Wolfgang Glatzer Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitiit Franlifurt am Main, Germany ABSTRACT Challenges for the quality of life in the contemporary world were the focus of the Fifth International Quality of Life-Conference in Frankfurt am Main in the year 2003, hosted and organized by the Interna tional Society for Quality of Life Studies. The first part of this introductory article is concerned with a general assessment of contemporary quality of life research. At present, the concept of quality of life is a kind of umbrella which keeps together a reasonable number of international social scientists who have similar research interests. The second part of the introduction describes the topics of this book: The five chapters are concerned with the societal goal discussion on quality of life, the scientific monitoring of quality of life, the economic challenges for quality of life, its cultural challenges, and finally the options and restrictions for improving quality of life. Altogether, the contributions are related to present interna tional investigations and discussions of basic questions of quality of life. ATTENTION FOR QUALITY OF LIFE Challenges for the quality of life in the contemporary world were the focus at the Fifth International Quality of Life-Conference in Frankfurt am Main in the year 2003, hosted and organized by the International Society for Quality of Life Studies. There are new threats and new prospects for the quality of life in each generation, and securing and improving quality of life is a never-ending task."

This work examines the valley of the Urubamba River in terms of vertical zonation, Incan impact on the environment, plant use, the history of exploration and the notion of discovery, the idea of land reform, and cultural contact with the European world. Winding its path northward from the Andean Highlands to the Amazon, the valley has served as the stage of pre-Columbian civilizations and focal point of Spanish conquest in Peru. "Gade left behind not only a superb body of scholarly work, but a network of colleagues and students who remain indebted to his example. This book should serve as an inspiration for all scholars who wish to pursue the Sauerian, counter enlightenment or post development agendas of understanding and respecting particular places in all their historical and cultural complexity, including ambiguities and contradictions." -- The Geographical Review, American Geographical Society

Using original religious-philosophical texts and sociological research, the author explores the various dimensions of the Virasaiva religious tradition. His sociological analyses of the monastic organization and social structure, the family and the community, the roles of women, and the future of the community emphasize the intricate relationship between religion and the social system. This study of a largely unknown religious community demonstrates how the followers of Virasaivism, known as Lingayats, have been adapting to the changing milieu in North America while retaining the religion's core values. Dr. Chekki shows the interplay between tradition and modernity as the Virasaivas attempt to maintain a distinct identity while adopting the ways of modern culture.

To this date, efforts to document the scholarly contributions of exclusively African American criminologists are nonexistent. This is a reference work which offers contemporary Afrocentric perspective on critical issues of crime and justice by focusing on the contributions of African American criminologists whose interests and responses to crime arguably differ from those of mainstream white criminologists. This reference will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate students and faculty in criminal justice and practitioners in policy making.

Most of the abstracts can be cross-referenced to publications within mainstream criminal justice journals. In addition, selected books, manuscripts, and an array of state and government documents are included and provide rare Afrocentric perspectives on issues of crime and justice. In the process, it credits many Caucasians and ethnic minorities as important contributors to a given publication. This reference book consists of five chapters: (1) an introductory article on issues that define (and confront) African American criminologists, (2) an alphabetical listing of published abstracts for each contributing author, (3) selected references to each publication, (4) an appendix containing titles to doctoral dissertations for all contributing African American scholars, and (5) an author and subject index.

Anthropology begins in the encounter with the 'exotic': what stands outside of-and challenges-conventional or established understandings. This volume confronts the distortions of orientalism, ethnocentrism, and romantic nostalgia to expose exoticism, defined as the construction of false and unsubstantiated difference. Its aim is to re-found the importance of the exotic in the development of anthropological knowledge and to overcome methodological dualisms and dualistic approaches. Chapters look at the risk of exoticism in the perspectivist approach, the significant exotic corrective of Levi-Strauss vis-a-vis an imperializing Eurocentrism, our nostalgic relationship with the ethnographic record, and the attempts of local communities to readapt previous exoticized referents, renegotiate their identity, and 'counter-exoticize.' This volume demonstrates a range of approaches that will be valuable for researchers and students seeking to effectively establish comparative methodological frameworks that transcend issues of relativism and universalism.

Human Origins brings together new thinking by social anthropologists and other scholars on the evolution of human culture and society. No other discipline has more relevant expertise to consider the emergence of humans as the symbolic species. Yet, social anthropologists have been conspicuously absent from debates about the origins of modern humans. These contributions explore why that is, and how social anthropology can shed light on early kinship and economic relations, gender politics, ritual, cosmology, ethnobiology, medicine, and the evolution of language.

Human Origins brings together new thinking by social anthropologists and other scholars on the evolution of human culture and society. No other discipline has more relevant expertise to consider the emergence of humans as the symbolic species. Yet, social anthropologists have been conspicuously absent from debates about the origins of modern humans. These contributions explore why that is, and how social anthropology can shed light on early kinship and economic relations, gender politics, ritual, cosmology, ethnobiology, medicine, and the evolution of language.

Political struggle situated within and between cleavages based on sexuality, gender, and age is examined in this volume. The collection offers cutting edge work that challenges traditional notions of what is political sociology and what constitutes political behavior. Political activism organized around identities of transgender, intersex, lesbian, gay, and old age demonstrates the increasing importance of identity politics for political sociologists and social movements scholars alike.

The authors combined in this volume teach students and scholars of political sociology the continued significance of questions related to the culture wars and art as an agent of change, the role of political opportunity and threat in social movements, transgender and intersex political activism, the advantages and disadvantages of late-life liberal political activism, and how everyday life or just living constitutes social movement activity. The readings raise important questions regarding the intersection of sexual minority, race, and gender. Additionally, the readings explore ???identity politics??? from the vantage of several different contexts using a variety of methodological approaches and theoretical views. The authors hope this volume will stimulate other political sociologists and social movement scholars to further explore political behavior that is based upon and motivated by some of the most intimate aspects of our lives.

The authors combine a theoretical reassessment of how we understand, study and analyze processes of identification with detailed case studies of the discourses of three-generation families living in split-border communities along the former Iron Curtain, talking about themselves and other social groups, about their way of life and their experiences past and present.

"A foster mother herself, Wozniak brings particular poignancy and insight to this fascinating look at motherhood and social policy. Her interviews with foster mothers are coupled with research on who foster mothers are and why they fostera].Wozniak also looks at the larger issues of women's roles in society and how we handle the needs of displaced children. . . an important but little-researched topic."
--"Booklist"

"[A] thoughtful and well-researched book."
--"Reference and Research Book News," February 2002

"Wozniak presents a very readable analysis of the broad challenges facing foster families...This book is important for anyone in the social work or family services field."
--"Choice"

The first book on foster care written from foster mothers' perspectives, They're All My Children voices the often painful experiences of contemporary U.S. foster mothers as they struggle to mother and care-work in the face of exploitative social relations with the state. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research, Wozniak, herself a former foster mother and an anthropologist, presents and analyzes women's personal stories about fostering to reflect on the larger socio-cultural context of American family lifenamely, how we think about kinship, identity, and work. Foster mothers construct enduring kinship relationships with children, and often with the children's biological families. These relationships enhance children's chances to growth and thrive and in turn extend women's kin relationships into often distant and disparate communities. Wozniak also highlights the economic side of fostering to show how foster mothers are both mothers and workers; foster children are both providersand provided for, adored sentimental children and economic figures.

Through in-depth interviews and participant observation, Wozniak argues that we have not gone far enough in understanding the experiences of these women whose life work lies outside the usual boundaries. Nor have child welfare gone far enough in revising the theories upon which child welfare policies are based. Foster mothers and their experiences challenge the patriarchal, nuclear family ideals upon which foster care programs are based, a challenge that They're All My Children takes forward.

Twelve Step Programs are significant features in the American landscape. Their popularity compels us to take them seriously. This book studies one such program, Al-Anon, which was founded in 1951 by wives of alcoholics who were struggling with the effects of alcoholism on themselves and their families. In the 1990s its scope was broadened to include husbands, grown children, lovers, friends, and anyone else affected by another's drinking or chemical use. This study used an ethnographic approach: it reveals that Al-Anon and similar groups act as sites of spiritual renewal and moral reconstruction for primarily white, middle-class, middle-aged, Protestant Americans who report experiencing a crisis of identity. Investigating Twelve Step Programs lends further insight into the cultural crisis affecting many Americans as well as the strategies some have found to make sense of their lives.

This volume is the result of a research project entitled "Evolutionary Continuity - Human Specifics - The Possibility of Objective Knowledge" that was carried out by representatives of six academic disciplines (evolutionary biology, evolutionary anthropology, brain research, cognitive neuroscience, cognitive psychology and philosophy) over a period of three and a half years. The starting point for the project was the newly emerging riddle of human uniqueness: though the uniqueness of human beings is undisputable, all explanations for this fact have successively been discarded or refuted in recent decades. There is no special factor that could explain the particularities of human existence. Rather, all human skills derive from a continuous relation to pre-human skills, that is to say, to elements that were developed earlier in the phylogeny and were later inherited. But starting from abilities that are anything but special, how could the particularity of human beings have evolved? This was the guiding question of the project. In this work we try to answer it by addressing the following problems: How strong is evolutionary continuity in human beings? How can we understand that it gave way to cultural discontinuity? Which aspect of cultural existence is really unique to humans? Can the possibility of objective knowledge be seen as a (admittedly extreme) case in point? - The answers are meant to help clarify the central issue of contemporary scientific anthropology.

From which evaluative foundation should we develop public policies designed to promote wellbeing among different cultural groups in different circumstances? This book seeks to advance an objective, universal theory of cultural evaluation grounded in a eudaemonic account of human wellbeing. The approach brings together a 'thick vague' conception of the good; a determinate, particularist conception of circumstance; an egalitarian moral philosophy with concessions to sufficientarianism, and a normative functionalist view of culture, to assess the value of cultural institutions to those that they affect. Engaging closely with needs and capabilities paradigms, the approach seeks to identify and explain cultural deficits in given circumstances. The applicability of the theory is illustrated through analysis of the effect of settler-indigenous relations on Aboriginal Australian people. This book is ideal for students and scholars of cultural theory and public policy.

Samuels's collection of critical essays gives body and scope to the subject of nineteenth-century sentimentality by situating it in terms of "women's culture" and issues of race. Presenting an interdisciplinary range of approaches that consider sentimental culture before and after the Civil War, these critical studies of American literature and culture fundamentally reorient the field. Moving beyond alignment with either pro- or anti-sentimentality camps, the collection makes visible the particular racial and gendered forms that define the aesthetics and politics of the culture of sentiment. Drawing on the fields of American cultural history, American studies, and literary criticism, the contributors include Lauren Berlant, Ann Fabian, Susan Gillman, Karen Halttunen, Carolyn L. Karcher, Joy Kasson, Amy Schrager Lang, Isabelle Lehuu, Harryette Mullen, Dana Nelson, Lora Romero, Shirley Samuels, Karen Sanchez-Eppler, Lynn Wardley, and Laura Wexler.

Mexico comprises 32 diverse states, and this reference is the first to succinctly profile each. Each chapter devoted to one of the states provides a contemporary snapshot of the most important information to know about the state, with essay sections on its characteristics, flora and fauna, cultural groups and languages, history, economy, social customs, arts, noteworthy places, and cuisine with representative recipes. Familiar and noteworthy names in Mexican culture are highlighted in the applicable sections. The format is perfect for students studying Spanish and travelers and general readers wanting a different angle from that provided in guidebooks and more authoritativeness than they can offer. Readers learn about the pulsing metropolis of Mexico City to the jungle isolation found in the Yucatan Peninsula.

Considering the huge political, social, and economic focus on Mexico and the number of Mexican immigrants in the United Status today, Americans need to know more about Mexico and the homeland of these new immigrants. Make this one of the sources you recommend to your patrons to get a quick yet substantial feel for the states and their people. A map and photo accompany each chapter, and the volume contains a chronology, glossary, and selected bibliography.

The Athabaskan language family is the largest group of Amerindian languages in North America, including languages such as Navajo and Apache. This volume is a collection of previously unpublished articles on Athabaskan syntax, semantics, and morphology, and will be of interest not only to those with a anthropological interest in Native American languages, but also to theoretical linguists concerned with issues discussed. The book will also be useful in that it directly confronts the problems facing languages like Navajo as they struggle to survive; the list of contributors thus brings together not only prominent linguists (including Navajos) but educators as well.

This book examines how identities emerge, persist and change in various Pacific societies. The 'shifting images' of identity are explored in pre-colonial, colonial as well as post-colonial circumstances. All the essays in this volume address both continuity and discontinuity in the construction of identities in the rapidly changing Pacific region. A region increasingly characterized by state-formation processes and global influences.

The richness and vibrancy of Vietnamese spirituality are vividly portrayed in these twelve essays that shed light on the remarkable reflorescence of religion in this communist country. Ancestor worship, mediumship, sacrifices, and communal rituals have not only survived Vietnam's reintegration into the capitalist world; they are intrinsic to the dramatic reshaping of its contemporary social and cultural life. Transnational Buddhism and Christianity challenge the political status quo as they answer conflicting aspirations for enlightenment, justice, national development and cultural identity. Making conceptual contributions to anthropology and comparative religion, this book provides insights from post-revolutionary Vietnam into the diverse passages to re-enchantment in the modern world.

Marketing has situated itself as an indispensable tool in today's business world-an unavoidable step in the process from production to consumption. This book is the first of its kind to map out the organizing principles and cultural logic of marketing, and trace the profession's ascent to global domination. Applbaum argues that marketing can be seen as a particular set of cultural practices that surfaced in reaction to the affluence of Western society, and not the answer to the call of inherent human needs and wants. In order to understand globalization, transnational corporations, and the spread of consumer culture, one must understand the logic of marketing.

A groundbreaking, comprehensive anthology. Scholars have traced applied anthropology as far back as the classical age, when Greek rulers gathered data about neighbouring people in order to inform Greek foreign policy. Most anthropology ever since has had a practical focus: knowledge for the sake of knowledge is valuable; knowledge with practical applications is even more so. The authors focus on how the field of anthropology can best be utilised practically today. In making their arguments, they consider past, present, and future trends in applied anthropology, especially with regard to issues such as globalisation, ethnographic research, and governmental policies. This anthology focuses on how people can make their training in anthropology work for them in seemingly unrelated fields. Specific topics covered include: anthropology and development, the environment, agricultural anthropology, health and medicine, nutritional anthropology, displacement and resettlement, business and industry, anthropology applied to education, applied anthropology and the aged, and emerging trends in applied anthropology. Collects together contributions from key thinkers in the field.

Human variation represented a central research topic for life scientists and posed challenging administrative issues for colonial bureaucrats in the first half of the 20th century. By following scientists' and administrators' interests in innovating styles and tools for making and circulating documents, in reshaping landscapes and environments, and in fixing distances between humans, the book advances new understandings of the materiality of colonial institutional life and governance.

The modern world is saturated with images. Scientific knowledge of the human body (in all its variety) is highly dependent on the technological generation of visual data - brain and body scans, x-rays, diagrams, graphs and charts. New technologies afford scientists and medical experts new possibilities for probing and revealing previously invisible and inaccessible areas of the body. The existing literature has been successful in mapping the impact and implications of new medical technologies and in marrying the visual and the body but thus far has focused only narrowly on particular kinds of technology or taken only a purely textual/visual (cultural studies) approach to images of the body. Combining approaches from three of the most dynamic and popular fields of contemporary social anthropology - the study of the visual, the study of the technological and the study of the human body - this volume draws these together and interrogates their intersection using insights from ethnographic approaches. Offering a fascinating and wide range of perspectives, the chapters in this volume bring an innovative focus that reflects the authors' shared interest in 'the body' and visualising technologies.

Jeanette Edwards is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. She is author of Born and Bred: Idioms of Kinship and New Reproductive Technologies in England (2000); co-author of Technologies of Procreation: Kinship in the Age of Assisted Conception (2nd edition, 1999); co-editor of European Kinship in the Age of Biotechnology (2009); and coeditor, with Harvey and Wade, of Anthropology and Science (2007).

Penelope Harvey is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Manchester and co-Director of CRESC (ESRC Centre for Research on Socio- Cultural Change). She has done ethnographic research in Peru, Spain and the UK, and published on engineering practice, state formation, information technologies and the politics of communication.

Peter Wade is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. His publications include Race and Ethnicity in Latin America (1997); Music, Race and Nation (2000); Race, Nature and Culture (2002); and Race and Sex in Latin America (2009).

Papajohn provides a collection of detailed case histories used to explore the effect of culture change on the psychological functioning of white Americans who derive from different ethnic backgrounds. Both individual and marital conflicts are analyzed to highlight the impact of one's cultural heritage on adjustments to mainstream American society. This book is designed to provide therapists with important insights in treating hyphenated Americans, who are the grandchildren (third generation) of the original immigrants. It will also be of interest to laypersons since it is written in a clear and jargonless language.

The modes of thinking, feeling, and acting of the original immigrants are shown to persist over generations and to impact on their children's children. Kluckhohn's theory of variations in orientation is employed to examine the culture change that children and grandchildren of immigrants undergo in interfacing with American society. This is done in the context of intensive psychotherapy with individuals and couples who derive from different ethnic backgrounds. Three individual and three marital therapy cases are analyzed. A culturally enlightened conceptualization by the therapist is shown to enhance the treatment process and lead to a more effective therapeutic resolution.