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"Students of many ilks will benefit from re-imagining Alzheimer's from the perspective of affected elders and their caregivers." - Peter Whitehouse, Case Western Reserve University
St. Petersburg, Florida, has become virtually synonymous with retirement and old age. The city of green benches once courted its elderly population; now, however, it seeks to rejuvenate its image, to attract the young through urban revitalization. In this humane and sensitive book, Maria Vesperi, an anthropologist and journalist, looks at the realities of being old and poor in the rapidly changing downtown of St. Petersburg. Vesperi provides a complete and carefully observed picture of the elderly: the conditions of their_ lives, representative social programs created to provide for them, and their interaction with the city around them. The life of the old in St. Petersburg, she notes, is ch...
In Anthropology off the Shelf, leading anthropologists reflect on the craft of writing and the passions that fuel their desire to write books. First of its kind volume in anthropology in which prominent anthropologists and 3 respected professionals outside the discipline follow the tradition of the “writers on writing” genre to reflect on all aspects of the writing process Contributors are high-profile in anthropology and many have a strong presence outside the field, in popular culture Unique in its format: short essays, revealing and straightforward in content and writing style
In 1970, a sixty-five-year-old Philadelphian named Maggie Kuhn began vocally opposing the notion of mandatory retirement. Taking inspiration from the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, Kuhn and her cohorts created an activist organization that quickly gained momentum as the Gray Panthers. After receiving national publicity for her efforts—she even appeared on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson—she gained thousands of supporters, young and old. Their cause expanded to include universal health care, nursing home reform, affordable and accessible housing, defense of Social Security, and elimination of nuclear weapons. Gray Panthers traces the roots of Maggie Kuhn's social justice...
In the late nineteenth century, if ethnologists in the United States recognized African American culture, they often perceived it as something to be overcome and left behind. At the same time, they were committed to salvaging “disappearing” Native American culture by curating objects, narrating practices, and recording languages. In Anthropology and the Racial Politics of Culture, Lee D. Baker examines theories of race and culture developed by American anthropologists during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth. He investigates the role that ethnologists played in creating a racial politics of culture in which Indians had a culture worthy of preservation and exhibition while A...
Some 400,000 hip fractures occur every year, the vast majority among the elderly; all too often these fractures are associated with death or severe disability. After her mother's double hip fracture, Luisa Margolies immersed herself in identifying and coordinating the services and professionals needed to provide critical care for an elderly person. She soon realized that the American medical system is ill prepared to deal with the long-term care needs of our graying society. The heart of My Mother's Hip is taken up with the author's day-to-day observations as her mother's condition worsened, then improved only to worsen again, while her father became increasingly anxious and disoriented. As ...
Women have shared breast milk for eons, but in White Gold, Susan Falls shows how the meanings of capitalism, technology, motherhood, and risk can be understood against the backdrop of an emerging practice in which donors and recipients of breast milk are connected through social media in the southern United States. Drawing on her own experience as a participant, Falls describes the sharing community. She also presents narratives from donors, doulas, medical professionals, and recipients to provide a holistic ethnographic account. Situating her subject within cross-cultural comparisons of historically shifting attitudes about breast milk, Falls shows how sharing “white gold”—seen as a s...
This book explores the interrelations between work and social life. It emphasizes how workers expressive forms and public performances connect with processes of social, cultural, and individual empowerment. Departing from perspectives that emphasize organizational integration, equilibrium, and continuity, the authors present evidence from anthropology, history, and folklore to explore intersection of popular culture and working situations. The authors offer new data in the on-going debate about the separation of work and leisure, and raise questions about the diverse representations of class and the labor process. They identify workers cultural values that emerge within the changing context of production, and that are not merely an outcome of industrial hegemony. Instead, workers representations and articulations of craft mastery, class identity, and gender, reveal transformations of the traditional categories of those who produce and those who appropriate value. The studies of workers lives range from contemporary United States and Mexico to China, India, and Japan.
In Growing Old in El Barrio, Judith Noemi Freidenberg addresses the life-course and daily experiences of the elderly residents of El Barrio. She interweaves the economy of immigrant neighborhoods with the personal experiences of Latinos aging in Harlem. Freidenberg further links policy issues -- such as persistent poverty in urban enclaves and the provision of health and social services to an aging population -- to social issues critical to the daily lives of this population.
In 2004, Michael Burawoy challenged sociologists to move beyond the ivory tower and into the realm of activism, to engage in public discourses about what society could or should be. His call to arms sparked debate among sociologists. Which side would sociologists take? Would "public sociology" speak for all sociologists? In this volume, leading Canadian experts continue the debate by discussing their discipline's mission and practice and the role that ethics plays in research, theory, and teaching. In doing so, they offer insights as to where their discipline is heading and why it matters to people inside and outside the university.