As widespread social transformations have been paralleled by gains in health and life expectancy through public health and other improvements, a variety of new obstacles to health have emerged. Lifestyle-related, behaviorally mediated changes in rates of chronic disease are the most prevalent of these new challenges. This book examines the relationship between human biology and human society, and how behavior, hormones, and health intersect. There is both scientific interest and practical urgency behind the ideas and findings presented here, as the need for a socioecological view of function...

Childhood is a uniquely human life-stage, and is both a biological phenomenon and a social construct. Research on children is currently of wide-ranging interest. This groundbreaking book presents reviews of childhood from four major areas of interest--human evolution, sociology/social anthropology, biomedical anthropology and developmental psychology--to form a biosocial, cross-cultural understanding of childhood. The book places a strong emphasis on how childhood varies from culture to culture, offering examples from developed and developing countries, as well as from other animal species....

It is widely recognized that men and women in societies all over the world have very different experiences of sickness and health. This collection brings together biological and social anthropologists whose work illustrates how these subdisciplines have approached the task of explaining such differences. It demonstrates that an understanding of science and culture, using the notions of biological "sex" and socio-culturally constructed "gender" are both essential for furthering analyses of men's and women's, boys' and girls' experiences of health and disease. It addresses the important topics...

It is widely recognized that men and women in societies all over the world have very different experiences of sickness and health. This collection brings together biological and social anthropologists whose work illustrates how these subdisciplines have approached the task of explaining such differences. It demonstrates that an understanding of science and culture, using the notions of biological "sex" and socio-culturally constructed "gender" are both essential for furthering analyses of men's and women's, boys' and girls' experiences of health and disease. It addresses the important topics...

The situation of children abandoned by adults, in foundling homes, sleeping rough in the streets, in refugee camps, and in other circumstances, attracts much political and journalistic attention, but surprisingly little from social scientists. As the editors of this volume point out, there is therefore not enough said about the varieties of experiences summarized as "abandonment." Nor has enough effort been put into studying the perspectives of children themselves on their situation. Situating the discourse on child abandonment in the more general field of debate on children, both historical...

Analyses of the ecology, biology and society of past and present-day hunter-gatherers are at the core of this interdisciplinary volume. Since the seminal work of Man the Hunter in 1968, new research in these three areas has become increasingly specialized, and the lines of communication among academic disciplines have all but broken down. This volume aims to reestablish an interdisciplinary debate, presenting critical issues commanding an ongoing interest in hunter-gatherer research, covering the evolution and history, demography, biology, technology, social organization, art, and language of...

As widespread social transformations have been paralleled by gains in health and life expectancy through public health and other improvements, a variety of new obstacles to health have emerged. Lifestyle-related, behaviorally mediated changes in rates of chronic disease are the most prevalent of these new challenges. This book examines the relationship between human biology and human society, and how behavior, hormones, and health intersect. There is both scientific interest and practical urgency behind the ideas and findings presented here, as the need for a socioecological view of function...

Research on health involves evaluating the disparities that are systematically associated with the experience of risk, including genetic and physiological variation, environmental exposure to poor nutrition and disease, and social marginalization. This volume provides a unique perspective - a comparative approach to the analysis of health disparities and human adaptability - and specifically focuses on the pathways that lead to unequal health outcomes. From an explicitly anthropological perspective situated in the practice and theory of biosocial studies, this book combines theoretical rigor...