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Books > Science & Mathematics > Biology, life sciences > Human biology & related topics > Biological anthropology > General
'I mean who cares about opinions, gossip, whatever, when bodies are so vulnerable, in search only of love and breath.' The body frequently escapes her, but is always very much present in these compellingly vivid, clear-eyed essays on an embodied self in flight through the world, from the brilliant young writer Ellena Savage. In Portuguese police stations and Portland college campuses, in suburban Melbourne libraries and wintry Berlin apartments, Savage shows bodies in pain and in love, bodies at work and at rest. She circles back to scenes of crimes or near-crimes, to lovers or near-lovers, to turn over the stones, re-read the paperwork, check the deeds, approach from another angle altogether. These essays traverse cities and spaces, bodies and histories, moving through forms and modes to find a closer kind of truth. Blueberries is ripe with acid, promise, and sweetness.
Growing up in the late 1800s, Black Elk saw that the American Indian way of life was in great danger of disappearing. In his old age, he told his life story, in great detail, to writer John Neihardt, allowing the spiritual beliefs, ceremonies, and religion of the Plains Indians to be preserved and passed on to new generations of Indian people. Black Elk fulfilled his vision of protecting his people as the Great Spirit had told him he was meant to do. Through historically accurate illustrations and photos, inspiring age-appropriate activities, and Black Elk's own words, this colorful biography introduces a remarkable person to children in a way they can understand and enjoy. Includes resources for parents and teachers, a list of important words to know, and a timeline of events in the life of Black Elk.
Winner of the 2015 LGBT Studies Award presented by the Lambda Literary Foundation Unearths connections between homoeroticism, cannibalism, and cultures of consumption in the context of American literature and US slave culture that has largely been ignored until now Scholars of US and transatlantic slavery have largely ignored or dismissed accusations that Black Americans were cannibalized. Vincent Woodard takes the enslaved person's claims of human consumption seriously, focusing on both the literal starvation of the slave and the tropes of cannibalism on the part of the slaveholder, and further draws attention to the ways in which Blacks experienced their consumption as a fundamentally homoerotic occurrence. The Delectable Negro explores these connections between homoeroticism, cannibalism, and cultures of consumption in the context of American literature and US slave culture. Utilizing many staples of African American literature and culture, such as the slave narratives of Olaudah Equiano, Harriet Jacobs, and Frederick Douglass, as well as other less circulated materials like James L. Smith's slave narrative, runaway slave advertisements, and numerous articles from Black newspapers published in the nineteenth century, Woodard traces the racial assumptions, political aspirations, gender codes, and philosophical frameworks that dictated both European and white American arousal towards Black males and hunger for Black male flesh. Woodard uses these texts to unpack how slaves struggled not only against social consumption, but also against endemic mechanisms of starvation and hunger designed to break them. He concludes with an examination of the controversial chain gang oral sex scene in Toni Morrison's Beloved, suggesting that even at the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first century, we are still at a loss for language with which to describe Black male hunger within a plantation culture of consumption.
This is an unusual excursion into American Indian culture history by a British social anthropologist. It examines theories of the development of different Pueblo social structures, with particular attention to Eggan. From a detailed re-analysis of the evidence and a consideration of material from the Eastern Keresan Pueblo of Cochiti, based on his own fieldwork, Dr Fox concludes that the theory that all Pueblos were derived from a common base is no longer tenable, and that a diversity of origins is more probable. Apart from its contribution to Amerindian studies, the book is of particular interest as an approach to modern culture history by a social anthropologist.
A journey to Alaska's remote roadless villages, during a time of great historical transition, brings us this enduring portrait of a place and its people. Alutiiq, Yup'ik, Inupiaq, and Athabascan subjects reveal themselves as entirely contemporary individuals with deep longings and connection to the land and to their past. Tom Kizzia's account of his travels off the Alaska road system, first published in 1991, has endured with a sterling reputation for its thoughtful, poetic, unflinching engagement with the complexity of Alaska's rural communities. Wake of the Unseen Object is now considered some of the finest nonfiction writing about Alaska. This new edition includes an updated introduction by the author, looking at what remains the same after thirty years and what is different-both in Alaska, and in the expectations placed on a reporter visiting from another world.
Dr Salim, of Bagdad University, spent two years amongst the remarkable tribal peoples who inhabit the great marshes of the lower Euphrates. He describes their social and economic organization and discusses on the one hand the process by which people with bedouin traditions and values have adapted themselves to different and difficult conditions, and on the other the effects upon them of submission to the central government and the modernisation of their modes of life that has resulted from it. His account offers a fascinating study of people living in an unusual environment, and will be of value to the anthropologist and ethnologist for its precise ethnography. At the same time, as one of the few detailed studies of the changes now being wrought on such a large scale by modern economic and political forces, it has real importance for the general student of contemporary Middle Eastern affairs.
Girls and women of all ages have never been more unhappy with their bodies. And research shows that slim women are often no more satisfied with their bodies than overweight ones. Forty years after the debut of body politics, fat is more of a feminist issue than ever. So why has body dissatisfaction become the norm? Why are children as young as 3 years of age worried about their appearance? Why are eating disorders, weight and shape concerns affecting so many women? And what can we do to deal with the negative effects this is having on people's lives? Leading psychologist Dr Aric Sigman tackles body dissatisfaction in a direct, uncompromising way, examining the leading research, identifying the key issues and contributing personal experiences. And he calls on the untapped army of husbands, partners and fathers to come out fighting to help change the way girls and women feel. The Body Wars also offers clear, practical solutions for individuals, parents and society to help reduce and prevent what is fast becoming a world-wide epidemic.
While there is talk of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, old and new challenges bedevil the world – climate change, nutrition, and health poverty being at the top of the list. In seeking solutions to these and other problems which afflict the modern era, it is worthwhile to look into our collective past, to the traditions and knowledges of our ancestors. Such knowledge continues to exist in many parts of the world, though now marginalized by homogenous, Eurocentric ontolology and epistemology.
"Living Beings "examines the vital characteristics of social interactions between living beings, including humans, other animals and trees.Many discussions of such relationships highlight the exceptional qualities of the human members of the category, insisting for instance on their religious beliefs or creativity. In contrast, the international case studies in this volume dissect views based on hierarchical oppositions between human and other living beings. Although human practices may sometimes appear to exist in a realm beyond nature, they are nevertheless subject to the pull of natural forces. These forces may be brought into prominence through a consideration of the interactions between human beings and other inhabitants of the natural world.The interplay in this book between social anthropologists, philosophers and artists cuts across species divisions to examine the experiential dimensions of interspecies engagements. In ethnographically and/or historically contextualized chapters, contributors examine the juxtaposition of human and other living beings in the light of themes such as wildlife safaris, violence, difference, mimicry, simulation, spiritual renewal, dress and language.
This book offers a critical reading of the Anthropocene that draws on archaeological, ecological, geological, and ethnographic evidence to argue that the concept reproduces the modernist binary between society and nature, and forecloses a more inclusive politics around climate change. The authors challenge the divisions between humans as biological and geophysical agents that constitute the ontological foundations of the period. Building on contemporary critiques of capitalism, they examine different conceptions of human-environment relationships derived from anthropology to engage with the pressing problem of global warming.
Frontiers of Citizenship is an engagingly-written, innovative history of Brazil's black and indigenous people that redefines our understanding of slavery, citizenship, and the origins of Brazil's 'racial democracy'. Through groundbreaking archival research that brings the stories of slaves, Indians, and settlers to life, Yuko Miki challenges the widespread idea that Brazilian Indians 'disappeared' during the colonial era, paving the way for the birth of Latin America's largest black nation. Focusing on the postcolonial settlement of the Atlantic frontier and Rio de Janeiro, Miki argues that the exclusion and inequality of indigenous and African-descended people became embedded in the very construction of Brazil's remarkably inclusive nationhood. She demonstrates that to understand the full scope of central themes in Latin American history - race and national identity, unequal citizenship, popular politics, and slavery and abolition - one must engage the histories of both the African diaspora and the indigenous Americas.
Marriage and the Family among the Yako in South-Eastern Nigeria
An intellectual history of America's water management philosophy Humans take more than their geological share of water, but they do not benefit from it equally. This imbalance has created an era of intense water scarcity that affects the security of individuals, states, and the global economy. For many, this brazen water grab and the social inequalities it produces reflect the lack of a coherent philosophy connecting people to the planet. Challenging this view, Jeremy Schmidt shows how water was made a "resource" that linked geology, politics, and culture to American institutions. Understanding the global spread and evolution of this philosophy is now key to addressing inequalities that exist on a geological scale. Water: Abundance, Scarcity, and Security in the Age of Humanity details the remarkable intellectual history of America's water management philosophy. It shows how this philosophy shaped early twentieth-century conservation in the United States, influenced American international development programs, and ultimately shaped programs of global governance that today connect water resources to the Earth system. Schmidt demonstrates how the ways we think about water reflect specific public and societal values, and illuminates the process by which the American approach to water management came to dominate the global conversation about water. Debates over how human impacts on the planet are connected to a new geological epoch-the Anthropocene-tend to focus on either the social causes of environmental crises or scientific assessments of the Earth system. Schmidt shows how, when it comes to water, the two are one and the same. The very way we think about managing water resources validates putting ever more water to use for some human purposes at the expense of others.
This guide to scoring crown and root traits in human dentitions substantially builds on a seminal 1991 work by Turner, Nichol, and Scott. It provides detailed descriptions and multiple illustrations of each crown and root trait to help guide researchers to make consistent observations on trait expression, greatly reducing observer error. The book also reflects exciting new developments driven by technology that have significant ramifications for dental anthropology, particularly the recent development of a web-based application that computes the probability that an individual belongs to a particular genogeographic grouping based on combinations of crown and root traits; as such, the utility of these variables is expanded to forensic anthropology. This book is ideal for researchers and graduate students in the fields of dental, physical, and forensic anthropology and will serve as a methodological guide for many years to come.
The remains of past people are a testament to their lived experiences and of the environment in which they lived. Synthesising the latest research, this book critically examines the sources of evidence used to understand and interpret violence in bioarchaeology, exploring the significant light such evidence can shed on past hierarchies, gender roles and life courses. The text draws on a diverse range of social and clinical science research to investigate violence and trauma in the archaeological record, focussing on human remains. It examines injury patterns in different groups as well as the biological, psychological and cultural factors that make us behave violently, how our living environment influences injury and violence, the models used to identify and interpret violence in the past, and how violence is used as a social tool. Drawing on a range of case studies, Redfern explores new research directions that will contribute to nuanced interpretations of past lives.
The emergence of village societies out of hunter-gatherer groups profoundly transformed social relations in every part of the world where such communities formed. Drawing on the latest archaeological and historical evidence, this volume explores the development of villages in eastern North America from the Late Archaic period to the eighteenth century. Sites analyzed here include the Kolomoki village in Georgia, Mississippian communities in Tennessee, palisaded villages in the Appalachian Highlands of Virginia, and Iroquoian settlements in New York and Ontario. Contributors use rich data sets and contemporary social theory to describe what these villages looked like, what their rules and cultural norms were, what it meant to be a villager, what cosmological beliefs and ritual systems were held at these sites, and how villages connected with each other in regional networks. They focus on how power dynamics played out at the local level and among interacting communities. Highlighting the similarities and differences in the histories of village formation in the region, these essays trace the processes of negotiation, cooperation, and competition that arose as part of village life and changed societies. This volume shows how studying these village communities helps archaeologists better understand the forces behind human cultural change. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series.
"Engrossing ... [An] expedition through the hidden and sometimes horrifying microbial domain." -Wall Street Journal "Fascinating-and full of the kind of factoids you can't wait to share." -Scientific American Parasites can live only inside another animal and, as Kathleen McAuliffe reveals, these tiny organisms have many evolutionary motives for manipulating the behavior of their hosts. With astonishing precision, parasites can coax rats to approach cats, spiders to transform the patterns of their webs, and fish to draw the attention of birds that then swoop down to feast on them. We humans are hardly immune to their influence. Organisms we pick up from our own pets are strongly suspected of changing our personality traits and contributing to recklessness and impulsivity-even suicide. Germs that cause colds and the flu may alter our behavior even before symptoms become apparent. Parasites influence our species on the cultural level, too. Drawing on a huge body of research, McAuliffe argues that our dread of contamination is an evolved defense against parasites. The horror and revulsion we are programmed to feel when we come in contact with people who appear diseased or dirty helped pave the way for civilization, but may also be the basis for major divisions in societies that persist to this day. This Is Your Brain on Parasites is both a journey into cutting-edge science and a revelatory examination of what it means to be human. "If you've ever doubted the power of microbes to shape society and offer us a grander view of life, read on and find yourself duly impressed." -Heather Havrilesky, Bookforum
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.
This book is the beginning of a conversation across Social Semiotics, Translanguaging, Complexity Theory and Radical Sociolinguistics. In its explorations of meaning, multimodality, communication and emerging language practices, the book includes theoretical and empirical chapters that move toward an understanding of communication in its dynamic complexity, and its social semiotic and situated character. It relocates current debates in linguistics and in multimodality, as well as conceptions of centers/margins, by re-conceptualizing communicative practice through investigation of indigenous/oral communities, street art performances, migration contexts, recycling artefacts and signage repurposing. The book takes an innovative approach to both the form and content of its scholarly writing, and will be of interest to all those involved in interdisciplinary thinking, researching and writing.
Lemurs share a common distant ancestor with humans. Following their own evolutionary pathway, lemurs provide the ideal model to shed light on the behavioural traits of primates including conflict management, communication strategies and society building and how these aspects of social living relate to those found in the anthropoid primates. Adopting a comparative approach throughout, lemur behaviour is cross-examined with that of monkeys, apes and humans. This book reviews and expands upon the newest fields of research in lemur behavioural biology, including recent analytical approaches that have so far been limited to studies of haplorrhine primates. Different methodological approaches are harmonised in this volume to break conceptual walls between both primate taxa and different disciplines. Through a focus on the methodologies behind lemur behaviour and social interactions, future primate researchers will be encouraged to produce directly comparable results.
This new revised edition of African Civilizations re-examines the physical evidence for developing social complexity in Africa over the last six thousand years. Unlike the two previous editions, it is not confined to tropical Africa but considers the whole continent. Graham Connah focuses upon the archaeological research of two key aspects of complexity, urbanism and state formation, in ten main areas of Africa: Egypt, North Africa, Nubia, Ethiopia, the West African savanna, the West African forest, the East African coast and islands, the Zimbabwe Plateau, parts of Central Africa and South Africa. The book's main concern is to review the available evidence in its varied environmental settings, and to consider possible explanations of the developments that gave rise to it. Extensively illustrated, including new maps and plans, and offering an extended list of references, this is essential reading for students of archaeology, anthropology, African history, black studies and social geography.
Now including numerous full colour figures, this updated and revised edition of Larsen's classic text provides a comprehensive overview of the fundamentals of bioarchaeology. Reflecting the enormous advances made in the field over the past twenty years, the author examines how this discipline has matured and evolved in fundamental ways. Jargon free and richly illustrated, the text is accompanied by copious case studies and references to underscore the central role that human remains play in the interpretation of life events and conditions of past and modern cultures. From the origins and spread of infectious disease to the consequences of decisions made by humans with regard to the kinds of foods produced, and their nutritional, health and behavioral outcomes. With local, regional, and global perspectives, this up-to-date text provides a solid foundation for all those working in the field.
How do chimpanzees say, 'I want to have sex with you?' By clipping a leaf or knocking on a tree trunk? How do they eat live aggressive ants? By using a short stick with one hand or long stick with both? Ivorian and Tanzanian chimpanzees answer these questions differently, as would humans from France and China if asked how they eat rice. Christophe Boesch takes readers into the lives of chimpanzees from different African regions, highlighting the debate about culture. His ethnography reveals how simple techniques have evolved into complex ones, how teaching styles differ, how material culture widens access to new food sources and how youngsters learn culture. This journey reveals many parallels between humans and chimpanzees and points to striking differences. Written in a vivid and accessible style, Wild Cultures places the reader in social and ecological contexts that shed light on our twin cultures.
Barbara Gornicka presents a sociological investigation - both historical and contemporary - into the problems surrounding naked bodies. She draws on her own participation in a nudist swimming club and goes on to study the often very complex and paradoxical emotions that have been associated with nakedness in the Western world for centuries. The book provides answers not only to why we find exposing our naked bodies shameful, but also why we find it sexual and erotic in the first place. It looks beneath taboos surrounding nakedness today and offers a theoretical explanation for their development over time. On the basis of her historical analysis, the author demonstrates that it was not until the late nineteenth or twentieth century that we began to see nudity as erotic. |
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