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Books > Science & Mathematics > Biology, life sciences > Human biology & related topics > Biological anthropology > General
Drawing together a century of widely scattered scientific and technical reports, as well as 25 years of first-hand experience in the field, Scott Anfinson provides the first comprehensive overview of the people who inhabited the Prairie Lake Region of the northwestern Plains before the arrival of European explorers. Focusing on southwestern Minnesota, north-central Iowa, and south-eastern South Dakota, the author describes the dramatic environmental changes that occurred during the precontact millennia, and the impact on the human, animal, and plant cultures of the region once treated as the insignificant edge of the Great Plains and Eastern Woodlands. His synthesis reveals how the successions of peoples in this transition region selectively accepted -- and denied -- influences from the better-known cultures around them. Archaeologists and historians of Native Americans, as well as amateur and armchair archaeologists, will welcome this valuable addition to the region's geological, natural and cultural history.
Death, for bacteria, is not inevitable. Protect a bacterium from
predators, and provide it with adequate food and space to grow, and
it would continue living--and reproducing asexually--forever. But a
paramecium (a slightly more advanced single-cell organism), under
the same ideal conditions, would stop dividing after about 200
generations--and die. Death, for paramecia and their offspring, is
inevitable. Unless they have sex. If at any point during that 200
or so generations, two of the progeny of our paramecium have sex,
their clock will be reset to zero. They and their progeny are
granted another 200 generations. Those who fail to have sex
eventually die. Immortality for bacteria is automatic; for all
other living beings--including humans--immortality depends on
having sex. But why is this so? Why must death be inevitable? And
what is the connection between death and sexual reproduction?
"Struggling with Development" is a study of the complex relationships among international development, hunger, and gender in the context of political violence in the Philippines. This ethnography demonstrates that gender-specific international development, which has among its main goals the alleviation of hunger in women and children and the raising of women's social position, has instead perpetuated the problems of hunger and gender inequality in societies.This ethnographic study of upland Ifugao social and cultural life in the Philippines portrays how Ifugao women's unequal relationship to men has been perpetuated by international development programs largely because development personnel tend to ignore ongoing processes of social inequality operating within local communities and between nations. International development programs leave local forms of inequality unchanged and sometimes increase social inequality despite their efforts to improve women's and children's social position and nutritional status. Examples and analyses of how local forms of inequality are ignored by international development programs are provided in the text. This book questions the international "women in development" thrust of some feminist and development scholarships and organizations.Lynn Kwiatkowski also demonstrates how health care has been used in a variety of ways by different groups to serve ends other than the reduction of hunger or illness, including religious healing and military and revolutionary healing generated during the internal political conflict in the Philippines. "Struggling with Development" will be useful for advanced courses in medical anthropology and sociology, gender studies, development studies, and Asian studies.
When evolutionary biology stretched out a tentacle called sociobiology and began to probe human behavior back in the 1970s, there was no room for neutrality. Advocates of the new science hailed the dawn of a new era in our understanding of human behavior, while opponents wrung their hands with concern over the new field's potential to transform and even destroy anthropology and other social and behavioral sciences. Twenty years later, little has changed. Anthropology and its sister disciplines are still intact and thriving, though they seldom make use of insights from evolutionary biology. Cultural anthropology in particular has recoiled from the biological threat by moving away from the sciences and toward the humanities. During that same time, a new generation of scholars in biological anthropology, psychology, and other fields has made great progress by using evolutionary theory to understand human behavior, applying it to everything from mating and parenting to the study of mental illness. The success of this research program is threatened, however, by its lack of a serious role for the concept of culture."That Complex Whole: Culture and the Evolution of Human Behavior" is an effort to develop a scientific study of human behavior that is at once evolutionary and cultural. In a lively, readable style, it deals with such serious, scholarly issues as how to best define culture, the question of whether culture is present in other species, human universals and human diversity, the relationship between culture and behavior, and cultural and moral relativism. It covers existing models of the relationship between cultural and biological evolution, including the concept of the meme and the new science of memetics, as well as the author's own work on the role of culture in human communications that draws upon the study of animal signals.
Throughout the twentieth century, Spanish people have deployed
conflicting sexual moralities in their struggle for political
supremacy within the state. The Spanish Gypsies or Gitanos, who
live at the very bottom of the Spanish socio-economic scale, have
appropriated this concern with gender morality and, in the process,
have reinvented themselves as the only honourable Spaniards.
Although the Gitano gender ideology has a distinctively Spanish
flavour, it revolves around a conceptualization of the female body
that is radically different from that of other Spaniards.
What teeth can teach us about the evolution of the human species Whether we realize it or not, we carry in our mouths the legacy of our evolution. Our teeth are like living fossils that can be studied and compared to those of our ancestors to teach us how we became human. In Evolution's Bite, noted paleoanthropologist Peter Ungar brings together for the first time cutting-edge advances in understanding human evolution and climate change with new approaches to uncovering dietary clues from fossil teeth to present a remarkable investigation into the ways that teeth--their shape, chemistry, and wear--reveal how we came to be. Ungar describes how a tooth's "foodprints"--distinctive patterns of microscopic wear and tear--provide telltale details about what an animal actually ate in the past. These clues, combined with groundbreaking research in paleoclimatology, demonstrate how a changing climate altered the food options available to our ancestors, what Ungar calls the biospheric buffet. When diets change, species change, and Ungar traces how diet and an unpredictable climate determined who among our ancestors was winnowed out and who survived, as well as why we transitioned from the role of forager to farmer. By sifting through the evidence--and the scars on our teeth--Ungar makes the important case for what might or might not be the most natural diet for humans. Traveling the four corners of the globe and combining scientific breakthroughs with vivid narrative, Evolution's Bite presents a unique dental perspective on our astonishing human development.
This valuable study of 20th-century reservation life, first published in 1939, portrays 150 families on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota in a period of loss of traditional ways. Sister M. Inez Hilger used a straightforward approach in her research and elicited a wealth of information. By concentrating on both the traditional Chippewa (Ojibway) ways as well as on the adaptations the families had made, Hilger was able to present a Chippewa world in transition. She placed her broad cultural analysis in the context of reservation housing. The many quotes from the people she interviewed bring a lively, personal expression to the story. This reprint edition contains a new introduction by Brenda J. Child, assistant professor of American studies at the University of Minnesota, and Kimberly M. Blaeser, professor of comparative literature at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Recent flashpoints in Black-Jewish relations--Louis Farrakhan's Million Man March, the violence in Crown Heights, Leonard Jeffries' polemical speeches, the O.J. Simpson verdict, and the contentious responses to these events--suggest just how wide the gap has become in the fragile coalition that was formed during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Instead of critical dialogue and respectful exchange, we have witnessed battles that too often consist of vulgar name-calling and self-righteous finger-pointing. Absent from these exchanges are two vitally important and potentially healing elements: Comprehension of the actual history between Blacks and Jews, and level-headed discussion of the many issues that currently divide the two groups. In Struggles in the Promised Land, editors Jack Salzman and Cornel West bring together twenty-one illuminating essays that fill precisely this absence. As Salzman makes clear in his introduction, the purpose of this collection is not to offer quick fixes to the present crisis but to provide a clarifying historical framework from which lasting solutions may emerge. Where historical knowledge is lacking, rhetoric comes rushing in, and Salzman asserts that the true history of Black-Jewish relations remains largely untold. To communicate that history, the essays gathered here move from the common demonization of Blacks and Jews in the Middle Ages; to an accurate assessment of Jewish involvement of the slave trade; to the confluence of Black migration from the South and Jewish immigration from Europe into Northern cities between 1880 and 1935; to the meaningful alliance forged during the Civil Rights movement and the conflicts over Black Power and the struggle in the Middle East that effectively ended that alliance. The essays also provide reasoned discussion of such volatile issues as affirmative action, Zionism, Blacks and Jews in the American Left, educational relations between the two groups, and the real and perceived roles Hollywood has play in the current tensions. The book concludes with personal pieces by Patricia Williams, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Michael Walzer, and Cornel West, who argues that the need to promote Black-Jewish alliances is, above all, a "moral endeavor that exemplifies ways in which the most hated group in European history and the most hated group in U.S. history can coalesce in the name of precious democratic ideals." At a time when accusations come more readily than careful consideration, Struggles in the Promised Land offers a much-needed voice of reason and historical understanding. Distinguished by the caliber of its contributors, the inclusiveness of its focus, and the thoughtfulness of its writing, Salzman and West's book lays the groundwork for future discussions and will be essential reading for anyone interested in contmeporary American culture and race relations.
A major critique of the globalization of the culture principle in
anthropology. This study contends that the subjective anthropology
promoted through postmodernism represents an extreme development of
long established, highly patronizing and misleading evaluations in
the anthropologist's creative role in the construction of theory.
Arguing that theory building is dependent on the actual study of
peoples - a study which is empirically based and historically
sensitive - the book advocates the "fieldwork mode of production
and reproduction." The simplest model for the construction of
empirically-grounded theory involves three interacting sets of
factors: the subjective ethnographer and their deployment of
current theoretical assumptions; the multi-layered ethnographic
"facts" disclosed by fieldwork; and the geopolitical and historical
contexts in which fieldwork is conducted.
In Pacific societies, local knowledge, which has been accumulated
over thousands of years and is irreplaceable, is rapidly
disappearing. With the extinction of languages, the ability to
observe and interpret the world from varying perspectives is also
being lost. At the same time, an enormous body of knowledge about
nature, plants and animals is vanishing.
In Pacific societies, local knowledge, which has been accumulated over thousands of years and is irreplaceable, is rapidly disappearing. With the extinction of languages, the ability to observe and interpret the world from varying perspectives is also being lost. At the same time, an enormous body of knowledge about nature, plants and animals is vanishing. However, in parallel with this, the people of the Pacific are confronted with new modes of knowledge and newly introduced technologies through imported educational systems, missions of various denominations, and the media. They do not passively assimilate this knowledge but adopt, adapt, and apply it in a syncretistic way.These changes will have permanent effects on the individual lives of people in the region and their knowledge about themselves and their surrounding 'world'. This stimulating book tracks the course of these developments and offers revealing insights into the complexity of Pacific peoples' responses to the process of globalization.
In the revised and updated second edition of this comprehensive book, the first anthology to integrate social-psychological literature on prejudice with sociological and historical investigations, contributors introduce readers to the key debates and principal writings on racial and ethnic conflict, representing conservative, liberal, and radical positions. Presented in debate format, each section offers a provocative discussion of contemporary problems and issues, allowing students to take part in the controversies from an informed perspective. The editors' introductions provide current data and describe cutting-edge arguments that are reshaping the study of race and ethnicity today. The second edition boasts new readings which serve to further enhance the dialogue on America's continuing struggle with racial issues. Contributors tackle a wide array of issues which plague the country today--from discrimination and immigration to education and politics--and ask how we can affect change as we move into the twenty-first century.
Asian Indians figure prominently among the educated, middle class
subset of contemporary immigrants. They move quickly into
residences, jobs, and lifestyles that provide little opportunity
with fellow migrants, yet they continue to see themselves as a
distinctive community within contemporary American society. In Life
Lines Bacon chronicles the creation of a community--Indian-born
parents and their children living in the Chicago metropolitan
area--bound by neither geographic proximity, nor institutional
ties, and explores the processes through which ethnic identity is
transmitted to the next generation.
This book examines the concept of adaptation in four major fields in the human sciences. Genetic aspects are first considered through an examination of the human genes which have so far been identified as conferring survival value in particular environmental circumstances. The drift versus selection argument is also fully reviewed. The second contribution concerns the physiological changes which occur when individuals move from one environment to another. In the past, most attention has been given to the mechanisms of these changes, but here the focus is on the effects. The third contribution is directed at the analysis of behaviour - especially social behaviour. The application of kin selection and reciprocal attraction theories to humans is explored and the value of these approaches explained, whether the behaviour has a genetic basis or not. The final essay deals with the relevance of the adaptation concept to the social sciences and especially to social anthropology. It demonstrates that an ecological approach to understanding the nature and structure of human societies demands attention to adaptation.Reprinted in paperback for the first time and with a new foreword, this book, which serves as an excellent teaching text, clearly shows how attempts at integration in each of these various fields can benefit the study of human evolution, social structure and organization from all perspectives.
An original anthology of essays illuminating the role of nativism in America's history Nativism-an intense opposition to immigrants and other non- native members of society-has been deeply imbedded in the American character from the earliest days of the nation. Correspondingly, nativism, overtly or covertly, has always permeated our national discourse. Dating from the Alien and Sedition controversy of 1798 to California's recent Proposition 187, nativism has long been a driving force in policy making, a particular irony in a country founded and populated by immigrants. This anthology of original essays is informed at its core by George Santayana's famous edict that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Examining the current surge in nativism in light of past waves of anti- immigrant sentiment, the volume takes an unflinchingly critical look at the realities and rhetoric of the new nativism. How can the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans during World War II illuminate our understanding of the English Only movement today? How has the symbolism of the Statue of Liberty evolved since its dedication and what can it tell us about the American disposition to immigration? What is the new nativism? What are the semantic and rhetorical similarities, if any, between the most shrill nativist voices of the present, such as Pat Buchanan's or Peter Brimelow's in his widely publicized book Alien Nation, and National Socialist propaganda in 1930s Germany? Juan Perea has here assembled a truly interdisciplinary group of contributors to emphasize the changing relationship between citizens and immigrants, and the effects of economics, history, and demographics on that relationship. Immigrants Out! provides a needed antidote to the often poisonous attacks on America's most vulnerable.
Reproduction is among the most basic of human biological functions, both for our distant ancestors and for ourselves, whether we live on the plains of Africa or in North American suburbs. Our reproductive biology unites us as a species, but it has also been an important engine of our evolution. In the way our bodies function today we can see both the imprint of our formative past and implications for our future. It is the infinitely subtle and endlessly dramatic story of human reproduction and its evolutionary context that Peter T. Ellison tells in "On Fertile Ground," Ranging from the latest achievements of modern fertility clinics to the lives of subsistence farmers in the rain forests of Africa, this book offers both a remarkably broad and a minutely detailed exploration of human reproduction. Ellison, a leading pioneer in the field, combines the perspectives of anthropology, stressing the range and variation of human experience; ecology, sensitive to the two-way interactions between humans and their environments; and evolutionary biology, emphasizing a functional understanding of human reproductive biology and its role in our evolutionary history. Whether contrasting female athletes missing their periods and male athletes using anabolic steroids with Polish farm women and hunter-gatherers in Paraguay, or exploring the intricate choreography of an implanting embryo or of a nursing mother and her child, "On Fertile Ground" advances a rich and deeply satisfying explanation of the mechanisms by which we reproduce and the evolutionary forces behind their design.
In departing from the traditional stance taken by anthropologists,
who study 'others' ethnographically, this timely book explores
forms of self-inscription on the part of both the ethnographer and
those 'others' who are studied. Informed by developments in
postmodernism, postcolonialism, and feminism, this is an original
contribution to the growing dialogue across disciplinary
boundaries. The chapters build upon recent reconsiderations of the
uses and meaning of personal narrative to examine the ways in which
selves and social forms are culturally constituted through
biographical genres. Ethnic autobiography, self-reflexivity in
ethnography, and native ethnography raise provocative questions
about a range of issues for the contemporary scholar: authenticity
of voice; ethnographic authority; and the degree to which
autoethnography constitutes resistance to hegemonic bodies of
discourse. Examined here in a variety of cultural and political
contexts, writing about the self offers challenging insights into
the construction and transformation of identities and cultural
meanings.
In departing from the traditional stance taken by anthropologists, who study 'others' ethnographically, this timely book explores forms of self-inscription on the part of both the ethnographer and those 'others' who are studied. Informed by developments in postmodernism, postcolonialism, and feminism, this is an original contribution to the growing dialogue across disciplinary boundaries. The chapters build upon recent reconsiderations of the uses and meaning of personal narrative to examine the ways in which selves and social forms are culturally constituted through biographical genres. Ethnic autobiography, self-reflexivity in ethnography, and native ethnography raise provocative questions about a range of issues for the contemporary scholar: authenticity of voice; ethnographic authority; and the degree to which autoethnography constitutes resistance to hegemonic bodies of discourse. Examined here in a variety of cultural and political contexts, writing about the self offers challenging insights into the construction and transformation of identities and cultural meanings.
This fascinating ethnography provides unique insights into the history, politics, ideology, and daily life of North Koreans living in Japan. Because Sonia Ryang was raised in this community, she was able to gain unprecedented access and to bring her personal knowledge to bear on this closed society. In addition to providing a valuable view of the experience of ethnic minorities in what is believed to be an implacably homogeneous culture, Ryang offers a rare and precious glimpse into North Korean culture and the transmission of tradition and ideology within it.Through Chongryun, its own umbrella organization, this community directs its commercial, political, social, and educational affairs, including running its own schools and teaching children about North Korea as their fatherland and Kim Il Sung and his son as their leaders. Despite the oppression and ethnic discrimination directed toward the North Korean community, Ryang depicts Koreans not as a persecuted population, but as ordinary residents whose lives are full of complexities. Although they are highly insulated within their community's boundaries, many--especially of the younger generation--are integrated into Japanese society. They are serious about commitments to North Korea yet dedicated to their lives in Japan. Examining these and other complexities, Ryang explores how, over three generations, individuals and the community reconcile such conflicts and cope with changing attitudes and approaches toward Japanese society and Korean culture.
This volume contains 71 revised refereed papers, including seven invited surveys, presented during the Third European Conference on Artificial Life, ECAL '95, held in Granada, Spain in June 1995. Originally AL was concerned with applying biologically inspired solutions to technology and with examining computational expertise in order to reproduce and understand life processes. Despite its short history, AL now is becoming a mature scientific field. The volume reports the state of the art in this exciting area of research; there are sections on foundations and epistemology, origins of life and evolution, adaptive and cognitive systems, artificial worlds, robotics and emulation of animal behavior, societies and collective behavior, biocomputing, and applications and common tools.
Three recent and highly dramatic national events have shattered the complacency of many Americans about progress, however fitful, in race relations in America. The Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings, the O.J. Simpson trial, and the Million Man March of Louis Farrakhan have forced everyone to reconsider their assumptions about race and racial relations.The Thomas-Hill hearings exposed the complexity and volatility of perceptions about race and gender. The sight of jubilant Blacks and despondent Whites reacting to the O.J. Simpson verdict shook our confidence in shared assumptions about equal protection under the law. The image of hundreds of thousands of Black men gathering in Washington in defense of their racial and cultural identity angered millions of Whites and exposed divisions within the Black community.These events were unfolding at a time when there seemed to be considerable progress in fighting racial discrimination. On the legal side, discrimination has been eliminated in more and more arenas, in theory if not always in practice. Economically, more and more blacks have moved into the middle class, albeit while larger numbers have slipped further back into poverty. Intellectually, figures like Cornel West, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Patricia J. Williams are playing a central role as public intellectuals.In the face of these disparate trends, it is clear that Americans need to rethink their assumptions about race, racial relations, and inter-racial communication. "Color * Class * Identity" is the ideal tool to facilitate this process. It provides a richly textured selection of readings from Du Bois, Cornel West, Derrick Bell, and others, as well as a range of responses to the particular controversies that are now dividing us."Color * Class * Identity" furthers these debates, showing that the racial question is far more complex than it used to be; it is no longer a simple matter of Black versus White and racial mistrust. A landmark anthology that will help advance understanding of the present unease, not just between Black and White, but within each community, this book will be useful in a broad range of courses on contemporary U.S. society.
The theory of evolution has been most successful explaining the emergence of new species in terms of their morphological traits. Ethologists teach that behaviors, too, qualify as first-class phenotypic features, but evolutionary accounts of behaviors have been much less satisfactory. In part this is because maturational "programs" transforming genotype to phenotype are "open" to environmental influences affected by behaviors. Further, many organisms are able to continue to modify their behavior, i.e., learn, even after fully mature. This creates an even more complex relationship between the genotypic features underlying the mechanisms of maturation and learning and the adapted behaviors ultimately selected.A meeting held at the Santa Fe Institute during the summer of 1993 brought together a small group of biologists, psychologists, and computer scientists with shared interests in questions such as these. This volume consists of papers that explore interacting adaptive systems from a range of interdisciplinary perspectives. About half of the articles are classic, seminal references on the subject, ranging from biologists like Lamarck and Waddington to psychologists like Piaget and Skinner. The other half represent new work by the workshop participants. The role played by mathematical and computational tools, both as models of natural phenomena and as algorithms useful in their own right, is particularly emphasized in these new papers. In all cases, the prefaces help to put the older papers in a modern context. For the new papers, the prefaces have been written by colleagues from a discipline other than the paper's authors, and highlight, for example, what a computer scientist can learn from a biologist's model, or vice versa. Through these cross-disciplinary "dialogues" and a glossary collecting multidisciplinary connotations of pivotal terms, the process of interdisciplinary investigation itself becomes a central theme.
Since it first appeared, Power and Prejudice has been hailed as a bold, pioneering work dealing with one of the central and most controversial issues of our time?the relationship between racial prejudice and global conflict. Powerfully written and based on documents from archives on several continents, this award-winning book convincingly demonstrates that the racial issue, or what W.E.B. Du Bois called ?the problem of the twentieth century,? has profoundly influenced most major developments in international politics and diplomacy.Lauren begins with a thought-provoking discussion of the heavy burden of history's pattern of conquest and slavery wherin skin color identified master and slave, conqueror and conquered. He then examines bitter twentieth-century conflicts over race, including immigration exclusion and the ?Yellow Peril,? the ?Final Solution? of the Holocaust, decolonization, the impact of the Cold War on the civil rights movement, and the global struggle against racial prejudice. In this new edition, Lauren adds dimensions about Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific, exploring the racial dimensions of immigration exclusion and warfare. He contributes significant new material about international issues regarding indigenous peoples around the world, including self-determination, sovereignty, and discrimination. And finally, he examines the dramatic events surrounding the end of apartheid in South Africa.Eloquent, provocative, and informed by first-rate scholarship, the insights of this highly original work will appeal to general readers as well as to students and scholars from a broad range of disciplines.
An ethnographic exploration of the rise of new forms of leadership
at community and national levels with islanders are synthesising
traditional and Western models. |
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