The essays in this intriguing collection all discuss Claude Levi-Strauss' "Canonical Formula," which he created in 1955 as a means of anthropological investigation. This apparently mathematical formula relates myths to cultural artifacts, and is especially applicable to the study of mental processes. In his paper, Levi-Strauss argues that the similarities in the architecture of seemingly disparate groups suggests a cognitive pattern that is shared by humanity; a ..".geometry that human endeavour has envisioned."

The purpose of the work is to test the significance of the Formula,...

Itinerant white-robed ascetics represent the highest ethical ideal among the Jains of rural Rajasthan. They renounce family, belongings, and desires in order to lead lives of complete non-violence. In their communities, Jain ascetics play key roles as teachers and exemplars of the truth; they are embodiments of the lokottar - the realm of the transcendent.

Based on thirteen months of fieldwork in the town of Ladnun, Rajasthan, India, among a community of Terapanthi Svetambar Jains, this book explores the many facets of what constitutes a moral life within the Terapanthi...

Pre-Hispanic notions of heat and cold continue to shape native Mexican ideas about health and illness in humans and food plants. In The Hot and the Cold, Jacques Chevalier and Andres Sanchez Bain examine indigenous worldview and myth, and challenge the prevailing notion that hot-cold reasoning in Latin America is a product of the Hippocratic humoral doctrine brought by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century.

Based on extensive field work in southern Veracruz, this innovative study details folk tales and stories of illness from indigenous people, and provides explanations that...

Documenting youth participation in the South African anti-apartheid struggle, Youth and Identity Politics in South Africa examines identity construction and negotiation in the region of KwaZulu/Natal. Based on extensive interviews, Sibusisiwe Nombuso Dlamini presents life stories of survival and identity negotiation in a region and at a time where to be youthful and politically active was to be associated with membership in Nelson Mandela's African National Congress - a potentially dangerous association.

Zulus are far from being an homogenous group. Dlamini examines the dynamics...

In a neoliberal era, when the ideology of the free market governs community development as much as international trade, a conflict between capital and tradition is inevitable. Issues such as the value ascribed to honour and social prestige are difficult to negotiate with economic opportunity. Using the example of a 'traditional' Nepalese market town, Katharine Neilson Rankin explores how economic liberalization has blended with local cultures of value.

Utilizing the ethnographic method of anthropology and the comparative and normative thrust of geography, Rankin undertakes a critique...

This book presents a new perspective on colonialism in Africa. Drawing on work from a variety of subjects and disciplines - from the ancient Mediterranean to colonial Spain, and from anthropology to psychology - the author argues that colonialism in Africa needs to be understood through the medium of writing and the particular world it belonged to. Focusing on the LoDagaa of northern Ghana and their relationship with British colonialism, Hawkins describes colonialism as an encounter between a world of experience - a world of knowledge, practice, and speech - and "the world on paper" - a...

"World Visions can conceive of everything except alternative world visions." If this pronouncement by Umberto Eco is right, how can any ethnic group conceive of living with another group on the same territory - in Canada or elsewhere - if their world visions are incompatible? Can we sidestep incompatible world visions or should we try to understand them?

Figured Worlds explores the possibilities of equilibrium between commitments to mutual understanding and the framing of strategies of negotiation. This collection begins its rich analytical investigation by describing how...

What is known about Aboriginal mental health and mental illness, and on what basis is this 'knowing' assumed? This question, while appearing simple, leads to a tangled web of theory, method, and data rife with conceptual problems, shaky assumptions, and inappropriate generalizations. It is also the central question of James Waldram's Revenge of the Windigo.

This erudite and highly articulate work is about the knowledge of Aboriginal mental health: who generates it; how it is generated and communicated; and what has been - and continues to be - its implications for Aboriginal...

The Argentine dictatorship of 1976 to 1983 set out to transform Argentine society. Employing every means at its disposal - including rampant violation of human rights, union busting, and regressive economic policies - the dictatorship aimed to create its own kind of order. Lindsay DuBois's The Politics of the Past explores the lasting impact of this authoritarian transformative project for the people who lived through it.

DuBois's ethnography centres on Jose Ingenieros, a Buenos Aires neighbourhood founded in a massive squatter invasion in the early 1970s, and describes how...

Detailing the history of the aboriginal village of Iskut, British Columbia over the past 100 years, 'We Are Still Didene' examines the community's transition from subsistence hunting to wage work in trapping, guiding, construction, and service jobs.

Using naturally occurring, extended transcripts of stories told by the group's hunters, Thomas McIlwraith explores how Iskut hunting culture and the memories that the Iskut share have been maintained orally.

McIlwraith demonstrates the ways in which these stories challenge the idealized images of Aboriginals that...