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Dream Travelers
In dreams, part of the self seems to wander off to undertake both mundane tasks and marvellous adventures. Anthropologists have found that many peoples take this experience of dreaming at face value, assuming that their spirits literally leave the body to travel, meet other spirits, and acquire valuable knowledge - with dramatic consequence for relationships, social organization, and religions. Dream Travellers is about Melanesian, Aboriginal Australian, and Indonesian peoples who hold this assumption. Several leading anthropologists contribute theoretically and ethnographically rich chapters, showing that attention to these peoples' dream lives deeply enhances our understanding of their cultures and waking lives as well.
Syncretism/Anti-Syncretism
Syncretism - the synthesis of different religious - is a contentious word. Some regard it as a pejorative term, referring to local versions of notionally standard `world religions' which are deemed `inauthentic' because saturated with indigenous content. Syncretic versions of Christianity do not conform to `official' (read `European') models. In other contexts however, the syncretic amalgamation of religions may be validated as a mode of resistance to colonial hegemony, a sign of cultural survival, or as a means of authorising political dominance in a multicultural state. In Syncretism/Anti-Syncretism the contributors explore the issues of agency and power which are integral to the very process of syncretism and to the competing discourses surrounding the term.
Cargo, Cult, and Culture Critique
Cargo cults have long exerted a remarkable attraction on Westerners, and the last decade has seen the publication of much new work on the subject. This collection of original essays is based on fieldwork in Melanesia, Fiji, Australia, and Indonesia by scholars who are influential in the contemporary debate on cargo. Conceived as a reader for undergraduate and graduate courses, the volume offers an up-to-date view of the subject and the debates it arouses among contemporary anthropologists. Some contributors plead for the abolition of "cargo" because of its troublesome implications, but also because, in the authors’ view, cargo cults do not exist as identifiable objects of study. Others arg...
Telling Pacific Lives
"This volume of essays is an exploration of the way in which scholars from different disciplines, standpoints and theoretical orientations attempt to write life stories in the Pacific. It is the product of a conference organised by the Division of Pacific and Asian History at The Australian National University in December 2005. The aim of the conference was to explore ways in which Pacific lives are read and constructed through a variety of media: films, fiction, faction, history under four overarching themes. The first, Framing Lives, sought to explore various ways of constructing a life from a classic western perspective of birth, formation, experiences and death of an individual to other ...
Moving Islands
A pathbreaking exploration of the international and intercultural connections within Oceanian performance
Dealing with climate change on small islands: Towards effective and sustainable adaptation
Small islands have received growing attention in the context of climate change. Rising sea-levels, intensifying storms, changing rainfall patterns and increasing temperatures force islanders to deal with and adapt to a changing climate. How do they respond to the challenge? What works, what doesn’t – and why? The present volume addresses these questions by exploring adaptation experiences in small islands across the world’s oceans from various perspectives and disciplines, including geography, anthropology, political science, psychology, and philosophy. The contributions to the volume focus on political and financial difficulties of climate change governance; highlight the importance of cultural values, local knowledge and perceptions in and for adaptation; and question to what extent mobility and migration constitute sustainable adaptation. Overall, the contributions highlight the diversity of island contexts, but also their specific challenges; they present valuable lessons for both adaptation success and failure, and emphasise island resilience and agency in the face of climate change.
One and a Half Pacific Islands
This book, published on 15 December 2005, marks sixty years since the entire population of Banaba (Ocean Island) were relocated from their homeland, which now lies within the territory of Kiribati, to Rabi Island in Fiji, thus freeing up Banaba for continued phosphate mining, which enriched the agricultural industry of other countries, principally New Zealand and Australia. One & a Half Pacific Islands is made up of the stories of the Banabans themselves ?- memories of their ancestors, personal accounts of the often terrible events of the 20th century, and stories of their resurgent life on Rabi today. These stories have been gathered by Makin Corrie Tekenimatang and Jennifer Shennan and are...
Tuvalu, Theology, and the Geopolitics of Climate Change
This book examines the threat posed by climate change to the low-lying islands of Tuvalu through a lens of what it means to be a neighbour. Those who live on Tuvalu are among the most vulnerable in the world to threats of rising sea levels and global climate change. Their carbon emissions are miniscule and they are ‘weak actors’ in terms of the geopolitics of climate change. The task in Tuvalu is to take seriously the prospect of the submergence of islands and the potential for cultural extinction. This prospect raises a network of interconnected questions to do with the rights of climate displaced persons and sovereignty over lands lost to climate change. In this volume, the author draw...
Deciphering new molecular mechanisms of mast cell activation
Mast cells are tissue-localized cells that play an important role in immunity and inflammation. Following an offensive event they act as cellular sensors that via the activation of cell surface receptors launch a cellular response culminating in the release of a whole set of inflammatory mediators and products. This response is initially destined to restore tissue homeostasis, but in case of chronic injury or deregulation also promotes pathology. To further understand the action of mast cells in their environmental context it is necessary to decipher the molecular mechanisms of their activation as well as the ensuing cellular responses. This will allow identification of new strategies to pro...
Robot Motion and Control 2009
Robot Motion Control 2009 presents very recent results in robot motion and control. Forty short papers have been chosen from those presented at the sixth International Workshop on Robot Motion and Control held in Poland in June 2009. The authors of these papers have been carefully selected and represent leading institutions in this field. The following recent developments are discussed: design of trajectory planning schemes for holonomic and nonholonomic systems with optimization of energy, torque limitations and other factors, new control algorithms for industrial robots, nonholonomic systems and legged robots, different applications of robotic systems in industry and everyday life, like medicine, education, entertainment and others, multiagent systems consisting of mobile and flying robots with their applications. The book is suitable for graduate students of automation and robotics, informatics and management, mechatronics, electronics and production engineering systems as well as scientists and researchers working in these fields.
