Society and culture: general Books
The University of Chicago Press Professional Powers A Study of the
Book Synopsis
£27.00
The University of Chicago Press Managing to Make It Urban Families Adolescent
Book SynopsisBased on over 500 interviews/case studies of families in inner-city Philadelphia, this text reveals how parents managed different levels of resources and dangers in low-income neighbourhoods and how this management, rather than community involvement, contributed to the success of their children.
£30.00
University of Chicago Press An Interpretation of Desire Essays in the Study
Book SynopsisSpanning Gagnon's work from the 1970s and extending through to the 1990s, these essays constitute an essential work on the study of sexuality in the twentieth century.
£30.40
The University of Chicago Press The Perils of Belonging Autochthony Citizenship
Book SynopsisTraces the concept of autochthony back to the classical period and incisively explores the idea in two very different contexts: Cameroon and the Netherlands. This book examines the emotional appeal of autochthony - as well as its dubious historical basis - and sheds light on a range of issues, such as multiculturalism, and national citizenship.Trade Review"This is an ambitious, astute, and timely effort to address one of the most interesting and potentially troubling trends in our contemporary world, namely, the rise of politically charged passions about belonging. Geschiere's judicious and incisive analysis offers a model of how an academic investigation can shed light on a major global problem." - Daniel Jordan Smith, Brown University"
£27.00
The University of Chicago Press The Afterlife Is Where We Come From The Culture
Book SynopsisIn this ethnography of babies, Alma Gottlieb focusses on the Beng people of West Africa. A Beng infant is thought to begin life filled with spiritual knowledge, having been reincarnated after a rich life in a previous world.
£30.00
The University of Chicago Press Moving Politics Emotion and ACT UPs Fight
Book SynopsisChronicles the rise and fall of ACT UP - the organization founded by lesbians and gay men - highlighting a key factor in its trajectory: emotion. This book offers an account of ACT UP's origin, development, and decline as well as a look at the role of emotion in contentious politics.Trade Review"Moving Politics is not just a rich and rigorous history of ACT UP. It is also that rarest of works: one that simultaneously breaks new empirical ground while challenging our more general conceptual understanding of the subject matter. Quite simply, it will be hard for social movement scholars following Gould to ignore the emotional dimensions and dynamics of struggle." - Doug McAdam, Stanford University"
£76.00
The University of Chicago Press The Marriage Exchange Property Social Place and
Book SynopsisThis study of how 282 men in the United States found their jobs demonstrates the importance of social connections and emphasizes how social activity influences labour markets. The importance of networking as a link between labour mobility and individual motivation is also studied.Table of ContentsPreface to the Second Edition Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Pt. 1: Toward Causal Models Ch. 1: "Job Search" and Economic Theory Ch. 2: Contacts and Their Information Ch. 3: The Dynamics of Information Flow Ch. 4: The Dynamics of Vacancy Structure Ch. 5: Contacts: Acquisition and Maintenance Ch. 6: Career Structure Ch. 7: Some Theoretical Implications Pt. 2: Mobility and Society Ch. 8: Mobility and Organizations Ch. 9: Comparative Perspectives Ch. 10: Applications Afterword 1994: Reconsiderations and a New Agenda Appendix A: Design and Conduct of the Study Appendix B: Coding Rules and Problems Appendix C: Letters and Interview Schedules Appendix D: Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness References Index
£28.00
The University of Chicago Press Regionalism and the Readings Class
Book SynopsisGlobalization and the Internet are smothering cultural regionalism, that sense of place that flourished in simpler times. These two villains are also prime suspects in the death of reading. Or so alarming reports about our homogenous and dumbed-down culture would have it. This book shows that neither of these claims stands up under scrutiny.Trade Review"This is a bold, multi-textured, and extremely interesting book that combines fascinating theoretical points with empirically supported case studies. Wendy Griswold explores new territory and underscores its significance cogently and incisively." - Elizabeth Long, author of Book Clubs"
£32.30
University of Chicago Press Aged by Culture
Book SynopsisIn this work, Margaret Morganroth Gullette reveals that ageing doesn't start in our chromosomes, but in midlife downsizing, the erosion of workplace seniority, threats to social security, and "greedy" Baby Boomers.
£24.00
The University of Chicago Press The Culture of Public Problems DrinkingDriving
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£30.00
The University of Chicago Press Marginal Gains
Book SynopsisThis study reveals how popular economic systems work in Africa, and elsewhere in the Third World.
£24.00
The University of Chicago Press Lesser Harms
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£28.00
The University of Chicago Press Getting Your Way Strategic Dilemmas in the Real
Book SynopsisWhen we donate our unwanted clothes to charity, we rarely think about what will happen to them: who will sort and sell them, and finally, who will revive and wear them. This volume looks at the multibillion dollar secondhand clothing business, as well as its impact on the African economy.
£31.56
The University of Chicago Press Sex and Scientific Inquiry
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£18.58
The University of Chicago Press The Invention of Religion in Japan Emersion
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£24.00
University of Chicago Press Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia The
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£38.00
The University of Chicago Press Last Best Gifts Altruism and the Market for Human
Book SynopsisAs the demand for blood and organs has grown, the value of a system that depends solely on gifts has been called into question. This title offers a fresh perspective on this ethical dilemma, by examining the social organization of blood and organ donation in Europe and the United States.Trade Review"In Last Best Gifts, Kieran Healy offers a timely, sophisticated, and original analysis of the complex organizational terrain of blood and organ donation. In doing so, he unpacks the crucial role that organizations and institutions play in creating the contexts for, and the meanings of, giving. His analysis suggests that the relationship between gifts and commodities, between giving and selling, is more complex than many scholars acknowledge." - Wendy Espeland, Northwestern University"
£26.00
The University of Chicago Press Faeries Bears and Leathermen Men in Community
Book SynopsisOver time, male homosexuality and effeminacy have become indelibly associated, sometimes even synonymous. Through a comparative ethnographic analysis of three communities, it explores the surprising ways that conventional masculinity is being collectively challenged, subverted, or perpetuated in contemporary gay male culture.Trade Review"There is an artistic elegance to Hennen's ability to provide a playful and ethnographically rich glimpse into the social worlds he travels through while at the same time adding to important theoretical debates in the sociologies of gender, sexuality, and queer theory." - Wayne H. Brekhus, University of Missouri - Columbia"
£27.00
The University of Chicago Press The Social Production of Indifference
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£27.00
The University of Chicago Press The Body Impolitic Artisans and Artifice in the
Book Synopsis"The Body Impolitic" is a critical study of tradition, not merely as an ornament of local and national heritage, but also as a millstone around the necks of those who are condemned to produce it.
£28.00
The University of Chicago Press Truth in Motion The Recursive Anthropology of
Book SynopsisEmbarking on an ethnographic journey to the inner barrios of Havana among practitioners of Ifa, a prestigious Afro-Cuban tradition of divination, this book reevaluates Western ideas about truth in light of the practices and ideas of a wildly different, and highly respected, model.Trade Review"Truth in Motion is very much an intellectual journey, a rigorous engagement with Cuban divination and theories of meaning. It is extremely original, innovative - indeed daring and radical - in its invitation to replace our entire bedrock of representational semantics (and its associated distinctions between words and objects, signifiers and signifieds, judgments and facts, substances and attributes, etcetera) with a more generative ontology of 'inventive definitions.' " (Andrew Apter, University of California, Los Angeles)"
£28.00
The University of Chicago Press The New Urban Renewal
Book SynopsisTwo of the most celebrated black neighborhoods in the United States - Harlem in New York City and Bronzeville in Chicago - were once plagued by crime, drugs, and abject poverty. But now both have transformed. This work explores the factors - local, national, and global - driving the remarkable revitalization of these two iconic black communities.Trade Review"This crisply written elucidation of the forces behind the revitalization of Bronzeville and Harlem is an original and important addition to our understanding of urban politics and black-led gentrification. In particular, Hyra's detailed analysis of the contrasting political styles of Chicago and New York City is unique and insightful. A pleasure to read." - Lance Freeman, author of There Goes the Hood: Views of Gentrification from the Ground Up"
£24.00
The University of Chicago Press Minima Ethnographica Intersubjectivity the
Book SynopsisRejecting abstractions of culture, this text proposes an existential anthropology that recognizes even abstract relationships as modalities of interpersonal life. Michael Jackson's work shows how general ideas are always anchored in particular social events and critical concerns.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments The One and the Many The Intersubjective Turn Seven Types of Intersubjective Ambiguity Vita Activa Balance/Control Life Stories The Itinerary of an Idea Playing with Reality Writing Intersubjectivity Borderlines Distance Lends Enchantment Penis Snatchers Auctoritas Chiasmus Sacrifice Fetish Color Triad Roads and Bridges The Other Island First Contact The Women Who Became the Pleiades Losing the Straight Way Myths/Histories/Lives Clearing the Ground The Bag of Clothes Ghosts An Etiology of Storms Jarramali Bajaku Storying Fugue Where Thought Belongs An Island in the Stream References Index
£76.00
The University of Chicago Press Minima Ethnographica Intersubjectivity and the
Book SynopsisRejecting abstractions of "culture", this text proposes an existential anthropology that recognizes even abstract relationships as modalities of interpersonal life. Michael Jackson's work shows how general ideas are always anchored in particular social events and critical concerns.
£30.00
The University of Chicago Press Stateville The Penitentiary in Mass Society
Book SynopsisStateville penitentiary in Illinois has housed some of Chicago's most infamous criminals and was proclaimed to be the world's toughest prison by Joseph Ragen, Stateville's powerful warden from 1936 to 1961. It shares with Attica, San Quentin, and Jackson the notoriety of being one of the maximum security prisons that has shaped the public's conception of imprisonment. In Stateville James B. Jacobs, a sociologist and legal scholar, presents the first historical examination of a total prison organizationadministrators, guards, prisoners, and special interest groups. Jacobs applies Edward Shils's interpretation of the dynamics of mass society in order to explain the dramatic events of the past quarter century that have permanently altered Stateville's structure. With the extension of civil rights to previously marginal groups such as racial minorities, the poor, and, ultimately, the incarcerated, prisons have moved from society's periphery toward its center. Accordingly Stateville's control mechanisms became less authoritarian and more legalistic and bureaucratic. As prisoners' rights increased, the preogatives of the staff were sharply curtailed. By the early 1970s the administration proved incapable of dealing with politicized gangs, proliferating interest groups, unionized guards, and interventionist courts. In addition to extensive archival research, Jacobs spent many months freely interacting with the prisoners, guards, and administrators at Stateville. His lucid presentation of Stateville's troubled history will provide fascinating reading for a wide audience of concerned readers. . . . [an] impressive study of a complex social system.Isidore Silver, Library Journal
£30.00
The University of Chicago Press Uncertain Honor Modern Motherhood in an African
Book SynopsisOffers an intimate look at the lives of African women trying to reconcile motherhood with new professional roles in a context of dramatic social change. The author argues that Beti women delay motherhood as part of a broader attempt to assert a modern form of honor only recently made possible by formal education, Catholicism, and economic change.Trade Review"Jennifer Johnson-Hanks provocatively begins where other studies end. Rather than assuming a generic 'modernity' that inexplicably shapes pregnancy decisions, she probes deeply to find a complex tangle of lived realities that shape the maternity/education nexus among Beti women in Cameroon. A bold and beautifully realized meditation on schooling and education." - Alma Gottlieb, author of The Afterlife Is Where We Come From"
£76.00
The University of Chicago Press Blessing SameSex Unions
Book SynopsisJordan also argues that no matter what the courts do, Christian churches will have to decide for themselves whether to bless same-sex unions. No civil compromise can settle the religious questions surrounding gay marriage.
£31.00
The University of Chicago Press Old People New Lives Community Creation in a
Book SynopsisAn American anthropologist, Jennie Keith . . . went to live for twelve months in a French housing scheme for retired people and as a participant observer conducted a study in community creation. This book, in which she describes and analyses her experience, is a delight. It is scholarly and draws on a wide range of studies of similar residences and other collectives; it is also vivid, funny, sad and entertaining.Marie Borland, British Journal of Social Work
£30.00
The University of Chicago Press A Politics of Virtue Hinduism Sexuality and
Book SynopsisKelly opens new questions about dialogue, colonial power, and changing conditions of political possibility by examining the connection between politics and sexual morality in the British colony of Fiji from 1929 to 1932.
£38.00
The University of Chicago Press Gender
Book SynopsisKessler and McKenna convincingly argue that gender is not a reflection of biological reality but rather a social construct that varies across cultures. Valuable for its insights into gender, its extensive treatment of transsexualism, and its ethnomethodological approach, Gender reviews and critiques data from biology, anthropology, sociology, and psychology.
£26.00
The University of Chicago Press An Invitation to Laughter A Lebanese
Book SynopsisAn autobiography of Fuad I Khuri, both an insider's and an outsider's perspective on life in Lebanon, elsewhere in Middle East, and in West Africa. It provides insights into such issues as mentality of Arabs toward women, eating habits of Arab world, impact of Islam on West Africa, and extravagant lifestyles of wealthy Arabs, and more.Trade Review"Fuad I. Khuri was one of the most thoughtful and insightful anthropologists working on the Middle East. His published work always exhibited two very special qualities: he chose bold issues and he had an extraordinary eye for the small yet revealing detail. No one should be surprised that An Invitation to Laughter captures and extends those traits so well." - Lawrence Rosen, Princeton University"
£26.00
The University of Chicago Press Governing Educational Desire Culture Politics
Book SynopsisThat parents in China greatly value higher education for their children is a well-known aspect of contemporary Chinese culture, but the intensity and effects of their desire to achieve this goal have largely gone unexamined. This title explores this universal desire for a college education and its vast consequences.Trade Review"Kipnis convincingly demonstrates how crucial education is for shaping the strategies, dreams, and desires of Chinese families. But the main contribution of this book is the way it manages to place this educational desire in a larger context of how China is governed and in a comparative framework that shows Chinese students' feverish desire for education as part of a global phenomenon that cannot be reduced to Chinese, or even East Asian, cultural peculiarity." (Stig Thogersen, Aarhus University)"
£30.00
The University of Chicago Press Yoruba Bata Goes Global Artists Culture Brokers
Book SynopsisResponding to international interest in Yoruba culture, practitioners of bata performance have presented themselves as an emblem of traditional Nigeria. Locally, however, the market for bata has been declining. This work explores this disjunction, revealing the world of bata artists and the global culture market that helps to sustain their art.
£24.00
The University of Chicago Press Travesti Sex Gender Culture among Brazilian
Book SynopsisFollowing the lives of a group of transgendered prostitutes in Salvador, this text analyzes the ways that they modify their bodies, explores their motivations, examines their complex relationships and discovers how prostitution for most travestis is a positive and affirmative experience.
£25.00
The University of Chicago Press Coordination Information Historical
Book SynopsisCase studies examining how firms co-ordinate economic activity in the face of asymmetric information are the focus of this volume. It studies the development of the flow of information and co-ordination of economic activity within and between firms.
£34.20
The University of Chicago Press Apprenticeship in Critical Ethnographic Practice
Book SynopsisInterweaves analysis of the process of apprenticeship among the Vai and Gola tailors of Liberia with reflections on the evolution of the author's research on those tailors in the late 1970s. This title shows how the critical questions raised by ethnographic research erode conventional assumptions, altering the direction of the work that follows.Trade Review"This is a fascinating and brilliant book that chronicles Lave's career-long effort to escape the dualistic logics that constrain social analysis and to come to terms with what it means to recognize that context is everything. As Lave compels and challenges us to rethink and redo pretty much everything we have been doing as social analysts so far, we find that we have to dispense with more than a few of our tried and true concepts." (Bill Maurer, University of California, Irvine)"
£30.00
The University of Chicago Press The Story of Lynx
Book SynopsisIn this wide-ranging work, Claude Levi-Strauss examines the mythology of American Indians and seeks to illustrate how contact with Europeans have altered these tales.
£24.00
The University of Chicago Press Tahitians Mind and Experience in the Society
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£42.75
The University of Chicago Press Bones of Contention Controversies in the Search
Book SynopsisA behind-the-scenes look at the search for human origins, analyzing how the biases and preconceptions of paleoanthropologists shape their work. The stories of the Taung Child and Neanderthal Man provide the background to the modern search for an exploration of how and where humans evolved.
£30.00
The University of Chicago Press Gay Fatherhood Narratives of Family and
Book SynopsisChronicles the lives of gay men, exploring how they cope with political attacks from both the 'family values' right and the 'radical queer' left - while also shedding light on the evolving meanings of family in twenty-first-century America.Trade Review"Gay Fatherhood is doubly a magnificient achievement: it not only offers an exemplary investigation into the lived experience of gay parenting, but also shows how the struggles and triumphs of these gay men and their children can act as a kind of lens into how American cultures more broadly understand family, love, responsibility, and belonging." - Tom Boellstorff, University of California, Irvine"
£72.20
The University of Chicago Press Book Clubs Women and the Uses of Reading in
Book SynopsisWhy do women join book clubs? What do the women discuss when they meet? to answer questions like these, Long spent years observing and participating in women's book clubs in the Houston area. She discovered that members find reading a crucial way for them to reflect on their lives.
£27.00
The University of Chicago Press Lovable Racists Magical Negroes and White
Book SynopsisIn this incredibly timely book, David Ikard dismantles popular white supremacist tropes, which effectively devalue black life, and trivialize black oppression. Lovable Racists, Magical Negroes, and White Messiahs investigates the tenacity and cultural capital of white redemption narratives in literature and popular media from Uncle Tom's Cabin to The Help. In the book, Ikard explodes the fiction of a post-racial society while awakening us to the sobering reality that we must continue to fight for racial equality or risk losing the hard-fought gains of the Civil Rights movement. Through his close reading of novels, films, journalism, and political campaigns, he analyzes willful white blindness and attendant master narratives of white redemption arguing powerfully that he who controls the master narrative controls the perception of reality. The book sounds the alarm about seemingly innocuous tropes of white redemption that abound in our society and generate the notion that blacks are per
£23.00
The University of Chicago Press Unnatural Emotions Everyday Sentiments on a
Book Synopsis"An outstanding contribution to psychological anthropology. Its excellent ethnography and its provocative theory make it essential reading for all those concerned with the understanding of human emotions."--Karl G. Heider, "American Anthropologist"
£24.00
The University of Chicago Press Animal Intimacies Interspecies Relatedness in
Book SynopsisIn 2007 a disputed election in Kenya erupted into a political crisis that led to thousands of deaths. Much of the violence fell along ethnic lines, the principal perpetrators of which were the Kalenjin. Uncovering the Kalenjin's roots, the author examines the ways in which ethnic groups are socially constructed and renegotiated over time.Trade Review"This is an indispensable guide to understanding the distinctive place of Kalenjin nationalism in Kenyan politics and the recent post-election violence as well as the role of ethnicity in Africa more broadly. Lynch is superb in explaining both the persistent dissension within the Kalenjin as well as the way unity was achieved in the context of the ethnic logic of Kenyan politics, the dynamics of which she has exceptional insight into." (Adam Ashforth, University of Michigan)"
£30.00
The University of Chicago Press Oppositional Consciousness The Subjective Roots
Book SynopsisHow can people be induced to sacrifice even one minute of their lives for the group's sake? These essays conceptualize the patterns of negotiation, struggle, and crafting that characterize "oppositional consciousness", a mental state that prepares an oppressed group to undermine a dominant system.
£30.00
University of Chicago Press ParaSites A Casebook against Cynical Reason
Book SynopsisThis is the penultimate volume in the "Late Editions" series, exploring how social actors located within centres of power and privilege develop and express a critical consciousness of their own situations.
£109.25
The University of Chicago Press Bargaining for Brooklyn
Book SynopsisWhen middle-class residents fled American cities in the 1960s and '70s, government services and investment capital left too. Countless urban neighborhoods entered phases of precipitous decline, prompting the creation of community-based organizations to bring resources back to the city. This book examines such organizations that drive urban life.Trade Review"This is a valuable work that will influence the way sociologists understand the cycle of development of poor, urban neighborhoods. Nicole Marwell makes a unique contribution with an analytic strategy that emphasizes the important role played by community-based organizations, actors that have been generally ignored in urban sociology." - Mitchell Duneier, author of Sidewalk"
£28.00
The University of Chicago Press Bad News Good News Conversational Order in
Book SynopsisUncovering the verbal and nonverbal patterns in the bearing of news on everyday conversations, as well as hospitals and other settings, Maynard shows how people give and receive good or bad news, how they come to realize the news and share it with others.
£34.20
