Kategoria BISAC: Social Science >> Anthropology - General

Anthropologists are often reluctant to present their work relating to matters of a broad social context to the wider public even though many have much to say about a range of contemporary issues. In this second edition of a classic work in the field, Edward J. Hedican takes stock of Anthroplogy's research on current indigenous affairs and offers an up-to-date assessment of Aboriginal issues in Canada from the perspective of applied Anthropology.

In his central thesis, Hedican underlines Anthropology's opportunity to make a significant impact on the way Aboriginal issues are studied,...

Since the late 1960s the Indonesian island of Batam has been transformed from a sleepy fishing village to a booming frontier town, where foreign investment, mostly from neighboring Singapore, converges with inexpensive land and labor. Indonesian female migrants dominate the island's economic landscape both as factory workers and as prostitutes servicing working class tourists from Singapore. Indonesians also move across the border in search of work in Malaysia and Singapore as plantation and construction workers or maids.

Export processing zones such as Batam are both celebrated and...

The recent tumult of Ukraine's Orange Revolution and its aftermath has exposed some of the deep political, social, and cultural divisions that run through the former Soviet republic. Examining Odessa, the Black Sea port that was once the Russian Empire's southern window onto Europe, Kaleidoscopic Odessa provides an ethnographic portrait of these overlapping divisions in a city where many residents consider themselves separate and distinct from Ukraine.

Exploring the tensions between local and national identities in a post-Soviet setting from the point of view of everyday...

During the last half of the nineteenth century, a number of social and economic factors converged that resulted in the rural village of Deerfield, Massachusetts becoming almost entirely female. This drastic shift in population presents a unique lens through which to study gender roles and social relations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The lessons gleaned from this case study will provide new insight to the study of gender relations throughout other historical periods as well.

Through an intensive examination of both historical and archaeological evidence, the...

Eichar takes a new conceptual and empirical approach to the question of class consciousness. Drawing on recent work in industrial psychology, as well as organization and management theory, he assesses the impact of occupation on working class consciousness and political orientation in terms of the content of work experience. He uses job characteristic theory to clarify the relationship between occupation and class to test whether certain job characteristics influence the class consciousness and political orientation of workers.

Eichar begins by establishing theoretical distinctions...

Four decades of statehood for Israel has meant four decades of nationalistic, cultural, and ethnic conflicts. Throughout these growing pains, Israel has experienced a remarkable lack of class struggle unusually so during the transition to a capitalistic society. "Divided We Stand" shows that the lack of class struggle is no accident; it is a result of political design and necessity. In Israel, the state has been the predominating social agent and has therefore been in a position to supervise class struggle within the boundaries of its own rules. With an in-depth look at the class system...

Over the past two decades anthropologists have been challenged to rethink the nature of ethnographic research, the meaning of fieldwork, and the role of ethnographers. Ethnographic fieldwork has cultural, social, and political ramifications that have been much discussed and acted upon, but the training of ethnographers still follows a very traditional pattern; this volume engages and takes its point of departure in the experiences of ethnographers-in-the-making that encourage alternative models for professional training in fieldwork and its intellectual contexts.

The work done by...

Western medicine, including psychiatry and psychology, has had a virtual monopoly of the health industry. This has led to economic incentives that literally keep people sick. Anthropologists, because of their holistic and comparative base, are in a unique position to apply their knowledge within clinical settings. Written for anthropologists, but useful to all clinicians, Rush's book offers a new model for understanding health and illness, provides a review of techniques found in many cultures for reducing individual and system stress, and offers processes for recovering health and...