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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social institutions > Customs & folklore > Customs
The contributions in this volume shed light on lived multilingualism around the globe. A small, but still representative selection of the multitude of migrant experiences, all studies share the intertwining of geographical mobility and non-mainstream linguistic practices which serves as a resource of agency and promotes alternative multiple identities of the immigrant speakers. This volume is based on the two core tenets of sociolinguistic identity research. First, it accepts the idea that identities or sub-identities are in a sense pre-given and can be formulated through membership categories. Second, identities are viewed as being enacted and performed, thus constituting social realities. In the social construction of identity, national and linguistic boundaries dissolve. The originating countries of the participants (and/or their ancestors) in the studies of this volume include Argentina, Ethiopia, Yugoslavia, Russia, Morocco, the Phillipines, Korea, Kazakhstan, Suriname and India. The countries of immigration include Germany, the USA, Israel, France and the Netherlands.
Given the increasing use of English worldwide and in intercultural communication, there is a growing interest in attitudes towards non-native speaker accents in English. Research on attitudes towards non-native English accents is therefore important because of concerns about positive and negative discrimination between people who speak with different accents. This book reveals exactly what types of accent variations trigger positive and negative attitudes towards the speaker. The author argues that certain types of variation in the pronunciation of English can have a significant effect on how listeners identify an accent and explores how this variation affects the development of certain attitudes towards the speaker. Specific sounds that are difficult for many learners to acquire (e.g. the initial sounds in 'this' or 'June') are examined in terms of attitudes towards speakers' pronunciation, including an original comparison of two different kinds of non-native accents (German and Greek). The results of the study provide a basis for further research in second language acquisition and applied linguistics as well as practical information for language instructors at all levels of English education.
This book explores the unique experiences of African-born educators and students in North American K-12 classrooms, as well as those of education faculty and administrators. It identifies the conflicting attributes that African-born educators and students bring into American schools and the challenges of working in linguistically, racially and culturally regulated educational spaces. The collected essays examine how attributes assigned to immigrant teachers by the host community of students, colleagues and administrators can serve both as conduits and deterrents for effective teaching. In all, Reprocessing Race, Language and Ability uncovers the existence of unavoidable - though not insurmountable - racial, cultural and linguistic dissonance when African and western cultures come in contact.
It's the thought that counts. So, while society has changed, the need for thoughtfulness, courtesy and good manners has not. What is the etiquette for internet use, emails, and mobile phone calls? How does one handle the delicate politics of apartment-sharing? What are the rules for meeting through a dating agency? Mind Your Manners provides effective answers to these and many more dilemmas of 21st century decorum.
Denominationalism--that ''free market'' mode of organizing religious life which, some say, manages to combine traditional religious claims with a free society in a peculiarly American way--is the subject of the previously unpublished papers in this collection. No institution, the editors argue, is as crucial for the understanding of American religious life, yet so much in need of reassessment as the denomination. In a wide-ranging collection of articles, a distinguished set of commentators on American religion examine the denomination's past and present roles, its definable nature, and its evolution over time. The study of denominations, the authors show, sheds light on broader understandings of American religious and cultural life. The contributors--scholars of the Roman Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Mormon, and African-American traditions--explore the state and history of denominational studies in America, suggesting new models and approaches drawn from anthropology, sociology, theology, history, and history of religions. They offer provocative case studies that reimagine denominational studies.
Believing in Belonging draws on empirical research exploring
mainstream religious belief and identity in Euro-American
countries. Starting from a qualitative study based in northern
England, and then broadening the data to include other parts of
Europe and North America, Abby Day explores how people "believe in
belonging," choosing religious identifications to complement other
social and emotional experiences of "belongings." The concept of
"performative belief" helps explain how otherwise non-religious
people can bring into being a Christian identity related to social
belongings.
This book is a study of the origins and development of cult practice at Olympia and Delphi. It traces changing patterns of activity through the material record, and challenges many assumptions about the nature and role of the archaeological data. Dr Morgan considers the economics of dedication, technology and the organization of craft production, which provide insights into the behaviour of producers and purchasers of material dedicated at sanctuaries. Her study is exceptional for the emphasis placed upon the two sites in their contemporary local contexts and their changing roles in society. The progression of state formation is discussed through the relationship between changes in dedicatory practice during the eighth century and the changing needs of communities. The book concludes with a detailed study of the wider roles of Olympia and Delphi as two major sanctuaries in Archaic Greece, considering their relationships with other sites and their place in the Greek festival calendar.
While Victorian tourism and Victorian sexuality have been the subject of much recent critical interest, there has been little research on a characteristically nineteenth-century phenomenon relating to both sex and travel: the honeymoon, or wedding journey. Although the term 'honeymoon' was coined in the eighteenth century, the ritual increased in popularity throughout the Victorian period, until by the end of the century it became a familiar accompaniment to the wedding for all but the poorest classes. Using letters and diaries of 61 real-life honeymooning couples, as well as novels from Frankenstein to Middlemarch that feature honeymoon scenarios, Michie explores the cultural meanings of the honeymoon, arguing that, with its emphasis on privacy and displacement, the honeymoon was central to emerging ideals of conjugality and to ideas of the couple as a primary social unit.
As a conquest dynasty, Qing China's new Manchu leaders desperately needed to legitimize their rule. To win the approval of China's native elites, they developed an ambitious plan to return Confucianism to civil society. Filial piety, the core Confucian value, would once again be upheld by the state, and laborious and time-consuming mourning rituals, the touchstones of a well-ordered Confucian society, would be observed by officials throughout the empire. In this way, the emperor would be following the ancient dictate that he 'govern all-under-heaven with filial piety'. Norman Kutcher's study of mourning looks beneath the rhetoric to demonstrate how the state - unwilling to make the sacrifices that a genuine commitment to proper mourning demanded - quietly but forcefully undermined, not reinvigorated, the Confucian mourning system. With acute sensitivity to language and its changing meanings, Kutcher sheds light on a wide variety of issues that are of interest to historians of late Imperial China.
Known in the Dominican Republic and Togo as Vodu, in Benin as Vodun, and in Haiti as Vodou, West African religion has, for hundreds of years, served as a repository of sacred knowledge while simultaneously evolving in response to human experience and globalization. Spirit Service: Vodun and Vodou in the African Atlantic World explores this dynamic religion, its mobility, and its place in the modern world. By examining the systems-ritual practices, community-based spirit veneration, and spiritual means of securing opportunity and well-being-alongside the individuals who worship, this rich collection offers the first comprehensive ethnographic study of West African spirit service on a broad scale. Contributors consider social encounters between African/Haitian practitioners and European / North American spiritual seekers, economies and histories, funerary rites and spirit possessions, and examinations of gender and materiality. Offering much-needed perspective on this historically disparaged religion, Spirit Service reminds us all that the gods are growing, assimilating, and demanding recognition and respect.
A first edition of The Halloween Encyclopedia was published by McFarland in 2003 (Booklist "a worthy addition to public and school libraries as well as the reference shelves of journalists and leaders of community events"); it was the first encyclopedic reference book on the cultural phenomenon (which also deals with such related holidays as Britain's Guy Fawkes Day, Mexico's Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, and the Celtic celebration Samhain). Now updated to 2010, this second edition includes more than 50 new entries, covering subjects ranging from Folk Art to African American legends. Many existing entries have been expanded and revised, with new entries ("Chronology of Halloween" and "Halloween in Literature and the Arts") in both appendices. Also featured are more than a dozen new illustrations, and an expanded bibliography.
Meatless Mondays, Wheatless Wednesdays, vegetable gardens and
chickens in every empty lot. When the United States entered World
War I, Minnesotans responded to appeals for personal sacrifice and
changed the way they cooked and ate in order to conserve food for
the boys "over there." Baking with corn and rye, eating simple
meals based on locally grown food, consuming fewer calories, and
wasting nothing in the kitchen became civic acts. High-energy foods
and calories unconsumed on the American home front could help the
food-starved, war-torn American Allies eat another day and fight
another battle.
The liturgy of the medieval church has been little studied in its relation to medieval thought and society. It has often been taken for granted that the Latin liturgy was understood by the priest, but to his congregation was only a spectacle of authority. This book begins with the hypothesis that the liturgy was, in some senses, understood by its congregations, and it attempts to discover what this understanding might have been. Through studies of the sermons and writings of Tertullian, Ambrose, Augustine, Bede, Abelard and others, of the practice of infant baptism, and of the art and architecture of the baptistery, the book attempts to rediscover the underlying philosophy of symbol which is the grounds of ritual understanding in both priest and congregation.
Covering a wide range of substances, including opium, cocaine,
coffee, tobacco, kola, and betelnut, from prehistory to the present
day, this new edition has been extensively updated, with an updated
bibliography and two new chapters on cannabis and khat. Consuming
Habits is the perfect companion for all those interested in how
different cultures have defined drugs across the ages. Psychoactive substances have been central to the formation of civilizations, the definition of cultural identities, and the growth of the world economy. The labelling of these substances as 'legal' or 'illegal' has diverted attention away from understanding their important cultural and historical role. This collection explores the rich analytical category of psychoactive substances from challenging historical and anthropological perspectives.
Contemporary forms of living and dying in Swaziland cannot be understood apart from the global HIV/AIDS pandemic, according to anthropologist Casey Golomski. In Africa's last absolute monarchy, the story of 15 years of global collaboration in treatment and intervention is also one of ordinary people facing the work of caring for the sick and dying and burying the dead. Golomski's ethnography shows how AIDS posed challenging questions about the value of life, culture, and materiality to drive new forms and practices for funerals. Many of these forms and practicesnewly catered funeral feasts, an expanded market for life insurance, and the kingdom's first crematoriumare now conspicuous across the landscape and culturally disruptive in a highly traditionalist setting. This powerful and original account details how these new matters of death, dying, and funerals have become entrenched in peoples' everyday lives and become part of a quest to create dignity in the wake of a devastating epidemic.
White South Africans have continued to enjoy the lion's share Africa's land and riches since the end of statutory apartheid. With the recent threat of land expropriation without compensation, many believe that the racial order itself is about to be undone. It is in these dying moments of the myth of the "Rainbow Nation" that White Belongings: Race, Land, and Property in Post-Apartheid South Africa deepens ongoing critical deconstruction of the role of whiteness in maintaining racial order. The book analyses white discourse at a time of increasing stridency and defensiveness, arguing that the protection of white entitlement and cultural connection to the land are intimately interwoven. To show this, Scott Burnett uses detailed discourse analysis of campaigns aimed at preventing rhino poaching, stopping fracking in the Karoo, and advocating for the existence of a poverty "crisis." These social and traditional media texts reveal how whites hold on to their "belongings" in everyday talk. The author mobilizes key strategies such as asserting ecological indigeneity, promoting enclave entrepreneurialism, and reproducing the rationality of market liberalism. White Belongings goes beyond the preoccupation with identity in whiteness studies to elaborate how specific subject roles and institutions are motivated and rationalized in hegemonic discursive regimes.
In the early 1960s, this classic work of investigative journalism was a number one bestseller. The savage and hilarious analysis of America's funeral practices rocked the industry and shocked the public. This up-dated edition (revised just before the author's death) shows that if anything the industry has become more pernicious than ever in its assault on our practices and wallets. And it's an industry that - alas - sooner or later affects us all.
As a conquest dynasty, Qing China's new Manchu leaders desperately needed to legitimize their rule. To win the approval of China's native elites, they developed an ambitious plan to return Confucianism to civil society. Filial piety, the core Confucian value, would once again be upheld by the state, and laborious and time-consuming mourning rituals, the touchstones of a well-ordered Confucian society, would be observed by officials throughout the empire. In this way, the emperor would be following the ancient dictate that he 'govern all-under-heaven with filial piety'. Norman Kutcher's study of mourning looks beneath the rhetoric to demonstrate how the state - unwilling to make the sacrifices that a genuine commitment to proper mourning demanded - quietly but forcefully undermined, not reinvigorated, the Confucian mourning system. With acute sensitivity to language and its changing meanings, Kutcher sheds light on a wide variety of issues that are of interest to historians of late Imperial China.
The austerity crisis has radically altered the economic landscape of Southern Europe. But alongside the decimation of public services and infrastructure lies the wreckage of a generation's visions for the future. In Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal, there is a new, difficult reality of downward mobility. Grassroots Economies interrogates the effects of the economic crisis on the livelihood of working people, providing insight into their anxieties. Drawing on a wide range of ethnographic material, it is a distinctive comparative analysis that explores the contradictions of their coping mechanisms and support structures. With a focus on gender, the book explores values and ideologies, including dispossession and accumulation. Ultimately it demonstrates that everyday interactions on the local scale provide a significant sense of the global.
This classic ethnography, now in second edition, describes the
traditional way of life of the Kaluli, a tropical forest people of
Papua New Guinea. The book takes as its focus the nostalgic and
violent Gisaro ceremony, one of the most remarkable performances in
the anthropological literature. Tracking the major symbolic and
emotional themes of the ceremony to their sources in everyday
Kaluli life, Schieffelin shows how the central values and passions
of Kaluli experience are governed by the basic forms of social
reciprocity. However, Gisaro also reveals that social reciprocity
is not limited to the dynamics of transaction, obligation, and
alliance. It emerges, rather, as a mode of symbolic action and
performative form, embodying a cultural scenario which shapes
Kaluli emotional experience and moral sensibility and permeates
their understanding of the human condition.
In 1801, some five years after Robert Burns' death, nine of his friends sat down to dinner in what is now known as Burns Cottage in Alloway to celebrate his extraordinary life and to give thanks for his friendship. Over the years the informal theme from that evening has developed into the ritual known as Burns Night. This best-selling book is the essential guide for anyone intending to hold or attend a Burns Night of any size. In addition to setting out the order of events for the evening, the Burns Supper Companion also offers fascinating insights into the traditions surrounding Burns Night. Nancy Marshall has spent a large part of her life living and working in Edinburgh. She read English Literature and Medieval History at Edinburgh University, going on to write widely about Scottish song and the poems and songs of Robert Burns.
Sharon V. Salinger's "Taverns and Drinking in Early America" supplies the first study of public houses and drinking throughout the mainland British colonies. At a time when drinking water supposedly endangered one's health, colonists of every rank, age, race, and gender drank often and in quantity, and so taverns became arenas for political debate, business transactions, and small-town gossip sessions. Salinger explores the similarities and differences in the roles of drinking and tavern sociability in small towns, cities, and the countryside; in Anglican, Quaker, and Puritan communities; and in four geographic regions. Challenging the prevailing view that taverns tended to break down class and gender differences, Salinger persuasively argues they did not signal social change so much as buttress custom and encourage exclusion.
Throughout the centuries, different cultures have established a variety of procedures for handling and disposing of corpses. Often the methods are directly associated with the deceased's position in life, such as a pharaoh's mummification in Egypt or the cremation of a Buddhist. Treatment by the living of the dead over time and across cultures is the focus of study. Burial arrangements and preparations are detailed, including embalming, the funeral service, storage and transport of the body, and forms of burial. Autopsies and the investigative process of causes of deliberate death are fully covered. Preservation techniques such as cryonic suspension and mummification are discussed, as well as a look at the ?recycling? of the corpse through organ donation, donation to medicine, animal scavengers, cannibalism, and, of course, natural decay and decomposition. Mistreatments of a corpse are also covered.
Peruvian author Ricardo Palma (1838-1919) was one of the most popular and imitated writers in Latin America during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As head of the National Library in Lima, Palma had access to a rich source of historical books and manuscripts. His historical miscellanies, which he called "traditions," are witty anecdotes about conquerors, viceroys, corrupt and lovelorn friars, tragic loves and notorious characters. Humor, irony and word play characterize his collection of over five hundred traditions written between 1872 and 1906, whether describing violent deeds or amorous misadventures. Unlike many of his contemporaries in the second half of the nineteenth century, Palma did not write transparent didactic fictions and defend elite cultural forms. Rather, he reveled in ironic approaches to written sources, political authorities and church institutions as well as popular speech and knowledge. Both fiction and history, Palma's delightful Peruvian Traditions represents a hybrid literary form that constructs historical memory distinct from the dominant literary trends of the time. |
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