Ole Bruun focuses on a community of nomadic livestock herders in present-day Mongolia. He depicts their transition from a contained, Soviet-era collective to modern times and addresses the most essential conditions for their continued survival and prosperity in the age of the market: the adaptability of their own culture and working strategies, government policy, and international attention. By studying the nomadic practice of animal husbandry in the context of family farms, Bruun points out the similarity to the peasant economy defined by the Russian agricultural economist Alexander Chayanov nearly a century ago. In both economies, the labor-consumer balance and life-cycle variations commonly set the term for economic strategies, yet the pastoral economy involves a highly specialized form of agriculture in which the scale of exchange determines wealth and lifestyle. In a vast territory such as Mongolia, infrastructure, social benefits, and other means of state support are crucial to prevent herders from sliding into a subsistence orientation, eventually leading to poverty.

Harbingers of Global Change enriches a revealing case study of a little-understood group of immigrants with the contemplation of broader social dynamics, including assimilation, acculturation, and the persistence of racial and ethnic prejudice. Author Roli Varma reveals how familiar obstacles to social equity-such as the silicon ceiling-are complicated by the unique constellation of social pressures confronting a group of scientists and engineers whose talent it highly valued, and yet whose presence as culturally unfamiliar human beings is received with unease and ambivalence. The analysis combines United States political and social history as it bears on immigration policy with a sensitive and balanced treatment of how India's techno immigrants negotiate career, family, and loyalty to social-cultural traditions.Harbingers of Global Change is not merely a much needed addition to the emergent literature on the plight of international immigration-professionals; it is a visionary look at where global society is headed in the twenty-first century, an epoch in which all human beings may become foreigners in the virtual techno-marketplace.

Early Human Kinship brings together original studies from leading figures in the biological sciences, social anthropology, archaeology, and linguistics to provide a major breakthrough in the debate over human evolution and the nature of society. * A major new collaboration between specialists across the range of the human sciences including evolutionary biology and psychology; social/cultural anthropology; archaeology and linguistics * Provides a ground-breaking set of original studies offering a new perspective on early human history * Debates fundamental questions about early human society: Was there a connection between the beginnings of language and the beginnings of organized 'kinship and marriage'? How far did evolutionary selection favor gender and generation as principles for regulating social relations? * Sponsored by the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland in conjunction with the British Academy

The number of poor people in China is huge, despite recent economic advances. The minorities in China constitute less than ten per cent of the entire population, yet they represent forty to fifty per cent of the absolute poor. This compelling book investigates the problem of poverty and inequality in among Chinese ethnic, focusing in particular on two important questions: Have the minorities shared the fruits of spectacular economic growth in China during the past two decades? Is their backwardness due to ethnic and cultural factors or to extremely low incomes?
The authors examine the different factors explaining poverty, the relationship between poverty and ethnicity, poverty indicators that permit a comparison between minorities and non-minorities (or the Han majority), economic and demographic characteristics of minorities and their educational, occupational and gender profiles. They considers whether special measures in favor of minorities introduced by the Chinese Government have contributedto an improvement in their standard of living. International comparisons are made with other developing countries such as India, which also has substantial ethnic minorities and similar preferential policies.
"Poverty and Inequality among Chinese Minorities" gives new research findings and new thinking on a highly topical issue in Chinese development economics, which fills a gap in the existing economic literature.

Despite their small area, the southern islands of Japan can be seen as stepping stones towards a more nuanced view of cultural osmosis between Japan and the outside world. This book presents an ethnographic portrayal of the people of the Southern Ryukyu Islands and their world. In particular it explores the mind of the islanders, their relationship with the natural world, their social relationships, and the rituals which represent and give expression to these relationships.

Based on extensive original research, including participant observation, the book allows the authentic voices of the Ryukyu Island worlds to speak for themselves as well as setting the work in the wider context of anthropology, Japanese Studies and Pacific Island studies.

Ethos and Identity asks the ever-puzzling question: What is ethnicity and how is it to be explained? In a new introduction to this work, Athena Leoussi describes Epstein's response to this challenging age-old query, and demonstrates why this classic volume is of continuing importance.

Originally published thirty years ago, Ethos and Identity still fascinates the twenty-first century reader. Epstein's volume explains ethnic revivals of the past century, while the new introduction discusses those that occurred after the book's original publication, such as during the collapse of the communist Eastern bloc in the 1990s. Epstein offers insight into other ethnic reawakenings, such as that experienced during the late 1960s and early 1970s after the collapse of post-colonial east Asia. Prior to this, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, following World War II and the establishment of the United Nations, it was expected that ethnic identifications would be superseded by a more modern, universalistic, rational, civic- or class-based form. This did not occur. Instead, as nations collapsed and were reborn in new forms, people continued to identify with their ethnicity in describing themselves, even when their countries, at least as they knew them, no longer existed. In short, people and their cultures live on long after political and national boundaries have disappeared and been redrawn. Epstein's decisive contribution to the understanding of ethnicity proposes a "social anthropology of affect." People incorporate the social structure of ethnicity into the makeup of their personality and, thus, self-identification.

Ethos and Identity is sure to interest students of anthropology, sociology, psychoanalysis, psychology, and ethnicity.

A. L. Epstein, anthropologist, professor, and writer, held research fellowships and appointments at the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute in Lansaka, Northern Rhodesia, the University of Manchester, the Australian National University in Canberra, the University of Sussex, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, and the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies in Wessenaar.

The threat of unstoppable plagues, such as AIDS and Ebola, is always with us. In Europe, the most devastating plagues were those from the Black Death pandemic in the 1300s to the Great Plague of London in 1665. For the past 100 years it has been accepted that Yersinia pestis, the infective agent of bubonic plague, was responsible for these epidemics. This book combines modern concepts of epidemiology and molecular biology with computer-modeling. Applying these concepts to the analysis of historical epidemics, the authors show that they were not, in fact, outbreaks of bubonic plague. Biology of Plagues offers a completely new interdisciplinary interpretation of the plagues of Europe, and establishes them within a geographical, historical, and demographic framework. This fascinating detective work will be of interest to readers in the social and biological sciences, and lessons learned will underline the implications of historical plagues for modern-day epidemiology.

Ethnic Realignments offers a fresh look at the phenomenon of rapidly changing ethnic identity claims. By focusing on the countries of Australia, China, Malaysia, and India, Matthew Hoddie provides a comparative study arguing that government policies designed to favor one ethnic group over another can influence individuals among the disfavored group to change their "identities" and recast themselves as members of the favored group. Hoddie employs a statistical methodology to lay out the conditions and factors that lead to these ethnic identity changes, thereby contributing to the ongoing debate concerning the malleability of ethnic identity. Ethnic Realignments is a significant work for scholars interested in the politics of ethnicity and the effectiveness of affirmative action policies.

Ethnic Realignments offers a fresh look at the phenomenon of rapidly changing ethnic identity claims. By focusing on the countries of Australia, China, Malaysia, and India, Matthew Hoddie provides a comparative study arguing that government policies designed to favor one ethnic group over another can influence individuals among the disfavored group to change their 'identities' and recast themselves as members of the favored group. Hoddie employs a statistical methodology to lay out the conditions and factors that lead to these ethnic identity changes, thereby contributing to the ongoing debate concerning the malleability of ethnic identity. Ethnic Realignments is a significant work for scholars interested in the politics of ethnicity and the effectiveness of affirmative action policies.

From its beginnings in York, Pennsylvania, in 1847, until the death of Wallace L. Goodridge in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1922, the Goodridge Brothers Studio was the most significant and enduring African American photographic establishment in North America. The studio was made possible by the financial success of the family patriarch, William C. Goodridge, a York barber mined entrepreneur. With the financial assistance of his father, young Glenalvin Goodridge founded the studio in York in 1847. Glenalvin worked as a successful daguerreotypist and ambrotypist, until the community's perception of his own financial success and the family's involvement in abolitionist activities resulted in his trial and imprisonment. As a result of his imprisonment Glenalvin contracted tuberculosis, which led to his untimely death.

With the outbreak of the Civil War and the circumstances surrounding the trial, the family left York for new homes in Minnesota and in East Saginaw, Michigan, where Glenalvin's younger brothers, Wallace and William O. Goodridge, reopened the studio in 1863. During the next three decades the brothers worked as a team, with William providing the artistic inspiration and Wallace the financial direction. The brothers continued the family tradition of excellence and innovation by concentrating on the latest photographic images, including flash, panoramic, and motion pictures.

In Enterprising Images, John Vincent Jezierski tells the story of one of America's first families of photography, documenting the history of the Goodridge studio for three-quarters of a century. The existence of more than one thousand Goodridge photographs in all formats (daguerreotypes to motion pictures) andthe family's professional and personal activism enrich the portrait that emerges of this extraordinary family. Weaving photographic and regional history with the narrative of a family whose lives paralleled the social and political happenings of the country, Jezierski provides the reader with a complex family biography for those interested in regional and African American, as well as photographic, history.

"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.

This revealing book explores the processes of racialization, class and gender, and examines how these processes play out in the everyday lives of white women living in London with young children. Bridget Byrne analyzes the flexibility of racialized discourse in everyday life, whilst simultaneously arguing for a radical deconstruction of the notions of race these discourses create. Byrne focuses on the experience of white mothers and their children, as a key site in the reproduction of class, race and gender subjectivities, offering a compelling account of both the experience of motherhood and ideas of white identity. Byrne's research is unique in its approach of exploring whiteness in the context of practices of mothering. She adopts a broad perspective, and her approach provides a suggestive framework for analyzing the racialization of everyday life. The book's multi-layered analysis shifts expertly from intimate acts to those which engage with local and national discourses in more public spaces. Reconsidering white identities through white experiences of race, White Lives encompasses many disciplines, making valuable reading for those studying sociology, anthropology, race and ethnicity, and cultural studies. Winner of the BSA Philip Abrams Memorial Prize 2007

This revealing book explores the processes of racialization, class and gender, and examines how these processes play out in the everyday lives of white women living in London with young children. Bridget Byrne analyzes the flexibility of racialized discourse in everyday life, whilst simultaneously arguing for a radical deconstruction of the notions of race these discourses create. Byrne focuses on the experience of white mothers and their children, as a key site in the reproduction of class, race and gender subjectivities, offering a compelling account of both the experience of motherhood and ideas of white identity. Byrne's research is unique in its approach of exploring whiteness in the context of practices of mothering. She adopts a broad perspective, and her approach provides a suggestive framework for analyzing the racialization of everyday life. The book's multi-layered analysis shifts expertly from intimate acts to those which engage with local and national discourses in more public spaces. Reconsidering white identities through white experiences of race, White Lives encompasses many disciplines, making valuable reading for those studying sociology, anthropology, race and ethnicity, and cultural studies. Winner of the BSA Philip Abrams Memorial Prize 2007

Showing that paleoanthropology is a progressive and dynamic field, this book argues that all debates and hypotheses spring from a single general theory: the theory of biological evolution. It presents the debates and research from 150 scholars in the field, and separates the resolution of these debates through three different time periods: 1860-1890, 1890-1935, and post-1935. Topics include: the history of the field; comparative anatomy; the human fossil record; primate phylogeny; human phylogeny; and the nature of paleoanthropology. A book that will appeal to anyone interested in anthropology, it will also interest historians and others in the social sciences.

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.

The political and legislative changes which took place in South Africa during the 1990s, with the dissolution of apartheid, created a unique set of social conditions. As official policies of segregation were abolished, people of both black and white racial groups began to experience new forms of social contact and intimacy. By examining these emerging processes of intergroup contact in South Africa, and evaluating related evidence from the US, Racial Encounter offers a social psychological account of desegregation. It begins with a critical analysis of the traditional theories and research models used to understand desegregation: the contact hypothesis and race attitude theory. It then analyzes every day discourse about desegregation in South Africa, showing how discourse shapes individuals' conception and management of their changing relationships and acts as a site of ideological resistance to social change. The connection between place, identity and re-creation of racial boundaries emerge as a central theme of this analysis. This book will be of interest to social psychologists, students of intergroup relations and all those interested in post-apartheid South Africa.

In The Insect-Populated Mind, author David Spooner proposes a close connection between aspects of insect evolution and the human intellect. By examining seemingly disparate subjects, such as entomology, language, theory, genetics, astronomy, literature, and music, Spooner proves that synthesis is indeed possible. Once this fusion is achieved, the human species can be seen as connected not just to the great apes, but also via consciousness to metamorphic insects. While considering Richard Dawkins' and Susan Blackmore's expositions of memes, Spooner suggests that the concept of memes remains a peripheral understanding of religion and the arts. The book also presents arguments on the roots and nature of the mind in the work of Daniel Dennett and Steven Pinker.

Race and racism are interconnected historically and in the modern world. This connection is related to changing social, political, and economic conditions that impact how we think of others and ourselves. Race and racism are also connected to biological discoveries that justify how we think of others and ourselves. The main focus of this book is the examination of these connections. It is argued that while both race and racism are social constructions, the justification for racism changed as the definition and attributes of races were modified to correspond with new developments in biology and genetics. Whereas biological discoveries are one side of this construction, changing social situations represent the other. That is, racism also responds to changing social, political, and economic conditions that alter its justification. In addition, scientific constructions of race are impacted by social factors that serve to direct the "scientific disclosures" on human diversity. These factors form the context for the intricate relationship between race and racism.

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring Physiology is the science of life, and sets out to understand how living things work and what makes them distinct from the non-living. It considers how our bodies are supplied with energy, how they maintain their internal parameters, the ways in which we gather and process information, the ways we take action, and the creation of new generations. This Very Short Introduction explores the field of human physiology, considering how the body works, senses, reacts, and defends itself. As Jamie A. Davies shows, human life (and indeed, all life) is sustained by the interplay of a wide variety of physiological mechanisms and principles. He discusses the physiological experiments and research undertaken to understand these processes, and analyses the ethical issues involved. He also considers the evolution of the scientific field itself, showing how enhanced understandings of physiological knowledge can help inform medical research and care. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

This new study powerfully asserts the pivotal importance of the interplay between language and ethnicity, which is often underestimated as a component for political stability.

These leading scholars present five key case studies of South Africa, Algeria, Canada, Latvia and Senegal. All five countries are multilingual nations where language has been a central political issue that has challenged their unity and stability.

These studies are underpinned by two general, comparative and theoretical discussions, which analyse how scholars consider social class and economic factors to be the primary sources for political cohesion or of malcontent with the system and the new avenues opened by a focus on issues of langauge.

This book will be of great interest to all students and scholars of linguistics, language, politics and sociology.

This is a special issue of the leading journal Nationalism and Ethnic Politics.

How long can a traditional religion survive the impact of world religions, state hegemony, and globalization? The 'Karamoja problem' is one that has perplexed colonial and independent governments alike. Now Karamojong notoriety for armed cattle raiding has attracted the attention of the UN and USAID since the proliferation of small arms in the pastoralist belt across Africa from Sudan to stateless Somalia is deemed a threat to world security. The consequences are ethnocidal, but what makes African peoples stand out against state and global governance? The traditional African religion of the Karamojong, despite the multiple external influences of the twentieth century and earlier, has remained at the heart of their culture as it has changed through time. Drawing on oral accounts and the language itself, as well as his extensive experience of living and working in the region, Knighton avoids Western perspectivism to highlight the successful reassertion of African beliefs and values over repeated attempts by interventionists to replace or subvert them. Knighton argues that the religious aspect of Karamojong culture, with its persistent faith dimension, is one of the key factors that have enabled them to maintain their amazing degree of religious, political, and military autonomy in the postmodern world. Using historical and anthropological approaches, the real continuities within the culture and the reasons for mysterious vitality of Karamojong religion are explored.

Much of what we are comes from our ancestors. Through cultural and biological inheritance mechanisms, our genetic composition, instructions for constructing artifacts, the structure and content of languages, and rules for behavior are passed from parents to children and from individual to individual. "Mapping Our Ancestors" demonstrates how various genealogical or "phylogenetic" methods can be used both to answer questions about human history and to build evolutionary explanations for the shape of history.
Anthropologists are increasingly turning to quantitative phylogenetic methods. These methods depend on the transmission of information regardless of mode and as such are applicable to many anthropological questions. In this way, phylogenetic approaches have the potential for building bridges among the various subdisciplines of anthropology; an exciting prospect indeed. The structure of "Mapping Our Ancestors" reflects the editors' goal of developing a common understanding of the methods and conditions under which ancestral relations can be derived in a range of data classes of interest to anthropologists. Specifically, this volume explores the degree to which patterns of ancestry can be determined from artifactual, genetic, linguistic, and behavioral data and how processes such as selection, transmission, and geography impact the results of phylogenetic analyses.
"Mapping Our Ancestors" provides a solid demonstration of the potential of phylogenetic methods for studying the evolutionary history of human populations using a variety of data sources and thus helps explain how cultural material, language, and biology came to be as they are.
Carl P. Lipo is assistant professor of anthropology at California State University in Long Beach. Michael O'Brien is professor of anthropology and director of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Missouri. Mark Collard is assistant professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia, Stephen J. Shennan is a professor and director of the Institute of Archaeology at the University College London. Niles Eldredge is a curator in the department of invertebrates at the American Museum of Natural History, and adjunct professor at the City University of New York.

Celebrants of an ever-emerging 'globalization' fly the banner of free trade, the mass marketization of once faltering economies, and rising economic and social standards for all. Many opponents to globalization rightfully point out that borders still exist largely for the purposes of keeping one 'commodity' in its place: the labor commodity or, the more familiar, immigrant. Arguments of this type are often steeped in economic and social discourse. Race and ethnicity are seen as either being subsumed by this discourse or are entirely ignored as incidental to this type of political thought. In Ethnicity, Class and Nationalism: Caribbean and Extra-Caribbean Dimensions specialists writing on the Caribbean form of the nation-state place race and ethnicity along with class in its proper context: at the very foundations of the modern nation. Editor Anton L. Allahar has handpicked scholarship that is both contemporary and expert in its consideration of Caribbean geo-politics. Furthermore, essays in this volume include comparative cases from around the globe. In the interest of locating race and ethnicity as sociological and political categories that are inimical to contemporary conceptions of the nation state, Allahar explores spaces other than the Caribbean. The result is a comparative study that is unique in scope and also in its level of scholarly reflection. This book is the first of its kind. It is essential reading for anyone interested in advancing their analysis of political, economic, social, and cultural thought in the Caribbean."

This monumental volume in the History of Civilization Series has done a great service to learning in giving a very good outline of the earliest civilization of Europe. It covers the Orient, Crete, the Aegean, Maritime Civilization, Greece, the Balkans, the Danube, Eurasia, Northern Cultures, Forest Cultures, Islands of the Western Mediterranean, Iberia, Alpine Culture, and the British Isles.