Sciences and Cultures

Sciences and Cultures

Author: E. Mendelsohn

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 1981-07-31

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 9789027712356

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Anthropological approaches to the sciences have developed as part of a broader tradition concerned about the place of the sciences in today's world and in some basic sense concerned with questions about the legitimacy of the sciences. In the years since the second World War, we have seen the emergence of a number of different attempts both to analyze and to cope with the successes of the sciences, their broad penetration into social life, and the sense of problem and crisis that they have projected. Among the of movements concerned about the earlier responses were the development social responsibility of scientists and technological practitioners. There is little doubt that this was a direct outgrowth of the role of science in the war epitomized by the successful construction and catastrophic use of the atomic bomb. The recognition of the deep social utility of science, and especially its role as an instrument of war, fostered curiosity about the earlier develop ment of scientific disciplines and institutional forms. The history of science as an explicit diSCipline with full-time practitioners can be seen as an attempt to locate science in temporal space - first in its intellectual form and second ly in its institutional or social form. The sociology of science, while certainly having roots in the pre-war work of Robert K.


A Companion to the Anthropology of the Middle East

A Companion to the Anthropology of the Middle East

Author: Soraya Altorki

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2015-07-07

Total Pages: 568

ISBN-13: 1118475615

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A Companion to the Anthropology of the Middle East presents a comprehensive overview of current trends and future directions in anthropological research and activism in the modern Middle East. Named as one of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles of 2016 Offers critical perspectives on the theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical goals of anthropology in the Middle East Analyzes the conditions of cultural and social transformation in the Middle Eastern region and its relations with other areas of the world Features contributions by top experts in various Middle East anthropological specialties Features in-depth coverage of issues drawn from religion, the arts, language, politics, political economy, the law, human rights, multiculturalism, and globalization


Cultures of Unemployment

Cultures of Unemployment

Author: Godfried Engbersen

Publisher: Amsterdam University Press

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 9053568468

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... An extraordinarily rich and detailed study of the social and economic life of unemployed and poor households. Michael Sherraden in Social Work.


Women Creating Patrilyny

Women Creating Patrilyny

Author: Audrey Smedley

Publisher: Rowman Altamira

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 9780759103184

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Audrey Smedley offers a unique interpretation of the role of women in traditional patrilineal societies. Her research with the Birom people of Nigeria reveals that one reason for the dominance of patrilyny as an organizing principle in human societies is that many of its critical features were in fact invented by women. She raises new questions about the nature of patrilineal systems, and why women have protected and promoted the values and principles of patrilyny in many societies. Smedley's study of the Birom contradicts the vision of women as passive agents in the construction of social realities. She shows how relationships among men are more rigidly cast than those among women, or between women and men. Individual chapters explore the nature of gender distinctions, how they evolved historically, and how women's decision-making contributes to the successful exploitation of their environment. Smedley critiques Western feminist philosophy and beliefs as they have been applied to indigenous African peoples. This book is a contribution to new global studies that document the realities of women's lives that often contradict Western assumptions. Her book will be a valuable resource for researchers in anthropological kinship and theory, gender studies, race & ethnicity, and African studies.


Russia's Far North

Russia's Far North

Author: Veli-Pekka Tynkkynen

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-03-09

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 1351349015

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The Russian Far North is immensely rich in resources, both energy and other resources, and is also one of the least developed regions of Russia. This book presents a comprehensive overview of the region. It examines resource issues and the related environmental problems, considers the Arctic and the problems of sea routes, maritime boundaries and military build-up, assesses economic development, and considers the ethnic peoples of the region and also cultural and artistic subjects. Overall, the book provides a rich appraisal of how the region is likely to develop in future.


Leaving Mesa Verde

Leaving Mesa Verde

Author: Timothy A. Kohler

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 2013-11-15

Total Pages: 454

ISBN-13: 0816599688

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It is one of the great mysteries in the archaeology of the Americas: the depopulation of the northern Southwest in the late thirteenth-century AD. Considering the numbers of people affected, the distances moved, the permanence of the departures, the severity of the surrounding conditions, and the human suffering and culture change that accompanied them, the abrupt conclusion to the farming way of life in this region is one of the greatest disruptions in recorded history. Much new paleoenvironmental data, and a great deal of archaeological survey and excavation, permit the fifteen scientists represented here much greater precision in determining the timing of the depopulation, the number of people affected, and the ways in which northern Pueblo peoples coped—and failed to cope—with the rapidly changing environmental and demographic conditions they encountered throughout the 1200s. In addition, some of the scientists in this volume use models to provide insights into the processes behind the patterns they find, helping to narrow the range of plausible explanations. What emerges from these investigations is a highly pertinent story of conflict and disruption as a result of climate change, environmental degradation, social rigidity, and conflict. Taken as a whole, these contributions recognize this era as having witnessed a competition between differing social and economic organizations, in which selective migration was considerably hastened by severe climatic, environmental, and social upheaval. Moreover, the chapters show that it is at least as true that emigration led to the collapse of the northern Southwest as it is that collapse led to emigration.


The Manchester School

The Manchester School

Author: T. M. S. (Terry) Evens

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2006-09-01

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 0857458582

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Pioneered by Max Gluckman to demonstrate the way in which social practice and structure together constitute and are themselves constituted by the situational flow of social life, the extended case method became diagnostic of the Manchester School of Social Anthropology. Anticipating practice theory, and implicitly politically charged, it was developed as a tool to bring into account what orthodox structural functionalism was ill-equipped to address, namely, problems such as change, conflict, deviance, and individual choice. Edited by two students of Gluckman, the volume comprises reprinted pieces by Gluckman and his colleague Clyde Mitchell, a Coda by Mitchell’s student, Bruce Kapferer, contributions by Gluckman’s students and/or friends and colleagues, including Ronnie Frankenberg, Kapferer, Evens, Handelman, and Sally Falk Moore, as well as a number of contributions from other practitioners of the extended case. Apart from the reprinted pieces by Gluckman and Mitchell, all the contributions have been written for this volume. These essays, historical, theoretical, and ethnographical, serve to highlight and critically examine the fundamental features of the extended-case method, in order to advance its substantial, continuing merits.