"...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.

Based on roundtable discussions by a variety of scholars over a two-year period, these essays explore the complex and often contradictory matrix of sentiments, feelings, and beliefs that frame America's contemporary social doctrine of wealth. The seven Boston College faculty members whose writings comprise this volume are professors of classics, economics, ethics, history, literature, scripture, and sociology. Each scholar reviews a a range of writings and narratives that enunciate definite theses about the genesis and prospects as well as the uses and abuses of wealth. Today, as the discussion of wealth creation and distribution become framed less frequently under the rubrics of capitalism and socialism, it is propitious to examine other pieces of the debate that come to us from our Western classical, biblical, literary, and ethical traditions. The talk for and against wealth, so well articulated by Adam Smith and Karl Marx, is only one axis on which this important Western motif turns. Schervish and his contributors enable us to consult several other texts that can guide our repositioning on the controversies surrounding the moral status of wealth and the wealthy.

Although humans sleep for approximately one third of our lives, sleep itself is vastly understudied. As a biological universal, it is easy to overlook the degree to which culture shapes how we sleep, with whom we sleep, where and when we sleep, and how we conceptualize sleep. This edited volume explores the cultural dimensions of sleep in different societies around the world today, with the explicit intention of providing a comparative context through which we can understand the myriad ways in which sleep reflects, and literally (as well as metaphorically) embodies culture.

This book examines the cultural, social, political, economic and aesthetic history of Sport in Europe. As sport has grown, progressively replacing religion, in its power to excite passion, provide emotional escape, offer fraternal (and increasingly sororital) bonding, it has become an inescapable reality linking public environment with intimate experience and thus offers the historian an opportunity to inspect and attempt to grasp all the dimensions of the recent past and their relative share in individual and collective experience. This collection considers the evolution of modern sport in Europe and examines its relationshop with politics, gender and class.

The field of cultural anthropology describes and interprets the thought and behavior of contemporary and near-contemporary societies. Inherently pluralistic, it offers a framework in which the distinctive perspectives of each cultural world can be appreciated. Robert Winthrop's dictionary describes the major concepts that have shaped the discipline, both historically and theoretically. It sets modern anthropology in its proper context within the broader intellectual tradition. Eighty entries review the key concepts--culture, race, nature, symbolism, adaptation, the primitive, etc.--that have established the fundamental problems and issues, guided research, and served as the focus for debate in key areas of the discipline. The entries which range from 2,000 to 6,000 words in length, are both thorough in treatment and contemporary in relevance. Some entries are primarily of historical significance while others describe recent developments. Each entry contains an annotated bibliography and a guide to additional reading on the subject. While this is not primarily a technical lexicon, many terms have been glossed and explained. Designed to be useful to students of anthropology, this dictionary will assist those in other disciplines to find their way through the anthropological labyrinth.

What are the interactions between transnational communication and national cultures? This work attempts to answer this critical question in the study of culture and communication. It takes as its vehicle of study the music industry and music making in 13 different cultures, presenting an insider's view of a global cultural experience. Of interest to musicologists and sociologists alike, plus anyone fascinated by distant cultures and how they are affected by external as well as internal communication systems.

The chapters are a collection of research findings produced for the International Communications and Youth Cultures Consortium (ICYC), an informal group of international scholars in many disciplines who are committed to understanding the economic and social factors that influence cultures and youth. Their point of view in this work is their individual country and the tensions that arise from the development of international communication systems. Each view is from inside the country; external influences are not subjects of study in themselves but are viewed as part of a complex scene along with other variables operating in various national situations.

An anthropological study that compares a central London neighborhood with a London suburb in terms of family and community life, mobility, social status, and social interaction. The main sources of the authors' information were sample interviews from the two populaces. The main themes of this book are the differences between the London suburb and the East End, and the differences between the middle and working-class residents.

Rapid industrialization, urbanization, and marketization have led to startling social changes in reform-era China. Mindful of the many forms of social theory that relate modernity to individualism, this volume addresses social and cultural change through the lens of psychological anthropology.

This book describes how Christian communities in South Africa have responded to HIV/AIDS and how these responses have affected the lives HIV-positive people, youth and broader communities. Drawing on Foucault and the sociology of knowledge, it explains how religion became influential in reshaping ideas about sexuality, medicine and modernity.

This book explores mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion involved in practices of community building through an ethnographic study of a neighborhood restaurant in Amsterdam. It presents important insights into the advantages and empowering effects of professional, top down community building in a disadvantaged neighborhood, as well as its tensions and contradictory outcomes. The core argument of the study is that, in spite of the abserved restaurant's well-intended and well-organized attempts to create an inclusive and heterogeneous local community, it instead established one both exclusive and homogeneous. Through a set of community building practices and discourses of "deprivation" and "ethnic and racial otherness," the construction of collective fear for ethnic and racial "others" was indirectly facilitated among the white, working class visitors. As a result, insurmountable barriers were erected for non-white and non-native Dutch residents to become part of the local community. This project speaks to social scientists as well as social workers, governments, and policy-makers concerned with issues of social cohesion, informal networks, and professional community building in disadvantaged urban settings.

This volume presents a collection of interdisciplinary collaborations between contemporary art, heritage, anthropological, and archaeological practitioners. Departing from the proceedings of the Sixth World Archaeological Congress's 'Archaeologies of Art' theme and Abhar agus Meon exhibitions, it includes papers by seminal figures as well as experimental work by those who are exploring the application of artistic methods and theory to the practice of archaeology. Art and archaeology: collaborations, conversations, criticisms encourages the creative interplay of various approaches to 'art' and 'archaeology' so these new modes of expression can contribute to how we understand the world. Established topics such as cave art, monumental architecture and land art will be discussed alongside contemporary video art, performance art and relational arts practices. Here, the parallel roles of artists as makers of new worlds and archaeologists as makers of pasts worlds are brought together to understand the influences of human creativity.

This is a multifaceted approach to understanding one of the nation's largest ethnic communities. Blea incorporates community social history, physical, psychological, and spiritual space. The book strives to teach the student how to do research in an ethnic community. It also describes what is already understood about those communities and defines the nature of the 25 year old discipline of Chicano studies. The use of the Chicana feminist perspective lends not only a gender role analysis, but also demonstrates the structure and function of the balance of personal and social control within the context of the community.

This compelling book explores the explosive pace of change in China and how its citizens are grappling with a dramatically new world, both in the public and private spheres. China's stratospheric growth has made it the second largest economy in the world-and one of the most unequal. Marxist ideology and socialist ideals have almost completely collapsed, replaced by a combination of materialism and assertive nationalism. The vast migration of labor from countryside to city has continued apace. The pressures of a hypercompetitive market economy are ripping apart the traditional family and threatening the environment. Corruption has reached new heights. The political system is even more rigid, but perhaps more brittle, than a decade ago. There is enormous popular pride in the ascension of China to the rank of global superpower and general satisfaction in the material benefits that the poor as well as the rich have been gaining from an expanding economy. But there is also great restlessness, anger about structural injustice and political corruption, and a search for new forms of spirituality and ethics to replace a collapsing moral order. The question "What does it mean, in the new day, to be Chinese?" lurks just beneath the surface. This unique interdisciplinary book frames this central issue through an innovative set of case studies on such cutting-edge topics as reality dating shows, countercultural invented language, star bloggers, faith healers, and subversive jokes. Contributions by: Jeremy Brown, X. L. Ding, Hsiung Ping-chen, William Jankowiak, Shuyu Kong, Perry Link, Richard P. Madsen, David Moser, Paul G. Pickowicz, Su Xiaokang, Xiao Qiang, Yunxiang Yan, and Yang Lijun.

The concise introduction to the study of popular culture From Madonna and drag queens to cyberpunk and webzines, popular culture constitutes a common and thereby critical part of our lives. Yet the study of popular culture has been condemned and praised, debated and ridiculed. In Popular Culture: An Introduction, Carla Freccero reveals why we study popular culture and how it is taught in the classroom. Blending music, science fiction, and film, Freccero shows us that an informed awareness of politics, race, and sexuality is essential to any understanding of popular culture. Freccero places rap music, the Alien Trilogy and Sandra Cisneros in the context of postcolonialism, identity politics, and technoculture to show students how they can draw on their already existing literacies and on the cultures they know in order to think critically.Complete with a glossary of useful terms, a sample syllabus and extensive bibliography, this book is the concise introduction to the study of popular culture.

This collection explores the productive potential of uncertainty for people living in Africa as well as for scholars of Africa. Eight ethnographic case studies from across the continent examine how uncertainty is used to negotiate insecurity, create and conduct relationships, and act as a source for imagining the future.

For radical twentieth-century feminists, it was a rallying cry for bodily autonomy and political power. For influencers and lifestyle brands, it's buying fancy nutrition and body products at a premium. And it has now infiltrated nearly every food, leisure, and pop-culture space as a multi-billion-dollar industry. What is it? To quote a million memes: it's called self-care. In Decolonize Self-Care Alyson K. Spurgas and Zoe C. Meleo-Erwin deliver a comprehensive sociological analysis and scathing critique of the catchphrase's capitalist, racist undertones. To decolonize self-care, they argue, requires a full reckoning with the exclusionary, appropriative nature of most of the wellness industry, but this education is only the first step in the process. We must commit to new models of care and well-being that allow for health, pleasure, and community-for everyone.

This book provides a socio-historical analysis of the 2002 massacre at Bellavista-Bojaya-Choco, Colombia. The author examines how the concepts of forced displacement and migration could be formulas for historical erasure. These concepts are used to name populations, such as the survivors of this massacre, and are limited in their ability to contribute to the demands for reparation of the affected populations. Instead, based on an ethnographic study of the pain and suffering generated in the survivors, the book proposes the concept of deracination as a tool to study land dispossession. It captures both the complex local specificities, the global linkages of this phenomenon and the strategies of resistance used by the people of this community to channel what seems as an impossible mourning.

Focussing ethnographically on private-sector maternity care in South Africa, Privileges of Birth looks at the ways healthcare and childbirth are shaped by South Africa's racialised history. Birth is one of the most medicalised aspects of the lifecycle across all sectors of society, and there is deep division between what the privileged can afford compared with the rest of the population. Examining the ethics of care in midwife-attended birth, the author situates the argument in the context of a growing literature on care in anthropological and feminist scholarship, offering a unique account of birthing care in the context of elite care services.

Volta Redonda is a Brazilian steel town founded in the 1940s by dictator Getulio Vargas on an ex-coffee valley as a powerful symbol of Brazilian modernization. The city's economy, and consequently its citizen's lives, revolves around the Companha Siderurgica Nacional (CSN), the biggest industrial complex in Latin America. Although the glory days of the CSN have long passed, the company still controls life in Volta Redonda today, creating as much dispossession as wealth for the community. Brazilian Steel Town tells the story of the people tied to this ailing giant - of their fears, hopes, and everyday struggles.

The author takes into account the various views of religion which Tylor, Frazer, Marett, and Durkheim have given and goes on from there to provide his own conception that religion and magic are ways men have to make the world acceptable.

While studies of San children have attained the peculiar status of having delineated the prototype for hunter-gatherer childhood, relatively few serious ethnographic studies of San children have been conducted since an initial flurry of research in the 1960s and 1970s. Based on the author's long-term field research among several San groups of Southern Africa, this book reconsiders hunter-gatherer childhood using "play" as a key concept. Playfulness pervades the intricate practices of caregiver-child interactions among the San: immediately after birth, mothers have extremely close contact with their babies. In addition to the mother's attentions, other people around the babies actively facilitate gymnastic behavior to soothe them. These distinctive caregiving behaviors indicate a loving, indulgent attitude towards infants. This also holds true for several language genres of the San that are used in early vocal communication. Children gradually become involved in various playful activities in groups of children of multiple ages, which is the major locus of their attachment after weaning; these playful activities show important similarities to the household and subsistence activities carried out by adults. Rejuvenating studies of San children and hunter-gatherer childhood and childrearing practices, this book aims to examine these issues in detail, ultimately providing a new perspective for the understanding of human sociality.

The first anthropological account of the Irish diaspora in Europe in the 21st century, this book provides a culture-centric examination of the Irish diaspora. Focusing less on an abstract or technical definition of Irish self-identification, the author allows members of this group to speak through vignettes and interview excerpts, providing an anthropological lens that allows the reader to enter a frame of self-reference. This book therefore provides architecture to understand how diasporic communities might understand their own identities in a new way and how they might reconsider the role played by mobility in changing expressions of identity. Providing firsthand, experiential and narrative insight into the Irish diaspora in Europe, this volume promises to contribute an anthropological perspective to historical accounts of the Irish overseas, theoretical works in Irish studies, and sociological examinations of Irish identity and diaspora.

Loustaunau and Sanchez-Bane combine their many years of association and collaboration dealing with health issues in the U.S.-Mexico border area, to bring together a series of chapters illustrating that asi es la vida, that's life, need not indicate a fatalistic acceptance that poverty, sickness, misery, and misfortune must be taken in stride. The authors of the chapters have researched, studied, worked with, or have been borderlanders themselves. The chapters focus on the impact of the social structure, and on the power and determination of people to change their conditions for the better, increasing their choices and enlarging their worlds. They look beyond political and economic barriers to find the spark in the human spirit that must be identified and nurtured to produce a better life for the benefit of peoples and nations on both sides of the border, and to nourish the third culture as a bridge between nations. The authors note the dangers and pitfalls along the way, and the need for more realistic policies and programs to empower people to define their own problems, and to participate in fashioning the solutions.