The key theme addressed by all the contributors to this book is the relationship between South Africa's indigenous churches (AICs) to modernity. The key question asked by each of the contributors is to what extent, if any, do AICs serve as bridges to tradition or as facilitators for modernizing practices? Although the researchers do not agree on the answer to this question--some argue for the return to tradition, others argue for the facilitation perspective--they do provide provocative and timely insights for prospective researchers interested in exploring concepts and methodologies for understanding modernity and modernization. Based on a number of case studies of AICs in South Africa, this book will also be of great interest to scholars of comparative religion and the role churches play in negotiating the complex terrains of politics, society, and economy in this era of globalization.

In The Moral Discourse of Health in Modern Cairo: Persons, Bodies, and Organs, Mohammed Tabishat posits that health care practices in Egypt constitute an index to read the way political, economic, and social conditions are experienced by those who use, embody, or live them and cope with their outcomes. These practices carry the code of the socio-cultural matrix in which they are embedded; they speak of the rationalities of different help-seeking efforts. In doing so, they represent the moral principles underlying the social efforts to alleviate pain and maintain life as a whole. Health-related practices in this sense constitute a critical platform to know, feel and live in both the physical and moral sense.

For several decades, a political discourse, which incites exclusion and hatred againt those who are perceived as different, has been gaining ground, most notably in affluent and developed countries. Focusing on the growth of racism in large cities and urban areas, this volume presents the views of international scholars who work in the social sciences and statements by non-practicing academics such as journalists and policy makers. The contributions of the scientists and the non-academic specialists are grouped around common themes, highlighting existing debates and bringing together widely scattered information. The book explores the ways in which old forms of racism persist in the urban context, and how traditional exclusion systems like casteism can be likened to contemporary forms like racism directed at refugees.

For the last century immigrants from the northern part of Jiangsu Province have been the most despised people in China's largest city, Shanghai. Called Subei people, they have dominated the ranks of unskilled laborers and resided in makeshift shacks on the city's edge. They have been objects of prejudice and discrimination: to call someone a Subei swine means that the person, even if not actually from Subei, is poor, ignorant, dirty, and unsophisticated. In this book, Emily Honig describes the daily lives, occupations, and history of the Subei people, drawing on archival research and interviews conducted in Shanghai. More important, she also uses the Subei people as a case study to examine how local origins - not race, religion, or nationality - came to define ethnic identities among the overwhelmingly Han population in China. Honig explains how native place identities structure social hierarchies and antagonisms, as well as how ascribing a native place identity to an individual or group may not connote an actual place of origin but becomes a pejorative social category imposed by the elite. Her book uncovers roots of identity, prejudice, and social conflict that have been central to China's urban residents and that constitute ethnicity in a Chinese context.

The collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe brought widespread fear of a 'tidal wave' of immigrants from the East into Western Europe. Quite apart from the social and political importance, East-West migration also poses a challenge to established theories of migration, as in most cases the migrant flow cannot be categorised as either refugee movement or a labour migration. Indeed much of the trans-border movement is not officially recognised, as many migrants are temporary, commuting, 'tourists' or illegal, and remain invisible to the authorities. This book focuses on Russian migration into Western Europe following the break-up of the Soviet Union. Helen Kopnina explores the concept of 'community' through an examination of the lives of Russian migrants in two major European cities, London and Amsterdam. In both cases Kopnina finds an 'invisible community', inadequately defined in existing literature. Arguing that Russian migrants are highly diverse, both socially and in terms of their views and adaptation strategies, Kopnina uncovers a community divided by mutual antagonisms, prompting many to reject the idea of belonging to a community at all. Based on extensive interviews, this fascinating and unique ethnographic account of the 'new migration' challenges the underlying assumptions of traditional migration studies and post-modern theories. It provides a powerful critique for the study of new migrant groups in Western Europe and the wider process of European identity formation.

As Europe becomes more integrated at the economic and political level, attempts are being made to harmonize education policies as well. This volume offers an important contribution in that the authors examine, for the first time,the politics and practices of social anthropology education across Europe. They look at a wide variety of current developments, including new teaching initiatives, the use of participatory teaching materials, film and video, fieldwork studies, applied anthropology, student perspectives, the educational role of museums, distance learning and the use of new technologies.

Diana E. Forsythe was a leading anthropologist of science, technology, and work, and especially of the field of artificial intelligence. This volume collects her best-known essays, along with other major works that remained unpublished upon her death in 1997.
The essays proceed as a series of developing variations on the key questions that still confront science and technology studies today. What assumptions do expert systems designers make about users, and about knowledge more broadly, when they build software? How should humans interact with computers, and how do they, really? Why do computing firms hire anthropologists to study human-computer interaction, and what do anthropologists find once they are hired? And how and why are traditional power asymmetries between men and women produced and maintained in engineering firms and laboratories?
The book is not only a significant anthropological study of artificial intelligence and informatics, but is also an exemplar of how reflexive ethnography should be done. Among several pioneering strands of thought, it investigates the roles of gender and power in computer engineering, looking at the cultural mechanisms that support the persistent male domination of engineering, and analyzing the laboratory as a fictive kin group that reproduces gender asymmetries.

In this book distinguished anthropologist June Nash demonstrates how ethnography can illuminate a wide array of global problems. She describes encounters with an urban U.S. community undergoing de-industrialization, with Mandalay rice cultivators accommodating to post-World War II independence through animistic pratices, with Mayans mobilizing for autonomy, and with Andean peasants and miners confronting the International Monetary Fund. Havin worked in a great variety of cultural settings around the world, Nash challenges us to expand our anthropological horizons and to think about local problems in a global manner.

Based on eighteen months of field research conducted in exile carpet factories, settlement camps, monasteries, and schools in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal, as well as in Dharamsala, India and Lhasa, Tibet, this book offers an important contribution to the debate on the impact of international assistance on migrant communities. The author explores the ways in which Tibetan exiles in Nepal negotiate their norms and values as they interact with the many international organizations that assist them, and comes to the conclusion that, as beneficial as aid agency assistance often is, it also complicates the Tibetans' efforts to define themselves as a community.

In its assessment of the current "state of play" of ethnographic practice in social anthropology, this volume explores the challenges that changing social forms and changing understandings of "the field" pose to contemporary ethnographic methods. These challenges include the implications of the remarkable impact social anthropology is having on neighboring disciplines such as history, sociology, cultural studies, human geography and linguistics, as well as the potential 'costs' of this success for the discipline. Contributors also discuss how the ethnographic method is influenced by current institutional contexts and historical "traditions" across a range of settings. Here ethnography is featured less as a methodological "tool-box" or technique but rather as a subject on which to reflect.

Marit Melhuus is Professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo. Her earlier work has been on issues of gender, morality and change in Latin America, and her publications include "Machos, Mistresses, Madonnas. Contesting the Power of Latin American Gender Imagery" (co-edited with Kristi Anne Stolen, Verso, 1996). Her current research concerns biotechnology, kinship, and law, and she has published numerous articles on these questions. Recent publications include "Holding Worlds Together: Ethnographies of Truth and Belonging" (co-edited with Marianne Lien, Berghahn, 2007) and "La Norvege, vues de l'interieur, " a special issue of Ethnologie francaise (jointly edited with Sophie Chevalier and Marianne Lien, 2009).

Jon P. Mitchell is Reader in anthropology at the University of Sussex. His main ethnographic research was conducted in Malta, covering themes of ritual and religion, politics and the state, history, memory and modernity, and popular culture. His publications include "Ambivalent Europeans: Ritual, Memory and the Public Sphere in Malta" (Routledge, 2002), "Powers of Good and Evil: Social Transformation and Popular Belief" (jointly edited with Paul Clough, Berghahn, 2002), "Modernity in the Mediterranean" (edited special issue of Journal of Mediterranean Studies, 2002), "Human Rights in Global Perspective" (jointly edited with Richard Ashby Wilson, Routledge, 2003). His current research focuses on the religious origins of secular charity.

Helena Wulff is Professor of Social Anthropology at Stockholm University. Her research interests focus on expressive forms of culture in a transnational perspective, with a recent interest in writing and Irish literature as cultural process and form. Among her latest publications are "Dancing at the Crossroads: Memory and Mobility in Ireland" (2008, Berghahn), "The Emotions: A Cultural Reader" (editor, 2007, Berg), and "Ballet across Borders: Career and Culture in the World of Dancers" (Berg, 1998, reprinted 2001). She is also Editor of "Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale, " the Journal of the European Association of Social Anthropologists."

Estimation of the Time Since Death is a current comprehensive work on the methods and research advances into the time since death and human decomposition. This work provides practitioners a starting point for research and practice to assist with the identification and analysis of human remains. It contains a collection of the latest scientific research, various estimation methods, and includes case studies, to highlight methodological application to real cases. This reference first provides an introduction, including the early postmortem period, biochemical methods, and the value of entomology in estimating the time since death, along with other factors affecting the decomposition process. Further coverage explores importance of microbial communities in estimating time since death. Separate chapters on aquatic environments, carbon 14 dating and amino acid racemization, and total body scoring will round out the reference. The final chapter ties together the various themes in the context of the longest running human decomposition facility in the world and outlines future research directions.

The Palace of Culture and Science is a massive Stalinist skyscraper that was "gifted" to Warsaw by the Soviet Union in 1955. Framing the Palace's visual, symbolic, and functional prominence in the everyday life of the Polish capital as a sort of obsession, locals joke that their city suffers from a "Palace of Culture complex." Despite attempts to privatize it, the Palace remains municipally owned, and continues to play host to a variety of public institutions and services. The Parade Square, which surrounds the building, has resisted attempts to convert it into a money-making commercial center. Author Michal Murawski traces the skyscraper's powerful impact on 21st century Warsaw; on its architectural and urban landscape; on its political, ideological, and cultural lives; and on the bodies and minds of its inhabitants. The Palace Complex explores the many factors that allow Warsaw's Palace to endure as a still-socialist building in a post-socialist city.

With more than 40% of people eventually facing a cancer diagnosis, Conversing with Cancer is a much-needed addition to understanding and improving cancer care through strong communication among providers, patients, and caregivers. Each person whose life is affected by a cancer diagnosis-patient, healthcare provider, caregiver-has information and needs information in order to make the best decisions possible under the circumstances. After studying and writing about the topics of communication and cancer for many years separately, authors Lisa Sparks and Anna Leahy combine their expertise in this new tour de force. Here, they apply principles from the field of health communication to the cancer care experience, drawing from a wide range of scholarship to offer a comprehensive view of cancer care communication and extend existing work into new insights. Engaging chapters cover all phases of the journey through cancer, from prevention to recovery or end-of-life; analyze the roles of the variety of cultural and social identities and relationships; and explore written, verbal, non-verbal, and electronic communication. In addition, this book draws from the real-life stories of cancer patients themselves to enrich the book's unique discussions and to better understand how theory can be put into practice. Conversing with Cancer is ideal for use in health communication classes, medical and nursing programs, and formal caregiver training. In addition, it is useful for cancer patient and caregiver supports groups and for individual providers, patients, and caregivers.

Can the way a word is used give legitimacy to a political movement? Feminism, Violence, and Representation in Modern Italy traces the use of the word "femminicidio" (or "femicide") as a tool to mobilize Italian feminists, particularly the Union of Women in Italy (UDI). Based on nearly two years of fieldwork among feminist activists, Giovanna Parmigiani takes a broad look at the many ways in which violence inflects the lives of women in Italy. From unchallenged gendered grammar rules to the representation of women as victims, Parmigiani examines the devaluing of women's contribution to their communities through the words and experiences of the women she interviews. She describes the first uses of the word "femminicidio" as a political term used by and within feminist circles and traces its spread to ultimate legitimization and national relevance. The word redefined women as a political subject by building an imagined community of potentially violated women. In doing so, it challenged Italians to consider the status of women in Italian society, and to make this status a matter of public debate. It also problematized the connection between women and tropes of women as objects of suffering and victimhood. Parmigiani considers this exchange within the context of Italian Catholic heritage, a precarious economy, and long-held notions of honor and shame. Parmigiani provides a careful and searing consideration of the ways in which representations of violence and the politics of this representation are shaping the future of women in Italy and beyond.

White on White/Black on Black is a unique contribution to the philosophy of race. The book explores how fourteen philosophers, seven white and seven black, philosophically understand the dynamics of the process of racialization. Combined, the contributions demonstrate different and similar conceptual trajectories of raced identities that emerge from within and across the racial divide. Each of the fourteen philosophers, who share a textual space of exploration, name blackness/whiteness, revealing significant political, cultural, and existential aspects of what it means to be black/white. Through the power of naming and theorizing whiteness and blackness, White on White/Black on Black dares to bring clarity and complexity to our understanding of race identity.

Ever since Darwin and "The Descent of Man," the existence of humans has been attributed to our intelligence and adaptability. But in "Catching Fire," renowned primatologist Richard Wrangham presents a startling alternative: our evolutionary success is the result of cooking. In a groundbreaking theory of our origins, Wrangham shows that the shift from raw to cooked foods was the key factor in human evolution. When our ancestors adapted to using fire, humanity began. Once our hominid ancestors began cooking their food, the human digestive tract shrank and the brain grew. Time once spent chewing tough raw food could be sued instead to hunt and to tend camp. Cooking became the basis for pair bonding and marriage, created the household, and even led to a sexual division of labor. Tracing the contemporary implications of our ancestors' diets, "Catching Fire" sheds new light on how we came to be the social, intelligent, and sexual species we are today. A pathbreaking new theory of human evolution, "Catching Fire" will provoke controversy and fascinate anyone interested in our ancient origins--or in our modern eating habits.

How real is race? What is biological fact, what is fiction, and where does culture enter? What do we mean by a "colorblind" or "postracial" society, or when we say that race is a "social construction"? If race is an invention, can we eliminate it? This book, now in its second edition, employs an activity-oriented approach to address these questions and engage readers in unraveling-and rethinking-the contradictory messages we so often hear about race. The authors systematically cover the myth of race as biology and the reality of race as a cultural invention, drawing on biocultural and cross-cultural perspectives. They then extend the discussion to hot-button issues that arise in tandem with the concept of race, such as educational inequalities; slurs and racialized labels; and interracial relationships. In so doing, they shed light on the intricate, dynamic interplay among race, culture, and biology. For an online supplement to How Real Is Race? Second Edition, click here.

Exploring the old and new forms of transnationalism stemming from the Caribbean, Caribbean Transnationalism challenges present concepts about diaspora, brings into perspective new forms of transnationalism, and offers new perspectives on social cohesion in plural societies. The novelty of this collection of essays by experts from a wide range of disciplines consists not only of the theoretical clarity it offers with regard to issues related to diaspora, transnationalism, and social cohesion, but also of the ample attention given to the intra-regional transnational communities and the discussion of ethnification for social cohesion. Caribbean Transnationalism calls into question traditional views held in the expanding fields of migration, transnationalism, and social cohesion, making this an important book for scholars and students interested in the study of the social sciences and Caribbean studies.

Our purpose in assembling the papers in this collection is to introduce readers to studies of normal and abnormal behavior in Chinese culture. We want to offer a sense o/what psychiatrists and social scientists are doing to advance our under standing of this subject, including what fmdings are being made, what questions researched, what conundrums worried over. Since our fund of knowledge is obviously incomplete, we want our readers to be aware of the limits to what we know and to our acquisition of new knowledge. Although the subject is too vast and uncharted to support a comprehensive synthesis, in a few areas - e. g., psychiatric epidemiology - enough is known for us to be able to present major reviews. The chapters themselves cover a variety of themes that we regard as both intrinsically interesting and deserving of more systematic evaluation. Many of the issues they address we believe to be valid concerns for comparative cross cultural studies. No attempt is made to artificially integrate these chapters, since the editors wish to highlight their distinctive interpretive frameworks as evidence of the rich variety of approaches that scholars take to this subject. 'We see this volume as a modest and self-consciously limited exploration. Here are some accounts and interpretations (but by no means all) of normal and ab normal behavior in the context of Chinese culture that we believe fashion a more discriminating understanding of at least a few important aspects of that subject."

Human liberation has become an epochal challenge in today's world, requiring not only emancipation from oppressive structures but also from the oppressive self. This book seeks to rethink knowledge vis-a-vis familiar themes such as human interest, critical theory and cosmopolitanism.

Through the voices of women activists in the welfare rights movement across the United States, The Price of Progressive Politics exposes the contemporary reality of welfare rights politics, revealing how the language of colorblind racism undermines this multiracial movement. Through in-depth interviews with activists in eight organizations across the United States, Rose Ernst presents an intersectional analysis of how these activists understand the complexities of race, class and gender and how such understandings have affected their approach to their grassroots work. Engaging and accessible, The Price of Progressive Politics offers a refreshing examination of how those working for change grapple with shifting racial dynamics in the United States, arguing that organizations that fail to develop a consciousness that reflects the reality of multiple marginalized identities ultimately reproduce the societal dynamics they seek to change.

At the turn of the century, America is both retrenching and expanding, becoming more restrictive and more expansive, more utilitarian and, more value- and religion-oriented. As was true a century ago, the flow of these changes is very much a story of immigrants, their lives in America, and the changing lives of those they join. This book examines the interaction of immigrants and the native-born in nine widely varying locales, including Richmond, VA, St. Louis, West Palm Beach, FL, Tacoma, WA, Garden City, KS, Dallas, Phoenix, San Francisco, and New York City.

The volume considers a broad range of immigrants from well-educated and economically successful Chinese and Indians, to legally recognized refugees, who often have more difficulty accommodating to U.S. society, to illegal immigrants, who are being Americanized to a shadow world of limited opportunity and limited protection. Through insight into the interactions between immigrants and native-born at the local level, the authors collectively sketch an America that is changing but also re-creating its past.

"Multiculturalism and Citizenship" investigates the European dimension of multiculturalism and immigration. This book argues that the political theory discourse of multiculturalism and resulting policies in this area assume an interpretation of liberalism that has developed from the American experience, rather than the European, and that this issue must be addressed. Much of the theoretical debate up to now understates the normative power of majority/state nationality, and overlooks the diverse societal and political contexts that may condition multicultural debates in different countries. Most seriously, such debate misses out the central feature of the multicultural challenge in Western Europe today: the assertion of religious-communal, especially Muslim, identities in polities whose self image is secular. This book argues, therefore, that a European theory must focus on different normative and political dilemmas than a North American one and must interrogate the claims for and against secularism.
"Multiculturalism and Citizenship" is truly interdisciplinary in scope (combining sociological, political science and discourse analytical themes) and thus presents a fresh and unique perspective on multiculturalism and citizenship in Western Europe today. It offers a comparative and coherent series of national case studies by a diverse range of leading scholars in the field, which provide a theoretical framework for the volume as a whole.
This is essential reading for advanced undergraduates, researchers and policy makers interested in immigration, multiculturalism, European integration, Islamic studies and ethnicities.

For many decades Germany has had a sizeable Turkish minority that lives in an uneasy co-existence with the Germans around them and as such has attracted considerable interest abroadwhere it tends to be seen as a measure of German tolerance. However, little is known about theactual situation of the Turks. This volume provides valuable information, presented in a mostoriginal manner in that it combines literary and cultural studies with social and political analysis.It focuses on the Turkish-born writer Emine Sevgi OEzdamar, who writes in German and whosework, especially her highly acclaimed novel Das ist eine Karawanserei, is examined criticallyand situated in the context of German "migrant literature".

Dental Wear in Evolutionary and Biocultural Contexts provides a single source for disseminating the current state-of-the-art research regarding dental wear across a variety of hominoid species under a number of temporal and spatial contexts. The volume begins with a brief introductory chapter addressing the general history, understandings and approaches to the study of dental wear. Remaining chapters cover dental macrowear and dental microwear. Students and professionals in anthropology, specifically paleoanthropologists, bioarcheologists, archaeologists, and primatologists will find this book to be a valuable resource. In addition, it is a helpful guide for dentists and other dental professionals interested in dental function.