Search results for ""AltaMira Press,U.S.""
AltaMira Press,U.S. Symbols and Meaning: A Concise Introduction
Womack offers a concise and easy-to-read overview of the power and meaning of symbols in all human societies. She describes how symbols_images, words, or behaviors with multi-layered meanings_are mechanism of communication. She demonstrates how we experience the power of symbols in all aspects of human life: birth, death, love, sexual desire, and the need for food and shelter. Womack investigates the use of symbols in the language of religion, healing, politics, social organization and control, popular culture, psychology, philosophy, semiotics, magic and expressive culture, including art, aesthetics, literature, theater, sports, and music. The author's eclectic, anthropological approach incorporates the social, conceptual and psychological dynamics of symbols. Her new book is an essential introductory textbook for courses that define fundamental concepts in religion, cultural anthropology, communication, and art.
£134.93
AltaMira Press,U.S. Sneaky Kid and Its Aftermath: Ethics and Intimacy in Fieldwork
Brad—a schizophrenic school dropout and 'sneaky kid'—first appeared as a squatter near Harry Wolcott's forest home. He becomes Wolcott's subject in a long-term life history on how the educational system can fail students. Wolcott's trilogy of articles based on their years of interviews were well-received...until he admitted to an intimate relationship with the young man who, two years after leaving his shack, returned and attempted to murder the anthropologist. The Brad Trilogy then became the focus of heated academic discussions of research ethics, validity, intimacy, and the limitations of qualitative research. Here, Wolcott presents the full story of the Sneaky Kid and the firestorm it caused. Written in Wolcott's masterful style, the case offers an ideal starting point for discussing the complex public and personal dimensions of qualitative research with students. Included as an Appendix is the complete script of Johnny Saldana's ethnodrama recounting the story in play form.
£143.26
AltaMira Press,U.S. The Home: Its Work and Influence
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Home is a scathing attack on the domesticity of women in the early 20th century. Her central argument, that 'the economic independence and specialization of women is essential to the improvement of marriage, motherhood, domestic industry, and racial improvement' resonates in this work. Throughout, she maintains that the liberation of women—and of children and of men, for that matter—requires getting women out of the house, both practically and ideologically. AltaMira Press is proud to reprint this provocative work and introduce Charlotte Perkins Gilman to a new generation of students and feminist scholars.
£55.94
AltaMira Press,U.S. Material Culture and Sacred Landscape: The Anthropology of the Siberian Khanty
This study provides a concrete example of how foraging societies enculturate and transform the natural environment and, through the use of material objects, create sacred spaces and sites. Using ethnographic and ethnohistorical information about the Khanty of Siberia, Jordan shows the shortcomings of both interpretive and materialist anthropological theorizing about hunters and gatherers. He focuses on the rich and complex relationship between the symbolism of the Khanty, their material culture, and the bringing of meaning to physical places. His examination looks at the topic in both historical and contemporary contexts, and in scales from the core-periphery model of Russian colonialism to the portrait of a single yurt community. Jordan's work will be of importance to those studying cultural anthropology, archaeology, and comparative religion.
£157.96
AltaMira Press,U.S. Du Bois on Education
Although W. E. B. Du Bois was one of the most significant educational thinkers of the twentieth century, many are still unaware of his relevance in this field. DuBois on Education corrects this oversight by collecting Du Bois's major writings on education in one volume. Together these selections powerfully demonstrate Du Bois's commitment to racial educational equality and his contributions to educational thought. Raised in poverty himself, Du Bois combined public education with determination to become the first African-American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard. Yet he saw that education could be used to keep down as well as raise up. Arguing against Booker T. Washington and his accommodationist Hampton model, Du Bois called for a radical vision where a 'Talented Tenth' of college educated blacks would lead African-Americans to their highest possibilities. Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr. in detailed introduction traces Du Bois's life as a student and teacher, plus his fights for educational equality throughout his life. He has also given each of the twenty-two selections included in this volume short introductions placing the pieces in their historical and critical contexts. Du Bois on Education is an important resource for classes in history, education, African-American studies, or for anyone wishing to understand the last 100 years of black American life and education.
£146.68
AltaMira Press,U.S. Gender and Social Movements
Do men and women experience participation in social movements differently? Are gender roles reproduced or undermined during a struggle for liberation? In this brief text examining gender roles in social movements, M. Bahati Kuumba shows how liberation struggles are viewed through women's eyes and how gender affects women's mobilization, strategies, and outcomes in social movement organizations. Using two well-known examples, the American civil rights movement and the South African national liberation movement, Kuumba documents the circumscribed roles of women, the unheralded role of movement leaders such as Ella Baker and Frances Baard, and how gender affected movement activities and results. Gender and Social Movements is the ideal text to introduce a sophisticated view of race and gender into social movement courses.
£140.69
AltaMira Press,U.S. Social Memory and History: Anthropological Perspectives
In Social Memory and History, a group of anthropologists, sociologists, social linguists, gerontologists, and historians explore the ways in which memory reconstructs the past and constructs the present. A substantial introduction by the editors outlines the key issues in the understanding of social memory: its nature and process, its personal and political implications, the crisis in memory, and the relationship between social and individual memory. Ten cross-cultural case studies—groups ranging from Kiowa songsters, Burgundian farmers, elderly Phildelaphia whites, Chilean political activists, American immigrants to Israel, and Irish working class women—then explore how social memory transmits culture or contests it at the individual, community, and national levels in both tangible and symbolic spheres.
£143.39
AltaMira Press,U.S. Gender and Governance
States are where the power lies, and power is gendered. With these simple statements, Lisa Brush turns a gendered lens on states, power, and governance, showing the inherent inequalities in political systems and gender systems and how they intersect. Her gender lens allows a clear assessment of the different effects state power and social polices have on men and women, highlighting both difference and dominance in the governance of gender. She then turns her eye on the way in which state power supports male dominance, the gender of governance. Her nuanced arguments supported by cases from the American and other western political systems will make this book a useful antidote to traditional textbooks on government, the state, politics, and social policy.
£138.73
AltaMira Press,U.S. Religions in Asian America: Building Faith Communities
The flux of Asian immigration over the last 35 years has deeply altered the United States' religious landscape. But neither social scientists nor religious scholars have fully appreciated the impact of these growing communities. And Asian immigrant religious communities are significant to the study of American religion not only because there are more than ten million Asian Americans. Asian American religions differ substantially from models drawn from European religions, pushing for new wider understandings. Religions in Asian America provides a comprehensive overview of the religious practices of Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian Americans. How these new communities work through issues of gender, race, transnationalism, income disparities and social service, and the passing along an ethnic identity to the next generation make up the common themes that reach across essays about the varying communities. The first sociological overview of Asian American religions, Religions in Asian America is necessary reading for those interested in Asians, ethnicity, immigration or religion in the United States.
£143.64
AltaMira Press,U.S. The Power of the Machine: Global Inequalities of Economy, Technology, and Environment
Hornborg argues that we are caught in a collective illusion about the nature of modern technology that prevents us from imagining solutions to our economic and environmental crises other than technocratic fixes. He demonstrates how the power of the machine generates increasingly asymmetrical exchanges and distribution of resources and risks between distant populations and ecosystems, and thus an increasingly polarized world order. The author challenges us to reconceptualize the machine—'industrial technomass'—as a species of power and a problem of culture. He shows how economic anthropology has the tools to deconstruct the concepts of production, money capital, and market exchange, and to analyze capital accumulation as a problem at the very interface of the natural and social sciences. His analysis provides an alternative understanding of economic growth and technological development. Hornborg's work is essential for researchers in anthropology, human ecology, economics, political economy, world-systems theory, environmental justice, and science and technology studies. Find out more about the author at the Lund University, Sweden web site.
£137.65
AltaMira Press,U.S. Collaborative Programs in Indigenous Communities: From Fieldwork to Practice
Harrison's book is a valuable reference for developing collaborative programs between indigenous groups and outside experts. In it she outlines the process of program design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation, for formal or pilot programs. The rich case study materials provides details on collaborative programs in economic development, education, social services, and health. Her book will be an essential tool in anthropological practice and research methods, for courses in ethnographic methods, comparative indigenous studies, multicultural education, and Native American studies. Visit the School of Maori and Pacific Development Web site at the University of Waikato, New Zealand.
£143.51
AltaMira Press,U.S. The Chinese in America: A History from Gold Mountain to the New Millennium
This new collection of essays demonstrates how a politics of polarity have defined the 150-year experience of Chinese immigration in America. Volume editor Cassel relates how the well-publicized accusations of espionage against scientist Wen Ho Lee at the nuclear facility at Los Alamos can be understood as part of an ongoing systemic and institutionalized racism in American society. Chinese-Americans have been courted as "model workers" by American business, but also continue to be perceived as perpetual foreigners. The contributors offer engrossing accounts of the lives of immigrants, their tenacity, their diverse lifeways, from the arrival of the first Chinese gold miners in 1849 into the present day. The 21st century begins as a uniquely "Pacific Century" in the Americas, with an increasingly large presence of Asians in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The book will prove to be a valuable resource on the Asian immigrant experience for researchers and students in Chinese American studies, Asian American history, immigration studies, and American history. The Chinese in America is published in cooperation with the Chinese Historical Society of Greater San Diego and Baja California.
£67.11
AltaMira Press,U.S. In Her Mother's House: The Politics of Asian American Mother-Daughter Writing
Unwilling to see Asian American women silenced beneath the noisy discourses of feminists, cultural nationalists, and Eurocentric historians, Wendy Ho turns to specific spoken stories of mothers and daughters. Against reductive tendencies of scholarship, she places her own conversations with her China-born grandmother and her U.S.-born mother and her own readings of other Asian American women writers. She finds in the writings of Maxine Hong Kingston, Amy Tan, and Fae Myenne Ng not only complex mother-daughter relationships but many-faceted relationships to fathers, family, community, and culture. Always resisting the simplistic explanations, In Her Mother's House brings Asian American women's experience as mothers and daughters to the forefront of gender and ethnicity.
£131.34
AltaMira Press,U.S. Evolution In An Anthropological View
With characteristic intelligence, wit, and a willingness to challenge conventional wisdom, C. Loring Brace brings together 35 years of work into a monumental statement on evolutionary anthropology. An advocate of integrated, four-field anthropology, Brace begins by asking: Which anthropological data can benefit from an evolutionary perspective, and which cannot? Succeeding chapters present path-breaking research on Darwinism, race, cladistics, phylogeny, Neanderthals, dentition, craniometry, fossil evidence, and cultural ecology that raise provocative questions for the entire discipline. Reworked and updated into an accessible whole, the chapters weave analyses of scientific data, intellectual history, and anthropological theory with both grace and rigor. Evolution in an Anthropological View will stand as a milestone of twentieth century anthropology, and essential reading for all anthropologists, and their students.
£136.86
AltaMira Press,U.S. Phytoliths: A Comprehensive Guide for Archaeologists and Paleoecologists
The study of phytoliths—inorganic silica remnants plants leave behind when they die and decay—has developed dramatically over the last twenty years. New publications have documented a diverse array of phytoliths from many regions around the globe, while new understandings have emerged as to how and why plants produce phytoliths. Together, these developments make phytoliths a powerful tool in reconstructing past environments and human uses of plants. In Phytoliths, Dolores Piperno makes sense of the discipline for both those working directly with phytoliths in the field or the lab as well as for those who rely on the results of phytolith studies for their own research. Including over a hundred images, Piperno's book will be of great benefit to archaeologists and paleobotanists in the classroom or the lab.
£152.13
AltaMira Press,U.S. Chinese American Death Rituals: Respecting the Ancestors
Death is a topic that has fascinated people for centuries. In the English-speaking world, eulogies in poetic form could be traced back to the 1640s, but gained prominence with the "graveyard school" of poets in the eighteenth century often stressing the finality of death. Chinese American Death Rituals examines Chinese American funerary rituals and cemeteries from the late nineteenth century until the present in order to understand the importance of Chinese funerary rites and their transformation through time. The authors in this volume discuss the meaning of funerary rituals and their normative dimension and the social practices that have been influenced by tradition. Shaped by individual beliefs, customs, religion, and environment, Chinese Americans have resolved the tensions between assimilation into the mainstream culture and their strong Chinese heritage in a variety of ways. This volume expertly describes and analyzes Chinese American cultural retention and transformation in rituals after death.
£98.90
AltaMira Press,U.S. The Chinese in America: A History from Gold Mountain to the New Millennium
This new collection of essays demonstrates how a politics of polarity have defined the 150-year experience of Chinese immigration in America. Volume editor Cassel relates how the well-publicized accusations of espionage against scientist Wen Ho Lee at the nuclear facility at Los Alamos can be understood as part of an ongoing systemic and institutionalized racism in American society. Chinese-Americans have been courted as 'model workers' by American business, but also continue to be perceived as perpetual foreigners. The contributors offer engrossing accounts of the lives of immigrants, their tenacity, their diverse lifeways, from the arrival of the first Chinese gold miners in 1849 into the present day. The 21st century begins as a uniquely 'Pacific Century' in the Americas, with an increasingly large presence of Asians in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The book will prove to be a valuable resource on the Asian immigrant experience for researchers and students in Chinese American studies, Asian American history, immigration studies, and American history. The Chinese in America is published in cooperation with the Chinese Historical Society of Greater San Diego and Baja California.
£99.76
AltaMira Press,U.S. The Inclusive New Testament
While The Inclusive New Testament is certainly an inclusive-language translation, it is much more: it is a re-imagining of the Christian scriptures and our relationship to them. Not merely replacing male pronouns, the translators have rethought what kind of language has built barriers between the text and its readers. Seeking to be faithful to the original Greek, they have sought new and non-sexist ways to express the same ancient truths. The Inclusive New Testament is a fresh, dynamic translation into modern English, carefully crafted to let the power and poetry of the language shine forth-particularly when read aloud-giving it an immediacy and intimacy rarely found in translations of the Bible. The Inclusive New Testament is also available together with The Inclusive Psalms or as a part of The Inclusive Bible.
£42.24
AltaMira Press,U.S. Museums in the Digital Age: Changing Meanings of Place, Community, and Culture
Museums in the Digital Age: Changing Meanings of Place, Community, and Culture showcases how the use of technology in museums should be understood as factors directly related to the museums’ notion of community, local culture, and place, whether these places are in mid-America, urban metropolises, or ethnically diverse and underserved communities. Here, museum expert Susana Smith Bautista brings more than twenty years of experience in cultural institutes in Los Angeles, New York, and Greece to propose a social understanding of why museums should be adopting technology, and how it should be adapted based on their particular missions, communities, and places. This book is timely because we are in the midst of the digital age, which is rapidly changing due to rapidly changing developments in technology and society as well, with social adaptations of technology. Theory is always racing to catch up with practice in the digital age, but theory remains a critical - and often neglected - component to accompany the practical application of technology in museums. In order to illustrate these points, the book presents five case studies of the most technologically advanced art museums in the United States today: ·The Indianapolis Museum of Art ·The Walker Art Center ·The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art ·The Museum of Modern Art ·The Brooklyn Museum Each case study ends with a Lessons Learned section to bring these points home. While the case studies focus on museums in the United States, and also on art museums, this book is relevant to all types of museums and to museums all over the world, as they equally face the challenge of incorporating technology into their institutions. Although these case studies are all well-established and well-endowed museums, Bautista reveals valuable insight into the difficulties they face and the questions they are asking which are relevant to even the smallest museum or community cultural center.
£100.61
AltaMira Press,U.S. Globalization, Health, and the Environment: An Integrated Perspective
Leading health scholars reveal the impact of globalization on human health, as it is mediated through environmental change. They explore the destabilizing impact of globalization on the planet's ecology, and on the health of the human populations that are dependent on the delicate global bionetwork. Their timely case studies describe the cultural adaptations of indigenous populations to their changing environments, evaluating their technological and global political-economic processes. The authors analyze local and global public health strategies, examine the association between globalization and demographies, and offer creative solutions for future health policies. This book will be a valuable resource for professionals in international health, medical anthropology, sociology and geography, environmental studies, and globalization studies.
£89.46
AltaMira Press,U.S. Exploring Maya Ritual Caves: Dark Secrets from the Maya Underworld
Exploring Maya Ritual Caves offers a rare survey and explication of most of the known ancient Maya ritual caves in Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. The caves were the Maya underworld, where rituals, including animal and human sacrifice, were carried out. The Maya cave cult and mythology, construction and modification of the caves, and cult art and artifacts are discussed. Chládek, an intrepid explorer, then describes important caves that he has recently visited and provides photos of their wonders.
£68.85
AltaMira Press,U.S. Legal Anthropology: An Introduction
Legal Anthropology: An Introduction offers an initial overview of the challenging debates surrounding the cross-cultural analysis of legal systems. Equal parts review and criticism, James M. Donovan outlines the historical landmarks in the development of the discipline, identifying both strengths and weaknesses of each stage and contribution. Legal Anthropology suggests that future progress can be made by looking at the perceived fairness of social regulation, rather than sanction or dispute resolution as the distinguishing feature of law.
£102.33
AltaMira Press,U.S. Chinese American Death Rituals: Respecting the Ancestors
Death is a topic that has fascinated people for centuries. In the English-speaking world, eulogies in poetic form could be traced back to the 1640s, but gained prominence with the 'graveyard school' of poets in the eighteenth century often stressing the finality of death. Chinese American Death Rituals examines Chinese American funerary rituals and cemeteries from the late nineteenth century until the present in order to understand the importance of Chinese funerary rites and their transformation through time. The authors in this volume discuss the meaning of funerary rituals and their normative dimension and the social practices that have been influenced by tradition. Shaped by individual beliefs, customs, religion, and environment, Chinese Americans have resolved the tensions between assimilation into the mainstream culture and their strong Chinese heritage in a variety of ways. This volume expertly describes and analyzes Chinese American cultural retention and transformation in rituals after death.
£64.66
AltaMira Press,U.S. Communities and Conservation: Histories and Politics of Community-Based Natural Resource Management
The distinguished environmentalists in this collection offer an in-depth analysis and call to advocacy for community-based natural resource management (CBNRM). Their overview of this transnational movement reveals important links between environmental management and social justice agendas for sustainable use of resources by local communities. In this volume, leaders who have been instrumental in creating and shaping CBNRM describe their model programs; the countermapping movement and collective claims to land and resources; legal strategies for gaining rights to resources and territories; biodiversity conservation and land stabilization priorities; and environmental justice and minority rights. This book will be of value to instructors, practitioners and activists in anthropology, cultural geography, environmental justice, environmental policy, political ecology, indigenous rights, conservation biology, and CBNRM.
£109.20
AltaMira Press,U.S. Handbook of Oral History
Originally intending to produce the first comprehensive scholarly reference guide to the antecedents, practices, and theory of oral history, the editors have gone even further, creating a highly readable and useful tool for scholars, students, and the general public. Covering the vast scope of this increasingly popular field, the eminent contributors discuss almost every aspect of a field that once was the province of historians but now has become increasingly democratized and available across numerous disciplines.
£157.15
AltaMira Press,U.S. Gaining Access: A Practical and Theoretical Guide for Qualitative Researchers
Gaining access is a critical part of doing research, not only because one must "get in" in order to gain information, but also because the quality of access affects what information is available to the researcher. Despite its importance, the literature on qualitative methods has not yet provided an extensive treatment of this issue. Gaining Access fills the void by offering useful, prescriptive advice on how to successfully enter different field settings for interviewing and observation. The detailed methodological guidelines presented by the authors are reinforced in a set of case studies by expert researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds on a wide variety of formal and informal settings, from working with ethnic minorities in Bosnia to studying prisons, sex workers, welfare offices, and the clergy. This book will provide useful ideas to experienced qualitative researchers as well as invaluable advice to novices conducting their first study.
£36.23
AltaMira Press,U.S. Longitudinal Qualitative Research: Analyzing Change Through Time
Johnny Salda-a outlines the basic elements of longitudinal qualitative data, focusing on micro-levels of change observed within individual cases and groups of participants. He draws upon his primary experience in theater education to examine time and change in longitudinal qualitative studies; contending that 'playwrights and qualitative researchers write for the same purpose: to create a unique, insightful, and engaging text about the human condition.' Offering sixteen specific questions through which researchers may approach the analysis of longitudinal qualitative data, Professor Salda-a presents a text intended as a primer for fellow newcomers to long term inquiry, based on traditional social science methods from traditional qualitative and quantitative paradigms, but enriched by an artist-educator's unconventional perspective.
£136.85
AltaMira Press,U.S. Gender and Governance
States are where the power lies, and power is gendered. With these simple statements, Lisa Brush turns a gendered lens on states, power, and governance, showing the inherent inequalities in political systems and gender systems and how they intersect. Her gender lens allows a clear assessment of the different effects state power and social polices have on men and women, highlighting both difference and dominance in the governance of gender. She then turns her eye on the way in which state power supports male dominance, the gender of governance. Her nuanced arguments supported by cases from the American and other western political systems will make this book a useful antidote to traditional textbooks on government, the state, politics, and social policy.
£39.66
AltaMira Press,U.S. Manufacturing Powerlessness in the Black Diaspora: Inner-City Youth and the New Global Frontier
Despite the economic utopianism brought on by globalization, effective solutions to the persistent plight of urban blacks throughout the African diaspora continue to elude scholars, politicians, and community leaders. Charles Green brings a decade of research and original fieldwork in Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States to investigate the interface of the historic racism faced by these urban communities and contemporary trends of globalization. Green pays particular attention to the condition of the youth, whose aspirations, vulnerabilities, and insights into their own conditions are central to the future prospects for their communities as a whole. Considering the impacts of economic restructuring and cultural diffusion alike, his analysis asserts the importance of both global ties and local distinctiveness. Ultimately, Manufacturing Powerlessness aims to encourage the formation of alliances throughout the diaspora so that urban black communities can manufacture a future of empowerment. Visit the author's web page
£39.66
AltaMira Press,U.S. GroundWork for Community-Based Conservation: Strategies for Social Research
While ecological and biophysical sciences have dominated the theory and practice of conservation, practitioners and researchers worldwide know that conservation initiatives have profound social impacts and consequences for local communities and cultures. This concise and accessible book will give students and practitioners a solid introduction to important methods from ethnography and interviews to surveys and community mapping, always attending to the imperatives of local control and community partnerships.
£37.95
AltaMira Press,U.S. Symbolic Interaction: An Introduction to Social Psychology
This reader shows the rich history and wide contemporary application of symbolic interaction theory.
£63.36
AltaMira Press,U.S. The Inclusive Psalms
The poetry of the Psalms echoes through the ages. The translators of The Inclusive Psalms had to reckon not only with the original Hebrew text of the Psalms, but the wide-ranging translations of these songs that have become so familiar. As with The Inclusive New Testament, their work allows the power of the ancient writings to be present to all contemporary readers. The Inclusive Psalms a wholly included in The Inclusive Hebrew Scriptures: Volume III: The Writings. They are also available together with The Inclusive New Testament.
£37.98
AltaMira Press,U.S. Edmund Burke: Modernity, Politics and Aesthetics (Modernity and Political Thought)
This study is unique in its analysis of the aesthetic dimensions of Burke′s writings and for the understanding of his thought that an exposition of an aesthetic language provides. This interpretation of Burke begins with particular attention to the circumstances in which he lived and wrote. The outline of Burke′s life forms the basis for the more specific insights developed in the following chapters. White asks:`If we identify Burke′s wisdom with his critique of revolutionary radicalism and nationalism, then do we not have to admit that his significance as a political thinker recedes in the late 20th century as the threat [of revolution] itself recedes?′ White seeks to broaden Burke′s significance and discover ways in which he might still speak directly to us after the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
£64.28
AltaMira Press,U.S. The American Archaeologist: A Profile
Where are the highest-paying jobs in archaeology? How are women faring in the discipline? Does graduate training properly prepare students for the job market? The Society for American Archaeology recently surveyed its entire membership and other American archaeologists to assess the state of the profession. The results were startling, tracking a discipline rapidly expanding beyond its academic roots through the explosive growth of government and private sector archaeology. Gender inequality has become more subtle, though it is still evident. These and other important insights form the core of the first sytematic attempt to capture the state of the discipline in terms of training, job and salary distribution, research interests, publications, and funding. Over 150 figures and tables. Published in cooperation with the Society for American Archaeology
£69.35
AltaMira Press,U.S. Gender in Archaeology: Analyzing Power and Prestige
Sarah Milledge Nelson takes on the formidable task of attempting the first comprehensive feminist, theoretical synthesis of the flood of archaeological work on gender. She examines the roles of women and men in such areas as human origins, the sexual division of labor, kinship and other social formations, state development, and ideology. Nelson provides examples from gender-specific archaeological studies worldwide to examine such traditional myths as woman the gatherer, the goddess hypothesis, and the Amazon warriors, replacing them with a more nuanced, informed treatment of gender based on the latest research. She also examines the structure of the archaeological discipline in her attempt to understand and change a discipline that has made women all but invisible both as researchers and objects of research. Nelson's book is a benchmark work for all archaeologists working on or interested in gender and points the way toward fruitful avenues for further research.
£58.16
AltaMira Press,U.S. The Art of Fieldwork
One of anthropology's premier writers on fieldwork methodology looks at the essential elements that constitute the art of his discipline. In The Art of Fieldwork, Wolcott compares the fieldworker to the artist, while recognizing the inherent differences between the labors of each.
£58.44
AltaMira Press,U.S. Cinderella Story: A Scholarly Sketchbook about Race, Identity, Barack Obama, the Human Spirit, and Other Stuff that Matters
Cinderella Story is an experimental autoethnography that explores critical racial issues in America through the media of language and images. Rolling asks, How do words and images-involving stories and paradigms, past and future, perceptions of beauty and ugliness-become flesh? How are they done and undone? In this supple and complex narrative, the author peers deeply into his own life and attitudes, and into the racial images and ideas made explicit by American history as a whole, to sort out fact from fiction in new and ingenious ways.
£133.66
AltaMira Press,U.S. Appropriated Pasts: Indigenous Peoples and the Colonial Culture of Archaeology
Archaeology has been complicit in the appropriation of indigenous peoples' pasts worldwide. While tales of blatant archaeological colonialism abound from the era of empire, the process also took more subtle and insidious forms.
£149.91
AltaMira Press,U.S. Du Bois on Reform: Periodical-based Leadership for African Americans
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois' 'reform' writings—with the intention of reforming immoral and unethical behavior—appeared in periodicals and were directed toward or written on behalf of the African American community. Du Bois, a Harvard-trained sociologist, offered a stark alternative to the anti-intellectual dogma contained in reform messages by black church leadership. Believing that African Americans needed a firm historical and sociological grasp of a distinct phenomenon that church leaders could not offer, Du Bois published in numerous Black, progressive, liberal, college, and religious periodicals, including The Atlantic Monthly, The Independent Weekly, Outlook, Voice of the Negro, The New York Post, and The Crisis. Now for the first time, Du Bois' reform writings—spanning over fifty years—have been gathered into one volume. Each section is edited and introduced by Brian Johnson and they demonstrate Du Bois' contribution to advancing the social and moral dimensions of the African American community.
£58.53
AltaMira Press,U.S. Transcription Techniques for the Spoken Word
This practical handbook tackles what you need to know before, during, and after transcription. Appropriate for varying levels of expertise_and written for transcriptionists, ethnographers, researchers, oral historians, participant observers, and even amateurs who plan to write their family history_this helpful guide by ethnographer Willow Roberts Powers covers a wide range of essential topics: why transcription methodology is essential, factors to be considered before transcribing (including reasons not to create a transcript), stages of transcription and recommended guidelines, methodology, editing, incorporation of contextual information, transcribing performances, and finally the interactions between transcriptionists, participants in the record events, researchers, and other future users of the transcripts. Appendices contain sample forms, lists and discussions of punctuation symbols typically used for notation systems, and sample excerpts from real transcripts
£45.84
AltaMira Press,U.S. Migration and Economy: Global and Local Dynamics
Trager and her coauthors focus on migration not as a single event but as a dynamic process that responds to and is shaped by broader economic, cultural and social forces. Individual essays consider issues of international and internal migration, of voluntary migration and forced movements due to civil conflicts and environmental degradation, and of macro-level forces and micro-level institutions. The authors investigate a wide variety of types of mobility, describe transnational and multilocal networks through which remittances and other flows take place; focus on migrants as active agents; and examine the impacts of ethnicity and assimilation. They offer original studies on Mexico, Puerto Rico, West Africa, Kazakstan, and Mozambique. This new volume will be a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners in development anthropology, migration studies, and international planning and policy.
£136.05
AltaMira Press,U.S. Ordeal of Change: The Southern Utes and Their Neighbors
Published for the first time, these early writings of renowned anthropologist Frances Leon Quintana boldly detail the exploitation and the gradual present day recovery of the Southern Utes Indians following the American conquest of their ancestral lands in 1877 and their subsequent treatment at the hands of the U.S. federal government. Ordeal of Change includes the historical trajectory of the tribe's development and subsequent adaptations from 1877-1926, a statistical survey demonstrating the impact of Indian relocation and the redistribution of their tribal lands on the demographic and economic status of the tribe, and an thoughtful analysis of this data. The fourth and final section, an afterword by Professor Richard O. Clemmer, brings these developments up to date from 1926 to the present. This book_a chronicle of and tribute to the determination of a nation resolved to survive the hardships that have shaped them_is a must for scholars of Native American history and development and for those interested in the restoration of justice to native peoples.
£139.91
AltaMira Press,U.S. In Contact: Bodies and Spaces in the Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Eastern Woodlands
The first two centuries of contact between Native and non-Native groups set into motion new social practices, definitions of personhood, and hierarchies of class, ethnicity, race, and gender. Diana diPaolo Loren focuses on the social and material interactions between groups living east of the Mississippi River during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In Contact explores how these diverse groups lived, worked, fought, intermarried, and died while unpacking the baggage of colonial contact.
£128.84
AltaMira Press,U.S. Handbook for Small Science Centers
There has been, and continues to be, an explosion of interest in developing new small science centers that is changing the world of museums. This handbook is designed to be a one-stop source for future and current centers, and anyone interested in the important roles these institutions play in their communities. With articles—all written by leaders in field—covering everything from administration, staffing, finance, marketing, exhibit design, and beyond, this comprehensive resource will be essential reading for institutions that are operating successfully, struggling to survive, and those planning major expansions.
£168.33
AltaMira Press,U.S. Religion and Public Life in New England: Steady Habits Changing Slowly
Although stoical New Englanders may not be showy about it, religion continues to play a powerful role in their culture. In fact, their very reticence to discuss religion may stem from long-standing religious divisions in the region. Beginning in the 1840s, Catholics flocked to the region and soon challenged the Protestant establishment. Tensions between the powerful mainline Protestant minority and the Catholic majority continues to today. This third volume in the Religion by Region series devotes many of its pages to these two dominant groups. Yet the roles of Conservative Protestants, African Americans & Jews are not overlooked. Religion and Public Life in New England also imagines the long-term effects of recent developments such as the arrival of non-Judeo-Christian religions to the region and the Catholic priest sexual abuse scandal. Religion and Public Life in New England provides a very readable account of religion in this most regional of U.S. regions.
£41.71
AltaMira Press,U.S. Travels with Ernest: Crossing the Literary/Sociological Divide
In Travels with Ernest: Crossing the Literary/Sociological Divide, Laurel Richardson and Ernest Lockridge—accomplished sociologist and published novelist—explore the fascinating interplay between literary and ethnographic writing. The exciting result is an intriguing experimental text that simultaneously delves into, reveals, simplifies, and complicates methodologies of writing and conveying experience. Refusing to force their unique voices into one integrated account, the authors—also spouses—explicate their stories in separate narratives and then discuss in transcribed "free-wheeling" conversations their different constructions of their travels together, travels simultaneously experienced, but recalled and related differently through the filters of distinct professional perceptions, life histories, and interiors. This boundary-crossing text will provide an ideal platform for students and professors interested in understanding and exploring the absorbing complexities and possibilities of ethnographic writing and creative nonfiction.
£60.30
AltaMira Press,U.S. There's Never Been a Show Like Veggie Tales: Sacred Messages in a Secular Market
Singing animated vegetables with Christian messages, The Veggie Tales children’s video series might seem strange to newcomers. But with their combination of media savvy, fun plots, and Biblical messages, Veggie Tales videos became standard viewing in millions of evangelical homes in the 1990s. Then in 1998, Veggie Tales videos began to appear in Wal-Mart and Target stores, a feat unprecedented for an avowedly Christian media company. In telling the story of Veggie Tales, communication professor Hillary Warren tells the history of religious communication in America, the story of a Christian company’s tension between selling God and selling out, the story of Christians struggling between the sacred and the secular in their media choices. Read it and you’ll see indeed why there’s never been a show like Veggie Tales.
£37.49
AltaMira Press,U.S. Researching Paganisms
Should researchers of spirituality and religion be distantly "objective," or engaged and active participants? The traditional paradigm of 'methodological agnosticism' is increasingly challenged as researchers emphasize the benefits of direct participation for understanding beliefs and practices. Should academic researchers "go native," participating as "insiders" in engagements with the "supernatural," experiencing altered states of of consciousness? How do academics negotiate the fluid boundaries between worlds and meanings which may change their own beliefs? Should their own experiences be part of academic reports? Researching Paganisms presents reflective and engaging accounts of issues in the academic study of religion confronted by anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, historians and religious studies scholars—as researchers and as humans—as they study contemporary Pagan religions. The insights that contributors gain, with resultant changes to their own lives, will fascinate not only other scholars of Pagan religions, but scholars of any religion and indeed anyone who grapples with issues of reflexive research.
£59.50