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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Anthropology > Social & cultural anthropology
Books on aspects of Islamophobia have been proliferating in the past decade but so are the instances of this phenomenon worldwide. The diverse aspects of the issue; the complicated sociopolitical nature of concerns in this regard; and the increasing number of geographical settings where the issue is relevant, cause numerous problems and questions that remain far from exhausted even in the case of multiple treatments of similar topics and contexts. Therefore, faces and facets of Islamophobia in different countries around the world need to be extensively explored, and awareness should be raised on the part of Muslim communities, Western populations, and non-Western non-Muslims. Chapters of this volume, written by authorities on Islamophobia from around the world, examine various instances of the topic and explore different discursive contexts such as media coverage and manipulation; political debates and discourses; and general attitudes and attitude-building in the public sphere. The book aims to further extend and expand discussions on the issue and to highlight some hitherto less discussed concerns.
Exploring some of the ways in which repair practices and perceptions of brokenness vary culturally, Repair, Brokenness, Breakthrough argues that repair is both a process and also a consequence which is sought out-an attempt to extend the life of things as well as an answer to failures, gaps, wrongdoings, and leftovers. This volume develops an open-ended combination of empirical and theoretical questions including: What does it mean to claim that something is broken? At what point is something broken repairable? What are the social relationships that take place around repair? And how much tolerance for failure do our societies have?
Tourism has become the world's largest industry, according to the World Tourism Organization; no surprise when one considers that it incorporates the world's oldest profession. In some developing regions, such as the Caribbean or the South Pacific, tourism is the primary sector in which significant economic growth takes place. In other regions, including areas of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and formerly communist eastern Europe, tourism is just beginning to take off. In all of these areas, tourisM's impact has been decidedly mixed. Nowhere is this more visible than in the context of women's roles in tourism. The contributors demonstrate the many ways in which gender determines the roles they play as both tourists and providers of tourism as product and service. A valuable contribution to tourism studies, women's studies, and the literature of economic development. The premises of this unique collection of research are that women's roles in tourism are gendered, just as are their other roles in gendered societies; that tourism affects women differently than it affects men; and that women themselves are affected in different ways by tourism depending on such factors as race, region, and class (leisured consumer vs. working producer, or guest vs. host). The contributors cover theoretical perspectives, including those provided by feminists and economic development analysts; women's roles in tourism in the mature industries of the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and the South Pacific; women's roles in the less-developed tourist destinations of the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, and eastern Europe; and implications for the future of economic development policy and of gender relations in tourism.
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.
Deconstructing Prehumanity is an investigation into the role of archaeological perception in the construction of race. It explores how social knowledge and disciplinary subjectivity have shaped our organization of the human past and how this organization and its lexicon have fueled racialism. The idea of an African prehuman hierarchy powers American race relations in a damaging way. Scientific physical distinctions used in ethnological studies quantified and qualified physical and "racial" differences among so-called African prehumans, all of which plague human social relations as they extend harmful ideas about peoples of African descent. This book delves into the evolution of terms and utilizes Africana studies to present the systematic reconstruction of a black past. By reviewing ethnological studies, nomenclature, and how such processes play a role in conceiving African origins, the multidisciplinary work supplies explanations about notions of African nature, culture, and race as prehuman. It explicates paleoanthropological categories and connects them to racialized inferences. Deconstructing Prehumanity is intended for readers looking to understand how perceptions about human origins add to racialization as it proffered a utilitarian past.
Exploring a hitherto unexamined aspect of San cosmology, Mathias Guenther's two volumes on human-animal relations in San cosmology link "new Animism" with Khoisan Studies, providing valuable insights for Khoisan Studies and San culture, but also for anthropological theory, relational ontology, folklorists, historians, literary critics and art historians. Building from the examinations of San myth and contemporary culture in Volume I, Volume II considers the experiential implications of a cosmology in which ontological mutability-ambiguity and inconstancy-hold sway. As he considers how people experience ontological mutability and deal with profound identity issues mentally and affectively, Guenther explores three primary areas: general receptiveness to ontological ambiguity; the impact of the experience of transformation (both virtual/vicarious and actual/direct); and the intersection of the mythic, spirit world with reality. Through a comparative consideration of animistic cosmology amongst the San, Bantu-speakers and the Inuit of Canada's eastern Arctic, alongside a discussion of animistic currents in Western humanities and ethology, Guenther clearly paints the relative strengths and weaknesses of New Animism discourse, particularly in relation to San ontology and cosmology, but with overarching relevance.
While Jews have long had a presence in Ethiopia and the Maghreb, Africa's newest Jewish community of note is in Nigeria, where upwards of twenty thousand Igbos are commonly claimed to have adopted Judaism. Bolstered by customs recalling an Israelite ancestry, but embracing rabbinic Judaism, they are also the world's first "Internet Jews."William Miles has spent over three decades conducting research in West Africa. In /Jews of Nigeria: An Afro-Judaic Odyssey, /he shares life stories from this spiritually passionate community, as well as his own Judaic reflections as he celebrates Hanukka and a bar mitzvah with "Jubos" in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria. A concluding encounter with laureate Chinua Achebe reveals unexpected family connections to one of the most intriguing Jewish and African communities to emerge in modern times.
Inequities still exist in today's society, and this book advances awareness, an equitable mindset, and transformative change toward the goal of eliminating inequities and promoting inclusiveness and social justice. Racialized inequity is injustice or unfairness and exists when prejudice or discrimination based on any aspect of difference precludes access of certain groups to the resources and benefits of society. This volume takes a new look at the psychology of inequity today. Have we progressed or regressed since the height of the civil rights movement of the 1960s? Through an examination of the motivations and beliefs behind inequities and injustices, this text aims to answer this question and any others that a scholar or general reader interested in social inequities and multiculturalism may have. Chapters address the motives that sustain inequity and reflect on the beliefs and behaviors linked to implicit responses to threats of change and loss of privilege posed by the inclusion of "others." Includes cutting-edge scholarship addressing racial inequities Provides contemporary examples of racial inequity viewed through new psychological lenses Reviews the intersection of racial, economic, and mental health inequity among BIPOC citizens Addresses contemporary expressions of privilege and their relationships to social inequities Introduces transformational approaches to improving education and health care
Radio is the most widespread electronic medium in the world today. As a form of technology that is both durable and relatively cheap, radio remains central to the everyday lives of billions of people around the globe. It is used as a call for prayer in Argentina and Appalachia, to organize political protest in Mexico and Libya, and for wartime communication in Iraq and Afghanistan. In urban centres it is played constantly in shopping malls, waiting rooms, and classrooms. Yet despite its omnipresence, it remains the media form least studied by anthropologists. Radio Fields employs ethnographic methods to reveal the diverse domains in which radio is imagined, deployed, and understood. Drawing on research from six continents, the volume demonstrates how the particular capacities and practices of radio provide singular insight into diverse social worlds, ranging from aboriginal Australia to urban Zambia. Together, the contributors address how radio creates distinct possibilities for rethinking such fundamental concepts as culture, communication, community, and collective agency.
The concept of Identity Crisis came into usage in the 1940s and it has continued to dominate the cultural zeitgeist ever since. In his exploration of the historical origins of this development, Frank Furedi argues that the principal driver of the 'crisis of identity' was and continues to be the conflict surrounding the socialisation of young people. In turn, the politicisation of this conflict provides a terrain on which the Culture Wars and the politicisation of identity can flourish. Through exploring the interaction between the problems of socialisation and identity, this study offers a unique account of the origins and rise of the Culture Wars.
Parodi shows that boundary disputes have and continue to play a major role in creating tensions in South America. Of the 25 international territorial boundaries that exist in South America, eight were marked with major wars, eight with lesser wars, and five with some level of violence. As recently as 1995, the armies of Ecuador and Peru were at war to define a boundary. In 1982 Argentina went to war, inspired by the call to restore a piece of its mutilated national territory. Venezuela and Guyana, Guyana and Suriname, and Suriname and French Guiana have not completed boundary demarcation agreements. Bolivia's insistence on its right for sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean is a source of tension with Chile and Peru. Colombia and Venezuela have unresolved boundary issues in the Gulf of Venezuela. Clearly, boundary disputes have and continue to play a major role in creating larger conflicts within South America. Territorial boundaries are marks on the ground, but, as Parodi shows, their staying power or stability depends on their grip on consciousness. By examining the boundary theory of South American states and its implementation, he also explains how the symbolic system of South American boundaries is used to instill national identity, mobilize people to war, and control population and territory. This text will be of particular interest to scholars, students, and researchers involved with Latin American politics, diplomacy, and international relations.
This book explores how Pacific Island communities are responding to the challenges wrought by climate change-most notably fresh water accessibility, the growing threat of disease, and crop failure. The Pacific Island nations are not alone in facing these challenges, but their responses are unique in that they arise from traditional and community-based understandings of climate and disaster. Knowledge sharing, community education, and widespread participation in decision-making have promoted social resilience to such challenges across the Pacific. In this exploration of the Pacific Island countries, Bryant-Tokalau demonstrates that by understanding the inter-relatedness of local expertise, customary resource management, traditional knowledge and practice, as well as the roles of leaders and institutions, local "knowledge-practice-belief systems" can be used to inform adaptation to disasters wherever they occur.
Since the earliest days of universities, students have told stories about their daily lives, often emphasizing extraordinary, surprising, and baffling events. This book examines the fascinating world of college and university legends. While it primarily looks at legends, it also gives some attention to rumors, pranks, rituals, and other forms of folklore. Included are introductory chapters on types of campus folklore, a collection of some 50 legends from a broad range of colleges and universities, an overview of scholarship, and a discussion of campus legends in movies, television, and popular culture. Since the earliest days of universities, students have told stories about their daily lives, often emphasizing extraordinary, surprising, and baffling events. Legends often dramatize certain hopes and fears, showing how stressful and exciting the college experience can be. From the stereotype of the absent minded professor to the adventures of spring break to the mysterious world of fraternities and sororities, campus legends have also become an important part of popular culture. This book provides a convenient, readable introduction to campus legends. While the volume focuses primarily on legends, it also explores rumors, pranks, rituals, and other related folklore types. The book begins with an overview of college and university folklore. This is followed by a discussion of particular types of legends and other folklore genres. The handbook then presents some 50 examples of college and university legends, including ghost stories, urban legends, food lore, drinking tales, murders and suicides, and many others. These examples are accompanied by brief comments. The book next surveys scholarship on campus folklore and discusses the place of college and university legends in films, television, literature, and popular culture. The volume cites numerous print and electronic resources.
In Guinea, situated against the background of central government struggles, rural elites use identity politics through contemporary political reforms to maintain their privileges and perpetuate a generations-old local social contract that bridges ethnic and religious divides. Simultaneously, administrative reform and national unrest lead to the creative re-combination of sources of authority and practices of legitimate rule. Past periods of colonization, socialism and authoritarian regime are reflected in contemporary struggles to make sense of participatory democracy and the future of the embattled Guinean national state.
This book, based on field research in the West African country of The Gambia, explores how domestic gun control is shaped by international efforts and how local actors interact with international organizations or opt not to do so. The book also shows how the question of who can have what kind of gun under what circumstances is an intrinsic question to modern societies across the world, but it is seldom one that is addressed in sub-Saharan Africa except in cases of post-conflict countries. Small arms control and gun control are often treated as separate efforts, with the former the domain of international actors such as the United Nations and the latter being of concern to the domestic politics of countries such as the United States. By focusing on a country that has never seen the outbreak of a civil war, the book is able to disentangle the complex roots of gun control in Africa, its origins in colonial era legislation, its reverberations across social life, and how it shapes contemporary understandings of groups ranging for security guards to hunters.
The authors present a historical picture of gender relations in Highlands New Guinea by exploring domains of imagination as revealed in courting songs, ballads, and folktales from across the Highlands but with particular reference to field areas in the western Highlands. Texts and/or translations are from a rich corpus of materials previously unpublished in English. The examples draw the reader into the imaginative world of the people, while the analytical framework sets the discussion firmly into debates within interpretive anthropology. The aim is to re-examine the images of gender relations in Highlands New Guinea by revealing the sensuous and emotional modalities of expressive folk genres and their aesthetic qualities. Ideas and practices centered on female spirit entities are shown to be important and pervasive in cult contexts, and these spirits were felt to have a significant influence on relations of courtship, marriage, and reproduction. Both women and men are also shown to have complex expressions of emotional dispositions in the spheres of courting and the choice of marital partners. By entering into these domains, the book modifies earlier analyses that have concentrated on antagonism, behavioral taboos, separation, and domination as themes in gender relations in Highland societies.
This book addresses the numerous national movements of ethnic groups around the world seeking independence, more self-rule, or autonomy-movements that have proliferated exponentially in the 21st century. In the last 15 years, globalization, religious radicalization, economic changes, endangered cultures and languages, cultural suppression, racial tensions, and many other factors have stimulated the emergence of autonomy and independence movements in every corner of the world-even in areas formerly considered immune to self-government demands such as South America. Researching the numerous ethnic groups seeking autonomy or independence worldwide previously required referencing many specialized publications. This book makes this difficult-to-find information available in a single volume, presented in a simple format accessible to everyone, from high school readers to scholars in advanced studies programs. The book provides an extensive update to Greenwood's Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations: Ethnic and National Groups around the World that was published more than a decade earlier. Each ethnic group receives an alphabetically organized entry containing information such as alternate names, population figures, flag or flags, geography, history, culture, and languages. All the information readers need to understand the motivating factors behind each movement and the current situation of each ethnic group is presented in a compact summary. Fact boxes at the beginning of each entry enable students to quickly access key information, and consistent entry structure makes for easy cross-cultural comparisons. Provides readers with an understanding of a global phenomenon that continues even today Presents specific, hard-to-find information on the many ethnic and national groups seeking greater self-government in an easy-to-access format with up-to-date facts and histories Provides further reading suggestions, an index, and an appendix of dates of independence declarations by nation
This book tries to answer the question how different communities in such an arid area as the Iranian central plateau could have shared their limited water resources in a perfect harmony and peace over the course of history. They invented some indigenous technologies as well as cooperative socio-economic systems in order to better adapt themselves to their harsh environment where the scarce water resources had to be rationed among the different communities as sustainably as possible. Those stories hold some lessons for us on how to adjust our needs to our geographical possibilities while living side by side with other people. This work gives insight into the indigenous adaptation strategies through the territorial water cooperation, and describes how water can appear as a ground for cooperation. It explains the water supply systems and social aspects of water in central Iran. Topics include the territorial water cooperation, qanat's, the traditional water management and sustainability, the socio-economic context, the sustainable management of shared aquifers system and more.
Organizational Culture provides a sweeping interdisciplinary overview of the organizational culture literature, showing how and why researchers have disagreed about such fundamental questions as: What is organizational culture? What are the major theoretical perspectives used to understand cultures in organizations? How can a researcher decipher the political interests inherent in research that claims to be political neutral -- merely "descriptive"? Expert author Joanne Martin examines a variety of conflicting ways to study cultures in organizations, including different theoretical orientations, political ideologies (managerial, critical, and apparently neutral); methods (qualitative, quantitative, and hybrid approaches), and styles of writing about culture (ranging from traditional to postmodern and experimental). In addition, she offers a guide for those who might want to study culture themselves, addressing such issues as: What qualitative, quantitative, and hybrid methods can be used to study culture? What standards are used when reviewers evaluate these various types of research? What innovative ways of writing about culture have been introduced? And finally, what are the most important unanswered questions for future organizational culture researchers? Intended for graduate students and established scholars who need to understand, value, and utilize highly divergent approaches to the study of culture. The book will also be useful for researchers who do not study culture, but who are interested in the ways political interests affect scholarly writing, the ways critical and managerial approaches to theory differ, the use and justification of qualitative methods in domains where quantitative methods are the norm.
The sequel to the acclaimed Made in Niugini, which explored in unparalleled depth the material world of the Wola comprising moveable artefacts, Built in Niugini continues Paul Sillitoe's project in exemplary fashion, documenting the built environment, architecture and construction techniques in a tour de force of ethnography. But this is more than a book about building houses. Sillitoe also shows how material constructions can serve to further our understandings of intellectual constructions. Allowing his ethnography to take the lead, and paying close attention to the role of tacit understandings and know-how in both skilled work and everyday dwelling, his close experiential analyses inform a phenomenologically inflected discussion of profound philosophical questions - such as what can we know of being-in-the-world - from startlingly different cultural directions. The book also forms part of a long-term project to understand a radically different 'economy', which is set in an acephalous order that extends individual freedom and equality in a manner difficult to imagine from the perspective of a nation-state - an intriguing way of being-in-the-world that is entwined with tacit aspects of knowing via personal and emotional experience. This brings us back to the explanatory power of a focus on technology, which Sillitoe argues for in the context of 'materiality' approaches that feature prominently in current debates about the sociology of knowledge. Archaeology has long been to the fore in considering technology and buildings, along with vernacular architecture, and Sillitoe contributes to a much-needed dialogue between anthropology and these disciplines, assessing the potential and obstacles for a fruitful rapprochement. Built in Niugini represents the culmination of Sillitoe's luminous scholarship as an anthropologist who dialogues fluidly with the literature and ideas of numerous disciplines. The arguments throughout engage with key concepts and theories from anthropology, archaeology, architecture, material culture studies, cognitive science, neuroscience and philosophy. The result is a significant work that contributes to not only our regional knowledge of the New Guinea Highlands but also to studies of tacit knowledge and the anthropology of architecture and building practices. Trevor Marchand, Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology, School of Oriental and African Studies |
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