This innovative portrait of student life in an urban high school focuses on the academic success of African-American students, exploring the symbolic role of academic achievement within the Black community and investigating the price students pay for attaining it. Signithia Fordham's richly detailed ethnography reveals a deeply rooted cultural system that favors egalitarianism and group cohesion over the individualistic, competitive demands of academic success and sheds new light on the sources of academic performance. She also details the ways in which the achievements of sucessful African-Americans are "blacked out" of the public imagination and negative images are reflected onto black adolescents. A self-proclaimed "native" anthropologist, she chronicles the struggle of African-American students to construct an identity suitable to themselves, their peers, and their families within an arena of colliding ideals. This long-overdue contribution is of crucial importance to educators, policymakers, and ethnographers.

While Karnatic music, a form of Indian music based on the melodic principle of raga and time cycles called tala, is known today as South India's classical music, its status as "classical" is an early-twentieth-century construct, one that emerged in the crucible of colonial modernity, nationalist ideology, and South Indian regional politics. As Amanda J. Weidman demonstrates, in order for Karnatic music to be considered classical music, it needed to be modeled on Western classical music, with its system of notation, composers, compositions, conservatories, and concerts. At the same time, it needed to remain distinctively Indian. Weidman argues that these contradictory imperatives led to the emergence of a particular "politics of voice," in which the voice came to stand for authenticity and Indianness.Combining ethnographic observation derived from her experience as a student and performer of South Indian music with close readings of archival materials, Weidman traces the emergence of this politics of voice through compelling analyses of the relationship between vocal sound and instrumental imitation, conventions of performance and staging, the status of women as performers, debates about language and music, and the relationship between oral tradition and technologies of printing and sound reproduction. Through her sustained exploration of the way "voice" is elaborated as a trope of modern subjectivity, national identity, and cultural authenticity, Weidman provides a model for thinking about the voice in anthropological and historical terms. In so doing, she shows that modernity is characterized as much by particular ideas about orality, aurality, and the voice as it is by regimes of visuality.

To understand what is happening in the brain in the moment you decide, at will, to summon to consciousness a passage of Mozart's music, or decide to take a deep breath, is like trying to "catch a phantom by the tail". Consciousness remains that most elusive of all human phenomena - one so mysterious, one that even our highly developed knowledge of brain function can only partly explain. This book is unique in tracing the origins of consciousness. It takes the investigation back many years in an attempt to uncover just how consciousness might have first emerged. Consciousness did not develop suddenly in humans - it evolved gradually. In 'The Primordial Emotions', Derek Denton, a world renowned expert on animal instinct and a leader in integrative physiology, investigates the evolution of consciousness. Central to the book is the idea that the primal emotions - elements of instinctive behaviour - were the first dawning of consciousness. Throughout he examines instinctive behaviours, such as hunger for air, hunger for minerals, thirst, and pain, arguing that the emotions elicited from these behaviours and desire for gratification culminated in the first conscious states. To develop the theory he looks at behaviour at different levels of the evolutionary tree, for example of octopuses, fish, snakes, birds, and elephants. Coupled with findings from neuroimaging studies, and the viewpoints on consciousness from some of the key figures in philosophy and neuroscience, the book presents an accessible and groundbreaking new look at the problem of consciousness.

An internationally known dancer, choreographer, and gifted anthropologist, Katherine Dunham was born to a black American tailor and a well-to-do French Canadian woman twenty years his senior. This book is Dunham's story of the chaos and conflict that entered her childhood after her mother's early death. In stark prose, she tells of growing up in both black and white households and of the divisions of race and class in Chicago that become the harsh realities of her young life. A riveting narrative of one girl's struggle to transcend the painful confusions of a family and culture in turmoil, Dunham's story is full of the clarity, candor, and intelligence that lifted her above her troubled beginnings.

Historian, journalist, educator, and civil rights advocate W. E. B. Du Bois was perhaps most accomplished as a sociologist of race relations and of the black community in the United States. This volume collects his most important sociological writings from 1898 to 1910. The eighteen selections include five on Du Bois's conception of sociology and sociological research, especially as a tool in the struggle for racial justice; excerpts from studies of black communities in the South and the North, including "The Philadelphia Negro;" writings on black culture and social life, with a selection from "The Negro American Family;" and later works on race relations in the United States and elsewhere after World War II. This section includes a powerful fiftieth-anniversary reassessment of his classic 1901 article in the "Atlantic" in which he predicted that "the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line."
The editors provide an annotated bibliography, a lengthy overview of Du Bois's life and work, and detailed introductions to the selections.
"The most significant contribution of this book is its inclusive look at Du Bois as both academic and activist. . . . Individuals interested in the study of social issues and political sociology would benefit from reading and discussing this book."--Paul Kriese, "Sociology: Reviews of New Books
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"Green and Driver, informing this volume with a 48-page essay that summarizes Du Bois' career and places him in the context of the profession, have intelligently organized his writings. . . . A welcome contribution that should have wide use."--Elliott Rudwick, "Contemporary Sociology
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"Multiculturalism: A Critical Reader" delineates the prevailing concerns and considerations, principles and practices, concepts and categories that fall under the rubric of "multiculturalism". The contributors spell out what they take multiculturalism to be committed to as much as what it is against. The themes analyzed, include the relations between self and other, selves and others; between knowledge, power, pedagogy, and empowerment; between disciplinary definition and canonical confinement; between meaning, ambiguity, and representation; between history and multiple intersecting histories, reason and rationalities; and between culture domination, resistance, and self-assertion.

Just over one hundred and thirty years ago Charles Darwin, in The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), developed remarkably accurate conclusions about man's ancestry, based on a review of general comparative anatomy and psychology in which he regarded sexual selection as a necessary part of the evolutionary process. But the attention of biologists turned to the more general concept of natural selection, in which sexual selection plays a complex role that has been little understood. This volume significantly broadens the scope of modern evolutionary biology by looking at this important and long neglected concept of great importance.

In this book, which is the first full discussion of sexual selection since 1871, leading biologists bring modern genetic theory and behavior observation to bear on the subject. The distinguished authors consider many aspects of sexual selection in many species, including man, within the context of contemporary evolutionary theory and research. The result is a remarkably original and well-rounded view of the whole concept that will be invaluable especially to students of evolution and human sexual behavior. The lucid authority of the contributors and the importance of the topic will interest all who share in man's perennial fascination with his own history.

The book will be of central importance to a wide variety of professionals, including biologists, anthropologists, and geneticists. It will be an invaluable supplementary text for courses in vertebrate biology, theory of evolution, genetics, and physical anthropology. It is especially important with the emergence of alternative explanations of human development, under the rubric of creationism and doctrines of intelligent design.

Detours of Decolonization examines three seemingly disparate and high profile events in postcolonial India that captured nation and transnational/diasporic interest since the 1990s: the emergence of the Indian homosexual, the new trans/national heterosexual woman, lesbian suicides, marriage and kinship contracts in small towns around India and the simultaneous evolution of the modern homophobia and lesbian NGOs. These events demonstrate the material, political, and cultural contexts within which postcolonial subjects negotiate their lived experiences within moments of decolonization and recolonization.

This first sustained ethnographic study of organic agriculture outside the United States traces its meanings, practices, and politics in two nations typically considered worlds apart: Latvia and Costa Rica. Situated on the frontiers of the European Union and the United States, these geopolitically and economically in-between places illustrate ways that international treaties have created contradictory pressures for organic farmers. Organic farmers in both countries build multispecies networks of biological and social diversity and create spaces of sovereignty within state and suprastate governance bodies. Organic associations in Central America and Eastern Europe face parallel challenges in balancing multiple identities as social movements, market sectors, and NGOs while finding their place in regions and nations reshaped by world events.

Most women who elect to have cosmetic surgery want a "natural" outcome-a discrete alteration of the body that appears unaltered. Under the Knife examines this theme in light of a cultural paradox. Whereas women are encouraged to improve their appearance, there is also a stigma associated with those who do so via surgery. Samantha Kwan and Jennifer Graves reveal how women negotiate their "unnatural"-but hopefully (in their view) natural-looking-surgically-altered bodies. Based on in-depth interviews with 46 women who underwent cosmetic surgery to enhance their appearance, the authors investigate motivations for surgery as well as women's thoughts about looking natural after the procedures. Under the Knife dissects the psychological and physical strategies these women use to manage the expectations, challenges, and disappointments of cosmetic surgery while also addressing issues of agency and empowerment. It shows how different cultural intersections can produce varied goals and values around body improvement. Under the Knife highlights the role of deep-seated yet contradictory gendered meanings about women's bodies, passing, and boundary work. The authors also consider traditional notions of femininity and normalcy that trouble women's struggle to preserve an authentic moral self.

In "Balinese Worlds," Fredrik Barth proposes a new model for anthropological analysis of complex civilizations that is based on a fresh, synthetic account of culture and society in North Bali and one that takes full notice of individual creativity in shaping the contours of this dynamic culture.
In this detailed ethnography of the Northern district of Buleleng, Barth rejects mainstream anthropological generalizations of Bali as a cultural system of carefully articulated parts. Instead--drawing on many sources, including the sociology of knowledge, interactional analysis, postmodern thought, and his own exceptionally varied field experience--Barth presents a new model that actually generates variation. Barth's innovative analysis of Balinese life highlights both the constructive and the disorganizing effects of individual action, the constant flux of interpretation, and the powerful interaction of memory and social relationships, and knowledge as a cultural resource.
"Balinese Worlds" is a unique contribution not only to Balinese studies but also to the theory and methods of the anthropology of complex societies.

In this long-anticipated second edition of The Art of Fieldwork, prominent anthropologist Harry F. Wolcott updates his original groundbreaking text, which both challenges and petitions anthropology and its practitioners to draw not only on the traditional precepts of science, but also on the richness of artistry in the collection, interpretation, and expression of fieldwork data. Each of the original chapters have been thoughtfully revised to reflect the past nine years of anthropological development. Combined with a new final chapter, this refreshing text makes an exciting reentry into the ongoing debate of the processes, challenges, and rewards of fieldwork methodology. Researchers in qualitative methods and field methods and fieldworkers across disciplines will find this well-crafted, approachable book a thought-provoking read."

In The History of Anthropology Regna Darnell offers a critical reexamination of the Americanist tradition centered around the figure of Franz Boas and the professionalization of anthropology as an academic discipline in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Focused on researchers often known as the Boasians, The History of Anthropology reveals the theoretical schools, institutions, and social networks of scholars and fieldworkers primarily interested in the anthropology and ethnography of North American Indigenous peoples. Darnell's fifty-year career entails seminal writings in the history of anthropology's four fields: cultural anthropology, ethnography, linguistics, and physical anthropology. Leading researchers, theorists, and fieldwork subjects include Edward Sapir, Daniel Brinton, Mary Haas, Franz Boas, Leonard Bloomfield, Benjamin Lee Whorf, Stanley Newman, and A. Irving Hallowell, as well as the professionalization of anthropology, the development of American folklore scholarship, theories of Indigenous languages, Southwest ethnographic research, Indigenous ceremonialism, text traditions, and anthropology's forays into contemporary public intellectual debates. The History of Anthropology is the essential volume for scholars, undergraduates, and graduate students to enter into the history of the Americanist tradition and its legacies, alternating historicism and presentism to contextualize anthropology's historical and contemporary relevance and legacies.

The stone tools and fossil bones from the earliest archaeological sites in Africa have been used over the past fifty years to create models that interpret how early hominins lived, foraged, behaved, and communicated, and how early and modern humans evolved. In this book, an international team of archaeologists and primatologists examines early Stone Age tools and bones and uses scientific methods to test alternative hypotheses that explain the archaeological record. By focusing on both lithics and faunal records, this volume presents the most holistic view to date of the archaeology of human origins.

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

This pathbreaking book is the first to provide a rigorous and comprehensive examination of Internet culture and consumption. A rich ethnography of Internet use, the book offers a sustained account not just of being online, but of the social, political and cultural contexts which account for the contemporary Internet experience. From cybercafes to businesses, from middle class houses to squatters settlements, from the political economy of Internet provision to the development of ecommerce, the authors have gathered a wealth of material based on fieldwork in Trinidad. Looking at the full range of Internet media -- including websites, email and chat -- the book brings out unforeseen consequences and contradictions in areas as varied as personal relations, commerce, nationalism, sex and religion. This is the first book-length treatment of the impact of the Internet on a particular region. By focusing on one place, it demonstrates the potential for a comprehensive approach to new media. It points to the future direction of Internet research, proposing a detailed agenda for comparative ethnographic study of the cultural significance and effects of the Internet in modern society. Clearly written for the non-specialist reader, it offers a detailed account of the complex integration between on-line and off-line worlds. An innovative tie-in with the book's own website provides copious illustrations amounting to over 2,000 web-pages that bring the material right to your computer.

In this absorbing history, Henry Warner Bowden chronicles the encounters between native Americans and the evangelizing whites from the period of exploration and colonization to the present. He writes with a balanced perspective that pleads no special case for native separatism or Christian uniqueness. Ultimately, he broadens our understanding of both intercultural exchanges and the continuing strength of American Indian spirituality, expressed today in Christian forms as well as in revitalized folkways.
Bowden makes a radical departure from the traditional approach. Drawing on the theories and findings of anthropologists, archaeologists, and historians, he presents Indian-missionary relations as a series of cultural encounters, the outcomes of which were determined by the content of native beliefs, the structure of native religious institutions, and external factors such as epidemic diseases and military conflicts, as well as by the missionaries' own resources and abilities. The result is a provocative, insightful historical essay that liberates a complex subject from the narrow perimeters of past discussions and accords it an appropriate richness and complexity. . . . For anyone with an interest in Indian-missionary relations, from the most casual to the most specialized, this book is the place to begin.--Neal Salisbury, Theology Today
If one wishes to read a concise, thought-provoking ethnohistory of Indian missions, 1540-1980, this is it. Henry Warner Bowden's history, perhaps for the first time, places the sweep of Christian evangelism fully in the context of vigorous, believable, native religions.--Robert H. Keller, Jr., American Historical Review

The chimpanzees are the closest living evolutionary relatives to our own species, Homo sapiens. As such, they have long exerted a fascination over those with an interest in human evolution, and human uniqueness. Chrisophe Boesch and Hedwige Boesch-Acherman undertook an incredible observational study of a group of wild chimpanzees in Cote D'Ivoire, spending some fifteen years in the West African forest with them. This fascinating book is the result of these years of painstaking research among the chimps. Chimpanzee behaviour is documented here in all its impressive diversity and variety, and placed within the broader context of research in behavioural ecology. The authors also succeed in shedding light on some of the central questions around the evolutionary relationships between the primates, and in particular the affinity between chimpanzees and humans.

Is TV news racist? If the purpose of local news is to cover individual communities and to present issues of interest and concern to local audiences, why are local newscasts so similar in markets around the country? These are the questions that motivated Heider's research, leading to the development of this book. Recognizing that local news is the outlet through which most people get their news, Heider ventured into the local television newsrooms in two moderate-size, culturally diverse U.S. markets to observe the news process. In this report, he uses his insider's perspective to examine why local television news coverage of people of color does not occur in more meaningful ways.
Heider examines the perceptions of racism and ethnicity, and addresses such dichotomies as "white" news (content determined by white managers) being delivered by non-white news anchors, thus giving the appearance of "non-white" news. He also considers how coverage of minorities influences viewers' perceptions of their minority neighbors. Heider then sets forth a new theoretical concept--incognizant racism--as a way of explaining how news workers consistently ignore news in significant portions of the communities they cover.
This contribution to the minorities and media discussion provides important insights into the newsroom decision-making process and the sociology and structure of newsrooms. It is required reading for all who are involved in news reporting, mass communication, media and minority studies, and cultural issues in today's society.

Humans have become much taller and heavier, and experience healthier and longer lives than ever before in human history. However it is only recently that historians, economists, human biologists and demographers have linked the changing size, shape and capability of the human body to economic and demographic change. This fascinating and groundbreaking book presents an accessible introduction to the field of anthropometric history, surveying the causes and consequences of changes in health and mortality, diet and the disease environment in Europe and the United States since 1700. It examines how we define and measure health and nutrition as well as key issues such as whether increased longevity contributes to greater productivity or, instead, imposes burdens on society through the higher costs of healthcare and pensions. The result is a major contribution to economic and social history with important implications for today's developing world and the health trends of the future.

In growing numbers, archeologists are specializing in the analysis of excavated animal bones as clues to the environment and behavior of ancient peoples. This pathbreaking work provides a detailed discussion of the outstanding issues and methods of bone studies that will interest zooarcheologists as well as paleontologists who focus on reconstructing ecologies from bones. Because large samples of bones from archeological sites require tedious and time-consuming analysis, the authors also offer a set of computer programs that will greatly simplify the bone specialist's job.
After setting forth the interpretive framework that governs their use of numbers in faunal analysis, Richard G. Klein and Kathryn Cruz-Uribe survey various measures of taxonomic abundance, review methods for estimating the sex and age composition of a fossil species sample, and then give examples to show how these measures and sex/age profiles can provide useful information about the past. In the second part of their book, the authors present the computer programs used to calculate and analyze each numerical measure or count discussed in the earlier chapters. These elegant and original programs, written in BASIC, can easily be used by anyone with a microcomputer or with access to large mainframe computers.

The fact that bodies decay after death has concerned humans throughout the ages. Many cultures have attempted to arrest this decay, so that bodies are preserved (or mummified) in a state as near to life as possible, but spontaneously mummified bodies are also found. Mummies are being studied increasingly to answer questions about the health, social standing and beliefs of the population from whence they came, and the lessons that they have for modern populations. Originally published in 2003, this authoritative reference work explores why people mummify bodies and the mechanisms by which they are preserved, details study methods and surveys the myriad examples that can be found worldwide, evaluates the use and abuse of mummified bodies throughout the ages, and how mummified remains can be conserved for the future. Lavishly illustrated, The Scientific Study of Mummies will be of value to all those interested in paleopathology, archaeology and anthropology.

Ever since the emergence of human culture, people and animals have co-existed in close proximity. Humans have always recognized both their kinship with animals and their fundamental differences, as animals have always been a threat to humans' well-being. The relationship, therefore, has been complex, intimate, reciprocal, personal, and -- crucially -- ambivalent. It is hardly surprising that animals evoke strong emotions in humans, both positive and negative.
This companion volume to Morris' important earlier work, The Power of Animals, is a sustained investigation of the Malawi people's sacramental attitude to animals, particularly the role that animals play in life-cycle rituals, their relationship to the divinity and to spirits of the dead. How people relate to and use animals speaks volumes about their culture and beliefs. This book overturns the ingrained prejudice within much ethnographic work, which has often dismissed the pivotal role animals play in culture, and shows that personhood, religion, and a wide range of rituals are informed by, and even dependent upon, human-animal relations.

Death, for bacteria, is not inevitable. Protect a bacterium from predators, and provide it with adequate food and space to grow, and it would continue living--and reproducing asexually--forever. But a paramecium (a slightly more advanced single-cell organism), under the same ideal conditions, would stop dividing after about 200 generations--and die. Death, for paramecia and their offspring, is inevitable. Unless they have sex. If at any point during that 200 or so generations, two of the progeny of our paramecium have sex, their clock will be reset to zero. They and their progeny are granted another 200 generations. Those who fail to have sex eventually die. Immortality for bacteria is automatic; for all other living beings--including humans--immortality depends on having sex. But why is this so? Why must death be inevitable? And what is the connection between death and sexual reproduction?
In Sex and the Origins of Death, William R. Clark looks at life and death at the level of the cell, as he addresses such profound questions as why we age, why death exists, and why death and sex go hand in hand. Clark reveals that there are in fact two kinds of cell death--accidental death, caused by extreme cold or heat, starvation, or physical destruction, and "programmed cell death," initiated by codes embedded in our DNA. (Bacteria have no such codes.) We learn that every cell in our body has a self-destruct program embedded into it and that cell suicide is in fact a fairly commonplace event. We also discover that virtually every aspect of a cell's life is regulated by its DNA, including its own death, that the span of life is genetically determined (identical twins on average die 36 months apart, randomly selected siblings 106 months apart), that human tissue in culture will divide some 50 times and then die (an important exception being tumor cells, which divide indefinitely). But why do our cells have such programs? Why must we die? To shed light on this question, Clark reaches far back in evolutionary history, to the moment when "inevitable death" (death from aging) first appeared. For cells during the first billion years, death, when it occurred, was accidental; there was nothing programmed into them that said they must die. But fierce competition gradually led to multicellular animals--size being an advantage against predators--and with this change came cell specialization and, most important, germ cells in which reproductive DNA was segregated. When sexual reproduction evolved, it became the dominant form of reproduction on the planet, in part because mixing DNA from two individuals corrects errors that have crept into the code. But this improved DNA made DNA in the other (somatic) cells not only superfluous, but dangerous, because somatic DNA might harbor mutations. Nature's solution to this danger, Clark concludes, was programmed death--the somatic cells must die. Unfortunately, we are the somatic cells. Death is necessary to exploit to the fullest the advantages of sexual reproduction.
In Sex and the Origins of Death, William Clark ranges far and wide over fascinating terrain. Whether describing a 62-year-old man having a major heart attack (and how his myocardial cells rupture and die), or discussing curious life-forms that defy any definition of life (including bacterial spores, which can regenerate after decades of inactivity, and viruses, which are nothing more than DNA or RNA wrapped in protein), this brilliant, profound volume illuminates the miraculous workings of life at its most elemental level and finds in these tiny spaces the answers to some of our largest questions.