Focusing on racial, ethnic, and religious groups, the author proposes a historical overview of group life and its impact on American society. His objectives and arguments are multiple. Covering a period from precolonial days to the present, he discusses the dynamics of group identity as well as the dynamics of intragroup and intergroup relations. The underlying theme is: All groups have at one time endured discrimination in American society. But, the trend in the United States historically has been toward guaranteeing and protecting individual rights. The author concludes that over the past few decades, however, the trend has shifted. Since the civil rights movement, the course has been toward government promotion of group rights over individual rights. He argues that this promotion of group rights has been chipping away at traditional individual rights. The impact of these preferences-specifically affirmative action programs-has been to create competition and antagonism among groups. Concerned with how to preserve national unity in the wake of this increasing animosity, Perlmutter concludes with ominous observations for America's future if the current trend of the government promoting group rights continues.

Whereas most anthropological research is grounded in social, cultural and biological analysis of the human condition, this volume opens up a different approach: its concerns are the psychic depths of human cultural life-worlds as explored through psycho-analytic practice and/or the psychoanalytically framed ethnographic project. In fact, some contributors here argue that the anthropological interpretation of human existence is not sustainable without psychoanalysis; others take a less extreme radical stance but still maintain that the unconscious matrix of the human psyche and of the intersubjective (social) reality of any given cultural life-world is a vital domain of anthropological and sociological inquiry and understanding. Jadran Mimica lectures in Anthropology at the University of Sydney.

Mental retardation in the United States is currently defined as " ... signif icantly subaverage general intellectual functioning existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior, and manifested during the development period" (Grossman, 1977). Of the estimated six million plus mentally retarded individuals in this country fully 75 to 85% are considered to be "func tionally" retarded (Edgerton, 1984). That is, they are mildly retarded persons with no evident organic etiology or demonstrable brain pathology. Despite the relatively recent addition of adaptive behavior as a factor in the definition of retardation, 1.0. still remains as the essential diagnostic criterion (Edgerton, 1984: 26). An 1.0. below 70 indicates subaverage functioning. However, even such an "objective" measure as 1.0. is prob lematic since a variety of data indicate quite clearly that cultural and social factors are at play in decisions about who is to be considered "retarded" (Edgerton, 1968; Kamin, 1974; Langness, 1982). Thus, it has been known for quite some time that there is a close relationship between socio-economic status and the prevalence of mild mental retardation: higher socio-economic groups have fewer mildly retarded persons than lower groups (Hurley, 1969). Similarly, it is clear that ethnic minorities in the United States - Blacks, Mexican-Americans, American Indians, Puerto Ricans, Hawaiians, and others - are disproportionately represented in the retarded population (Mercer, 1968; Ramey et ai., 1978)."

Western societies draw crucially on concepts of the 'individual' in constructing their images of the ethnic group and nation and define these in terms of difference. This study explores the implications of these constructs for Western understanding of social order and ethnic conflicts. Comparing them with the forms of cultural identity characteristic of Melanesia as they have developed since pre-colonial times, the author arrives at a surprising conclusion: he argues that these kinds of identities are more properly and adequately viewed as forms of disguised or denied resemblance, and that it is these covert commonalities that give rise to, and prolong, social divisions and conflicts between groups.

With an ongoing international conference, Jewish humor in recent years has been a subject of serious scholarly inquiry. Most academic publications, however, have been individual works representing a particular thesis or viewpoint, generally on literary aspects. The present collection of essays by scholars from England, France, the United States, Denmark, Israel, and Australia explores characteristics of Jewish humor from a variety of perspectives, including anthropology, literature, psychology, sociology, and religion.

Geographically, the work distinguishes between the Jewish humor of Israel and that of the diaspora; historically, it traces Jewish humor to the Bible. The linkages with Judaism and the Yiddish language are explored. Essays deal with the Jewish use of humor in stressful and tragic situations, with self-disparagement in Jewish humor, with anti-semitism and stereotyping, and with Jewish women as the objects of humor. The contributions to world culture of humorists Sholom Aleichem, Woody Allen, Philip Roth, Charlie Chaplin, and numerous contemporary performers are discussed as are the Jewish theorists of humor, including Sigmund Freud, Henri Bergson, and Arthur Koestler. An interdisciplinary book, it will be of interest to students and researchers of Jewish tradition and folklore, Jewish-American literature, American studies, and humor, popular culture, anthropology, psychology, and sociology.

South America's Andean highlands have seen the rise and decline of several impressive, indigenous civilizations. Separated somewhat in time and place, each developed its distinctive socio-cultural accouterments but all shared a need to adjust to the individual, societal and environmental limitations imposed by life at high altitude. Partial oxygen pressure, temperature and humidity fall systematically as altitude rises, but there are other changes as well. Darwin, Forbes, von Humboldt, von Tschudi and other naturalists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who weaved their way through South America commented repeatedly on the tolerance or apparent indifference of the indigenes to the rigors of life at altitudes above 3000 meters but its impact upon lowlanders. Von Tschudi (1847), for example, observed 'in the cordillera the effect of the diminished atmospheric pressure on the human frame shows itself in intolerable symptoms of weariness and an extreme difficulty of breathing . . . . The first symptoms are usually felt at the elevation of 12,600 feet (3800 m) above the sea. These symptoms are vertigo, dimness of sight and hearing, pains in the head and nausea . . . . Inhabitants of the coast and Europeans, who for the first time visit the lofty regions of the cordillera, are usually attacked with this disorder. ' But von Tschudi's description of acute mountain sickness was hardly the first; his Spanish predecessors had known and commented upon it too.

How does one explain the poverty and marginalization of a group that lives in a remarkably successful economy and peaceful society? A native anthropologist, the author provides critical insight into the dynamics of contemporary Mauritian society. In her meticulously researched study of ethnic, gender and racial discrimination in Mauritius, she addresses debates carried out in many developing societies on subaltern identities, ethnicity, poverty and social injustice. The book therefore also offers important empirical material for scholars interested in the wider Indian Ocean region and beyond.

The culture of contemporary medicine is the object of investigation in this book; the meanings and values implicit in biomedical knowledge and practice and the social processes through which they are produced are examined through the use of specific case studies. The essays provide examples of how various facets of 20th century medicine, including edu cation, research, the creation of medical knowledge, the development and application of technology, and day to day medical practice, are per vaded by a value system characteristic of an industrial-capitalistic view of the world in which the idea that science represents an objective and value free body of knowledge is dominant. The authors of the essays are sociologists and anthropologists (in almost equal numbers); also included are papers by a social historian and by three physicians all of whom have steeped themselves in the social sci ences and humanities. This co-operative endeavor, which has necessi tated the breaking down of disciplinary barriers to some extent, is per haps indicative of a larger movement in the social sciences, one in which there is a searching for a middle ground between grand theory and attempts at universal explanations on the one hand, and the context-spe cific empiricism and relativistic accounts characteristic of many historical and anthropological analyses on the other."

With the end of the Cold War and the proliferation of civil wars and "regime changes," the question of nation building has acquired great practical and theoretical urgency. From Eastern Europe to East Timor, Afghanistan and recently Iraq, the United States and its allies have often been accused of shirking their nation-building responsibilities as their attention - and that of the media -- turned to yet another regional crisis. While much has been written about the growing influence of television and the Internet on modern warfare, little is known about the relationship between media and nation building. This book explores, for the first time, this relationship by means of a paradigmatic case of successful nation building: Malaysia. Based on extended fieldwork and historical research, the author follows the diffusion, adoption, and social uses of media among the Iban of Sarawak, in Malaysian Borneo and demonstrates the wide-ranging process of nation building that has accompanied the Iban adoption of radio, clocks, print media, and television. In less than four decades, Iban longhouses ('villages under one roof') have become media organizations shaped by the official ideology of Malaysia, a country hastily formed in 1963 by conjoining four disparate territories.

John Postill is a Research Fellow at the University of Bremen. He is currently studying e-government and ethnicity in Malaysia. Trained as an anthropologist at University College London, he has published a range of articles on the anthropology of media, with special reference to Malaysian Borneo.

In the mid-1990s new treatment options introduced a new era of AIDS. This book is a sophisticated study of the shaping of this new era. Well informed by ethnographic as well as statistical data, it reveals the complex and ambiguous processes of change in the field of HIV/AIDS and beyond. The investigation leads from the changing conceptions of disease and body to the re-defined roles of patients and physicians, and eventually treats the shifts in the production and diffusion of knowledge that the health care system underwent. In doing so, the book captures the new era of AIDS from multiple perspectives and through the voices of physicians as well as people with HIV. It offers an accessible and engaging account of the wide-ranging responses this illness caused.

As an original and timely contribution to questions of considerable currency in medicine and the social sciences, the book meets the interests of specialists, professionals, researchers and students alike.

"Given the lack of information about this population in the Westrn world, the focused materials presented in this book help build a better information base on the diverse practices and beliefs of Iranian outside their homeland." . Choice " This] first full-length study of the Iranian Muslim diaspora in Britain . . . enhances our empirical and theoretical understanding." . The Muslim World Book Review An estimated 75,000 Iranians emigrated to Britain after the 1979 revolution and the establishment of the Islamic Republic. They are politically, religiously, socio-economically and ethnically heterogeneous, and have found themselves in the ongoing process of settlement. The aim of this book is to explore facets of this process by examining the ways in which religious traditions and practices have been maintained, negotiated and rejected by Iranians from Muslim backgrounds and how they have served as identity-building vehicles during the course of migration, in relation to the political, economic, and social situation in Iran and Britain. While the ethnographic focus is on Iranians, this book touches on more general questions associated with the process of migration, transnational societies, Diasporas, and religious as well as ethnic minorities. Kathryn Spellman received her MSc. and Ph.D. in Politics and Sociology at Birkbeck College, University of London, where she is currently an Honorary Research Fellow. She is a lecturer of sociology at Huron International University in London and Syracuse University (London Campus). Kathryn is also a Visiting Research Fellow in the Centre of Migration Studies Department at the University of Sussex.

Nowadays, a plethora of treatment technologies is available to the consumer, each employing a variety of concepts of the body, self, sickness and healing. This volume explores the options, strategies and consequences that are both relevant and necessary for patients and practitioners who are manoeuvring this medical plurality. Although wideranging in scope and covering areas as diverse as India, Ecuador, Ghana and Norway, central to all contributions is the observation that technologies of healing are founded on socially learned and to some extent fluid experiences of body and self.

Papajohn provides a collection of detailed case histories used to explore the effect of culture change on the psychological functioning of white Americans who derive from different ethnic backgrounds. Both individual and marital conflicts are analyzed to highlight the impact of one's cultural heritage on adjustments to mainstream American society. This book is designed to provide therapists with important insights in treating hyphenated Americans, who are the grandchildren (third generation) of the original immigrants. It will also be of interest to laypersons since it is written in a clear and jargonless language.

The modes of thinking, feeling, and acting of the original immigrants are shown to persist over generations and to impact on their children's children. Kluckhohn's theory of variations in orientation is employed to examine the culture change that children and grandchildren of immigrants undergo in interfacing with American society. This is done in the context of intensive psychotherapy with individuals and couples who derive from different ethnic backgrounds. Three individual and three marital therapy cases are analyzed. A culturally enlightened conceptualization by the therapist is shown to enhance the treatment process and lead to a more effective therapeutic resolution.

The behaviour of politicians and public servants often strikes outside observers as erratic, inconsistent and sometimes foolish. One way of understanding their behaviour is political anthropology. This book focuses on the everyday life of ministers and senior public servants in different countries, describing their world through their eyes. It analyses how such practices are embedded in political and administrative traditions. It explores how their beliefs, practices and traditions create meaning in politics and public policy making. It provides unique data on the everyday life government elites and practical advice on how to conduct such fieldwork.

Ethnic Attachments in Sri Lanka examines the uses of ethnic identity in Sri Lankan society from the early medieval period through the present day. It takes account of the religious assertion of ethnicity in the early medieval period and Sabaratnam traces the cultural geography of ethnic regions under Portuguese and Dutch rule, and how institutional collaboration between British rulers and the upper levels of the native population resulted in a class society. He argues that the present civil war is due to competitive politics, which have heightened differences in religion and language.

This is the first volume ever published to examine the objective and subjective qualities of Korean life from both comparative and dynamic perspectives. It presents non-Western policy alternatives to enhancing the quality of citizens' lives, distinguishing Korea as an Asian model of economic prosperity and political democracy. The book is intended for academics, policy makers and the general public interested in recent developments in Korea.

"This is an excellent collection of articles. . . . All are clearly written and any of them could be used in undergraduate teaching. Moreover, the range of case studies is impressively global. . . . The articles all exhibit a good capacity to provoke. . . . The result is an enjoyable book that is likely to be useful to teachers, students and practitioners of environmentalism." - Anthropological Forum Anthropologists know that conservation often disempowers already under-privileged groups, and that it also fails to protect environments. Through a series of ethnographic studies, this book argues that the real problem is not the disappearance of "pristine nature" or even the land-use practices of uneducated people. Rather, what we know about culturally determined patterns of consumption, production and unequal distribution, suggests that critical attention would be better turned on discourses of "primitiveness" and "pristine nature" so prevalent within conservation ideology, and on the historically formed power and exchange relationships that they help perpetuate. David G. Anderson is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen. Eeva Berglund was Lecturer in Anthropology at Goldsmiths College from 1998 to 2002 and has written on the anthropology and history of environmental politics.

Although the post-colonial situation has attracted considerable interest over recent years, one important colonial power - Portugal - has not been given any attention. This book is the first to explore notions of ethnicity, "race", culture, and nation in the context of the debate on colonialism and postcolonialism. The structure of the book reflects a trajectory of research, starting with a case study in Trinidad, followed by another one in Brazil, and ending with yet another one in Portugal. The three case studies, written in the ethnographic genre, are intertwined with essays of a more theoretical nature. The non-monographic, composite - or hybrid - nature of this work may be in itself an indication of the need for transnational and historically grounded research when dealing with issues of representations of identity that were constructed during colonial times and that are today reconfigured in the ideological struggles over cultural meanings.

There has been a notable upsurge of interest in the body in empirical and theoretical study and debate. Contributions to this book move these debates forward by considering a range of bodies as active in their own construction in social and economic processes. The authors consider the body as a site of agency, resistance, and compromise and reflect upon the reluctance of sociology to engage with the body and notions of embodiment.

Russia and the former Soviet Union, and the lands of the former Hapsburg Empire have an extraordinarily complex and varied pattern of ethnic settlement which has extended a great influence of their historical development. This multi-authored volume seeks new interpretations and confronts issues as diverse as the political role of Czech gymnastic clubs, Russian-Muslim relations in the Russian Empire, the ethnic factor in Stalin's purges, and the nature of Russian imperialism in Finland.

It has been twelve years since a work relating to the long-tailed African monkeys known as the guenons has been published and fifteen years have passed since the last major scientific symposium was held that was solely dedicated to current research on members of this monkey group living in the wild. Since that time, new guenon species and subspecies have been discovered, previously unstudied guenon species have become the subject of long-term research projects, and knowledge of the more well-known guenon species has greatly increased. This volume presents novel information and keen insight on research previously studied and newly discovered. A wide range of topics related to guenon biology is presented, including evolution, taxonomy, biogeography, reproductive physiology, social and positional behavior, ecology, and conservation. Composed of 26 chapters compiled by 47 authors, many of whom are young investigators in their field, The Guenons: Diversity and Adaptation in African Monkeys provides a valuable resource for researchers and scientists in the fields of anthropology, primatology, zoology, and conservation biology.

This book addresses some of the key questions facing contemporary social scientists. It does so by focusing on international research on identity and social inequality grounded in "race" and ethnic difference. The contributors to the volume, who are drawn from Europe, North America, South Africa, and Australia, reflect on questions from the position of "insiders", in the sense that they are active participants in the research cultures about which they are writing. They ask searching questions about the politics of research finding, the empowerment of minorities and the prospects for meaningful social change. In doing so we gain a fascinating insight into, for example, the position of social scientists in war-torn Serbia, in post-apartheid in South Africa, and in the contemporary US.

African cults and religions enrich all aspects of Cuba's social, cultural and everyday life, and encompass all ethnic and social groups. Politics, art, and civil events such as weddings, funerals, festivals and carnivals all possess distinctly Afro-Cuban characteristics. Miguel Barnet provides a concise guide to the various traditions and branches of Afro-Cuban religions. He distinguishes between the two most important cult forms - the Regla de Ocha (Santeria), which promotes worship of the Oshira (gods), and the traditional oracles that originated in the old Yoruba city of lle-lfe', which promote a more animistic worldview. Africans who were brought to Cuba as slaves had to recreate their old traditions in their new Caribbean context. As their African heritage collided with Catholicism and with Native American and European traditions, certain African gods and traditions became more prominent while others lost their significance in the new Afro-Cuban culture. This book, the first systematic overview of the syncretization of the gods of African origin with Catholic saints, introduces the reader to a little-known side of Cuban culture.

Ethnic conflicts have shaped the 20th century in significant ways. While the legacy of the last century is primarily one of many unresolved conflicts, the author contends that Western Europe has a track record in containing and settling ethnic conflicts which provides valuable lessons for conflict management elsewhere. Focusing on ethno-territorial crossborder conflicts in Alsace, the Saarland, South Tyrol, and Northern Ireland, Andorra and the New Hebrides, the author develops a four-dimensional analytical framework that synthesizes the distinct factors that influence the complex relationship between host-state, kin-state, actors in the disputed territory, and in the international context.

What counts as ethnography and what counts as good ethnographic methodology are both highly contested. This volume brings together chapters presenting a diversity of views on some of the current debates and developments in the field. It does not try to present a single coherent view but, through its heterogeneity, illustrates the strength and impact of debate. The topics discussed include participant observation, research roles in fieldwork, access to places and people in research, ethical issues concerning anonymity and intimacy in research, generalization in ethnography, the use of video, developing stronger criteria for autoethnography, and the use of ethnography as a contribution to the generation and modification of indicators. Together the collection illustrates the strength and vitality of ethnography.