Sociology has taken a recent and unexpected theological turn that has radical implications for reflexivity. This original study explores these in four areas: visual aspects of reflexivity and theology; Simmel and Mauss on prayer as a form of spiritual capital; identity and the constitution of character; and finally, and most controversially, a reflection on sociological expectations of theology. This is one of the few works that explores a new terrain with profound implications for sociology and theology.

Language, Nation and Power provides students with a discussion of the ways in which language has been (and is being) used to construct national (or ethnic) identity. It focuses on the processes by which a language can be planned and standardized and what the results of these processes are. Particular emphasis is given to the historical and social effects which nationalism has had on the development of language since the French Revolution. For students of linguistics, sociology and politics.

The 2010 earthquake in Haiti was one of the deadliest disasters in modern history, sparking an international aid response - with pledges and donations of $16 billion - that was exceedingly generous. But now, five years later, that generous aid has clearly failed. In Humanitarian Aftershocks in Haiti, anthropologist Mark Schuller captures the voices of those involved in the earthquake aid response, and they paint a sharp, unflattering view of the humanitarian enterprise. Schuller led an independent study of eight displaced-persons camps in Haiti, compiling more than 150 interviews ranging from Haitian front-line workers and camp directors to foreign humanitarians and many displaced Haitian people. The result is an insightful account of why the multi-billion-dollar aid response not only did little to help but also did much harm, triggering a range of unintended consequences, rupturing Haitian social and cultural institutions, and actually increasing violence, especially against women. The book shows how Haitian people were removed from any real decision-making, replaced by a top-down, NGO-dominated system of humanitarian aid, led by an army of often young, inexperienced foreign workers. Ignorant of Haitian culture, these aid workers unwittingly enacted policies that triggered a range of negative results. Haitian interviewees also note that the NGOs ""planted the flag"", and often tended to ""just do something"", always with an eye to the ""photo op"" (in no small part due to the competition over funding). Worse yet, they blindly supported the eviction of displaced people from the camps, forcing earthquake victims to relocate in vast shantytowns that were hotbeds of violence. Humanitarian Aftershocks in Haiti concludes with suggestions to help improve humanitarian aid in the future, perhaps most notably, that aid workers listen to - and respect the culture of - the victims of catastrophe.

Drawing on 15 years of research in Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, Suriname, and the Netherlands, Sansone explores the very different ways that race and ethnicity are constructed in Brazil and the rest of Latin America. He compares Latin American conceptions of race to US and European notions of race that are defined by clearly identifiable black-white ethnicities. Sansone argues that understanding more complex, ambiguous notions of culture and identity will expand international discourse on race and move it away from American definitions that inadequately describe racial difference. He also explores the effects of globalization on constructions of race.

Maroon Cosmopolitics: Personhood, Creativity and Incorporation sheds further light on the contemporary modes of Maroon circulation and presence in Suriname and in the French Guiana. The contributors assembled in the volume look to describe Maroon ways of inhabiting, transforming and circulating through different localities in the Guianas, as well as their modes of creating and incorporating knowledge and artefacts into their social relations and spaces. By bringing together authors with diverse perspectives on the situation of the Guianese Maroon at the twenty-first century, the volume contributes to the anthropological literature on Maroon societies, providing ethnographic, and historical depth and legitimacy to the contemporary lives of the descendants of those who fled from slavery in the Americas.

This text explores why it is white ethnicity has been rendered invisible, arguing that contemporary people's conceptions of themselves are conditioned by, and derive from, the unknown and forgotten legacy of a colonial past that cannot be confined to the past.

In 1908, Arthur Maurice Hocart and William Halse Rivers Rivers conducted fieldwork in the Solomon Islands and elsewhere in Island Melanesia that served as the turning point in the development of modern anthropology. The work of these two anthropological pioneers on the small island of Simbo brought about the development of participant observation as a methodological hallmark of social anthropology. This would have implications for Rivers' later work in psychiatry and psychology, and Hocart's work as a comparativist, for which both would largely be remembered despite the novelty of that independent fieldwork on remote Pacific islands in the early years of the 20th Century. Contributors to this volume-who have all carried out fieldwork in those Melanesian locations where Hocart and Rivers worked-give a critical examination of the research that took place in 1908, situating those efforts in the broadest possible contexts of colonial history, imperialism, the history of ideas and scholarly practice within and beyond anthropology.

This encyclopedia provides detailed information about the historical, cultural, social, religious, economic, and scientific significance of gold, across the globe and throughout history. Gold has been an intrinsic part of human culture and society throughout the world, both in ancient times and in the modern era. This precious metal has also played a central role in economics and politics throughout history. In fact, the value of gold remains a topic of debate amid the current upheavals of economic conditions and attendant reevaluations of modern financial principles. Gold: A Cultural Encyclopedia consists of more than 130 entries that encompass every aspect of gold, ranging from the ancient metallurgical arts to contemporary economies. The connections between these interdisciplinary subjects are explored and analyzed to highlight the many ways humankind's fascination with gold reflects historical, cultural, economic, and geographic developments. While the majority of the works related to gold focus on economic theory, this text goes beyond that to take a more sociocultural approach to the subject. Contains more than 130 A-Z entries on the significance of gold worldwide, from antiquity to the present, from an interdisciplinary perspective, as well as sidebar entries Provides unique details and remarkable scope of facts in each entry along with direct references to and examples of primary source materials Photographs and illustrations of the use and significance of gold as varied as Ca' d'Oro in Venice, royal crowns, filigree, Italian florin coin, Hatshepsut, Rumpelstiltskin, Wat Traimit, and modern "bling" Extensive bibliography including monographs, scholarly articles, newspaper and magazine articles, primary source documents, and online resources Detailed subject index as well as list of entries and guide to related topics

This historical ethnography from Central Sudan explores the century-old intertwining of zar , spirit possession, with past lives of ex-slaves and shows that, despite very different social and cultural contexts, zar has continued to be shaped by the experience of slavery.

Friendship, descent and alliance are basic forms of relatedness that have received unequal attention in social anthropology. Offering new insights into the ways in which friendship is conceptualized and realized in various sub-Saharan African settings, the contributions to this volume depart from the recent tendency to study friendship in isolation from kinship. In drawing attention to the complexity of the interactions between these two kinds of social relationships, the book suggests that analyses of friendship in Western societies would also benefit from research that explores more systematically friendship in conjunction with kinship.

Over several generations villagers of Dominica have been shifting from Patwa, an Afro-French creole, to English, the official language. Despite government efforts at Patwa revitalization and cultural heritage tourism, rural caregivers and teachers prohibit children from speaking Patwa in their presence. Drawing on detailed ethnographic fieldwork and analysis of video-recorded social interaction in naturalistic home, school, village and urban settings, the study explores this paradox and examines the role of children and their social worlds. It offers much-needed insights into the study of language socialization, language shift and Caribbean children's agency and social lives, contributing to the burgeoning interdisciplinary study of children's cultures. Further, it demonstrates the critical role played by children in the transmission and transformation of linguistic practices, which ultimately may determine the fate of a language.

Many anthropological accounts of warfare in indigenous societies have described the taking of heads of other body parts as trophies. But almost nothing is known of the prevalence of trophy-taking of this sort in the armed forces of contemporary nation-states. This book is a history of this type of misconduct among military personnel over the past two centuries, exploring its close connections with colonialism, scientific collecting and concepts of race, and how it is a model for violent power relationships between groups.

Dance is more than an aesthetic of life - dance embodies life. This is evident from the social history of jive, the marketing of trans-national ballet, ritual healing dances in Italy or folk dances performed for tourists in Mexico, Panama, and Canada. Dance often captures those essential dimensions of social life that cannot be easily put into words. What are the flows and movements of dance carried by migrants and tourists? How is dance used to shape nationalist ideology? What are the connections between dance and ethnicity, gender, health, globalization and nationalism, capitalism, and post-colonialism? Through innovative and wide-ranging case studies, the contributors explore the central role dance plays in culture as leisure commodity, cultural heritage, cultural aesthetic or cathartic social movement.

This book integrates the theories of complex self-organizing systems with the rich body of discourse and literature developed in what might be called social theory of cities and urbanism . It uses techniques from dynamical complexity and synergetics to successfully tackle open social science questions.

Capitalism has long been idealized as a symbol of success, power, and free enterprise. In reality, while capitalism has brought wealth and success to some people, many others are rapidly losing opportunities to make a living as globalization transfers more and more control over local resources to distant powers. Today there is a growing sense that something is wrong with a system that treats people as mere components of the production process, focusing on efficiency to such extremes that services to citizens of even wealthy nations are neglected. The eleven anthropologists, economists, and researchers represented in this volume address this disparity of global capitalism and offer surprising solutions to the present effects of the burgeoning ""global marketplace"" on some of today's struggling communities. The essays, ranging in subject matter from the preservation of traditional fishing communities in New England to the effects of NAFTA, emphasize the need to reestablish grassroots development and locally focused use of resources and champion the concerns of contemporary poor and working-class people. In its consideration of possible alternatives to the profoundly damaging effects of uncontrolled global capitalism, Communities and Capital offers a new perspective that balances the power and success of capitalism with a recognition of its costs.

Coming of Age in Times of Crisis is an anthropological study of the intersecting roles of gender and schooling in the lives of rural Venezuelan youth as they make the transition to adulthood during times of national political and economic crisis. Strongly grounded in local detail while speaking to larger comparative issues and the crises that surround globalization, the study enables us to see how gender roles and social class are reproduced in a culture experiencing profound upheaval, and to see how rural Venezuelans have managed to reproduce and change their culture in these circumstances. This book is based on two-and-a-half years of ethnographic field research Hurtig conducted in the Andean region of Venezuela between 1991 and 1993, and again briefly in 1996.

This book represents the first anthropological ethnography of Ikea consumption and goes to the heart of understanding the unique and at times frantic popularity of this one iconic transnational store. Based on a year of participant observation in Stockholm's Kungens Kurva store - the largest in the world - this book places the retailer squarely within the realm of the home-building efforts of individuals in Stockholm and to a lesser degree in Dublin. Ikea, the world's largest retailer and one of its most interesting, is the focus of intense popular fascination internationally, yet is rarely subject to in-depth anthropological inquiry. In Unpacking Ikea, Garvey explores why Ikea is never 'just a store' for its customers, and questions why it is described in terms of a cultural package, as everyday and classless. Using in-depth interviews with householders over several years, this ethnographic study follows the furniture from the Ikea store outwards to probe what people actually take home with them.

Mythologies and narratives of victimization pervade contemporary Croatia, set against the backdrop of militarized notions of masculinity and the political mobilization of religion and nationhood. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in rural Dalmatia in the Croatian-Bosnian border region, this book provides a unique account of the politics of ambiguous Europeanness from the perspective of those living at Europe's margins. Examining phenomena such as Marian apparitions, a historic knights tournament, the symbolic re-signification of a massacre site, and the desolate social situation of Croatian war veterans, Narrating Victimhood traces the complex mechanisms of political radicalization in a post-war scenario. This book provides a new perspective for understanding the ongoing processes of transformation in Southeastern Europe and the Balkans.

How do digital technologies shape both how people care for each other and, through that, who they are? With technological innovation is on the rise and increasing migration introducing vast distances between family members--a situation additionally complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the requirements of physical distancing, especially for the most vulnerable – older adults--this is a pertinent question. Through ethnographic fieldwork among families of migrating nurses from Kerala, India, Tanja Ahlin explores how digital technologies shape elder care when adult children and their aging parents live far apart. Coming from a country in which appropriate elder care is closely associated with co-residence, these families tinker with smartphones and social media to establish how care at a distance can and should be done to be considered good. Through the notion of transnational care collectives, Calling Family uncovers the subtle workings of digital technologies on care across countries and continents when being physically together is not feasible. Calling Family provides a better understanding of technological relationality that can only be expected to further intensify in the future.

This volume brings together new anthropological research on the Greek crisis. With a number of contributions from academics based in Greece, the book addresses a number of key issues such as the refugee crisis, far-right extremism and the psychological impact of increased poverty and unemployment. It provides much needed ethnographic contributions and critical anthropological perspectives at a key moment in Greece's history, and will be of great interest to researchers interested in the social, political and economic developments in southern Europe. It is the first collection to explore the impact of this period of radical social change on anthropological understandings of Greece.

Venezuela, one of the least-known countries in Latin America, is brilliantly spotlighted in "Culture and Customs of Venezuela." This oil-rich nation sustained a stable democracy until the economic downturn in the 1980s, and changes in the social and political spheres will bring the country under increasing scrutiny from the outside world. Dinneen captures the sharp contrasts and immense variety of modern Venezuela. Students and interested readers will find engaging and authoritative overviews of the land, people, and history; religions; social customs; media; cinema; literature; performing arts; and art and architecture.

This work successfully portrays the country's cultural richness and diversity. Influences from the United States are inescapable, especially in Caracas, but many distinctive traditions are continued throughout the country, varying from region to region. Religious rituals and numerous festivals that take place in towns and villages and the vibrant music scene, all major expressions of the nation's social and cultural life, are just some of the highlights found herein. Numerous photos give witness to Venezuela's diverse culture and a chronology, and glossary supplement the text.

This book explores the paradoxes of Self-Other relations in the field of tourism. It particularly focuses on the 'power' of different forms of 'Otherness' to seduce and to disrupt, and, eventually, also to renew the social and cosmological orders of 'modern' culture and everyday life. Drawing on a series of ethnographic case studies, the contributors investigate the production, socialisation and symbolic encompassment of different 'Others' as a political and also an economic resource to govern social life in the present. The volume provides a comparative inductive study on the modernist philosophical concepts of time, 'Otherness', and the self in practice, and relates it to contemporary tourism and mobility.

The collection of original contributions in this volume of "Research in Economic Anthropology" addresses two recurrent themes in economic anthropology. These are the process of economic development and the basis on which economic integration takes place. The development theme is divided between papers that are concerned with the social and demographic impact of development, and those that examine the recent post-socialist transition. The integration theme is represented by articles that examine the symbolic foundations of economic integration, and by contributions that focus on the moral basis of integration and continuity. With respect to both themes theoretical issues are discussed, and detailed ethnographic cases are drawn from Asia, Europe, Russia, Latin America, and the U.S.