Ethnoecology and Medicinal Plants of the Highland Maya
Ethnoecology and Medicinal Plants of the Highland Maya

Author: John Richard Stepp

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-10-23

Total Pages: 119

ISBN-13: 3319693158

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Plants play a central role in human existence. Medicinal plants, in particular, have allowed for the continued survival of the human species. This book, based on over a decade of research in Southern Mexico with the Highland Maya, explores the relationship between medicinal plants, traditional ecological knowledge and the environment. The biodiversity of the region remains among the highest in the world, comprising more than 9000 plant species. Over 1600 employed for medicinal uses and knowledge for approximately 600 species is widespread. Medicinal plants play an overwhelmingly primary role in the daily health care of the Highland Maya. Three principal objectives are addressed: 1) identifying which medicinal plants are used; 2) determining the role of environmental variation on use and selection of medicinal plants; and 3) identifying which habitats are preferred for medicinal plant procurement. Findings demonstrate the overwhelming importance of human modified environments for medicinal plants. Explanations are presented from human ecology and biochemical ecology. Implications for conservation, health and the environment are discussed.

The Politics of English as a World Language
The Politics of English as a World Language

Author: Christian Mair

Publisher: Rodopi

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 524

ISBN-13: 9789042008663

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The complex politics of English as a world language provides the backdrop both for linguistic studies of varieties of English around the world and for postcolonial literary criticism. The present volume offers contributions from linguists and literary scholars that explore this common ground in a spirit of open interdisciplinary dialogue. Leading authorities assess the state of the art to suggest directions for further research, with substantial case studies ranging over a wide variety of topics - from the legitimacy of language norms of lingua franca communication to the recognition of newer post-colonial varieties of English in the online OED. Four regional sections treat the Caribbean (including the diaspora), Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and Australasia and the Pacific Rim. Each section maintains a careful balance between linguistics and literature, and external and indigenous perspectives on issues. The book is the most balanced, complete and up-to-date treatment of the topic to date.

Ethnoecology
Ethnoecology

Author: Ted L. Gragson

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 188

ISBN-13: 9780820321288

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Scholars studying the ecology of specific areas often fail to take into account the presence of humans in those environments. People not only are fundamental components of an ecosystem but possess a unique understanding of its nature. This book examines subjects ranging from pastoralism to the use of medicinal plants to show that understanding the knowledge system of any people is essential to understanding their relation to their environment. Using cases from the American Southwest and Pacific Northwest, the Highland Maya Region of Central America, and the Lowland and Andean regions of South America, the contributors examine the relation of humans and environment within the context of each local system’s beliefs, values, and knowledge. All emphasize the practical and cultural significance of indigenous knowledge of the environment and the importance of comparing this knowledge to scientific understanding prior to initiating development or conservation programs. They also contribute to a theoretical approach that allows findings to be applied across studies, regardless of ethnographic differences.

Pragmatics in Practice
Pragmatics in Practice

Author: Jan-Ola Östman

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2011-12-15

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 902728914X

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The ten volumes of Handbook of Pragmatics Highlights focus on the most salient topics in the field of pragmatics, thereby attempting to divide up its wide interdisciplinary spectrum in a transparent and manageable way. While the other volumes select specific philosophical, cognitive, grammatical, social, cultural, discursive, variational, or interactional angles, this 9th volume focuses on what pragmatics is good for – beyond the very discipline of pragmatics as such. The chapters in the volume thus address the importance of taking a pragmatic perspective on traditional fields of applied linguistics (contrastive and error analysis, translation), and they address the core of pragmatics as the study of language use (with phenomena ranging from irony and emphasis to literacy and mass media, and with approaches to the function of language like rhetoric, stylistics, corpus analysis, and general semantics). The volume contains chapters not only on the spoken and written modes of communication, but also on signed language pragmatics and on computer-mediated communication. The impact and usefulness of taking a pragmatic perspective on language for a deeper understanding of clinical and rehabilitation practices has recently received ever more focus; in this volume, aspects of this direction of research are dealt with in the chapter on clinical pragmatics. In most of the chapters in the volume, ethics has a core role to play, not only in issues of authenticity in general in relation to research on language use, but also in issues that have a direct influence on the (linguistic) culture and society we live in, irrespective of whether we are part of a (linguistic) majority or a minority, or a minority within a minority: language policy and language planning, language ecology, and language in relation to legal matters. In all of these fields, we see the importance of research within pragmatics as a discipline dealing with how language influences our everyday lives. All in all, the volume presents different perspectives on how research in pragmatics not only can be put to practice, but how pragmatics is used as a tool to gain a better understanding of the world we live in.

Routledge Handbook of Environmental Anthropology
Routledge Handbook of Environmental Anthropology

Author: Helen Kopnina

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2016-08-12

Total Pages: 509

ISBN-13: 1317667964

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Environmental Anthropology studies historic and present human-environment interactions. This volume illustrates the ways in which today's environmental anthropologists are constructing new paradigms for understanding the multiplicity of players, pressures, and ecologies in every environment, and the value of cultural knowledge of landscapes. This Handbook provides a comprehensive survey of contemporary topics in environmental anthropology and thorough discussions on the current state and prospective future of the field in seven key sections. As the contributions to this Handbook demonstrate, the subfield of environmental anthropology is responding to cultural adaptations and responses to environmental changes in multiple and complex ways. As a discipline concerned primarily with human-environment interaction, environmental anthropologists recognize that we are now working within a pressure cooker of rapid environmental damage that is forcing behavioural and often cultural changes around the world. As we see in the breadth of topics presented in this volume, these environmental challenges have inspired renewed foci on traditional topics such as food procurement, ethnobiology, and spiritual ecology; and a broad new range of subjects, such as resilience, nonhuman rights, architectural anthropology, industrialism, and education. This volume enables scholars and students quick access to both established and trending environmental anthropological explorations into theory, methodology and practice.

Handbook of Pragmatics
Handbook of Pragmatics

Author: Jan-Ola Östman

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 9789027232458

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This encyclopaedia of one of the major fields of language studies is a continuously updated source of state-of-the-art information for anyone interested in language use. The IPrA Handbook now contains nearly 5,000 pages. It provides easy access — for scholars with widely divergent backgrounds but with convergent interests in the use and functioning of language — to the different topics, traditions and methods which together make up the field of Pragmatics, broadly conceived as “the cognitive, social and cultural study of language and communication”. The Handbook of Pragmatics is a unique reference work for researchers: the main body of the Handbook is produced in loose-leaf format in 3-ring binders and is accompanied by the bound Manual. The loose-leaf Handbook forms the basis of the Handbook proper giving an overview of the subfields, traditions, methodologies and concepts of Pragmatics. The Handbook is used as a basis for the online version: the Handbook of Pragmatics Online has been expanded and revised annually since 2003. Future versions will add further records and will include updates, rewritings and extensive revisions of already existing records. The Handbook of Pragmatics Online is available from www.benjamins.com/online with a free 90-day trial. The Handbook is also available in combination with the Bibliography of Pragmatics Online at a discounted rate. SPECIAL OFFER: 30% discount for a complete set order (Manual + Installments 1995-2009).

Explanation and Cognition
Explanation and Cognition

Author: Frank C. Keil

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 9780262112499

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These essays address basic questions about explanation: how do explanatory capacities develop, are there kinds of explanation do explanations correspond to domains of knowledge, why do we seek explanations, and how central are causes to explanation?

A Zapotec Natural History
A Zapotec Natural History

Author: Eugene S. Hunn

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 2016-08

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 0816534330

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A Zapotec Natural History is an extraordinary book that describe the people of a small town in Mexico and their remarkable knowledge of the natural world in which they live. San Juan Gbëë is a Zapotec Indian community located in the state of Oaxaca, a region of great biological diversity. Eugene S. Hunn is a well-known anthropologist and ethnobiologist who has spent many years working in San Juan Gbëë, studying its residents and their knowledge of the local environment. Here Hunn writes sensitively and respectfully about the rich understanding of local flora and fauna that village inhabitants have acquired and transmitted over many centuries. In this village everyone, young children included, can identify and name hundreds of local plants, animals, and fungi, together with the details of their life cycles, habitat preferences, and functions in the economic, aesthetic, and spiritual lives of the town. Part 1 of this two-part work describes the community, the subsistence farming practices of its residents, the nomenclature and classification of the local biological taxonomy, the use of plants for treating illnesses, and the ritual and decorative roles of flowers. Part 2 is available online, and includes detailed inventories of all plant, animal, and fungal categories recognized by San Juan’s people; a series of indexes; a library of more than 1,200 images illustrating the town’s plants, people, landscapes, and daily activities; and sounds of village life.

Mortuary Landscapes of the Classic Maya
Mortuary Landscapes of the Classic Maya

Author: Andrew K. Scherer

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2015-11-15

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 1477300511

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From the tombs of the elite to the graves of commoners, mortuary remains offer rich insights into Classic Maya society. In Mortuary Landscapes of the Classic Maya: Rituals of Body and Soul, the anthropological archaeologist and bioarchaeologist Andrew K. Scherer explores the broad range of burial practices among the Maya of the Classic period (AD 250–900), integrating information gleaned from his own fieldwork with insights from the fields of iconography, epigraphy, and ethnography to illuminate this society’s rich funerary traditions. Scherer’s study of burials along the Usumacinta River at the Mexican-Guatemalan border and in the Central Petén region of Guatemala—areas that include Piedras Negras, El Kinel, Tecolote, El Zotz, and Yaxha—reveals commonalities and differences among royal, elite, and commoner mortuary practices. By analyzing skeletons containing dental and cranial modifications, as well as the adornments of interred bodies, Scherer probes Classic Maya conceptions of body, wellness, and the afterlife. Scherer also moves beyond the body to look at the spatial orientation of the burials and their integration into the architecture of Maya communities. Taking a unique interdisciplinary approach, the author examines how Classic Maya deathways can expand our understanding of this society’s beliefs and traditions, making Mortuary Landscapes of the Classic Maya an important step forward in Mesoamerican archeology.

A Companion to Medical Anthropology
A Companion to Medical Anthropology

Author: Merrill Singer

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2022-03-01

Total Pages: 500

ISBN-13: 1119718902

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The fully revised new edition of the defining reference work in the field of medical anthropology A Companion to Medical Anthropology, Second Edition provides the most complete account of the key issues and debates in this dynamic, rapidly growing field. Bringing together contributions by leading international authorities in medical anthropology, this comprehensive reference work presents critical assessments and interpretations of a wide range of topical themes, including global and environmental health, political violence and war, poverty, malnutrition, substance abuse, reproductive health, and infectious diseases. Throughout the text, readers explore the global, historical, and political factors that continue to influence how health and illness are experienced and understood. The second edition is fully updated to reflect current controversies and significant new developments in the anthropology of health and related fields. More than twenty new and revised articles address research areas including war and health, illicit drug abuse, climate change and health, colonialism and modern biomedicine, activist-led research, syndemics, ethnomedicines, biocommunicability, COVID-19, and many others. Highlighting the impact medical anthropologists have on global health care policy and practice, A Companion to Medical Anthropology, Second Edition: Features specially commissioned articles by medical anthropologists working in communities worldwide Discusses future trends and emerging research areas in the field Describes biocultural approaches to health and illness and research design and methods in applied medical anthropology Addresses topics including chronic diseases, rising levels of inequality, war and health, migration and health, nutritional health, self-medication, and end of life care Part of the acclaimed Wiley Blackwell Companions to Anthropology series, A Companion to Medical Anthropology, Second Edition, remains an indispensable resource for medical anthropologists, as well as an excellent textbook for courses in medical anthropology, ethnomedicine, global health care, and medical policy.