Welcome to our book review site go-pdf.online!
You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
The Politics of Relations
Rethinking the contributions of the Manchester School of Social Anthropology for political ethnography, the Politics of Relations elaborates its relational approach to the state along four interlaced axes of research – embeddedness, boundary work, modalities and strategic selectivity – that enable thick comparisons across spatio-temporal scales of power. In Serbia local experiences of self-government, infrastructure and care motivate its citizens to “become the state” while cursing it heartily. While both officials and citizens strive for a state that enables a “normal life,” they navigate the increasingly illiberal politics enacted by national parties and tolerated by trans-national donors.
Queer and Trans Life
Against a background marked by endless ordinary crises, widespread precarity, and disrupting critical events, Queer and Trans Life charts queer investments for the future. It examines the challenges and pleasures in marginal everyday experiences of gender and sexual dissidence and the labours of care and endurance which sustain a sense of sociality and community, often against all odds. It presents queer and trans anthropological research from emerging European contexts. Though occasionally posited as non-belonging, the volume demonstrates that queer anthropology in Europe continues to thrive by providing textured ethnographic analysis and timely interventions in anthropological theory.
Gender and Culture
The idea that respect for cultural diversity conflicts with gender equality is now a staple of both public and academic debate. Yet discussion of these tensions is marred by exaggerated talk of cultural difference, leading to ethnic reductionism, cultural stereotyping, and a hierarchy of traditional and modern. In this volume, Anne Phillips firmly rejects the notion that ‘culture’ might justify the oppression of women, but also queries the stereotypical binaries that have represented people from ethnocultural minorities as peculiarly resistant to gender equality. The questions addressed include the relationship between universalism and cultural relativism, how to distinguish valid generalisation from either gender or cultural essentialism, and how to recognise women as agents rather than captives of culture. The discussions are illuminated by reference to legal cases and policy interventions, with a particular focus on forced marriage and cultural defence.
‘You Don’t Know’
People employed at sites of precarious work such as call centres or retail warehouses often live precarious lives. Drawing on ethnographic research in a London hostel for precarious workers, the book explores the political, analytical and practical limitations of using traditional methods of trying to make sense of life in these settings. Traditional methods are rooted in practices that emerge from privileged social positions and their enactment is deeply entangled with the processes that create these conditions in the first place. This book responds to this by experimenting with ‘precarious methods’ to enable greater agency to those placed in these precarious situations.
Cultures of Crisis in Southeast Europe
Southeast Europe's history of the last two centuries is marked by deep transformations and upheavals: the emergence and disappearance of states; ethnic conflicts and wars; changes of political systems; economic crises; migration movements; and natural disasters. Most of these upheavals have been experienced as deep crises forcing people to adapt to often radically new situations. This can cause crisis management to become a permanent way of life. The book focuses on the cultures of crisis. It analyzes the reactions of societies or individuals to them, their impact on everyday life, on peoples' strategies of coping, on the processes of adaptation, and on peoples' attitudes. Focus is placed on crises relating to migration and post-socialist transformation, to politics and religion, and to labour relations. (Series: Ethnologia Balkanica, Vol. 18) [Subject: Sociology, Southeast European Studies, Politics]Ã?Â?Ã?Â?
The Hidden Minority
Looking at the Finnish–Russian borderland as a transnational space and claiming that there is a need to understand the long-term effects of migration – a continuing process spanning several generations – The Hidden Minority takes a multi-temporal perspective on mobility and belonging. The focus of this ethnographic study is the Russian minority in Finland, which is socially, economically, politically and culturally heterogeneous.The Russian minority in Finland is imbued with ’being hidden‘ or ’hiding oneself‘. The book explores informants’ reflections, together with the author, on the mental and physical crossing of national borders. Perceptions of belonging and/or Otherness and lived experience reveal a complex relationship of embodied memory, history, time and a multi-national social space.
Making Islam Work
The development of Islamic landscapes in Europe, is first and foremost related to Islamic authority. Religious authority relies on persuasiveness and deals with issues of truth, authenticity, legitimacy, trust, and ethics with reference to religious matters. This study argues that Islamic authority-making among European Muslims is a social and relational practice that is much broader and versatile than theological proficiency and personal status. It can also be conferred to objects, activities, and events. The book explores various ways in which Islamic authority is being constituted among Muslims in Western Europe with a particular focus on the role of ‘ordinary’ Muslims. This book is available in its entirety in Open Access.
Performing State Boundaries
Polarizing images of authoritarian, socialist or culturalist otherness compromise analyses of the Chinese state. Still, such images produce effects beyond academia when they inform performances of the boundaries between state and non-state. This book shows how performative boundary work leads to contrasting judgements that decide about support and access to resources. In an ecological village in Sichuan, citizen participation in food networks and bureaucracy signaled Western liberalism, Maoism or traditional rural culture for different audiences. Attention to the multiplicity of performed state boundaries helps China studies and political anthropology to understand such diverging classifications – and how they sometimes co-exist without causing tensions.
