As a species, we are currently experiencing dramatic shifts in our lifestyle, family structure, health, and global contact. Evolutionary Anthropology provides a powerful theoretical framework to study such changes, revealing how current environments and legacies of past selection shape human diversity. This book is the first major review of the emerging field of Applied Evolutionary Anthropology bringing together the work of an international group of evolutionary scientists, addressing many of the major public health and social issues of this century. Through a series of case studies that span both rural and urban situations in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America, each chapter addresses topics such as natural resource management, health service delivery, population growth and the emergence of new family structures, dietary, and co-operative behaviours. The research presented identifies the great, largely untapped, potential that Applied Evolutionary Anthropology holds to guide the design, implementation and evaluation of effective social and public health policy. This book will be of interest to policy-makers and applied researchers, along with academics and students across the biological and social sciences.

The very human need for religion and magic as supplements to scientific and technological knowledge is the subject of this work. In 1942 Hsu witnessed a cholera epidemic in a small rural settlement in Yunnan province, China, and found that, contrary to anthropological expectations, the Chinese responded to the crisis with a combination of conciliatory rituals and practical hygienic measures. More than thirty years later, he witnessed the elaborate ritualistic prepartions for another epidemic in the Shatin sub-division of Hong Kong and found the supernatural/empirical response to be virtually the same as in 1942. The author argues that, in spite of technological and intellectual sophistication, the human psychic need for magic and religion persists. He pursues this contention in a longitudinal analysis of this phenomenon in the South Seas, East Africa, and Indian and white America.

This exhaustive and complete discography of Indian music issued on microgroove discs and cassettes provides information on over 2,700 recordings of classical and semiclassical music of the Indian subcontinent. It covers the period from the early 1950s to the end of 1983 and also contains information on recordings from the early 1930s onward that were originally issued at 78 RPM and have been reissued on microgroove discs. The main text of the discography is divided into five sections: Hindustani Instrumental, Hindustani Vocal, Karnatic Instrumental, Karnatic Vocal, and Anthologies. Artists are listed alphabetically and brief biographical information is provided when possible. The recordings are indexed by Raga and Tala (the melody and the rhythm), thus allowing comparison between different recordings of the same piece. An instrumental index is included as are indexes to several styles of vocal performance.

Written by Jorge Gracia, one of the most influential thinkers of Hispanic/Latino descent, this volume provides a superb introduction to the philosophical, social, and political elements of Hispanic/Latino identity.

The book explores central historical and current debates surrounding Hispanic/Latino culture, thought, and identity in the United States, Spain, and Latin American countries. Gracia's interdisciplinary approach is systematic and he uses philosophical analysis along with the history of philosophy to clarify and illustrate his provocative theses.

This engaging and enlightening work is an indispensable tool for anyone interested in Hispanic/Latino studies, social policy, and the history of thought and culture.

Clothing the body is one of the most complicated acts of daily existence. When a nun ponders red shoes, an architect knots his bowtie, a lesbian laces her Doc Marten's, or a nude model disrobes, each is engaging in a process of identity-making that is both intensely personal and deeply social. In an increasingly material world, negotiating dress codes is a nuanced art, informed by shifting patterns of power and authority, play and performance, as well as gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity and race.
Drawing on ethnographic knowledge to connect theory and practice, authors reveal links between material culture, social and economic forces and personal performance -- from trade beads to Barbie, and from Taiwanese producer to Nike consumer -- to explain clothing choices through time and across cultures. Conventional understandings of the self, subject and society are shown to be inadequate when examining the interconnections of cultural and transnational economic systems of production and consumption that have a profound effect on human choice. Social climates in which dress accrues meaning are increasingly global climates, where women's bodies are commodified, gender categories are rigidly bound, and sweatshop labourers are slaves to boundless consumer appetite.
This interdisciplinary book represents an important contribution to a fascinating and contested realm of human experience, and will be indispensable for anyone interested in the sociology, anthropology and psychology of fashion, cultural studies or the fashion industry.

Zilinskas and Balint and their contributors examine the divisions between minority groups and the scientific community, particularly in the area of medical and genetic research. Minorities have reasons to be skeptical of medical research in general and genetics research in particular. The sad history of the Tuskegee experiment, in which black men with syphilis were left untreated so that the course of the disease could be studied, undermined confidence in the ethics of medical researchers. More recently, publication of "The Bell Curve" reanimated controversy over purported genetic distinctions among the races that could have powerfully negative social implications.

In contrast, as the essays make clear, the Human Genome Project, conducted in accordance with the highest ethical standards, has the potential to make dramatic positive contributions to the health of all human beings. Members of minority communities in particular--who statistically are at high risk of adverse health outcomes in the United States--have much to gain from innovative medical diagnostics and therapies that will result from the study of human genetics. Therefore, if we are to benefit fully from this new knowledge, it is vital that the distrust, skepticism, and misconceptions relating to genetics research be overcome. This is a provocative collection for scholars, students, researchers, and community leaders involved with minority and public health issues.

A broad understanding of bone and tooth microstructure is necessary for constructing the biological profile of an individual or individuals within a population. Bone Histology: An Anthropological Perspective brings together authors with extensive experience and expertise in various aspects of hard tissue histology to provide a comprehensive discussion of the application of methods, current theories, and future directions in hard tissue research related to anthropological questions.

Topics discussed include:

• The biology underlying skeletal growth and development leading to adult skeletal morphology
• Current research in understanding in bone modeling
• Histological features of dental hard tissues and their utility in biological anthropology
• Histological analysis as a means to differentiate human from nonhuman bone and for the purpose of age estimation
• The biomechanics of cortical bone
• Histotaphonomy and how postmortem microstructural change can be used for taphonomic inquiry
• The application of light microscopy in paleopathology to classify pathological conditions
• The histological study of bone tissue of archaeological origin
• Researchers' access to collections of bone samples with known demographic information
• Technological aspects of hard tissue histology, including laboratory requirements and high-resolution imaging

In most cases, the physical remains of humans available to bioarchaeologists, paleopathologists, and paleontologists are limited to skeletal material. Fortunately, these hard tissues are a storehouse of information about biological processes experienced during the life of an individual. This volume provides an overview of the current state of research and potential applications in anthropology and other fields that employ a histological approach to the study of hard tissues.

The most exhaustive book on forensic dentistry, the fourth edition of this volume covers the latest advances in the field, including regulations affecting forensic dental practice and procedures in light of the Health Insurance Portability and Accessibility Act, updated ABFO guidelines, and new digital radiographic and photographic developments. The book also discusses computer-assisted record management, multiple fatality incident preparedness, and Disaster Mortuary Operation Response Team in a post-9/11, tsunami, and Hurricane Katrina world.

Awareness of eco-literature has recalled the central ideology of environmentalism - "to think globally and act locally." As this volume shows, various tags of contemporary discourse have emerged, including transnational, cosmopolitan, hybridity, diaspora, and generally cultural. These concerns highlight such global environmental problems as biodiversity, climate change, and developing new forms of interconnectedness with local and regional communities. In this context, contemporary discourse becomes of immediate concern in understanding the environmental crisis. In a way, reading different cultures and experiences can contribute to a contemporary discourse that can facilitate an environmental sensibility and develop a unique ecological approach.

Suicide among African Americans occurs at about half the rate with which it occurs among white Americans. Why is the black rate of suicide so much lower, particularly when one considers the effects of racism and other socio-economic factors on African Americans? One answer that has been offered is that churches within the African-American community have a greater influence than among white Americans and that they provide amelioration of social forces that would otherwise lead to suicide. To date no other book has provided an in-depth ethnographic study of the buffering effect of the black church against suicide. Findings from Early's study indicate that there is a consensus within the black community in terms of its attitudes and beliefs toward suicide. Early concludes that suicide is alien to underlying African-American belief systems and a complete denial of what it means to be black. This important study will be invaluable to sociologists and others studying contemporary race relations and social problems.

In examining the intellectual history in contemporary South Africa, Eze engages with the emergence of ubuntu as one discourse that has become a mirror and aftermath of South Africa’s overall historical narrative. This book interrogates a triple socio-political representation of ubuntu as a displacement narrative for South Africa’s colonial consciousness; as offering a new national imaginary through its inclusive consciousness, in which different, competing, and often antagonistic memories and histories are accommodated; and as offering a historicity in which the past is transformed as a symbol of hope for the present and the future. This book offers a model for African intellectual history indignant to polemics but constitutive of creative historicism and healthy humanism.

Born in the 1960s, the middle-class Biracial Americans of this study are part of a transitional cohort between the hidden biracial generations of the past and the visible blended generations of the future. As individuals, they have variously dealt with their ambiguous status in American society; as a generation, they share common existential realities in relation to White culture. During the last decade of the 20th century public awareness of mixed race Americans increased significantly, in no small part because there has been a substantial increase in interracial marriages and offspring since 1960. This study, based on ethnographic interviews, provides an historical overview of the study of Biracial Americans in the social sciences, a sociological profile of project participants, sociocultural discussions of family and race as well as racial identity choices, and examinations of racial realities in adult lives and of recurrent systemic and personal life themes. The textual part of the book demonstrates the diversity of perception and experience regarding race and identity of these biracial young adults. The Epilogue not only reviews major findings pertaining to this transitional generation of Biracial Americans but discusses biraciality and the deconstruction of race in contemporary American society. An extensive bibliography of popular and scholarly sources concludes the book.

Settler colonialism is a global and transnational phenomenon, and as much a thing of the present as a thing of the past. In this book, Lorenzo Veracini explores the settler colonial 'situation' and explains how there is no such thing as neo-settler colonialism or post-settler colonialism because settler colonialism is a resilient formation that rarely ends. Not all migrants are settlers: settlers come to stay, and are founders of political orders who carry with them a distinct sovereign capacity. And settler colonialism is not colonialism: settlers want Indigenous people to vanish (but can make use of their labour before they are made to disappear). Sometimes settler colonial forms operate within colonial ones, sometimes they subvert them, sometimes they replace them. But even if colonialism and settler colonialism interpenetrate and overlap, they remain separate as they co-define each other.

First runner-up for the British-Kuwait Friendship Society Book Prize in Middle Eastern Studies 2015. In ancient Egypt, wrapping sacred objects, including mummified bodies, in layers of cloth was a ritual that lay at the core of Egyptian society. Yet in the modern world, attention has focused instead on unwrapping all the careful arrangements of linen textiles the Egyptians had put in place. This book breaks new ground by looking at the significance of textile wrappings in ancient Egypt, and at how their unwrapping has shaped the way we think about the Egyptian past. Wrapping mummified bodies and divine statues in linen reflected the cultural values attached to this textile, with implications for understanding gender, materiality and hierarchy in Egyptian society. Unwrapping mummies and statues similarly reflects the values attached to Egyptian antiquities in the West, where the colonial legacies of archaeology, Egyptology and racial science still influence how Egypt appears in museums and the press. From the tomb of Tutankhamun to the Arab Spring, Unwrapping Ancient Egypt raises critical questions about the deep-seated fascination with this culture - and what that fascination says about our own.

This unique text/reference reviews the key principles and techniques in conceptual modelling which are of relevance to specialists in the field of cultural heritage. Information modelling tasks are a vital aspect of work and study in such disciplines as archaeology, anthropology, history, and architecture. Yet the concepts and methods behind information modelling are rarely covered by the training in cultural heritage-related fields. With the increasing popularity of the digital humanities, and the rapidly growing need to manage large and complex datasets, the importance of information modelling in cultural heritage is greater than ever before. To address this need, this book serves in the place of a course on software engineering, assuming no previous knowledge of the field. Topics and features: Presents a general philosophical introduction to conceptual modelling Introduces the basics of conceptual modelling, using the ConML language as an infrastructure Reviews advanced modelling techniques relating to issues of vagueness, temporality and subjectivity, in addition to such topics as metainformation and feature redefinition Proposes an ontology for cultural heritage supported by the Cultural Heritage Abstract Reference Model (CHARM), to enable the easy construction of conceptual models Describes various usage scenarios and applications of cultural heritage modelling, offering practical tips on how to use different techniques to solve real-world problems This interdisciplinary work is an essential primer for tutors and students (at both undergraduate and graduate level) in any area related to cultural heritage, including archaeology, anthropology, art, history, architecture, or literature. Cultural heritage managers, researchers, and professionals will also find this to be a valuable reference, as will anyone involved in database design, data management, or the conceptualization of cultural heritage in general. Dr. Cesar Gonzalez-Perez is a Staff Scientist at the Institute of Heritage Sciences (Incipit), within the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

This important study examines aspects of political leadership and governance in the last decades of the 20th century. Driven by innovations in science and technology, turbulent change has impacted nearly every political system and created a political environment of extreme complexity and fluidity. In this environment, previously dominant leaders, ideas, and institutions have been disempowered and new leaders and ideas empowered. This work examines seven world leaders, members of the first generation of political elites to assume power in the fluid political environment of the late 20th century. Two were heads of advanced industrial countries: Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom and Helmut Kohl of Germany. Three were leaders of states which underwent the transition from communist to postcommunist regimes: Lech Walesa of Poland, Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union, and Boris Yeltsin of Russia. And two were leaders of important Third World states: Deng Xiaoping of China and Rajiv Gandhi of India. Each case study includes: (1) the political-economic context, (2) the operative elements of political turbulence in the domestic political environment, (3) a profile of the leader and his or her group, (4) the leader's political program, (5) strategies and means of achieving power, (6) the policy dimension, (7) the nature and scope of change, and (8) theories and interpretations of the leader and his or her political agenda. Through such analyses, the authors illustrate the scope, depth, and meaning of the most important recent political changes worldwide. The text will suit courses in international relations and comparative politics.

The study of literature and the environment evokes and promotes this highly original eco-critical collection and its contributions to evaluating the preservation of nature and human attachment and to situate it at a local, communitarian, or bio-regional level. Revisiting eco-literature can aid our exploration of numerous global issues and challenges through a literary rendition of the natural world in poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. Reflecting on different works will prompt the readers to intensify their search for viable and effective choices and healthy alternatives in a confusing world.

Religion and the Social Order

Professors Murphy and Choi use postmodern philosophy to expose an important source of racism and cultural domination. They examine foundationalism, which they see at the core of the Western intellectual tradition and which is shown to foster a metaphysics of domination. By contrast, postmodernism undermines this root of racism.

They demonstrate that foundationalism is not needed to support identity, institutions, or political order. Indeed, they assert that true pluralism is possible once foundationalist approaches to knowledge and order are set aside. Special attention is directed to two current modes of discrimination: institutional racism and symbolic violence. Murphy and Choi provide an intriguing look at ways to undercut the justification for racism and other threats to cultural difference. This volume will be of particular interest to scholars and other researchers in the areas of race relations, cultural studies, and political theory.

This illustrated volume presents a wide variety of themes from the historical and modern periods of Bhutan, illustrating change and adaptation to new realities. Topics covered include the exploration of early history, Buddhism and the lives of Bhutanese Buddhist saints, the changing role of local, non-Buddhist religious practitioners in today's society, traditional law and the emergence of a modern legal system, and the seasonal celebrations of an aristocratic family from central Bhutan. The book will be of special interest to students of early Tibetan history, legal history, comparative sociology and cultural anthropology of the Himalayan regions.

By analysing the folk stories and personal narratives of a cross-section of Palestinians, Sirhan offers a detailed study of how content and sociolinguistic variables affect a narrator's language use and linguistic behaviour. This book will be of interest to anyone engaged with narrative discourse, gender discourse, Arabic studies and linguistics.

The urban population is becoming increasingly diverse and growing (ethnic) diversity is having a singular effect on nightlife in Dutch cities. By studying the motivation behind and nightlife choices of the young people who participate in ethno-party scenes, Boogaarts-de Bruin investigates how the changing urban population affects the supply side of the nightlife market using an analytical model she has developed and which she calls the model of structured choice. This approach is sensitive to the flexible use of the processes of agency and structure due to the systematic distinction that it makes between societal and personal factors. Accordingly, it is revealed that in order to analyze and adequately explain the nightlife experiences of and choices made by ethnic youngsters, an integrated model is required which centralizes the interaction between the structural strategies of the producers on the one hand and the personal preferences and agency of the consumers on the other. What is more, this book demonstrates that nightlife has changed because of the increasing ethnic diversity of the Dutch population. Finally, in the epilogue, the fieldwork results are discussed in light of the currently heated debate regarding the integration processes of ethnic minority young people (in nightlife).

The traditional American hero has disappeared and is unlikely to return. Dr. Edelstein explains in fascinating detail how and why that disappearance occurred and the consequences for the nation. Using a sociological approach, he examines the changes that have taken place within American society since World War II to bring about the demise of heroes. The United States has run out of heroes. Hero refers to a national hero, a Universal American around whom we all would rally if called. The hero is the man-rarely the woman-who inspires children and adults, and reflects the finest qualities of the American people. He is recognized as an inspiration, seen as someone engendering our best qualities. It is not that the hero represents most if not all Americans; it is that most if not all Americans are happy to have him as their representative. This is the man, the role, gone from our lives, permanently. Edelstein gives a vivid description of heroes of America's past, and offers an explanation of the national appeal of such men as Billy the Kid, Babe Ruth, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr. He describes how many of the fields from which Americans once drew their heroes have disappeared, and how the structures of other fields that were once sources of heroes have been altered, thereby obstructing the creation of new heroes. Not that heroism is dead. To the contrary, many Americans are often found performing heroic acts: police officers and fire fighters, federal agents and everyday people are regularly commended for committing acts above and beyond the call of duty. But these heroic actions are usually noted only on a local level. To be an American hero is to be a national hero. This is accomplished by an act of an individual that demands and receives national attention. But that doesn't seem to happen anymore. It is difficult to recall the last ticker-tape parade for an individual American hero. Parades now celebrate groups: freed hostages, winning sports teams, returning service personnel. The book concludes with a discussion on the ramifications of the disappearance of the American hero.