Sorcery has long been associated with the "dark side" of human development. Along with magic and witchcraft, it is assumed to be irrational and antithetical to modern thought. But in "The Feast of the Sorcerer," Bruce Kapferer argues that sorcery practices reveal critical insights into how consciousness is formed and how human beings constitute their social and political realities. Kapferer focuses on sorcery among Sinhalese Buddhists in Sri Lanka to explore how the art of sorcery is in fact deeply connected to social practices and lived experiences such as birth, death, sickness, and...
Sorcery has long been associated with the "dark side" of human development. Along with magic and witchcraft, it is assumed to be irrational and antith...
Christian Krohn-Hansen Knut G. Nustad Bruce Kapferer
What is the 'state' and how can we best study it? This book investigates new ways of analysing the state.The contributors argue that the state is not a fixed and definite object. Our perceptions of it are constantly changing, and differ from person to person. What is your idea of the state if you are a refugee? Or if you are living in post-aparteid South Africa? Our perceptions are formed and sustained by evolving discourses and techniques -- these come from institutions such as government, but are also made by communities and individuals. The contributors examine how state structures are...
What is the 'state' and how can we best study it? This book investigates new ways of analysing the state.The contributors argue that the state is not ...
A reprint of the seminal anthropological work of the 1960s. Originally published by Manchester University Press.
Victor Turner will be remembered as the anthropologist who developed the concept of the 'social drama', a method used extensively by anthropologists to describe and analyse the social life of a community. In essence, this technique involves analysing social crises within a community over a period of time in order to gain a better understanding of the key principles that govern the social life of the community.
This book -- Turner's first 'social...
A reprint of the seminal anthropological work of the 1960s. Originally published by Manchester University Press.
This is the first study of Europe post-1989 from an anthropological perspective. Thirteen distinguished authors examine the social, cultural and political implications of European integration with particular emphasis on changing European identities, concepts of citizenship and levels of participation. Their aim is to suggest an agenda for future research capable of addressing developing trends in contemporary Europe.
The book is divided into two parts. The first deals with major theoretical issues that have characterized the anthropological study of Europe and includes a detailed...
This is the first study of Europe post-1989 from an anthropological perspective. Thirteen distinguished authors examine the social, cultural and po...
This is the first study of Europe post-1989 from an anthropological perspective. Thirteen distinguished authors examine the social, cultural and political implications of European integration with particular emphasis on changing European identities, concepts of citizenship and levels of participation. Their aim is to suggest an agenda for future research capable of addressing developing trends in contemporary Europe.
The book is divided into two parts. The first deals with major theoretical issues that have characterized the anthropological study of Europe and includes a detailed...
This is the first study of Europe post-1989 from an anthropological perspective. Thirteen distinguished authors examine the social, cultural and po...
This book is an extended photographic essay about topographic features of the landscape. It integrates philosophical approaches to landscape perception with anthropological studies of the significance of the landscape in small-scale societies. This perspective is used to examine the relationship between prehistoric sites and their topographic settings. The author argues that the architecture of Neolithic stone tombs acts as a kind of camera lens focussing attention on landscape features such as rock outcrops, river valleys, mountain...
Offers a new approach to landscape perception.
This book is an extended photographic essay about topographic features of the landscape. It in...
This book is an extended photographic essay about topographic features of the landscape. It integrates philosophical approaches to landscape perception with anthropological studies of the significance of the landscape in small-scale societies. This perspective is used to examine the relationship between prehistoric sites and their topographic settings. The author argues that the architecture of Neolithic stone tombs acts as a kind of camera lens focussing attention on landscape features such as rock outcrops, river valleys, mountain...
Offers a new approach to landscape perception.
This book is an extended photographic essay about topographic features of the landscape. It in...
This important ethnographic study explores the world-view of the Lohorung Rai, a hill tribe of about 3,000 members living in Eastern Nepal. These rice farmers have a tradition of migration combined with hunting and gathering. By examining Lohorung concepts and their discourse on self and emotion, this book explores the way in which ancestral influence dominates the daily lives and rituals of the Lohorung. It explores the 'other world' of the Lohorung within which their concepts about the nature of the person and the natural world can be understood.
This study will be relevant not...
This important ethnographic study explores the world-view of the Lohorung Rai, a hill tribe of about 3,000 members living in Eastern Nepal. These r...
This fascinating book, translated from the French, explores the Yafar society, a forest people living by shifting cultivation, hunting and gathering. Based on fifteen years of research, it offers a detailed examination of all aspects of a society whose material and nutritional relations with their rainforest environment are mediated by a sociocultural system based on a carefully negotiated relationship with natural forces, and harmony between the sexes. The author shows how these basic ideas can be found in the ritualized and institutional aspects of the Yafar's social life, as well as...
This fascinating book, translated from the French, explores the Yafar society, a forest people living by shifting cultivation, hunting and gatherin...
Flamenco is renowned for its passion and flamboyance. Yet because it generates such visceral responses, it is often overlooked as a site for subtler discourses.
This absorbing book articulates powerful and convincing arguments on such key subjects as ethnicity, irony, authenticity, the body and resistance. Franco's 'politics of original sin' had left its mark on every aspect of Spanish life between 1936 and 1975, and flamenco music was no exception. Although widely portrayed as an apolitical, even frivolous form of entertainment, flamenco is shown here to have played a role in both...
Flamenco is renowned for its passion and flamboyance. Yet because it generates such visceral responses, it is often overlooked as a site for subtle...
