Before the emergence of anthropology around the middle of the nineteenth century, there was no ethnography as such. But the discipline owes its formation to certain strands that go back into the remoter past of the ancient world, as far back as Homeric epic, and range over such themes as the Greek views of non-Greeks and indeed of the boundaries of what it is to be human. These classical structural polarities have provided an enduring interpretative framework for configuring the 'other' in very different societies and places. Reaching across a remarkable time span, Mason's approach does not attempt a unified narrative, but uses case studies from the ancient world, the early modern era and the Enlightenment, many of them related to the difficulties of comprehending the cultures of the New World, to pinpoint startling continuities and changes. In this way, Mason reveals 'embedded ethnographies' in the works of a diverse set of writers, from giants of their age such as Sextus Empiricus, Columbus, Montaigne, the Marquis de Sade and Goethe, to little-known authors of the sixteenth century such as Jan Huygen van Linschoten (tales of sex and drugs in Goa) and Adriaen Coenen (encountering Eskimos in The Hague). Drawing his conclusions from a wealth of sources, the author deftly moves from travellers' accounts, encyclopaedias, cosmographies and natural history compilations, to literary works of fiction, translating them from seven languages. Many are presented here to English readers for the first time. Whether non-European peoples are demonized or idealized, the author asks, can any trace of a native voice still be found in these European texts? An outstanding work by a scholar with an eye for extraordinary case studies and unexpected cultural connections, which contribute to opening up new paths of research and reinvigorate the field. Francisco Bethencourt - Charles Boxer Professor of History, King's College London The Ways of the World is an elegant, lucid, exemplary piece of intellectual history by an author who is as much at home in philosophy and literary criticism as he is in anthropology and history. Peter Burke - Emeritus Professor of Cultural History, Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge

This book analyses the instruments and approaches offered by public international law to resolve cultural heritage related disputes and facilitate the return of illicitly transferred objects to their countries of origin. In addition to assessing the instruments themselves, their origins, and their advantages and disadvantages, it also examines the roles and interests of the actors involved. Lastly, the book explores the interaction between hard and soft law approaches, the reasons for and importance of this interaction, as well as its consequences.

American society is more diverse than ever. A country that used to think of itself as the "great melting pot" may soon be calling itself "the great lifestyle buffet." With increasing affluence, more and more Americans are in a position to choose whatever lifestyle most appeals to them. The result is that the national landscape has become an intricate mosaic of varying styles, self-expressions, and ways of life. Even the distinction between majority and minority is starting to blur. Is there any pattern to this ever-shifting kaleidoscope of identities? The author puts the pieces together into a coherent picture in this fascinating study of American diversity. Applying the astute pattern-recognition skills that he demonstrated in his previous book, the critically acclaimed Anatomy of a Trend, the author examines how we transform our identities into practical everyday living--into our lifestyle. Going beyond the usual markers of identity--race, ethnicity, religion, political affiliation, income level, etc--he focuses on modes of communicating group identity nonverbally through consumer choices, clothing fashions, personal color choices, adornments, accessories, logos, signs, and symbols. Curiously, what emerges from his analysis is a pattern as ancient as human culture itself--a new form of tribalism. He foresees this trend continuing so that by the end of the twenty-first century there will be less identification with nation-states and ethnic groups and more small-group identification. As globalization and mass communication continue to link us together, we may all become so used to diversity that the idea of conflict based on national identity distinctions may seem antiquated. A book of remarkable insights, this will have great appeal to readers interested in popular culture, social change, and consumer tastes.

Multilevel marketing and pyramid schemes promote the idea that participants can easily become rich. These popular economies turn ordinary people into advocates of their interests and missionaries of the American Dream. Marketing Hope looks at how different types of get-rich-quick schemes manifest themselves in a Siberian town. By focusing on their social dynamics, Leonie Schiffauer provides insights into how capitalist logic is learned and negotiated, and how it affects local realities in a post-Soviet environment.

50 years ago, World Bank President Robert McNamara promised to end poverty. Alleviation was to rely on economic growth, resulting in higher incomes stimulated by Bank loans processed by deskbound Washington staff, trickling down to the poorest. Instead, child poverty and homelessness are on the increase everywhere. In this book, anthropologist and former World Bank Advisor Glynn Cochrane argues that instead of Washington's "management by seclusion," poverty alleviation requires personal engagement with the poorest by helpers with hands-on local and cultural skills. Here, the author argues, the insights provided by anthropological fieldwork have a crucial role to play.

Anthropologists have expressed wariness about the concept of evil even in discussions of morality and ethics, in part because the concept carries its own cultural baggage and theological implications in Euro-American societies. Addressing the problem of evil as a distinctly human phenomenon and a category of ethnographic analysis, this volume shows the usefulness of engaging evil as a descriptor of empirical reality where concepts such as violence, criminality, and hatred fall short of capturing the darkest side of human existence.

In the southern German city of Stuttgart lives a pious Muslim population that has merged with the local population to create a meaningful shared existence. In this ethnographic account, the author introduces and examines the lives of ordinary residents, neighborhoods, and mosque communities to analyze moments and spaces where Muslims and non-Muslims engage with each other and accommodate their respective needs. These accounts show that even in the face of resentment and discrimination, this pious population has indeed become an integral part of the urban community.

Drawing on research from eleven countries across four continents, the 16 chapters in the volume bring perspectives from various specialties in anthropology and human ecology, institutional analysis, historical and political ecology, geography, archaeology, and land change sciences. The four sections of the volume reflect complementary approaches to HEI: health and adaptation approaches, land change and landscape management approaches, institutional and political-ecology approaches, and historical and archaeological approaches.

How are historians and social scientists to understand the emergence, the multiplicity, and the mutability of collective memories of the Ottoman Empire in the political formations that succeeded it? With contributions focussing on several of the nation-states whose peoples once were united under the aegis of Ottoman suzerainty, this volume proposes new theoretical approaches to the experience and transmission of the past through time. Developing the concept of topology, contributors explore collective memories of Ottoman identity and post-Ottoman state formation in a contemporary epoch that, echoing late modernity, we might term "late nationalism".

How are historians and social scientists to understand the emergence, the multiplicity, and the mutability of collective memories of the Ottoman Empire in the political formations that succeeded it? With contributions focussing on several of the nation-states whose peoples once were united under the aegis of Ottoman suzerainty, this volume proposes new theoretical approaches to the experience and transmission of the past through time. Developing the concept of topology, contributors explore collective memories of Ottoman identity and post-Ottoman state formation in a contemporary epoch that, echoing late modernity, we might term "late nationalism".

How do real individuals live together in real societies in the real world?
Jeffrey Alexander's masterful work, The Civil Sphere, addresses this central paradox of modern life. Feelings for others--the solidarity that is ignored or underplayed by theories of power or self-interest--are at the heart of this novel inquiry into the meeting place between normative theories of what we think we should do and empirical studies of who we actually are. A grand and sweeping statement, The Civil Sphere is a major contribution to our thinking about the real but ideal world in which we all reside.

On the Geopragmatics of Anthropological Identification explores the discursive spaces of our speaking position, or what has routinely been referred to in the literature as the poetics and politics of writing culture. At issue here are its problematic underlying notions of cultural identity, authorial subjectivity and postcolonial critique. Contrary to the widespread assumption that cultural studies and the social sciences share a common discourse of culture and society, Allen Chun argues that 'modern' disciplinary practices and axioms have in fact produced inherently incompatible theories. Anthropology's ethical relativism has also created obstacles for a critical theory of culture and society.

The Primeiro Comando do Capital (PCC) is a Sao Paulo prison gang thatsince the 1990s has expanded into the most powerful criminal network inBrazil. Karina Biondi's rich ethnography of the PCC is uniquely informedby her insider-outsider status. Prior to his acquittal, Biondi's husband wasincarcerated in a PCC-dominated prison for several years. During the periodof Biondi's intense and intimate visits with her husband and her extensivefieldwork in prisons and on the streets of Sao Paulo, the PCC effectively controlledmore than 90 percent of Sao Paulo's 147 prison facilities. Available for the first time in English, Biondi's riveting portrait of thePCC illuminates how the organisation operates inside and outside of prison,creatively elaborating on a decentered, non-hierarchical, and far-reachingcommand system. This system challenges both the police forces againstwhich the PCC has declared war and the methods and analytic concepts traditionallyemployed by social scientists concerned with crime, incarceration,and policing. Biondi posits that the PCC embodies a "politics of transcendence,"a group identity that is braided together with, but also autonomousfrom, its decentralized parts. Biondi also situates the PCC in relation toredemocratization and rampant socioeconomic inequality in Brazil, as wellas to counter-state movements, crime, and punishment in the Americas.

This study analyzes American, Vietnamese, and Japanese personal values, attempting to understand how it can be ethnographers find large differences in values between cultures, yet empirical surveys find relatively small differences in personal values between cultures. D'Andrade argues that people live in two distinct value worlds; the world of "personal values" and the world of "institutionalized values." Assessing these value worlds, D'Andrade is able to explain the contrast between ethnography and survey data, while making vital commentary on American, Vietnamese, and Japanese culture. With insight and precision, this book contributes to the important debate that the Culture, Mind, and Society series has initiated.

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.

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.

How does design and innovation shape people's lives in the Pacific? Focusing on plant materials from the region, How Materials Matter reveals ways in which a variety of people - from craftswomen and scientists to architects and politicians - work with materials to transform worlds. Recognizing the fragile and ephemeral nature of plant fibres, this work delves into how the biophysical properties of certain leaves and their aesthetic appearance are utilized to communicate information and manage different forms of relations. It breaks new ground by situating plant materials at the centre of innovation in a region.

Mobile money, e-commerce, cash cards, retail credit cards, and more-as new monetary technologies become increasingly available, the global South has cautiously embraced these mediums as a potential solution to the issue of financial inclusion. How, if at all, do new forms of dematerialized money impact people's everyday financial lives? In what way do technologies interact with financial repertoires and other socio-cultural institutions? How do these technologies of financial inclusion shape the global politics and geographies of difference and inequality? These questions are at the heart of Money at the Margins, a groundbreaking exploration of the uses and socio-cultural impact of new forms of money and financial services.

"This is a very good book which will certainly become one of the essential works of reference for the jazz enthusiast. It covers the ragtime to swing period by way of 250 LPs, each of which is afforded full discographical information on dates, titles, and personnels. . . . The quality of the writing is extemely high, as indeed one has a right to expect from authors of this calibre. . . . Harrison, Fox, and Thacker have produced some beautifully composed essays on artistes such as Billie Holliday, Roy Eldridge, Duke Ellington, etc. . . . It is a book which needs to be dipped into frequently, a volume to keep close to one's record collection. . . . It will increase immeasurably anyone's knowledge of, and appreciation for, jazz." The Gramophone

Pursues the hypothesis that fictional literature has been instrumental in the development and dissemination of European anti-Americanism from the early 1800s to today. Focusing on Britain, France and Germany, it offers analyses of a range of canonical literary works in which resentful hostility towards the United States is a predominant feature.

This is the first book to consider the major implications for culture of the new science of biosemiotics. The volume is mainly aimed at an audience outside biosemiotics and semiotics, in the humanities and social sciences principally, who will welcome elucidation of the possible benefits to their subject area from a relatively new field. The book is therefore devoted to illuminating the extent to which biosemiotics constitutes an 'epistemological break' with 'modern' modes of conceptualizing culture. It shows biosemiotics to be a significant departure from those modes of thought that neglect to acknowledge continuity across nature, modes which install culture and the vicissitudes of the polis at the centre of their deliberations. The volume exposes the untenability of the 'culture/nature' division, presenting a challenge to the many approaches that can only produce an understanding of culture as a realm autonomous and divorced from nature.

When the Wabanaki were moved to reservations, they proved their resourcefulness by catering to the burgeoning tourist market during the 19th and early 20th centuries, when Bar Harbor was called Eden. This engaging, richly illustrated, and meticulously researched book chronicles the intersecting lives of the Wabanaki and wealthy summer rusticators on Mount Desert Island. While the rich built sumptuous summer homes, the Wabanaki sold them Native crafts, offered guide services, and produced Indian shows.

Jean Muteba Rahier examines the cultural politics of Afro-Ecuadorian populations within the context of the Andean region's recent pivotal history and the Latin American 'multicultural turn" of the past two decades, bringing contemporary political trends together with questions of race, space, and sexuality. Organized around eight ethnographic vignettes, the book looks at race and Ecuadorian popular culture; Afro-Ecuadorian cultural politics, cultural traditions, and political activism; "mestizaje" and the non-inclusion of blackness in official imaginations of national identity ('the ideological biology of national identity'); race, gender relations, and anti-black racism; stereotypes of black female hypersexuality and sexual self-constructions; blackness and beauty contest politics; the passage from 'monocultural "mestizaje"' to multiculturalism in the 1990s, which got a second life following the "revolucion ciudadana" (citizen revolution) and the election of Rafael Correa to the Ecuadorian presidency in late 2006; and blackness, racism, sports, and national pride in multicultural Ecuador.

Armed with cheap digital technologies and a fiercely independent spirit, millions of young people from around the world have taken cultural production into their own hands, crafting their own clothing lines, launching their own record labels, and forging a vast, collaborative network of impassioned amateurs more interested in making than consuming.
"DIY Style" tells the story of this international do-it-yourself (DIY) movement through a major case study of one of its biggest, but least known contingents: the "indie" music and fashion scene of the predominantly Muslim Southeast Asian island nation of Indonesia. Through rich ethnographic detail, in-depth historical analysis, and cutting-edge social theory, the book chronicles the rise of DIY culture in Indonesia, and also explores the phenomenon in Europe and the United States, painting an evocative portrait of vibrant communities who are not only making and distributing popular culture on their own terms, but working to tear down the barriers between production and consumption, third and first world, global and local. What emerges from the book is a cautiously optimistic view of the future of global capitalism - a creative, collectivist alternative built from the ground up.
This exciting and original study is essential reading for students and scholars of anthropology, fashion, media studies, cultural studies and sociology.