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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Anthropology > Social & cultural anthropology > General
There is a growing body of work on white farmers in Zimbabwe. Yet the role played by white women - so-called `farmers' wives' - on commercial farms has been almost completely ignored, if not forgotten. For all the public role and overt power ascribed to white male farmers, their wives played an equally important, although often more subtle, role in power and labour relations on white commercial farms. This `soft power' took the form of maternalistic welfare initiatives such as clinics, schools, orphan programmes and women's clubs, most overseen by a `farmer's wife'. Before and after Zimbabwe's 1980 independence these played an important role in attracting and keeping farm labourers, and governing their behaviour. After independence they also became crucial to the way white farmers justified their continued ownership of most of Zimbabwe's prime farmland. This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of the role that farm welfare initiatives played in Zimbabwe's agrarian history. Having assessed what implications such endeavours had for the position and well-being of farmworkers before the onset of `fast-track' land reform in the year 2000, Hartnack examines in vivid ethnographic detail the impact that the farm seizures had on the lives of farmworkers and the welfare programmes which had previously attempted to improve their lot.
"Like national identity, national days involve a process of 'othering', saying who you are, as much as who you are not. If some countries (such as Scotland and Ireland) celebrate them far more strongly than their neighbour, England, why is that? Why is there no British day? Why should near-neighbours, Sweden, Norway and Finland, have such different traditions of national remembering? What if a national day and its associations are so tied into a previous political regime that they have become an embarrassment? Germany, Italy and South Africa have undergone radical political changes in the last 60 years, and with these, complex processes of forgetting and remembering. If national days have considerable political significance, whether positive or negative, they are also of major economic worth. Just as 'heritage' is not simply a matter of history, but of markets, so 'national days' have the potential to be major icons of national tourism. "--Book cover.
Based on detailed ethnographic material, "New Lithuania in Old Hands" analyzes the impact that European Union accession has had upon the country's aging smallscale farmers, and describes how the reality of Lithuania's EU membership has been a far cry from the scenarios of wealth and overabundance once promised. The text reveals that, in many instances, membership has resulted in a return to subsistence production, increased insecurity and a reinforcement of kinship obligations. Thus instead of treating the European Union as an elite project and voicing the support of various other segments of the population, this volume shows how broad parts of the rural population have been affected by and engaged in processes of change following Lithuania's accession - changes that threaten to have a large impact upon the future of the country's family structures and its farming demographic.
In the land of samba there is another vibrant culture capturing the attention of urban youth. This compelling account argues that hip hop, while certainly a product of globalized flows of information and technology, is by no means homogenous. Using more than five years of anthropological fieldwork in Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city, Pardue represents "culture" as generative and thus meaningful as a set of practices. When interpreted in this manner, local hip hoppers become closer to what they claim to be--subjects rather than objects of history and everyday life. In his ethnography, the first in English to look at Brazilian hip hop, Pardue highlights the analytical categories of race, class, gender, and territory.
Drawing from a study of courtship media and ethnographic work at purity retreats and home-school conventions across the Midwest, this is the first inquiry into modern Christian courtship, an alternative to dating that asks young people to avoid both romance and sex until they are ready to be married. Bridging sociological and historical studies of American Christianity with youth and girlhood studies literatures, Elizabeth Shively finds that the courtship system is designed to shore up the patriarchal nuclear family structure at the center of conservative Christianity and ensure predictability in the face of emerging adulthood: single young women work to embody ideals of "luminous femininity" and model themselves after archetypes such as the "Proverbs 31 woman," the "stay-at-home-daughter," and the "mission-minded girl," and courting couples strive to "guard their hearts" against premature emotional intimacy. Nonetheless, participants report that courtship, like other relationships, inevitably carries an element of risk, and it ultimately fails to offer a substantial challenge to the to the sexist realities of youth dating culture.
The movement of people from small towns and villages of India to places outside the country raises a number of questions- about the networks that enable their mobility, the aspirations that motivate them, what they give back to their home regions, and how their provincial home worlds engage with and absorb the consequent transnational flows of money, ideas, influence and care. This book analyzes the social consequences of the transmission of migrant resources to provincial places in India. Bringing together case studies from four regions, it demonstrates that these flows are very diverse, are inflected by regional histories of mobility and development, and may reinforce local power structures or instigate social change in unexpected ways. The chapters collected in this volume examine conflicts over migrant-funded education or rural development projects, how migrants from Dalit, Muslim and other marginalized groups use their new wealth to promote social progress or equality in their home regions, and why migrants invest in property in provincial India or return regularly to their ancestral homes to revitalize ritual traditions. These studies also demonstrate that diaspora philanthropy is routed largely through social networks based on caste, community or kinship ties, thereby extending them spatially, and illustrate how migrant efforts to 'develop' their home regions may become entangled in local politics or influence state policies. This collection of eight original ethnographic field studies develops new theoretical insights into the diverse outcomes of international migration and the influences of regional diasporas within India. These collected studies illustrate the various ways in which migrants remain socially, economical and politically influential in their home regions. The book develops a fresh perspective on the connections between transnational migration and processes of development, revealing how provincial India has become deeply globalized. It will be of interest to academics and students in the fields of anthropology, geography, transnational and diaspora studies, and South Asian studies.
This interdisciplinary collection draws together essays on the cultural effects of globalization at the U.S.-Mexico and U.S.-Canada borders. Artists, activists, and scholars from American Studies, anthropology, Chicano studies, English, folklore, history, and political science examine a wide range of cultural practices in border areas, including cross-border shopping, migration, and transnational media spectatorship. Contributors focus on a variety of border crossers and residents, such as Mexican migrants in the U.S. Southwest, indigenous peoples in the Lake Ontario region, undocumented Chinese immigrants at the U.S.-Canada border, environmental groups in Arizona, NAFTA-displaced women workers in Texas, squatter communities in Baja California, and maquiladora workers in Chihuahua.
A lost sketch book on a Portuguese castle rampart left Manuel Joao Ramos bereft, and the impulse to draw deserted him - but his first trip to Ethiopia reawakened this pleasure, so long denied. Drawing obsessively and free from care, his rapidly caught impressions convey the rough edges of the intensely lived experiences that are fundamental to the desire to travel. For the travel sketch is more than a record or register of attendance (`been there, seen that'): it holds invisibly within itself the remnant of a look, the hint of a memory and a trace of an osmosis of feelings between the sketcher and the person or objects sketched. Less intrusive than using a camera, Ramos argues drawing comprises a less imperialist, more benign way of researching: his sketchbook becomes a means of communication between himself and the world in which he travels, rendering him more human to those around him. As he journeys through the Ethiopian Central Highlands, collecting historical legends of the power struggles surrounding the arrival of the first Europeans in the mid-sixteenth century, he is drawn to the Portuguese legacy of castles, palaces and churches, near ruins now, though echoes of their lost splendour are retained in oral accounts. Excerpts from his diary, as well as journalistic pieces, share the conviviality of his encounters with the priests, elders and historians who act as custodians of the Amhara oral tradition. Their tales are interwoven with improvised, yet assured, drawings, and this informality of structure successfully retains the immediacy and pleasure of his discovery of Ethiopia. It also suggests the potential for drawing to play a more active part in anthropological production, as a means of creating new narratives and expositional forms in ethnography, bringing it closer to travel writing or the graphic novel.
This volume presents both a historical exploration of ethnography and a thematic discussion of major trends that, over different periods, have oriented and re-oriented research practice. As it overviews ethnography from different geographic and thematic perspectives, it further explores new lines of ethnographic research, including as feminist ethnography and visual research, that uncover non-traditional routes to anthropological knowledge. As the great ethnographer E. E. Evans-Pritchard wrote, "Anyone who is not a complete idiot can do fieldwork... but will [his contribution] be to theoretical, or just to factual knowledge?" As Evans-Pritchard highlights and as this book argues, successful ethnography must be connected to a sophisticated theoretical reflection rooted in social and cultural anthropology.
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.
Senegal has played a central role in contemporary dance due to its rich performing traditions, as well as strong state patronage of the arts, first under French colonialism and later in the postcolonial era. In the 1980s, when the Senegalese economy was in decline and state fundingwithdrawn, European agencies used the performing arts as a tool in diplomacy. This had a profound impact on choreographic production and arts markets throughout Africa. In Senegal, choreographic performers have taken to contemporary dance, while continuing to engage with neo-traditional performance, regional genres like the sabar, and the popular dances they grew up with. A historically informed ethnography of creativity, agency, and the fashioning of selves through the different life stages in urban Senegal, this book explores the significance of this multiple engagement with dance in a context of economic uncertainty and rising concerns over morality in the public space.
This work presents Sapir's most comprehensive statement on the concepts of culture, on method and theory in anthropology and other social sciences, on personality organization, and on the individual's place in culture and society. Extensive discussions on the role of language and other symbolic systems in culture, ethnographic method, and social interaction are also included. Ethnographic and linguistic examples are drawn from Sapir's fieldwork among native North Americans and from European and American society as well. Edward Sapir (1884-1939), one of this century's leading figures in American anthropology and linguistics, planned to publish a major theoretical state - ment on culture and psychology. He developed his ideas in a course of lectures presented at Yale University in the 1930s, which attracted a wide audience from many social science disciplines. Unfortunately, he died before the book he had contracted to publish could be realized. Like de Saussure's Cours de Linguistique Generale before it, this work has been reconstructed from student notes, in this case twentytwo sets, as well as from Sapir's manuscript materials. Judith Irvine's meticulous reconstruction makes Sapir's compelling ideas - of surprisingly contemporary resonance - available for the first time.
Extraordinary, Ordinary Women provides an intimate portrait of twenty American expatriate women currently residing in Paris. Pulling back the veil of idealism and romanticism shrouding the women's migrant lives, the book examines the very real pitfalls and triumphs of life after the "happily ever after." Extraordinary, Ordinary Women examines the consequences of immigration, biculturalism, and assimilation on the individual identities of modern expatriate women.
With the spread of neoliberal projects, responsibility for the welfare of minority and poor citizens has shifted from states to local communities. Businesses, municipalities, grassroots activists, and state functionaries share in projects meant to help vulnerable populations become self-supportive. Ironically, such projects produce odd discursive blends of justice, solidarity, and wellbeing, and place the languages of feminist and minority rights side by side with the language of apolitical consumerism. Using theoretical concepts of economic citizenship and emotional capitalism, Economic Citizenship exposes the paradoxes that are deep within neoliberal interpretations of citizenship and analyzes the unexpected consequences of applying globally circulating notions to concrete local contexts.
Fieldwork for Design looks at why ethnographic approaches have been turned to in the design of computing devices for the workplace, for the home and elsewhere. It presents a history of ethnography, both as it was practiced before computer science picked it up and since, most especially in the CSCW and HCI domains. It examines, further, the various ethnographic or a ~fieldworka (TM) frameworks currently popular, explaining and examining what each claims and entails. The focus of the book throughout is on the practical relationship between theory and practice, a relationship that is often misunderstood yet fundamental to successful design. The book is illustrated with real examples from the authorsa (TM) various experiences in academic and commercial settings, reporting on the use of ethnography before, during and after design innovation and implementation. The result is a book that provides the working knowledge necessary for using any kind of ethnographic approach in the design of computer technologies. Written to provide an overview of the topic for researchers and graduates, as well as practitioners, this book will prove an invaluable resource for all in the field. As an HCI researcher and practitioner, I am delighted to see, at last, a balanced view about the practice of ethnography within our field. Gary Marsden, Associate Professor of HCI, University of Cape Town, South Africa Dr Dave Randall is Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK Professor Richard Harper is a Senior Researcher for Microsoft Mark Rouncefield is a Senior Research Fellow at Lancaster University
This book offers a new perspective on the role played by colonial descriptions and translation of Caribbean plants in representations of Caribbean culture. Through thorough examination of Caribbean phytonyms in lexicography, colonization, history, songs and translation studies, the authors argue that the Westernisation of vernacular phytonyms, while systematizing the nomenclature, blurred and erased the cultural tradition of Caribbean plants and medicinal herbs. Means of transmission and preservation of this oral culture was in the plantation songs and herb vendor songs. Musical creativity is a powerful form of resistance, as in the case of Reggae music and the rise of Rastafarians, and Bob Marley's 'untranslatable' lyrics. This book will be of interest to scholars of Caribbean studies and to linguists interested in pushing the current Eurocentric boundaries of translation studies.
Effectively communicate Christ across Cultures The gospel message transcends cultures, but human communication does not. In Transforming Communication missionary and professor Vee J. D-Davidson provides principles for the intercultural communication of Christ. Using her twenty-five-plus years of experience teaching as a Westerner in Asia as a starting point, Davidson provides transferable principles that encourage awareness of context-specific issues and that see opportunities for intercultural communication as wholly unique opportunities, regardless of any perceived communication barriers. Readers from multiple different cultures will be able to apply the principles presented by use of relevant examples, illustrations, and enlightening insights provided from a wide range of Global South and Global North multicultural and intercultural perspectives. Transforming Communication offers practical principles to encourage and challenge Christian readers to build relationships that might well require engaging with issues that bring them out of their comfort zone but, the book also offers insights and encouraging devotional nuggets that feed into a triad of knowledge-impartation, self-examination and challenge, along with spiritual enrichment for the task.
This book explores the significance of sister relationships in women's lives. It documents sistering experiences through narratives of growing up, caring for the family, leaving home, and becoming a mother. Girls and women describe their emotions, shifting power dynamics, and moments of transition in their relationships. Drawing parallels between sistering and caring, the book presents new material on a widespread yet invisible aspect of the social construction of femininity. It also contributes to sociological debates about transformations in intimate ties.
Violent Becomings conceptualizes the Mozambican state not as the bureaucratically ordered polity of the nation-state, but as a continuously emergent and violently challenged mode of ordering. In doing so, this book addresses the question of why colonial and postcolonial state formation has involved violent articulations with so-called 'traditional' forms of sociality. The scope and dynamic nature of such violent becomings is explored through an array of contexts that include colonial regimes of forced labor and pacification, liberation war struggles and civil war, the social engineering of the post-independence state, and the popular appropriation of sovereign violence in riots and lynchings.
Looking at one's face in the mirror and finding one's self in the mirror are not the same. The former capacity is something we share with other animals; the latter is a skill: something we have to learn. What does it mean and what does it take to find oneself the mirror? This book provides a comparative anthropological enquiry into the unity and diversity of mirror gazing. The reader is encouraged to reflect upon and experiment with different mirror gazes through a range of case studies. Koukouti and Malafouris weave together anthropology with philosophy and draw on examples from literature and experiments from psychopathology in a way that has never been attempted before. The master metaphor is that of the mirror as trap. Mirror gazing is viewed on a par with hunting. Mirroring signifies the hunt for self-knowledge. In a time obsessed with the digital self-image, Koukouti and Malafouris reflect on the structures of consciousness that underpin the different ways of looking at and through the mirror. Combining metaphor, comparison and estrangement, they gesture towards a therapeutic alliance between body and mirroring. This allows us to look in the mirror, and think of our shared humanity differently.
"This book is a tour de force." --Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take A revolutionary new history of humankind through the prism of work by leading anthropologist James Suzman Work defines who we are. It determines our status, and dictates how, where, and with whom we spend most of our time. It mediates our self-worth and molds our values. But are we hard-wired to work as hard as we do? Did our Stone Age ancestors also live to work and work to live? And what might a world where work plays a far less important role look like? To answer these questions, James Suzman charts a grand history of "work" from the origins of life on Earth to our ever more automated present, challenging some of our deepest assumptions about who we are. Drawing insights from anthropology, archaeology, evolutionary biology, zoology, physics, and economics, he shows that while we have evolved to find joy, meaning and purpose in work, for most of human history our ancestors worked far less and thought very differently about work than we do now. He demonstrates how our contemporary culture of work has its roots in the agricultural revolution ten thousand years ago. Our sense of what it is to be human was transformed by the transition from foraging to food production, and, later, our migration to cities. Since then, our relationships with one another and with our environments, and even our sense of the passage of time, have not been the same. Arguing that we are in the midst of a similarly transformative point in history, Suzman shows how automation might revolutionize our relationship with work and in doing so usher in a more sustainable and equitable future for our world and ourselves.
David G. Pier offers an ethnographic study of the Senator Extravaganza traditional dance competition in Uganda, and the performers, marketers, and other actors who were involved in it. Pier illustrates the event as part of a broader moment in Ugandan and African public culture - one in which marketing is playing an increasingly dominant role.
This book offers novel insights about the ability of a democracy to accommodate violence. In El Salvador, the end of war has brought about a violent peace, one in which various forms of violence have become incorporated into Salvadorans' imaginaries and enactments of democracy. Based on ethnographic research, The Violence of Democracy argues that war legacies and the country's neoliberalization have enabled an intricate entanglement of violence and political life in postwar El Salvador. This volume explores various manifestations of this entanglement: the clandestine connections between violent entrepreneurs and political actors; the blurring of the licit and illicit through the consolidation of economies of violence; and the reenactment of latent wartime conflicts and political cleavages during postwar electoral seasons. The author also discusses the potential for grassroots memory work and a political party shift to foster hopeful visions of the future and, ultimately, to transform the country's violent democracy. |
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