Plasticity refers to the ability of many organisms to change their biology or behavior to respond to changes in the environment. Humans are probably the most plastic of all species, and hence the most variable. This is the first book to examine the history of research in this area and it provides information on state-of-the-art research methods and discoveries. It also maps out some areas of future research in human plasticity and variability. Topics discussed include child growth, starvation, diseases of both young and old, and the effects of migration, modernization and other life-style changes. The book will be especially useful to biological anthropologists, human biologists and medical scientists interested in knowing more about how and why humans vary.

This book is the first full-length study of the history of intellectual and scientific racism in modern South Africa. Ranging broadly across disciplines in the social sciences, sciences and humanities, it charts the rise of scientific racism and biological determinism from the late nineteenth century until the middle of the twentieth. Set against the rise of apartheid, the book illuminates the complex relationship between theories of essential racial difference and the development of white supremacist thinking. Saul Dubow draws extensively on comparable studies of intellectual racism in Europe and the United States to demonstrate the selective absorption of widely prevalent conceptions of racial difference in the particular historical context of South Africa. The issues he addresses are of relevance to both Africanist and international students of racism and race relations.

Now including numerous full colour figures, this updated and revised edition of Larsen's classic text provides a comprehensive overview of the fundamentals of bioarchaeology. Reflecting the enormous advances made in the field over the past twenty years, the author examines how this discipline has matured and evolved in fundamental ways. Jargon free and richly illustrated, the text is accompanied by copious case studies and references to underscore the central role that human remains play in the interpretation of life events and conditions of past and modern cultures. From the origins and spread of infectious disease to the consequences of decisions made by humans with regard to the kinds of foods produced, and their nutritional, health and behavioral outcomes. With local, regional, and global perspectives, this up-to-date text provides a solid foundation for all those working in the field.

Three recent and highly dramatic national events have shattered the complacency of many Americans about progress, however fitful, in race relations in America. The Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings, the O.J. Simpson trial, and the Million Man March of Louis Farrakhan have forced everyone to reconsider their assumptions about race and racial relations.The Thomas-Hill hearings exposed the complexity and volatility of perceptions about race and gender. The sight of jubilant Blacks and despondent Whites reacting to the O.J. Simpson verdict shook our confidence in shared assumptions about equal protection under the law. The image of hundreds of thousands of Black men gathering in Washington in defense of their racial and cultural identity angered millions of Whites and exposed divisions within the Black community.These events were unfolding at a time when there seemed to be considerable progress in fighting racial discrimination. On the legal side, discrimination has been eliminated in more and more arenas, in theory if not always in practice. Economically, more and more blacks have moved into the middle class, albeit while larger numbers have slipped further back into poverty. Intellectually, figures like Cornel West, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Patricia J. Williams are playing a central role as public intellectuals.In the face of these disparate trends, it is clear that Americans need to rethink their assumptions about race, racial relations, and inter-racial communication. "Color * Class * Identity" is the ideal tool to facilitate this process. It provides a richly textured selection of readings from Du Bois, Cornel West, Derrick Bell, and others, as well as a range of responses to the particular controversies that are now dividing us."Color * Class * Identity" furthers these debates, showing that the racial question is far more complex than it used to be; it is no longer a simple matter of Black versus White and racial mistrust. A landmark anthology that will help advance understanding of the present unease, not just between Black and White, but within each community, this book will be useful in a broad range of courses on contemporary U.S. society.

The theory of evolution has been most successful explaining the emergence of new species in terms of their morphological traits. Ethologists teach that behaviors, too, qualify as first-class phenotypic features, but evolutionary accounts of behaviors have been much less satisfactory. In part this is because maturational "programs" transforming genotype to phenotype are "open" to environmental influences affected by behaviors. Further, many organisms are able to continue to modify their behavior, i.e., learn, even after fully mature. This creates an even more complex relationship between the genotypic features underlying the mechanisms of maturation and learning and the adapted behaviors ultimately selected.A meeting held at the Santa Fe Institute during the summer of 1993 brought together a small group of biologists, psychologists, and computer scientists with shared interests in questions such as these. This volume consists of papers that explore interacting adaptive systems from a range of interdisciplinary perspectives. About half of the articles are classic, seminal references on the subject, ranging from biologists like Lamarck and Waddington to psychologists like Piaget and Skinner. The other half represent new work by the workshop participants. The role played by mathematical and computational tools, both as models of natural phenomena and as algorithms useful in their own right, is particularly emphasized in these new papers. In all cases, the prefaces help to put the older papers in a modern context. For the new papers, the prefaces have been written by colleagues from a discipline other than the paper's authors, and highlight, for example, what a computer scientist can learn from a biologist's model, or vice versa. Through these cross-disciplinary "dialogues" and a glossary collecting multidisciplinary connotations of pivotal terms, the process of interdisciplinary investigation itself becomes a central theme.

In this spirited and irreverent critique of Darwin's long hold over our imagination, a distinguished philosopher of science makes the case that, in culture as well as nature, not only the fittest survive: the world is full of the "good enough" that persist too. Why is the genome of a salamander forty times larger than that of a human? Why does the avocado tree produce a million flowers and only a hundred fruits? Why, in short, is there so much waste in nature? In this lively and wide-ranging meditation on the curious accidents and unexpected detours on the path of life, Daniel Milo argues that we ask these questions because we've embraced a faulty conception of how evolution-and human society-really works. Good Enough offers a vigorous critique of the quasi-monopoly that Darwin's concept of natural selection has on our idea of the natural world. Darwinism excels in accounting for the evolution of traits, but it does not explain their excess in size and number. Many traits far exceed the optimal configuration to do the job, and yet the maintenance of this extra baggage does not prevent species from thriving for millions of years. Milo aims to give the messy side of nature its due-to stand up for the wasteful and inefficient organisms that nevertheless survive and multiply. But he does not stop at the border between evolutionary theory and its social consequences. He argues provocatively that the theory of evolution through natural selection has acquired the trappings of an ethical system. Optimization, competitiveness, and innovation have become the watchwords of Western societies, yet their role in human lives-as in the rest of nature-is dangerously overrated. Imperfection is not just good enough: it may at times be essential to survival.

A Companion to Paleopathology offers a comprehensive overview of this rapidly growing sub- field of physical anthropology. * Presents a broad overview of the field of paleopathology, integrating theoretical and methodological approaches to understand biological and disease processes throughout human history * Demonstrates how paleopathology sheds light on the past through the analysis of human and non-human skeletal materials, mummified remains and preserved tissue * Integrates scientific advances in multiple fields that contribute to the understanding of ancient and historic diseases, such as epidemiology, histology, radiology, parasitology, dentistry, and molecular biology, as well as archaeological, archival and historical research. * Highlights cultural processes that have an impact on the evolution of illness, death and dying in human populations, including subsistence strategies, human environmental adaptations, the effects of malnutrition, differential access to resources, and interpersonal and intercultural violence

One hundred members of NatChat, an electronic mail discussion group concerned with Native American issues, responded to the recent Disney release "Pocahontas" by calling on parents to boycott the movie, citing its historical inaccuracies and saying that "Disney has let us down in a cruel, irresponsible manner." Their anger was rooted in the fact that, although Disney claimed that the film's portrayal of American Indians would be "authentic," the Pocahontas story their movie told was really white cultural myth. The actual histories of the characters were replaced by mythic narratives depicting the crucial moments when aid was given to the white settlers. As reconstructed, the story serves to reassert for whites their right to be here, easing any lingering guilt about the displacement of the native inhabitants.To understand current imagery, it is essential to understand the history of its making, and these essays mesh to create a powerful, interconnected account of image creation over the past 150 years. The contributors, who represent a range of disciplines and specialties, reveal the distortions and fabrications white culture has imposed on significant historical and current events, as represented by treasured artifacts, such as photographic images taken of Sitting Bull following his surrender, the national monument at the battlefield of Little Bighorn, nineteenth-century advertising, the television phenomenon "Northern Exposure, " and the film "Dances with Wolves."Well illustrated, this volume demonstrates the complacency of white culture in its representation of its troubled relationship with American Indians.

Since it first appeared, Power and Prejudice has been hailed as a bold, pioneering work dealing with one of the central and most controversial issues of our time?the relationship between racial prejudice and global conflict. Powerfully written and based on documents from archives on several continents, this award-winning book convincingly demonstrates that the racial issue, or what W.E.B. Du Bois called ?the problem of the twentieth century,? has profoundly influenced most major developments in international politics and diplomacy.Lauren begins with a thought-provoking discussion of the heavy burden of history's pattern of conquest and slavery wherin skin color identified master and slave, conqueror and conquered. He then examines bitter twentieth-century conflicts over race, including immigration exclusion and the ?Yellow Peril,? the ?Final Solution? of the Holocaust, decolonization, the impact of the Cold War on the civil rights movement, and the global struggle against racial prejudice. In this new edition, Lauren adds dimensions about Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific, exploring the racial dimensions of immigration exclusion and warfare. He contributes significant new material about international issues regarding indigenous peoples around the world, including self-determination, sovereignty, and discrimination. And finally, he examines the dramatic events surrounding the end of apartheid in South Africa.Eloquent, provocative, and informed by first-rate scholarship, the insights of this highly original work will appeal to general readers as well as to students and scholars from a broad range of disciplines.

All over Europe, asylum-seekers, immigrants and minorities are increasingly finding themselves under violent attack. Who are the perpetrators? What are their motives? To what extent are right-wing or neo-Nazi organizations involved? How do the authorities and the police respond? What are the roles of the media, the public opinion and anti-racist movements? What can be done to stop the violence? These are questions addressed in this volume by some of Europe's leading experts on racism and racist violence.

An ethnographic exploration of the rise of new forms of leadership at community and national levels with islanders are synthesising traditional and Western models.

With more than 40% of people eventually facing a cancer diagnosis, Conversing with Cancer is a much-needed addition to understanding and improving cancer care through strong communication among providers, patients, and caregivers. Each person whose life is affected by a cancer diagnosis-patient, healthcare provider, caregiver-has information and needs information in order to make the best decisions possible under the circumstances. After studying and writing about the topics of communication and cancer for many years separately, authors Lisa Sparks and Anna Leahy combine their expertise in this new tour de force. Here, they apply principles from the field of health communication to the cancer care experience, drawing from a wide range of scholarship to offer a comprehensive view of cancer care communication and extend existing work into new insights. Engaging chapters cover all phases of the journey through cancer, from prevention to recovery or end-of-life; analyze the roles of the variety of cultural and social identities and relationships; and explore written, verbal, non-verbal, and electronic communication. In addition, this book draws from the real-life stories of cancer patients themselves to enrich the book's unique discussions and to better understand how theory can be put into practice. Conversing with Cancer is ideal for use in health communication classes, medical and nursing programs, and formal caregiver training. In addition, it is useful for cancer patient and caregiver supports groups and for individual providers, patients, and caregivers.

The idea that India is a Hindu majority nation rests on the assumption that the vast swath of its population stigmatized as 'untouchable' is, and always has been, in some meaningful sense, Hindu. But is that how such communities understood themselves in the past, or how they understand themselves now? When and under what conditions did this assumption take shape, and what truths does it conceal? In this book, Joel Lee challenges presuppositions at the foundation of the study of caste and religion in South Asia. Drawing on detailed archival and ethnographic research, Lee tracks the career of a Dalit religion and the effort by twentieth-century nationalists to encompass it within a newly imagined Hindu body politic. A chronicle of religious life in north India and an examination of the ethics and semiotics of secrecy, Deceptive Majority throws light on the manoeuvres by which majoritarian projects are both advanced and undermined.

This analysis of the causes of racial and ethnic conflict in American cities between 1877-1914 presents evidence that suggests that the explanation for ethnic unrest is to be found in competition processes.

This volume, a study of a transhumant cattle-raising community in Spain, is based on the extensive fieldwork at La Nava de San Miguel, a village in the province of Avila in central Spain. It shows the social and economic factors upon which the continued vitality of this mountain village is based: the use of communal summer pastures; the transhumant groups which walk the cattle to the winter pastures over the mountains; and the system of taking turns for many tasks within the village. The book analyzes the dichotomy between the more rigid organization of life within the village and the organization of life outside the village, in the transhumant group which goes to the winter pastures in Extramadura.

Traditionally, Non-Indian societies in Brazilian Amazonia - 'caboclo' - are treated by anthropologists as relics of the haphazard development of Amazonia - leftovers of the colonial enterprise and have therefore received little serious attention. This volume attempts to redress this imbalance by looking closely at the encompassing nature of peasant society in Brazilian Amazonia. The first part of the book is concerned with the concept of caboclo as it emerges in anthropological and Amazonianist disclosure. The second examines a historical 'caboclo' society (in Santarem, Para) from a broadly ethnographic viewpoint. Three different modes of peasant livelihood and their relation to the impact of the Transamazon Highway are then fully discussed, followed by a detailed examination of the 'sustainable- development' thesis using research from another part of Amazonia - the Guama River. Overall, this volume aims to examine the reasons for the relative 'invisibility' of caboclo society and to place it in a historical perspective.

Life has shaped the Earth, and the Earth has moulded the history of life. That history, the co-evolution of our ancestors and their horne, has much to teach us about our place on the planet today. We are part of the fabric of the biosphere. As we change that fabric we would be wise to understand how our horne was built. Our planet is neither a hotel nor a colony. It is not a place which life briefly inhabits during a transient occupation. Instead, it is our horne, designed by the deeds of our ancestors and suited to our own needs. The history of life on Earth is held in the geological record, which is composed of the rocks, water and air that are available for study on the planet's surface. These rocks, the oceans and the atmosphere are not simply stores of information for the excitement of fossil hunters and geochemists, or resources to exploit without thought. Their cre ation and continued existence form an integral part of the development and management of the Earth as the horne of life."

Drawing heavily on the reminiscences of the Brownsville boys themselves, and skillfully integrating these with material from newspapers, books, and commentary of the time, Sorin creates an original and compelling picture of the communal and individual vitality that allowed an unusual and heartening social achievement.

The stated aims of the Lecture Notes in Biomathematics allow for work that is "unfinished or tentative." This volume is offered in that spirit. The problem addressed is one of the classics of statistical ecology, the estimation of mortality rates from stage-frequency data, but in tackling it we found ourselves making use of ideas and techniques very different from those we expected to use, and in which we had no previous experience. Specifically we drifted towards consideration of some rather specific curve and surface fitting and smoothing techniques. We think we have made some progress (otherwise why publish?), but are acutely aware of the conceptual and statistical clumsiness of parts of the work. Readers with sufficient expertise to be offended should regard the monograph as a challenge to do better. The central theme in this book is a somewhat complex algorithm for mortality estimation (detailed at the end of Chapter 4). Because of its complexity, the job of implementing the method is intimidating. Any reader interested in using the methods may obtain copies of our code as follows: Intelligible Structured Code 1. Hutchinson and deHoog's algorithm for fitting smoothing splines by cross validation 2. Cubic covariant area-approximating splines 3. Cubic interpolating splines 4. Cubic area matching splines 5. Hyman's algorithm for monotonic interpolation based on cubic splines. Prototype User-Hostile Code 6. Positive constrained interpolation 7. Positive constrained area matching 8. The "full method" from chapter 4 9. The "simpler" method from chapter 4.

Three Jews--Alfred Dreyfus, Mendel Beilis, and Leo Frank--were charged with heinous crimes in the generation before World War I--Dreyfus of treason in France, Beilis of ritual murder in Russia, and Frank of the murder of a young girl in the United States. The affairs that developed out of their trials pulled hundreds of thousands of people into passionate confrontation. Quite aside from the lurid details and sensational charges, larger issues emerged, among them the power of modern anti-Semitism, the sometimes tragic conflict between the freedom of the press and the protection of individual rights, the unpredictable reactions of individuals when subjected to extreme situations, and the inevitable ambiguities of campaigns for truth and justice when political advantage is to be gained from them. This study explores the nature of modern anti-Semitism and the ways that politicians in the generation before World War I attempted to use hatred of Jews as a political device to mobilize the masses. The anti-Semitism surrounding the affairs is presented as an elusive intermingling of real conflict between Jews and non-Jews, on the one hand, and, on the other, fantasies about Jews derived from powerful myths deeply rooted in Western civilization. In attempting to untangle myth and reality and to offer a fresh look at the main personalities in the affairs many surprises emerge; heroes appear less heroic and villains less villainous, while real factors appear more important than most accounts of the affairs have recognized.

The Phunoy are a Tibeto-Burmese population group in Phongsaly Province that has long been considered acculturated because of its adoption of various features of neighboring Tai societies, particularly Buddhism. This pioneering ethnography examines the Phunoy's supposed acculturation and independent identity, demonstrating how the Phunoy emerged as a group and constructed a "mirroring" relationship with the various Tai and Lao realms dominating the region. As guardians of the borders and allies of the colonial authorities who administered the province, they progressively formed a territory where they established themselves as indispensable intermediaries between state power and the other mountain ethnic groups. The integration of the Phunoy continues within Lao society today and is part of the history of the stabilization of the margins in northern mainland Southeast Asia.

Evolutionary ecology has grown into an exciting and dynamic area of research in the biological sciences. Only recently, however, has there been noteworthy progress in adapting theory, concepts, and models from this fi eld for analysis of human behavior and evolution.

Following recent events in Eastern Europe, questions surrounding European identity seem more pressing than ever. This volume explores, through a series of ethnographic case studies, the construction and experience of identities in Western Europe. All of the case studies are based on fieldwork, and in geographical scope range from Wales to the Basque country; from Corsica to the Lake District. The peoples they look at are similarly diverse: nationalists and members of the Communist party; rural and urban populations. The essays illustrate the ways in which detailed ethnographic case studies can illuminate how identities are lived by ordinary people.

Following recent events in Eastern Europe, questions surrounding European identity seem more pressing than ever. This volume explores, through a series of ethnographic case studies, the construction and experience of identities in Western Europe. All of the case studies are based on fieldwork, and in geographical scope range from Wales to the Basque country; from Corsica to the Lake District. The peoples they look at are similarly diverse: nationalists and members of the Communist party; rural and urban populations. The essays illustrate the ways in which detailed ethnographic case studies can illuminate how identities are lived by ordinary people.

This is a long-term ethnographic study of the Hahalis Welfare Society (a Bougainville movement which worked for many years to maintain and reform traditional practices and to retain a degree of autonomy in a world of rapid political change and economic dependency). The study points beyond the established cargo-cult theory in anthropology and expands the concept of culture as an outcome of historical practice, conscious analysis, human passions and political struggle. The dialectical relationship between traditional and contemporary forms of power as described through Buka experience breaks down Western categorical barriers that seem to isolate the past from the present, the personal from the political and the local form the global. The narrative explores these themes against the background of colonial and post-colonial government, missionisation, politics of ritual, litigation and legitimacy, and the Bougainville assertion of independence.