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Many contemporary neuroscientists are skeptical about the belief that dreaming accomplishes anything in the context of human adaptation and this skepticism is widely accepted in the popular press. This book provides answers to that skepticism from experimental and clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists, and anthropologists. Ranging across the human and life sciences, the authors provide provocative insights into the enduring question of dreaming from the point of view of the brain, the individual, and culture. The Functions of Dreaming contains both new theory and research on the functions of dreaming as well as revisions of older theories dating back to the founder of modern dream psychology, Sigmund Freud. Also explored are the many roles dreaming plays in adaptation to daily living, in human development, and in the context of different cultures: search, integration, identity formation, memory consolidation, the creation of new knowledge, and social communication.
Throughout the world, the kitchen is the heart of family and community life. Yet, while everyone has a story to tell about their grandmother's kitchen, the myriad activities that go on in this usually female world are often devalued, and little scholarly attention has been paid to this crucial space in which family, gender, and community relations are forged and maintained. To give the kitchen the prominence and respect it merits, Maria Elisa Christie here offers a pioneering ethnography of kitchenspace in three central Mexican communities, Xochimilco, Ocotepec, and Tetecala. Christie coined the term "kitchenspace" to encompass both the inside kitchen area in which everyday meals for the fam...
Vividly depicts the grassroots struggles for land and local autonomy.
Residents of Parma, Italy pride themselves on their sophistication and connection to European modernity. But despite a reputation for civility, intimate partner violence continues to take place, largely hidden from public view. Offering a detailed ethnography of two women's shelters—one leftist, the other Catholic—this book provides the political, cultural, and legal contexts of competing explanations for intimate partner violence. Some contend that violence against women reflects the cultural and historical gender inequalities embedded in Italian society, including "old-fashioned" or "traditional" understandings of masculinity. Others argue that it stems from confusion and ambivalence over "new" or "modern" forms of gender relations. While the first explanation places the blame on tradition and the second cites the transition to modernity, both emphasize societal understandings of gender and point to collective, rather than individual, responsibility. Through an intimate portrayal of everyday life, Sheltering Women reveals how violence against women can be studied as one part of a continuum of locally relevant understandings of gender relations and gender change.
Worldwide, Namibia ranks high regarding gender equality. However, many women are intimidated by violence perpetrated by men. This book is based on a social anthropological field research in the small town of Outjo, situated in Northern Central Namibia, over a period of 14 months. Gender is learnt, lived and reproduced in a societal frame. Violence against women, too, is perpetrated by men in a societal context. By using mainly qualitative research methods Sonja Gierse-Arsten looks at male and female perspectives to reach a holistic understanding and to provide a basis for sustainable changes towards equal gender relations. She traces the transition from a hierarchical gender system during colonial times to the aspired equal gender relations in present Namibia. Current challenges characterised by poverty and great economic inequalities form the framework in which gender is performed and violence perpetrated. This study offers inspirations to re-think gender to reach substantive gender equality and to overcome the normalisation of violence.
The inside stories of workers struggling to counter violence
Backstreet Boys were the biggest band in the world for a short while and that period is documented on their first hits compilation, 2001's The Hits: Chapter One. Twelve years later came Essential Backstreet Boys, a double-disc set that has all 13 songs from The Hits, along with another 16 songs -- generally, songs that came after 2001, when BSB started to slide down the charts. There were hits -- 2005's "Incomplete," 2007's "Inconsolable" -- that just showed up on the Adult Contemporary charts; a fair approximation of where the group wound up in their second decade. Essential Backstreet Boys traces this evolution, filling in a few more details of those early hit-making years, which makes this worthwhile for the dedicated fan, but many listeners may find either The Hits, or the variety of budget-line collections released since, to be a better bet as they contain the hits and nothing but. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Healing roles and rituals involving alcohol are a major source of power and identity for women and men in Highland Chiapas, Mexico, where abstention from alcohol can bring a loss of meaningful roles and of a sense of community. Yet, as in other parts of the world, alcohol use sometimes leads to abuse, whose effects must then be combated by individuals and the community. In this pioneering ethnography, Christine Eber looks at women and drinking in the community of San Pedro Chenalhó to address the issues of women’s identities, roles, relationships, and sources of power. She explores various personal and social strategies women use to avoid problem drinking, including conversion to Protesta...
The opening of free trade agreements in the 1980s caused major economic changes in Mexico and the United States. These economic activities spawned dramatic social changes in Mexican society. One young Mexican woman, Anay Palomeque de Carrillo, rode the tumultuous wave of these economic activities from her rural home in tropical southern Mexico to the factories in the harsh desert lands of Ciudad Juárez during the early years of the city’s notorious violence. During her years as an education professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, author Elaine Hampton researched Mexican education in border factory (maquiladora) communities. On one trip across the border into Ciudad Juárez, she m...
Big dreams are rare but highly memorable dream experiences that make a strong and lasting impact on the dreamer's waking awareness. Moving far beyond "I forgot to study and the finals are today" and other common scenarios, such dreams can include vivid imagery, intense emotions, fantastic characters, and an uncanny sense of being connected to forces beyond one's ordinary dreaming mind. In Big Dreams, Kelly Bulkeley provides the first full-scale cognitive scientific analysis of such dreams, putting forth an original theory about their formation, function, and meaning. Big dreams have played significant roles in religious and cultural history, but because of their infrequent occurrence and fan...