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Stories in the Time of Cholera
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 456

Stories in the Time of Cholera

Cholera, although it can kill an adult through dehydration in half a day, is easily treated. Yet in 1992-93, some five hundred people died from cholera in the Orinoco Delta of eastern Venezuela. In some communities, a third of the adults died in a single night, as anthropologist Charles Briggs and Clara Mantini-Briggs, a Venezuelan public health physician, reveal in their frontline report. Why, they ask in this moving and thought-provoking account, did so many die near the end of the twentieth century from a bacterial infection associated with the premodern past? It was evident that the number of deaths resulted not only from inadequacies in medical services but also from the failure of publ...

Disorderly Discourse
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 257

Disorderly Discourse

This volume contains eight essays that are at the intersection of two important areas within linguistics: conversational analysis, and the use of narrative in the creation, mediation and resolution of conflict. The contributors e×plore these issues in a variety of cultures and languages.

The Anthropology of Marriage in Lowland South America
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 317

The Anthropology of Marriage in Lowland South America

"Foremost scholars of indigenous Amazonia explore the vast and interesting gap between rules and practice, demonstrating how sociocultural systems endure and even prosper due to the flexibility, creativity, and resilience of the people within them."--Jeremy M. Campbell, author of Conjuring Property: Speculation and Environmental Futures in the Brazilian Amazon "A landmark volume and a major contribution to the study of kinship and marriage in Amazonian societies, an area of the world that has been pivotal to our understanding of the biocultural dimensions of cousin marriage and polygamy."--Nancy E. Levine, author of The Dynamics of Polyandry: Kinship, Domesticity, and Population on the Tibet...

Conceptualizing Religion
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 314

Conceptualizing Religion

  • Type: Book
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  • Published: 1993
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  • Publisher: BRILL

How might we transform a folk category - in this case, religion - into an analytical category suitable for cross-cultural research? In addressing that question, this book critically explores various approaches to the problem of conceptualizing religion for scholarly purposes, particularly with respect to certain disciplinary interests of anthropologists. The author argues that the most plausible analytical strategy can be based on the idea of family resemblances, especially as that idea has been used and developed in contemporary prototype theory. In the solution proposed, religion is conceptualized as an affair of 'more or less' rather than a matter of 'yes or no, ' and no sharp line is drawn between religion and non-religion.

Transcendent Mystery in Man
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 399

Transcendent Mystery in Man

Annotation A robust philosophical and theological discussion of the theantropic consciousness from earliest times through manifestions such as shamanism and through modern times including the work of de Chardin and Pope Benedict X111. Judeo-Christian traditions are discussed as are Greek philosophical traditions. Author is senior Catholic theologian and philosopher.

Understanding Religion
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 256

Understanding Religion

This volume consists of 12 essays published by the author between the years 1997-2007, a thirteenth paper read at a conference in 2006, and a long introduction prepared specifically for the collection. All of the essays deal with epistemological issues attendant on conceptualizing and defining religion, understanding what is likely to be involved in studying and discussing beliefs, and attempting to explain religion and religions by drawing on the contemporary cognitive and evolutionary sciences. The problem of how best to understand and represent the cultural sensitivities of others is addressed by considering the works of three predecessors, Edward Burnett Tylor, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, and A. Irving Hallowell.

UFO Crash at Roswell
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 218

UFO Crash at Roswell

In the summer of 1947 something mysterious crashed in the New Mexican desert near the town of Roswell. Whether it was an alien spacecraft manned by tiny humanlike beings or—the US government's official explanation—a scientific research balloon has long been a subject of passionate debate. Transcending the believer-versus-skeptic debate, anthropologists Benson Saler and Charles A. Ziegler contend that the Roswell story is best understood as a modern American myth. They show how the story—and its continual retelling—tap into modern fears about the power of technology, the duplicity of the government, and the power of the media. UFO Crash at Roswell also includes physicist Charles Moore's meticulous account of how 1947 experiments to launch balloon-borne radar reflectors may have led to the Roswell UFO myth.

Ethnobiology and Biocultural Diversity
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 740

Ethnobiology and Biocultural Diversity

The most comprehensive collection of papers in the field to date, this volume presents state-of-the-art research and commentary from more than fifty of the world's leading ethnobiologists. Covering a wide range of ecosystems and world regions, the papers center on global change and the relationships among traditional knowledge, biological diversity, and cultural diversity. Specific themes include the acquisition, persistence, and loss of traditional ecological knowledge; intellectual property rights and benefits sharing; ethnobiological classification; medical ethnobotany; ethnoentomology; ethnobiology and natural resource management; homegardens; and agriculture and traditional knowledge. The volume will be of interest to scholars in anthropology, ecology, and related fields and also to professionals in conservation and indigenous rights organizations.

Archaeological and Ethnographic Evidence of Domination in Indigenous Latin America
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 261

Archaeological and Ethnographic Evidence of Domination in Indigenous Latin America

New data and interpretations that shed light on the nature of power relations in prehistoric and contemporary Indigenous societies This volume explores the nature of power relations and social control in Indigenous societies of Latin America. Its chapters focus on instances of domination in different contexts as reflected in archaeological, osteological, and ethnohistorical records, beginning with prehistoric case studies to examples from the ethnographic present. Ranging from the development of nautical and lacustrine warfare technology in precontact Mesoamerica to the psychological functions of domestic violence among contemporary Amazonian peoples, these investigations shed light on how l...

Venezuela Reframed
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 152

Venezuela Reframed

The role of the indigenous population in the formation of the Bolivarian constitution is one of Latin America’s most important untold stories. Considered a beacon of twenty-first century socialism by many, Venezuela is witnessing the paradoxical emergence of ‘indigenous capitalisms’ as the government and various indigenous actors are driven by notions of development and enfranchisement grounded in the ideology of multiculturalism. Venezuela Reframed shows that a considerable part of indigenous activism, aligned with the Bolivarian governments, has paved the way for development in classical, social-democratic terms. It looks at how, in opposition to sectors of the indigenous population fighting for effective autonomy, many legitimate claims are being usurped to consolidate capitalist relations. Boldly arguing that romanticized notions of cultural indigeneity hide growing class struggle, this book is essential reading not just for those interested in Venezuela, but all those interested in the prospects of democracy, contemporary states and alternatives to capitalism worldwide.