In an age of relativism and uncertainty, how can sociology move forward? This book charts a new path by critically re-examining Durkheim and Giddens. It outlines new approaches to social processes, time, and predicting the future, transforming contemporary sociological thought.
In India, individuals cannot escape the inequalities of gender, ethnic, and social hierarchies, a struggle for survival and status. This volume highlights these realities through four decades of empirical anthropological research across India, considering their historical roots.
This book uses food and feasts as a tool to understand the social organisation of the Newāḥ of Nepal. It details life-cycle rituals and kinship obligations to exchange food, considering married daughters’ special role, to show how sharing is an integral part of their culture.
Survivors of Suicide
Surviving after suicide means being stigmatized. This stigma darkens the lives of the bereaved, creating a whirlwind of anger, shame, and guilt. This book finds answers to the challenges survivors face in reconstructing their daily lives and how they cope with them.
All around the globe, people perform acts of philanthropy. This book presents philanthropy as a universal societal system that deserves a distinctive academic discipline: the science of philanthropology.
Patterns of Inter-ethnic Relations with the Roma in the Carpathian Basin
Based on three decades of anthropological fieldwork, this book argues that Roma-non-Roma coexistence in the Carpathian Basin is always based on opposition. It presents case studies and applied projects to reveal patterns that can be used to fight the exclusion of the Roma today.
This book explores Fulton Sheen’s perception of the contemporary individual. As advancements in science and technology fail to bring happiness, it argues that global crises cannot be resolved by focusing on the mundane, proposing a theology of life to make it worth living.
This book covers the author’s field experiences as an ethnographer in Central America and an applied anthropologist in the US. It highlights the importance of incorporating ethnography into work tasks across a range of social fields and diverse socio-cultural groups.
Coming To, and Staying In, the Poorest Country in the EU
A scientific study of immigrants in Bulgaria since 1990, this book moves beyond ethnicity to focus on the reasons for migration. It examines their settlement, integration, social networks, and the attitudes and interactions between newcomers and the local population.
The Limits of the Human Species in the Face of Sustainable Development
This book reveals the link between the COVID-19 epidemic and the environmental catastrophe, confirming that human survival depends on radical change. It offers anthropological, religious, and philosophical tools for understanding the present and future of humanity.
Entanglements of Life with the Law
This book reveals the uncomfortable truth of London’s magistrates’ courts. A legal system undermined by austerity dispenses ‘summary justice’ lacking due process to the city’s most vulnerable, in a process bearing a striking resemblance to ‘justice’ in authoritarian societies.
These essays document a way of life that has now virtually disappeared. Based on anthropological fieldwork in a remote Greek village in the 1970s, they focus on family, kinship, and gender, and the profound transformation of rural society as it was occurring at the time.
In-Between Fiction and Non-Fiction
This title invites the reader to participate in the recent emphasis on subjectivity and self-reflection as the means of understanding and engaging with current social changes through storytelling. It centres its attention on the symbiosis between anthropology and fiction.
These essays feature an international collective of museum professionals, indigenous cultural historians and anthropologists, who address the historical role of weapon collections in ethnographic museums and the value of studying arms in order to write richer cultural histories.
The Goddess and the Dragon
How are ordinary Japanese affected by globalization? This study of a fisheries community near Tokyo examines the risks and opportunities of mass tourism. Residents depend economically on tourists, yet maintain exclusive community bonds to assert their cultural identity.
How does Europe’s economic crisis affect industry on a grassroots level? This book explores the Italian jewellery town of Valenza and its industry’s downturn through the experiences of its inhabitants to understand the challenges Italy and Europe will face.
Identities, Cultures, Spaces
Globalisation has led to cultural encounters, which can be conflicts or opportunities for dialogue. This volume adopts a multidisciplinary approach to address issues at the confluence of identity and culture, discussing the role of shared spaces in forging identity.
Cocoon Communities
This innovative volume proposes the concept of Cocoon Communities: groups that are highly significant for members, yet voluntary and not binding. It offers interdisciplinary perspectives on communities of students, online mourners, expatriates, and more.
The Polyphony of Food
Food is more than a basic need. It satisfies the entire range of human motivations, from feeling safe and secure to affirming cultural identity. It is a vehicle for bonding, love, esteem, and even a means of self-actualization.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, millions of children are AIDS orphans, street children vulnerable to exploitation, or child soldiers. This book identifies the critical problems they face, using an ethnographic approach to understand the plight of children in the world’s poorest region.