The Iranian city experienced a major transformation when the Pahlavi Dynasty initiated a project of modernization in the 1920s. The Rite of Urban Passage investigates this process by focusing on the spatial dynamics of Muharram processions, a ritual that commemorates the tragic massacre of Hussein and his companions in 680 CE. In doing so, this volume offers not only an alternative approach to understanding the process of urban transformation, but also a spatial genealogy of Muharram rituals that provides a platform for developing a fresh spatial approach to ritual studies.

Periods of transition are often symbolically associated with death, making the latter the paradigm of liminality. Yet, many volumes on death in the social sciences and humanities do not specifically address liminality. This book investigates these "ultimate ambiguities," assuming they can pose a threat to social relationships because of the disintegrating forces of death, but they are also crucial periods of creativity, change, and emergent aspects of social and religious life. Contributors explore death and liminality from an interdisciplinary perspective and present a global range of historical and contemporary case studies outlining emotional, cognitive, artistic, social, and political implications.

In Europe a number of production and communication strategies have long tried to establish local products as resources for local development. At the foot of the Alps, this scenario appears in all its contradictions, especially in relation to cheese production. The Heritage Arena focuses on the saga of Strachitunt, a cheese that has been designated an EU Protected Designation of Origin after years of negotiation and competition involving cheese-makers, merchants, and Slow Food activists. The book explores how the reinvention of cheese as a form of heritage is an ongoing and dynamic process rife with conflict and drama.

Nutritional Anthropology and public health research and programming have employed similar methodologies for decades; many anthropologists are public health practitioners while many public health practitioners have been trained as medical or biological anthropologists. Recognizing such professional connections, this volume provides in-depth analysis and comprehensive review of methods necessary to design, plan, implement and analyze public health programming using anthropological best practices. To illustrates the rationale for use of particular methods, each chapter elaborates a case study from the author's own work, showing why particular methods were adopted in each case.

First published in 1940 and this edition in 1987, this book is a comparative study of African political institutions. It describes different types of social organisation that are found in a number of African societies and analyses the principles underlying these traditional forms of government. The volume represents the results of field studies carried out by trained investigators in a number of areas, and was compiled and edited under the auspices of the International African Institute. It will be of interest to students, anthropologists and administrators.

Astana, the capital city of the post-Soviet Kazakhstan, has often been admired for the design and planning of its futuristic cityscape. This anthropological study of the development of the city focuses on every-day practices, official ideologies and representations alongside the memories and dreams of the city's longstanding residents and recent migrants. Critically examining a range of approaches to place and space in anthropology, geography and other disciplines, the book argues for an understanding of space as inextricably material-and-imaginary, and unceasingly dynamic - allowing for a plurality of incompatible pasts and futures materialized in spatial form.

Anthropologist Diane E. King has written about everyday life in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, which covers much of the area long known as Iraqi Kurdistan. Following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's Ba'thist Iraqi government by the United States and its allies in 2003, Kurdistan became a recognized part of the federal Iraqi system. The Region is now integrated through technology, media, and migration to the rest of the world. Focusing on household life in Kurdistan's towns and villages, King explores the ways that residents connect socially, particularly through patron-client relationships and as people belonging to gendered categories. She emphasizes that patrilineages (male ancestral lines) seem well adapted to the Middle Eastern modern stage and viceversa. The idea of patrilineal descent influences the meaning of refuge-seeking and migration as well as how identity and place are understood, how women and men interact, and how "politicking" is conducted. In the new Kurdistan, old values may be maintained, reformulated, or questioned. King offers a sensitive interpretation of the challenges resulting from the intersection of tradition with modernity. Honor killings still occur when males believe their female relatives have dishonored their families, and female genital cutting endures. Yet, this is a region where modern technology has spread and seemingly everyone has a mobile phone. Households may have a startling combination of illiterate older women and educated young women. New ideas about citizenship coexist with older forms of patronage. King is one of the very few scholars who conducted research in Iraq under extremely difficult conditions during the Saddam Hussein regime. How she was able to work in the midst of danger and in the wake of genocide is woven throughout the stories she tells. Kurdistan on the Global Stage serves as a lesson in field research as well as a valuable ethnography.

Based on first-hand materials gathered through decades of field research and fleshed out with the author's insightful religious, cultural, and historical observations extending back to Qing Dynasty times, ancient archaeological discoveries and the legacy of Siberian peoples, this two-volume ethnological study investigates shamanic rituals, myths and lore in northern China and explores the common ideology underlying the origins of the region's cultures. The book discusses the spiritual world of northern Shamanism and investigates the various shamanic rituals, divination, spirit idols and myths, illuminating how worship and ideas are imbedded in and interweave with the indigenous environment, culture and history of people in northern China. This mythic heritage embodies the peoples' understanding of the natural world, the creation of humankind, social life and history as well as their interaction with their surroundings. It is shown that shamanic spirituality in northern China is characterised by functionality and practicality in daily-life situations, in contrast to the received wisdom that defines shamanic praxis as a pure supernatural spirit journey. The book will be of great value for scholars of religion and anthropologists as well as ethnologists in the fields of Shamanism studies, Northeast Asian folklore and Manchu studies.

This volume offers a comprehensive guide to methods used in the sociocultural, linguistic and historical research of food use. This volume is unique in offering food-related research methods from multiple academic disciplines, and includes methods that bridge disciplines to provide a thorough review of best practices. In each chapter, a case study from the author's own work is to illustrate why the methods were adopted in that particular case along with abundant additional resources to further develop and explore the methods.

This book offers an in-depth description and analysis of Chinese coin-like charms, which date back to the second century CE and which continued to be used until mid 20th century. This work is unique in that it provides an archaeological and analytical interpretation of the content of these metallic objects: inscriptive, pictorial or both. As the component chapters show, these coin-like objects represent a wealth of Chinese traditional folk beliefs, including but not limited to family values, social obligations and religious desires. The book presents a collection of contributed chapters, gathering a diverse range of perspectives and expertise from some of the world's leading scholars in the fields of archaeology, religious studies, art history, language and museology. The background of the cover image is a page from Guang jin shi yun fu , a rhyming dictionary first published in the ninth year of the Kangxi Reign (1652 CE). The metal charm dates back to the Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE), depicting two deities traditionally believed to possess the majic power of suppressing evil spirits. The stich-bound book in the foreground is a collection of seal impressions from the beginning of the 20th century. Its wooden press board is inscribed da ji xiang by Fang Zhi-bin in the year of bing yin (1926 CE).

The influential jurist Hans Kelsen 1881-1973] here applies his concept of the distinction between society and nature. He shows how primitive man developed his interpretation of nature, through the laws of retribution and of causality, to a modern concept of nature and society. He holds that the gradual emancipation of the law of causality from the principle of retribution is "the emancipation from a social interpretation of nature. The process shows a relation between social and natural science which is very important from the point of view of intellectual history." (Introduction p. viii) Extensively annotated. Kelsen is known for his theory of pure positive law, as postulated in General Theory of Law and State, which is also available in a reprint edition from The Lawbook Exchange.

Everyday practice of religion is complex in its nature, ambivalent and at times contradictory. The task of an anthropology of religious practice is therefore precisely to see how people navigate and make sense of that complexity, and what the significance of religious beliefs and practices in a given setting can be. Rather than putting everyday practice and normative doctrine on different analytical planes, the authors argue that the articulation of religious doctrine is also an everyday practice and must be understood as such.

This ethnographic study of a mixed-occupancy housing estate near the centre of London refocuses the scholarly conversation around social housing in the UK after the 1980 Housing Act. As well as examining the long-term consequences of 'Right to Buy,' such as shortages in local authority stock and neighbourhood gentrification, James Rosbrook-Thompson and Gary Armstrong investigate the changes wrought on the social fabric of the individual estate. Drawing on four years of ethnographic fieldwork, the authors explore the estate's social mix and, more specifically, the consequences of owner-occupiers, council tenants and private renters sharing a cramped inner-city neighbourhood. Mixed-Occupancy Housing in London: A Living Tapestry humanizes the academic discussion of class, race, and gender in social housing through the occupants' tales of getting by, getting along and getting out.

Chile's natural beauty, fascinating history, cultural traditions, and warm people are uniquely evoked in "Culture and Customs of Chile." Chilean American Castillo-Feliu effectively conveys how Chile's geography has helped to shape it into a modern, socially responsible model in Latin America. Students and other readers will learn how this small country has contributed to the hemisphere's stature, from a stable political scene to seafood-inspired cuisine. Chile's lively history forms the backdrop for a survey of a wealth of social riches. The literary lion Pablo Neruda, Andean music, and fine wine are just a few of the highlights found herein.

Because it has been such a model country, except for a troubled period in the 1970s and 1980s under the dictator Augusto Pinochet, Chile often stays out of headline news in the United States. Through chapters on history and people, religion, social customs, broadcasting and print media, literature, performing arts, and the arts and architecture, "Culture and Customs of Chile" will introduce Chile to a wider audience who can appreciate its understated charms. A chronology and appendix of the Spanish of Chile are indispensable aids.

This thought-provoking book is an exploration of the ways religion and diverse forms of mobility have shaped post-apartheid Johannesburg, South Africa. It analyses transnational and local migration in contemporary and historical perspective, along with movements of commodities, ideas, sounds and colours within the city. It re-theorizes urban 'super-diversity' as a plurality of religious, ethnic, national and racial groups but also as the diverse processes through which religion produces urban space. The authors argue that while religion facilitates movement, belonging and aspiration in the city, it is complicit in establishing new forms of enclosure, moral order and spatial and gendered control. Multi-authored and interdisciplinary, this edited collection deals with a wide variety of sites and religions, including Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Judaism. Its original reading of post-apartheid Johannesburg advances global debates around religion, urbanization, migration and diversity, and will appeal to students and scholars working in these fields.

Designed for both academic and lay audiences, this book identifies the characteristics of ritual and, via multiple examples, details how ritual works on the human body and brain to produce its often profound effects. These include enhancing courage, effecting healing, and generating group cohesion by enacting cultural-or individual-beliefs and values. It also shows what happens when ritual fails.

This book is one of the first to integrate psychological and medical anthropology with the methodologies of visual anthropology, specifically ethnographic film. It discusses and complements the work presented in Afflictions: Culture and Mental Illness in Indonesia, the first film series on psychiatric disorders in the developing world, in order to explore pertinent issues in the cross-cultural study of mental illness and advocate for the unique role film can play both in the discipline and in participants' lives. Through ethnographically rich and self-reflexive discussions of the films, their production, and their impact, the book at once provides theoretical and practical guidance, encouragement, and caveats for students and others who may want to make such films.

This is an edited volume that seeks to elaborate new methodologies and forge new questions in research about Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Operators of assisted living facilities interpret aging in place very differently than residents do. This difference in interpretation must be taken into account by regulators, policymakers, and operators so that they may reconsider assisted living's place along the traditional continuum of care.

With the growing number of assisted living facilities opening across the United States, it is essential for scholars and practitioners to understand residents' experiences in these environments. The author examines the ideals versus the realities of assisted living and the aging in place/continuum of care debate surrounding assisted living.

While the author presents the results of a detailed, comprehensive anthropological study, she also addresses policy issues which are of concern on the national level. The book combines academic and applied approaches to create an ethnographic fieldwork investigation relevant to housing and health care policies for the elderly in the United States.