Between the birth of Dante in 1265 and the death of Galileo in 1642 something happened which completely revolutionized Western civilization. Painting, sculpture and architecture would all visibly change in a striking fashion. Likewise, the thought and self-conception of humanity would take on a completely different aspect. Sciences would be born - or emerge in an entirely new guise. In this sweeping 400-year history, Paul Strathern reveals how, and why, these new ideas which formed the Renaissance began, and flourished, in the city of Florence. Just as central and northern Germany gave birth to the Reformation, Britain was a driver of the Industrial Revolution and Silicon Valley shaped the digital age, so too, Strathern argues, did Florence play a similarly unique and transformative role in the Renaissance. While vividly bringing to life the city and a vast cast of characters - including Dante, Botticelli, Machiavelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Galileo - Strathern shows how these great Florentines forever altered Europe and the Western world.

How can we hold in the same view both cultural or historical constructs and generalities about social existence? Kinship, Law and the Unexpected takes up an issue at the heart of studies of society - the way we use relationships to uncover relationships. Relationality is a phenomenon at once contingent (on certain ways of knowing) and ubiquitous (to social life). The role of relations in western (Euro-American) knowledge practices, from the scientific revolution onwards, raises a question about the extent to which Euro-American kinship is the kinship of a knowledge-based society. The argument takes the reader through current issues in biotechnology, new family formations and legal interventions, and intellectual property debates, to matters of personhood and ownership afforded by material from Melanesia and elsewhere. If we are often surprised by what our relatives do, we may also be surprised by what relations tells us about the world we live in.

Between the end of the Renaissance and the start of the Enlightenment, Europe lived through an era known as the Age of Reason. This was a period which saw advances in areas such as art, science, philosophy, political theory and economics. However, all this was achieved against a background of extreme turbulence in the form of internal conflicts and international wars. While the 'land of liberty' was beginning to import slaves from Africa. Focusing on key characters from the seventeenth to the eighteenth centuries, including Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Newton, Descartes, Spinoza, Louis XIV and Charles I, Dark Brilliance is a fascinating and wide-ranging history that explores the human costs of imposing progress and modernity.

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 considers in depth the emergent theme of concerns over bodily fluids in health and wellness through an examination of a rich set of ethnographic materials from the Pacific islands of New Guinea. The particular structure of the book draws together otherwise disparate observations made by ethnographers on ideas of the body. It helps to reveal how these are related to ideas of sickness and curing, of witchcraft, of cannibalism, of gender relations, and of ecology and ritual. It facilitates cross-cultural comparisons with other parts of the world, as well as making clear the fundamental similarities between the societies of Irian Jaya and Papua New Guinea.

It also discusses the idea of the cosmos and its centrality to ideological representations of the physical and social body. Society is seen to be part of the cosmos, and the human body directly linked to, and in cyclical flow with, the elements of the life-world in general, and society in particular.

Ritual has emerged as a major focus of academic interest. As a concept, the idea of ritual integrates the study of behavior both within and beyond the domain of religion. Ritual can be both secular and religious in character. There is renewed interest in questions such as: Why do rituals exist at all? What has been, and continues to be, their place in society? How do they change over time? Such questions exist against a backdrop of assumptions about development, modernization, and disenchantment of the world.Written with the specific needs of students of religious studies in mind, " Ritual: Key Concepts in Religion" surveys the field of ritual studies looking at it both historically within anthropology and in terms of its contemporary relevance to mass phenomena.

In the early 21st century, intellectual and cultural resources emerge on all sides as candidates for ownership claims. Members of an anthropological research team investigating emergent economic relations in a part of the world renowned for its innovative approach to resources and transactions, wish to open up the vocabulary. In this unique volume, they bring an unexpected comparative perspective to global debates on intellectual and cultural property rights (IPR and CPR). The contributors bring from Melanesia their collective experience of people initiating, limiting and rationalizing claims through transactions in ways that challenge many of the assumptions behind the international language. In a bold theoretical move, "property" is put alongside two other terms: "transactions" and "creations." The former have a place in the anthropological tradition that now needs to be brought into the foreground. In turn, increasing interest in protecting intellectual and cultural resources means that questions about creativity have suddenly become pertinent to what is or is not being transacted. Yet is creativity a special preoccupation of modernity? How are we to talk about people's creative practices, when innovation becomes the basis for ownership claims? This book is full of surprises

In the early 21st century, intellectual and cultural resources emerge on all sides as candidates for ownership claims. Members of an anthropological research team investigating emergent conomic relations in a part of the world renowned for its innovative approach to resources and transactions, wish to open up the vocabulary. In this unique volume, they bring an unexpected comparative perspective to global debates on intellectual and cultural property rights (IPR and CPR). The contributors bring from Melanesia their collective experience of people initiating, limiting and rationalizing claims through transactions in ways that challenge many of the assumptions behind the international language. In a bold theoretical move, "property" is put alongside two other terms: "transactions" and "creations." The former have a place in the anthropological tradition that now needs to be brought into the foreground. In turn, increasing interest in protecting intellectual and cultural resources means that questions about creativity have suddenly become pertinent to what is or is not being transacted. Yet is creativity a special preoccupation of modernity? How are we to talk about people's creative practices, when innovation becomes the basis for ownership claims? This book is full of surprises!

Between the end of the Renaissance and the start of the Enlightenment, Europe lived through an era known as the Age of Reason. This was a period which saw advances in areas such as art, science, philosophy, political theory and economics. However, all this was achieved against a background of extreme turbulence in the form of internal conflicts and international wars. While the 'land of liberty' was beginning to import slaves from Africa. Focusing on key characters from the seventeenth to the eighteenth centuries, including Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Newton, Descartes, Spinoza, Louis XIV and Charles I, Dark Brilliance is a fascinating and wide-ranging history that explores the human costs of imposing progress and modernity.

Ritual Studies have achieved prominence since the 1980s, when interest in ritual as an object of inquiry was established, bridging over a number of humanities and social science disciplines. Both connected with religious studies and independent of it; overlapping with social and cultural anthropology, but also with history; related to science and health practices and ranging across the life course to education, Ritual Studies has come to encompass studies of change and dynamism in social life. Rituals are determinate in form, but not static. They enunciate distinctive social values within specific contexts that frame them; and they relate to the wider concerns and issues of their practitioners. Due to this broad and wide-ranging scope, it is often difficult to find a single resource on Ritual Studies, and even more so to find one which moves beyond the beginnings of anthropological theorizing to grapple with the present-day contexts of ritual. Bringing together recent ethnographies of ritual practice and ritualization from across the globe, this Handbook provides case study of ritual in the light of Emotion and Cognition, Identity, Religious Power, Performance and Literature, Ecology and Ecological Disaster, Media, and other topics. While each chapter provides a deep ethnography of a specific society, ritual, or ritualized practice, each also engages with current theoretical and substantive approaches to the relevant topic. The scholars collected here provide original synoptic and indicative pieces as guideposts and pathways through the complex, varied and cross-disciplinary, and vast landscape of scholarship that constitutes Ritual Studies today and points to developments in the future.

Building on an incipient tendency to make comparisons between Indonesian and Melanesian cultural themes, this study makes a fresh comparison of themes that interrelate ethnographies of eastern Indonesia (for example, Sumba, Flores), Irian Jaya (the Bird's Head), and the Highlands of Papua New Guinea (Melpa, Duna). The themes chosen include slavery and personhood, kinship and commoditization, cassowary myths, sky beings, witchcraft, female spirits, and historical changes.

Such a comparative sweep of themes has not been attempted before for this part of the world, and the thematic approach adopted also makes it possible to examine topics both in the abstract and in terms of historical time. The comparisons made illuminate both differences between the cases chosen and particularities of each case, bringing together Indonesian and Melanesian ethnographies in a new way that transcends the conventional boundaries of regional analysis.

Focusing on the era of "first encounters" in Polynesia, this book provides a fresh look at some of the early contacts between indigenous people and the captains and crew of European ships. The case studies chosen enable comparison of New Zealand Maori-European transactions with similar Pacific ones. The book examines the conflict situations that arose and the reasons for physical violence, highlighting the roles of honour, mana, and agency. Drawing on a range of archival materials, sailor and missionary journals, as well as indigenous narratives, Wilkes applies an analytical method typically used for examining much more recent conflict. She compares different ways of "seeing" and "knowing" the world and reflects on the reasons for poor decision-making amongst all the social actors involved. The evidence presented in the book strongly suggests that preventing violence - promoting and negotiating peace - happens most effectively when mana and honour are acknowledged between parties.

How are ethnographic knowledge and anthropological theory created out of field experiences? Working in the Field explores emplacement and experience-centered narratives as the modes in working in places brings anthropology to life. Stewart and Strathern show how first impressions of an area carry depths of meanings which can gradually be unpacked in later analysis and how the fieldworker's memories may become blended with those of the people studied as a result of long-term engagement with them. Spanning Papua New Guinea, Taiwan, and Scotland, and Ireland, Stewart and Strathern show how fieldwork in apparently different areas can lead to unexpected comparisons and discoveries of similarities in human cross-cultural patterns of behavior.

By examining how small communities have dealt with forces of change and have sought to maintain themselves over time, this book offers pointers and lessons for conservation practices at all levels of society. "Sustainability" has become an increasingly popular term as a signal of concerns with long-term environmental consequences of human actions. Sustainability as a goal has started to replace "development" as a way of describing policies that go beyond the concept of increasing commercial production or making monetary profits from enterprises. By focusing on topical case histories on agricultural activity, stock-keeping, cash cropping, mining, and renewable energy, the authors highlight how ethnographic studies can and should inform policy decisions at both local and global levels. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of applied anthropology, sociology, and development studies.

In this book, Andrew J. Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart delineate the relationship between "language in particular" and "culture in general" by focusing on language as both social practice and a means of classifying and interpreting the world. A traditional linguistic approach to a focus on language is illuminated by their anthropological emphasis on the embodiment of relationships and experience. In the book, the body is placed in the foreground for understanding language in culture, which helps in turn to understand how it enables us to adapt to the world of lived material experience. Written in an accessible style and drawing on an extensive corpus of primary field research from Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Japan, Taiwan, Scotland, and Ireland, Strathern and Stewart present a world anthropology which links together European, North American, and Asia-Pacific approaches to the topic. Students and scholars alike of sociocultual anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and linguistics will benefit from this engaging work on how the various components of our culture are informed and shaped through language.

Focusing on the era of "first encounters" in Polynesia, this book provides a fresh look at some of the early contacts between indigenous people and the captains and crew of European ships. The case studies chosen enable comparison of New Zealand Maori-European transactions with similar Pacific ones. The book examines the conflict situations that arose and the reasons for physical violence, highlighting the roles of honour, mana, and agency. Drawing on a range of archival materials, sailor and missionary journals, as well as indigenous narratives, Wilkes applies an analytical method typically used for examining much more recent conflict. She compares different ways of "seeing" and "knowing" the world and reflects on the reasons for poor decision-making amongst all the social actors involved. The evidence presented in the book strongly suggests that preventing violence - promoting and negotiating peace - happens most effectively when mana and honour are acknowledged between parties.

This book suggests a bold comparative approach to broad cultural differences between Africa and Melanesia. Its theme is personhood, understood in terms of what anthropologists call embodiment. These concepts are applied to questions ranging from the meanings of spirit possession, to the logics of witchcraft and kinship relations, the use of rituals in healing, and even the impact of capitalism. Questioning common assumptions about the huge differences among these discrete areas, the contributions document surprising continuities.

For courses in Social Organization, Kinship, and Cultural Ecology.Kinship has made a come-back in Anthropology. Not only is there a line of noted, general, introductory works and readers in the topic, but theoretical discussions have been stimulated both by technological changes in mechanisms of reproduction and by reconsiderations of how to define kinship in the most productive ways for cross-cultural comparisons.In addition, kinship studies have moved away from the minutiae of kin terminological systems and thekinship algebra often associated with these, to the broader analysis of processes, historical changes and fundamental cultural meanings in which kin relationships are implicated. In this changed, and changing context both Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart -- both of the University of Pittsburgh -- bring together a number of interests and concerns, in order to provide pointers for students, as well as scholars, in this field of study. Taking an explicitly processual approach, the authors examine definitions of terms such as kinship itself, approach the topic in a way that is invariably ethnographic, and deploy materials from field areas where they themselves have worked.

This book argues that the breaking and re-making of frames of analysis underlie the history of theorizing in anthropology. Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew J. Strathern note that this mode of analysis risks fabricating over-essentialized dichotomies between viewpoints. The authors advocate a mindful, nuanced, people-centered approach to all theorizing-one that avoids total system approaches (-isms) and suggest that theory should relate cogently to ethnography. Mindful anthropology, as this book envisages it, is not a specific theory but a philosophical aspiration for the discipline as a whole.

Two classic topics in social anthropology are combined in this work--the study of witchcraft and sorcery and the study of rumors and gossip. After revealing the importance of rumor and gossip as catalysts for accusations of witchcraft and sorcery, it demonstrates their role in the genesis of social and political violence, as seen in peasant rebellions, as well as witch-hunts. The study draws upon examples from Africa, Europe, India, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia.

More and more, anthropologists are recruited as consultants by government departments, companies or as observers of development processes in their field areas generally. Although these roles can be very gratifying, they can create ambiguous situations for the anthropologists who find that new pressures and responsibilities are placed upon them for which their training did not prepare them. This volume explores some of the problems, opportunities, issues, debates, and dilemmas surrounding these roles. The geographic focus of the studies is Papua New Guinea, but the topic and its importance apply widely through the world, for example, Africa, South America, Australia, and the Pacific in general, as well as in relation to indigenous groups in Canada and elsewhere. All the authors have first-hand experience and they address these new pressures and responsibilities of anthropological research. The book's chapters are written in a way that combines scholarship with a style accessible to general readers.

Updated with a new Preface, this seminal work challenges the routine ways in which anthropologists have thought about the complexity and quantity of their materials. Marilyn Strathern focuses on a problem normally regarded as commonplace; that of scale and proportion. She combines a wide-ranging interest in current theoretical issues with close attention to the cultural details of social life, attempting to establish proportionality between them. Strathern gives equal weight to two areas of contemporary debate: The difficulties inherent in anthropologically representing complex societies, and the future of cross-cultural comparison in a field where 'too much' seems known. The ethnographic focus of this book emphasizes the context through which Melanesianists have managed the complexity of their own accounts, while at the same time unfolding a commentary on perception and the mixing of indigenous forms. Revealing unexpected replications in modes of thought and in the presentation of ambiguous images, Strathern has fashioned a unique contribution to the anthropological corpus. This book was originally published under the sponsorship of the Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania.

For courses in Social Organization, Kinship, and Cultural Ecology. Kinship has made a come-back in Anthropology. Not only is there a line of noted, general, introductory works and readers in the topic, but theoretical discussions have been stimulated both by technological changes in mechanisms of reproduction and by reconsiderations of how to define kinship in the most productive ways for cross-cultural comparisons. In addition, kinship studies have moved away from the minutiae of kin terminological systems and the "kinship algebra" often associated with these, to the broader analysis of processes, historical changes and fundamental cultural meanings in which kin relationships are implicated. In this changed, and changing context both Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart -- both of the University of Pittsburgh -- bring together a number of interests and concerns, in order to provide pointers for students, as well as scholars, in this field of study. Taking an explicitly processual approach, the authors examine definitions of terms such as kinship itself, approach the topic in a way that is invariably ethnographic, and deploy materials from field areas where they themselves have worked.

This collection of essays, edited by leading scholars in the field, focuses on how expressive genres such as music, dance and poetry are of enduring significance to social organization. Research from New Guinea, Indonesia and Taiwan is used to assess how historical changes modify these forms of expression to adjust to the social and political needs of the moment. The volume is unique in exploring the significance of expressive genres for the social processes of coping with and adjusting to change, either from outside forces or from internal ones. The contributions detail first-hand fieldwork, often conducted over a period of many years, and with each contributor bringing their experience to bear on both the aesthetic and the analytical aspects of their materials. Comparative in scope, the volume covers Austronesian and non-Austronesian speakers in the wider Indo-Pacific region.