The issue of patronage-clientelism has long been of interest in the social sciences. Based on long-term ethnographic research in southern Italy, this book examines the concept and practice of raccomandazione: the omnipresent social institution of using connections to get things done. Viewing the practice both from an indigenous perspective - as a morally ambivalent social fact - and considering it in light of the power relations that position southern Italy within the nesting relations of global Norths and Souths, it builds on and extends past scholarship to consider the nature of patronage in a contemporary society and its relationship to corruption.

Koreans have been immigrating to the United States via Hawaii for over a hundred years, although the greatest influx to the mainland began after 1965, making Koreans one of the most recent ethnic groups in the United States. The intimate socio-political links between the United States and the Korean peninsula after World War II also contributes to the ideas and ideals of what it means to be Korean in the United States. As with many people with immigrant background, young people of Korean descent residing in the United States try to understand their ethnic identities through their families, peers, and communities, and many of these journeys involve participating in cultural activities that include traditional dance, song, and other such performance activities. This study is the culmination of a four-year ethnographic research project on the cultural practices of a group of Koreans in the United States pursuing the traditional Korean cultural art form of pungmul in exploring their ethnic identities. Through the accesses and opportunities afforded to the members of Mae-ari Korean Cultural Troupe by the national and transnational networks with other people of Korean descent, these young people begin to understand themselves as "Korean" while teaching and learning traditional Korean cultural practices in performances, workshops, and everyday interactions with each other. Most studies about Asian Americans focus on the immigration challenges, or the conflicts and differences between generations. While these are important issues that affect the lives of Asian Americans, it is also valuable to focus on how new cultural identities are formed in the attempt to hold on to the traditions of theimmigrant homeland . This research pays close attention to how young people understand their identities through cultural practices, regardless of generational differences. The focus is on collective meaning-making about ethnic identity across immigration statuses and generations. In investigating their ways of being, author Sonya Gwak pays close attention to the semiotic processes within the group that aid in creating and cultivating notions of ethnic identity, especially in the ways in which the notion of culture becomes indelibly linked with "things" within and across the sites. Dr. Gwak also explores the pedagogical processes within the group regarding how cultures are objectified and transformed into tools of teaching and learning. Finally, the study also reveals how people understand their ethnic identities through direct and active engagement with, experience of, and expression of "cultural objects." By looking at the multiple forms of expressing ethnic identity, this study shows how the young people in Mae-ari locate themselves within the time and space of Korean history, Korean American history, activism, performing arts, and tradition. This study argues that ethnic identity formation is a process that is rooted in cultural practices contextualized in social, political, and cultural histories. This book advances the field of ethnic and immigrant studies by offering a new framework for understanding the multiple ways in which young people make sense of their identities. Be(com)ing Korean in the United States is an important book for all collections in Asian American studies, as well as ethnic and immigrant studies.

Minas Gerais is a state in southeastern Brazil deeply connected to the nation's slave past and home to many traditions related to the African diaspora. Addressing a wide range of traditions helping to define the region, ethnomusicologist Jonathon Grasse examines the complexity of Minas Gerais by exploring the intersections of its history, music, and culture. Instruments, genres, social functions, and historical accounts are woven together to form a tapestry revealing a cultural territory's development. The deep pool of Brazilian scholarship referenced in the book, with original translations by the author, cites over two hundred Portuguese-language publications focusing on Minas Gerais. This research was augmented by fieldwork, observations, and interviews completed over a twenty-five-year period and includes original photographs, many taken by the author. Hearing Brazil: Music and Histories in Minas Gerais surveys the colonial past, the vast hinterland countryside, and the modern, twenty-first-century state capital of Belo Horizonte, the metropolitan region of which is today home to over six million. Diverse legacies are examined, including an Afro-Brazilian heritage, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century liturgical music of the region's "Minas Baroque," the instrument known as the viola, a musical profile of Belo Horizonte, and a study of the regionalist themes developed by the popular music collective the Clube da Esquina (Corner Club) led by Milton Nascimento with roots in the 1960s. Hearing Brazil champions the notion that Brazil's unique role in the world is further illustrated by regionalist studies presenting details of musical culture.

Examining human-animal relations among the reindeer hunting and herding Dukha community in northern Mongolia, this book focuses on concepts such as domestication and wildness from an indigenous perspective. By looking into hunting rituals and herding techniques, the ethnography questions the dynamics between people, domesticated reindeer, and wild animals. It focuses on the role of the spirited landscape which embraces all living creatures and acts as a unifying concept at the center of the human and non-human relations.

In this compelling study, Maria Theresia Starzmann and John Roby bring together an international cast of experts who move beyond the traditional framework of the ""constructed past"" to look at not only how the past is remembered but also who remembers it. They convincingly argue that memory is a complex process, shaped by remembering and forgetting, inscription and erasure, presence and absence. Collective memory influences which stories are told over others, ultimately shaping narratives about identity, family, and culture. This interdisciplinary volume-melding anthropology, archaeology, sociology, history, philosophy, literature, and archival studies-explores such diverse arenas as archaeological objects, human remains, colonial landscapes, public protests, national memorials, art installations, testimonies, and even digital space as places of memory. Examining important sites of memory, including the Victory Memorial to Soviet Army, Blair Mountain, Spanish penitentiaries, African shrines, and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, the contributors highlight the myriad ways communities reinforce or reinterpret their pasts.

Black Male Violence in Perspective: Towards Afrocentric Intervention represents a synthesis of lived experience, authoritative research, and Afro-centric perspective on one of the most controversial topics of our day. It examines violence by and among Black men, as it is inextricably tied to its context; the history of violence in America including colonialism, expansionism, and concepts of manifest destiny. Acknowledging important concepts like Michelle Alexander's "The New Jim Crow" and Joy DeGruy-Leary's "Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome," and chronicling the devastating and injurious effects of racism, the text moves in a clinical direction. It identifies and addresses the resulting dangerous triad of frustration, anger, and depression and how they come together clinically to impact young Black men resulting in violent outcomes. It explores the psychology underlying violent behavior, delving into the socioeconomic realities that are very much a part of the landscape of violence in America. Tony Jackson utilizes cases from his career as a therapist as well as examples from actual life experience to illustrate challenging concepts. More importantly, Black Male Violence in Perspective proposes a theory of intervention and treatment with a discussion on quantitative and qualitative research methods.

Ruth Finnegan's Oral Literature in Africa was first published in 1970, and since then has been widely praised as one of the most important books in its field. Based on years of fieldwork, the study traces the history of storytelling across the continent of Africa. This revised edition makes Finnegan's ground-breaking research available to the next generation of scholars. It includes a new introduction, additional images and an updated bibliography, as well as its original chapters on poetry, prose, "drum language" and drama, and an overview of the social, linguistic and historical background of oral literature in Africa. This book is the first volume in the World Oral Literature Series, an ongoing collaboration between OBP and World Oral Literature Project. A free online archive of recordings and photographs that Finnegan made during her fieldwork in the late 1960s is hosted by the World Oral Literature Project (http: //www.oralliterature.org/collections/rfinnegan001.html) and can also be accessed from publisher's website.

Michael Staack's multi-year ethnography is the first and only comprehensive social-scientific analysis of the combat sport 'Mixed Martial Arts'. Based on systematic training observations, the author meticulously analyses how Mixed Martial Arts practitioners conjointly create and immerse themselves into their own world of ultimate bodily combat. With his examination of concentrative technique demonstrations, cooperative technique train-ings, and chaotic sparring practices, Staack not only provides a sociological illumination of Mixed Martial Arts culture's defining theme - the quest of 'Fighting As Real As It Gets'. Rather further-more, he provides a compelling cultural-sociological case study on practical social constructions of 'authenticity'.

The term 'globalization' generally refers to the homogenization of cultures across the world due to Western encroachment. However, as this book explains, the process is far more subtle, complex and uneven. Taking as its starting point the fundamental question of whether globalization exists, Living with Globalization provides a lively discussion of one of the most used and abused concepts in the twenty-first century. If globalization is a valid construct, it manifests itself in lived experience, not in abstract theories. Examining the ways in which globalization is contributing to patterns of conflict, Living with Globalization explores a variety of case studies, ranging from 9/11 to identity formation. The book reveals the complex ramifications of globalization on society, government and everyday lives.

The longevity of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center in San Antonio, Texas, suggests that it is possible for a social change organization to simultaneously address racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, imperialism, environmental justice, and peace-and to succeed. Activism, Alliance Building, and the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center uses ethnographic research to provide an instructive case study of the importance and challenges of confronting injustice in all of its manifestations. Through building and maintaining alliances, deploying language strategically, and using artistic expression as a central organizing mechanism, The Esperanza Peace and Justice Center demonstrates the power of multi-issue organizing and intersectional/coalitional consciousness. Interweaving artistic programming with its social justice agenda, in particular, offers Esperanza a unique forum for creative and political expression, institutional collaborations, and interpersonal relationships, which promote consciousness raising, mobilization, and social change. This study will appeal to scholars of communication, Chicana feminism, and ethnography.

This book examines the making of the Goddess Durga both as an art and as part of the intangible heritage of Bengal. As the 'original site of production' of unbaked clay idols of the Hindu Goddess Durga and other Gods and Goddesses, Kumartuli remains at the centre of such art and heritage. The art and heritage of Kumartuli have been facing challenges in a rapidly globalizing world that demands constant redefinition of 'art' with the invasion of market forces and migration of idol makers. As such, the book includes chapters on the evolution of idols, iconographic transformations, popular culture and how the public is constituted by the production and consumption of the works of art and heritage and finally the continuous shaping and reshaping of urban imaginaries and contestations over public space. It also investigates the caste group of Kumbhakars (Kumars or the idol makers), reflecting on the complex relation between inherited skill and artistry. Further, it explores how the social construction of art as 'art' introduces a tangled web of power asymmetries between 'art' and 'craft', between an 'artist' and an 'artisan', and between 'appreciation' and 'consumption', along with their implications for the articulation of market in particular and social relations in general. Since little has been written on this heritage hub beyond popular pamphlets, documents on town planning and travelogues, the book, written by authors from various fields, opens up cross-disciplinary conversations, situating itself at the interface between art history, sociology of aesthetics, politics and government, social history, cultural studies, social anthropology and archaeology. The book is aimed at a wide readership, including students, scholars, town planners, heritage preservationists, lawmakers and readers interested in heritage in general and Kumartuli in particular.

The life and career of one of anthropology's most important ancestors, William Robertson Smith in the context of the history of anthropology. William Robertson Smith's influence on anthropology ranged from his relationship with John Ferguson McLennan, to advising James George Frazer to write about "Totem" and "Taboo" for the Encyclopaedia Britannica that he edited. This biography places a special emphasis on the notes and observations from his travels to Arabia, as well as on his influence on the representatives of the "Myth and Ritual School." With his discussion of myth and ritual, Smith influenced generations of scholars, and his insistence on the connection between the people, their God, and the land they inhabited inspired many of the concepts later developed by Emile Durkheim. "This is a clear, well-informed and interesting account of Robertson Smith's central ideas. The theories are set in the context of debates of the day, and their influence on anthropology and bible studies is discussed. An original and fascinating section reviews Robertson Smith's field work in the Middle East, which was much more extensive and intensive than is, I think, generally appreciated."-Adam Kuper, London School of Economics From the introduction: Although respected and studied, especially since the 1990s, Smith has a somewhat paradoxical position in the history of social and cultural anthropology. Anthropologists educated in the twentieth century admire him, but many contemporary scholars are not quite sure what to make of him.

Guiding the reader through the development of sex education in Poland, Agnieszka Koscianska looks at how it has changed from the 19th century to the present day. The book compares how sex was described in school textbooks, including those scrapped by the communists for fear of offending religious sentiments, and explores how the Catholic church retained its power in Poland under various regimes. The book also identifies the women and men who changed the way sex was written about in the country, and how they established the field of Polish sex education.

These case studies explore how competing interests among the keepers of a community's heritage shape how that community both regards itself and reveals itself to others. As editors Celeste Ray and Luke Eric Lassiter note in their introduction, such stakeholders are no longer just of the community itself, but are now often ""outsiders""--tourists, the mass media, and even anthropologists and folklorists. The setting of each study is a different marginalized community in the South. Arranged around three themes that have often surfaced in debates about public folklore and anthropology over the last two decades, the studies consider issues of representation, identity, and practice. One study of representation discusses how Appalachian Pentecostal serpent handlers try to reconcile their exotic popular image with their personal religious beliefs. A case study on identity tells why a segment of the Cajun population has appropriated the term ""coonass,"" once widely considered derogatory. Essays on practice look at an Appalachian Virginia coal town and Snee Farm, a National Heritage Site in lowland South Carolina. Both pieces reveal how dynamic and contradictory views of community life can be silenced in favor of producing a more easily consumable vision of a ""past."" Signifying Serpents and Mardi Gras Runners offers challenging new insights into some of the roles that the media, tourism, and charismatic community members can play when a community compromises its heritage or even denies it.

This book focuses on recent advances in our understanding of wild edible mycorrhizal fungi, truffle and mushrooms and their cultivation. In addition to providing fresh insights into various topics, e.g. taxonomy, ecology, cultivation and environmental impact, it also demonstrates the clear but fragile link between wild edible mushrooms and human societies. Comprising 17 chapters written by 41 experts from 13 countries on four continents, it enables readers to grasp the importance of protecting this unique, invaluable, renewable resource in the context of climate change and unprecedented biodiversity loss. The book inspires professionals and encourages young researchers to enter this field to develop the sustainable use of wild edible mushrooms using modern tools and approaches. It also highlights the importance of protecting forested environments, saving species from extinction and generating a significant income for local populations, while keeping alive and renewing the link between humans and wild edible mushrooms so that in the future, the sustainable farming and use of edible mycorrhizal mushrooms will play a predominant role in the management and preservation of forested lands.

This book explores the relationship between the food culture of Israel and the creation of its national identity. It is an effort to research what the mundane, everyday behaviours such as cooking and feeding ourselves and others, can tell us about the places we were born and the cultural practices of a nation. With the aim of developing a better understanding of the many facets of Israeli nationalism, this ethnographic work interrogates how ordinary Israelis, in particular women, use food in their everyday life to construct, perform and resist national narratives. It explores how Israeli national identity is experienced through its food culture, and how social and political transformations are reflected in the consumption patterns of Israeli society. The book highlights understudied themes in anthropology, food studies and gender studies, and focuses on three key themes: food and national identity construction, the role of women as feeders of the nation, and everyday nationhood. It is a relevant work for researchers and students interested in the study of food, gender, nationalism and the Middle East; as well as for food writers and bloggers alike.

Contents Include: The Mystery Of The Pacific Peoples maori religion and Mystic Rites Maori Music And Dramatic Art White And Black Magic A Day In The Pah Some Old Time Stories Tales Never Before Written. Contains 10 original black and white period photographs.Keywords: Maori Music Period Photographs Black Magic Dramatic Art Pacific Peoples Pah Old Time Rites Mystic Black And White Mystery Religion

Recent discussions of self-realization have devolved into unscientific theories of self-help. However, this vague and often misused concept is connected to many important individual and social problems. As long as its meaning remains unclear, it can be abused for social, political, and commercial malpractices. To combat this issue, this book shares perspectives from scholars of various philosophical traditions. Each chapter takes new steps in asking what the meaning of self-realization is-both in terms of what it means to understand who or what one is, and also in terms of how one can, or should, fulfilll oneself. The conceptual elucidations achieved from both theoretical and practical perspectives allow for a more mature awareness of how to deal with discourses on self-realization and, in any case, can help to demystify the subject.