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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Anthropology > Social & cultural anthropology > General
Say the words "evangelical worship" to anyone in the United States
- even if they are not particularly religious - and a picture will
likely spring to mind unbidden: a mass of white, middle-class
worshippers with eyes closed, faces tilted upward, and hands raised
to the sky. Yet despite the centrality of this image, many scholars
have underestimated evangelical worship as little more than a
manipulative effort to arouse devotional exhilaration. It is
frequently dismissed as a reiteration of nineteenth-century
revivalism or a derivative imitation of secular entertainment -
three Christian rock songs and a spiritual TED talk. But by failing
to engage this worship seriously, we miss vital insights into a
form of Protestantism that exerts widespread influence in the
United States and around the world. Evangelical Worship offers a
new way forward in the study of American evangelical Christianity.
Weaving together insights from American religious history and
liturgical studies, and drawing on extensive fieldwork in seven
congregations, Melanie C. Ross brings contemporary evangelical
worship to life. She argues that corporate worship is not a
peripheral "extra" tacked on to a fully-formed spiritual,
political, and cultural movement, but rather the crucible through
which congregations forge, argue over, and enact their unique
contributions to the American mosaic known as evangelicalism.
The present book examines the cultural diversities of the Northeast
region in India. The chapters cover various aspects of cultural
forms and practices of the communities. It serves as a bridge
between vanishing cultural forms and their commodification, on the
one hand, and their cultural ritual origins, evolution and
significance in identity formation, on the other. The book analyses
the continuity of cultural forms, their plural embodied
representations associated with people's belief systems and their
reinventions under globalisation. Further, the book underlines
historical forces such as colonialism and religious conversion that
transformed socio-cultural practices. Yet some of the pre-colonial,
ritual-performative traditions hold on. Theoretically rich in
analysis, this book presents a balanced view of the region's
historical, ethnic-folk and socio-cultural aspects. The book is
invaluable to students and researchers in cultural studies,
anthropology, folklore, history and literature. It is also helpful
for those critical readers engaged in research and interested in
Northeast cultural forms and practices.
What do you do when you are a newcomer in a cultural group and you
must find your way? From the perspective of an ethnographer of
communication, one of the most effective strategies you can take is
to go from the inside out. Exploring Cultural Communication from
the Inside Out: An Ethnographic Toolkit is a workbook that offers
readers a hands-on approach to navigating new cultural
environments. The text helps readers develop richer and more
nuanced understandings not only of the different cultures they are
members of but also their own roles in an increasingly
multicultural and global society. The book is grounded in an
interpretive theoretical/methodological framework of the
ethnography of communication and speech codes theory, and guides
readers through the process of applying this framework to any
setting of their choice. Throughout, the text introduces
theoretical concepts and pairs them with applied activities that
require readers to engage in ethical fieldwork, data collection,
and analysis. Readers are then challenged to document their
experience, communicate what they have learned, and participate in
deep reflection. Featuring a unique methodology and highly
practical information, Exploring Cultural Communication from the
Inside Out is exemplary for courses in intercultural communication,
language and culture, sociolinguistics, and communication research.
As we come upon the 30th anniversary of communism's fall, it is a
good time to reexamine what life was like behind the Iron Curtain
and how communism impacted people for generations. The study of
communication is important as it shows how much effect government
type has on the principles its people support. Those interested in
promoting and maintaining democratic ideals in countries around the
world require a book such as this to better understand the effect
communism has had. Impact of Political Socialization on the Support
for Democratic Principles: Emerging Research and Opportunities
examines life under communism in Czechoslovakia and Hungary with
particular attention paid to education, religion, travel, and
exposure to Western culture, as well as their transition to
democracy and how successful that transition has been. The book
makes the case that being politically socialized under communism
has made embracing democratic principles more difficult. The
evidence for this case is based on 200 interviews conducted in
2017-18 with people who lived in Czechoslovakia and Hungary during
communism, present-day analysis of government and politics in the
Czech Republic and Hungary, and survey data from the European
Social Survey. The main struggles in transitioning to democracy are
identified, and it is speculated whether the Czech Republic and
Hungary can ever be long-term, fully functioning democracies. The
main implications of this publication are how government type
during political socialization affects support for democratic
principles, and whether the United States could ever be at risk for
democratic erosion. The book is intended for political scientists,
government officials, historians, academicians, researchers, and
students.
Further Developments in the Theory and Practice of
Cybercartography, Third Edition, Volume Nine, presents a
substantively updated edition of a classic text on
cybercartography, presenting new and returning readers alike with
the latest advances in the field. The book examines the major
elements of cybercartography and embraces an interactive, dynamic,
multisensory format with the use of multimedia and multimodal
interfaces. Material covering the major elements, key ideas and
definitions of cybercartography is newly supplemented by several
chapters on two emerging areas of study, including international
dimensions and language mapping. This new edition delves deep into
Mexico, Brazil, Denmark, Iran and Kyrgyzstan, demonstrating how
insights emerge when cybercartography is applied in different
cultural contexts. Meanwhile, other chapters contain case studies
by a talented group of linguists who are breaking new ground by
applying cybercartography to language mapping, a breakthrough that
will provide new ways of understanding the distribution and
movement of language and culture.
Native American History and Culture: An Anthology contains diverse
perspectives and illuminates the sociocultural and political
complexity of American Indian history. The selected readings in
this anthology explore the full context of Indian life and present
readers with leading scholarship that rejects ethnocentrism and
respects Native American heritage. The text is organized into five
chapters. Chapter 1 features three readings that explore the
history of Native Americans before and after European contact. In
Chapter 2, students read about disparities in health status and
care between American Indians and other groups over time. The
readings help students better understand how economic and political
forces can explain both the persistence of health disparities and
the controversies that surround them. Chapter 3 examines Native
nations and western expansion, including treaties, settler
colonialism, and more, and Chapter 4 explores American Indian
activism. The final chapter illuminates the legacies of settler
colonialism through discussion of white supremacy, the Indian male
body and the heroic ideal, and American Indian identity and blood
quantum.
Cybercartography in a Reconciliation Community: Engaging
Intersecting Perspectives, Volume Eight gathers perspectives on
issues related to reconciliation-primarily in a residential /
boarding school context-and demonstrates the unifying power of
Cybercartography by identifying intersections among different
knowledge perspectives. Concerned with understanding approaches
toward reconciliation and education, preference is given to
reflexivity in research and knowledge dissemination. The
positionality aspect of reflexivity is reflected in the chapter
contributions concerning various aspects of cybercartographic atlas
design and development research, and related activities. In this
regard, the book offers theoretical and practical knowledge of
collaborative transdisciplinary research through its reflexive
assessment of the relationships, processes and knowledge involved
in cybercartographic research. Using, most specifically, the
Residential Schools Land Memory Mapping Project for context,
Cybercartography in a Reconciliation Community provides a high
speed tour through the project's innovative collaborative approach
to mapping institutional material and volunteered geographic
information. Exploring Cybercartography through the lens of this
atlas project provides for a comprehensive understanding of both
Cybercartography and transdisciplinary research, while informing
the reader of education and reconciliation initiatives in Canada,
the U.S., the U.K. and Italy.
In Colonial Encounters in Southwest Canaan during the Late Bronze
Age and the Early Iron Age Koch offers a detailed analysis of local
responses to colonial rule, and to its collapse. The book focuses
on colonial encounters between local groups in southwest Canaan
(between the modern-day metropolitan areas of Tel Aviv and Gaza)
and agents of the Egyptian Empire during the Late Bronze Age
(16th-12th centuries BCE). This new perspective presents the
multifaceted aspects of Egyptian colonialism, the role of local
agency, and the reshaping of local practices and ideas. Following
that, the book examines local responses to the collapse of the
empire, mechanisms of societal regeneration during the Iron Age I
(12th-10th centuries BCE), the remnants of the Egyptian-Canaanite
colonial order, and changes in local ideology and religion.
This anthropological work thoroughly illustrates the novel
synthesis of Christian religion and New Age spirituality in Greece.
It challenges the single-faith approach that traditionally ties
southern European countries to Christianity and focuses on how
processes of globalization influence and transform vernacular
religiosity. Based on long-term anthropological fieldwork in
Greece, this book demonstrates how the popular belief in the 'evil
eye' produces a creative affinity between religion and spirituality
in everyday practice. The author analyses a variety of significant
research themes, including lived and vernacular religion,
alternative spirituality and healing, ritual performance and
religious material culture. The book offers an innovative social
scientific interpretation of contemporary religiosity, while
engaging with a multiplicity of theoretical, analytic and empirical
directions. It contributes to current key debates in social
sciences with regard to globalization and secularization, religious
pluralism, contemporary spirituality and the New Age movement,
gender, power and the body, health, illness and alternative
therapeutic systems, senses, perception and the supernatural, the
spiritual marketplace, creativity and the individualization of
religion in a multicultural world.
Afghanistan in the 20th century was virtually unknown in Europe and
America. At peace until the 1970s, the country was seen as a remote
and exotic land, visited only by adventurous tourists or
researchers. Afghan Village Voices is a testament to this
little-known period of peace and captures a society and culture now
lost. Prepared by two of the most accomplished and well-known
anthropologists of the Middle East and Central Asia, Richard Tapper
and Nancy Tapper-Lindisfarne, this is a book of stories told by the
Piruzai, a rural Afghan community of some 200 families who farmed
in northern Afghanistan and in summer took their flocks to the
central Hazarajat mountains. The book comprises a collection of
remarkable stories, folktales and conversations and provides
unprecedented insight into the depth and colour of these people's
lives. Recorded in the early 1970s, the stories range from memories
of the Piruzai migration to the north a half century before, to the
feuds, ethnic strife and the doings of powerful khans. There are
also stories of falling in love, elopements, marriages, childbirth
and the world of spirits. The book includes vignettes of the
narrators, photographs, maps and a full glossary. It is a
remarkable document of Afghanistan at peace, told by a people whose
voices have rarely been heard.
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