Search results for ""University Press of Colorado""

Past archaeological literature on Cupertino theory has emphasised competition's role in cultural evolution. As a result, bottom-up possibilities for group co-operation have been under theorised in favour of models stressing top-down leadership, while evidence from a range of disciplines has demonstrated humans to effectively sustain co-operative undertakings through a number of social norms and institutions. This is the first volume to focus on the use of archaeological evidence to understand co-operation and collective action. Disentangling the motivations and institutions that foster group co-operation among competitive individuals remains one of the few great conundrums within evolutionary theory. The breadth and material focus of archaeology provide a much needed complement to existing research on co-operation and collective action, which thus far has relied largely on game-theoretic modelling, surveys of college students from affluent countries, brief ethnographic experiments, and limited historic cases. In this book diverse case studies address the evolution of the emergence of norms, institutions, and symbols of complex societies through the last 10,000 years. This book is an important contribution to the literature on co-operation in human societies that will appeal to archaeologists and other scholars interested in co-operation research.

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In Carrying the Word: The Concheros Dance in Mexico City, the first full length study of the Concheros dancers, Susanna Rostas explores the experience of this unique group, whose use of dance links rural religious practices with urban post-modern innovation in distinctive ways even within Mexican culture, which is rife with ritual dances. The Concheros blend Catholic and indigenous traditions in their performances, but are not governed by a predetermined set of beliefs; rather they are bound together by long standing interpersonal connections framed by the discipline of their tradition. The Concheros manifest their spirituality by means of the dance. Rostas traces how they construct their identity and beliefs, both individual and communal, by its means. The book offers new insights into the experience of dancing as a Conchero while also exploring their history, organization and practices. Carrying the Word provides a new way for audiences to understand the Conchero's dance tradition, and will be of interest to students and scholars of contemporary Mesoamerica. Those studying identity, religion, and tradition will find this social-anthropological work particularly enlightening.

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For over thirty-seven years, Margaret and Olaus Murie made their home in the mountainous wilderness of the Tetons, where Olaus Murie conducted his famous studies of the American elk, the wapiti. Through these years their home was almost a nature-conservation shrine to thousands of Americans interested in the out-of-doors, in animals, in nature in general. In alternate chapters, Olaus tells of his work as a field biologist for the old US Bureau of Biological Survey and recounts stories of his studies. Mrs Murie, from her side, describes their life together, on the trail, in the various camps, and nature adventures in that wilderness during all four seasons. The book is replete with stories of Jackson Hole people, of 'pioneer poets', and of the wild creatures that made their way into the Murie household. Olaus Murie's evocative pen-and-ink drawings illuminate each chapter, and four pages of photographs help complete the picture of what life was like in the wapiti wilderness.

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Gambling Debt is a game-changing contribution to the discussion of economic crises and neoliberal financial systems and strategies. Iceland's 2008 financial collapse was the first case in a series of meltdowns, a warning of danger in the global order. This full-scale anthropology of financialization and the economic crisis broadly discusses this momentous bubble and burst and places it in theoretical, anthropological, and global historical context through descriptions of the complex developments leading to it and the larger social and cultural implications and consequences. Chapters from anthropologists, sociologists, historians, economists, and key local participants focus on the neoliberal policies-mainly the privatization of banks and fishery resources-that concentrated wealth among a select few, skewed the distribution of capital in a way that Iceland had never experienced before, and plunged the country into a full-scale economic crisis. Gambling Debt significantly raises the level of understanding and debate on the issues relevant to financial crises, painting a portrait of the meltdown from many points of view-from bankers to schoolchildren, from fishers in coastal villages to the urban poor and immigrants, and from artists to philosophers and other intellectuals. This book is for anyone interested in financial troubles and neoliberal politics as well as students and scholars of anthropology, sociology, economics, philosophy, political science, business, and ethics. Publication supported in part by the National Science Foundation. Contributors: Vilhjalmur Arnason, Asmundur Asmundsson, Jon Gunnar Bernburg, James Carrier, Sigurlina Davidsdottir, Dimitra Doukas, Niels Einarsson, Einar Mar Gudmundsson, Tinna Gretarsdottir, Birna Gunnlaugsdottir, Gudny S. Gudbjornsdottir, Pamela Joan Innes, Gudni Th. Johannesson, Orn D. Jonsson, Hannes Larusson, Kristin Loftsdottir, James Maguire, Mar Wolfgang Mixa, Evelyn Pinkerton, Hulda Proppe, James G. Rice, Rognvaldur J. Saemundsson, Unnur Dis Skaptadottir, Margaret Willson

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