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Situated at the intersection of cultural heritage and local
community, this book enlarges our understanding of the Indigenous
peoples of southern Mexico and northern Central America who became
detached from "the ancient Maya" through colonialism, government
actions, and early twentieth-century anthropological and
archaeological research. Through grass-roots heritage programs,
local communities are reconnecting with a much valorized but
distant past. Maya Cultural Heritage explores how community
programs conceived and implemented in a collaborative style are
changing the relationship among, archaeological practice, the
objects of archaeological study, and contemporary ethnolinguistic
Mayan communities. Rather than simply describing Maya sites,
McAnany concentrates on the dialogue nurtured by these
participatory heritage programs, the new "heritage-scapes" they
foster, and how the diverse Maya communities of today relate to
those of the past.
Textiles have been a highly valued and central part of the politics
of human societies across culture divides and over millennia. The
economy of textiles provides insight into the fabric of social
relations, local and global politics, and diverse ideologies.
Textiles are a material element of society that fosters the study
of continuities and disjunctions in the economic and social
realities of past and present societies. From stick-loom weaving to
transnational factories, the production of cloth and its
transformation into clothing and other woven goods offers a way to
study the linkages between economics and politics. The volume is
oriented around a number of themes: textile production, textiles as
trade goods, textiles as symbols, textiles in tourism, and textiles
in the transnational processes. Textile Economies appeals to a
broad range of scholars interested in the intersection of material
culture, political economy, and globalization, such as
archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, economists, museum
curators, and historians.
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Dimensions of Ritual Economy (Paperback, New)
Patricia Ann McAnany; Series edited by Donald C. Wood; Volume editing by Patricia A. McAnany, E. Christian Wells; Series edited by John A. Bishop
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R1,510
Discovery Miles 15 100
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Increasingly, economists have acknowledged that a major limitation
to economic theory has been its failure to incorporate human values
and beliefs as motivational factors. Conversely, the economic
underpinnings of ritual practice are under-theorized and therefore
not accessible to economists working on synthetic theories of human
choice. This book addresses the problem by bringing together
anthropologists with diverse backgrounds in the study of religion
and economy to forge an analytical vocabulary that constitutes the
building blocks of a theory of ritual economythe process of
provisioning and consuming that materializes and substantiates
worldview for managing meanings and shaping interpretations. The
chapters in Part I explore how values and beliefs structure the
dual processes of provisioning and consuming. Contributions to Part
II consider how ritual and economic processes interlink to
materialize and substantiate worldview. Chapters in Part III
examine how people and institutions craft and assert worldview
through ritual and economic action to manage meaning and shape
interpretation. In Part IV, Jeremy Sabloff outlines the road ahead
for developing the theory of ritual economy. By focusing on the
intersection of cosmology and material transfers, the contributors
push economic theory towards a more socially informed perspective.
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Dimensions of Ritual Economy (Hardcover, New)
Patricia Ann McAnany; Series edited by Donald C. Wood; Volume editing by Patricia A. McAnany, E. Christian Wells; Series edited by John A. Bishop
|
R3,120
Discovery Miles 31 200
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Increasingly, economists have acknowledged that a major limitation
to economic theory has been its failure to incorporate human values
and beliefs as motivational factors. Conversely, the economic
underpinnings of ritual practice are under-theorized and therefore
not accessible to economists working on synthetic theories of human
choice. This book addresses the problem by bringing together
anthropologists with diverse backgrounds in the study of religion
and economy to forge an analytical vocabulary that constitutes the
building blocks of a theory of ritual economy-the process of
provisioning and consuming that materializes and substantiates
worldview for managing meanings and shaping interpretations. The
chapters in Part I explore how values and beliefs structure the
dual processes of provisioning and consuming. Contributions to Part
II consider how ritual and economic processes interlink to
materialize and substantiate worldview. Chapters in Part III
examine how people and institutions craft and assert worldview
through ritual and economic action to manage meaning and shape
interpretation. In Part IV, Jeremy Sabloff outlines the road ahead
for developing the theory of ritual economy. By focusing on the
intersection of cosmology and material transfers, the contributors
push economic theory towards a more socially informed perspective.
Shortly after 800 B.C., a village was founded in the wetland and
riverine habitat of northern Belize. Now called K'axob, this Maya
community grew and prospered through Formative and Classic times. A
millennial-long record of Formative life has been investigated
archaeologically by peeling back the closely stratified layers of
superimposed domiciles. These houses, their domestic and mortuary
features, and associated artifacts reveal a conscious construction
of identity and shed light on the manner in which materiality was
manipulated in response to larger political dictates. Long-term
stasis in material remains suggests that artisan production played
a key role in social reproduction, yet the manner in which access
to key resources was increasingly localized intimates a political
landscapes of crystallizing hierarchies. Subfloor mortuary
interments were spatially associated with cuisine-related features
such as sherd-lined pits, reflecting a cosmology in which ritual
and work were closely integrated. These insights and more are
presented in individual chapters that examine the material remains
of early K'axob. An accompanying interactive CD provides
complementary materials on a scale never before achieved and
includes comprehensive data sets, over one thousand images (both
photographs and line drawings), a tour of K'axob, and 3-D models of
the excavation units.
The decipherment of Maya hieroglyphs has enabled scholars to better
understand Classic society, but many aspects of this civilization
remain shrouded in mystery, particularly its economies and social
structures. How did farmers, artisans, and rulers make a living in
a tropical forest environment? In this study, Patricia McAnany
tackles this question and presents the first comprehensive view of
ancestral Maya economic practice. Bringing an archaeological
approach to the topic, she demonstrates the vital role of ritual
practice in indigenous ecologies, gendered labor, and the
construction of colossal architecture. Examining Maya royalty as a
kind of social speciation, McAnany also shows the fundamentality of
social difference as well as the pervasiveness of artisan
production and marketplaces in ancestral Maya societies. Her
analysis of royal iconography and hieroglyphic texts provides
evidence of a political economy dominated by tribute extraction,
thus lifting the veil of opacity over the operation of palace
economies. Written in an engaging and accessible style, this book
situates Maya economies within contemporary social, political, and
economic theories of social practice, gender, actor-networks,
inalienable goods, materiality, social difference, indigenous
ecologies, and strategies of state finance.
This new edition of Living with the Ancestors contains an entirely
new introduction that synthesizes scholarship on ancestralizing
practices that has emerged since the 1995 publication of the first
edition, which was heralded in Ethnohistory as 'a gem' by Robert M.
Carmack. Ancestor veneration in the Maya region traditionally was
associated with divine kingship and royal genealogies. In this
study, the author challenges this assumption and presents a strong
case for agrarian and Preclassic antecedents to the practice of
remembering and celebrating forebears and curating their remains
close to the dwelling. Integrating archaeological, epigraphic,
ethnohistoric and ethnographic information, the author places
ancestors within the larger social landscape of fields, orchards
and gardens. The many registers of significance on which
ancestralizing practices resonate are examined in detail -
including spirituality, land tenure patterns, kin relations, and
charters of rulership, to name just a few. Although case material
is drawn from the Maya region, anyone interested in ancestor
veneration will find intriguing material in this study.
The decipherment of Maya hieroglyphs has enabled scholars to better
understand Classic society, but many aspects of this civilization
remain shrouded in mystery, particularly its economies and social
structures. How did farmers, artisans, and rulers make a living in
a tropical forest environment? In this study, Patricia McAnany
tackles this question and presents the first comprehensive view of
ancestral Maya economic practice. Bringing an archaeological
approach to the topic, she demonstrates the vital role of ritual
practice in indigenous ecologies, gendered labor, and the
construction of colossal architecture. Examining Maya royalty as a
kind of social speciation, McAnany also shows the fundamentality of
social difference as well as the pervasiveness of artisan
production and marketplaces in ancestral Maya societies. Her
analysis of royal iconography and hieroglyphic texts provides
evidence of a political economy dominated by tribute extraction,
thus lifting the veil of opacity over the operation of palace
economies. Written in an engaging and accessible style, this book
situates Maya economies within contemporary social, political, and
economic theories of social practice, gender, actor-networks,
inalienable goods, materiality, social difference, indigenous
ecologies, and strategies of state finance.
Questioning Collapse challenges those scholars and popular writers
who advance the thesis that societies - past and present - collapse
because of behavior that destroyed their environments or because of
overpopulation. In a series of highly accessible and closely argued
essays, a team of internationally recognized scholars bring history
and context to bear in their radically different analyses of iconic
events, such as the deforestation of Easter Island, the cessation
of the Norse colony in Greenland, the faltering of
nineteenth-century China, the migration of ancestral peoples away
from Chaco Canyon in the American southwest, the crisis and
resilience of Lowland Maya kingship, and other societies that
purportedly 'collapsed'. Collectively, these essays demonstrate
that resilience in the face of societal crises, rather than
collapse, is the leitmotif of the human story from the earliest
civilizations to the present. Scrutinizing the notion that
Euro-American colonial triumphs were an accident of geography,
Questioning Collapse also critically examines the complex
historical relationship between race and political labels of
societal 'success' and 'failure'.
Questioning Collapse challenges those scholars and popular writers
who advance the thesis that societies - past and present - collapse
because of behavior that destroyed their environments or because of
overpopulation. In a series of highly accessible and closely argued
essays, a team of internationally recognized scholars bring history
and context to bear in their radically different analyses of iconic
events, such as the deforestation of Easter Island, the cessation
of the Norse colony in Greenland, the faltering of
nineteenth-century China, the migration of ancestral peoples away
from Chaco Canyon in the American southwest, the crisis and
resilience of Lowland Maya kingship, and other societies that
purportedly 'collapsed'. Collectively, these essays demonstrate
that resilience in the face of societal crises, rather than
collapse, is the leitmotif of the human story from the earliest
civilizations to the present. Scrutinizing the notion that
Euro-American colonial triumphs were an accident of geography,
Questioning Collapse also critically examines the complex
historical relationship between race and political labels of
societal 'success' and 'failure'.
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