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Books > Science & Mathematics > Biology, life sciences > Human biology & related topics > Biological anthropology > General
Originally published in 1969, the aim of this book is to tell the story of the major discoveries which have been made and the attitude of the world at large to these discoveries during the ten decades since Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859. For anyone interested in man's past and in understanding the significance of each new discovery relating to human evolution, this reissue will be of great value.
Buffalo conjure up the West the way no other symbol can. They hold a special place in our culture and imagination. In this prize-winning collection, writers reveal the buffalo in plains ecology and culture from prehistoric times to its present and uncertain future.
Artificial bodies constructed in human likeness, from uncanny automatons to mechanical dolls, have long played a complex and subtle role in human identity and culture. This book takes a range of these bodies, from antiquity to the present day, to explore how we seek out echoes, caricatures and replications of ourselves in order to make sense of the complex world in which we live. Packed with case studies, from the commedia del'arte to Hans Bellmer and the 1980s supermodel, this volume explores the divide between the "real" and the constructed. Arguing that the body "other" plays a crucial role in the formation of the self physically and psychologically, leading scholar Adam Geczy contends that the "natural" body has been replaced by a series of imaginary archetypes in our post-modern world, central to which is the figure of the doll. The Artificial Body in Fashion and Art provides a much-needed synthesis of constructed bodies across time and place, drawing on fashion theory, theatre studies and material culture, to explore what the body means in the realms of identity, gender, performance and art.
An introduction to the ethnography and human geography of non-European peoples, this book deals with the economic and social life of a number of groups at diverse levels of cultural achievement and in different regions of the world. International in its scope the book covers: Malaysia, Africa, North America, Canada, Siberia, the Amazon, Eastern Solomon Islands, India, Central Asia and the Middle East. Originally published in 1934. This re-issues the seventh edition of 1949.
When scientists found the remains of a tiny hominid on an Indonesian in 2004, they claimed they found a totally new species of human ancestor (homo floresiensis), and called it a Hobbit. Film crews rolled in and the little creature took the world by storm, but a group of prominent scientists, including Maciej Henneberg and Robert Eckhardt, smelled a rat. They refuted the data--the size and shape of bones, the inferences about height--and they raised fundamental questions about scientific method, revealing cultural and political pressures that lead to the wide acceptance of unsupported theories. The Hobbit Trap describes how the case against the "new species" theory developed and offers an important critique of the species concept in evolution. In this thoroughly updated second edition, the authors include new data and analysis of the Flores fossils, and expand their important analysis of scientific practice, calling for a new movement to reverse the decline in scientific standards and the rise in scientific politics. This lively and important challenge to conventional wisdom is accessible to the general reader and makes a stimulating addition to courses on the history and philosophy of science, evolution and physical anthropology.
From the twelfth century, a growing sense of cultural confidence in the Latin West (at the same time that the central lands of Islam suffered from numerous waves of conquest and devastation) was accompanied by the increasing importance of the genre of empirical ethnographies. From a a global perspective what is most distinctive of Europe is the genre's long-term impact rather than its mere empirical potential, or its ethnocentrism (all of which can also be found in China and in Islamic cultures). Hence what needs emphasizing is the multiplication of original writings over time, their increased circulation, and their authoritative status as a 'scientific' discourse. The empirical bent was more characteristic of travel accounts than of theological disputations - in fact, the less elaborate the theological discourse, the stronger the ethnographic impulse (although many travel writers were clerics). This anthology of classic articles in the history of medieval ethnographies illustrates this theme with reference to the contexts and genres of travel writing, the transformation of enduring myths (ranging from oriental marvels to the virtuous ascetics of India or Prester John), the practical expression of particular encounters from the Mongols to the Atlantic, and the various attempts to explain cultural differences, either through the concept of barbarism, or through geography and climate.
" Choosing Ethnic Identity" explores the ways in which people are
able to choose their ethnic identities in contemporary multiethnic
societies such as the USA and Britain. Notions such as adopting an
identity, or self-designated terms, such as Black British and Asian
American, suggest the importance of agency and choice for
individuals. However, the actual range of ethnic identities
available to individuals and the groups to which they belong are
not wholly under their control. These identities must be negotiated
in relation to both the wider society and coethnics. The ability of
minority individuals and groups to assert or recreate their own
self-images and ethnic identities, against the backdrop of ethnic
and racial labelling by the wider society, is important for their
self-esteem and social status. This book examines the ways in which ethnic minority groups and individuals are able to assert and negotiate ethnic identities of their choosing, and the constraints structuring such choices. By drawing on studies from both the USA and Britain, Miri Song concludes that while significant constraints surround the exercising of ethnic options, there are numerous ways in which ethnic minority individuals and groups contest and assert particular meanings and representations associated with their ethnic identities.
Doing Anthropology in Consumer Research is the essential guide to the theory and practice of conducting ethnographic research in consumer environments. Patricia Sunderland and Rita Denny argue that, while the recent explosion in the use of "ethnography" in the corporate world has provided unprecedented opportunities for anthropologists and other qualitative researchers, this popularization too often results in shallow understandings of culture, divorcing ethnography it from its foundations. In response, they reframe the field by re-attaching ethnography to theoretically robust and methodologically rigorous cultural analysis. The engrossing text draws on decades of the authors' own eclectic research-from coffee in Bangkok and boredom in New Zealand to computing in the United States-using methodologies from focus groups and rapid appraisal to semiotics and visual ethnography. Five provocative forewords by leaders in consumer research further push the boundaries of the field and challenge the boundaries of academic and applied work. In addition to reorienting the field for academics and practitioners, this book is an ideal text for students, who are increasingly likely to both study and work in corporate environments.
Biological Anthropology and Prehistory: Exploring Our Human Ancestry Second Edition Patricia Rice "(West Virginia University)" Norah Moloney ("Institute"" of Archaeology"")" Written specifically for courses that cover biological anthropology and archaeology, this beautifully illustrated text offers a balanced and up-to-date introduction to our human past. Highlights of the New Edition:
Social scientists have used the term "Creolization" to evoke cultural fusion and the emergence of new cultures across the globe. However, the term has been under-theorized and tends to be used as a simple synonym for "mixture" or "hybridity." In this volume, by contrast, renowned scholars give the term historical and theoretical specificity by examining the very different domains and circumstances in which the process takes place. Elucidating the concept in this way not only uncovers a remarkable history, it also re-opens the term for new theoretical use. It illuminates an ill-understood idea, explores how the term has operated and signified in different disciplines, times, and places, and indicates new areas of study for a dynamic and fascinating process.
From constructions of rasa (taste) in pre-colonial India and Indonesia, children and sensory discipline within the monastic orders of the Edo period of Japan, to sound expressives among the Semai in Peninsular Malaysia, the sensory soteriology of Tibetan Buddhism, and sensory warscapes of WWII, this book analyses how sensory cultures in Asia frame social order and disorder. Illustrated with a wide range of fascinating examples, it explores key anthropological themes, such as culture and language, food and foodways, morality, transnationalism and violence, and provides granular analyses on sensory relations, sensory pairings, and intersensoriality. By offering rich ethnographic perspectives on inter- and intra-regional sense relations, the book engages with a variety of sensory models, and moves beyond narrower sensory regimes bounded by group, nation or temporality. A pioneering exploration of the senses in and out of Asia, it is essential reading for academic researchers and students in social and cultural anthropology.
The study of the cultural landscape has gained momentum in recent years, revealing new insights to geographers, archaeologists, sociologists and architects. The cultural landscape is often viewed as an emblematic site and thus a key player in the heritage process. This book explores the overlapping and often complex relationships between identity, memory, heritage and the cultural landscape. It provides an overview of new approaches in the study of these relationships, combined with evidence from Ireland, England, Scotland and the United States. These case studies demonstrate the significance of the past in the contemporary construction of identity narratives and draw attention to the powerful role of monuments and parades as sites of cultural heritage. The focus then shifts to the way in which heritage has become politicized for various ends, demonstrating the changing perception of particular heritage sites and buildings, and the role that this has played in constructing and reconstructing particular identities.
This book persuasively argues the case that ethnography must be viewed as a full theoretical system, rather than just as a research method. Blommaert traces the influence of his reading of classic works about ethnography on his thinking, and discusses a range of authors who have influenced the development of a theoretical system of ethnography, or whose work might be productively used to develop it further. Authors examined include Hymes, Scollon, Kress, Bourdieu, Bakhtin and Lefebvre. This book will be required reading for students and scholars involved in ethnographic research, or those interested in the theory of ethnography.
This book persuasively argues the case that ethnography must be viewed as a full theoretical system, rather than just as a research method. Blommaert traces the influence of his reading of classic works about ethnography on his thinking, and discusses a range of authors who have influenced the development of a theoretical system of ethnography, or whose work might be productively used to develop it further. Authors examined include Hymes, Scollon, Kress, Bourdieu, Bakhtin and Lefebvre. This book will be required reading for students and scholars involved in ethnographic research, or those interested in the theory of ethnography.
This volume is a call to qualitative researchers to respond to the political and methodological conservativism of the new millennium. Based upon the plenary papers at the first International Congress on Qualitative Inquiry, 22 scholars from five countries and many academic disciplines address how qualitative inquiry can maintain its forward-looking agenda, its emphasis on ethical practice, and its stance in favor of social justice in a world where conservatives aggressively control the political system, the university, and grant agency purse strings. Contributions by such noted scholars as Patti Lather, Janice Morse, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Ernest House, Yvonna Lincoln, and H.L. Goodall, Jr. make this an important benchmark work for all involved in qualitative inquiry.
This volume is a call to qualitative researchers to respond to the political and methodological conservativism of the new millennium. Based upon the plenary papers at the first International Congress on Qualitative Inquiry, 22 scholars from five countries and many academic disciplines address how qualitative inquiry can maintain its forward-looking agenda, its emphasis on ethical practice, and its stance in favor of social justice in a world where conservatives aggressively control the political system, the university, and grant agency purse strings. Contributions by such noted scholars as Patti Lather, Janice Morse, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Ernest House, Yvonna Lincoln, and H.L. Goodall, Jr. make this an important benchmark work for all involved in qualitative inquiry.
Upon walking U.S. inner-city streets you sooner or later come upon groups of black kids wearing prison-style outfits; there is a boom box, and rap music. And inevitably you will hear the N-word. Upon entering a district housing migrants in any European city you will encounter almost identical scenes - youngsters dressed in prison style, the boom box, rap. Only most of the kids are of a "white" or olive complexion. They call themselves "Wiggers," "white Niggers" or "Black albinos." It was this "Wigger" metaphor, with its implications of a transnational response to uprootedness and racialized exclusion that inspired CAAR to invite African American researchers working among inner city black youth and European and Israeli migration scholars to a symposium of trans-cultural and - national orientation called "Crossing Boundaries." We placed the study of African American youth - and thus a native though marginalized American population - next to research on migrant youth in Western Europe. The essays gathered here hope to contribute to an understanding on how to address the myriad challenges that both the youth and the countries in which they live must confront.
Both timely and topical, with 2005 marking the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, this unique book examines the little-known and under-researched area of German migration to Britain in the immediate post-war era. Authors Weber-Newth and Steinert analyze the political framework of post-war immigration and immigrant policy, and the complex decision-making processes that led to large-scale labour migration from the continent. They consider: * identity, perception of self and others, stereotypes and prejudice * how migrants dealt with language and intercultural issues * migrants' attitudes towards national socialist and contemporary Germany * migrants' motivation for leaving Germany * migrants' initial experiences and their reception in Britain after the war, as recalled after 50 years in the host country, compared to their original expectations. Based on rich British and German governmental and non-governmental archive sources, contemporary newspaper articles and nearly eighty biographically-oriented interviews with German migrants, this outstanding volume, a must-read for students and scholars in the fields of social history, sociology and migration studies, expertly encompasses political as well as social-historical questions and engages with the social, economic and cultural situation of German immigrants to Britain from a life-historical perspective.
This book explores the differences for participants when the wives migrate for reproductive labor in the United States. This book also adds a much needed non-working class dimension to the impact of migration on women and marital relations, particularly in the Pacific Rim: where husbands remain in Taiwan, the country of origin, and send remittances to support their wives and children in the United States, the receiving country. This book thus contributes to theorizing the class and gender dimensions of international migration, and provides comparative data for the study of transnational migration. It also sheds light on understanding the familial aspect of the many interactions across the Pacific Rim, an aspect that remains understudied.
Assimilation has been a contentious issues for most immigrant groups in the United States. The host society is assumed to lire immigrants and their descendants away from their ancestral heritage. Yet, in their quest for a "better" life, few immigrants intentionally forsake heir ethnic identity; most try to hold onto their culture by transplanting their traditional institutions and recreating new communities in America. Armenian-Americans are no exception. Armenian-Americans have been generally overlooked by census enumerators, survey analysts, and social scientists because of their small numbers and relative dispersion throughout the United States. They remain a little-studied group that has been called a "hidden minority." Armenian Americans fills this significant gap. Based on the results of an extensive mail questionnaire survey, in-depth interviews, and participant observation of communal gatherings, this book analyzed the individual and collective struggles of Armenian-Americans to perpetuate their Armenian legacy while actively seeking new pathways to the American Dream. This volume shows how men and women of Armenian descent become distanced from their ethnic origins with the passing of generations. Yet assimilation and maintenance of ethnic identity go hand-in-hand. The ascribed, unconscious, compulsive Armenianness of the immigrant generation is transformed into a voluntary, rational, situational Armenianness. The generational change is from being Armenian to feeling Armenian. The Armenian-American community has grown and prospered in this century. Greater tolerance of ethnic differences in the host society, the remarkable social mobility of many Armenian-Americans and the influx of large numbers of new immigrants from the Middle East and Soviet bloc in recent decades have contributed to this development. The future of this community, however, remains precarious as it strives to adjust to the ever changing social, economic, and political conditions affecting Armenians in the United States; the diaspora; and the new republic of Armenia. Armenian-Americans will be of interest to sociologists, anthropologists, and social historians, and of course to people of Armenian ancestry.
The book offers a critical overview of Croatian ethnology written by the most prominent Croatian ethnologist/ anthropologist in the second half of the 20th century - Dunja Rihtman-Augustin (recently deceased). She was the first Croatian ethnologist to break with the long established tradition of diffusionist (culture area) studies of her contemporaries and start to anthropologize Croatian ethnology. This book, compiled and completed by Jasna Capo Zmegac, highlights some crucial remarks with regard to the relationship between ethnology and politics. They are formulated as a series of research questions and problems, including: the role of folk culture as mythomoteur, cannonization of the folk culture, nationalization of the peasants in the 19th century and the role of ethnology. This vividly written text offers an exceptional insight into Croatian ethnological developments in the past century, as well as into crucial ruptures in Croatian society which have had important repercussions on ethnological discipline.
This book looks at ethnographic discourses concerning the indigenous population of Vietnam's Central Highlands during periods of christianization, colonization, war and socialist transformation, and analyses these in their relation to tribal, ethnic, territorial, governmental and gendered discourses. Salemink's book is a timely contribution to anthropological knowledge, as the ethnic minorities in Vietnam have (again) been the object of fierce academic debate. This is a historically grounded post-colonial critique relevant to theories of ethnicity and the history of anthropology, and will be of interest to graduate students of anthropology and cultural studies, as well as Vietnam studies.
Nearly a century ago, it was predicted that Kula, the exchange of shell valuables in the Massim region of Papua New Guinea, would disappear. Not only has this prophecy failed to come true, but today Kula is expanding beyond these island communities to the mainland and Australia.This book unveils the many deep motivations and meanings that lie behind the pursuit of Kula. Focusing upon the visually stimulating carved and painted prow boards that decorate canoes used by the Kula voyagers, Campbell argues that these designs comprise layers of encoded meaning. The unique colour associations and other formal elements speak to Vakutans about key emotional issues within their everyday and spiritual lives. How is mens participation in the Kula linked to their desire to achieve immortality? How do the messages conveyed by the canoe boards converge with those presented in Kula myths and rituals? In what ways do these systems of meaning reveal a male ideology that competes with the prevailing female ideology? Providing an alternative way of understanding the significance of Kula in the Trobriand Islands, "The Art of Kula" makes an influential new contribution to the ethnography of Papua New Guinea.
This unique survey of the evolution of the modern Chinese national character incorporates a rich blend of history and theory as well as nation, gender, and film studies. It begins with the dawn of the concept of "nation" in China at the end of the Imperial period, and follows its development from early Republican China to the present People's Republic, drawing on themes of national identity, "Orientalness," racial evolution and purity, cultural and gender roles, regional animosities, historical impediments, and more. The book also takes up the changing American perceptions of Chinese personality development and gender, using materials from American popular culture.
""Moving Through and Passing On" rewards the reader with
intimate, sensitive observations on Fulani in transition in the
Greater Accra region. Its insights into coping, adapting, and
change have validity and applicability elsewhere." --Donald E.
Vermeer, "African Studies Review" Based on eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork, Oppong develops detailed case studies and draws upon over two hundred in-depth life histories to explore issues of mobility, survival, and identity among this spacially dispersed and diverse group. Using perspectives and insights gained from oral life histories, private and public ceremonies, and ethnic associations, she examines the sites and circumstances in which people profess to be the "same" or "different" from one another. The markers of Fulani identity-as recognized by Fulani and non-Fulani alike-are examined. Oppong also explores the factors that allow them, as a distinct ethnic category, to maintain and perpetuate this identity and viability in Greater Accra. The metaphoric analogy of "construction sites" is employed to define the explicit and implicit events and recurring processes through which people conceive of themselves as Fulani. These locations and contexts of action include ethnic associations, public gatherings, and common rites of passage. The recurring processes include genealogical reckoning of kinship and endogamous marriage transactions, and the ways in which ties of descent and filiation are used to enhance individual survival and family development goals. In tracing Fulani mobility, survival, and identity across space and through time, Oppong connects her investigation to universal experiences of migration, social change, education, and family life. "Moving Through and Passing On" will be of interest to anthropologists, sociologists, and Africa area specialists. Yaa P.A. Oppong received her doctorate in social anthropology from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She is a research fellow at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies at the Harvard School of Public Health. |
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