Anthropologist Donald Joralemon asks whether America is really, as many scholars claim, a death-denying culture that prefers to quarantine the sick in hospitals and the elderly in nursing homes. His answer is a reasoned "no." In his view, Americans are merely struggling to find cultural scripts for the exceptional conditions of dying that our social world and medical technologies have thrust upon us. The book: is written in the first-person for a broad audience by a senior anthropologist, making it an authoritative yet accessible textbook for courses on death and dying and American culture; includes contemporary debates about highly visible cases, the definition of death, the status of human remains, aging, and the medicalization of grief; demonstrates persuasively that arguments over death and dying are in fact arguments about what it means to be human in modern America.

First Published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Arakmbut are an indigenous people who live in the Madre de Dios region of the southeastern Peruvian rain forest. Since their first encounters with missionaries in the 1950s,they have shown resilience and a determination to affirm their identity in the face of many difficulties. During the last fifteen years, Arakmbut survival has been under threat from a goldrush that has attracted hundreds of colonists onto their territories. This trilogy of books traces the ways in which the Arakmbut overcome the dangers that surround them: their mythology and cultural strength; their social flexibility; and their capacity to incorporate non-indigenous concepts and activities into their defence strategies. Each area is punctuated by the constant presence of the invisible spirit, which provides a seamless theme connecting the books to each other. The death of a shaman in 1980 had an enormous spiritual and political consequences for one of the Arakmbut communities, resulting in a shift in its social organization from comparative hierarchy to a more egalitarian system. The author uses this case as an illustration to challenge the idea that indigenous peoples live in fossilized, static worlds. He shows that political activities in conjunction with shamanic communication with the spirit world provide the impetus and context for change. Buy all three volumes for 20% discount

This handbook defines the contours of environmental sociology and invites readers to push boundaries in their exploration of this important subdiscipline. It offers a comprehensive overview of the evolution of environmental sociology and its role in this era of intensified national and global environmental crises. Its timely frameworks and high-impact chapters will assist in navigating this moment of great environmental inequality and uncertainty. The handbook brings together an outstanding group of scholars who have helped redefine the scope of environmental sociology and expand its reach and impact. Their contributions speak to key themes of the subdiscipline-inequality, justice, population, social movements, and health. Chapter topics include environmental demography, food systems, animals and the environment, climate change, disasters, and much more. The emphasis on public environmental sociology and the forward-thinking approach of this collection is what sets this volume apart. This handbook can serve as an introduction for students new to environmental sociology or as an insightful treatment that current experts can use to further their own research and publication. It will leave readers with a strong understanding of environmental sociology and the motivation to apply it to their work.

With contributions from 70 experienced practitioners from around the world, this second edition of the authoritative Handbook of Forensic Archaeology and Anthropology provides a solid foundation in both the practical and ethical components of forensic work. The book weaves together the discipline's historical development; current field methods for analyzing crime, natural disasters, and human atrocities; an array of laboratory techniques; key case studies involving legal, professional, and ethical issues; and ideas about the future of forensic work--all from a global perspective. This fully revised second edition expands the geographic representation of the first edition by including chapters from practitioners in South Africa and Colombia, and adds exciting new chapters on the International Commission on Missing Persons and on forensic work being done to identify victims of the Battle of Fromelles during World War I. The Handbook of Forensic Anthropology and Archaeology provides an updated perspective of the disciplines of forensic archaeology and anthropology.

In this examination of problems in the modern world, Michio Kitahara argues that a logical inconsistency in the philosophy of Enlightenment has caused humans to approach their environment in a way that is inconsistent with their biological background. Human biological and cultural evolution has created a form of suffering that derives in part from Western civilization's simultaneous acceptance and rejection of human variation. Both specialists and the general public assume that evolution is good and desirable, but Kitahara's analysis suggests the opposite: that evolution itself is tragic.

In his analysis of human evolution, Kitahara discusses deviant and criminal behavior, social conflict, liberalism, and the nature of Western civilization. He holds two axiomatic assumptions: that humans are characterized by stimulus seeking behavior accompanied by the manipulatory drive, and that humans are characterized by physical, psychological and cultural variation. He argues that the tyranny of the majority and the technology we have developed deny human variation, and that the drive to manipulate the environment is the wellspring of modern, sociocultural phenomena. This book will be of interest to scholars of anthropology, sociology, philosophy, history, political science, and environmental studies.

This bold and controversial book takes a hard look at an old subject-race relations in the Western world. Using history as a backdrop, the author illustrates how racism and ethnic chauvinism are, sadly, common. The author warns against the harm of colorthink-an excessive obsession with race and racism-and explores the impact of such thinking on race relations today. He gives no comfort to either racists or more fashionable contemporaries obsessed with the supposedly unique evils of the Western past. Racial issues, and misconceptions about race and race relations, are among the most divisive and confusing features of contemporary society. Race Relations Within Western Expansion is designed to provide an overall account of the development of the issues involved, relating them to global history and putting them squarely within the framework of the expansion of the Western world, an expansion that began much earlier than is generally realized, far back in the Middle Ages. Levine analyzes the reasons for that expansion and how it took different forms and brought many different peoples into several different sorts of contact with the West, and how these contacts, and conceptions about other peoples, changed, or remained fixed over time. He also shows the impact within Europe of pseudo-scientific racial ideologies, and criticizes contemporary misconceptions about the history of relations between European settlers and native peoples, slavery, and the age of imperial rule in Asia and Africa. It stresses the complexity and variety of those relationships rather than attempting, as is currently fashionable, to pigeonhole more and more data into fewer and fewer ideological categories. This is a necessarily controversial book, one that collides with many cherished beliefs, both traditional and contemporary, and exposes how bizarre they really are. It acidly exposes both traditional racist myths, and more recently fashionable postures that often prove little more factually based.

As the world business climate globalizes and national economies become closely interlinked, India looms as the largest country in the world to embrace the market economy. Bullis maintains that not only will India be changed by international market forces, it will have a significant impact upon the world economy as it emerges as a mass consumer market and an extended, low-cost manufacturing center. But India has problems that pose difficulties for offshore investors. Only with a clear idea of Indian business thinking and the relationship of commerce to India's complex mix of traditional, caste, and religious practices can businesspeople from the West gain any real hope of success. This work provides the sort of far-reaching information and advice essential for international businesspeople and for researchers and scholars in the academic community who want to be a part of India's economic future.

Bullis asserts that Indian businesspeople are far more knowledgeable about international markets than most international businesspeople are about India. Yet, India's long period of socialist dormancy produced very different concepts of management, employee relations, the role of competition, marketing, finance, and business-government relations. All these factors will play critical roles in the success or failure of investment plans formulated outside India's borders. Moreover, Indian people have a more diverse and compartmentalized culture than any other people, posing a marketing challenge (and challenges of other kinds) that outsiders may be ill-equipped to handle. Bullis's descriptions and analyses of the Indian economy, social structure, history, and business practices will provide the kind of understandings that Westerners need to enter the Indian market and compete successfully.

Because of the hegemony of institutions in North America and Europe in the international academic system, scholars from these regions often overlook the contributions of scholars in other regions to the development of their discipline. This seems to be especially true in the case of anthropology in Asia where the wider academic community often ignores the contributions of local scholars, especially if they are written in languages other than English. Asian contribution to the discipline better known, this path-breaking book presents a series of essays on the development of anthropological research in Asia, including contributions on Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Major issues discussed include: the nature of the anthropological world system of scholarship: the development of anthropology within the context of colonialism, whether British, American or Japanese; the impact on postwar anthropology of political change and rapid economic growth; and the position of ethnic and cultural minorities confronting states with their own nationalist agendas. It also considers the current state of the discipline in the region against the background of growing globalization and the flows of people, capital and information across national and regional boundaries.

This study of science and technology looks at knowledge systems. Topics covered include: mapping encounters and (en)countering maps - a critical examination of cartographic resistance; the intricacies of technology transfer - travel as mode and method; and science, local knowledge and community.

CHOICE OUTSTANDING BOOK OF THE YEAR 2005 Despite the growth of interest in the history of anthropology as a over the last two decades, surprisingly little has been published in English on the development of anthropology in East and Southeast Asia and its relationship to the rest of the academic "world-system." The anthropological experience in this region has been varied. Japanese anthropology developed early, and ranks second only to that of the United States in terms of size. Anthropology in China has finally recovered from the experience of invasion, war, and revolution, and now flourishes both on the mainland and in Taiwan. Scholars in Korea, Malaysia, and the Philippines have also attempted to break with the legacy of colonialism and develop research relevant to their own national needs. This book includes accounts of these developments by some of the most distinguished scholars in the region. Also discussed are issues of language, authorship, and audience; and the effects these have on writing by anthropologists, whether "native" or "foreign." The book will be invaluable to anyone with an interest in the anthropology of East and Southeast Asia or the development of anthropology as a global discipline.

For more than three decades the author has been concerned with issues to do with emotion, suffering and healing. This volume presents ethnographic studies of South Wales, Maharashtra and post-Soviet Latvia connected by a theoretical interest in healing, emotion and subjectivity. Exploring the uses of narrative in the shaping of memory, autobiography and illness and its connections with the master narratives of history and culture, it focuses on the post-Soviet clinic as an arena in which the contradictions of a liberal economy are translated into a medical language.

Humans represent just one of many species that constitute the planet's biodiversity. Nevertheless, as the dominant species, humans have been the primary agent of the transformation of natural spaces. Therefore, the study of human interactions, biodiversity, and the environment that surrounds them is a basic tool for understanding the factors that bind human societies to natural resources. Within this context, ethnobiology is a promising discipline that can play a key role as a mediator of dialogue between different academic disciplines and traditional knowledge, a union essential in enabling contextualized and sustainable alternatives to exploitative practices and biodiversity management. Methods and Techniques in Ethnobiology and Ethnoecology introduces the basic techniques and methods traditionally used in ethnobiology and ethnoecology. Comprised of 28 chapters, the book covers the different qualitative and quantitative aspects of ethnobiology research methods, as well as methods from natural and social sciences that will be useful to both beginners and senior researchers. Written by internationally renowned experts in the fields, Methods and Techniques in Ethnobiology and Ethnoecology is a valuable resource for researchers and students interested in ethnobiology.

"This is a book well worth reading... it] offers a comprehensive background to the studied society and the complex social relationships at all levels that dominate this rural Greek microcosm. This is an excellent book, of interest to those studying globalization and the integration of markets but also those interested on contemporary Greek society and its entanglements." . Labour History Review

"Lawrence's ethnography is a valuable and intriguing contribution not only to the ethnography of Greece but to the anthropology of globalization and politics. The detailed and multi level analysis of social, political and economic transformations is both critical and well placed... It] reminds anthropology of the necessity of a critical, detailed and encompassing political analysis of the interactions and articulations between the contradictory processes, discourses and practices between people and socio-economic systems, between people and the formations and transformations of power." . Durham Anthropology Journal

"Each chapter of Blood and Oranges is densely packed with argumentation that weaves together existing literature with the political economic facts on the ground. The treatment is a learned one, rich and erudite in its treatment of the circum-stances in Argolida, and always embedding those circum-stances within a broader set of forces and connections." . American Ethnologist

A compelling account of the intersection of globalization and neo-racism in a rural Greek community, this book describes the contradictory political and economic development of the Greek countryside since its incorporation into the European Union, where increased prosperity and social liberalization have been accompanied by the creation of a vulnerable and marginalized class of immigrant laborers. The author analyzes the paradoxical resurgence of ethnic nationalism and neo-racism that has grown in the wake of European unification and addresses key issues of racism, neoliberalism and nationalism in contemporary anthropology."

Spurred by wars and a drive to urbanize, Africans are crossing borders and overwhelming cities in unprecedented numbers. At the center of this development are young refugee men who migrate to urban areas. This volume, the first full-length study of urban refugees in hiding, tells the story of Burundi refugee youth who escaped from remote camps in central Tanzania to work in one of Africa's fastest-growing cities, Dar es Salaam. This steamy, rundown capital would seem uninviting to many, particularly for second generation survivors of genocide whose lives are ridden with fear. But these young men nonetheless join migrants in "Bongoland" (meaning "Brainland") where, as the nickname suggests, only the shrewdest and most cunning can survive. Mixing lyrics from church hymns and street vernacular, descriptions of city living in cartoons and popular novels and original photographs, this book creates an ethnographic portrait of urban refugee life, where survival strategies spring from street smarts and pastors' warnings of urban sin, and mastery of popular youth culture is highly valued. Pentecostalism and a secret rift within the seemingly impenetrable Hutu ethnic group are part of the rich texture of this contemporary African story. Written in accessible prose, this book offers an intimate picture of how Africa is changing and how refugee youth are helping to drive that change.

This book reveals how a privatization of fish resources has paved the way for a wide-reaching concentration and change in ownership. It is a thought-provoking contribution to the debate on the future of European fisheries and the possible solutions to overfishing in Europe. Readers will discover a timely, critical insight into the social, cultural and economic aspects and consequences of market-based fisheries management. The privatization of fish quotas in Denmark represents one of the most far-reaching and comprehensive privatization schemes of its kind and has been widely promoted as a market-based system with innovative social safeguards. This work critically examines this privatization of fish resources, combining quantitative and qualitative material to provide new understanding of fish quotas and their social value. Scholars with an interest in privatization and the socio-economic aspects of fisheries, and those working with NGOs, fishers and fisheries, and concerned with political conflicts will all value the research presented here.

The recital of The Book of Opening the Mouth and the Liturgy of Funerary Offerings were in use among the Predynastic Egyptians of the later part of the Neolithic Period, before the art of writing had evolved, and continued to exercise a considerable influence on Egyptian religious literature until the time of Roman Empire. The ceremonies were believed to enable the spiritual elements of the deceased to continue their existence. The object of the formulae was the reconstitution of the body and the restoration to it of the heart-soul ('Ba'). This is the first volume of The Book of Opening the Mouth, first published in 1909, which is edited from three copies written in the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-sixth Dynasties respectively. It is believed they describe faithfully the forms of the rites which originated among the indigenous inhabitants of the Nile Valley.

The book is a comparative analysis of all the major social science/political science grand theories. It focuses on developmentalism, dependency theory, the world systems approach, Marxism, institutionalism, rational choice, psychoanalysis, political sociology, sociobiology, environmentalism, neuro-politics, transitions to democracy, and non-Western systems of analysis. To facilitate comparison and analysis, a common framework and outline are employed throughout. An integrating introduction and conclusion help tie the book together.

Complex patterns of acculturation are revealed in the most comprehensive ethnographic study of contemporary French immigrants in the United States. Written by a French-born American anthropologist who has insider status among French Americans, "The French in the United States" offers a fresh look at the histories and experiences of French immigrants. In the foreign-born generation, a high degree of social integration into American society co-exists with the maintenance of a French identity which manifests itself in the areas of language, culture, and perceptions. The French heritage does not usually endure past the second generation, however, because its maintenance within the family is not adequately supported by collective efforts, due to a lack of cohesiveness among French-born individuals who have become permanent immigrants.

A number of factors account for the foregoing: the small number of French natives in the United States, their scattered geographical distribution, the absence of spatially defined communities populated by direct immigrants from France, and a very high rate of intermarriage. Another important factor is the primarily individual nature of migration from France to this country since the last half of the 20th century, and a highly developed sense of self-direction in those who stay permanently. Their French identity must be regarded as cultural rather than ethnic: it is tied to a distant homeland, rather than to a group with territorial, institutional, and organizational identity in the United States. Lindenfeld delves into the makings of this French identity and distinguishes French immigrants from other Americans.

* The first book to take an interdisciplinary and international approach to understanding how our everyday lives are being affected by automated decision-making (ADM) * Showcases groundbreaking research in this cutting-edge field but will also be accessible enough to be useful for upper-level undergraduate and postgraduate teaching * Covers a uniquely wide range of ADM technologies, geographical and sociocultural contexts, and theoretical perspectives not reflected in other ADM books which tend to focus solely on the USA.

Nishiyama Matsunosuke is one of the most important historians of Tokugawa (Edo) popular culture, yet until now his work has never been translated into a Western language. Edo Culture presents a selection of Nishiyama's writings that serves not only to provide an excellent introduction to Tokugawa cultural history but also to fill many gaps in our knowledge of the daily life and diversions of the urban populace of the time. Many essays focus on the most important theme of Nishiyama's work: the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries as a time of appropriation and development of Japan's culture by its urban commoners.

This volume surveys Nineteenth-century Russian society and economy and finds that Russian institutions, practices and ideas fit the general European pattern for that period of rapid change. Even apparently distinctive Russian features deepen our understanding of 'Europeaness'. In the Nineteenth-century there were still many different ways to be European, and excessive generalization based on the experiences of one or two countries obscures the great diversity that still characterized European civilization. Moreover, these essays bring to light several points at which Russian legislation and thinking provided models and examples for others to follow. The authors focus on key elements of how Russians envisaged and constructed their economy and society. This is an important contribution that increases understanding of Russian history at a time when Russia's relationship with the 'West' is again debated.

"Anna Lindley's new book is a welcome addition to the study of transnational remittances and their critical role in the lives of ordinary residents of war-torn Somalia. This work counters popular images of Somalis as thieving pirates, unscrupulous money launderers and vicious war mongers, by showing how remittances allow ordinary and peaceful Somali families cope with extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Anna Lindley has done a great service to scholars of the Horn of Africa, reminding readers that the protracted crisis in Somalia and its global remittance industry defy simplistic, 'knee jerk' explanations." . Peter D. Little, Professor of Anthropology and Director, Development Studies Program, Emory University (author of Somalia: Economy without State)

"Migrant workers' money transfers home are usually the stuff of World Bank statistics. Anna Lindley tells the human stories behind the data, and examines the relationships between people trying to survive the daily insecurity of a failed state and those who have escaped. Yet she never forgets the political economy of global inequality, which lies behind the heart-wrenching decisions that refugees and migrants have to make. This book is a remarkable combination of social analysis and story-telling, which should (but won't) be read by everyone who ever fell for the headlines about asylum seekers as a threat." . Stephen Castles, University of Sydney

"This is an interesting, humane, thoughtful and well-written account of Somali remittances, a topic that has been discussed to some extent but never in such a detailed way. It addresses current debates and policy interests in the field of migration-development very well. Lindley's data on remittances in conflict-affected areas is remarkably detailed and rich, while her multi-sited fieldwork approach provides an excellent insight into the complexities of engaging in transnational livelihoods for all those involved." . Cindy Horst, Senior Researcher, International Peace Research Institute Oslo

As migration from poverty-stricken and conflict-affected countries continues to hit the headlines, this book focuses on an important counter-flow: the money that people send home. Despite considerable research on the impact of migration and remittances in countries of origin - increasingly viewed as a source of development capital - still little is known about refugees' remittances to conflict-affected countries because such funds are most often seen as a source of conflict finance. This book explores the dynamics, infrastructure, and far-reaching effects of remittances from the perspectives of people in the Somali regions and the diaspora. With conflict driving mass displacement, Somali society has become progressively transnational, its vigorous remittance economy reaching from the heart of the global North into wrecked cities, refugee camps, and remote rural areas. By 'following the money' the author opens a window on the everyday lives of people caught up in processes of conflict, migration, and development. The book demonstrates how, in the interstices of state disruption and globalisation, and in the shadow of violence and political uncertainty, life in the Somali regions goes on, subject to complex transnational forms of social, economic, and political innovation and change.

Anna Lindley is a Lecturer in Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. The study on which this book is based was carried out while working at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society and the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford University."