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The Lao discusses culture and village life in Laos, exploring topics of kinship and family, gender relations, households, religion, livelihood strategies, and ethnicity. In particular, the effects of recent development projects on the relative power of men and women in rural Lao society, and the responses of women to those changes, are highlighted. Ireson-Doolittle and Moreno-Black not only provide a description of life on the ground but also explore how local affairs are connected to the wider world, and how the Lao people preserve traditions while also responding to change.
Contrary to the declarations of some anthropologists, matriarchies do exist. Peggy Reeves Sanday first went to West Sumatra in 1981, intrigued by reports that the matrilineal Minangkabau?one of the largest ethnic groups in Indonesia?label their society a matriarchy. Numbering some four million in West Sumatra, the Minangkabau are known in Indonesia for their literary flair, business acumen, and egalitarian, democratic relationships between men and women. Sanday uses her repeated visits to West Sumatra in the closing decades of the twentieth century as the basis for a new definition of matriarchy. From the vantage point of daily life in villages, especially one where she developed close personal ties, Sanday's narrative is centered on how the Minangkabau conceive of their world and think humans should behave, along with the practices and rituals they claim uphold their matriarchate. Women at the Center leaves the reader with a solid sense of the respect for women that permeates Minangkabau culture, and gives new life to the concept of matriarchy.
Incorporating original fieldwork carried out over a period of more than ten years, combined with innovative theoretical argument, Globalization, Culture and Society in Laos presents one of the first sociological investigations into modern Laos. Boike Rehbein gives a fascinating overview of contemporary Lao culture and society, whilst linking local and national phenomena to tendencies of globalization and the history of the region. The book introduces a new theoretical approach based on the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, applying this sociology to the interpretation of Lao history. It also examines various aspects of Lao culture and society, including economics, politics, language, higher education, music, and religion. Rehbein concludes by attempting to synthesize these cultural elements with the impact of globalization to give a synopsis of contemporary Lao society. Written by an expert in Lao history and culture, familiar with the language and the people, this book will be of huge interest to students and scholars of Laos, Southeast Asia, social theory and globalization.
"This is the first atlas of Laos of its kind and scope. It is intended as an aid to the State Planning Committee in including spatial factors in its development strategies, in reducing territorial inequalities, in giving a regional dimension to planning and in involving Laos in the process of regional integration of the Geater Mekong Subregion, which consists of the Indochinese Peninsula and China's Yunnan Province." "The statistics mapped in the atlas paint a picture of Laos at the end of the 1990s. The atlas provides an image of the country at a key moment in its development, 20 years after the founding of the Lao PDR. It measures the Lao PDR's degree of integration, evaluates its resources and potential, and highlights its spatial structures and dynamics. It is an instrument for cooperation between Laotian and foreign development partners and an educational tool for teachers and students."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
This unique and groundbreaking book seeks to re-focus gender debate onto the issue of daughter discrimination - a phenomenon still hidden and unacknowledged across the world. It asks the controversial question of why millions of girls do not appear to be surviving to adulthood in contemporary Asia. In the first major study available of this emotive and sensitive issue, Elisabeth Croll investigates the extent of discrimination against female children in Asia and shifts the focus of attention firmly from son-preference to daughter-discrimination. This book brings together demographic data and anthropological field studies to reveal the multiple ways in which girls are disadvantaged, from excessive child mortality to the withholding of health care and education on the basis of gender. Focusing especially on China and India, the book reveals the surprising coincidence of increasing daughter discrimination with rising economic development, declining fertility and the generally improved status of women in East and South Asia. Essential reading for all those interested in gender in contemporary society.
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Leela Dube, a pioneer of feminist anthropology in India, addresses a range of interrelated themes in the study of gender, kinship and culture.
"China's countryside is being transformed by rapid, far-reaching development. This wide-reaching and multidisciplinary book questions whether gender politics are changing in response to this development, and explores how gender politics inform and are reproduced or reconfigured in the languages, knowledge, processes and practices of development in rural China"--Publisher.
Rich in its historical perspective on women and men in the context of economic development, this ethnography provides a unique window on rural China since the 1930s. Laurel Bossen uses her detailed knowledge to explore theories regarding such momentous changes as the demise of footbinding, the transformation and feminization of farming, the rise of family planning, and the question of missing daughters. Based on research conducted during the 1990s in Lu Village and informed by Fei Xiaotong's classic 1930s study of the same village, the book goes beyond the enduring myths of women as either victims or heroes. Throughout, Lu Village women defy stereotypes, their stories expressing the range of economic, social, and political practices that are both upholding and altering the boundaries of gender in the face of shifting state and market forces. Visit our website for sample chapters!