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An ethnography of “silver backpackers” that offers a feminist perspective on what makes a good retirement in contemporary societies The moniker “silver backpackers” refers to Japanese couples who, in their mid-fifties to seventies, move to Malaysia to enjoy their retirement. Recent scholarship on Japan has revealed how the gendered division of labor impacts the lives of middle-class workers and their families. But how do cultural values live on—or change—when these professionals retire from work, move on from identities built through salaried careers, and embark on a new phase of life? After Work takes up this question to focus on what comes after work, and in the process, expand...
Stalemate reveals the history and contemporary politics of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), Asia's strongest insurgent army on Myanmar's border with China. This ethnographic tale recounts how a highland group, often dismissed as rebels or narcotraffickers, maintains a relational autonomy between two powerful lowland states. The Wa polity engages rather than evades these surrounding states, yet struggles to fit into their registers of sovereignty and statehood. Andrew Ong examines political culture among Wa elites and people, UWSA external relations, and capital flows with neighboring China, showing how Wa autonomy is enacted through careful navigation of complex borderland geopolitics and the shadow economy. He analyzes the seeming stalemate between the Myanmar state and the UWSA as one of tactical dissonance—adopting simultaneous postures of authority and subordination and creating disruptions and connections. Stalemate illuminates how seemingly ambiguous and disorderly practices of political signaling, economic regulation, and military governance produce relative stability, challenging our assumptions about state-like processes at the peripheries.
"Microcredit is part of a global trend of financial inclusion that brings banking services, and especially small loans, to the world's poor. While credit for the poor has increasingly come under the rubric of commercial banking, Paraguayan solidarity lending offers a window into the tensions between social development and global finance. There, non-profit development programs offer group loans to women. These highly regulated loans are secured through mutual support and peer pressure--social collateral--rather than through physical collateral. To understand the broader issues of economic interdependency and its regulatory features, Social Collateral tracks collective debt across the commercial society and smuggling economies at the Paraguayan border. The story of social collateral cannot be told without an interwoven story about the feminization of solidarity lending. At its core is an economy of gender--from pink-collar financial work, to men's committees, to hard women smugglers. At stake are interdependencies that bind borrowers and lenders, financial technologies, and Paraguayan development in ways that structure both global inequality and opportunity"--Provided by publisher.
In this book, Ghil'ad Zuckermann introduces revivalistics, a new trans-disciplinary field of enquiry surrounding language reclamation, revitalization, and reinvigoration. Applying lessons from the Hebrew revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to contemporary endangered languages, Zuckermann takes readers along a fascinating and multifaceted journey into language revival and provides new insights into language genesis. Beginning with a critical analysis of Israeli-the language resulting from the Hebrew revival-Zuckermann's radical theory contradicts conventional accounts of the Hebrew revival and challenges the family tree model of historical linguistics. Revivalistics d...
Klasgids is al meer as 50 jaar lank die Afrikaansonderwyser (Afrikaans huistaal en eerste addisionele taal) se regterhand in die klaskamer. Die tydskrif verskyn kwartaalliks en bevat onder ander: vraestelle taaloefeninge en –toetse besprekings en vrae oor voorgeskrewe gedigte en kortverhale wenke vir onderwysers en lesers oor allerhande onderwerpe lees wat doen onderwysers wat omgee vir hul leerders en vir Afrikaans!
Over the last 70 years, Japanese Studies scholarship has gone through several dominant paradigms, from ‘demystifying the Japanese’, to analysis of Japanese economic strength, to discussion of global interest in Japanese popular culture. This book assesses this literature, considering future directions for research into the 2020s and beyond. Shifting the geographical emphasis of Japanese Studies away from the West to the Asia-Pacific region, this book identifies topic areas in which research focusing on Japan will play an important role in global debates in the coming years. This includes the evolution of area studies, coping with aging populations, the various patterns of migration and e...
Most of the 7,000 languages spoken in the world today will vanish before the end of this century, taking with them cultural traditions from all over the world, as well as linguistic structures that would have improved our understanding of the universality and variability of human language. This book is an accessible introduction to the topic of language endangerment, answering questions such as: what is it? How and why does it happen? Why should we care? The book outlines the various causes of language endangerment, explaining what makes a language 'safe', and highlighting the danger signs that threaten a minority language. Readers will learn about the consequences of losing a language, both for its former speech community and for our understanding of human language. Illustrated with case studies, it describes the various methods of documenting endangered languages, and shows how they can be revitalised.
The Oxford Guide to Australian Languages is a wide-ranging reference work that explores the more than 550 traditional and new Indigenous languages of Australia. Australian languages have long played an important role in diachronic and synchronic linguistics and are a vital testing ground for linguistic theory. Until now, however, there has been no comprehensive and accessible guide to the their vast linguistic diversity. This volume fills that gap, bringing together leading scholars and junior researchers to provide an up-to-date guide to all aspects of the languages of Australia. The chapters in the book explore typology, documentation, and classification; linguistic structures from phonology to pragmatics and discourse; sociolinguistics and language variation; and language in the community. The final part offers grammatical sketches of a selection of languages, sub-groups, and families. At a time when the number of living Australian languages is significantly reduced even compared to twenty year ago, this volume establishes priorities for future linguistic research and contributes to the language expansion and revitalization efforts that are underway.
Amid the decline of many of Japan’s rural communities, the hot springs village resort of Kurokawa Onsen is a rare, bright spot. Its two dozen traditional inns, or ryokan, draw nearly a million tourists a year eager to admire its landscape, experience its hospitality, and soak in its hot springs. As a result, these ryokan have enticed village youth to return home to take over successful family businesses and revive the community. Chris McMorran spent nearly two decades researching ryokan in Kurokawa, including a full year of welcoming guests, carrying luggage, scrubbing baths, cleaning rooms, washing dishes, and talking with co-workers and owners about their jobs, relationships, concerns, a...
In recent decades, emerging challenges such as increased digitalization of social lives and the ongoing processes of border externalization and internalization, have prompted scholars and civil societies to question the ways in which people view, frame and experience migration and draw attention to emerging forms of resistance and mobility justice. This timely Encyclopedia engages with critical epistemologies and practices to provide a comprehensive examination of the field of global migration, activism and cultural production.