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An Anthropology of Gender Variance and Trans Experience in Naples: Beauty in Transit
by Marzia MaurielloThis book recounts the author’s fieldwork among the trans and gender-variant communities in Naples. This is where a gender-variant figure, the femminiello, has found a safe environment within the city’s historical poorest neighborhoods, the so-called “quartieri popolari”, which were and continue to be culturally and socially connoted. The femminielli, who can be read as “suspended” figures between the feminine and the masculine, provide the background for a discourse on the meanings that genders and sexualities have assumed in modern Naples. This is done with significant openings to theoretical reasoning that is both extraterritorial and multidisciplinary. Starting from the micro context, the aim of the book is to explore the breadth and complexity of the gender variant and trans experience, with particular reference to the changing meanings of the body, which are also tied to the collective images of beauty in contemporary times.
The Anthropology of Ignorance: An Ethnographic Approach (Culture, Mind, and Society)
by Casey High, Ann H. Kelly, and Jonathan MairThe question of ignorance occupies a central place in anthropological theory and practice. This volume argues that the concept of ignorance has largely been pursued as the opposite of knowledge or even its obverse. Though they cover wide empirical ground - from clients of a fertility treatment center in New York to families grappling with suicide in Greenland - contributors share a commitment to understanding the concept as a productive, social practice. Ultimately, The Anthropology of Ignorance asks whether an academic commitment to knowledge can be squared with lived significance of ignorance and how taking it seriously might alter anthropological research practices.
An Anthropology of Intellectual Exchange: Interactions, Transactions and Ethics in Asia and Beyond (WYSE Series in Social Anthropology #15)
by Jacob Copeman Lam Minh Chau Joanna Cook Nicholas J. Long Magnus MarsdenDialogues, encounters and interactions through which particular ways of knowing, understanding and thinking about the world are forged lie at the centre of anthropology. Such ‘intellectual exchange’ is also central to anthropologists’ own professional practice: from their interactions with research participants and modes of pedagogy to their engagements with each other and scholars from adjacent disciplines. This collection of essays explores how such processes might best be studied cross-culturally. Foregrounding the diverse interactions, ethical reasoning, and intellectual lives of people from across the continent of Asia, the volume develops an anthropology of intellectual exchange itself.
An Anthropology of Intellectual Exchange: Interactions, Transactions and Ethics in Asia and Beyond (WYSE Series in Social Anthropology #15)
by Jacob Copeman, Nicholas J. Long, Lam Minh Chau, Joanna Cook Magnus MarsdenDialogues, encounters and interactions through which particular ways of knowing, understanding and thinking about the world are forged lie at the centre of anthropology. Such ‘intellectual exchange’ is also central to anthropologists’ own professional practice: from their interactions with research participants and modes of pedagogy to their engagements with each other and scholars from adjacent disciplines. This collection of essays explores how such processes might best be studied cross-culturally. Foregrounding the diverse interactions, ethical reasoning, and intellectual lives of people from across the continent of Asia, the volume develops an anthropology of intellectual exchange itself.
An Anthropology of Lying: Information in the Doctor-Patient Relationship
by Sylvie FainzangIn the era of health democracy, where a patient’s right to be informed is not only widely advocated but also guaranteed by law, what is the real situation regarding patient information? Do patients receive the information that they request with regard to their diagnosis, prognosis or treatments? And what information do patients themselves give to their doctors? Drawing on observational research in hospitals and covering the exchanges between doctors and patients on the subject of cancer treatment and that of other pathologies, this book reveals that the practice of telling lies is widespread amongst parties on both sides of the medical relationship. With attention to the manner in which information of various types is withheld and the truth concealed on either side of the doctor-patient relationship, the author explores the boundaries between what is said and what is left unsaid, and between those who are given information and those who are lied to. Considering the misunderstandings that occur in the course of medical exchanges and the differences between the lies told by doctors and patients, An Anthropology of Lying: Information in the Doctor-Patient Relationship analyses the role of mendacity in the exercise of, and resistance to power. A fascinating study of the mechanisms at work and social conditions surrounding the accomplishment of lying in medical settings, this book casts fresh light on a subject that has so far been overlooked. As such, it will appeal not only to sociologists and anthropologists of health and medicine, but also to medical professionals.
An Anthropology of Lying: Information in the Doctor-Patient Relationship
by Sylvie FainzangIn the era of health democracy, where a patient’s right to be informed is not only widely advocated but also guaranteed by law, what is the real situation regarding patient information? Do patients receive the information that they request with regard to their diagnosis, prognosis or treatments? And what information do patients themselves give to their doctors? Drawing on observational research in hospitals and covering the exchanges between doctors and patients on the subject of cancer treatment and that of other pathologies, this book reveals that the practice of telling lies is widespread amongst parties on both sides of the medical relationship. With attention to the manner in which information of various types is withheld and the truth concealed on either side of the doctor-patient relationship, the author explores the boundaries between what is said and what is left unsaid, and between those who are given information and those who are lied to. Considering the misunderstandings that occur in the course of medical exchanges and the differences between the lies told by doctors and patients, An Anthropology of Lying: Information in the Doctor-Patient Relationship analyses the role of mendacity in the exercise of, and resistance to power. A fascinating study of the mechanisms at work and social conditions surrounding the accomplishment of lying in medical settings, this book casts fresh light on a subject that has so far been overlooked. As such, it will appeal not only to sociologists and anthropologists of health and medicine, but also to medical professionals.
An Anthropology of Money: A Critical Introduction (Routledge Series for Creative Teaching and Learning in Anthropology)
by Tim Di Muzio Richard H. RobbinsAn Anthropology of Money: A Critical Introduction shows how our present monetary system was imposed by elites and how they benefit from it. The book poses the question: how, by looking at different forms of money, can we appreciate that they have different effects? The authors demonstrate how modern money requires perpetual growth, an increase in inequality, environmental devastation, increasing commoditization, and, consequently, the perpetual consumption of ever more stuff. These are not intrinsic features of money, but, rather, of debt-money. This text shows that, through studying money in other cultures, we can have money that better serves the broader goals of society.
An Anthropology of Money: A Critical Introduction (Routledge Series for Creative Teaching and Learning in Anthropology)
by Tim Di Muzio Richard H. RobbinsAn Anthropology of Money: A Critical Introduction shows how our present monetary system was imposed by elites and how they benefit from it. The book poses the question: how, by looking at different forms of money, can we appreciate that they have different effects? The authors demonstrate how modern money requires perpetual growth, an increase in inequality, environmental devastation, increasing commoditization, and, consequently, the perpetual consumption of ever more stuff. These are not intrinsic features of money, but, rather, of debt-money. This text shows that, through studying money in other cultures, we can have money that better serves the broader goals of society.
The Anthropology of Postindustrialism: Ethnographies of Disconnection (Routledge Studies in Anthropology)
by Ismael Vaccaro Krista Harper Seth MurrayThis volume explores how mechanisms of postindustrial capitalism affect places and people in peripheral regions and de-industrializing cities. While studies of globalization tend to emphasize localities newly connected to global systems, this collection, in contrast, analyzes the disconnection of communities away from the market, presenting a range of ethnographic case studies that scrutinize the framework of this transformative process, analyzing new social formations that are emerging in the voids left behind by the de-industrialization, and introducing a discussion on the potential impacts of the current economic and ecological crises on the hyper-mobile model that has characterized this recent phase of global capitalism and spatially uneven development.
The Anthropology of Postindustrialism: Ethnographies of Disconnection (Routledge Studies in Anthropology)
by Ismael Vaccaro Krista Harper Seth MurrayThis volume explores how mechanisms of postindustrial capitalism affect places and people in peripheral regions and de-industrializing cities. While studies of globalization tend to emphasize localities newly connected to global systems, this collection, in contrast, analyzes the disconnection of communities away from the market, presenting a range of ethnographic case studies that scrutinize the framework of this transformative process, analyzing new social formations that are emerging in the voids left behind by the de-industrialization, and introducing a discussion on the potential impacts of the current economic and ecological crises on the hyper-mobile model that has characterized this recent phase of global capitalism and spatially uneven development.
The anthropology of power, agency, and morality: The enduring legacy of F. G. Bailey
by Victor C. de Munck and Elisa J. SoboThe works of F. G. Bailey (1924–2020) provide a masterful template for good ethnography. Central to this is Bailey’s ability to conceptually connect the well-described micro-contexts of individual interactions to the macro-context of culture. Bailey’s core concerns – the tension between individual and collective interests, the will to power, and the dialectics of social forces which foster both collective solidarity as well as divisiveness and discontent – are themes of universal interest; the beauty of his work lies in his analyses of how these play out in local arenas between real people. His models provide nuanced, yet explicit road maps to analysing the different leadership styles of everyday people and contemporary leaders. This volume seeks to inspire new generations of anthropologists to revisit Bailey’s seminal texts, to help them navigate their way through the ethnographic thicket of their own research.
The Anthropology of Protestantism: Faith and Crisis among Scottish Fishermen (Contemporary Anthropology of Religion)
by Joseph WebsterThrough his ethnographic study of the fishermen and their religious beliefs, Webster speaks to larger debates about religious radicalism, materiality, economy, language, and the symbolic. These debates also call into question assumptions about the decline of religion in modern industrial societies.
The Anthropology of Religious Charisma: Ecstasies and Institutions (Contemporary Anthropology of Religion)
by Charles LindholmAccording to Max Weber, charisma is opposed to bureaucratic order. This collection reveals the limits of that formula. The contributors show how charisma is a part of cultural frameworks while retaining its ecstatic character among American and Italian Catholics, Syrian Sufis, Taiwanese Buddhists, Hassidic Jews, and Amazonian shamans, among others.
The Anthropology of Sibling Relations: Shared Parentage, Experience, and Exchange
by Erdmute Alber Cati Coe Tatjana ThelenDrawing on international case studies, the contributors extrapolate a systematization of the ways in which siblingship is conceived on the basis of shared parentage, shared childhoods, and reciprocal care. They explore what makes these relations worth maintaining and how they contribute to community processes and to material and emotional survival.
The Anthropology of Sustainability: Beyond Development and Progress (Palgrave Studies in Anthropology of Sustainability)
by Marc Brightman Jerome LewisThis book compiles research from leading experts in the social, behavioral, and cultural dimensions of sustainability, as well as local and global understandings of the concept, and on lived practices around the world. It contains studies focusing on ways of living, acting, and thinking which claim to favor the local and global ecological systems of which we are a part, and on which we depend for survival. The concept of sustainability as a product of concern about global environmental degradation, rising social inequalities, and dispossession is presented as a key concept. The contributors explore the opportunities to engage with questions of sustainability and to redefine the concept of sustainability in anthropological terms.
An Anthropology of the Irish in Belgium: Belonging, Identity and Community in Europe
by Sean O’ DubhghaillThe first anthropological account of the Irish diaspora in Europe in the 21st century, this book provides a culture-centric examination of the Irish diaspora. Focusing less on an abstract or technical definition of Irish self-identification, the author allows members of this group to speak through vignettes and interview excerpts, providing an anthropological lens that allows the reader to enter a frame of self-reference. This book therefore provides architecture to understand how diasporic communities might understand their own identities in a new way and how they might reconsider the role played by mobility in changing expressions of identity. Providing firsthand, experiential and narrative insight into the Irish diaspora in Europe, this volume promises to contribute an anthropological perspective to historical accounts of the Irish overseas, theoretical works in Irish studies, and sociological examinations of Irish identity and diaspora.
The Anthropology of Writing: Understanding Textually Mediated Worlds
by David Barton Uta PapenWe live in a textually-mediated world where writing is central to society, its cultural practices and institutions. Writing has been the subject of much research but it is usually highly visible and valued texts that are studied -- the work of novelists, poets and scholars.The studies included in this book examine every day acts of writing and their significance. Ordinary quotidian writing may be viewed as mundane and routine, but it is central to how societies operate and the ways individuals relate to each other and to institutions.Examples discussed in the book including writing in areas such as farming, photo-sharing, childcare work and health care. The chapters are united in their approach to examining this writing as cultural practice. The book also brings together two important traditions of this type of study: the Anglophone and Francophone. The work of French scholars in this field is made accessible for the first time to the Anglophone world. The insights and research in this collection will appeal to all linguists, anthropologists, sociolinguistics and cultural theorists.
Anti-Abortion Activism in the UK: Ultra-sacrificial Motherhood, Religion and Reproductive Rights in the Public Sphere (Emerald Studies in Reproduction, Culture and Society)
by Pam Lowe Sarah-Jane PageDrawing from extensive ethnographic research on abortion debates in public spaces, this book explores the beliefs, motivations and practices of UK anti-abortion activists. Whilst they represent a tiny minority, there is recent evidence of an increase in activism outside UK abortion clinics; faith-based groups regularly organise 'vigils' seeking to deter service users from entering clinics. In response to this, pro-choice groups launched a campaign for buffer-zones around clinics. Although there is overwhelming public support for abortion, it remains an area of public contestation that touches on ideas about bodily autonomy, religious freedom and reproductive rights. Despite being active in the UK since before the 1967 Abortion Act, anti-abortion activism has received little attention. Taking a lived religion approach, Anti-Abortion Activism in the UK explores the sacred and profane commitments of anti-abortion activists and counter-demonstrations outside clinics, examining the contestations over space. The authors argue that as a moral reform social movement, the anti-abortion activists typically frame their activism in terms of risk and abortion harm, but their religiously-informed understanding of ultra-sacrificial motherhood as ‘natural’ for women undermines this framing. Their conservative gender and sexuality attitudes position them culturally as a moral minority. The displays of public religion are also anomalous in a country in which religion is usually seen as a private issue. Their presence outside abortion clinics causes a significant amount of distress, but public support for the establishment of safe zones outside of abortion-service provision is strong and is a proportionate response to safeguard the freedoms of those seeking abortion.
Anti-Abortion Activism in the UK: Ultra-sacrificial Motherhood, Religion and Reproductive Rights in the Public Sphere (Emerald Studies in Reproduction, Culture and Society)
by Pam Lowe Sarah-Jane PageDrawing from extensive ethnographic research on abortion debates in public spaces, this book explores the beliefs, motivations and practices of UK anti-abortion activists. Whilst they represent a tiny minority, there is recent evidence of an increase in activism outside UK abortion clinics; faith-based groups regularly organise 'vigils' seeking to deter service users from entering clinics. In response to this, pro-choice groups launched a campaign for buffer-zones around clinics. Although there is overwhelming public support for abortion, it remains an area of public contestation that touches on ideas about bodily autonomy, religious freedom and reproductive rights. Despite being active in the UK since before the 1967 Abortion Act, anti-abortion activism has received little attention. Taking a lived religion approach, Anti-Abortion Activism in the UK explores the sacred and profane commitments of anti-abortion activists and counter-demonstrations outside clinics, examining the contestations over space. The authors argue that as a moral reform social movement, the anti-abortion activists typically frame their activism in terms of risk and abortion harm, but their religiously-informed understanding of ultra-sacrificial motherhood as ‘natural’ for women undermines this framing. Their conservative gender and sexuality attitudes position them culturally as a moral minority. The displays of public religion are also anomalous in a country in which religion is usually seen as a private issue. Their presence outside abortion clinics causes a significant amount of distress, but public support for the establishment of safe zones outside of abortion-service provision is strong and is a proportionate response to safeguard the freedoms of those seeking abortion.
Anti-Aging als Form der Lebensführung
by Larissa PfallerLarissa Pfaller geht der Frage nach, warum moderne Anti-Aging-Maßnahmen trotz fehlender medizinischer Evidenz eine stabile Anwender- und Anhängerschaft finden. Dabei führt sie die Anziehungskraft und Attraktivität des Anti-Agings auf eine symbolische Wirkmacht zurück, die weit über eine rein medizinische Wirksamkeit hinausweist. Die Autorin rekonstruiert, welchen Stellenwert Anti-Aging-Praktiken in der Biographie der AnwenderInnen einnehmen, wie diese sinnhaft in den gelebten Alltag integriert werden und diesen mitstrukturieren, welche Werte damit verknüpft sind und wie sich dies im Leben der AnwenderInnen schließlich zu einer stimmigen Form der Lebensführung zusammenfügt.
Anti-American Generation
by Edgar FriedenbergThis book examines the social atti-tudes that distinguish today's youth from their predecessors, identifies the sources of these attitudes in the social experiences of today's youth, and analyzes the stereotype implied in the term "Anti-American Generation." These essays show clearly that the issue between the dissenting, primarily middle-class youth and their elders and most of the working class (regardless of age) is a difference of opinion not about Americanism but about moral behavior and the scope of moral judgment. What distinguishes the generations is not so much their feelings about their country, as' their feelings about what people should do about their feelings and the role feelings should have in the conduct of one's life. The at-titudes of the young are largely in conflict with an older cultural tra-dition that promotes the subordi-nation of impulse and personal conviction to rational control for the sake of common purposes and future acceptability and effective-ness.
Anti-American Generation
by Edgar FriedenbergThis book examines the social atti-tudes that distinguish today's youth from their predecessors, identifies the sources of these attitudes in the social experiences of today's youth, and analyzes the stereotype implied in the term "Anti-American Generation." These essays show clearly that the issue between the dissenting, primarily middle-class youth and their elders and most of the working class (regardless of age) is a difference of opinion not about Americanism but about moral behavior and the scope of moral judgment. What distinguishes the generations is not so much their feelings about their country, as' their feelings about what people should do about their feelings and the role feelings should have in the conduct of one's life. The at-titudes of the young are largely in conflict with an older cultural tra-dition that promotes the subordi-nation of impulse and personal conviction to rational control for the sake of common purposes and future acceptability and effective-ness.
Anti-American Myths: Their Causes and Consequences
by Arnold BeichmanIn his probing new introduction to Anti-American Myths, which was initially published twenty years ago as Nine Lies About America, Arnold Beichman notes a powerful fact: what makes the United States unique is not only its military power nor its huge economy, nor even its great technological innovations. Rather, what differentiates the nation from virtually all others is that there is no large-scale territorial movement whose sponsors seek to secede from the country and to establish a new nation. And yet, anti-Americanism has characterized a small portion of ideologists whom Beichman refers to as radical egalitarians. These prophets of doom still abound. Everywhere the glib accusations are leveled: America is sick, racist, materialist, aggressive, decadent, and only violent revolution can save it. Even the collapse of the Soviet Union and of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe has not quelled the rhetoric of anti-Americanism. It is Beichman's aim to explain the roots of such persistent opposition to American society as presently constructed. Tom Wolfe in his Foreword shrewdly observes: "This is not a book 'about America'... it is a book that uses the subject of the United States as a device with which to explore the modern intellectual's retrograde habits of mind. Beichman finds nothing particularly amusing about what American intellectuals do to rationality and the English language, let alone the common weal, when they get on the subject of the United States. But I, for one, find his demonstration of the hash these men have made of the mother tongue extremely entertaining." When initially published, Beichman's classic was termed "powerful, persuasive and credible ... a laser beam of fact and reason" by the Los Angeles Times, and a "most valuable antidote to a lot of cliche thinking and cliche thinking and cliche writing" by the New York Times. Edwin McDowell, in his review for the WaH Street Journal reminds the reader that Beichman "is not a rightwinger bent on defining the status quo. .. but unabashedly a man of the left... an important figure in the international trade union movement."Anti-American Myths'' will be of interest to intellectual historians, political scientists, sociologists, and all readers interested in contemporary social and political affairs.
Anti-American Myths: Their Causes and Consequences
by Arnold BeichmanIn his probing new introduction to Anti-American Myths, which was initially published twenty years ago as Nine Lies About America, Arnold Beichman notes a powerful fact: what makes the United States unique is not only its military power nor its huge economy, nor even its great technological innovations. Rather, what differentiates the nation from virtually all others is that there is no large-scale territorial movement whose sponsors seek to secede from the country and to establish a new nation. And yet, anti-Americanism has characterized a small portion of ideologists whom Beichman refers to as radical egalitarians. These prophets of doom still abound. Everywhere the glib accusations are leveled: America is sick, racist, materialist, aggressive, decadent, and only violent revolution can save it. Even the collapse of the Soviet Union and of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe has not quelled the rhetoric of anti-Americanism. It is Beichman's aim to explain the roots of such persistent opposition to American society as presently constructed. Tom Wolfe in his Foreword shrewdly observes: "This is not a book 'about America'... it is a book that uses the subject of the United States as a device with which to explore the modern intellectual's retrograde habits of mind. Beichman finds nothing particularly amusing about what American intellectuals do to rationality and the English language, let alone the common weal, when they get on the subject of the United States. But I, for one, find his demonstration of the hash these men have made of the mother tongue extremely entertaining." When initially published, Beichman's classic was termed "powerful, persuasive and credible ... a laser beam of fact and reason" by the Los Angeles Times, and a "most valuable antidote to a lot of cliche thinking and cliche thinking and cliche writing" by the New York Times. Edwin McDowell, in his review for the WaH Street Journal reminds the reader that Beichman "is not a rightwinger bent on defining the status quo. .. but unabashedly a man of the left... an important figure in the international trade union movement."Anti-American Myths'' will be of interest to intellectual historians, political scientists, sociologists, and all readers interested in contemporary social and political affairs.
Anti-Apartheid and the Emergence of a Global Civil Society (St Antony's Series)
by H. ThörnLooking at anti-apartheid as part of the history of present global politics, this book provides the first comparative analysis of different sections of the transnational anti-apartheid movement. The author emphasizes the importance of a historical perspective on political cultures, social movements, and global civil society.