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Ethnographic case studies explore what it means to “belong” in Oceania, as contributors consider ongoing formations of place, self and community in connection with travelling, internal and international migration. The chapters apply the multi-dimensional concepts of movement, place-making and cultural identifications to explain contemporary life in Oceanic societies. The volume closes by suggesting that constructions of multiple belongings—and, with these, the relevant forms of mobility, place-making and identifications—are being recontextualized and modified by emerging discourses of climate change and sea-level rise.
The volume addresses how capitalism has been very effective in generating wealth and technological innovation, but has also been associated with social inequity and environmental damage. Its inherent flaws have been highlighted by the escalation of ecological problems arising from growth-oriented capitalism and various economic crises.
Taking a bio-social approach, this volume bridges critical gaps in the understanding of the daily lives and experiences of adolescents in diverse cultures around the world and provides insights into how interactions between biology, ecology, culture, and social structures influence the patterns of adolescent identity development.
This book analyses the policies of recognition that were developed and implemented to improve the autonomy and socio-economic well-being of Māori in New Zealand and of indigenous and Afro-descendent people in Colombia. It offers a theoretically informed explanation of the reasons why these policies have not yielded the expected results, and offers solutions to mitigate the shortcomings of policies of recognition in both countries. This in-depth analysis enables readers to develop their understanding of the theory of recognition and how it can promote social justice.
Ethnographic Artifacts: Challenges to a Reflexive Anthropology examines anthropological practice and product, confronting issues of representation and the power of discourse in the lives and practice of both those doing research and of those being researched. Using eight case studies by ethnographers who share extensive research experience in the Pacific, the volume outlines "the trouble with ethnography" so representative of the end of this century, where ethnography itself is perceived as a codification of contested relations. Ethnographic Artifacts takes a unique approach to the social life of ethnography. The editors identify three domains in which ethnographic artifacts are given meanin...
Although humans slumber for approximately one third of our lives, sleep itself is vastly understudied. This volume provides a comparative frame through which we can understand the myriad ways in which sleep reflects and embodies culture as contributors examine aspects of sleep in various countries and contexts.
The Bird's Head Peninsula of New Guinea covers some 30,000 square kilometres of enormously varied landscape. Although it is home to an indigenous population of just 114,000, these people share more than twenty languages. Wider knowledge of the peninsula was recently gained through an extensive interdisciplinary research project (ISIR) involving anthropologists, archaeologists, botanists, demographers, geologists, linguists, and specialists in public administration. In analysing the findings of the project, this book provides a systematic comparison with earlier studies, addressing the geological past, the latest archaeological evidence of early human habitation (dating back at least 26,000 y...
This study analyzes ritual and domestic water use in a rural and an urban community in West Java, Indonesia. This is an area where water quantity and quality is a problem. The focus is on people who live at the edge of Citarum River, one of the most polluted rivers in the world. Most people there are Muslim. What is the relation between people's perceptions of pollution (of Upper Citarum River) and purification (in Islamic teaching) and their practices of water use. It studies the perceptions of pollution and purification of Sundanese Muslims in West Java and the effects of those perceptions on practices of domestic and ritual water use. Making a discourse analysis of local narratives the study argues that most people don't see pollution as problematic. For them it has become normal. They make a distinction between clean water (in medical sense) and pure water (in ritual sense).
First Published in 1999. This book provides a critical analysis of the widespread assumption that the formalisation and standardisation of property rights through state legislation has a positive impact on economic development. It is based on anthropological case studies of land and natural resource rights in Southeast Asia and Oceania. These suggest that the economic impact of the formalisation of property rights is not necessarily positive, certainly not for all categories of peoples. They also suggest that state reform of property rights do not necessarily eliminate the conditions of legal pluralism, but rather add new legal structures to an already complex constellation of property right...
Presenting a new interpretation of entrepreneurial behaviour, this book focuses on how entrepreneurs consider the future, looking at their social practices, language and rituals through which they neutralize or smoothen future unknowns. The study theorizes entrepreneurial behaviour as 'future-work': the social practices, language and rituals through which entrepreneurs neutralize or smoothen future unknowns. The study is grounded in ethnographic case material from global frontiers: second-hand car dealers in West Africa; exporters of fresh fish from Lake Victoria, East Africa; farmed fish entrepreneurs in Greece; and investment bankers in Financial America. It targets students and scholars from the social sciences and economics, and it has theoretical and practical implications.