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This book describes artisans from South Sulawesi, Indonesia, as they attempt to overcome poverty and communicate ethnic identity through participation in fluctuating silk and tourist souvenir industries. Morrell assesses the significance and long-term sustainability of their activities. The discussion addresses broad questions about economic development, as microenterprises such as these are vital sources of non-farm incomes in rural areas with high unemployment.
Until about 1870 the Sa’dan-toraja of Sulawesi had little contact with the outside world. Several factors, of which the introduction of the coffee-growing and the coffee trade was chronologically one of the first, have changed their life as a megalithic people enmeshed in mythology and ritual drastically. The conversion of nearly half the population to Christianity after 1945 brought a particularly profound change in Sa’dan-Toraja society. Old customs, in particular as regards funerary rites, have a tenacious life, however. In autochthonous Toraja culture rituals are the main focus of attention. They are divided into ceremonies of the East and those of the West. The former, associated with sunrise and life, comprise feasts of the living; yellow and white are the colours belonging to these joyous festivals. The West is associated with sunset, death and darkness; the main colour connected with it is black. So death rituals are referred to a “night ceremonies”. In time these death feasts grew more and more complicated, finally overshadowing the festivals of the East.
Making a Living between Crisis and Ceremonies offers an account on the practice of everyday life of the Torajan people both in the highlands of Tana Toraja (South Sulawesi, Indonesia) and elsewhere (Makassar, Jakarta, Maleisië).
This book raises the issue of the practice of patrimonial power with a focus on habitations, particularly in the urban areas of Indonesia. An assemblage of interdisciplinary studies within the framework of environmental humanities, covering the arts, architecture, urban studies, geography, cultural anthropology, and sociology, this multifaceted framework divulges the interactive connectivity between Indonesia’s patrimonial culture and the socio-culturally constructed system of habitation. The interdisciplinary study of the pertinent practices of patrimonial power that have been represented and been manifested by various political and traditional regimes in terms of the built environment an...
Psychological Anthropology: A Reader in Self in Culture presents a selection of readings from recent and classical literature with a rich diversity of insights into the individual and society. Presents the latest psychological research from a variety of global cultures Sheds new light on historical continuities in psychological anthropology Explores the cultural relativity of emotional experience and moral concepts among diverse peoples, the Freudian influence and recent psychoanalytic trends in anthropology Addresses childhood and the acquisition of culture, an ethnographic focus on the self as portrayed in ritual and healing, and how psychological anthropology illuminates social change
Of all prehistoric monuments, few are more emotive than the great stone circles that were built throughout Britain and Ireland. From the tall, elegant, pointed monoliths of the Stones of Stenness to the grandeur of Stonehenge and the sarsen blocks at Avebury, circles of stone exert a magnetic fascination to those who venture into their sphere. In Britain today, more people visit these structures than any other form of prehistoric monument and visitors stand in awe at their scale and question how and why they were erected. Building the Great Stone Circles of the North looks at the enigmatic stone structures of Scotland and investigates the background of their construction and their cultural significance.
The Neolithic period is noted primarily for the change from hunter-gatherer societies to agriculture, domestication and sedentism. This change has been studied in the past by archaeologists observing the movements of plants, animals and people. But has not been examined by looking at the domestic architecture of the time. Along with tracking the movement of sedentism, Neolithic houses are also able to show researchers the beginnings of cultural identity, group representation through the construction and decoration of these structures. Additionally as agriculture moved west and north in this era, the architecture and material culture shows this change and its significance. Chapters are arranged chronologically so that authors can address differences and similarities of their region to neighboring ones. To ensure continuity, authors have framed the chapters around the following considerations: construction materials and architectural characteristics; how houses facilitated or perpetua
Beyond Kinship brings together ethnohistorians, archaeologists, and cultural anthropologists for the first time in a common discussion of the social model of house societies proposed by Claude Levi-Strauss. While kinship theory has been central to the study of social organization, an alternative approach has emerged—that of seeing the "house" both as a physical and symbolic structure and a principle of social organization. The house stands as a model social formation that is distinguished by its attention to a number of material domains (land, the dwelling, ritual and nonritual objects). As the essays in this volume make clear, the focus on material culture and on place contributes to the ...
Community Responses to Disasters in the Pacific Rim presents different aspects of place-making in displacement in the Pacific Rim region. It focuses focus on how people respond and readjust to changes and captures the long-term community development outcomes and the critical moments that facilitate this development. Interdisciplinary and using diverse research approaches, the book includes contributions by authors from a variety of disciplines across disaster research, sociology, urban planning, architecture, anthropology, earth science, and education. Mixed methods are adopted to carry out the research projects that ground this volume, including qualitative research for social scientific re...
TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks as well as studies that provide new insights by building bridges to neighbouring fields such as neuroscience and cognitive science. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.