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Books > Science & Mathematics > Biology, life sciences > Human biology & related topics > Biological anthropology
Daniel O'Connell, as we bring him into focus, after generations of bitter criticism, misrepresentation, and neglect, becomes a very modern man. The principles which he held with such consistency and expounded with such consummate eloquence are, by modern standards, enlightened, even prescient. They are wholly pertinent questions which are of deep concern to all of us. The reader of history will perceive that the span of O'Connell's life, 1775-1847, witnessed profound changes in political arrangements, in power structures, and in national boundaries in the Western world. One of the more important of these developments has been the growth of nationalism, not only here but throughout the world. As the national consciousness affected Ireland, it cannot be interpreted, even understood, except as it was awakened by O'Connell. He entered public life as an opponent of the Act of Union of 1800, a measure which was to infect British relations with Ireland for a century and a quarter. O'Connell earned and held in the Western world high rank among the individuals who promoted religious liberty and separation of Church and State, cardinal principles in the American tradition. Since the first half of his public life was devoted to the restoration of Catholic rights, he realized that he could not rationally insist upon rights for his fellow communicants which he would deny to others. His concept of true religion was of something lived wholly apart from interference or support by civil authority. As we shall see, he carried his zeal for religious liberty to the support of the Jews in their struggle to life the disabilities imposed by English law.
'A fascinating new analysis of human violence, filled with fresh ideas and gripping evidence from our primate cousins, historical forebears, and contemporary neighbors' Steven Pinker 'A brilliant analysis of the role of aggression in our evolutionary history' Jane Goodall It may not always seem so, but day-to-day interactions between individual humans are extraordinarily peaceful. That is not to say that we are perfect, just far less violent than most animals, especially our closest relatives, the chimpanzee and their legendarily docile cousins, the Bonobo. Perhaps surprisingly, we rape, maim, and kill many fewer of our neighbours than all other primates and almost all undomesticated animals. But there is one form of violence that humans exceed all other animals in by several degrees: organized proactive violence against other groups of humans. It seems, we are the only animal that goes to war. In the Goodness Paradox, Richard Wrangham wrestles with this paradox at the heart of human behaviour. Drawing on new research by geneticists, neuroscientists, primatologists, and archaeologists, he shows that what domesticated our species was nothing less than the invention of capital punishment which eliminated the least cooperative and most aggressive among us. But that development is exactly what laid the groundwork for the worst of our atrocities.
The first publication to outline the complex global story of human migration and dispersal throughout the whole of human prehistory. Utilizing archaeological, linguistic and biological evidence, Peter Bellwood traces the journeys of the earliest hunter-gatherer and agriculturalist migrants as critical elements in the evolution of human lifeways. * The first volume to chart global human migration and population dispersal throughout the whole of human prehistory, in all regions of the world * An archaeological odyssey that details the initial spread of early humans out of Africa approximately two million years ago, through the Ice Ages, and down to the continental and island migrations of agricultural populations within the past 10,000 years * Employs archaeological, linguistic and biological evidence to demonstrate how migration has always been a vital and complex element in explaining the evolution of the human species * Outlines how significant migrations have affected population diversity in every region of the world * Clarifies the importance of the development of agriculture as a migratory imperative in later prehistory * Fully referenced with detailed maps throughout
50 Great Myths of Human Evolution uses common misconceptions to explore basic theory and research in human evolution and strengthen critical thinking skills for lay readers and students. * Examines intriguing yet widely misunderstood topics, from general ideas about evolution and human origins to the evolution of modern humans and recent trends in the field * Describes what fossils, archaeology, and genetics can tell us about human origins * Demonstrates the ways in which science adapts and changes over time to incorporate new evidence and better explanations * Includes myths such as Humans lived at the same time as dinosaurs; Lucy was so small because she was a child; Our ancestors have always made fire; and There is a strong relationship between brain size and intelligence * Comprised of stand-alone essays that are perfect for casual reading, as well as footnotes and references that allow readers to delve more deeply into topics
Ordinary Affects is a singular argument for attention to the affective dimensions of everyday life and the potential that animates the ordinary. Known for her focus on the poetics and politics of language and landscape, the anthropologist Kathleen Stewart ponders how ordinary impacts create the subject as a capacity to affect and be affected. In a series of brief vignettes combining storytelling, close ethnographic detail, and critical analysis, Stewart relates the intensities and banalities of common experiences and strange encounters, half-spied scenes and the lingering resonance of passing events. While most of the instances rendered are from Stewart's own life, she writes in the third person in order to reflect on how intimate experiences of emotion, the body, other people, and time inextricably link us to the outside world.Stewart refrains from positing an overarching system-whether it's called globalization or neoliberalism or capitalism-to describe the ways that economic, political, and social forces shape individual lives. Instead, she begins with the disparate, fragmented, and seemingly inconsequential experiences of everyday life to bring attention to the ordinary as an integral site of cultural politics. Ordinary affect, she insists, is registered in its particularities, yet it connects people and creates common experiences that shape public feeling. Through this anecdotal history-one that poetically ponders the extremes of the ordinary and portrays the dense network of social and personal connections that constitute a life-Stewart asserts the necessity of attending to the fleeting and changeable aspects of existence in order to recognize the complex personal and social dynamics of the political world.
This collection of original work demonstrates the new ways in which particular research methodologies are used, valued and critiqued in the field of race and ethnic studies. Contributing authors discuss the ways in which their personal and professional histories and experiences lead them to select and use particular methodologies over the course of their careers. They then provide the intellectual histories, strengths and weaknesses of these methods as applied to issues of race and ethnicity and discuss the ethical, practical, and epistemological issues that have influenced and challenged their methodological principles and applications. Through these rigorous self-examinations, this text presents a dynamic example of how scholars engage both research methodologies and issues of social justice and ethics. This volume is a successor to Stanfield's landmark Race and Ethnicity in Research Methods.
Darrell A Posey died in March 2001 after a long and distinguished
career in anthropology and ecology. Kayapo Ethnoecology and Culture
presents a selection of his writings that result from 25 years of
work with the Kayapo Indians of the Amazon Basin. These writings
describe the dispersal of the Kayapo sub-groups and explain how
with this diaspora useful biological species and natural resource
management strategies also spread. However the Kayapo are
threatened with extinction like many of the inhabitants of the
Amazon basin. The author is adamant that it is no longer
satisfactory for scientists to just do 'good science'. They are are
increasingly asked and morally obliged to become involved in
political action to protect the peoples they study.
A classic and highly influential ethnography, which explores
political leadership among Swat Pathans - and which emphasizes the
importance of individual decision-making for wider social
processes.
A classic and highly influential ethnography, which explores
political leadership among Swat Pathans - and which emphasizes the
importance of individual decision-making for wider social
processes.
"Splendid and important .... Scientifically rigorous and written with a clarity and candor that create a gripping tale ... [Boehme's] account of the history of Europe's lost apes is imbued with the sweat, grime, and triumph that is the lot of the fieldworker, and carries great authority."-Tim Flannery, The New York Review of Books In this "fascinating forensic inquiry into human origins" (Kirkus STARRED Review), a renowned paleontologist takes readers behind-the-scenes of one of the most groundbreaking archaeological digs in recent history. Somewhere west of Munich,paleontologist Madelaine Boehme and her colleagues dig for clues to the origins of humankind. What they discover is beyond anything they ever imagined: the twelve-million-year-old bones of Danuvius guggenmosi make headlines around the world. This ancient ape defies prevailing theories of human history-his skeletal adaptations suggest a new common ancestor between apes and humans, one that dwelled in Europe, not Africa. Might the great apes that traveled from Africa to Europe before Danuvius's time be the key to understanding our own origins? All this and more is explored in Ancient Bones. Using her expertise as a paleoclimatologist and paleontologist, Boehme pieces together an awe-inspiring picture of great apes that crossed land bridges from Africa to Europe millions of years ago, evolving in response to the challenging conditions they found. She also takes us behind the scenes of her research, introducing us to former theories of human evolution (complete with helpful maps and diagrams), and walks us through musty museum overflow storage where she finds forgotten fossils with yellowed labels, before taking us along to the momentous dig where she and the team unearthed Danuvius guggenmosi himself-and the incredible reverberations his discovery caused around the world. Praise for Ancient Bones: "Readable and thought-provoking. Madelaine Boehme is an iconoclast whose fossil discoveries have challenged long-standing ideas on the origins of the ancestors of apes and humans."-Steve Brusatte, New York Times-bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs "An inherently fascinating, impressively informative, and exceptionally thought-provoking read."-Midwest Book Review "An impressive introduction to the burgeoning recalibration of paleoanthropology."-Kirkus Reviews(starred review)
Cultures in Conversation introduces readers to the ethnographic study of intercultural and social interactions through the analysis of conversations in which different cultural orientations are operating. Author Donal Carbaugh presents his original research on conversation practices in Britain, Finland, Russia, Blackfeet County, and the United States, demonstrating how each culture is distinctive in its communication codes, particularly in its use of symbolic meanings, forms, norms, and motivational themes. Examining conversation in this way demonstrates how cultural lives are active in conversations and shows how conversation is a principle medium for the coding of selves, social relationships, and societies. Representing 20 years of research, this text offers unique insights into the social interaction within distinct cultures. It makes a significant contribution to communication scholarship, and will be illuminating reading in cultural communication, language and social interaction, and linguistics courses. In addition, it invites others to examine ethnographic inquiry as a way of studying intercultural conversations in particular, and communication practices in general.
While there have been controversial attempts to link conclusions from sociobiological studies of animal populations to humans, few behavioral scientists or anthropologists have made serious progress. In this work, Austin Hughes presents a unique and well-defined theoretical approach to human social behavior that is rooted in evolutionary biology and sociobiology, and which is additionally viewed as a direct continuation of the structural-functional tradition in anthropological research. Using mathematical and statistical techniques, Hughes applies the principles of kin selection theory--which states that natural selection can favor social acts that increase the fitness of both individuals and their relatives--to anthropological data. Among the topics covered are the subdivision of kin groups, selection of leaders in traditional societies, patronage systems, and the correspondence between social and biological kinship. The author concludes that patterns of concentration of relatedness are more important than average relatedness for predicting social behavior. He also shows that social interactions can often be predicted on the basis of common genetic interest in dependent offspring. The result is a major contribution to the field of behavioral biology.
Probationary Americans examines contemporary immigration rules and how they affect the make-up of immigrant communities. The authors' key argument is that immigration policies place race and class as important criteria for gaining entry to the United States, and in doing so, alter the makeup of America's immigrant communities.
In this book the author examines various aspects of a selection of Western Great Lakes American Indian philosophical traditions and beliefs. He combines over forty years of stories, anecdotes, and observations learned from Western Great Lakes tribal elders into a coherent and thought-provoking philosophy text which challenges readers to look beyond their own cultural prepossessions and discover a method of asking questions where the answers come from within. Contents: Setting the Stages: From Another Perspective; The Atisokanak World; Creation and the Early 'Earth World'; The Earth and its 'People'; The Star People; The Inherent Primacy of Female Beings.
Nadine Ehlers examines the constructions of blackness and whiteness cultivated in the U.S. imaginary and asks, how do individuals become racial subjects? She analyzes anti-miscegenation law, statutory definitions of race, and the rhetoric surrounding the phenomenon of racial passing to provide critical accounts of racial categorization and norms, the policing of racial behavior, and the regulation of racial bodies as they are underpinned by demarcations of sexuality, gender, and class. Ehlers places the work of Michel Foucault, Judith Butler s account of performativity, and theories of race into conversation to show how race is a form of discipline, that race is performative, and that all racial identity can be seen as performative racial passing. She tests these claims through an excavation of the 1925 "racial fraud" case of Rhinelander v. Rhinelander and concludes by considering the possibilities for racial agency, extending Foucault s later work on ethics and "technologies of the self" to explore the potential for racial transformation."
Changing Lapps A Study in Culture Relations in Northernmost Norway is a study of culture contact between the Saami and the Scandinavians, chiefly Norwegians, in an historical perspective. This study is based primarily on literary sources and official records supplemented by field work. In order to correct the stereotype of the Saami as being a homogeneous people and entirely nomadic reindeer breeders, Gjessing describes Saami social structure and the functional aspects of the contact in terms of three Saami sub-cultures, those of the sea Saami, Reindeer Saami, and the permanently settled inland Saami. Gjessing points out that there is an increasing feeling of solidarity following economic lines rather than the local and cultural lines among the Saami
Initially published in 1953, The Chinese of Sarawak, A Study of Social Structure, is the study of the social, economic and political organization of the Chinese Community during the author's visit of thirteen months in 1948 and 1949. Much of the material was obtained from personal interviews, as well as quotes from printed sources and from unpublished files of the Sarawak Government. The result is an enlightening and detailed analysis of a complex situation
Biological anthropology is a diverse field, with countless research methods and techniques in different sub-disciplines. This book takes a critical perspective to the current state of the field, exploring theory and practice in paleoanthropology, bioarchaeology, and ecology. Contributors challenge how evidence is discovered, collected and interpreted, and explain that researchers gain insights by de-familiarizing themselves from well-known methods and taking a different perspective - 'making the familiar strange'. The book covers how researchers' biases and assumptions affect the interpretation of topics such as human evolution and population movements; race, health, and disability; bodies and embodiment; and landscapes and ecology. A final chapter includes a critical assessment of new thinking about technology, in addition to the multilayered and complex nature of both research questions and evidence. This is an insightful text for researchers and graduate students in anthropology, biology, ecology, history and philosophy of science.
The Ethnic Composition of Tswana Tribes
Can the way a word is used give legitimacy to a political movement? Feminism, Violence, and Representation in Modern Italy traces the use of the word "femminicidio" (or "femicide") as a tool to mobilize Italian feminists, particularly the Union of Women in Italy (UDI). Based on nearly two years of fieldwork among feminist activists, Giovanna Parmigiani takes a broad look at the many ways in which violence inflects the lives of women in Italy. From unchallenged gendered grammar rules to the representation of women as victims, Parmigiani examines the devaluing of women's contribution to their communities through the words and experiences of the women she interviews. She describes the first uses of the word "femminicidio" as a political term used by and within feminist circles and traces its spread to ultimate legitimization and national relevance. The word redefined women as a political subject by building an imagined community of potentially violated women. In doing so, it challenged Italians to consider the status of women in Italian society, and to make this status a matter of public debate. It also problematized the connection between women and tropes of women as objects of suffering and victimhood. Parmigiani considers this exchange within the context of Italian Catholic heritage, a precarious economy, and long-held notions of honor and shame. Parmigiani provides a careful and searing consideration of the ways in which representations of violence and the politics of this representation are shaping the future of women in Italy and beyond.
Kinship and Continuity is a vivid ethnographic account of the development of the Pakistani presence in Oxford, from after World War II to the present day. Alison Shaw addresses the dynamics of migration, patterns of residence and kinship, ideas about health and illness, and notions of political and religious authority, and discusses the transformations and continuities of the lives of British Pakistanis against the backdrop of rural Pakistan and local socio-economic changes. This is a fully updated, revised edition of the book first published in 1988.
A fascinating insight into how human sexuality came to be the way it is now - Jared Diamond explains why we are different from the animal kingdom. Why are humans one of the few species to have sex in private? Why do humans have sex any day of the month or year, including when the female is pregnant, beyond her reproductive years, or between her fertile cycles? Why are human females one of the few mammals to go through menopause? Human sexuality seems normal to us but it is bizarre by the standards of other animals. Jared Diamond argues that our strange sex lives were as crucial to our rise to human status as were our large brains. He also describes the battle of the sexes in the human and animal world over parental care, and why sex differences in the genetic value of parental care provide a biological basis for the all-too-familiar different attitudes of men and women towards extramarital sex.
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY: A CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVE, Third Edition is a sophisticated synthesis of social and cultural anthropology. Keesing was concerned with the political and ethical implications of anthropological fieldwork and was sensitive to the global conditions of inequality caused by the spread of capitalist relations of production. Thus, his book is more "political" than other introductory texts in the field. Keesing was also committed to the belief that students should not merely memorize terms and theories, but should also be challenged to ponder the deep questions raised by human diversity. Roger Keesing's untimely death in 1992 necessitated that a co-author execute his planned revision. Dr. Andrew Strathern was chosen because, like Keesing, his training is in the British social anthropological tradition, his fieldwork has concentrated on the Pacific, and his recent teaching experience has acquainted him with American cultural anthropology. In this revision, Dr. Strathern preserved Keesing's vision, arguments, and the ethnographies presented as illustrations of Keesing's theories, while also examining each sentence to determine whether its assertions needed to be updated, modified, or abandoned. Small changes made in this way incorporated a larger aim of updating and recasting the book to better fit and reflect a world 20 years since publication of the first edition. |
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