This issue moves beyond the binary of life and death to explore how the gray areas in between-precarious life, slow death-call into question assumptions about the social in social theory. In these "collateral afterworlds," where the line between life and death is blurred, the presumed attachments of sociality to life and solitude to death are no longer reliable. The contributors focus on the daily experiences of enduring a difficult present unhinged from any redeeming future, addressing topics such as drug treatment centers in Mexico City, solitary death in Japan, Inuit colonial violence, human regard for animal life in India, and intimacies forged between grievously wounded soldiers. Engaging history, film, ethics, and poetics, the contributors explore the modes of intimacy, obligation, and ethical investment that arise in these spaces. Contributors. Anne Alison, Naisargi N. Dave, Angela Garcia, Fady Joudah, Julie Livingston, Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Solmaz Sharif, Lisa Stevenson, Zoe H. Wool

Afghanistan in the 20th century was virtually unknown in Europe and America. At peace until the 1970s, the country was seen as a remote and exotic land, visited only by adventurous tourists or researchers. Afghan Village Voices is a testament to this little-known period of peace and captures a society and culture now lost. Prepared by two of the most accomplished and well-known anthropologists of the Middle East and Central Asia, Richard Tapper and Nancy Tapper-Lindisfarne, this is a book of stories told by the Piruzai, a rural Afghan community of some 200 families who farmed in northern Afghanistan and in summer took their flocks to the central Hazarajat mountains. The book comprises a collection of remarkable stories, folktales and conversations and provides unprecedented insight into the depth and colour of these people's lives. Recorded in the early 1970s, the stories range from memories of the Piruzai migration to the north a half century before, to the feuds, ethnic strife and the doings of powerful khans. There are also stories of falling in love, elopements, marriages, childbirth and the world of spirits. The book includes vignettes of the narrators, photographs, maps and a full glossary. It is a remarkable document of Afghanistan at peace, told by a people whose voices have rarely been heard.

In this comprehensive study, Kenneth Morgan provides an authoritative account of European exploration and discovery in Australia. The book presents a detailed chronological overview of European interests in the Australian continent, from initial speculations about the 'Great Southern Land' to the major hydrographic expeditions of the 19th century. In particular, he analyses the early crossings of the Dutch in the 17th century, the exploits of English 'buccaneer adventurer' William Dampier, the famous voyages of James Cook and Matthew Flinders, and the little-known French annexation of Australia in 1772. Introducing new findings and drawing on the latest in historiographical research, this book situates developments in navigation, nautical astronomy and cartography within the broader contexts of imperial, colonial, and maritime history.

In Colonial Encounters in Southwest Canaan during the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age Koch offers a detailed analysis of local responses to colonial rule, and to its collapse. The book focuses on colonial encounters between local groups in southwest Canaan (between the modern-day metropolitan areas of Tel Aviv and Gaza) and agents of the Egyptian Empire during the Late Bronze Age (16th-12th centuries BCE). This new perspective presents the multifaceted aspects of Egyptian colonialism, the role of local agency, and the reshaping of local practices and ideas. Following that, the book examines local responses to the collapse of the empire, mechanisms of societal regeneration during the Iron Age I (12th-10th centuries BCE), the remnants of the Egyptian-Canaanite colonial order, and changes in local ideology and religion.

During the long eighteenth century the moral and socio-political dimensions of family life and gender were hotly debated by intellectuals across Europe. John Millar, a Scottish law professor and philosopher, was a pioneer in making gendered and familial practice a critical parameter of cultural difference. His work was widely disseminated at home and abroad, translated into French and German and closely read by philosophers such as Denis Diderot and Johann Gottfried Herder. Taking Millar's writings as his basis, Nicholas B. Miller explores the role of the family in Scottish Enlightenment political thought and traces its wider resonances across the Enlightenment world. John Millar's organisation of cultural, gendered and social difference into a progressive narrative of authority relations provided the first extended world history of the family. Over five chapters that address the historical and comparative models developed by the thinker, Nicholas B. Miller examines contemporary responses and Enlightenment-era debates on polygamy, matriarchy, the Amazon legend, changes in national character and the possible futures of the family in commercial society. He traces how Enlightenment thinkers developed new standards of evidence and crafted new understandings of historical time in order to tackle the global diversity of family life and gender practice. By reconstituting these theories and discussions, Nicholas B. Miller uncovers hitherto unexplored aspects of the Scottish contribution to European debates on the role of the family in history, society and politics.

The indigenous people of Southern Vietnam, known as the Khmer Krom, occupy territory over which Vietnam and Cambodia have competing claims. Regarded with ambivalence and suspicion by nationalists in both countries, these in-between people have their own claims on the place where they live and a unique perspective on history and sovereignty in their heavily contested homelands. To cope with wars, environmental re-engineering and nation-building, the Khmer Krom have selectively engaged with the outside world in addition to drawing upon local resources and self-help networks. This groundbreaking book reveals the sophisticated ecological repertoire deployed by the Khmer Krom to deal with a complex river delta, and charts their diverse adaptations to a changing environment. In addition, it provides an ethnographically grounded exposition of Khmer mythic thought that shows how the Khmer Krom position themselves within a landscape imbued with life-sustaining potential, magical sovereign power and cosmological significance. Offering a new environmental history of the Mekong River delta this book is the first to explore Southern Vietnam through the eyes of its indigenous Khmer residents. Winner of the inaugural European Association for Southeast Asiean Studies (EuroSEAS) Social Science Book Prize. Shortlisted for the ICAS Book Prize 2015 for Best Study in the Social Sciences

Further Developments in the Theory and Practice of Cybercartography, Third Edition, Volume Nine, presents a substantively updated edition of a classic text on cybercartography, presenting new and returning readers alike with the latest advances in the field. The book examines the major elements of cybercartography and embraces an interactive, dynamic, multisensory format with the use of multimedia and multimodal interfaces. Material covering the major elements, key ideas and definitions of cybercartography is newly supplemented by several chapters on two emerging areas of study, including international dimensions and language mapping. This new edition delves deep into Mexico, Brazil, Denmark, Iran and Kyrgyzstan, demonstrating how insights emerge when cybercartography is applied in different cultural contexts. Meanwhile, other chapters contain case studies by a talented group of linguists who are breaking new ground by applying cybercartography to language mapping, a breakthrough that will provide new ways of understanding the distribution and movement of language and culture.

A special issue of the Journal of Middle East Women's Studies This issue provides an area-studies perspective on intimacy and explores the analytic, theoretical, and political work that intimacy promises as a concept. The contributors explore how multiple domains and forms of intimacies are defined and transformed across the cultural and social worlds of the Middle East, looking in particular at Egypt, Turkey, and Israel. Focusing on everyday constructions of intimacies, the contributors engage with questions about how we should calibrate the evolving nature of intimacy in times of rapid transition, what intimacy means for individual and social lives, and what social, political, and economic possibilities it creates. Topics include physical exercise, Turkish beauty salons, transnational surrogacy arrangements, gender reassignment, and coffee shops as intimate spaces for men outside the family. Article Contributors: Aymon Kreil, Claudia Liebelt, Sibylle Lustenberger, Sertac Sehlikoglu, Asli Zengin Review and Third Space Contributors: Dena Al-Adeeb, Adam George Dunn, Rima Dunn, Meral Duzgun, Iklim Goksel, Didem Havlioglu, Sarah Ihmoud, Sarah Irving, Adi Kuntsman, Shahrzad Mojab, Afsaneh Najmabadi, Rachel Rothendler, Afiya Zia

This book provides an invaluable introduction to the social, economic, and legal status of women in ancient Rome. Daily Life of Women in Ancient Rome is an invaluable introduction to the lives of women in the late Roman Republic and first three centuries of the Roman Empire. Arranged chronologically and thematically, it examines how Roman women were born, educated, married, and active in economic, social, public, and religious life, as well as how they were commemorated and honored after death. Though they were excluded from formal public and military offices, wealthy Roman women participated in public life as benefactors and in religious life as priestesses. The book also acknowledges the status and occupations of women taking part in public life as textile producers, retail workers, and agricultural laborers, as well as enslaved women. The book provides a thorough introduction to the social history of women in the Roman world and gives students and aspiring scholars references to current scholarship and to primary literary and documentary sources, including collected sources in translation. Provides students of classical or women's history with a chronologically and thematically oriented introduction to the demography, legal and social status, life stages, social and public roles, occupations, and leisure activities of women in Roman society Emphasizes primary literary and documentary sources and provides accessible references to further reading and research Focuses on the diversity of Roman women's experiences across the social hierarchy Discusses both the limitations that women faced (e.g., in Roman law and custom) and how they negotiated or transcended these limitations Includes visually interesting images that enhance the text