political science, psychiatry, anthropology, and personality and social psychology. It is important reading for anyone with an interest in the life stories of leaders past and present and how they affect our world even long after they are gone.
New Zealand anthropologist Derek Freeman ignited a ferocious controversy in 1983 when he denounced the research of Margaret Mead, a world-famous public intellectual who had died five years earlier. Freeman's claims caught the attention of popular media, converging with other vigorous cultural debates of the era. Many anthropologists, however, saw Freeman's strident refutation of Mead's best-selling Coming of Age in Samoa as the culmination of a forty-year vendetta. Others defended Freeman's critique, if not always his tone. Truth's Fool documents an intellectual journey that was much larger and more encompassing than Freeman's attack on Mead's work. It peels back the prickly layers to reveal the man in all his complexity. Framing this story within anthropology's development in Britain and America, Peter Hempenstall recounts Freeman's mission to turn the discipline from its cultural-determinist leanings toward a view of human culture underpinned by biological and behavioral drivers. Truth's Fool engages the intellectual questions at the center of the Mead Freeman debate and illuminates the dark spaces of personal, professional, and even national rivalries.
50 years ago, World Bank President Robert McNamara promised to end poverty. Alleviation was to rely on economic growth, resulting in higher incomes stimulated by Bank loans processed by deskbound Washington staff, trickling down to the poorest. Instead, child poverty and homelessness are on the increase everywhere. In this book, anthropologist and former World Bank Advisor Glynn Cochrane argues that instead of Washington's "management by seclusion," poverty alleviation requires personal engagement with the poorest by helpers with hands-on local and cultural skills. Here, the author argues, the insights provided by anthropological fieldwork have a crucial role to play.
Pursues the hypothesis that fictional literature has been instrumental in the development and dissemination of European anti-Americanism from the early 1800s to today. Focusing on Britain, France and Germany, it offers analyses of a range of canonical literary works in which resentful hostility towards the United States is a predominant feature.
American society is culturally diverse with a variety of religious denominations, sects, cults, and self-help groups vying for members. This volume analyzes nine of these groups, chosen both for their intrinsic interest and because they illustrate a variety of sociological concepts. The groups included in this study are: Heaven's Gate, Jesus People USA, the Love Family, The Farm, Amish Women, Scientology, El Nino Fidencio, Santeria, and Freedom Park. The contributors are social scientists with first-hand knowledge of the groups they examine.
This is the first book to consider the major implications for culture of the new science of biosemiotics. The volume is mainly aimed at an audience outside biosemiotics and semiotics, in the humanities and social sciences principally, who will welcome elucidation of the possible benefits to their subject area from a relatively new field. The book is therefore devoted to illuminating the extent to which biosemiotics constitutes an 'epistemological break' with 'modern' modes of conceptualizing culture. It shows biosemiotics to be a significant departure from those modes of thought that neglect to acknowledge continuity across nature, modes which install culture and the vicissitudes of the polis at the centre of their deliberations. The volume exposes the untenability of the 'culture/nature' division, presenting a challenge to the many approaches that can only produce an understanding of culture as a realm autonomous and divorced from nature.
"This is a very good book which will certainly become one of the essential works of reference for the jazz enthusiast. It covers the ragtime to swing period by way of 250 LPs, each of which is afforded full discographical information on dates, titles, and personnels. . . . The quality of the writing is extemely high, as indeed one has a right to expect from authors of this calibre. . . . Harrison, Fox, and Thacker have produced some beautifully composed essays on artistes such as Billie Holliday, Roy Eldridge, Duke Ellington, etc. . . . It is a book which needs to be dipped into frequently, a volume to keep close to one's record collection. . . . It will increase immeasurably anyone's knowledge of, and appreciation for, jazz." The Gramophone
Most studies of ageing have been done by the non-aged. To correct this imbalance, Hazan enlisted the resources of an unusual and innovative group of elderly persons in Cambridge, England. Gathering together in a structured curriculum of seminars and discussion groups and calling themselves the University of the Third Age, the elders intellectually reexamine the spectrum of sociocultural and epistemological principles starting with basics. Hazan's careful observation, description and transcription of the words of the Third Agers demonstrates that cognition and discourse go through transformations and permutations as individuals attain the so-called wisdom years. Alone in the literature on ageing, Hazan's contribution lights the way for much new thinking and research on and among our older population.
This volume brings together leading scholars in the area of symbolic interactionism to offer a broad discussion of issues including identity, dialogue and legitimacy. Authors move the concept of interaction order into new interpretive spaces, marking the unique contributions of symbolic interactionism to the contractions that define the postmodern social order.
Jean Muteba Rahier examines the cultural politics of Afro-Ecuadorian populations within the context of the Andean region's recent pivotal history and the Latin American 'multicultural turn" of the past two decades, bringing contemporary political trends together with questions of race, space, and sexuality. Organized around eight ethnographic vignettes, the book looks at race and Ecuadorian popular culture; Afro-Ecuadorian cultural politics, cultural traditions, and political activism; "mestizaje" and the non-inclusion of blackness in official imaginations of national identity ('the ideological biology of national identity'); race, gender relations, and anti-black racism; stereotypes of black female hypersexuality and sexual self-constructions; blackness and beauty contest politics; the passage from 'monocultural "mestizaje"' to multiculturalism in the 1990s, which got a second life following the "revolucion ciudadana" (citizen revolution) and the election of Rafael Correa to the Ecuadorian presidency in late 2006; and blackness, racism, sports, and national pride in multicultural Ecuador.
Examines the importance of fetishism in nineteenth-century cultural theory
On the Geopragmatics of Anthropological Identification explores the discursive spaces of our speaking position, or what has routinely been referred to in the literature as the poetics and politics of writing culture. At issue here are its problematic underlying notions of cultural identity, authorial subjectivity and postcolonial critique. Contrary to the widespread assumption that cultural studies and the social sciences share a common discourse of culture and society, Allen Chun argues that 'modern' disciplinary practices and axioms have in fact produced inherently incompatible theories. Anthropology's ethical relativism has also created obstacles for a critical theory of culture and society. |
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