Social and cultural anthropology Books

Book SynopsisThis book aims to introduce the reader to contemporary Chinese urban life and to examine how reforms have changed not only the material circumstances of daily life, but also the overall well-being of urban residents.Trade Review"Ikels' purpose is to 'introduce the reader to contemporary urban life,' but her study's depth of material and analysis—based on 15 years of research—is far richer than this simple statement suggests. . . . Lively case histories and anecdotal material."—ChoiceTable of ContentsA note on language Introduction 1. The city of Guanzshou 2. Living standards 3. Family and houshold 4. Education 5. Employment 6. Leisure activities Conclusion Notes Index.

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Book SynopsisThis text examines violence in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo, looking at two conceptually linked forms of perilous face-to-fact encounters: Carnival, a bacchanalian festival, and briga, a potentially lethal street confrontation.Trade Review"Linger's book is a rare and exceptionally worthwhile treatment of the role played by violence in the lives of ordinary Brazilians. . . . Engagingly written, handsomely printed, with excellent photographs . . . and richly illustrated with several dozen interview statements that attain a life of their own, the book provides an indispensable analysis of the unwritten rules of Brazilian social intercourse. . . . A model study of use not only to specialists on Brazil."—Choice"A fascinating and original study of violence in Brazilian popular culture. . . . It is difficult to do justice in a review of this length to the richness of Linger's book—the high quality of his writing, the way he illuminates Brazilian history and historiography, the 'thickness' of his ethnographic descriptions, and the intelligence of his theoretical discussions."—Bulletin of Latin American Research"An especially important contribution, drawing on a range of different theoretical perspectives . . . and on especially rich and varied ethnographic accounts."—American AnthropologistTable of ContentsCONTENTS 1. 2. II 3. 4. 5. III 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. IV 11. 12.

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Book SynopsisThis book explores the link between the everyday relations of gender and the reform of the rural political economy in the 1980's, and argues that the reconstitution of the Chinese state in the reform era draws force and authority from the inherent politics and power of gender.Trade Review"In challenging the approaches of standard studies of the rural economy in China, Judd makes some important theoretical contributions to topical debates in contemporary Chinese studies . . . Judd's skill in articulating the complexities, tensions, and inconsistencies between difference, and often gendered, readings of women's various activities within the village economy makes this book additionally rewarding." -- Journal of Peasant Studies"Ellen Judd's exploration of gender and power in three Shandong villages richly deserves its generalizing title. This is not village ethnography, but a precise anatomy of the political-economic processes that constitute gender in contemporary rural China . . . For Judd, the question of how we are to think about Chinese gender is answered by situating women's productive and reproductive work in the complex force-field generated by a changing political economy. To do this requires the theoretically informed, locally detailed, and comparative attention to observable human beings that Judd gives us here. This extraordinary book is a new classic in China studies and gender analysis." -- American Anthropologist"An important contribution to our understanding of post-1978 rural China, with major implications for both women and men." -- American Journal of SociologyTable of ContentsA note on measures and family terms; 1. Introduction: on virtue; 2. Dividing the land; 3. Village enterprise(s); 4. Socialist commodity production; 5. 'Households': between state and family; 6. Women and agency; 7. Gender and power in rural north China; Notes; Works cited; Index.

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Book SynopsisThis study focuses on the politics of memory in the village of Dachuan in northwest China, in which 85 percent of the villagers are surnamed Kong and believe themselves to be descendants of Confucius. It recounts how the village sought recovery from its suffering and forced resettlement in the Maoist era through the reconstruction of its Confucian temple.Trade Review"Anthropologists and historians will find themselves rewarded by this nuanced examination of social memory, ritual life, and the traumatic recent history of a remarkable village." -- China Review International"One of the best local ethnographies to date on post-reform China. . . . Conceptually sophisticated yet undiminished by unnecessary jargon, the book provides one of the most readable and intelligently framed accounts of change and continuity at the local level in China." -- Journal of Asian Studies"This gem of a book takes the study of Chinese village culture to new levels of theoretical sophistication, ethnographic nuance and literary evocativeness. . . . There are many fine books that tell similar stories of the devastation of rural communities during the Maoist era. Dachuan is different only in that the depth of its tragedy was several degrees worse than most. But what makes Jun Jing's book unique is his discovery of a way to probe the meaning of such a history for the villagers." -- China Quarterly"In 1961 the entire village of Dachuan was destroyed when it was submerged under a reservoir created by a newly constructed hydroelectric dam. . . . In Jun Jing's beautifully written account, The Temple of Memories, he reveals how the villagers transcended the all-too-common aspects of their suffering and resourcefully reconstructed their village and their history." -- Asian Affairs"All audiences can enjoy the universal subjects of the book—children and food. . . . Feeding China's Little Emperor's is useful both for anthropologists or those looking at social change over the last few decades." -- The China Business ReviewTable of ContentsContents 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

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Book SynopsisBy studying chiefdoms Timothy Earle addresses fundamental questions concerning the nature of political power and the evolution of sociopolitical complexity.Trade Review"This concise and elegantly written book examines how chiefs develop and maintain political power in prestate complex societies, or what anthropologists commonly refer to as chiefdoms. . . . [It] is path-breaking in its sophisticated dissection of the relationship between ideology and other sources of power that narrows the gap between cultural evolutionary, Marxist, symbolic, and human agency theories of complex society development." -- The Annals of the American Academy of Political & Social Sciences"In the present volume, Earle weaves together variation and pattern to bring us the very best of anthropology. . . . [Earle's] latest work is a powerful synthesis of theory and data that leaves us with both a better understanding of the political economy of chiefdoms and a solid foundation for future research into critical questions about the origins and maintenance of centralized polities and systems of social control." -- American AnthropologistTable of Contents1. Introduction: the nature of political power 2. The long-term developments of three chiefdoms: Denmark, Hawaii, and the Andes 3. Sources of economic power 4. Military power: the strategic use of naked force 5. Ideology as a source of power 6. Chiefly power strategies and the emergence of complex political institutions Bibliography Index.

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Book SynopsisDefacement asks what happens when something precious is despoiled. In specifying the human face as the ideal type for thinking through such violation, this book raises the issue of secrecy as the depth that seems to surface with the tearing of surface.Trade Review“This volume [which asks what happens when something precious is despoiled] is vintage Taussig. . . . It has the hallmarks of his other works—originality, unusual associations among diverse sources, provocative and definitely contestable interpretations of classic theoretical texts, and a generally intimate, fascinated style of communicating with his readers.”—George Marcus, Rice UniversityTable of ContentsPrologue 1. Sacrilege 2. Secrecy magnifies reality 3. In that other time: Isla Grande 4. The face is the evidence that makes evidence possible 5. The secret of the gift Notes Bibliography Index.

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Book SynopsisFunerary practices are a classic topic of anthropological inquiry, which has tended to focus on death rituals as expressions and reinforcers of community ties and values. In this book, the author looks at funerals as an urban business, based on her fieldwork at a large Japanese funeral company.Trade Review"I am fascinated overall by the immediacy of interactions that this book captures, which include Suzuki's own emotions and experiences of relationships that revolve around invented memorial services. Suzuki's analytical scheme provides an important contribution to the anthropological understanding of the interplay between symbolic production, consumer lifestyle and culture in post-industrial social settings." -- Pacific Affaris"Very little detailed ethnographic research has been published, even in Japanese, on the role of the funeral company in contemporary Japanese funerals, or on the people who work at funerals either inside or outside those companies. Suzuki's observation that there is a class structure within the ranks of funeral professionals, and that this structure influences the handling of the body and the degree of support extended to bereaved families, is a fresh insight that deserves full credit." -- Murakami Kokyo * Social Science Japan Journal *"[The Price of Death] makes an excellent contribution to our understanding of the nature of a Japanese enterprise from an economic point of view and with a rich fund of ethnographic insight." -- Enterprise & Society"The Price of Death is an extraordinary ethnography of work, and a welcome addition to the literature on modern ceremonies, not just for the subject matter itself, but for the ethnographer's keen eye and perceptive insights into the contemporary funeral industry." -- The Journal of Asian Studies"Hikaru Suzuki's exploration of the commodification of funeral rites in Japan transcends its seemingly grim topic to provide an enlightening look at the living. . . . [It] reveals how deeply personal attitudes toward life, death, and the afterlife have shaped, and been shaped by, commercial forces, in this case the funeral industry." -- Asian Affairs"Suzuki does a superb job. . . . The Price of Death is absorbing reading. The rich ethnography and the focus on a subject that heretofore has received hardly any scholarly attention make it an important addition to our understanding of contemporary Japan." -- Monumenta Nipponica"Her study will be an important and revealing case for those who wish to use ethnography for a fuller interpretation of the commodification of life services in late capitalist Japan. This is a very appealing and provocative contribution, succintly developed and full of insight." -- Journal of Japanese Studies"This original and stimulating book presents detailed ethnographic information on a little-known aspect of Japanese society. It is a lively and moving account, with many interesting analytic points. The author's behind-the-scenes perspective on the funeral industry and the symbols and social markers involved in their performance of the funeral are fascinating." -- Theodore Bestor * Cornell University *Table of ContentsIntroduction: commercial funerals for contemporary Japanese 1. Death rituals in anthropology and Japanese folklore studies 2. The history of Japanese funeral traditions 3. The phase of negated death 4. The funeral ceremony: rites of passage 5. Funeral professionals at moon rise 6. Funeral professionals outside of moon rise 7. The commoditization of the bathing ceremony Conclusion: the shift to commercialization and mass consumption Notes Bibliography Index.

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Book SynopsisThis book explores everyday life of the Greek gods, including what their bodies were made of and how they were nourished, the organization of their society, and the sort of life they led in Olympus and the human world. It also shows how citizens carried on everyday relations with the gods.Trade Review"An accessible and well-written work. . . . It manages the difficult task of actually bringing the thoughts of some ancient Greeks to life and it is a mine of information on Greek religious texts. . . . It is certainly a book anyone with a serious interest in Greek religion should read."—ClassicsTable of ContentsIntroduction; Part I. Homer as an Anthropologist: 1. Literature? Or anthropology? 2. The Gods: a particular nature, a particular society; 3. Spending the time; 4. Gods with a particular lifestyle; 5. Savouring the sweetness of life; 6. Divine interference; 7. Scenes of sovereignty; 8. The Gods and their days; Part II. The Gods at the Service of the City: 9. When the Olympians donned the citizen's costume; 10. A polytheistic garden; 11. Dealing with the Gods; 12. The altars and territories that were home to the divine powers; 13. The affairs of the Gods and the affairs of men; 14. the power of women: Hera, Athena and their followers; 15. A phallus for Dionysus; Index.

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Book SynopsisFor this new edition, the authors have thoroughly rewritten the theoretical argument for greater clarity, updated the case studies to incorporate new research, and added a new chapter that extends their perspective to the problem of industrialization and globalization.Trade Review"Johnson and Earle show in masterly detail how societies articulate to their environments and . . . how they evolve."—EthnohistoryTable of Contents1. Introdution Part I. The Family-Level Group: 2. The family level 3. Family-level foragers 4. Families with domestication Part II. The Local Group: 5. The local group 6. The family and the village 7. The village and the clan 8. The corporate group and the big man collectivity Part III. The Regional Polity: 9. The regional polity 10. The simple chiefdom 11. The complex chiefdom 12. The archaic state 13. The peasant economy 14. The evolution of global society.

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Book SynopsisThis innovative volume studies women traders as economic, political, and cultural mediators of space, gender, value, and language in ten diverse locales—Bolivia, Ghana, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, Nicaragua, Peru, and the Philippines. Its focus is on how these women move between and knit together household and marketplace activities.Trade Review"This book is a diverse yet surprisingly comprehensive examinationof women's experiences as traders indifferent anthropological settings. The analytic traditions used vary, but what unites the essays is that the authors' overall concernis to show how gender ideologies and women's market participationinteract in ways that wehave scarcely understood until now." -- Susan Russell * northern Illinois University *"A compilation which delves into new areas of ethnographic research and makes significant contributions to the anthropology of work . . . .It also opens up an interesting branch of research regarding identity creation in a globalized world where metaphoric borders are slowly fading away in previously unimaginable ways." -- Anthropology of Work ReviewTable of ContentsIntroduction: mediating identities and marketing wares Linda J. Seligmann Part I. Gender Ideologies, Household Models and Market Dynamics: 1. Nineteenth-century views of women's participation in Mexico's markets Judith Marti 2. Markets as gendered domains: the Javanese Pasar Jennifer Alexander and Paul Alexander Part II. Fields of Power: 3. Inside, outside, and selling on the road: women's markets trading in South India Johanna lessinger 4. 'Nursing-mother work' in Ghana: power and frustration in Akan market women's lives Gracia Clark Part III. Identity, Economy, and Survival in the Marketplace: 5. Situating handicraft market women in Ifugao, Upland Philippines: a case for multiplicity B. Lynne Milgram 6. Gender on the market in Moroccan women's verbal art: performative spheres of feminine authority Deborah A. Kapchan 7. Hungarian village women in the marketplace during the late socialist period Eva V. Huseby-Darvas 8. Traditional medicines in the marketplace: identity and ethnicity among female vendors Lynn Sikkink Part IV. Research Agendas: 9. Market/places as gendered spaces: market/women's studies over two decades Florence E. Babb Conclusion: future research directions Linda J. Seligmann Notes References Index.

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Book SynopsisFocusing on the period between 1920 and 1950, the author looks beyond ideologies to reveal how middle-class men and women strained to wrest order from the ordeal of change.Trade Review"Scholars of Latin America usually give its middle class short shrift. Here, Owensby breaks new ground by investigating its rise in Brazil. . . . An indispensable book." -- Foreign Affairs"Owensby uses a fascinating array of sources to present his well-told tale. . . . A very good book and one that not only touches a great deal, but is also a joy to read." -- American Journal of Sociology"Owensky moves easily amid a wide array of sources—ranging from popular literature written by, and for, the middle class to foreign and sociological studies of white-collar workers in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo—to execute an anthropological reading of their frustrations and aspirations. . . . His framework for understanding the middle ranks of the Brazilian social hierarchy are applicable today." -- Journal of Interdisciplinary HistoryTable of ContentsA note on orthography 1. Directions 2. Into the middle of a competitive social order 3. Shifting hierarchies 4. Struggling and aspiring 5. Keeping up appearances 6. Approaching the people 7. Collaboration and indifference 8. Marginalized in the middle of electoral populism 9. Apolitical politics 10. Reflections Abbreviations Notes References Index.

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Book SynopsisThis book examines major areas of late imperial Chinese culture, and their relation to Chinese culture today, focusing on the competence and sophistication of ordinary people.The work provides an overview of late imperial society and its responses to forces for change. Its ethnographically rich treatment of changes in family life under Communist rule is based on the author''s fieldwork. Kinship beyond the family is treated through comparisons of the author''s fieldwork sites in China and Taiwan. In dealing with the use of contracts and commodification within one community setting, it illuminates the broader economic culture of late imperial China. This book powerfully confirms that China''s modernity has deep roots in its own tradition, and in doing so offers an excellent introduction to the anthropological view of China.Trade Review"A splendidly useful and revealing collection... a splendid summary of some of Cohen's best and most significant contributions to Chinese anthropology." -- The China JournalTable of ContentsContents Preface 000 Introduction 000 SECTION I: Late Imperial China and Its Legacies 1. Introduction to Arthur H. Smith's Village Life in China 000 2. Being Chinese: The Peripheralization of Traditional Identity 000 3. Cultural and Political Inventions in Modern China: The Case of the Chinese "Peasant" 000 SECTION II: The Family 4. North China Rural Families: Changes During the Communist Era 000 SECTION III: Lineage Studies 5. Lineage Development and the Family in China 000 6. Lineage Organization in North China 000 7. Lineage Organization in East China 000 SECTION IV: Historical Anthropology: The Minong Community During Qing 8. Commodity Creation in Late Imperial China 000 9. Writs of Passage in Late Imperial China: Contracts and the Documentation of Practical Understandings in Minong, Taiwan 000 Character List 000 Bibliography 000 Index 000

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Book SynopsisThis book examines major areas of late imperial Chinese culture, and their relation to Chinese culture today, focusing on the competence and sophistication of ordinary people.The work provides an overview of late imperial society and its responses to forces for change. Its ethnographically rich treatment of changes in family life under Communist rule is based on the author''s fieldwork. Kinship beyond the family is treated through comparisons of the author''s fieldwork sites in China and Taiwan. In dealing with the use of contracts and commodification within one community setting, it illuminates the broader economic culture of late imperial China. This book powerfully confirms that China''s modernity has deep roots in its own tradition, and in doing so offers an excellent introduction to the anthropological view of China.Trade Review"A splendidly useful and revealing collection... a splendid summary of some of Cohen's best and most significant contributions to Chinese anthropology." -- The China JournalTable of ContentsContents Preface 000 Introduction 000 SECTION I: Late Imperial China and Its Legacies 1. Introduction to Arthur H. Smith's Village Life in China 000 2. Being Chinese: The Peripheralization of Traditional Identity 000 3. Cultural and Political Inventions in Modern China: The Case of the Chinese "Peasant" 000 SECTION II: The Family 4. North China Rural Families: Changes During the Communist Era 000 SECTION III: Lineage Studies 5. Lineage Development and the Family in China 000 6. Lineage Organization in North China 000 7. Lineage Organization in East China 000 SECTION IV: Historical Anthropology: The Minong Community During Qing 8. Commodity Creation in Late Imperial China 000 9. Writs of Passage in Late Imperial China: Contracts and the Documentation of Practical Understandings in Minong, Taiwan 000 Character List 000 Bibliography 000 Index 000

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Book SynopsisThis collection focuses attention on the relationships between "homeland" and "diaspora" communities in today's world. It highlights the changing character of homeland-diaspora ties and offers new understandings of the issues that these communities face and explores the roots of their fascinating, yet sometimes paradoxical, interactionsTrade Review"A stunning collection. Using the Israeli/Jewish/Palestinian problem as a central example and point of departure, the authors succeed in doing what classic anthropology does best: arguing a theoretical case from detailed ethnographic data but doing so in a context that is postmodern rather than merely modern. They engage currently fashionable ideas in a critical but constructive fashion, fusing their individually insightful analyses in a powerful vision of the complexities and unexpected developments that much earlier theorizing on these topics failed to anticipate or address." -Michael Herzfeld,Harvard UniversityTable of ContentsTable of Contents for Homelands and Diasporas List of Contributors Preface Introduction One Homelands and Diasporas: An Introduction, by Alex Weingrod and AndrA(c) Levy Part One: Changing Diasporas 1. The Place Which Is Diaspora: Citizenship, Religion, and Gender in the Making of Chaordic Transnationalism, by Pnina Werbner 2. New Homeland for an Old Diaspora, by Susan Pattie 3. A Community That Is Both a Center and a Diaspora: Jews in Late Twentieth Century Morocco, by AndrA(c) Levy 4. Rethinking the Palestinians Abroad as a Diaspora: The Relationships Between the Diaspora and the Palestinian Territories, by Sari Hanafi 5. Transmission and Transformation: The Palestinian Second Generation and the Commemoration of the Homeland, by Efrat Ben-Ze'ev 6. Diasporization, Globalization, and Cosmopolitan Discourse, by Jonathan Friedman Part Two: Changing Homelands and National Identities 7. Commemoration and National Identity: Memorial Ceremonies in Israeli Schools, by Avner Ben-Amos and Ilana Bet-El 8. Shifting Boundaries: Palestinian Women Citizens of Israel in Peace Organizations, by Hanna Herzog 9. From Ethiopian Villager to Global Villager: Ethiopian Jews in Israel, by Lisa Anteby-Yemini Part Three: Between Homeland and Diaspora: Spaces of Interaction 10. Ethnicity and Diaspora: The Case of the Cambodians, by Ida Simon-Barouh 11. DA(c)francophonisme in Israel: Bizertine Jews, Tunisian Jews, by Efrat Rosen-Lapidot 12. Visit, Separation, and Deconstructing Nostalgia: Russian Students Travel to Their Old Home, by Edna Lomsky-Feder and Tamar Rapoport 13. Claiming the Pain, Making a Change: The African Hebrew Israelite Community's Alternative to the Black Diaspora, by Fran Markowitz Index

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Book SynopsisIn The Arts and the Definition of the Human, Margolis introduces a novel theory of the human person or self as a historical artifact and argues that important topics in the philosophy of art, pictorial representation, and the nature of interpretation make no sense when separated from a "philosophical anthropology" along the lines he suggests.Trade Review"Margolis is in the unique position of knowing both contemporary continental and analytical philosophy, and one of the great merits of this book is its creative bridging of the two. The Arts and the Definition of the Human is a signal work of very high accomplishment that crowns the career of a distinguished philosopher justly celebrated for his many substantial contributions to the philosophy of art and to many other philosophical domains." -- Edward S. Casey"In search of the distinctively human as a key to understanding language, culture, history, agency, creativity and responsibility, Margolis rejects the oppositions that have shaped discourse about these central philosophical topics since the time of the pre-Socratics. Breathtaking in its panoramic sweep of the Western tradition, admirably informed about the ideological dimensions of classical and contemporary aesthetics, Margolis's rethinking of basic issues in the intersection between knowledge, imagination, and art in all its expressive manifestations is certain to spark vitally innovative discussions as it carries forward ongoing disputes in important new directions." -- Dale Jacquette, University of Bern * Switzerland *Table of ContentsContents Preface xxx Prologue The Definition of the Human 000 1 Perceiving Paintings as Paintings I 000 2 Perceiving Paintings as Paintings II 000 3 "One and Only One Correct Interpretation" 000 4 Toward a Phenomenology of Painting and Literature 000 5 "Seeing-in," "Make-believe," Transfiguration": The Perception of Pictorial Representation 000 Epilogue Beauty and Truth and the Passing of Transcendental Philosophy 000 Notes 000 Index 000

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Book SynopsisCoca's Gone examines the legacy of violence and shattered expectations that shaped the stories told by people of Peru's Upper Huallaga Valley in the aftermath of a twenty-year cocaine boom.Trade Review"Kernaghan's book is an ambitious ethnography that attempts to provide an understanding of the complex relationship between violence and law in the Huallaga Valley of Peru in the wake of the cocaine boom of the 1980s into the 1990s . . . While the book will be of interest to those who study the effects of the cocaine trade and the drug war on rural development in Latin America, the true contribution of the book is the way it examines the politics of violence and the social ramifications thereof." -- Steven L. Taylor * Bulletin of Latin American Research *"Kernaghan unfolds the complex history and aftermath of the decline of the cocaine boom in the Upper Huallaga Valley, relating a story of political violence, law in a lawless region, guerrilla war, and the difficulties of regional change. This is a superbly crafted, absorbing ethnography." -- George Marcus, University of California * Irvine *"Until not so long ago, Peru's Upper Huallaga Valley was the epicenter of the global cocaine economy, a no man's land dominated by Shining Path guerrillas, drug traffickers, and government counterinsurgency forces. That Kernaghan was able to do ethnography at all in this still dangerous zone is impressive enough. That his book combines such compelling human detail, wonderfully smart and fluid writing, and avant-garde theoretical sensibilities makes it all the more remarkable." -- Orin Starn * Duke University *

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Book SynopsisThis groundbreaking study goes inside France's juvenile court system and follows young people, largely of foreign ancestry, from arrest to court trials, revealing an alarming shift in the nation's approach to its youth offenders.Trade Review"Judging Muhammad illuminates new ways of understanding youth. The book reveals the enormous impact changes in contemporary French society are having on the lives of young people and their families." -- Deborah Durham * Sweet Briar College *"This in-depth study will help those who wish to understand more completely the French juvenile justice system and how it differs from its American counterpart . . . For those interested in youth violence, urban and banlieue riots, and the children of immigrant and migrant populations in France today, Judging Mohammed will shed light on how the youth of these minority populations are treated and, more accurately, judged in the Palace of Justice's juvenile court." -- Rosalie Vermette * French Review *"How a key institution struggles against vast social changes, most of which are out of its control, but for which its responsibility is widely accpeted, is the question anthropologist Terrio tackles in her excellent book." -- CHOICE"The international notice garnered by the 2005 suburban riots drew to attention the deep racial tensions in France and simultaneously provides a useful frame for Susan Terrio's project of understanding juvenile courts as a site of conflict between the dominant social order—particularly the ideological and cultural biases of 'French identity'—and the racial, religious, and ethnic diversity of contemporary France . . . Judging Mohammed's exploratory, anthropological study of Parisian juvenile courts offers readers an insightful journey through the juvenile justice system, with particular interest for those interested in comparative judicial studies or race relations in France." -- Law and Politics Book Review"Terrio's honest look at juvenile delinquency in France appears at an exceptionally important moment, both in France and globally. Judging Muhammad illustrates how a form of cultural racism has been incorporated into the French courtroom, penalizing the most marginal citizens. It is an excellent, timely, and insightful work." -- Miriam Ticktin * The New School *"This compelling, clear account speaks directly from the French case to current debates about how far we wish to penalize juvenile behavior, and does so based on first-hand study of judges and courts in France. Terrio's book sets a new standard for analytically sharp and ethnographically rich studies of judging in European societies." -- John Bowen * Washington University in St. Louis *"[Judging Mohammed is] a well-researched and deeply instructive account of the processes of investigation, prosecution, and decision-making in cases brought against youths . . . Terrio's book is an important contribution not only to the literature on juvenile justice systems, but also to the literature on the challenges faced by nation-states such as France whose core values and principles imperfectly meet the changing needs of its citizens." -- Katherine C. DonahueTable of ContentsContents Acknowledgments Prologue 1 Are They All Delinquents? 2 The French Criminal Justice System 3 New Savages in the City? Historical and Contemporary Representations of Juvenile Delinquency 4 Justice for Minors: A Minor Justice? 5 Getting Arrested and Going to Court 6 Rendering Justice in Chambers 7 Judging Delinquents in the Juvenile Court 8 New Barbarians at the Gates of Paris? The Problem of Undocumented Minors 9 Conclusion Notes References Index

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Book SynopsisDilemmas of Modernity provides a new framework for understanding Bolivia's contested present through the study of local encounters with transnational law, liberalism, and the institutions and agents of development.Trade Review"This book is an important read for scholars who are attempting to unpack the discrepancy between the utopian goals and often horrific effects of liberalism. . . [T]his is a thought-provoking analysis of the paradoxes of liberalism from an anthropologist who has spent more than a decade of research in Bolivia. . . [A]n important contribution to critical legal studies." -- Miriam Shakow * American Ethnologist *"Mark Goodale's work is a provocative ethnography of law and liberalism in contemporary Bolivia. The author presents a robust analysis of law as a culmination of intersecting discourses and practices about individual rights. Goodale's ethnography contributes to legal anthropology by moving such conversations of 'legality' beyond the formal spaces of governance and into the often private and intimate places of everyday life." -- Nicole Fabricant * Estudios Interdisciplinarios de America Latina y el Caribe *"The tone of the book is engaging and the issues raised are important and far reaching. Scholars and students familiar with the region or with the various bodies of literature he grapples with will appreciate many points of the discussion." -- Andrew Orta * The Americas *"Goodale provides insight into local practices that reflect both universalism and morality in human rights discourses, through the example of the rise and fall of a legal resource center for women fleeing from abusive homes." -- Jan Hoffman French * Journal of Anthropological Research *"The book is the product of a decade of sustained research, efforts to observe, documents and evaluate the role and meaning of liberal principles in different instances of social and political life in contemporary Bolivia. The result is an extensive and thought-provoking ethnographic study of law and liberalism in this (still) understudies country . . . The book is a welcomed addition that will be especially useful for graduate education and research across several subfields" * Raul Sanchez The Law and Politics Book Review *"Dilemmas of Modernity is a cunning ethnography of patterns of law, intention and meaning in Bolivia. Yet it is more besides: the book is a reflection on and demonstration of anthropology's relevance not just to the study of law but to the formation of what Goodale calls "theory pursued by the social." Goodale's interlocutors seek conceptual grounding for their forays into liberalism, rights discourse, and justice, bringing their identities and experiences to bear yet also engaging in their own acts of social theorizing, making an explicitly self-reflective 'modernity' along the way. Richly evoking the worlds of Bolivians' making—perhaps not as they would have chosen, yet in a sense still self-imposed—Goodale presents a fascinating study that is likely to reorient Andeanist scholarship as well as enhance the conversation in the anthropologies of law and modernity, and sociolegal studies on human rights, liberalism's vernacularization, and the paradoxes of the law's universalist claims in a world of wrenching particularities." -- Bill Maurer, University of California * Irvine *"Goodale's examination of law and liberalism in Bolivia makes a compelling argument: that the social and political revolution underway in contemporary Bolivia, which seems to be a rejection of liberal strategies of the past decades, is in fact a renewal of the values of liberalism. Clear and often lyrical, this is an interesting and original contribution to the literature on Bolivia." -- Nancy Postero, University of California * San Diego *"Mark Goodale convincingly argues that one can best understand the Bolivian experience only through examining the articulation of historical patterns of intention and concrete social practices. This is a fascinating read that presents much new and original analysis." -- Shannon Speed * University of Texas at Austin *Table of ContentsContents @fmct: Contents @toc4: List of Tables List of Figures Acknowledgments @toc2: 1 Modern Dilemmas 2 Paris in the Andes: Law and the Modern Subject 3 The Making of a Legal Universe: Law and the Practice of Everyday Life 4 Courts of Desire: Gender, Power, and the Law 5 Human Rights and the Moral Imagination: Becoming Liberal in the Norte de Potosi 6 Modern Dreams: An Ethnography of Grandeur Conclusion New Revolutionary Moves @toc4: Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisCulture and Panic Disorder examines panic disorder across cultures, and throughout history, with contributions from leading scholars in anthropology, psychiatry, sociology, psychology, and the history of science.Trade Review"For those interested in the intersections between culture and anxiety disorders this book is essential reading. . . . [T]his book is seamlessly transdisciplinary in its quest to understand the ontological experiences of panic by persons within different contexts and histories"—M. Cameron Hay, Ethos"For students interested in the history of emotions, trauma, medicine, and genocide, this book offers valuable orientation. Beyond outlining the current theories about panic and anxiety, its sociocultural and anthropological moorings easily lend themselves to application in historical contexts. Readers will have little difficulty finding thematic and analytic ports in which they can dock their historical narratives."—Eric Engstrom, H-Net Reviews"Culture and Panic Disorder is an intriguing look at how much culture and society matter in the realm of mental health. Culture and Panic Disorder is a must read for any who want to better understand the human psyche on a global scale."—The Midwest Book Review"Is panic disorder a universal syndrome, invariant across time and culture? Or is it an idiom of distress, confined chiefly to contemporarypost-industrial civilization? Using the methods of psychiatry,anthropology, and history, contributors to Culture and Panic Disorder show that neither of these stark alternatives captures the full truth about panic. This superb book contains cutting-edge empirical and conceptual analyses that reveal what is universal about panic, and what is shaped by culture."—Richard J. McNally, Harvard University, author of Panic Disorder: A Critical Analysis"This pioneering work will leave you in a state of breathless appreciation.Documenting local knowledge and cultural variations in beliefs about the experience of panic attacks on a worldwide scale, this deeply informative account offers a partial challenge to the biological 'seizure of the nervous system' theory and is a major contribution to the medical anthropology theory of panic as a catastrophic interpretive loop caused by an excessively morbid reading of ones own bodily sensations. Here, we realize the eye-opening fact that the felt experience of autonomic arousal—the intimate terror, the anxiety inducing unpredictability, the fear of loss of control—is not uniform across history or ethnic groups."—Richard A. Shweder, University of Chicago"This important collection is more clinically relevant than available works, while remaining culturally astute. With its conscious inclusion and integration of historical framing and tracking, it is a valuable cross-cultural study." —Sue Estroff, University of North Carolina"With rich cross-cultural cases, this timely book documents the centrality and critical need for diagnosticians, clinicians, and researchers to take seriously the cultural nexus of shared meanings, idioms, embodiments, and practices in seeking to understand and help patients presenting with 'panic.' This is scholarship of the highest order, by experienced contributors, and is widely and definitely needed." —David Paul Lumsden, York University, Canada"Culture and Panic Disorder is sure to become a classic. In bringing together experts from psychiatry, anthropology, and history, this extremely important work fills a significant gap in the current literature." —Rebecca Lester, Washington University, Saint Louis

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Book SynopsisCustomizing Indigeneity follows the Aguaruna on their paths to becoming leaders of Peru's Amazonian movement, revealing both their creative cultural agency and the constraints of contemporary indigenous movement politics along the way.Trade Review"Shane Greene has written a terrific book. This is one of the most innovative and important works on indigeneity in Latin America I have read in a long time. It offers compelling insights into indigenous Amazonian politics and poetics, and contributes significantly to conversations about indigeneity and modernity in Latin America and beyond. This remarkably graceful, direct work will be read, debated, and discussed for years to come." -- Maria Elena Garcia * University of Washington *"Shane Greene's book will be an essential reference work for anyone involved in indigenous studies globally and most certainly for scholars of the Amazon. Greene writes well and often demonstrates a playful falir with language. . . [A]n imaginative, provocative, and, ultimately, compelling book that was a pleasure to read." -- Andrew Canessa * American Ethnologist *"This work asks us to see how the Aguaruna have sized the modern concept of indigeneity to their own lives, and altered its very dimensions in the process. It's a smart, stylish, and superb ethnography that opens up new ways of thinking both about native Amazonia and the challenges of making sense of 21st century experience everywhere." -- Orin Starn * Duke University *"Greene's book, however, shows that the clash between very different kinds of violence, that of the visionary path of the warrior and that of paper, still changes lives, and the conditions of life, in the Upper Amazon . . . [Customizing Indigeneity] makes an important contribution as the first general ethnography of the Aguaruna in English. Its virtue is that it has cleared a path for future ethnographers to try to fathom the violence of the warrior and of the rentier as well. I believe that, with the passing of time, such work will only become more important." -- Steven Rubenstein"The volume will be of interest to scholars wrestling with the ramifications of 'culture' and to all students of Peruvian indigenous group . . . Recommended." -- D. L. Browman

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Book SynopsisSurrendering to Utopia is a critical and wide-ranging study of anthropology''s contributions to human rights. Providing a unique window into the underlying political and intellectual currents that have shaped human rights in the postwar period, this ambitious work opens up new opportunities for research, analysis, and political action. At the book''s core, the author describes a well-tempered human rightsan orientation to human rights in the twenty-first century that is shaped by a sense of humility, an appreciation for the disorienting fact of multiplicity, and a willingness to make the mundaneness of social practice a source of ethical inspiration. In examining the curious history of anthropology''s engagement with human rights, this book moves from more traditional anthropological topics within the broader human rights communityfor example, relativism and the problem of cultureto consider a wider range of theoretical and empirical topics. Among others, it examines tTrade Review"Surrendering to Utopia offers a direct reflection on how anthropology only recently came to terms with human rights and their universalistic claims while the book simultaneously outlines the field's numerous theoretical and methodological challenges. Its message is that anthropology can and should have important roles in how human rights are developed and struggles over culture framed." -- Freek van der Vet * Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society *"Beginning with an excellent opening chapter in which the author clarifies the misunderstood history of the relationship between anthropologists and human rights, the collection goes on to explore topics such as relativism, culture, and the anthropology 'from inside out' of what Goodale call 'transnational human rights networks . . . Highly recommended." -- J. B. Edwards * Choice *Surrendering to Utopia makes an unprecedented contribution in both human rights and anthropological studies. Goodale's overview, which synthesizes a large body of literature and identifies the big issues in the field, will help others to re-envision a human rights system that is sensitive to difference. This is a provocative book, and Goodale writes clearly and directly even when dealing with complex issues in this interdisciplinary area." -- Patricia D. Mathews-Salazar * H-Net *"This fluid and compelling book draws on a broad intellectual tradition to highlight how the relationship between anthropology and human rights developed and what it could and should become in the future. An engaging and thought-provoking read!" -- Marie-Bénédicte Dembour * University of Sussex *"At a time of contrasting narratives about human rights, from irresponsible triumphalism to cynical pessimism, here is a book that masterfully guides us into the complexities of contextualized practices of human rights across cultures and national boundaries. It does this by powerfully engaging anthropology, a discipline that has been marginalized by human rights' conventional scholarship to the latter's greater loss. Thanks to Goodale's very persuasive argument the record is finally being set right." -- Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Universities of Coimbra, Warwick * and Wisconsin-Madison *"This is a sophisticated, brave, and ultimately successful attempt to bridge the gap between anthropology and normative theory. By taking on the intricate relationship between anthropology and human rights, Goodale shows clearly why anthropology should matter, not only academically, but also in the wider world of policy and politics. It is a timely book which moves beyond the relativism–universalism dichotomy and thereby demonstrates what anthropological theory in the 21st century ought to look like." -- Thomas Hylland Eriksen * University of Oslo *"Goodale's meditation on human rights through the prism of culture pulls off a compelling discussion of the ways universalism and relativism continue to define international human rights. He offers a fascinating history of the political deployment of the term culture, as well as its use and abuse in national and international human rights struggles." -- Victoria Sanford * City University of New York *

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Book SynopsisSurrendering to Utopia is a critical and wide-ranging study of anthropology''s contributions to human rights. Providing a unique window into the underlying political and intellectual currents that have shaped human rights in the postwar period, this ambitious work opens up new opportunities for research, analysis, and political action. At the book''s core, the author describes a well-tempered human rightsan orientation to human rights in the twenty-first century that is shaped by a sense of humility, an appreciation for the disorienting fact of multiplicity, and a willingness to make the mundaneness of social practice a source of ethical inspiration. In examining the curious history of anthropology''s engagement with human rights, this book moves from more traditional anthropological topics within the broader human rights communityfor example, relativism and the problem of cultureto consider a wider range of theoretical and empirical topics. Among others, it examines tTrade Review"Surrendering to Utopia offers a direct reflection on how anthropology only recently came to terms with human rights and their universalistic claims while the book simultaneously outlines the field's numerous theoretical and methodological challenges. Its message is that anthropology can and should have important roles in how human rights are developed and struggles over culture framed." -- Freek van der Vet * Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society *"Beginning with an excellent opening chapter in which the author clarifies the misunderstood history of the relationship between anthropologists and human rights, the collection goes on to explore topics such as relativism, culture, and the anthropology 'from inside out' of what Goodale call 'transnational human rights networks . . . Highly recommended." -- J. B. Edwards * Choice *Surrendering to Utopia makes an unprecedented contribution in both human rights and anthropological studies. Goodale's overview, which synthesizes a large body of literature and identifies the big issues in the field, will help others to re-envision a human rights system that is sensitive to difference. This is a provocative book, and Goodale writes clearly and directly even when dealing with complex issues in this interdisciplinary area." -- Patricia D. Mathews-Salazar * H-Net *"This fluid and compelling book draws on a broad intellectual tradition to highlight how the relationship between anthropology and human rights developed and what it could and should become in the future. An engaging and thought-provoking read!" -- Marie-Bénédicte Dembour * University of Sussex *"At a time of contrasting narratives about human rights, from irresponsible triumphalism to cynical pessimism, here is a book that masterfully guides us into the complexities of contextualized practices of human rights across cultures and national boundaries. It does this by powerfully engaging anthropology, a discipline that has been marginalized by human rights' conventional scholarship to the latter's greater loss. Thanks to Goodale's very persuasive argument the record is finally being set right." -- Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Universities of Coimbra, Warwick * and Wisconsin-Madison *"This is a sophisticated, brave, and ultimately successful attempt to bridge the gap between anthropology and normative theory. By taking on the intricate relationship between anthropology and human rights, Goodale shows clearly why anthropology should matter, not only academically, but also in the wider world of policy and politics. It is a timely book which moves beyond the relativism–universalism dichotomy and thereby demonstrates what anthropological theory in the 21st century ought to look like." -- Thomas Hylland Eriksen * University of Oslo *"Goodale's meditation on human rights through the prism of culture pulls off a compelling discussion of the ways universalism and relativism continue to define international human rights. He offers a fascinating history of the political deployment of the term culture, as well as its use and abuse in national and international human rights struggles." -- Victoria Sanford * City University of New York *

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Book SynopsisEthnic Entrepreneurs examines how diverse groups, including indigenous communities in Latin America and Latino communities in the United States, have become visible and valuable as agents of economic development in Latin America in recent years.Trade Review"Once the very idea of the Ethnic Entrepreneur would have been an oxymoron. Local knowledge, kinship, and communal ties were seen as primary obstacles to modernization. Now, in Latin America, ethnic subjects are widely regarded as essential agents of development. In exploring the shifts that have made this transformation possible, Monica DeHart provides an enlightening account of the ways in which ethnic identity, market forces, and development strategy are reshaping each other in neoliberal times." -- Jean Comaroff"Ethnic Entrepreneurs represents a key contribution to studies of development and to the anthropological canon. DeHart successfully illuminates the myriad ways in which state power is being reformulated through diverse development actors." -- Nicole Coffey Kellett * Journal of Anthropological Research *"Ethnic Entrepreneurs provides an innovative analysis of how the flexibility of ethnic difference is mobilized as a resource both by indigenous, Latino, and Latin American subjects as well as by development institutions and organizations. By highlighting how the contradictions and assumptions behind categories such as indigenous, Latino, Latin American, migrant, and immigrant are related to global practices of corporate marketing and corporate responsibility, DeHart helps us rethink the links between community and corporation. This book offers an ethnographically rich window on global processes of ethnic identity and entrepreneurship." -- Lynn Stephen

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Book SynopsisWhile most people would not consider sponsoring an orphan''s education to be in the same category as international humanitarian aid, both acts are linked by the desire to give. Many studies focus on the outcomes of humanitarian work, but the impulses that inspire people to engage in the first place receive less attention. Disquieting Gifts takes a close look at people working on humanitarian projects in New Delhi to explore why they engage in philanthropic work, what humanitarianism looks like to them, and the ethical and political tangles they encounter.Motivated by debates surrounding Marcel Mauss''s The Gift, Bornstein investigates specific cases of people engaged in humanitarian work to reveal different perceptions of assistance to strangers versus assistance to kin, how the impulse to give to others in distress is tempered by its regulation, suspicions about recipient suitability, and why the figure of the orphan is so valuable in humanitarian discourse. ThTrade Review"Following up her earlier book The Spirit of Development: Protestant NGOs, morality, and economics in Zimbabwe, [in Disquieting Gifts, Bornstein] analyses examples of the whole spectrum of charity and volunteering in India, including both international aid and intra-Indian giving. The extreme contrasts of living standards in India, and the coexistence there of entrenched religious practices and secularism, stimulate Bornstein to delineate a "global economy of giving" while questioning Western preconceptions about humanitarianism." -- Jonathan Benthall * Times Literary Supplement *"Bornstein's illuminating ethnography attunes us to the unofficial philanthropic engagements that often go undocumented by journalists and academics, overshadowed as they are by the institutional complex of humanitarian aid. . . Bornstein's artful ethnography is itself a disquieting gift, one that challenges us to reconsider both what giving looks like, and the relational possibilities of anthropological practice itself." -- Jocelyn L. Chua * American Ethnologist *"[An] insightful and beautifully written analysis of diverse forms of aid in New Delhi . . . The book's accessible and engaging tone makes it appropriate for use in anthropology courses of varying levels, while its innovative approach and reformulation of classic concepts will make it of great value to specialists working in the areas of gift theory, ethics, humanitarianism, and South Asian studies." -- Pierre Minn * Social Anthropology *"Bornstein has pioneered the holistic study of aid, and in this delicately crafted book she conveys deep insights into international and intra-Indian charity and volunteering. An important sequel to The Spirit of Development." -- Jonathan Benthall * University College London *"In a time when humanitarianism seems to have become a prerogative of the Western world, Erica Bornstein's inquiry into philanthropy in India opportunely provides novel insights on charity. Reappraising an object which has become a classic in anthropology since the pioneering study of Marcel Mauss, her rich ethnography reveals the complexity of the contemporary moral economies of the gift." -- Didier Fassin * Institute for Advanced Study, author of Humanitarian Reason. A Moral History of the Present *

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Book SynopsisPassage to Manhood addresses the intersection of modernity, heroin use, and HIV/AIDS as they are embodied in a new rite-of-passage among young men in the Sichuan province of southwestern China. Through a nuanced analysis of the Nuosu population, this book seeks to answer why the Nuosu has a disproportionately large number of opiate users and HIV positive individuals relative to others in Sichuan. By focusing on the experiences of Nuosu migrants and drug users, it shows how multiple modernities, individual yearnings, and societal resilience have become entwined in the Nuosu''s calamitous encounter with the Chinese state and, after long suppression, their efforts at cultural reconstruction. This ethnography pits the Nuosu youths'' adventures, as part of their passage to manhood, against the drastic social changes in their community and, more broadly, China over the last half century. It offers fascinating material for courses on migration, globalization, youth culture, pTrade Review"Liu makes it obvious why social scientists of infectious diseases and AIDS policy-makers should read this book: her multi-layered analysis based on several visits to the field (2002-8); her excellent writing style, honesty, and understanding of a complex issue." -- Erling Hog * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *"[W]ell structured and accessible to those with no direct anthropological training: [Liu] gives clear, brief and un-patronizing descriptions of the main theoretical frameworks she uses, and manages to integrate the analysis well with the anthropological background material. This is no mean feat, and creates a book that is both intellectually fulfilling and very readable, but which does not lose academic impact despite its accessibility . . . [A] welcome addition to the literature." -- Stuart Gilmour * Asia Pacific World *"Liu's remarkable 'medical ethnography' is not just a telling account of the devastating effects of youth migration, drugs, and AIDS on the Nuosu minority. It is as impressive an anthropological study as I have read of how the failure of the Chinese state and international organizations to take into account the local moral experiences of real people both causes social suffering and prevents the successful implementation of intervention programs. A splendid achievement." -- Arthur Kleinman * Harvard University *"This new work is articulate and eloquent in its discussion of Nuoso without valorizing or exoticizing, and offers important reflections on how the epidemics of HIV and IV drugs build upon old forms of marginalization. The author's discussion of Chinese bipolar modernity, both socialist and capitalist, is especially nuanced." -- Nancy Chen, University of California * Santa Cruz *"This is a gracefully written ethnography about an ethnic community in China caught in a struggle of cultural survival in the face of rampant drug abuse and an outbreak of HIV. Framed in theories of globalization and modernization, the book brings issues of drug abuse and HIV into the broader context of state-society relations and ethnic tensions in a society still dominated by a powerful state machinery." -- Jing Jun, Professor of Sociology and Public Policy * Tsinghua University *"Shao-hua Liu offers a compelling account of a marginalized Chinese community's experience of heroin addiction and the AIDS pandemic, told through the riveting personal stories of those most affected. At the same time, the author's analysis illuminates a more general historical process affecting rural people everywhere, who are often losers in the new global market." -- Ann Maxwell Hill * Dickinson College *

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Book SynopsisPassage to Manhood is a groundbreaking and beautifully written ethnography that addresses the intersection of modernity, heroin use, and AIDS as they intersect in a new "rite-of-passage" among young ethnic-minority males in contemporary China.Trade Review"Liu makes it obvious why social scientists of infectious diseases and AIDS policy-makers should read this book: her multi-layered analysis based on several visits to the field (2002-8); her excellent writing style, honesty, and understanding of a complex issue." -- Erling Hog * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *"[W]ell structured and accessible to those with no direct anthropological training: [Liu] gives clear, brief and un-patronizing descriptions of the main theoretical frameworks she uses, and manages to integrate the analysis well with the anthropological background material. This is no mean feat, and creates a book that is both intellectually fulfilling and very readable, but which does not lose academic impact despite its accessibility . . . [A] welcome addition to the literature." -- Stuart Gilmour * Asia Pacific World *"Liu's remarkable 'medical ethnography' is not just a telling account of the devastating effects of youth migration, drugs, and AIDS on the Nuosu minority. It is as impressive an anthropological study as I have read of how the failure of the Chinese state and international organizations to take into account the local moral experiences of real people both causes social suffering and prevents the successful implementation of intervention programs. A splendid achievement." -- Arthur Kleinman * Harvard University *"This new work is articulate and eloquent in its discussion of Nuoso without valorizing or exoticizing, and offers important reflections on how the epidemics of HIV and IV drugs build upon old forms of marginalization. The author's discussion of Chinese bipolar modernity, both socialist and capitalist, is especially nuanced." -- Nancy Chen, University of California * Santa Cruz *"This is a gracefully written ethnography about an ethnic community in China caught in a struggle of cultural survival in the face of rampant drug abuse and an outbreak of HIV. Framed in theories of globalization and modernization, the book brings issues of drug abuse and HIV into the broader context of state-society relations and ethnic tensions in a society still dominated by a powerful state machinery." -- Jing Jun, Professor of Sociology and Public Policy * Tsinghua University *"Shao-hua Liu offers a compelling account of a marginalized Chinese community's experience of heroin addiction and the AIDS pandemic, told through the riveting personal stories of those most affected. At the same time, the author's analysis illuminates a more general historical process affecting rural people everywhere, who are often losers in the new global market." -- Ann Maxwell Hill * Dickinson College *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"One of the strengths of The Tourism Encounter is undoubtedly its multisited approach, which allows both for a wide angle of vision on this complex topic and a number of illuminating comparisons of [Chiapas (Mexico), Cuba, Nicaragua, and Peru]."—Claire Lindsay, New West India Guide"Combining long-standing anthropological analysis of tourism's local effects, Babb successfully reaches toward a macro-view to examine how national discourses and policies are constructed to attract tourist dollars."—Amy Cox Hall, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute"The Tourism Encounter is a very well-written monograph. . .Being both readable and conceptually rich, this book would complement both advanced undergraduate and graduate seminars. . . The book should be considered essential reading for those interested in contemporary tourism in general."—Noel B. Salazar, American Ethnologist"Babb's writing style turns this book into an attractive journey [and] beautifully captures the volatility of tourist travel . . . Babb's book is highly recommended for tourism scholars who want to know more about the four countries under study and about the intersection of tourism and revolution. The writing style also makes it a good read for those tourists who want to know more about the places they visit than what the superficial accounts in travel guides tell them."—Annelou Ypeij, Journal of Latin American Studies"This is one of the most important insights the author shares with us: how tourism functions not solely as an economic strategy but rather as a central tool through which [Latin American] countries are coming to terms with and actively negotiating revolutionary pasts . . . Overall, the book does a great job."—Arlene Davila, The Americas"Babb presents the case for studying tourism in four Latin American countries that have recently undergone political and social transitions that caused an initial decline in tourism, but that are once again becoming popular destinations . . . In a tourism landscape that is increasingly segmented, Babb carefully examines and documents the role of 'revolutionary nostalgia' tourism . . . Recommended."—O. Pi-Sunyer, CHOICE"Mark Twain once wrote that travel is fatal to prejudice and narrow-mindedness. Yet as Florence Babb shows effectively in this panoramic journey and anthropological analysis of post-revolutionary Cuba, Nicaragua, Peru, and Chiapas, travel cannot escape history. In The Tourism Encounter, Babb shows that travel in the form of tourism is always packed with the politics of social relations, past and present. And that's just the way it should be, as this book so ably demonstrates."—Matthew Gutmann, Brown University, author of The Romance of Democracy: Compliant Defiance in Contemporary Mexico"Florence Babb's book is a provocative, moving, bittersweet journey to the tourist zones of Latin America, which once seduced outsiders with their hopeful visions of utopia. Now it is mostly revolutionary nostalgia that they offer for sale. How to understand this nostalgia? What has become of our dreams of revolution? Babb responds to these questions and to her own complicity with tourism in thoughtful and subtle ways that make her the ideal guide to all of us who want to learn how to be compassionate travelers in our post-utopian world."—Ruth Behar, University of Michigan, the author of An Island Called Home: Returning to Jewish Cuba"Personal, lively, and engaging—this work deals with an important economic, social, and political phenomenon in a distinctive way. Babb takes several stands which will be considered controversial, revealing both the cynicism and hope surrounding tourism's potential to improve economies and promote more equitable societies."—Walter E. Little, University at Albany, State University of New York, author of Mayas in the Marketplace: Tourism, Globalization, and Cultural Identity"With its hemispheric sweep, this clear look at the dangers, pleasures, and politics of tourism in four different Latin American countries is fascinating and timely."—Orin Starn, Duke University, author of Nightwatch: The Politics of Protest in the Andes

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Book SynopsisThis book explores the malaise present in post-colonial Tonga, analyzing the way in which segments of this small-scale society hold on to different understandings of what modernity is, how it should be made relevant to local contexts, and how it should mesh with practices and symbols of tradition.Trade Review"Besnier achieves a fascinating actor-centered ethnography of how urban modernity in Tonga is defined, enacted and performed by people of different segments of society. The book depicts vividly what is at stake for the actors involved and the emotions that surround these processes."—Sina Emde, Pacific Affairs"On the Edge of the Global by Niko Besnier is a compelling attempt to straighten misconceptions and render instead a comprehensive account of how immersed in a globalized world and in modernity the people in (and out of) Tonga actually are. Besides its profound insights, the book is also just pleasant to read, comprehensible even in its most theoretical parts, as entertaining as it is instructive in its descriptions of daily life, and with a fine sense of humour shining through occasionally. For me as an anthropologist working in Tonga for more than ten years, this book is a jewel. For anybody interested both in region or the topics more generally, this book is a must-read. For everybody else, it is simply a pleasure."— Andrea Bender, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute"I found myself wondering why I had not seen these things before! . . . [T]he analysis is intriguing and raises many interesting and valuable questions. This well-written book sheds valuable insights not only on modern Tongan society, but also on issues and challenges that many modernizing societies face."—Cluny MacPherson, The Contemporary Pacific"This book has expanded my understanding of contemporary Tongan life. Anybody interested in Tonga, or Polynesia at large, and the scholar or layman passionate about gaining insights into how 'globality' is realized in very unfamiliar places will find precious material to treasure. Another valuable piece is added to the literature about Tonga, contributing to the understanding of its fascinating reality."—Giovanni Bennardo, Journal of Anthropological Research"Besnier takes us to Tongan beauty parlors, pageants, pawn shops, outdoor markets, church services and gyms to show how local 'modernities' and 'traditionalities' are enacted within disparate sites. His book, remarkable in its nuanced, respectful depiction of the emotional lives and intellectual perspectives of diverse informants, is wonderful in argument and ethnography."—Deborah Gewertz, Amherst College"Ethnographically acute and open-eared, interpretively imaginative and principled, and always engaging, Besnier's book takes Tonga from 'the edge' to the center of new ways of thinking about 'the global.' Besnier's subtle attentiveness to the shape of both ordinary and extraordinary lives and events makes for a rich and theoretically provocative examination indeed."—Don Brenneis, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz"This is a study of how modernity renders one anxious—anxious to be a part of it, and anxious not to lose oneself, or one's traditions, along the way. Keenly situated on the global edge, and on the edges of bodies and things, Besnier's study of Tonga as a nervous kaleidoscope—of make-up, make-over, bodybuilding, and the pawning and reselling of everyday things—is sharply observed and beautifully drawn. Clear, smart, witty, and touching."—Anne Allison, Professor of Anthropology, Duke University

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Book SynopsisSome sixty-five years after 750,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homeland, the popular conception of Palestinian refugees still emphasizes their fierce commitment to exercising their right of return. Exile has come to seem a kind of historical amber, preserving refugees in a way of life that ended abruptly with the catastrophe of 1948 and their campsinhabited now for four generationsas mere zones of waiting. While reducing refugees to symbols of steadfast single-mindedness has been politically expedient to both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict it comes at a tremendous cost for refugees themselves, overlooking their individual memories and aspirations and obscuring their collective culture in exile.Refugees of the Revolution is an evocative and provocative examination of everyday life in Shatila, a refugee camp in Beirut. Challenging common assumptions about Palestinian identity and nationalist politics, Diana Allan provides an immersive account of caTrade Review"[This] book provides a compelling testimony of the day-to-day struggles in Shatila . . . Allan's carefully crafted ethnography avoids reducing the camp to the prevailing sense of hopelessness and despair that has been constitutive for the Palestinian experience and instead delivers a thought-provoking, self-critical reflection on the paradoxes and limits of camp research." -- Monika Halkort * Journal of Palestine Studies *"Allan's book is the key for anyone who wants to understand one of the most dramatic strands of sixty-plus years of Palestinian dispossession." -- Victoria Brittain * The Political Quarterly *"Diana Allan has finally produced the book on Palestinian refugees in Lebanon that should have been written twenty-plus years ago . . . Brilliantly employing a phenomenological approach, Allan richly portrays the complexities and the frustratingly intricate negotiations among refugees, and between them and Palestinian power sectors as well as Lebanese national institutions, to secure services and meet personal obligations . . . Allan's meticulous research and insightful observations combine with her articulate writing style to produce extraordinary clarity. She brings to life the constant horrors and dilemmas of Palestinian refugee life in Lebanon by providing the contexts and allowing refugees to speak for themselves. . . . Refugees of the Revolution is a groundbreaking book that should be read by all serious scholars of Palestinian studies and solidarity activists who can draw from its pages fresh thinking in how to support Palestinian rights." -- Elaine C. Hagopian * Race and Class *"Overall, Refugees of the Revolution is a compelling contribution to the fields of Palestine and refugee studies, and an exemplar for political-economic studies of subaltern groups." -- Rana B. Khoury * Journal of Refugee Studies *"Diana Allan, a British anthropologist and activist, has written an important, provocative, and compelling account . . . This is an honest and provocative book that demands close reading and clear understanding of what the author describes and writes about. Allan is a very careful and introspective writer, acutely aware of every word she writes. She understands how easily these words can be misconstrued and misinterpreted. A compassionate sympathizer with the Palestinian predicament, she nevertheless places her duty as an ethnographer and anthropologist above her personal commitments as an activist . . . [R]ichly researched, amply annotated, and theoretically grounded . . . This book should be read by anyone interested in the question of Palestine and the Palestinian people, especially by politicians and diplomats who debate and negotiate the future of the Palestinians as refugees, as a people, and as a nation." -- Bassam Abed * H-Net *"Anthropologist Allan's first major publication is a breakthrough study of life in Shatila, the Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut. The book provides powerful insight into notions of nation, exile, homeland, and return through a detailed and provoking study that forces readers to reassess notions about what it means to be a Palestinian refugee." -- The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs"In this intriguing study, anthropologist Allan provides a fascinating study of Palestinian identity in exile . . . Identity, Allan therefore argues, lies in the local, wherein emotions and cognitions of sociability mark felt experiences of embodied practices. Allan's methodology of 'ethnographies of the particular' underlines this everyday aspect of lived experiences and, in many ways, identifies the book's major contribution to anthropology and Middle Eastern studies . . . Highly recommended." -- B. Rahimi * CHOICE *"Diana Allan's ethnographic study provides insight into the day-to-day struggles of the residents of the Shatila Palestinian refugee camp in southern Beirut. Through her direct experience in the camp and extensive interactions with the refugees, Allan applies a phenomenological lens to create a collection of narratives based on qualitative research. Refugees of the Revolution weaves stories of the pragmatic survival of Shatila's refugees, to highlight the wider implications of marginalization. Allan's work provides a well-grounded insight into the interdisciplinary effects of refugee life without imposing policy." -- Middle East Journal"This beautifully written ethnography provides a powerful account of the Palestinian refugee experience in Lebanon. Basing her analysis in the complexities of refugee lives, rather than on received frameworks, Diana Allan has produced a work whose ethnographic richness is matched by its theoretical acumen. Refugees of the Revolution should be read by anyone interested in structural poverty or long-term displacement." -- Ilana Feldman * George Washington University *"In an ethnography marked by analytical subtlety, empathy, and political courage, Diana Allan raises questions around the way that activists and researchers working in Palestinian refugee camps focus on the national past, neglecting everyday poverty, survival economies, hopes for the future, individual memories. Her careful attention to the words and lives of Shatila people has produced a study that makes us think again." -- Rosemary Sayigh * author of The Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries *"With intelligence and compassion, Diana Allan has captured the experience of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon today. An outstanding book, and an important reminder that there can be no just settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that overlooks the rights of refugees." -- Eugene Rogan * author of The Arabs: A History *"The presumed primacy of economic deprivation over nationalist ideology is among the hottest topics not only in contemporary Palestine studies but also in much of the anthropology of social suffering. For that, and for its excellent ethnographic quality, Allan's timely book has been among the most debated novel works in the field since its release." -- Leonardo Schiocchet * American Anthropologist *"By combining ethnographic observations with quotations from informal interactions and formal narrative interviews, [Allan] reveals that daily life in the camp constitutes a struggle that is economic and existential, as well as political." -- Helen Taylor * Refuge *

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Book SynopsisSet in a Palestinian camp in Lebanon, Refugees of the Revolution is both an ethnography of everyday life and a provocative critique of nationalism, exploring how material realities and evolving solidarity networks are reconstituting identity and political belonging in exile.Trade Review"[This] book provides a compelling testimony of the day-to-day struggles in Shatila . . . Allan's carefully crafted ethnography avoids reducing the camp to the prevailing sense of hopelessness and despair that has been constitutive for the Palestinian experience and instead delivers a thought-provoking, self-critical reflection on the paradoxes and limits of camp research." -- Monika Halkort * Journal of Palestine Studies *"Allan's book is the key for anyone who wants to understand one of the most dramatic strands of sixty-plus years of Palestinian dispossession." -- Victoria Brittain * The Political Quarterly *"Diana Allan has finally produced the book on Palestinian refugees in Lebanon that should have been written twenty-plus years ago . . . Brilliantly employing a phenomenological approach, Allan richly portrays the complexities and the frustratingly intricate negotiations among refugees, and between them and Palestinian power sectors as well as Lebanese national institutions, to secure services and meet personal obligations . . . Allan's meticulous research and insightful observations combine with her articulate writing style to produce extraordinary clarity. She brings to life the constant horrors and dilemmas of Palestinian refugee life in Lebanon by providing the contexts and allowing refugees to speak for themselves. . . . Refugees of the Revolution is a groundbreaking book that should be read by all serious scholars of Palestinian studies and solidarity activists who can draw from its pages fresh thinking in how to support Palestinian rights." -- Elaine C. Hagopian * Race and Class *"Overall, Refugees of the Revolution is a compelling contribution to the fields of Palestine and refugee studies, and an exemplar for political-economic studies of subaltern groups." -- Rana B. Khoury * Journal of Refugee Studies *"Diana Allan, a British anthropologist and activist, has written an important, provocative, and compelling account . . . This is an honest and provocative book that demands close reading and clear understanding of what the author describes and writes about. Allan is a very careful and introspective writer, acutely aware of every word she writes. She understands how easily these words can be misconstrued and misinterpreted. A compassionate sympathizer with the Palestinian predicament, she nevertheless places her duty as an ethnographer and anthropologist above her personal commitments as an activist . . . [R]ichly researched, amply annotated, and theoretically grounded . . . This book should be read by anyone interested in the question of Palestine and the Palestinian people, especially by politicians and diplomats who debate and negotiate the future of the Palestinians as refugees, as a people, and as a nation." -- Bassam Abed * H-Net *"Anthropologist Allan's first major publication is a breakthrough study of life in Shatila, the Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut. The book provides powerful insight into notions of nation, exile, homeland, and return through a detailed and provoking study that forces readers to reassess notions about what it means to be a Palestinian refugee." -- The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs"In this intriguing study, anthropologist Allan provides a fascinating study of Palestinian identity in exile . . . Identity, Allan therefore argues, lies in the local, wherein emotions and cognitions of sociability mark felt experiences of embodied practices. Allan's methodology of 'ethnographies of the particular' underlines this everyday aspect of lived experiences and, in many ways, identifies the book's major contribution to anthropology and Middle Eastern studies . . . Highly recommended." -- B. Rahimi * CHOICE *"Diana Allan's ethnographic study provides insight into the day-to-day struggles of the residents of the Shatila Palestinian refugee camp in southern Beirut. Through her direct experience in the camp and extensive interactions with the refugees, Allan applies a phenomenological lens to create a collection of narratives based on qualitative research. Refugees of the Revolution weaves stories of the pragmatic survival of Shatila's refugees, to highlight the wider implications of marginalization. Allan's work provides a well-grounded insight into the interdisciplinary effects of refugee life without imposing policy." -- Middle East Journal"This beautifully written ethnography provides a powerful account of the Palestinian refugee experience in Lebanon. Basing her analysis in the complexities of refugee lives, rather than on received frameworks, Diana Allan has produced a work whose ethnographic richness is matched by its theoretical acumen. Refugees of the Revolution should be read by anyone interested in structural poverty or long-term displacement." -- Ilana Feldman * George Washington University *"In an ethnography marked by analytical subtlety, empathy, and political courage, Diana Allan raises questions around the way that activists and researchers working in Palestinian refugee camps focus on the national past, neglecting everyday poverty, survival economies, hopes for the future, individual memories. Her careful attention to the words and lives of Shatila people has produced a study that makes us think again." -- Rosemary Sayigh * author of The Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries *"With intelligence and compassion, Diana Allan has captured the experience of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon today. An outstanding book, and an important reminder that there can be no just settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that overlooks the rights of refugees." -- Eugene Rogan * author of The Arabs: A History *"The presumed primacy of economic deprivation over nationalist ideology is among the hottest topics not only in contemporary Palestine studies but also in much of the anthropology of social suffering. For that, and for its excellent ethnographic quality, Allan's timely book has been among the most debated novel works in the field since its release." -- Leonardo Schiocchet * American Anthropologist *"By combining ethnographic observations with quotations from informal interactions and formal narrative interviews, [Allan] reveals that daily life in the camp constitutes a struggle that is economic and existential, as well as political." -- Helen Taylor * Refuge *

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Book SynopsisAspiring to Home explores South Asian immigrants as they create new ethnic identities through popular cultural works that bind together narratives of multicultural and postcolonial citizenship.Trade Review"It is essential reading for scholars interested in diaspora, immigrant community formation, transnational migration, Asian American studies, and applications of post-colonial theory. . . . I highly recommend the entire book for graduate seminars focusing on migration and diaspora." -- Ishan Ashutosh * International Migration Review *"Working with a truly innovative archive, Mani compellingly argues that merely 'adding on' South Asians to the litany of ethnic and national-origin identifications that circulate under 'Asian America' is thoroughly inadequate to pursuing the study of racialization in ways that take seriously the intimacy and depth of the relationship between the local and the global.—Kandice Chuh, CUNY/The Graduate Center"An elegantly written and trenchantly argued book." -- Martin F. Manalansan IV, University of Illinois * Urbana-Champaign *"An important contribution to the burgeoning field of South Asian American studies, Bakirathi Mani's Aspiring to Home easily traverses a range of cultural practices, moving seamlessly between genres (literature, film, performance) and methodologies (textual analysis, ethnography). Mani compelling transforms our understanding of seemingly transparent assimilationist narratives produced by South Asian Americans in the US. These contradictions, for Mani, point to the ways in which middle class South Asian Americans both collude with and renegotiate dominant notions of belonging in multiple national spaces. Thus Mani argues that we must reconceptualize Asian American studies beyond a familiar mapping of US colonialism in East and South East Asia, and the Pacific Islands, but simultaneously through US and British imperial interests in South Asia." -- Gayatri Gopinath * New York University *

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Book SynopsisResources for Reform explores how people's lives intersect with the global oil industry through a close look at Argentina's experiment with privatizing its national oil company in the name of neoliberal reform.Trade Review"Shever's is one of just a handful of monographs that looks closely at the lived and embodies experience of transformations in resource sovereignty . . . [Shever] uses the transformation in resource sovereignty to build an instructive and nuanced lesson for understanding the multidimensionality of neoliberalism in practice . . . [I]n chapters describing and detailing its precise operations, Shever offers vivid ethnographic renderings of how the concept [of Argentinian neoliberalismo] manifests . . . Shever's study begins to clarify what history has only made more apparent regarding the struggle over natural resources. Who owns, benefits from, and will direct the future of their extraction and use is a politically volatile issue worthy of close and sustained ethnographic investigation." -- Lisa Breglia * American Anthropologist *"Resources for Reform is an exemplary, well written and very accessible account of a highly complex story encompassing poor and rich Argentines, hard-working industry labourers and people struggling to get by, as well as politicians, lawyers, international consultants, and corporate representatives who have all contributed, in one way or another, to tying Argentina's oil industry more tightly into a global neoliberal regime." -- Gisa Weszkalnys * Anthropology of this Century *"Oil oozes through the pores of modern society, and neoliberalism has restructured Latin American community and kinship relationships so deeply, that it is no surprise that a cultural anthropologist would address these topics. Elana Shever's Resources for Reform: Oil and Neoliberalism in Argentina does so with careful attention to detail and with compelling ethnography . . . [T]he book is an important addition to the study of the intersection of oil and neoliberalism, two major forces shaping Latin America in recent times. I would strongly recommend the book to anyone interested in either of these topics." -- Stephen Cote * Hispanic American Historical Review *"Resources for Reform is a highly interesting study that will very likely become an obligatory reference for scholars studying the effects of privatisation policies in Latin America and those interested in understanding the framework of Argentina's current oil policy. Its dynamic style makes it accessible to both graduate and undergraduate students." -- Marcelo Bucheli * Journal of Latin American Studies *"Some of the best work I have read on neoliberalism, citizenship, and affect. After tracing the ways that sentiments among workers were central to the construction of Argentina's petroleum-led national economic project, Shever makes a surprising argument: neoliberal privatization reforms of the 1990s, usually characterized as producing individualized rationalities of calculation, were also made possible by the continued deployment of such kinship relations." -- Nancy Postero, University of California * San Diego *"Resources for Reform presents a rigorous, nuanced ethnography of how a diverse array of actors were actively involved in reshaping their families, communities, and selves during the privatization of Argentina's oil industry. In tracing the ways in which private corporations built upon kinship bonds nurtured by the preceding state-owned industry, Shever demonstrates convincingly how affective and calculative techniques of governance are merged in supposedly rational regimes of rule. This impressive study scrutinizes the material practices and meanings of both the production and consumption of oil in Argentina to effectively challenge theories of global transformation that overlook the continuities between neoliberal regimes and those they have supplanted." -- Sylvia Yanagisako * Stanford University *"Elana Shever's Resources for Reform breaks the mold for anthropological studies of oil. Shever designed her well-balanced project to examine the production, distribution, and consumption of oil in both rural Patagonia and urban Buenos Aires, Argentina . . . By incorporating observations among both 'upstream' and 'downstream' sectors of the oil industry in Argentina, Resources for Reform sets a new precedent for ethnographic studies of oil in Latin America. Shever's work should have a lasting impact in anthropology for contributing to established areas of study . . . Such an innovative approach to corporate personhood opens new possibilities for pursuing anthropology of oil that is no longer bound strictly to the state." -- James J. A. Blair * Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology *"In this rich and compelling ethnography, Elana Shever explores how the oil sector in Argentina has reconfigured itself and the lives of its workers and communities. With great insight and nuance, Shever details how neoliberalism—as much as the oil industry—is made and remade through laboring, learning, communicating, playing, and caring. A major challenge to how we think about not only the corporate world of hydro-carbon capitalism but of neoliberalism itself, Resources for Reform is a gem." -- Michael Watts, University of California * Berkeley *"In sum, Resources for Reform is a welcome addition to the growing field of anthropology of oil and the study of neoliberalism. While using novel approaches and ideas, Shever adheres to an ethnographic tradition of organizing discussion around what makes her case different, which helps highlight the relevance of her research and ethnographic endeavor in general. Shever outlines a potentially path-breaking discussion of the nature and sources of corporate power and its historical contingency . . . Shever is certainly ahead of the learning curve in the study of this most recent transformation as well as the making and remaking of state and corporate powers in Argentina and, perhaps, elsewhere." -- Saulesh Yessenova * American Ethnologist *"Resources for Reform delivers an intrinsically interesting story about oil and neoliberalism in a country where some of the loudest responses to neoliberalism have been heard. Shever takes a critical look at the oil industry and the practices of oil companies like Shell—providing a clear, compelling exploration of the multiple sides of neoliberalism in Argentina. A major contribution." -- Steve Striffler * University of New Orleans *

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Book SynopsisResources for Reform explores how people's lives intersect with the global oil industry through a close look at Argentina's experiment with privatizing its national oil company in the name of neoliberal reform.Trade Review"Shever's is one of just a handful of monographs that looks closely at the lived and embodies experience of transformations in resource sovereignty . . . [Shever] uses the transformation in resource sovereignty to build an instructive and nuanced lesson for understanding the multidimensionality of neoliberalism in practice . . . [I]n chapters describing and detailing its precise operations, Shever offers vivid ethnographic renderings of how the concept [of Argentinian neoliberalismo] manifests . . . Shever's study begins to clarify what history has only made more apparent regarding the struggle over natural resources. Who owns, benefits from, and will direct the future of their extraction and use is a politically volatile issue worthy of close and sustained ethnographic investigation." -- Lisa Breglia * American Anthropologist *"Resources for Reform is an exemplary, well written and very accessible account of a highly complex story encompassing poor and rich Argentines, hard-working industry labourers and people struggling to get by, as well as politicians, lawyers, international consultants, and corporate representatives who have all contributed, in one way or another, to tying Argentina's oil industry more tightly into a global neoliberal regime." -- Gisa Weszkalnys * Anthropology of this Century *"Oil oozes through the pores of modern society, and neoliberalism has restructured Latin American community and kinship relationships so deeply, that it is no surprise that a cultural anthropologist would address these topics. Elana Shever's Resources for Reform: Oil and Neoliberalism in Argentina does so with careful attention to detail and with compelling ethnography . . . [T]he book is an important addition to the study of the intersection of oil and neoliberalism, two major forces shaping Latin America in recent times. I would strongly recommend the book to anyone interested in either of these topics." -- Stephen Cote * Hispanic American Historical Review *"Resources for Reform is a highly interesting study that will very likely become an obligatory reference for scholars studying the effects of privatisation policies in Latin America and those interested in understanding the framework of Argentina's current oil policy. Its dynamic style makes it accessible to both graduate and undergraduate students." -- Marcelo Bucheli * Journal of Latin American Studies *"Some of the best work I have read on neoliberalism, citizenship, and affect. After tracing the ways that sentiments among workers were central to the construction of Argentina's petroleum-led national economic project, Shever makes a surprising argument: neoliberal privatization reforms of the 1990s, usually characterized as producing individualized rationalities of calculation, were also made possible by the continued deployment of such kinship relations." -- Nancy Postero, University of California * San Diego *"Resources for Reform presents a rigorous, nuanced ethnography of how a diverse array of actors were actively involved in reshaping their families, communities, and selves during the privatization of Argentina's oil industry. In tracing the ways in which private corporations built upon kinship bonds nurtured by the preceding state-owned industry, Shever demonstrates convincingly how affective and calculative techniques of governance are merged in supposedly rational regimes of rule. This impressive study scrutinizes the material practices and meanings of both the production and consumption of oil in Argentina to effectively challenge theories of global transformation that overlook the continuities between neoliberal regimes and those they have supplanted." -- Sylvia Yanagisako * Stanford University *"Elana Shever's Resources for Reform breaks the mold for anthropological studies of oil. Shever designed her well-balanced project to examine the production, distribution, and consumption of oil in both rural Patagonia and urban Buenos Aires, Argentina . . . By incorporating observations among both 'upstream' and 'downstream' sectors of the oil industry in Argentina, Resources for Reform sets a new precedent for ethnographic studies of oil in Latin America. Shever's work should have a lasting impact in anthropology for contributing to established areas of study . . . Such an innovative approach to corporate personhood opens new possibilities for pursuing anthropology of oil that is no longer bound strictly to the state." -- James J. A. Blair * Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology *"In this rich and compelling ethnography, Elana Shever explores how the oil sector in Argentina has reconfigured itself and the lives of its workers and communities. With great insight and nuance, Shever details how neoliberalism—as much as the oil industry—is made and remade through laboring, learning, communicating, playing, and caring. A major challenge to how we think about not only the corporate world of hydro-carbon capitalism but of neoliberalism itself, Resources for Reform is a gem." -- Michael Watts, University of California * Berkeley *"In sum, Resources for Reform is a welcome addition to the growing field of anthropology of oil and the study of neoliberalism. While using novel approaches and ideas, Shever adheres to an ethnographic tradition of organizing discussion around what makes her case different, which helps highlight the relevance of her research and ethnographic endeavor in general. Shever outlines a potentially path-breaking discussion of the nature and sources of corporate power and its historical contingency . . . Shever is certainly ahead of the learning curve in the study of this most recent transformation as well as the making and remaking of state and corporate powers in Argentina and, perhaps, elsewhere." -- Saulesh Yessenova * American Ethnologist *"Resources for Reform delivers an intrinsically interesting story about oil and neoliberalism in a country where some of the loudest responses to neoliberalism have been heard. Shever takes a critical look at the oil industry and the practices of oil companies like Shell—providing a clear, compelling exploration of the multiple sides of neoliberalism in Argentina. A major contribution." -- Steve Striffler * University of New Orleans *

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Book SynopsisAnthropology's Politics provides a hard-hitting account of what it's like to study and teach about Middle East politics and culture in the heart of U.S. empire.Trade Review"Anthropology's Politics provides an invaluable and stunning wake-up call about the most urgent challenges facing academia today. Provocative and incisive, this book is a must-read for anyone concerned with U.S. empire, neoliberal corporatization, and the political dynamics that shape higher education in the United States."—Nadine Suleiman Naber, University of Illinois at Chicago"Anthropology's Politics breaks a profound silence by examining how overbearing political forces shape the work of American anthropologists working on the Middle East and North Africa. Lara Deeb and Jessica Winegar show how work in certain regions is discouraged, how research on important political topics is devalued, and how scholars are dissuaded from using their professional knowledge to contribute to policy discussions and advocate for political action. This is an invaluable book that shatters a large and imposing disciplinary wall."—David Price, Saint Martin's University"Incisive, forthright, and necessary. This unflinching account of the challenges that confront anthropologists, and anthropology's institutions, when engaging the politics of the Middle East is a must read for scholars in any field who are concerned with our professional responsibilities and our human obligations."—Ilana Feldman, George Washington University"Anthropology's Politics is a bold book. Lara Deeb and Jessica Winegar paint a disturbing picture of the pressures that shape how anthropologists research and teach about the Middle East and North AfricaDeeb and Winegar have written an important and well-researched book that can serve as a touchstone for the debates and backlash that are sure to come."—Lesley Gill, American ethnologist"Going against the grain, Anthropology's Politics: Disciplining the Middle East is a daring scholarly work about the complicity of the discipline of anthropology and its practitioners with the US/western hegemonic mind-set against the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region....[It] is an eye-opener for students, academicians, and readers at large about the hegemonic silencing of Middle East and North African voices in the production of knowledge."—Arab Studies QuarterlyTable of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction: Academics and Politics chapter abstractThe introduction highlights key tensions at the core of academic practice in the context of rising U.S. imperialism and neoliberalism since World War II. It discusses the national and global forces – political, economic, and social – which have given rise to these tensions, marked by gender, race/ethnicity, class, generation and political viewpoints. Pointing out how the study of the Middle East encapsulates these frictions, it argues that they play a central role in both enabling and inhibiting critical scholarship and teaching. 1The Politics of Becoming a Scholar chapter abstractThis chapter examines the multiple reasons that individuals become scholars of both anthropology and the Middle East and North Africa, in relationship to U.S. engagements with the region. Through analysis of life histories, it tracks the gendered, racialized, classed, and generational aspects of this process. Anthropologists choose MENA and the discipline to work out tensions between dominant views of the region (e.g., Orientalist fantasy vs. terrorist hotbed) and personal experiences of privilege or racism, as well as general experiences of being out of place in dominant society. 2The Politics of Making it Through Graduate School chapter abstractThis chapter examines the perils of academic professionalization and socialization. Using interview and other data related to graduate school and job market experiences, it shows how Middle East anthropologists have, over time, faced significant sexism, racism, and compulsory Zionism in their graduate training. As a result, many have learned to navigate gendered and racialized disciplinary and academic frameworks for legitimizing (or delegitimizing) scholarly work. Such frameworks are fraught with pressures that lead to the development of strategies of self-preservation, including self-monitoring and self-censorship, that persist across generations and become especially intense during the War on Terror. 3Politicized Conflicts on the Job chapter abstractThis chapter focuses on how Middle East scholars engage different publics, including students and lecture audiences, as well as publishers in both academic and non-academic venues. It argues that they face racialized and gendered challenges and attacks influenced by national and global politics, and that college and university administrators cannot be counted on to support them. Scholars thus find themselves carefully enacting the self-protection practices into which they were socialized as graduate students. It shows how when colleges and universities let external pressures affect the learning process, many faculty become reluctant to share their expertise on the region, yet many also find ways to push against this silencing. U.S. involvement in the region has thus created an opportunity and imperative to share academic knowledge, juxtaposed with the recognition that doing so may come at serious cost to one's professional life. 4Institutionalizing MENA Anthropology, 1945-2001 chapter abstractThis chapter examines the institutionalization of Middle East anthropology during the period of the region's move to the center of U.S. foreign interests — from the end of World War II, through Vietnam, up until the War on Terror. It shows how this institutionalization embodied, yet never resolved, tensions at the heart of anthropology regarding the ethics of government and military engagement, relationships with research subjects, and political advocacy. Such tensions transform over time in relationship to increasing bureaucratic proceduralism and shifting demographics of gender and generation, which also impact how and if regional expertise is represented in the larger discipline. It argues that the Middle East was treated as a disciplinary exception, both as an area of research interest and as an exception to anthropology's longstanding commitment to the oppressed and marginalized. 5The War on Terror, Israel, and Anthropology's Institutional Politics chapter abstractThis chapter examines how with the War on Terror, MENA anthropologists' academic institutional commitments face new challenges, from the discipline's expanding relationships with the U.S. state, including in the government, intelligence, and military realms. It argues that MENA anthropologists have continued to be excluded from the discipline's discussions about anthropology's engagements with various military conflicts in the region – from Israel-Palestine to the Iraq War, from whether or not to condemn state violence against civilians to whether or not to participate in clandestine and/or military research. Bureaucratic proceduralism has continued to be a tool of depoliticization in the discipline. Conclusion: Undisciplining Anthropology's Politics chapter abstractThis chapter explores the potential future of academic engagement with the Middle East within anthropology and in higher education more broadly. Focusing on the movement to boycott Israeli academic institutions complicit in the occupation of Palestine, it argues that the tensions surrounding the Middle East, political advocacy, and generation persist in anthropology. Yet it also suggests that a new era of public advocacy may be emerging that links Middle East human rights struggles with those in other regions, including in the U.S.

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Book SynopsisUnderstanding the various meanings given to human and citizenship rights in Argentina is an important task, particularly so given the nation''s prominence in global discussions. An exporter of tactics, ideas, and experts, Argentina has become a site of innovation in the field of human rights. This book investigates two prominent Buenos Aires protest organizationsMemoria Activa and the BAUEN workers'' cooperativeto consider how each has framed its demands within a language of rights.Fundamentally, this book is concerned with the complex interrelationship between the discourse of human rights and the neoliberal project. In exploring the way in which rights talk is used and adapted locally by various activist groups, the book looks at the mutually formative and contentious interactions between ideas of human rights, rights of citizenship, and the concrete and envisioned social relationships that form the basis for social activism in the wake of neoliberalism.Trade Review"Faulk provides valuable insights for assessing the contributions of movements that actualize conceptions of social citizenship in contemporary Argentina."—Silvio Waisbord, Latin American Studies"In the Wake of Neoliberalism is a powerful and moving ethnographic work that fixes transnational conceptions of human rights in the context of a global neoliberalism, grounded firmly in the history and society of Argentina. The book makes a valuable contribution to the interdisciplinary literature on human rights. An important book of the contemporary moment."—Daniel Goldstein, Rutgers University, author of The Spectacular City"Argentina has been at the forefront of changes in human rights discourse at the legal, international, political levels, and has seen some of the most globally prominent social movements based on human rights. Karen Faulk has risen to the challenge of tackling such complex themes and produced an engaging, vibrant, and thought-provoking account of contemporary struggles against neoliberal erosions of rights. A superb ethnography."—Sian Lazar, University of Cambridge

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"This timely and important ethnography examines the untold human cost of the crisis in the Middle East, the global interconnection of suffering, and the embodiment of war and displacement on refugees even after they are resettled. Marcia C. Inhorn has expertly woven the traumatic experiences of Arab refugees to the United States with racial disparity and poverty in America. America's Arab Refugees is a story that must be told, and read." -- Salmaan Keshavjee * Harvard Medical School *"A brilliant weaving of insights from the Black Lives Matter movement and intersectional theory, Inhorn compassionately documents the valiant struggles of Arab refugee populations to rise above discrimination in the USA. Inspiring and eye-opening, this book draws out parallels between the racism faced by African-Americans and Arab refugees, broadening the horizon of movements for social justice." -- Suad Joseph * University of California, Davis *"America's Arab Refugees illuminates issues of critical importance for everyone—especially Americans. Inhorn helps us come to grips with Arab Americans' real experiences of war, displacement, racism, poverty, and broken health care. Every reader has something to learn from these men and women negotiating infertility treatments, as they keep hope alive in the midst of adversity and show resolve to work for a better future for themselves, their families, and our world." -- Seth Holmes * author of Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States *"Inhorn makes a powerful argument that Arab lives, and their reproductive rights, matter. Scholars, students, and laypeople interested in rebuilding social and family life in the aftermath of conflict, in refugees and related policy, or anyone who wants to get to know their new Arab neighbors in asylum countries will find this book insightful and thought-provoking." -- Lindsay Gifford * Middle East Journal *"In this moving and thought-provoking ethnography, Inhorn reveals what seems to be absent from the US media, namely, the formidable suffering, be it physical, emotional, or financial, endured by her interlocutors... This extraordinary and original book goes where others have not, in asking the United States to fulfill its moral obligation toward this vulnerable population and urging policymakers to consider 'ethical questions about health-care equity and social justice—or lack thereof—for refugees and immigrants in the US health-care system'" -- Jonas Elbousty * International Journal of Middle East Studies *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction: When Arabs Fled: A Legacy of Conflict chapter abstractNo world region has been more affected by political violence than the Middle East. Prior to 2011, fifteen of the twenty-two Middle Eastern nation-states had suffered from protracted conflicts. Directly and indirectly, the United States has participated in this violence through its long history of military intervention, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since the Arab uprisings of 2011, three new wars have emerged in the Middle East, including the devastating war in Syria. Arabs now constitute the largest percentage of refugees and internally displaced persons in the world. This chapter explores these wars, as well as the flight of Arab refugees to the United States, and introduces readers to the Arab ethnic enclave community known as "Arab Detroit," where the author conducted a five-year anthropological study on the poverty, vulnerability, and reproductive health challenges facing Arab refugees in America. 1Why They Fled: War and the Health Costs of Conflict chapter abstractThis chapter highlights the devastating impact of war on human health. Focusing on war "syndemics," or the interlocking health problems that surface and often kill during times of political violence, Chapter 1 examines the health costs of war in Lebanon and Iraq, the two home countries from which most residents of Arab Detroit fled. Wars in Iraq and Lebanon generated physical, mental, and reproductive health problems, as well as damage to the social structure, infrastructure, and environment. These health costs of conflict are shown through the war stories of several Lebanese and Iraqi men and women, who arrived in the United States after surviving the misery of war. As their stories show, Arab Detroit is home to many traumatized war victims, who attribute their ongoing reproductive health problems to war and its effects. 2Where They Resettled: Poverty on the Margins of Detroit chapter abstractThis chapter focuses on Arab refugee resettlement in the United States. It questions the strategies of the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), including the quantity and quality of assistance given to Arab refugees, especially from Iraq. The chapter asks whether refugee resettlement in economically struggling cities such as Detroit has been a wise decision. It also compares the concentrated poverty and discrimination facing both black and Arab Detroit residents. Poverty affects their ability to secure safe housing, stable employment and education, and the means to improve their standard of living. This chapter thus locates Arab poverty on the margins of Detroit, now the nation's poorest large city. Arab refugees placed in Detroit face many forms of structural vulnerability, the effects of which are shown in this chapter. 3How They Struggle: Health Disparities and Unequal Treatment chapter abstractThis chapter explores the health struggles and reproductive health disparities facing Arab refugees. Drawing inspiration from intersectionality theory forwarded by black feminist scholars, this chapter depicts the reproductive racism faced by both blacks and Arabs, who are seen as "undeserving" reproducers of "black and brown babies" (and future "terrorists," in the case of Arab refugees). Yet infertility is a major reproductive health problem for both of these populations. Among Arab refugees, men in particular face severe male infertility problems, partly due to the stresses, injuries, and toxins of war. In vitro fertilization (IVF) services are costly in the United States—approximately $12,500 per cycle—and rarely covered by insurance. Thus, affording IVF is a profound challenge for impoverished Arab couples, who are effectively banished from the world of test-tube baby making. 4What They Feel: Reproductive Exile between Moral Worlds chapter abstractThis chapter examines the existential feelings of exile among infertile couples in Arab Detroit, who find themselves straddling American secular and Muslim moral worlds in their quests for conception. Islamic religious authorities have condoned IVF to overcome infertility, leading to the growth of a robust IVF industry in the Muslim world. Some infertile Arab couples are able to undertake "reproductive tourism" back to their home countries for this purpose. However, for Iraqi refugees, their home country has been decimated by ongoing war, ISIS violence, and a shattered medical system. Thus, they exist in a state of "reproductive exile," unable to return home but also unable to access IVF in the United States, the most costly nation in the world. Because marriage and parenthood are normative dimensions of adult personhood for Arab couples, reproductive exile may invoke marital crises, as Arab men and women face pressure to achieve their reproductive dreams. Conclusion: Arab Lives Matter: Why America Must Care chapter abstractThe conclusion looks to the future, asking what will happen to vulnerable Arab refugee populations around the world. Four important strategies for improving refugee welfare are described. They include stopping wars in the Middle East, saving war orphans and uprooted Arab families, taking better care of Arab refugees in America, and ensuring health equity and reproductive justice for poor Arab couples, through a global movement for low-cost in vitro fertilization (LCIVF). Given the ongoing wars in the Middle East and the world's worst refugee crisis since WWII, Americans must take a stronger moral stance against war and do more to advocate for refugee health and well-being. Given all that they have lost, Arab refugees deserve to rebuild their family lives in America. Arab lives do matter, and America must care.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"This scholarly, richly documented work is written with great compassion for victims of human rights abuses. Rosenblatt delineates the norms, ethical issues, and complex politics that are relevant when forensic teams investigate gravesites after mass violence has occurred . . . A template for international, multidisciplinary, and volunteer teams with norms of enhanced sensitivity to cultural and political realities has clearly emerged . . . Recommended." -- P.G. Conway * CHOICE *"Digging for the Disappeared is an easy to read text which takes you on a journey in forensic anthropology, archaeology, and human rights work from its insurgence in Latin America and growth in the field thanks to the influence of luminaries such as the late Clyde Snow and Bill Haglund . . . [I]t carries its weight when it comes to the contents, detailed discussion on various themes including the merging human rights movement, transitional governments, and tribunals." -- Keith K. Silica * Staffordshire University *"A work of heart and mind, Digging for the Disappeared is a fascinating, much-needed critique of international forensic ethics and human rights. Rosenblatt rightly calls for a more humanistic approach to the medico-legal examination and care of mortal remains in the wake of mass atrocities and disasters. Required reading for anyone interested in the promotion of justice and social reconstruction in post-war societies." -- Eric Stover * coauthor of The Graves: Srebrencia and Vukovar *"Digging for the Disappeared chronicles an unavoidable chapter in the contemporary struggle for human rights—the search for the remains of the victims of the heinous crime of forced 'disappearances' and the inspiring efforts to train new generations of forensic scientists. It is a moving, thoroughly researched, essential book." -- José Zalaquett * University of Chile *"Digging for the Disappeared opens up the world of forensic investigations of human rights violations to reveal its political, practical, and philosophical complexities. Moving from Argentina to Poland, former Yugoslavia to Rwanda and beyond, Rosenblatt invites us to consider the rights of the dead alongside the politics of the living. The result is a compassionate, compelling call to understand the logics underwriting efforts to recover and name the missing." -- Sarah Wagner * George Washington University *"This book is as bottomless and as urgent as the grief of those whose loved ones lie in mass graves." -- Elaine Scarry * Harvard University *"Adam Rosenblatt's compelling narrative and searing analysis ensure that this book is not only an essential addition to the shelf but also a thoroughly engaging read. His is a perfectly timed analysis of why forensic science is done and the questions that should always be asked, written with a depth of compassion that is unexpected. The simple and accessible approach in parts belies a fiery critical analysis and personalised knowledge . . . The narrative style is a model for forensic writing and analysis that should be highly prized going forward." -- Lucy Easthope and Stephanie Armstrong * Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences *"Despite dealing with subtle and challenging concepts, the book is engaging, self-reflective and surprisingly accessible; Rosenblatt's most significant achievement could, in fact, be the ability to make an academic book on a highly technical subject a page-turner for a broad readership The innovative scope of the book, the unique questions it raises and comprehensively addresses, and its accessibility make it a must-read for anyone interested in human rights, transitional justice, and post-conflict studies more broadly." -- Iosif Kovras * Human Rights Review *"To conclude, Adam Rosenblatt wrote a highly urgent book about the use of forensic science after atrocity. He clearly articulates the politics and contingencies of such humanitarian practices, and makes a persuasive argument for a holistic, victim and mourners centric approach. As such, the book does not necessarily articulate a new approach to forensic practice, yet Rosenblatt's contribution is that he is one of the first authors to eloquently pose the "big" moral, ethical and philosophical questions that human rights workers face during their work. In that sense, the book is an astonishing achievement and should become mandatory reading for anyone interested in human rights, transitional justice, victim identification operations after atrocity and disaster, or forensic science." -- Victor Toom * Journal of Human Rights *"Digging for the Disappeared is an informative, moving, and enriching read, well written and perceptive. This book will serve as a great student introduction to the politics and ethics of exhumation, as it manages to be highly readable and accessible, without glossing over the complexity of these investigations in the real world. It will also be helpful to scientific and forensic practitioners, offering a more reflective perspective than those standard case reports that emphasize protocol and best practice. For those working in dead-body politics, it is a key text, which will stimulate further debate." -- Layla Renshaw * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute_______________________________________________________________________ *Table of ContentsContents and Abstracts1The Stakeholders in International Forensic Investigations chapter abstractThis chapter analyzes the politics of mass graves through the lens of three major stakeholders: courts and war crimes tribunals, transitional governments, and families of the missing. It argues for the necessity of an international perspective based on common dynamics around mass gravesites, the global circulation of forensic experts, and the construction of ethics in the field. Mid-1990s exhumations in Bosnia and Kosovo are described as a "formative controversy" pitting the pressure to collect evidence quickly against the needs of families of the missing. The chapter also looks at two ways of framing the purposes of forensic investigations and the needs of stakeholders: creating a historical record backed by science and building capacity in post-conflict nations. The chapter concludes with a look at the process of identifying Chile's "disappeared," which illustrates how scientific and political realities can complicate simple narratives of collective memory and capacity-building. 2The Politics of Grief chapter abstractAn early and enduring objection to mass grave exhumation is that in offering "closure" to individuals, it undercuts political demands for justice. This perspective was voiced most famously by some of Argentina's famous human rights activists, the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, whose opposing views on exhumation eventually fueled a schism in their ranks. This chapter argues that the Madres' views must be understood within the context of Argentina's particular transitional justice history, as well as for their subsequent impact on families of the missing globally. In contrast to other scholarship, the chapter pays equal attention to the pro-exhumation perspective of the "Línea Fundadora" group of Madres, generally written off as more straightforward and less radical than their peers. Their stance, it argues, is founded on compelling views of the political impact of exhumations, duties to the children of the "disappeared," and the care of the dead. 3Forensics of the Sacred chapter abstractThis chapter examines another important reason some mass graves have not been exhumed: the belief that graves and dead bodies are sacred, and that to disturb them is a desecration. Using halted exhumations of Holocaust-era graves of Jews in Jedwabne, Poland and of massacred refugees in Congo as examples, it argues that the dynamics at these gravesites should not be viewed as clashes between international justice and "local culture" because the interests fueling religious objections are neither exclusively local nor solely religious. The chapter looks at recommendations that have been provided to forensic teams for handling these highly charged situations, and finds that they share a longstanding discomfort—present since the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—with how the idea of the sacred interacts with the language and imperatives of human rights in both theory and practice. 4Dead to Rights chapter abstractThe rights of the dead, rarely invoked by forensic experts, are a last frontier for a field that has already embraced new human rights to truth, knowledge, and even mourning. Yet this frontier of human rights is essential to understanding forensic teams as political communities, the ways their successes and failures are measured, and what role the dead themselves play in the global project of exhumation. This chapter argues that violence against the dead, unlike that directed towards the living, may render them permanently rightless—and that human rights are thus a poor way to understand what exhumation and identification do for the dead. The chapter begins a more modest, concrete description of the changes forensic experts make to dead bodies by detailing the three major types of violence inflicted upon the bodies in mass graves—destruction of identity, placement in an unchosen location, and deprivation of care. 5Caring for the Dead chapter abstractThis chapter offers a care perspective on international forensic investigations and a definition of care in the context of mass graves. It presents care ethics as a way of focusing on relationships and processes over abstract principles, and argues for their importance in describing the relationships between forensic experts, dead bodies, and mourners. Rather than a replacement for human rights or recipe for paternalism, care can also illuminate the dangers and delicate balances of forensic work. The chapter uses examples from memoirs and interviews to show how care and its absence are felt in the field—including in the relationships between forensic investigators. It ends with a call to combine the strands of science and humanism present in forensic investigation by seeing dead bodies as part of a wider landscape of "precious things" and of professions that have dedicated themselves to the repair and maintenance of those things. IntroductionBorn at the Graves: A Human Rights Movement Takes Shape chapter abstractThis chapter provides a historical overview of how forensic science came to be used in the service of human rights causes, beginning with the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo's request for help from American forensic experts to conduct scientific exhumations of Argentina's "disappeared" and aid in the search for their kidnapped grandchildren. It describes forensic investigations as an increasingly institutionalized part of the international response to conflict—a global project of unearthing the dead—which has challenged traditional notions of the purposes of forensic science and required significant adaptation to unforeseen conditions on the ground. The book introduces some of the disciplines involved in forensic investigation, and then outlines four ethical tenets shared by organizations that conduct these investigations through a human rights lens: science as a privileged form of truth, political autonomy, moral universalism, and a focus on the needs of victims and mourners.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"In seeking the consequences of calling specific groups of people 'migrants,' Feldman turns a straightforwardly anthropological question about identity into a searchlight on contemporary politics. His compelling book asks us to pay close attention to what smug politicians perpetrate in the name of high principles and, yes, of good intentions. After reading We Are All Migrants>, no one will have an excuse for letting them get away with it." -- Michael Herzfeld * Harvard University *"We Are All Migrants is an important statement that is both provocative and sensible, a rare combination. Feldman offers a handsome critique of efforts to speak for others, and his work finds good company alongside boundary-crossing essays by Giorgio Agamben and Julia Kristeva." -- Mark Maguire * Maynooth University *"Feldman's book makes an important contribution to theorizing and advancing what a truly universal and solidaristic (rather than hegemonic) revolutionary politics might look like, by drawing important conceptual and political connections between phenomena that are all too frequently treated in isolation: global migration and growing disillusionment with liberal party politics We Are All Migrants offers an important counter-narrative to the endlessly proliferating positivist policy responses to 'the problem of migration'." -- Edward Wilcox * European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology *"Gregory Feldman's We Are All Migrants offers an insightful and pressing polemic examining the uncertainty and atomisation which, he argues, characterise the precarious position of both citizens and migrants in neoliberal capitalism. For a book of 117 pages, the text is incredibly rich, drawing widely on critical philosophers and literary figures." -- Hamish Reid * Political Studies Review *"This book provides for a compelling read, and is a welcome addition to the canon on citizenship, migration and globalisation processes that create and sustain distance between individuals and consequential social space. It also serves as a poignant and necessary reminder that the dividing line between migrant and citizen has become an increasingly blurred one." -- Octavius Pinkard * Social Anthropology *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsPreface: Migrations without Migrants and Migrants without Migrations chapter abstract Introduction: The Presence of Migrant-hood and the Absence of Politics chapter abstractThe book argues 1) that the line between the "citizen" and the "migrant" dissipates under close inspection as both subjects are effectively atomized and consequently disempowered, regardless of their relationship to the state; and 2) that to end the "condition of migrant-hood", people must constitute themselves in sovereign spaces where they appear as particular speaking subjects rather than as abstract citizens or animalized laborers. Along with scholarly literature, We are All Migrants examines this issue in reference to "foundational texts": i.e. books that have been continually re-read and that underpin the shifting foci of cutting edge research. In particular, it draws on the works of Homer, Aristotle, Marx, Tocqueville, Beckett, Coetzee, Levi, Agamben, Foucault, and Arendt. Part I: Atomization: The Ubiquitous Condition of Migrant-hood chapter abstractThe first of the book's three sections examines the modern condition of migrant-hood with respect to politics, economics, and society. It argues that this condition emerges because entry into modern mass society requires the denial of the particular speaking subject, regardless of whether one inhabits the status of "migrant" and "citizen". Part II: Activity: Atomization through Connection chapter abstractThe second section argues that the emphasis on "connections" in today's neoliberal world does not overcome the condition of migrant-hood, but rather exacerbates it. This situation has arisen because the modes in which we are connected – and seen most fully in educated laboring practices supported by large-scale IT systems – still deny the particular speaking subject because they draw upon the laborer's faculty of cognition as opposed to the faculty of thinking. The former reaches certainty through abstract logic, while the latter searches for meaning in the messy, empirical world. People do not distinguish themselves as particular subjects through their cognitive capacities and so atomization persists. Instead, they can only appear as particular speaking subjects when they try to persuade others of what they think ethically about the world around them. Part III: Action: The Presence of Politics and the Absence of Migrant-hood chapter abstractThe third section argues that to overcome the condition of migrant-hood people must be empowered to constitute their own sovereign spaces in which they both disclose themselves as particular speaking subjects to each other while deliberating on how they should inhabit the same space. It is through thinking, judging, and persuading that people appear as their particular selves in the very act of constituting sovereign space between them.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"This manuscript is unique. Dr. Holmes-Eber describes what she learned about the culture of the Marine Corps based on more than seven years of close observation from inside the Marine Corps. Pulling no punches she describes the good and the bad with a practiced eye. Civilian and military leaders interested in the professional education and preparation of officers and non-commissioned officers for service in foreign countries will find much of value in this document." * Lieutenant General (USMC Ret) Paul K Van Riper *"Culture Wars is an engaging ethnographic account of the United States Marine Corps that significantly advances our understanding of military organizations, and adds empirical depth to 'military anthropology.' It is essential reading for anyone interested in the organization of the national security state and in how anthropologists relate to it." -- Robert A. Rubinstein * The Maxwell School of Syracuse University *"Written with an ethnographer's grace and verve, this book offers an empirically adept, theoretically rigorous, insider's account of cultural change within the Marine Corps. It tells how the Corps implemented a directive to build its cultural competence and yet also protected its identity as an elite conventional war fighting force." -- James Burk, Professor of Sociology * Texas A&M University and President of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society *"A work of impressively insightful, informative scholarship, Culture in Conflict is very highly recommended, especially for academic library political science and military history reference collections." -- Midwest Book Review"[Holmes-Eber] discusses how the Marine Corps came to grips with the necessity to expose its officers and enlisted Marines to cultural awareness so they could effectively operate in the combat arena. Yet, this Janowitzian approach conflicted with Marine Corps' warrior ethos. The result is a wonderful case study of an organization trying to merge two conflicting professional paradigms . . . The author does an excellent job of explaining how the different skill sets brought into the Corps by Marine reservists fit into [the concept of 'operational culture'] . . . [F]or anyone interested in professional military education and operating in the varied cultural environments that the Global War on Terrorism is going to demand, this book is a must read." -- John C. Binkley * Military Review *"An objective look inside America's Spartans, the U.S. Marine Corps. Paula Holmes-Eber has done for the Marines what the late Carl Builder did for the other armed services in The Masks of War. Culture in Conflict examines the acculturation that drives the Corps' unique level of individual commitment and sustained organizational excellence. Will appeal to scholars and students of U.S. security institutions and adaptation to contemporary conflict." -- F. G. Hoffman * National Defense University *"Culture in Conflict describes the Marine Corps' assimilation of Department of Defense-directed culture and language training policies since 2003 and how the Corps innovatively structured and standardized its approach to these areas. Marine Corps University Professor of Operational Culture, Dr. Paula Holmes-Eber, meticulously details this complicated process, a work that is enriched by first-hand experience and a clear writing style . . . Culture in Conflict is a valuable and worthwhile book for civilians and military personnel of all branches. It fills a void in the literature on organizational change and deserves wide readership." -- Nathaniel L. Moir * U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings *

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Book SynopsisDigital Militarism considers how social media has become a crucial site in which the Israeli military occupation is supported and sustained.Trade Review"Digital Militarism [...] unravels and explores ways of reading the complex, paradoxical, and often uncomfortable interplay between social media and militarist politics . . . Kuntsman's and Stein's work moves beyond the geopolitical and temporal specificity of the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territories. Their work offers new ways of engaging and thinking about the everyday digitisation of militarism, and the militarisation of the digital everyday more generally . . . Digital Militarism is anything but ordinary."—Esperanza Miyake, darkmatter Journal"Amidst the hype of Facebook revolutions and the ostensible democratizing power of social media, Adi Kuntsman and Rebecca Stein illuminate the counterpoint: online militarization and the extension of state politics into the virtual realm. They expose the machinery of the Israeli state power at work within social media, and show the possibilities for countering the force of this machinery. Powerfully argued, beautifully researched, and thought-provoking, Digital Militarism is vitally important."—Laleh Khalili, SOAS, University of London, author of Time in the Shadows: Confinement in Counterinsurgencies"Digital Militarism is a pioneering book, showing how information and communication technologies have turned into wartime arsenals, and the Internet and social networks into digital battlefields. Just when one thinks that all has been said about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, a totally original perspective emerges. Digital Militarism is a must read."—Neve Gordon, Ben-Gurion University, author of Israel's Occupation"Digital Militarism is a riveting guide to contemporary media strategies, improvisations, and accidents in the theatre of Israeli militarism. The book is as ethical as it is political, searchingly mindful of how documentary practice produces mixed consequences in the everyday and at the limit of life."—Lauren Berlant, University of Chicago"With this genuinely innovative study, Kunstman and Stein open an entirely new direction of research on the Israel/Palestine issue, and pave the way for future debate on the growing digitalisation of military discourses (and militarisation of digital spaces) in the broader context of contemporary armed conflicts, making this book useful not only for scholars specialising in the area, but for all social scientists investigating the cultures and practices of war and soldiering. Finally, warning how information technologies can slowly and subtly transform into new weapons of war and contribute to a process of domestication of violence in a context of prolonged military occupation, the book highlights the need – political and ethical, as well as scientific – for further and deeper investigation into the topic."—Giorgio Gristina, Social Anthropology"Digital Militarism is a well-researched and well-executed study, packed full of examples and visual imagery that help progress our understanding of militarism in the digital age. It skillfully demonstrates how the pervasive nature of social media holds enormous contemporary and strategic importance for those involved in war and violence. And not least, it highlights the pressures placed on the regulatory measures currently in place to manage social media usage by military actors."—Rikke Bjerg Jensen, Media, Culture & SocietyTable of ContentsContents and Abstracts1When Instagram Went to War: Israel's Occupation in the Social Media Age chapter abstractThis chapter provides the historical and theoretical parameters of the book, defining the term "digital militarism" and outlining the ways it has changed during the first two decades of the twenty-first century. It sketches the relationship between the changing Israeli political playfield of these years and the growth of the national culture in social networking and digital literacy. Through a focus on the Instagram accounts of Israeli soldiers during Israel's 2012 assault on the Gaza Strip, the chapter studies the ordinary ways that patriotic militarism can be translated into social media grammars (e.g., selfies, hashtags, "likes"). 2"Another War Zone": The Development of Digital Militarism chapter abstractThis chapter traces the growth of digital militarism in the first two decades of the twenty-first century, chiefly the ways that social media have been incorporated into the toolbox of the Israeli state during times of war and military operations in the occupied Palestinian territories. It focuses on the use of social media by numerous Israeli and pro-Israeli actors – civilians and military users – during two Israeli military assaults on the Gaza Strip (2008-9 and 2012), and during the Flotilla affair of 2010. The chapter also traces the rise of personalized militarism by means of social media and the ways it functions to obscure and excuse Israeli violence. 3Anatomy of a Facebook Scandal: Social Media as Alibi chapter abstractThis chapter focuses on a landmark case in the history of digital militarism: the 2010 exposure of a Facebook album of former Israeli soldier Eden Abergil, containing her joyful self-portraits with bound and blindfolded Palestinian detainees. The chapter traces the social life of this scandal, with a focus on the varying strategies used by Israeli publics to manage the event's dangerous virality by turning away from matters of military occupation onto questions of social media. 4Palestinians Who Never Die: The Politics of Digital Suspicion chapter abstractThis chapter studies the digital doctoring charges that proliferated on Israeli social networks during the 2012 Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip. Israeli social media users took aim at images of Palestinian dead and injured, using digital forensics and everyday modes of what we term "digital suspicion" to assert forgery claims. This is a study of the ways that Israeli and pro-Israeli social media users have employed doctoring charges as a tool of digital militarism. This study is framed within the much longer history of Israeli suspicion of Palestinian political claims and associated evidence. 5Selfie Militarism: The Normalization of Digital Militarism chapter abstractThe book's final chapter reflects on the development of Israeli digital militarism from 2008 to 2014, tracking key shifts in this formulation. It focuses on the changing ways that soldiers have used selfies—the popular genre of mobile self-portraiture, images shared on photo-sharing platforms such as Instagram—to document their experience of life in the Israeli armed forces. The chapter proposes that digital militarism began as an aberrant phenomenon, the activity of marginalized Israeli youth, and has since become an ordinary Israeli practice, an everyday way of living with and representing Israeli military rule.

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Book SynopsisThe mass graves from our long human history of genocide, massacres, and violent conflict form an underground map of atrocity that stretches across the planet''s surface. In the past few decades, due to rapidly developing technologies and a powerful global human rights movement, the scientific study of those graves has become a standard facet of post-conflict international assistance. Digging for the Disappeared provides readers with a window into this growing but little-understood form of human rights work, including the dangers and sometimes unexpected complications that arise as evidence is gathered and the dead are named.Adam Rosenblatt examines the ethical, political, and historical foundations of the rapidly growing field of forensic investigation, from the graves of the disappeared in Latin America to genocides in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia to postSaddam Hussein Iraq. In the process, he illustrates how forensic teams strive to balance the needs of war crimeTrade Review"This scholarly, richly documented work is written with great compassion for victims of human rights abuses. Rosenblatt delineates the norms, ethical issues, and complex politics that are relevant when forensic teams investigate gravesites after mass violence has occurred . . . A template for international, multidisciplinary, and volunteer teams with norms of enhanced sensitivity to cultural and political realities has clearly emerged . . . Recommended." -- P.G. Conway * CHOICE *"Digging for the Disappeared is an easy to read text which takes you on a journey in forensic anthropology, archaeology, and human rights work from its insurgence in Latin America and growth in the field thanks to the influence of luminaries such as the late Clyde Snow and Bill Haglund . . . [I]t carries its weight when it comes to the contents, detailed discussion on various themes including the merging human rights movement, transitional governments, and tribunals." -- Keith K. Silica * Staffordshire University *"A work of heart and mind, Digging for the Disappeared is a fascinating, much-needed critique of international forensic ethics and human rights. Rosenblatt rightly calls for a more humanistic approach to the medico-legal examination and care of mortal remains in the wake of mass atrocities and disasters. Required reading for anyone interested in the promotion of justice and social reconstruction in post-war societies." -- Eric Stover * coauthor of The Graves: Srebrencia and Vukovar *"Digging for the Disappeared chronicles an unavoidable chapter in the contemporary struggle for human rights—the search for the remains of the victims of the heinous crime of forced 'disappearances' and the inspiring efforts to train new generations of forensic scientists. It is a moving, thoroughly researched, essential book." -- José Zalaquett * University of Chile *"Digging for the Disappeared opens up the world of forensic investigations of human rights violations to reveal its political, practical, and philosophical complexities. Moving from Argentina to Poland, former Yugoslavia to Rwanda and beyond, Rosenblatt invites us to consider the rights of the dead alongside the politics of the living. The result is a compassionate, compelling call to understand the logics underwriting efforts to recover and name the missing." -- Sarah Wagner * George Washington University *"This book is as bottomless and as urgent as the grief of those whose loved ones lie in mass graves." -- Elaine Scarry * Harvard University *"Adam Rosenblatt's compelling narrative and searing analysis ensure that this book is not only an essential addition to the shelf but also a thoroughly engaging read. His is a perfectly timed analysis of why forensic science is done and the questions that should always be asked, written with a depth of compassion that is unexpected. The simple and accessible approach in parts belies a fiery critical analysis and personalised knowledge . . . The narrative style is a model for forensic writing and analysis that should be highly prized going forward." -- Lucy Easthope and Stephanie Armstrong * Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences *"Despite dealing with subtle and challenging concepts, the book is engaging, self-reflective and surprisingly accessible; Rosenblatt's most significant achievement could, in fact, be the ability to make an academic book on a highly technical subject a page-turner for a broad readership The innovative scope of the book, the unique questions it raises and comprehensively addresses, and its accessibility make it a must-read for anyone interested in human rights, transitional justice, and post-conflict studies more broadly." -- Iosif Kovras * Human Rights Review *"To conclude, Adam Rosenblatt wrote a highly urgent book about the use of forensic science after atrocity. He clearly articulates the politics and contingencies of such humanitarian practices, and makes a persuasive argument for a holistic, victim and mourners centric approach. As such, the book does not necessarily articulate a new approach to forensic practice, yet Rosenblatt's contribution is that he is one of the first authors to eloquently pose the "big" moral, ethical and philosophical questions that human rights workers face during their work. In that sense, the book is an astonishing achievement and should become mandatory reading for anyone interested in human rights, transitional justice, victim identification operations after atrocity and disaster, or forensic science." -- Victor Toom * Journal of Human Rights *"Digging for the Disappeared is an informative, moving, and enriching read, well written and perceptive. This book will serve as a great student introduction to the politics and ethics of exhumation, as it manages to be highly readable and accessible, without glossing over the complexity of these investigations in the real world. It will also be helpful to scientific and forensic practitioners, offering a more reflective perspective than those standard case reports that emphasize protocol and best practice. For those working in dead-body politics, it is a key text, which will stimulate further debate." -- Layla Renshaw * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute_______________________________________________________________________ *Table of ContentsContents and Abstracts1The Stakeholders in International Forensic Investigations chapter abstractThis chapter analyzes the politics of mass graves through the lens of three major stakeholders: courts and war crimes tribunals, transitional governments, and families of the missing. It argues for the necessity of an international perspective based on common dynamics around mass gravesites, the global circulation of forensic experts, and the construction of ethics in the field. Mid-1990s exhumations in Bosnia and Kosovo are described as a "formative controversy" pitting the pressure to collect evidence quickly against the needs of families of the missing. The chapter also looks at two ways of framing the purposes of forensic investigations and the needs of stakeholders: creating a historical record backed by science and building capacity in post-conflict nations. The chapter concludes with a look at the process of identifying Chile's "disappeared," which illustrates how scientific and political realities can complicate simple narratives of collective memory and capacity-building. 2The Politics of Grief chapter abstractAn early and enduring objection to mass grave exhumation is that in offering "closure" to individuals, it undercuts political demands for justice. This perspective was voiced most famously by some of Argentina's famous human rights activists, the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, whose opposing views on exhumation eventually fueled a schism in their ranks. This chapter argues that the Madres' views must be understood within the context of Argentina's particular transitional justice history, as well as for their subsequent impact on families of the missing globally. In contrast to other scholarship, the chapter pays equal attention to the pro-exhumation perspective of the "Línea Fundadora" group of Madres, generally written off as more straightforward and less radical than their peers. Their stance, it argues, is founded on compelling views of the political impact of exhumations, duties to the children of the "disappeared," and the care of the dead. 3Forensics of the Sacred chapter abstractThis chapter examines another important reason some mass graves have not been exhumed: the belief that graves and dead bodies are sacred, and that to disturb them is a desecration. Using halted exhumations of Holocaust-era graves of Jews in Jedwabne, Poland and of massacred refugees in Congo as examples, it argues that the dynamics at these gravesites should not be viewed as clashes between international justice and "local culture" because the interests fueling religious objections are neither exclusively local nor solely religious. The chapter looks at recommendations that have been provided to forensic teams for handling these highly charged situations, and finds that they share a longstanding discomfort—present since the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—with how the idea of the sacred interacts with the language and imperatives of human rights in both theory and practice. 4Dead to Rights chapter abstractThe rights of the dead, rarely invoked by forensic experts, are a last frontier for a field that has already embraced new human rights to truth, knowledge, and even mourning. Yet this frontier of human rights is essential to understanding forensic teams as political communities, the ways their successes and failures are measured, and what role the dead themselves play in the global project of exhumation. This chapter argues that violence against the dead, unlike that directed towards the living, may render them permanently rightless—and that human rights are thus a poor way to understand what exhumation and identification do for the dead. The chapter begins a more modest, concrete description of the changes forensic experts make to dead bodies by detailing the three major types of violence inflicted upon the bodies in mass graves—destruction of identity, placement in an unchosen location, and deprivation of care. 5Caring for the Dead chapter abstractThis chapter offers a care perspective on international forensic investigations and a definition of care in the context of mass graves. It presents care ethics as a way of focusing on relationships and processes over abstract principles, and argues for their importance in describing the relationships between forensic experts, dead bodies, and mourners. Rather than a replacement for human rights or recipe for paternalism, care can also illuminate the dangers and delicate balances of forensic work. The chapter uses examples from memoirs and interviews to show how care and its absence are felt in the field—including in the relationships between forensic investigators. It ends with a call to combine the strands of science and humanism present in forensic investigation by seeing dead bodies as part of a wider landscape of "precious things" and of professions that have dedicated themselves to the repair and maintenance of those things. IntroductionBorn at the Graves: A Human Rights Movement Takes Shape chapter abstractThis chapter provides a historical overview of how forensic science came to be used in the service of human rights causes, beginning with the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo's request for help from American forensic experts to conduct scientific exhumations of Argentina's "disappeared" and aid in the search for their kidnapped grandchildren. It describes forensic investigations as an increasingly institutionalized part of the international response to conflict—a global project of unearthing the dead—which has challenged traditional notions of the purposes of forensic science and required significant adaptation to unforeseen conditions on the ground. The book introduces some of the disciplines involved in forensic investigation, and then outlines four ethical tenets shared by organizations that conduct these investigations through a human rights lens: science as a privileged form of truth, political autonomy, moral universalism, and a focus on the needs of victims and mourners.

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Book SynopsisSince the British colonial period anthropology has been central to policy in India. But today, while the Indian state continues to use ethnography to govern, those who were the objects of study are harnessing disciplinary knowledge to redefine their communities, achieve greater prosperity, and secure political rights.In this groundbreaking study, Townsend Middleton tracks these newfound lives of anthropology. Offering simultaneous ethnographies of the people of Darjeeling''s quest for tribal status and the government anthropologists handling their claims, Middleton exposes how minorities areand are notrecognized for affirmative action and autonomy. We encounter communities putting on elaborate spectacles of sacrifice, exorcism, bows and arrows, and blood drinking to prove their primitiveness and backwardness. Conversely, we see government anthropologists struggle for the ethnographic truth as communities increasingly turn academic paradigms back upon the state.The DTrade Review"In this remarkable ethnography, Townsend Middleton examines the recursive power of ethnographic classification by demonstrating anthropology's powerful role in the politics of postcolonial recognition in India. At once an ethnography of 'tribal' communities in Darjeeling and of the government anthropologists studying them, this dizzying hall of mirrors will provoke and unsettle."—Akhil Gupta, University of California, Los Angeles, author of Red Tape"This book vividly stages the encounter between the ethnographic state and community politics in northeastern India. Middleton asks how and why a movement for regional sovereignty sought 'the tribal slot' to achieve recognition and redress. He finds the answer in anthropology. With lively prose and keen insight, he illuminates the unruly force of anthropological knowledge within postcolonial governance and rights."—Ajantha Subramanian, Professor of Anthropology and of South Asian Studies, Harvard University"The Demands of Recognition makes a major contribution to the understanding of contemporary indigenous cultural politics. Middleton has a gift for luminous ethnographic narrative and incisive theoretical formulations."—James Clifford, University of California, Santa CruzTable of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction: Becoming 'Tribal' in Darjeeling: An Introduction to the Ethno-Contemporary chapter abstractThis introduction lays out the book's designs for an anthropology of the ethno-contemporary. Calling on examples from the around the world, Middleton defines the ethno-contemporary as an arena of struggle—wherein communities, governments, NGO's, the United Nations, and others are putting ethnology to old and new uses to reshape the prospects of marginalized and indigenous communities at the global level. Within India, the introduction covers the rising politics of affirmative action that have attended economic liberalization since the 1990s. Examining these escalating demands, Middleton elucidates the quandaries of late liberalism. Turning to Darjeeling, he further explains how the tribal movements of the 1990s and 2000s emerged out of a violent history of subnationalist struggle. Situating Darjeeling's tribal turn at this conjuncture of global, national, and local dynamics, the introduction thereby establishes the book's analytic frames, while introducing the communities and government anthropologists who feature throughout its chapters. 1A Searching Politics: Anxiety, Belonging, Recognition chapter abstractChapter 1 explores the shifting terms—and energies—of identity and its politics. Blending historical and ethnographic analysis, the discussion moves from the colonial period to the bleeding-edge of subnationalism today to trace the unsettling histories, anxieties, and desires that animate life and politics at India's margins. The analysis reveals the deep-seated anxieties over belonging—what Middleton calls anxious belongings—that fuel Darjeeling's movements for recognition and autonomy. Through time, these anxieties over being-in and being-of India have made for a categorically searching politics, where the terms change but the conditions of exclusion remain troublingly the same. Historicizing the recent shift from Gorkha to tribal politics, Chapter 1 unearths the conditions driving communities into such intermittently violent and ethnological relations with the state and themselves. Doing so, it develops the tribal turn as a case study of the ethno-contemporary's global contours and intensely local forms. 2Durga and the Rock: A Colonial Category and its Discontents chapter abstractChapter 2 examines the origins of ethnological governmentality in India, focusing on the colonial history of tribal recognition. It uses ethnographic material to launch an historical investigation of how particular ethno-logics—in this case, the binary of castes vs. tribes—become fixtures of state policy and the popular imagination. Middleton examines ethnology's checkered history in India to offer a new reading of 'colonialism and its forms of knowledge'. Despite the conspicuous coloniality of the category tribe, tribal recognition was seldom stable. Through archival readings, Middleton shows it was not epistemic hubris, but rather uncertainty that drove the know-and-rule rationalities of the British. Moving from history to the present-day, he illustrates how colonial knowledge and its uncertainties have come to shape the prospects of millions in postcolonial era—including the people of Darjeeling. This analysis consequently reveals the often-messy pasts that undergird the ethnologically affected present. 3Tribal Recognition: A Postcolonial Problem chapter abstractChapter 3 argues tribal recognition to be a postcolonial problem demanding postcolonial answers. After independence, tribal classification assumed a form and certainty eclipsing its colonial antecedents. Turning attention to these dynamics of postcolonial knowledge, power, and policy, Middleton asks how a troubled colonial category became a centerpiece of postcolonial social justice. The analysis moves from B.R. Ambedkar and the Constituent Assembly Debates of the 1940s, through decolonization, and into the makings of India's multicultural democracy. It chronicles the development of a markedly Hindu-centric liberalism that continues to structure affirmative action and the management of diversity across the subcontinent. With one eye on the postcolonial state and the other on Darjeeling's aspiring tribes, Middleton documents the real-life impacts of these decidedly postcolonial forms of knowledge and power. 4Interface: Encounters of the Multicultural State chapter abstractChapter 4 offers an ethnography of state ethnography itself. The analysis graphically portrays an Ethnographic Survey in 2006, wherein the people of Darjeeling attempted to prove their tribal identity to the anthropologists of the Indian government. The narrative takes the reader into the 'emergency meetings' and eleventh-hour preparations of the communities under investigation, before shifting to the spectacular events of the survey itself. Revealing the competing ethnological tactics of anthropologists and communities alike, Middleton shows the survey to be an interface in every sense of the word. While the event extended a long history of ethnological governmentality, it also signaled new developments on the horizons of ethnic becoming. Framing the survey, then, as a signature moment of the ethno-contemporary, this chapter offers a fundamental rethinking of the proverbial encounter of 'anthropologists and tribes'. 5Soft Science in Hard Places: Government Anthropologists and Their Knowledge chapter abstractChapter 5 charts the inner-workings of today's ethnographic state. Through an anthropology of bureaucracy, the chapter follows government anthropologists as they produce and defend their soft science in the hard places of late liberal governance. Investigating affirmative action from the inside-out, Middleton exposes the impossible demands placed upon these civil servants. On the one hand are communities in need; on the other is an under-resourced affirmative action system, crosscut by contending political agendas and technocratic persuasions. Exploring the quandaries of government anthropologists and their knowledge, this chapter illustrates the hierarchies of expertise that constitute this form of 21st century governance. Middleton goes on to show how these politics within the state impact communities aspiring to the government's care. Chapter 5 provides a necessarily humanized understanding of the operations and operatives of ethnological governmentality today. 6Reforming the Subject: The Effects and Affects of Recognition chapter abstractChapter 6 examines the social, subjective, and affective dynamics of becoming a 21st century tribe. The ethnography focuses on the efforts of ethnic associations, political parties, and everyday citizens to remake the tribal subject. Buoyed by the prospects of affirmative action and autonomy, Darjeeling's tribal movements induced sweeping sensations of ethnic rebirth, but also considerable controversy, confusion, and division. Sorting through these intended and unintended outcomes, Middleton explores how the logics of tribal becoming do and do not make their way into the body and body politic. This chapter's phenomenological analyses offer a balanced look at the positive and darker sides of indigeneity. The vignettes provide intimate portrayals of the hopes, tensions, and ambivalences that marked the tribal turn in Darjeeling. These findings consequently raise pressing (and uncomfortable) questions about how ethnology is being used within contemporary social movements—indigenous, tribal, and otherwise. 7Perpetuated Paradigms: At the Limits of Ethno-Intelligibility chapter abstractAsking what happened after the tribal turn, Chapter 7 covers a shocking series of events by which a television show, Indian Idol, sparked a violent political upheaval. With the birth of a new Gorkhaland Movement in 2007, the terms of mobilization suddenly shifted from tribal back to Gorkha. Like its tribal predecessors, Darjeeling's latest Liberation Front mobilized idioms of indigeneity to render identity anew. Also like its tribal predecessors, the movement failed. Transferring the onus of failure from communities and to the state, Middleton uses these developments to expose the strictures and changing conditions of late liberalism in India. Asking what is old, what is new, and what alternatives exist for minorities amid the state's blinkered grids of ethno-intelligibility, he advocates for a deeper, more historical reading of the ethno-contemporary—one agile enough to track its fluctuating forms, while grounded enough to reveal its enduring exclusions and affects. Epilogue: Negotiating the Ethno-Contemporary chapter abstractThe epilogue steps back to consider what this book's findings mean for communities, governments, and the human sciences. Written in dialogue with postcolonial theory, it addresses the benefits and dangers of ethnographic critique amid the emerging 'lives' of ethnology in the world today. Middleton frames the ethno-contemporary as an intellectual problem and opportunity. The book concludes by offering thoughts on how the 21st century ethnographer might navigate its protean contours and work with its various 'tribes' (anthropologists included) to develop new modes of recognition—and new ways of being—that can better serve us all. Amidst this ethnologically affected present, thinking beyond our current systems of recognition promises to be vital for forging an alternative future.

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Book SynopsisMizing Business with Pleasure discusses how the traditional masculine networking practices that have unofficially become an integral part of governance in post-Mao China have affected the development, progression, and administration of China's HIV epidemic.Trade Review"In revealing how business practices impinge on free time and even enter the bedroom, Uretsky challenges the assumption that reforms in China have led to a decline in Party interference in personal life. This remarkable book uncovers the interaction between work, Party appointment and entertainment in Southwest China."—Anthony J. Saich Harvard University"Elanah Uretsky's forceful ethnography examines the entrenched male rituals of doing business in China, which include banqueting, drinking, smoking, and sexual entertainment—much to the detriment of these men's integrity and health, and to China's HIV/AIDS epidemic more broadly. Occupational Hazards is an important contribution to our understanding of this simultaneously powerful and vulnerable population, and to our understanding of public health in China."—Arthur Kleinman co-author of Deep China and Director, Harvard University Asia Center"Occupational Hazards paints a detailed portrait of the ways in which gender, sexuality, and health-related risks are embedded within social relations and cultural practices. Elanah Uretsky's book is an exceptional ethnographic study offering critical insights into HIV and AIDS—and global health more broadly."—Richard Parker, Columbia University"This book is ethnographically rich and is an intriguing read. It will be welcomed by a wide array of scholars interested in topics such as HIV/AIDS, public health, and gender and sexuality in China and beyond."—Tiantian Zheng, Journal of Anthropological Research"This wonderfully written and empirically rich book shines an important light on the unintended public health consequences of yingchou, an informal practice common among Chinese businessmen that involves heavy drinking, eating, smoking, and, sometimes, commercial sex...The book's strength lies in Uretsky's revealing ethnography and a refreshing first-person narrative rarely seen in social science writing."—Timothy Hildebrandt , The Lancet"Elanah Uretsky provides a rich, detailed ethnography of the entertaining practices and sexual lives of male government officials in Ruili (Yunnan province), where she conducted her fieldwork in the early 2000s. Uretsky marshals this ethnographic data to develop a powerful critique of dominant public health paradigms surrounding STIs and HIV...By weaving together arguments about sexuality, gender, work, borders, and governance, Uretsky crafts a very compelling account of the structures which inform and enable medically "risky" behavior among elite men in China. Any serious attempt to combat HIV, STIs, or even chronic disease in China will have to contend with her findings."—John Osburg, Nan Nu

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Book Synopsis[Multiple options] Nothing visible is worth watching. It's in the hidden parts of the city where everything can be seen. Just playing, or acting out? The answer falls on where you stand: above board or underground. Many Iranians by law are forced to act their parts...so then why is theater so dangerous? Theater is a threat when reality is contained.Trade Review"Last Scene Underground offers a thought-provoking and powerful story about our collective attempts to re-imagine the world. Writing with an inspiring combination of creativity and criticality, Roxanne Varzi has crafted an exceptionally memorable portrait of Iran, bringing both Tehran and its young people to life." -- John L. Jackson, Jr. * University of Pennsylvania *"Literary romance and ethnography are joined in perfect dialogue in Last Scene Underground. Roxanne Varzi has written a rare, powerful book that is both a whirlwind story of how it feels to be young and idealistic during the time of the Green Movement, and a pointed reckoning with the state of censorship in Iran today." -- Nahid Rachlin * author of Persian Girls *"Amazing and wonderful! Roxanne Varzi brings together her own Iranian heritage, excellent ethnographic research, and deep insights—all in a gripping read. In opening a new genre, the ethnographic novel, Varzi conveys the emotions, desires, creativity, and frustrations of so many young people in Iran." -- Mary Elaine Hegland * author of Days of Revolution: Political Unrest in an Iranian Village *"Varzi plays the role of what the anthropologist Renato Rosaldo has called a positioned observer, trying to make sense of life long after the ethnographer's duty of detailed description has been completed. Clifford Geertz has described creative ethnographers such as Varzi as novelists manqué, and she captures what I elsewhere have theorized as ethnographic surfeit. This surfeit is what remains after an ethnographer has paid dues to the science of empirical social knowledge. What is left is not quite hard data, but nonetheless an invaluable remainder of insight, affect, conversation, and emotion; an entire sensorium, which even if the ethnographer wants to, will not let her go." -- Ather Zia * 3:AM Magazine *"This beautifully written book captures the predicament of every Iranian artist who is conflicted between one's own creative imagination, personal and social responsibilities, and political reality." * Shirin Neshat *

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Book SynopsisSince the British colonial period anthropology has been central to policy in India. But today, while the Indian state continues to use ethnography to govern, those who were the objects of study are harnessing disciplinary knowledge to redefine their communities, achieve greater prosperity, and secure political rights.In this groundbreaking study, Townsend Middleton tracks these newfound lives of anthropology. Offering simultaneous ethnographies of the people of Darjeeling''s quest for tribal status and the government anthropologists handling their claims, Middleton exposes how minorities areand are notrecognized for affirmative action and autonomy. We encounter communities putting on elaborate spectacles of sacrifice, exorcism, bows and arrows, and blood drinking to prove their primitiveness and backwardness. Conversely, we see government anthropologists struggle for the ethnographic truth as communities increasingly turn academic paradigms back upon the state.The DTrade Review"In this remarkable ethnography, Townsend Middleton examines the recursive power of ethnographic classification by demonstrating anthropology's powerful role in the politics of postcolonial recognition in India. At once an ethnography of 'tribal' communities in Darjeeling and of the government anthropologists studying them, this dizzying hall of mirrors will provoke and unsettle."—Akhil Gupta, University of California, Los Angeles, author of Red Tape"This book vividly stages the encounter between the ethnographic state and community politics in northeastern India. Middleton asks how and why a movement for regional sovereignty sought 'the tribal slot' to achieve recognition and redress. He finds the answer in anthropology. With lively prose and keen insight, he illuminates the unruly force of anthropological knowledge within postcolonial governance and rights."—Ajantha Subramanian, Professor of Anthropology and of South Asian Studies, Harvard University"The Demands of Recognition makes a major contribution to the understanding of contemporary indigenous cultural politics. Middleton has a gift for luminous ethnographic narrative and incisive theoretical formulations."—James Clifford, University of California, Santa CruzTable of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction: Becoming 'Tribal' in Darjeeling: An Introduction to the Ethno-Contemporary chapter abstractThis introduction lays out the book's designs for an anthropology of the ethno-contemporary. Calling on examples from the around the world, Middleton defines the ethno-contemporary as an arena of struggle—wherein communities, governments, NGO's, the United Nations, and others are putting ethnology to old and new uses to reshape the prospects of marginalized and indigenous communities at the global level. Within India, the introduction covers the rising politics of affirmative action that have attended economic liberalization since the 1990s. Examining these escalating demands, Middleton elucidates the quandaries of late liberalism. Turning to Darjeeling, he further explains how the tribal movements of the 1990s and 2000s emerged out of a violent history of subnationalist struggle. Situating Darjeeling's tribal turn at this conjuncture of global, national, and local dynamics, the introduction thereby establishes the book's analytic frames, while introducing the communities and government anthropologists who feature throughout its chapters. 1A Searching Politics: Anxiety, Belonging, Recognition chapter abstractChapter 1 explores the shifting terms—and energies—of identity and its politics. Blending historical and ethnographic analysis, the discussion moves from the colonial period to the bleeding-edge of subnationalism today to trace the unsettling histories, anxieties, and desires that animate life and politics at India's margins. The analysis reveals the deep-seated anxieties over belonging—what Middleton calls anxious belongings—that fuel Darjeeling's movements for recognition and autonomy. Through time, these anxieties over being-in and being-of India have made for a categorically searching politics, where the terms change but the conditions of exclusion remain troublingly the same. Historicizing the recent shift from Gorkha to tribal politics, Chapter 1 unearths the conditions driving communities into such intermittently violent and ethnological relations with the state and themselves. Doing so, it develops the tribal turn as a case study of the ethno-contemporary's global contours and intensely local forms. 2Durga and the Rock: A Colonial Category and its Discontents chapter abstractChapter 2 examines the origins of ethnological governmentality in India, focusing on the colonial history of tribal recognition. It uses ethnographic material to launch an historical investigation of how particular ethno-logics—in this case, the binary of castes vs. tribes—become fixtures of state policy and the popular imagination. Middleton examines ethnology's checkered history in India to offer a new reading of 'colonialism and its forms of knowledge'. Despite the conspicuous coloniality of the category tribe, tribal recognition was seldom stable. Through archival readings, Middleton shows it was not epistemic hubris, but rather uncertainty that drove the know-and-rule rationalities of the British. Moving from history to the present-day, he illustrates how colonial knowledge and its uncertainties have come to shape the prospects of millions in postcolonial era—including the people of Darjeeling. This analysis consequently reveals the often-messy pasts that undergird the ethnologically affected present. 3Tribal Recognition: A Postcolonial Problem chapter abstractChapter 3 argues tribal recognition to be a postcolonial problem demanding postcolonial answers. After independence, tribal classification assumed a form and certainty eclipsing its colonial antecedents. Turning attention to these dynamics of postcolonial knowledge, power, and policy, Middleton asks how a troubled colonial category became a centerpiece of postcolonial social justice. The analysis moves from B.R. Ambedkar and the Constituent Assembly Debates of the 1940s, through decolonization, and into the makings of India's multicultural democracy. It chronicles the development of a markedly Hindu-centric liberalism that continues to structure affirmative action and the management of diversity across the subcontinent. With one eye on the postcolonial state and the other on Darjeeling's aspiring tribes, Middleton documents the real-life impacts of these decidedly postcolonial forms of knowledge and power. 4Interface: Encounters of the Multicultural State chapter abstractChapter 4 offers an ethnography of state ethnography itself. The analysis graphically portrays an Ethnographic Survey in 2006, wherein the people of Darjeeling attempted to prove their tribal identity to the anthropologists of the Indian government. The narrative takes the reader into the 'emergency meetings' and eleventh-hour preparations of the communities under investigation, before shifting to the spectacular events of the survey itself. Revealing the competing ethnological tactics of anthropologists and communities alike, Middleton shows the survey to be an interface in every sense of the word. While the event extended a long history of ethnological governmentality, it also signaled new developments on the horizons of ethnic becoming. Framing the survey, then, as a signature moment of the ethno-contemporary, this chapter offers a fundamental rethinking of the proverbial encounter of 'anthropologists and tribes'. 5Soft Science in Hard Places: Government Anthropologists and Their Knowledge chapter abstractChapter 5 charts the inner-workings of today's ethnographic state. Through an anthropology of bureaucracy, the chapter follows government anthropologists as they produce and defend their soft science in the hard places of late liberal governance. Investigating affirmative action from the inside-out, Middleton exposes the impossible demands placed upon these civil servants. On the one hand are communities in need; on the other is an under-resourced affirmative action system, crosscut by contending political agendas and technocratic persuasions. Exploring the quandaries of government anthropologists and their knowledge, this chapter illustrates the hierarchies of expertise that constitute this form of 21st century governance. Middleton goes on to show how these politics within the state impact communities aspiring to the government's care. Chapter 5 provides a necessarily humanized understanding of the operations and operatives of ethnological governmentality today. 6Reforming the Subject: The Effects and Affects of Recognition chapter abstractChapter 6 examines the social, subjective, and affective dynamics of becoming a 21st century tribe. The ethnography focuses on the efforts of ethnic associations, political parties, and everyday citizens to remake the tribal subject. Buoyed by the prospects of affirmative action and autonomy, Darjeeling's tribal movements induced sweeping sensations of ethnic rebirth, but also considerable controversy, confusion, and division. Sorting through these intended and unintended outcomes, Middleton explores how the logics of tribal becoming do and do not make their way into the body and body politic. This chapter's phenomenological analyses offer a balanced look at the positive and darker sides of indigeneity. The vignettes provide intimate portrayals of the hopes, tensions, and ambivalences that marked the tribal turn in Darjeeling. These findings consequently raise pressing (and uncomfortable) questions about how ethnology is being used within contemporary social movements—indigenous, tribal, and otherwise. 7Perpetuated Paradigms: At the Limits of Ethno-Intelligibility chapter abstractAsking what happened after the tribal turn, Chapter 7 covers a shocking series of events by which a television show, Indian Idol, sparked a violent political upheaval. With the birth of a new Gorkhaland Movement in 2007, the terms of mobilization suddenly shifted from tribal back to Gorkha. Like its tribal predecessors, Darjeeling's latest Liberation Front mobilized idioms of indigeneity to render identity anew. Also like its tribal predecessors, the movement failed. Transferring the onus of failure from communities and to the state, Middleton uses these developments to expose the strictures and changing conditions of late liberalism in India. Asking what is old, what is new, and what alternatives exist for minorities amid the state's blinkered grids of ethno-intelligibility, he advocates for a deeper, more historical reading of the ethno-contemporary—one agile enough to track its fluctuating forms, while grounded enough to reveal its enduring exclusions and affects. Epilogue: Negotiating the Ethno-Contemporary chapter abstractThe epilogue steps back to consider what this book's findings mean for communities, governments, and the human sciences. Written in dialogue with postcolonial theory, it addresses the benefits and dangers of ethnographic critique amid the emerging 'lives' of ethnology in the world today. Middleton frames the ethno-contemporary as an intellectual problem and opportunity. The book concludes by offering thoughts on how the 21st century ethnographer might navigate its protean contours and work with its various 'tribes' (anthropologists included) to develop new modes of recognition—and new ways of being—that can better serve us all. Amidst this ethnologically affected present, thinking beyond our current systems of recognition promises to be vital for forging an alternative future.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"With immense sympathy and curiosity, Woronov untangles the economic and political structures limiting life prospects for vocational education students in China. Refusing to see 'class sorting' as a solely Chinese problem, Class Work provides a rich critique of the neoliberal human capital model linking employment and education. Woronov sensitively enters the social world of oft-ignored young people trapped in the system—a fine ethnography by a masterful writer."—Judith Farquhar, University of Chicago"Combining rich ethnography with incisive analyses, Class Work is a wonderfully original account of the political economy of vocational education in contemporary China. Woronov illuminates several timely issues including the making of a new urban working class for the service sector, shifting regimes of value, flexible labor, and the fate of youth who are labeled as 'failures' in a transforming China."—Li Zhang, University of California, Davis"While everyone else looks the other way, Woronov draws our attention to the unglamorous experiences of millions of vocational students, who are viewed as academic and moral failures in urban China. This exemplary ethnography is full of insights into education, class formation and capitalism. It's an engaging read for anyone interested in China's complex realities and its potential futures."—Tamara Jacka, The Australian National University"In this deservedly ambitious book, Woronov argues for the emergence of a new working class in China, one employed in the short-term service sector. Her powerful and rich ethnography of two vocational schools reveals nothing less than the transformation of value/s in China."—Nancy Abelmann, University of Illinois"Class Work provides deep and original insights into the 'nascent formation of a new urban working class,' which are of particular interest for scholars of labor, education, public services and social inequality in China, as well as comparative sociologists focusing on education and social stratification in developing countries."—Armin Müller, China Quarterly"This engrossing volume makes one wonder if these young people's circumstances portend an atomized urban world to come, even as Woronov senses a new sort of class in the making. The sensitive fieldwork and perceptive reflections of this study mark it as a piece of scholarship that transcends its own subject matter, and it should attract and engage readers at various levels in the fields of anthropology, sociology, education, and political science. The book will encourage contemplation among those who would not have imagined that studying these outcast students could carry much weight."—Dorothy J. Solinger, The China Journal"Class Work certainly meets the criteria good ethnography as it contributes both to deepening our understanding of the particular while also theorising from the particular to further broader questions on youth, education, and class formation that are of obvious relevance beyond the Chinese context. As such, Class Work deserves a wide readership both within and beyond youth studies and should certainly not be read by China scholars only. "—Roy Huijsmans, Children's Geographies"Class Work is an ethnography of vocational education and an anthropology of class formation. It offers an entirely new analytical perspective on the structure and practice of vocational education in China and provokes stimulating theoretical reflections on the making of social hierarchy and class after Mao. It is an excellent piece of scholarship that deserves a broad readership of students and researchers from different academic disciplines."—Mette Halskov Hansen, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute"Woronov's Class Work is a masterful piece of scholarship depicting a relatively understudied youth group in contemporary China. It deepens our understanding of how these 'failures' of the stereotypical Chinese cram schools struggle with the ideology of numeric capital, and meanwhile, build up new moral meanings and social relations in reference to the so-called 'mainstream society.' Woronov's sharp observation might open up new possibilities for further discussion of the process of new class formations and social transformations in the rapidly changing Chinese society."—Linlin Li, The Asia Pacific Journal of AnthropologyTable of ContentsContents and Abstracts1Numeric Capital chapter abstractThis chapter presents an overview of the high-stakes exam system that places up to half of China's secondary school students in vocational education and seeks to understand the stigmatization of vocational students in urban China. Refuting the common "culturalist" perspective that naturalizes Chinese students' desires for ever-increasing educational credentials as a reflex of traditional Chinese culture, this chapter instead focuses on the contemporary ideology and policies of human capital accumulation. The chapter argues that the this ideology turns young people into a fetish, whereby their exam scores stand for social value, and replace the child and his/her labor with a number. This regime of value is called "numeric capital," a term designed to capture both the ideology of human capital accumulation that specifies a normative life course for young people of striving for measurable educational and material achievement, and the state-based structures that make this possible. 2Vocational Schools chapter abstractChapter 2 outlines the history of vocational education in China, highlighting its roots in Republican-era efforts to limit urban working classes' aspirations for social mobility. This chapter introduces the Bridge and Canal Schools, the book's ethnographic research sites, and discusses the implications of their different institutional settings. While one school was a contemporary version of a socialist-era "worker training school," whose graduates were assigned jobs through within the socialist labor allocation into the work unit (danwei) system, the other was based entirely on capitalist models of labor reproduction. These different structures demonstrate some of the ways the socialist and capitalist modes continue to co-exist and intersect in urban China. 3Vocational Students chapter abstractChapter 3 introduces the students at both schools, focusing on the social diversity represented in the vocational school classrooms as students from urban working class, rural, and second-generation migrant families come together to study. This chapter first challenges the common stereotypes of vocational secondary students, showing how their decisions to enter vocational studies mark them as moral and filial youth. Then seeking to understand the class formations taking place in and through vocational schools, the chapter argues that the HSEE, the testing regime that fails vocational students out of the academic stream, acts as a class sorting mechanism. The exam funnels working-class students, who cannot afford other options, into vocational schools, while graduates of these schools are locked out of future white-collar and middle-class jobs, thereby forming a new sector of the working class. 4Teachers, Teaching and Curriculum chapter abstractChapter 4 discusses teachers and teaching, arguing that teachers' contractual relationship with their employers (either permanent or temporary) influenced pedagogy in the schools. the kind of. Permanent teachers were hired through the socialist "iron rice bowl" system, managed through redistributive logic and moral suasion. The part-time teachers worked under a rational capitalist logics, and modeled flexible labor practices for their students. The chapter examines daily classroom practice, and shows that both schools "devocationalized" their technical curricula, by stripping their instruction of actual skills training. Extending the discussion about class sorting from Chapter 3, this chapter looks at classes in language standardization in the two schools to show how these young people were unprepared to enter working-class jobs in the new service economy. 5Creating Identities chapter abstractChapter 5 looks at how the students think about themselves, and the question of students' identity. Rather than assuming that the students all "had" an identity that needed to be "voiced," this chapter argues that the students' subjectivities had to be actively produced. The chapter explores the teachers' efforts to get the students to create narratives of themselves as desiring, choosing subjects, propelled into futures driven by ever more accumulation of material goods and numeric capital. The students, however, resisted these efforts, creating identities as moral, filial and cosmopolitan youth on different terms than those established by their teachers and dominant middle-class discourse. Chapter 5 explores the contradictory pressures on the vocational students to both express and restrain their self expression in key domains, and how these contradictions are linked to the students' class positions. 6Jobs, Internships, and the School-to-Work Transition chapter abstractChapter 6 follows vocational school graduates as they attended internships, training classes to prepare for job interviews, job fairs, and to their first jobs, to understand the school-to-work transition as they entered the service economy. This chapter explores several key issues that the students discovered in process of job hunting. First, in the absence of family connections, they had to negotiate how their vocational credential appealed to employers, and whether or not their education distinguished them from rural migrant laborers. Second, although the entry-level service sector provided seemingly endless opportunity for horizontal mobility, there was limited opportunity for social or horizontal mobility as they rapidly switched jobs. 7Precarious China chapter abstractChapter 7 meets some of the vocational school graduates several years later. This chapter summarizes their experiences as new members of the urban working class, and compares the vocational school graduates with some of their age-mates around the world. Arguing that they are forming a new Chinese "precariat," this chapter positions the students and their lives as young adults within a global framework of service workers in short-term, low-paid, tenuous, work. This chapter also explores the question of class consciousness, arguing that although several factors seem to constrain the emergence of working-class consciousness among this group of new service-sector workers, their history of passive resistance in school and their creative approaches to the challenges of adult life may open the possibility of new identities and new forms of collective consciousness in the future.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"The Strange Child offers a lucid and compassionate analysis of the increasingly uncertain lives of children and young adults in post-bubble Japan. With extreme rigor and effortless grace, Arai shows us how the institutions of the state, family, school, law enforcement, and psychology encroach into the lives of youth. The Strange Child is a must read for scholars of Japan studies and anyone interested in process of subject-formation deployed on children and young adults in the contemporary global political-economy of uncertainty."—Miyako Inoue, Stanford University"The Strange Child is a stunning interpretative articulation between historical analysis and detailed ethnographic reporting on an everydayness that brackets its history. In Arai's reckoning, Japan's late 20th century economic recession produced symptoms of unease that were unburdened on the figure of the child, undermining a postwar representation of a managed national identity promoting dependence. She has both constructed a brilliant accounting of how the child was constituted as a problem for restructuring a new collective identity and defined the role played by psychology and education in formulating a remedial ideology recommending greater independence to meet the demands of neoliberal capitalism."—Harry Harootunian, Columbia University"Andrea Arai's highly anticipated book how the Japanese state and a range of diverse institutions imbushowsed the figure of the 'child' with the myriad anxieties of economic recession, beginning in the 1990s. The Strange Child powerfully critiques the deleterious effects of neoliberal reforms on Japanese society, particularly children and youth, yet also reveals unexpected possibilities for creativity and community among the 'strange children' now transforming Japan in the aftermath of ongoing financial uncertainty, political restriction, and nuclear disaster."—Marilyn Ivy, Columbia University"Based upon initial fieldwork from 1999 through 2001, and extended with return visits to Tokyo, Kobe, and Kochi through 2014, this book has benefitted greatly from the processes of long-term research resulting in a complexly woven engagement with Japan as it scrambles to make sense of its own dislocation.The best monographs are those that generate questions because they draw us in and make us think. Indeed, The Strange Child does this."—Christine R. Yano, Journal of Japanese Studies"Arai's analysis is highly persuasive, weaving together her wealth of ethnographic data with insights drawn from her extensive reading of the educational, sociological, and cultural studies literature....Arai's contribution is to show how psychological pseudoscience and moralistic grandstanding have been used to frame mainstream understandings of the national predicament. She argues convincingly that these discourses have helped legitimize a radically regressive redistribution of wealth and opportunity and have engendered a disturbing tilt toward nationalism. Ind doing so, she brings considerable sophistication and depth to debate over education."—Edward Vickers, Monumenta Nipponica"The book is a valuable contribution to the ongoing debates within Japan and scholars of Japan regarding the role of public policy and corporate strategies in overcoming the apparent weaknesses in Japanese governance and schooling."––June A. Gordon, Pacific Affairs

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Book SynopsisThis book examines the formation, entrenchment, and sociopolitical consequences of land conflict in the Negev region of Israel as it has become defined along ethnic lines.Trade Review"Emily McKee's study of land issues in the Negev is a highly rewarding read. Her keen ethnographic eye reveals a parallel existence: Bedouins morphing from agropastoralists to the marginalized poor, living alongside Israeli settlers conditioned to view the natural environment, complete with its Orientalized others, as a frontier battlefront. The result is an engaging and cohering account of the Israeli-Arab conflict from a perspective seldom utilized before." -- Dan Rabinowitz * Tel-Aviv University *"Dwelling in Conflict is a rare book. Few could have written about this fraught place with such detail, balance, and sophistication. Emily McKee beautifully reveals the underlying environmental imaginaries and discourses—among both Jews and Bedouin— and shows the potential for more environmentally friendly policies and more peaceful, just relations in the Negev." -- Diana K. Davis * University of California, Davis *"Rarely does an ethnography simultaneously provoke intellectual and theoretical engagement, invite a carefully balanced rethinking of an aforethought intractable conflict, and contain such beautifully crafted prose as to inspire furious page-turning...[R]eaders come away from Dwelling in Conflict with a nuanced appreciation of how day-to-day interactions among Bedouin Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel are filtered through the lenses of history, narrative, memory, stigma, pride, family and heritage, agency and strategy, violence and suffering, and embodied understandings of material environments." -- Tanya J. King * Human Ecology *"McKee's well-written, readable book attends to the Bedouin voice from below and the way it expresses both historical and contemporary connection to place...[S]he conducts a sensitive analysis of how the Bedouins have been constructed within the Zionist perspective as the ultimate Other...Dwelling in Conflict invites readers to understand Israeli Jewish-Arab relations as constructed in conditions of inequality, segregation and separation."––Safa Aburabia, Traditional Dwellings and Settlements ReviewTable of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction chapter abstractThe book begins with an introduction to the lived experiences of Negev land conflict and the pessimism with which many residents view prospects for amelioration. The introduction reviews existing sociopolitical explanations for Palestinian-Israeli conflict and explains the added benefits of considering this conflict as environmental, too. It lays out the book's argument that environmental discourses have been used by people on all sides of the conflict to naturalize a binary division between Jews and Arabs. The text explains the political dwelling perspective that guides the book's analysis, drawing phenomenologically oriented notions of landscapes as the embodiments of residents' dwelling tasks together with political ecology's keen attention to the material and ideological importance of power in shaping relations between people and their environments. Discussion of the study's multiple field sites and its design of boundary crossing frames a discussion of methodology and of the ethics of researching within ongoing conflict. 1Narrating Present Pasts chapter abstractThis chapter examines the use of several dominant environmental discourses in competing Zionist and counter-Zionist Negev land claims. A historical examination of three key discourses within the Zionist movement explains the layered meanings that references to key topics such as farming, territory, wilderness, and rootedness, hold today. This discursive genealogy continues to influence the tactics and strategies of contemporary land struggles, particularly for Bedouin Arab residents telling histories of the Naqab. On one level, reminiscences counter erasures in Zionist narratives, peopling the barren wastelands of Zionist accounts with vibrant Bedouin Arab communities. However, even those accounts that most forcefully oppose Zionist histories on the surface often rest on environmental discourses shared with Zionism, such as the power of labor in land to bolster claims. 2Seeking Recognition chapter abstractThis chapter compares two cases of "illegal" land use to consider the stakes of environmental discourses and the land claims they support. In one case, Jewish farmstead owners built houses on agricultural land and in the other, Bedouin Arab residents built on lands declared as state-owned. In both cases the government threatened eviction, and residents sought governmental recognition of their land claims, but they faced very different public and governmental responses. The chapter develops the idea of de-cultural accommodation to demonstrate the social and political production of laws and illegality. Following the discursive genealogy in chapter one, this chapter demonstrates how dominant environmental discourses in Israel, despite being contingent because they are historically shaped and not naturally given, hold great power to carve the Negev into socially and geographically segregated spaces. Bridge: Distant Neighbors chapter abstractA bridge introduces the second half of the book, which zooms in on the everyday dwelling practices and experiences of residents in the Negev in order to explore how residents shape and are shaped by the state-planned landscapes within which they dwell. The bridge introduces the social and spatial distance between the two case study towns that provide the bulk of this dwelling analysis. It depicts the region's divided landscapes by narrating the disjointed journey necessary to move from one town to the next, but it also shows residents ability to creatively use these landscapes by describing two atypical ventures into the largely abandoned buffer zone between the towns. 3Coping with Lost Land chapter abstractChapter three focuses on life in 'Ayn al-'Azm, a government-planned township for Bedouin Arabs. Recalling former homes with more rural lifestyles, many residents viewed their moves into the planned township as a shift from freedom to restriction, intra-family closeness to inter-family friction, and self-sufficiency to dependence. Government plans for "modernization" and efficiency created landscapes that felt uncomfortable to many residents and prevented agricultural and pastoral dwelling practices. Residents coped with this urban planning with taskscapes that ranged from acquiescence (e.g., establishing a nuclear family household and taking up wage labor) to "making do," in de Certeau's sense of the term (e.g., staking a tent in front of one's concrete block house), to public advocacy (e.g., a heritage tourism venture). Most formed ambivalent attachments to the township, feeling felt strong ties to family and neighborhood, but alienation from the township as a collective landscape. 4Reforming Community chapter abstractThis chapter presents the Jewish moshav of Dganim, settled by new immigrants from Cochin, India in the 1950s. Striving to meet Zionist priorities of nation building, moshav residents built a cooperative farming community. However, this farming role collapsed in recent years, leaving not just agriculture but also cooperative work in jeopardy of disappearing from the moshav. As residents have sought out new endeavors to support the moshav, many have viewed Cochini heritage tourism as the moshav's best hope for cooperative success within Israel's new economic climate. In the course of their economic transitions, residents have chosen taskscapes that affirmed moshav lands as Jewish and separated them from nearby Bedouins. Throughout the chapter, comparisons and contrasts drawn between Dganim and 'Ayn al-'Azm show how two very different experiences with government planners have led residents to develop different senses of place and different understandings of their own power to shape place. 5Challenging Boundaries chapter abstractThis chapter probes the potential of deliberate engagement with the everyday politics of dwelling to shift dominant environmental discourses. It examines three environmental justice campaigns run by Bustan—political and environmental educational tours, an alternative energy campaign, and sustainable design classes—attending to their successes and stumbles. Through practical involvement in home building, energy provisioning, and personal and governmental planning, these campaigns aim to change norms of land ownership and ethno-political identification in Israel. The group proceeds through "bricolage activism," resourcefully re-deploying existing ideas, practices, and rhetoric about Bedouins and Jews, citizenship, and society and nature. This activism attempts to re-signify divisive discourses with more inclusive frames of co-residence, stewardship, and socio-environmental sustainability. The chapter considers the potential and limitations of Bustan's efforts to challenge the status quo of land conflict through a politics of boundary softening, rather than purely confrontational activism. Conclusion: chapter abstractThe conclusion pulls analysis forward to more recent developments in the Negev. Analyzing debates about a government proposition for settling Negev land claims known as the Prawer Plan and a proposal to develop new Negev towns, it demonstrates that well-worn binary oppositions between Jew and Arab, progress and tradition, and culture and nature continue to guide discussion in implicit and explicit ways. The conclusion suggests how the insights of the book's political attuned dwelling analysis can be used to develop interventions, such as integrated planning and boundary softening, that may be capable of achieving just and lasting solutions to the stymied conflict.

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