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Our understanding of what makes a person a relative has been transformed by radical changes in marriage arrangements and gender relations, and by new reproductive technologies. We can no longer take it for granted that our most fundamental social relationships are grounded in 'biology' or 'nature'. These developments have prompted anthropologists to take a fresh look at idioms of relatedness in other societies, and to review the ways in which relationships are symbolised and interpreted in our own society. Defamiliarizing some classic cases, challenging the established analytic categories of anthropology, the contributors to this innovative book focus on the boundary between the 'biological' and the 'social', and bring into question the received wisdom at the heart of the study of kinship.
Ask a random American what springs to mind about Sedona, Arizona, and they will almost certainly mention New Age spirituality. Nestled among stunning sandstone formations, Sedona has built an identity completely intertwined with that of the permanent residents and throngs of visitors who insist it is home to powerful vortexes—sites of spiraling energy where meditation, clairvoyance, and channeling are enhanced. It is in this uniquely American town that Susannah Crockford took up residence for two years to make sense of spirituality, religion, race, and class. Many people move to Sedona because, they claim, they are called there by its special energy. But they are also often escaping job lo...
The Routledge Handbook of Anthropology and Reproduction is a comprehensive overview of the topics, approaches, and trajectories in the anthropological study of human reproduction. The book brings together work from across the discipline of anthropology, with contributions by established and emerging scholars in archaeological, biological, linguistic, and sociocultural anthropology. Across these areas of research, consideration is given to the contexts, conditions, and contingencies that mark and shape the experiences of reproduction as always gendered, classed, and racialized. Over 39 chapters, a diverse range of international scholars cover topics including: Reproductive governance, stratif...
At the heart of this in-depth ethnographic study lie the daily life situations of tsunami survivors in war-torn, eastern Sri Lanka. Each chapter is built around the empirical themes derived from the stories and recollections of Tamil women and their families during their stay in relief camps, anticipating relocation. The specifics of the socio-cultural context are firmly embedded in the discussions. Ten years after the tsunami, this publication offers a timely contribution to a better understanding of what it means to cope with the combined effects of disaster, war, and international aid in this matri-focal region of the island.
This book offers a fresh perspective on the importance of progeny and perpetuation of the family line in the Hebrew tradition. Steffan Matthias argues that the Hebrew bible depicts failing to protect the transmission of the family line as both a failure in the social order, a threat to the afterlife, and a failure in masculinity, leading to the eradication of the name and memory of the man and the destruction of the household. Using the work of Pierre Bourdieu, as well as anthropological and gender-critical insights, Matthias reassess pertinent texts which respond to the threat of men dying without children, such as levirate marriage (Deut 22:5-10) or the erection of monuments (Isa 56:5-8). ...
Tracing women’s experiences of miscarriage and termination for foetal anomaly in the second trimester, before legal viability, shows how such events are positioned as less ‘real’ or significant when the foetal being does not, or will not, survive. Invisible Labours describes the reproductive politics of this category of pregnancy loss in England. It shows how second trimester pregnancy loss produces specific medical and social experiences, revealing an underlying teleological ontology of pregnancy. Some women then understand their pregnancy through kinship with the unborn baby.
This handbook offers an up-to-date account of the state of the art in different areas of onomastics, in a format that is both useful for specialists and accessible to the general reader. International experts examine name theory, place and personal names, names in literature, socio-onomastics, names and other disciplines, and other types of names.
This wide‐ranging volume addresses the changing landscape of problems, challenges, and possibilities that emerge once the macroscopic notion of the Anthropocene is replaced with Southern Anthropocenes. It envisions Southern Anthropocenes as an opening towards forms and ends of life that exceed—while remaining in partial relation with—modern socio‐economic horizons and the determinations of the geo‐, eco‐, and climate sciences. What happens if Southern Anthropocenes are allowed to multiply, and room is made for practices of worlding and life that are impossible from within the singular Anthropocene? Key issues include emergent interfaces between beings, ways of living, and worlds;...