In rural Mexico, people often say that Alzheimer's does not exist. ""People do not have Alzheimer's because they don't need to worry,"" said one Oaxacan, explaining that locals lack the stresses that people face ""over there"" - that is, in the modern world. Alzheimer's and related dementias carry a stigma. In contrast to the way elders are revered for remembering local traditions, dementia symbolizes how modern families have forgotten the communal values that bring them together. In Caring for the People of the Clouds, psychologist Jonathan Yahalom provides an emotionally evocative, story-rich analysis of family caregiving for Oaxacan elders living with dementia. Based on his extensive research in a Zapotec community, Yahalom presents the conflicted experience of providing care in a setting where illness is steeped in stigma and locals are concerned about social cohesion. Traditionally, the Zapotec, or ""people of the clouds,"" respected their elders and venerated their ancestors. Dementia reveals the difficulty of upholding those ideals today. Yahalom looks at how dementia is understood in a medically pluralist landscape, how it is treated in a setting marked by social tension, and how caregivers endure challenges among their families and the broader community. Yahalom argues that caregiving involves more than just a response to human dependency; it is central to regenerating local values and family relationships threatened by broader social change. In so doing, the author bridges concepts in mental health with theory from medical anthropology. Unique in its interdisciplinary approach, this book advances theory pertaining to cross-cultural psychology and develops anthropological insights about how aging, dementia, and caregiving disclose the intimacies of family life in Oaxaca.

How would our understanding of museums change if we used the Vintage Wireless Museum or the Museum of Witchcraft as examples - rather than the British Museum or the Louvre? Although there are thousands of small, independent, single-subject museums in the UK, Europe and North America, the field of museum studies remains focused almost exclusively on major institutions. In this ground-breaking new book, Fiona Candlin reveals how micromuseums challenge preconceived ideas about what museums are and how they operate. Based on extensive fieldwork and analysis of more than fifty micromuseums, she shows how they offer dramatically different models of curation, interpretation and visitor experience, and how their analysis generates new perspectives on subjects such as display, objects, collections, architecture, and the public sphere. The first-ever book dedicated to the subject, Micromuseology provides a platform for radically rethinking key debates within museum studies. Destined to transform the field, it is essential reading for students and researchers in museum studies, anthropology, material culture studies, and visual culture.

Why should the church be concerned about cultures? Louis J. Luzbetak began to answer this question twenty-five years ago with the publication of The Church and Cultures: An Applied Anthropology for the Religious Worker. Reprinted six times and translated into five languages, it became an undisputed classic in the field. Now, by popular demand, Luzbetak has thoroughly rewritten his work, completely updating it in light of contemporary anthropological and missiological thought and in face of current world conditions. Serving as a handbook for a culturally sensitive ministry and witness, The Church and Cultures introduces the non-anthropologist to a wealth of scientific knowledge directly relevant to pastoral work, religious education social action and liturgy - in fact, to all forms of missionary activity in the church. It focuses on a burning theological issue: that of contextualization, the process by which a local church integrates its understanding of the Gospel ("text") with the local culture ("context").

In gay bars and nightclubs across America, and in gay-oriented magazines and media, the buff, macho, white gay man is exalted as the ideal-the most attractive, the most wanted, and the most emulated type of man. For gay Asian American men, often viewed by their peers as submissive or too 'pretty,' being sidelined in the gay community is only the latest in a long line of racially-motivated offenses they face in the United States.Repeatedly marginalized by both the white-centric queer community that values a hyper-masculine sexuality and a homophobic Asian American community that often privileges masculine heterosexuality, gay Asian American men largely have been silenced and alienated in present-day culture and society. In Geisha of a Different Kind, C. Winter Han travels from West Coast Asian drag shows to the internationally sought-after Thai kathoey, or "ladyboy," to construct a theory of queerness that is inclusive of the race and gender particularities of the gay Asian male experience in the United States. Through ethnographic observation of queer Asian American communities and Asian American drag shows, interviews with gay Asian American men, and a reading of current media and popular culture depictions of Asian Americans, Han argues that gay Asian American men, used to gender privilege within their own communities, must grapple with the idea that, as Asians, they have historically been feminized as a result of Western domination and colonization, and as a result, they are minorities within the gay community, which is itself marginalized within the overall American society. Han also shows that many Asian American gay men can turn their unusual position in the gay and Asian American communities into a positive identity. In their own conception of self, their Asian heritage and sexuality makes these men unique, special, and, in the case of Asian American drag queens, much more able to convey a convincing erotic femininity. Challenging stereotypes about beauty, nativity, and desirability, Geisha of a Different Kind makes a major intervention in the study of race and sexuality in America.

What is multiculturalism? The word is used everywhere, often without being clearly defined. The first collection of this scope, Mapping Multiculturalism offers cogent critiques of the term and its uses by leading scholars in sociology, history, literary criticism, popular culture studies, ethnic studies, and critical legal studies. The contributors look at current uses of the rubric "multicultural" and offer groundbreaking analyses of complex relationships between popular culture, political events, and intellectual trends. Featuring essays by authors, activists, artists, and theoreticians, Mapping Multiculturalism represents the entire range of multicultural studies today through essays that demarcate the cutting edge of contemporary cultural politics. Contributors: Norma Alarcon, U of California, Berkeley; Richard P. Appelbaum, U of California, Santa Barbara; Edna Bonacich, U of California, Riverside; Wendy Brown, U of California, Santa Cruz; Darryl B. Dickson-Carr, Florida State U; Antonia I. Castaneda, U of Texas, Austin; Angie Chabram-Dernersesian, U of California, Davis; Jon Cruz, U of California, Santa Barbara; Angela Y. Davis, U of California, Santa Cruz; Steve Fagin, U of California, San Diego; Rosa Linda Fregoso, U of California, Davis; Neil Gotanda, Western State U; M. Annette Jaimes Guerrero, San Francisco State U; Ramon Gutierrez, U of California, San Diego; Cynthia Hamilton, U of Rhode Island; George Lipsitz, University of California, San Diego; Lisa Lowe, U of California, San Diego; Wahneema Lubiano, Princeton U; Michael Omi, U of California, Berkeley; Lourdes Portillo; Cedric Jo Robinson, U of California, Santa Barbara; Tricia Rose, New York U; Gregg Scott; Paul Smith, George Mason U; Renee Tajima; Patricia Zavella, U of California, Santa Cruz. Avery F. Gordon teaches sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Christopher Newfield teaches English, also at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

There is a widespread perception that life is faster than it used to be. We hear constant laments that we live too fast, that time is scarce, and that the pace of everyday life is spiraling out of our control. The iconic image that abounds is that of the frenetic, technologically tethered, iPhone/iPad-addicted citizen. Yet weren't modern machines supposed to save, and thereby free up, time? The purpose of this book is to bring a much-needed sociological perspective to bear on speed: it examines how speed and acceleration came to signify the zeitgeist, and explores the political implications of this. Among the major questions addressed are: when did acceleration become the primary rationale for technological innovation and the key measure of social progress? Is acceleration occurring across all sectors of society and all aspects of life, or are some groups able to mobilise speed as a resource while others are marginalised and excluded? Does the growing centrality of technological mediations (of both information and communication) produce slower as well as faster times, waiting as well as 'busyness', stasis as well as mobility? To what extent is the contemporary imperative of speed as much a cultural artefact as a material one? To make sense of everyday life in the twenty-first century, we must begin by interrogating the social dynamics of speed. This book shows how time is a collective accomplishment, and that temporality is experienced very differently by diverse groups of people, especially between the affluent and those who service them.

Investigating the efforts of the Kichwa of Tena, Ecuador to reverse language shift to Spanish, this book examines the ways in which indigenous language can be revitalized and how creative bilingual forms of discourse can reshape the identities and futures of local populations. Based on deep ethnographic fieldwork among urban, periurban, and rural indigenous Kichwa communities, Michael Wroblewski explores adaptations to culture contact, language revitalization, and political mobilization through discourse. Expanding the ethnographic picture of native Amazonians and their traditional discourse practices, this book focuses attention on Kichwas' diverse engagements with rural and urban ways of living, local and global ways of speaking, and indigenous and dominant intellectual traditions. Wroblewski reveals the composite nature of indigenous words and worlds through conversational interviews, oral history narratives, political speechmaking, and urban performance media, showing how discourse is a critical focal point for studying cultural adaptation. Highlighting how Kichwas assert autonomy through creative forms of self-representation, Remaking Kichwa moves the study of indigenous language into the globalized era and offers innovative reconsiderations of indigeneity, discourse, and identity.