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Books > Science & Mathematics > Biology, life sciences > Human biology & related topics > Biological anthropology > General
Norbert Peabody analyzes changes to the foundations of royal power in the Rajasthani kingdom of Kota during the late precolonial and early colonial eras. Peabody charts these changes in relation to broader socio-economic transformations within the larger royal polity. He concludes that different societies not only establish different co-ordinates of value in their constructions of the past, but also that the very processes of social and political transformation differ from society to society.
West-Eberhard is widely recognized as one of the most incisive thinkers in evolutionary biology. This book assesses all the evidence for our current understanding of the role of changes in body plan and development for the process of speciation. The process of evolution is systematically reassessed to integrate the insights coming from developmental genetics. Every serious student of evolution, and a substantial share of developmental biologists and geneticists, will need to take note of this contribution. The timing is clearly ripe for the synthesis that this work will help bring about.
Many ancient diseases with a long history of afflicting mankind such as Tuberculosis and Malaria are now re-emerging. Greenblatt brings together palaeopathologists, anthropologists, molecular biologists and modern infectious disease specialists to examine this phenomenon. New techniques allow us to detect ancient pathogen DNA and other biomarkers, in effect the chemical 'signatures' of pathogens. These tools could help us develop strategies to combat modern emerging diseases.
This book focuses on ancient diseases in order to bridge the gap that has for so long separated today's infectious disease specialists and the paleopathologists who describe pathology in skeletal and mummified remains. Linking these two research communities, and incorporating the views of anthropologists, medical ecologists and molecular/evolutionary biologists, will hopefully promote a better understanding of this complex but vitally important field. A more thorough knowledge of the impact of evolutionary biology on the host-parasite relationship may even enable us to coexist with these pathogenic micro-organisms.
The book is intended to stimulate debate and co-operation between infectious disease specialists, medical researchers, archaeologists, anthropologists and evolutionary biologists.
The Balinese devotion to their temples is both legendary and conspicuous, but the ways in which they enshrine their innermost desires have long been hidden. This ethnography draws back the veil by focusing on the romantic experiences of women in a rural village (Punyanwangi) in North Bali from adolescence to maturity. Delving into the intensity of passion that exists just below the harmonious veneer of traditional patterns of courtship and marriage, motherhood, and connubial fidelity, this book overturns Margaret Mead's assertions of passivity in Balinese social life. Punyanwangi's proximity to a thriving tourist center allows Megan Jennaway to explore as well the striking gender disparities in the ways sexuality and desire are culturally mediated. Aside from service work, women are excluded from entering the tourist domain, yet male sexual adventurism is expected and even encouraged. The bodies of foreign women are thus invested with potent fantasies of exotic desire, while those of local women are muted-denied legitimate avenues of expression. The author invokes Post-Freudian and feminist concepts of sexuality to explain culturally specific psychiatric disorders to which Balinese women are prone, interpreting them as expressions of frustrated desire. She thus convincingly reveals Balinese society as anything but unemotional or stagnant. Rather, it is swept along by currents of emotionally charged desire. By allowing key informants to tell their stories in their own voices and by skillfully interweaving fictionalized interludes, the author gives us not only a rigorously researched ethnography, but an intimate and fully realized portrait of Balinese women's innermost desires.
The idea that India is a Hindu majority nation rests on the assumption that the vast swath of its population stigmatized as 'untouchable' is, and always has been, in some meaningful sense, Hindu. But is that how such communities understood themselves in the past, or how they understand themselves now? When and under what conditions did this assumption take shape, and what truths does it conceal? In this book, Joel Lee challenges presuppositions at the foundation of the study of caste and religion in South Asia. Drawing on detailed archival and ethnographic research, Lee tracks the career of a Dalit religion and the effort by twentieth-century nationalists to encompass it within a newly imagined Hindu body politic. A chronicle of religious life in north India and an examination of the ethics and semiotics of secrecy, Deceptive Majority throws light on the manoeuvres by which majoritarian projects are both advanced and undermined.
Thinking Orientals is a groundbreaking study of Asian Americans and the racial formation of twentieth-century American society. It reveals the influential role Asian Americans played in constructing the understandings of Asian American identity. It examines the unique role played by sociologists, particularly sociologists at the University of Chicago, in the study of the "Oriental Problem" before World War II. The book also analyses the internment of Japanese Americans during the war and the subsequent "model minority" profile.
A collection of articles that addresses the challenges that European ethnology is facing. Representing a variety of localities, they give new insights and perspectives to the importance of doing empirical fieldwork and of seeing the emergence of new patterns as well as the remaking of old ones.
New information about disease transmission, dietary and economic linkage, and the continuing international focus on conservation and primate research have created a surge of interest in primates, and focus on the diverse interaction of human and nonhuman primates has become an important component in primatological and ethnographic studies. By examining the diverse and fascinating range of relationships between humans and other primates and observing how this plays a critical role in conservation practice and programs, Primates Face to Face disseminates the information gained from the anthropological study of nonhuman primates to the wider academic and non-academic world.
This volume draws together ten important essays which use a variety of approaches and materials to explore the significance of sexuality in Shakespeare's work. Some consider the erotic effect of Shakespeare's language; others are concerned with expressions of desire (male, female, inter-racial, homosexual and heterosexual) in performance as well as text. Many are reprinted from Shakespeare Survey. They are introduced by Ann Thompson's survey of the topic in recent criticism, and conclude with a new essay by Celia Daileader on nudity in Shakespeare films.
This book spans two million years of human evolution and explores the impact of economics on human evolution and natural history. The theory of evolution by natural selection has always relied in part on progress in areas of science outside of biology. By applying economic principles at the borderlines of biology, Haim Ofek shows how some of the outstanding issues in human evolution, such as the increase in human brain size and the expansion of the environmental niche humans occupied, can be answered. He identifies distinct economic forces at work, beginning with the transition from the feed-as-you-go strategy of primates, through hunter-gathering and the domestication of fire to the development of agriculture. This highly readable book will inform and intrigue general readers and those in fields such as evolutionary biology and psychology, economics, and anthropology.
Who are the Native Americans? When and how did they colonize the New World? What proportion of the biological variation in contemporary Amerindian populations was "made in America" and what was brought from Siberia? This book is a unique synthesis of the genetic, archaeological, and demographic evidence concerning the Native peoples of the Americas, using case studies from contemporary Amerindian and Siberian indigenous groups to unravel the mysteries. It culminates in an examination of the devastating collision between European and Native American cultures following Contact, and the legacy of increased incidence of chronic diseases that still accompanies the acculturation of Native peoples today.
Analyses of the ecology, biology and society of past and present-day hunter-gatherers are at the core of this interdisciplinary volume. Since the seminal work of Man the Hunter in 1968, new research in these three areas has become increasingly specialized, and the lines of communication among academic disciplines have all but broken down. This volume aims to reestablish an interdisciplinary debate, presenting critical issues commanding an ongoing interest in hunter-gatherer research, covering the evolution and history, demography, biology, technology, social organization, art, and language of diverse groups. As a reference text, this book will be useful to scholars and students of social anthropology, archaeology, biological anthropology, and human sciences.
Andean South America offers significant anthropological insights into highland and arid zone adaptations, including pastoralist economy and ecology, settlement patterns, site formation processes, tool manufacture, and the cultural meanings of landscapes. The 16 papers in this volume present detailed studies of economics and production, caravanning and trade, ceramic manufacture and use life, patterns of settlement and mobility among highland and lowland pastoralists and horticulturalists, taphonomy, and sacred landscapes. The epistomological foundations of ethnoarchaeology, archaeological uses of ethnoarchaeology, and the relationship between environment and culture are important theoretical themes. Beyond those interested in Andean South America, this volume will be of use to anyone who studies human adaptations to highland or arid environments, and to those interested in pastoral societies.
Investigating the meaning of race and racism, the eighteen superb essays in this book not only explore the nature of these controversial ideas but also promote an awareness of them. With an introduction examining the themes and conflicting ideas present in the book, and including a previously unpublished piece on the alleged racism of Immanuel Kant, this book stimulates a critical appreciation of the true meaning and far-reaching implications of an understanding of race and racism. As part of the successful Oxford Readings in Philosophy series, it engages readers with a range of ideas that will contribute to a profound insight into these highly provocative topics.
This extraordinary book, published in 2000, explores the feelings of non-Aboriginal Australians as they articulate their sense of belonging to the land. Always acting as a counterpoint is the prior occupation and ownership by Aboriginal people and their spiritual attachment. Peter Read asks the pivotal questions: what is the meaning of places important to non-Aboriginal Australians from which the indigenous people have already been dispossessed? How are contemporary Australians thinking through the problem of knowing that their places of attachment are also the places which Aboriginals loved - and lost? And are the sites of all our deep affections to be contested, articulated, shared, foregone or possessed absolutely? The book cleverly interweaves Read's analysis (and personal quest for belonging) with the voices of poets, musicians, artists, historians, young people, Asian Australians, farmers and seventh generation Australians.
This original ethnography brings indigenous people's stories into conversations around troubling questions of social justice and environmental care. Deborah Bird Rose lived for two years with the Yarralin community in the Northern Territory's remote Victoria River Valley. Her engagement with the people's stories and their action in the world leads her to this analysis of a multi-centred poetics of life and land. The book speaks to issues that are of immediate and broad concern today: traditional ecological knowledge, kinship between humans and other living things, colonising history, environmental history, and sacred geography. Now in paperback, this award-winning exploration of the Yarralin people is available to a whole new readership. The boldly direct and personal approach will be illuminating and accessible to general readers, while also of great value to experienced anthropologists.
This extraordinary book, published in 2000, explores the feelings of non-Aboriginal Australians as they articulate their sense of belonging to the land. Always acting as a counterpoint is the prior occupation and ownership by Aboriginal people and their spiritual attachment. Peter Read asks the pivotal questions: what is the meaning of places important to non-Aboriginal Australians from which the indigenous people have already been dispossessed? How are contemporary Australians thinking through the problem of knowing that their places of attachment are also the places which Aboriginals loved - and lost? And are the sites of all our deep affections to be contested, articulated, shared, foregone or possessed absolutely? The book cleverly interweaves Read's analysis (and personal quest for belonging) with the voices of poets, musicians, artists, historians, young people, Asian Australians, farmers and seventh generation Australians.
Comparison with stationary and very fast rates of population growth shows modern population grwoth to have long-run positive effects on the standards of living. This is Julian Simon's contention, and he provides support for its validity in both more and less-developed countries. He notes that since each person constitutes a burden in the short run, whether population growth is judged good or bad depends on the importance the short run is accorded relative to the long run. The author first analyzes empirical data, formulating his conclusions using simulation models. He then reviews our knowledge of the effect of economic level upon population growth. A final section of his book considers the framework of welfare economics and values within which population policy decisions are now made. He finds that the implications of policy decisions can prove inconsistent with the values that prompt their recommendation. Julian L. Simon is Professor of Economics and Business Administration at the University of Illinois. Originally published in 1977. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
The purpose of this book is to show that the ethnic groups of ancient Greece, like many ethnic groups throughout the world today, were not ultimately racial, linguistic, religious or cultural, but social groups whose "origins" in extraneous territories were just as often imagined as they were real. This is the first study to treat the subject from a truly interdisciplinary point of view, embracing literature, myth, archaeology, linguistics and social anthropology. It also outlines the history of the study of ethnicity in Greek antiquity.
The Environment in Anthropology presents ecology and current environmental studies from an anthropological point of view. From the classics to the most current scholarship, this text connects the theory and practice in environment and anthropology, providing readers with a strong intellectual foundation as well as offering practical tools for solving environmental problems. Haenn, Wilk, and Harnish pose the most urgent questions of environmental protection: How are environmental problems mediated by cultural values? What are the environmental effects of urbanization? When do environmentalists' goals and actions conflict with those of indigenous peoples? How can we assess the impact of "environmentally correct" businesses? They also cover the fundamental topics of population growth, large scale development, biodiversity conservation, sustainable environmental management, indigenous groups, consumption, and globalization. This revised edition addresses new topics such as water, toxic waste, neoliberalism, environmental history, environmental activism, and REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), and it situates anthropology in the multi-disciplinary field of environmental research. It also offers readers a guide for developing their own plan for environmental action. This volume offers an introduction to the breadth of ecological and environmental anthropology as well as to its historical trends and current developments. Balancing landmark essays with cutting-edge scholarship, bridging theory and practice, and offering suggestions for further reading and new directions for research, The Environment in Anthropology continues to provide the ideal introduction to a burgeoning field.
Read Chapter One. "Initiate[s] a useful and innovative dialogue. . . . A very
important book, especially in its opening up a discussion of
methodological issues around current research on racism and racial
grouping." "Essential reading for all those whose research explicitly
engages racial issues-and for all those who do not realize that
their work inevitably engages racial issues." "Absolutely critical reading. This volume powerfully explores
how scholars' own racial background shapes the analytical lens with
which they view whiteness, blackness . . . the exoticism and
eroticism of racial 'others' and the domain of white
privilege." "Timely and challenging, this innovative book engages questions
and dilemmas that researchers on race and racism rarely talk about
in public. Refreshingly clear and comparative in scope, it is a
must reading in all courses about race and ethnic relations,
calling for a fundamental rethinking of research agendas in this
field." "Points to the ethical dilemmas of researchers researching race
among communities that are at once 'victims' ofracism and active in
the continued process of racialization." "A remarkable collection of essays interrogating the political,
methodological and ethical dilemmas of conducting research in
racially stratified societies. These theoretically astute and
ethnographically rich case studies compellingly demonstrate how the
production of knowledge is framed and mediated by the racialized
subject positions held by social scientists. Racing Research,
Researching Race will no doubt incite a critical and long overdue
discussion of the racial politics of ethnographic fieldwork." A white woman studies upper-class eighth grade girls at her alma mater on Long Island and finds a culture founded on misinformation about its own racial and class identity. A black American researcher is repeatedly assumed by many Brazilian subjects to be a domestic servant or sex worker. Racing Race, Researching Race is the first volume of its kind to explore how ideologies of race and racism intersect with nationality and gender to shape the research experience. Critical work in race studies has not adequately addressed how racial positions in the field--as inflected by nationality, gender, and age--generate numerous methodological dilemmas. Racing Research, Researching Race begins to fill this gap by infusing critical race studies with more empirical work and suggesting how a critical race perspective might improve research methodologies and outcomes. The contributors to the volume encompassa wide range of disciplinary backgrounds including anthropology, sociology, ethnic studies, women=s studies, political science, and Asian American studies.
With characteristic intelligence, wit, and a willingness to challenge conventional wisdom, C. Loring Brace brings together 35 years of work into a monumental statement on evolutionary anthropology. An advocate of integrated, four-field anthropology, Brace begins by asking: Which anthropological data can benefit from an evolutionary perspective, and which cannot? Succeeding chapters present path-breaking research on Darwinism, race, cladistics, phylogeny, Neanderthals, dentition, craniometry, fossil evidence, and cultural ecology that raise provocative questions for the entire discipline. Reworked and updated into an accessible whole, the chapters weave analyses of scientific data, intellectual history, and anthropological theory with both grace and rigor. Evolution in an Anthropological View will stand as a milestone of twentieth century anthropology, and essential reading for all anthropologists, and their students.
W. E. B. DuBois wrote in 1903 that `the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the colour line - the relation of the darker to the lighter races in Asia and Africa, in America and in the islands of the sea'. As the century draws to its close, this remains true; if anything the salience of race and racism in all its manifestations has grown in the recent past. The last few years have witnessed a growth in academic interest in racism, and in related issues such as nationalism and ethnicity, as well as an increasing general awareness of various kinds of racial conflict and violence in a range of countries and regions across the globe. This Reader provides a critical overview of the historical development and contemporary forms of racist ideas and institutions. It brings together material from different theoretical perspectives in an attempt to make sense of the way in which racism has exerted such a powerful influence on the history of humanity.
Few writers on the Irish in America have looked beyond the nineteenth-century ethnic enclaves of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, or Chicago, or have asked how the notion of an Irish-American ethnic identity in contemporary America can be reconciled with five, six, or seven generations of intermarriage and assimilation over the last century and a half. This study, based on interviews with 500 people of Irish ancestry in Albany, New York, aims to discover in what senses and in what degrees the present-day descendants of nineteenth-century Irish immigrants possess distinctive social practices and ways of seeing the world, and raises questions about the social conditions in which ideas of Irishness have been created and re-created.
This volume assembles some leading scholars from eight countries and four disciplines to debate multiculturalism in theory and practice. The authors show a resistance to either endorse or reject multiculturalism, but a preference for analysing the concrete historical and geographical contexts of the multicultural experience across varying countires. |
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