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.
Nordic Publications
None
Land and Longhouse
Land and Longhouse examines the role of community, market, and state in the historic transformation of upland livelihoods in Southeast Asia. Focusing on the Saribas Iban of Sarawak, the book combines in-depth, generation-long village case studies with an account of changes in land use and tenure at the regional level spanning a century and a half. This analysis demonstrates that, far from being passive victims of globalization, the Iban have been active agents in their own transformation, engaging with both market and state while retaining community values and governance. R. A. Cramb makes a significant new contribution to debates about economic, social, and environmental change and conflict...
Childbirth and Tradition in Northeast Thailand
This beautifully illustrated volume offers a rare study of Isan-Thai customs and beliefs associated with pregnancy and birth and how they have changed over almost half a century. Using a psychological and socio-therapeutic framework, Anders Poulsen discusses the function of various birth rites while giving an unmatched description of all traditions specifically connected to pregnancy and birth. He includes an interesting description of the tradition of confinement by fire (yuu fai) and documents that it is still widely practiced, contrary to what has been reported. He also puts forward a theory of why some traditions maintain their importance while others fade away. The findings of this study are supported by the transcription in Isan (and translated in to English) of the ritual texts that are used in these rites.
Proper Islamic Consumption
The West has seen the rise of the organic movement. In the Muslim world, a similar halal movement is rapidly spreading. Malaysia is at the forefront of this new global phenomenon. Examining the powerful linkages between class, consumption, market relations, Islam and the state in contemporary Malaysia, this is the first book to explore how Malaysia's emerging Malay middle class is constituted through consumer practices and Islamic revivalism. By exploring consumption practices in urban Malaysia, this book shows how diverse forms of Malay middle-class consumption (of food, clothing, and cars, for example) are understood, practiced, and contested as a particular mode of modern Islamic practice. It illustrates ways in which the issue of "proper Islamic consumption" for consumers, the marketplace, and the state in contemporary Malaysia evokes a whole range of contradictory Islamic visions, lifestyles, and debates articulating what Islam is or ought to be.
Other Landscapes
Deborah Sutton recounts the failed British attempt to settle, transform and govern the cooler uplands of South India. It is a fascinating story bringing together strands from agrarian, environmental, administrative and cultural history.
Performing the Divine
"Vietnam in the last two decades has experienced not only market reform and significant economic growth but also a related, symbiotic revival of popular religion. It is no surprise, then, that popular beliefs and rituals that once were attacked as wasteful and superstitious have again become a conspicuous feature of contemporary urban and rural life. A new blossoming of spirit mediumship has been part of this revival, not least that involving ritual possession by the deities of the Four Palace Pantheon, which this study based in urban Hanoi brings to life with a deft handling of complex theory, historical research, ethnographic material and analysis. This is indeed a sojourn into the world of mediumship in contemporary urban Vietnam - a spirited world full of colour, laughter, music and ritual dance that operates according to its own rules and principles - but it is also an insightful study of spirituality, performance, gender and heritage, one that highlights the fluidity of ritual practice and contestations of ritual performance among practitioners."--Publisher's website.
Fiery Dragons
This book tells the story of Burma's financial system - of its banks, moneylenders and 'microfinanciers' - from colonial times to the present day. It argues that Burma's financial system matters, and that the careful study of this system can tell us something more general about Burma - not least about how the richest country in Southeast Asia at the dawn of the twentieth century, became the poorest at the dawn of the twenty-first. While financial systems and institutions matter in all countries, Turnell argues that they especially count in Burma as events in the financial and monetary sphere have been unusually, spectacularly, prominent in Burma's turbulent modern history. The story of Burma's financial system and its players is one that has shaped the country. It is a dramatic story of interest beyond the confines of economics and development studies.
Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities of Pakistan
Examines the issues facing indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities, including their role in the nation's constitutional and legal developments, and makes a number of recommendations which would satisfy their demands without compromising the sovereignty of the state.
