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Academics and policy makers have grown increasingly interested in
the ways that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) may encourage
better governance, democratic politics, and perhaps ultimately a
global civil society. In Civil Life, Globalization and Political
Change in Asia, Robert Weller has brought together an international
group of experts on the subject, whose chapters address these
questions through a series of extensive case studies from East and
Southeast Asia including Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong
Kong, Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam.
Academics and policy makers have grown increasingly interested in
the ways that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) may encourage
better governance, democratic politics, and perhaps ultimately a
global civil society. However, critics of these organizations have
pointed out that NGOs tend to be undemocratic in their internal
politics, they speak for groups of people to whom they are not
accountable through elections or financial support and they often
represent the interests of people in wealthy countries at the
expense of truly indigenous people. The main questions revolve
around whether, and how NGOs actually lead to democratization, and
the ways in which NGOs relate to broader global forces.
In "Civil Society, Globalization and Political Change in Asia,"
Robert Weller has brought together an international group of
experts on the subject whose chapters address these questions
through a series of extensive case studies from east and southeast
Asia including Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong,
Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam.
Written by eleven leading anthropologists from around the world,
this volume extends the insights of Fredrik Barth, one of the most
important anthropologists of the twentieth century, to push even
further at the frontiers of anthropology and honor his memory. As a
collection, the chapters thus expand Barth's pioneering work on
values, further develop his insights on human agency and its
potential creativity, as well as continuing to develop the
relevance for his work as a way of thinking about and beyond the
state. The work is grounded on his insistence that theory should
grow only from observed life.
Written by eleven leading anthropologists from around the world,
this volume extends the insights of Fredrik Barth, one of the most
important anthropologists of the twentieth century, to push even
further at the frontiers of anthropology and honor his memory. As a
collection, the chapters thus expand Barth's pioneering work on
values, further develop his insights on human agency and its
potential creativity, as well as continuing to develop the
relevance for his work as a way of thinking about and beyond the
state. The work is grounded on his insistence that theory should
grow only from observed life.
Free markets alone do not work effectively to solve certain kinds
of human problems, such as education, old age care, or disaster
relief. Nor have markets ever been the sole solution to the
psychological challenges of death, suffering, or injustice.
Instead, we find a major role for the non-market institutions of
society - the family, the state, and social institutions. The first
in-depth anthropological study of charities in contemporary Chinese
societies, this book focuses on the unique ways that religious
groups have helped to solve the problems of social well-being.
Using comparative case studies in China, Taiwan and Malaysia during
the 1980s and onwards, it identifies new forms of religious
philanthropy as well as new ideas of social 'good', including
different forms of political merit-making, new forms of civic
selfhood, and the rise of innovative social forms, including
increased leadership by women. The book finally argues that the
spread of these ideas is an incomplete process, with many
alternative notions of goodness continuing to be influential.
How can we order the world while accepting its enduring
ambiguities? Rethinking Pluralism suggests a new approach to the
problem of ambiguity and social order, which goes beyond the
default modern position of 'notation' (resort to rules and
categories to disambiguate). The book argues that alternative, more
particularistic modes of dealing with ambiguity through ritual and
shared experience better attune to contemporary problems of living
with difference. It retrieves key aspects of earlier discussions of
ambiguity evident in rabbinic commentaries, Chinese texts, and
Greek philosophical and dramatic works, and applies those texts to
modern problems. The book is a work of recuperation that challenges
contemporary constructions of tradition and modernity. In this, it
draws on the tradition of pragmatism in American philosophy,
especially John Dewey's injunctions to heed the particular, the
contingent and experienced as opposed to the abstract, general and
disembodied. Only in this way can new forms of empathy emerge
congruent with the deeply plural nature of our present experience.
While we cannot avoid the ambiguities inherent to the categories
through which we construct our world, the book urges us to
reconceptualize the ways in which we think about boundaries - not
just the solid line of notation, but also the permeable membrane of
ritualization and the fractal complexity of shared experience.
This pioneering, interdisciplinary work shows how rituals allow us
to live in a perennially imperfect world. Drawing on a variety of
cultural settings, the authors utilize psychoanalytic and
anthropological perspectives to describe how ritual--like
play--creates "as if" worlds, rooted in the imaginative capacity of
the human mind to create a subjunctive universe. The ability to
cross between imagined worlds is central to the human capacity for
empathy. Ritual, they claim, defines the boundaries of these
imagined worlds, including those of empathy and other realms of
human creativity, such as music, architecture and literature.
The authors juxtapose this ritual orientation to a "sincere"
search for unity and wholeness. The sincere world sees
fragmentation and incoherence as signs of inauthenticity that must
be overcome. Our modern world has accepted the sincere viewpoint at
the expense of ritual, dismissing ritual as mere convention. In
response, the authors show how the conventions of ritual allow us
to live together in a broken world. Ritual is work, endless work.
But it is among the most important things that we humans do.
Robert P. Weller's richly documented account describes the
extraordinary transformations which have taken place in Chinese and
Taiwanese responses to the environment across the twentieth
century. Indeed, both places can be said to have 'discovered' a new
concept of nature. The book focuses on nature tourism,
anti-pollution movements, and policy implementation to show how the
global spread of western ideas about nature has interacted with
Chinese traditions. Inevitably differences of understanding across
groups have caused problems in administering environmental reforms.
They will have to be resolved if the dynamic transformations of the
1980s are to be maintained in the twenty-first century. In spite of
a century of independent political development, a comparison
between China and Taiwan reveals surprising similarities, showing
how globalization and shared cultural traditions have outweighed
political differences in shaping their environments. The book will
appeal to a broad readership from scholars of Asia, to
environmentalists, and anthropologists.
Robert P. Weller's richly documented account describes the
extraordinary transformations which have taken place in Chinese and
Taiwanese responses to the environment across the twentieth
century. Indeed, both places can be said to have 'discovered' a new
concept of nature. The book focuses on nature tourism,
anti-pollution movements, and policy implementation to show how the
global spread of western ideas about nature has interacted with
Chinese traditions. Inevitably differences of understanding across
groups have caused problems in administering environmental reforms.
They will have to be resolved if the dynamic transformations of the
1980s are to be maintained in the twenty-first century. In spite of
a century of independent political development, a comparison
between China and Taiwan reveals surprising similarities, showing
how globalization and shared cultural traditions have outweighed
political differences in shaping their environments. The book will
appeal to a broad readership from scholars of Asia, to
environmentalists, and anthropologists.
Unruly Gods: Divinity and Society in China is the first study in
English to offer a systematic introduction to the Chinese pantheon
of divinities. Until now, Chinese deities have often been presented
as mere functionaries and bureaucrats. The essays in this volume
eloquently document the existence of other images that allowed
Chinese gods to challenge the prevailing power structures and
traditional mores of Chinese society. Here are deities who kill
their parents, who refuse to marry, who depose their predecessors,
who demand cigarettes instead of incense - in short, who challenge
all preconceptions about Chinese divinity. The authors draw on a
variety of disciplines (history, anthropology, literary studies)
and methodologies to throw light on various aspects of the Chinese
supernatural. In addition to reflecting the existing order, Chinese
gods shaped it, transformed it, and compensated for it, and, as
such, this study offers fresh perspectives on the relations between
divinity and society in China.
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