You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
May Mayko Ebihara (1934–2005) was the first American anthropologist to conduct ethnographic research in Cambodia. Svay provides a remarkably detailed picture of individual villagers and of Khmer social structure and kinship, agriculture, politics, and religion. The world Ebihara described would soon be shattered by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge. Fifty percent of the villagers perished in the reign of terror, including those who had been Ebihara's adoptive parents and grandparents during her fieldwork. Never before published as a book, Ebihara’s dissertation served as the foundation for much of our subsequent understanding of Cambodian history, society, and politics.
This collection explores - in rich detail - the nature of community in rural Cambodia. It examines the debates about the ways community - or its absence - is reflected in social organization, reciprocity, religion, gender, and a shared sense of trust. It also considers questions of community in the lead-up to and the aftermath of the catastrophic Pol Pot period. The book's essays have been inspired by the life and works of the late May Ebihara, who was a pioneer in the anthropology of rural Cambodia, and who was a friend and mentor to all of the contributors to the collection. Taken as a whole, like much of Ebihara's pathbreaking work, this book deals with processes of grassroots transformation. The book also includes a bibliography of Ebihara's works, as well as an interview with her, in which she reflects on Cambodia and her career in anthropology.
Since the civil war of the 1970s, Cambodia has suffered devastating upheavals that killed a million ' people and exiled hundreds of thousands. This book is the first to examine Cambodian culture after the ravages of the Pol Pot regime-and to bear witness to the transformation and persistence of tradition among contemporary Cambodians at home and abroad. Bringing together essays by Khmer and Western scholars in anthropology, linguistics, literature, and ethnomusicology, the volume documents the survival of a culture that many had believed lost. Individual chapters explore such topics as Buddhist belief and practice among refugees in the United States, distinctive features of modern Cambodian novels, the lessons taught by Khmer proverbs, some uses of metaphor by the Khmer Rouge regime, the state of traditional music, the recent revival of a form of traditional theater, the concept of pain in Khmer culture, changing conceptions of gender, and refugees' interpretation of American television. Together the essays map a contemporary Cambodian culture, which, for over two hundred thousand Khmers, is now firmly entwined in the social fabric of the urban West.
What is it like to grow up in an orphanage? What do residents themselves have to say about their experiences? Are there ways that orphanages can be designed to meet children's developmental needs and to provide them with necessities they are unable to receive in their home communities? In this book, detailed observations of children's daily life in a Cambodian orphanage are combined with follow-up interviews of the same children after they have grown and left the orphanage. Their thoughtful reflections show that the quality of care children receive is more important for their well-being than the site in which they receive it. Life in a Cambodian Orphanage situates orphanages within the social and political history of Cambodia, and shows that orphanages need not always be considered bleak sites of deprivation and despair. It suggests best practices for caring for vulnerable children regardless of the setting in which they are living.
General study of Cambodia - covers historical and geographical aspects, demographic aspects and social structures, living conditions, education, religion, political aspects, the system of government, foreign policy, mass medias, the economic structure, agriculture, industry, labour relations, economic policy, the national budget, financing, trade, defence policy, the armed forces, etc., and includes a glossary. Bibliographys, maps and statistical tables.
Writing Anthropologists, Sounding Primitives offers a contribution to the history of anthropology by synthesizing and applying insights from the history of writing, sound studies, and intermediality studies to poetry and scholarship produced by early twentieth-century U.S.-American cultural anthropologists.