In exploring the public meaning of ingeniously defended private meanings, de Certeau draws brilliantly on an immense theoretical literature in analytic philosophy, linguistics, sociology, semiology, and anthropology--to speak of an apposite use of imaginative literature.

    Acknowledging the persuasive power of myth to create and inform culture, he weaves the human ability to create life with and communicate through symbols with myths based on male and female forms of power.

    In fact, the author argues, the relationship between the anthropologist and his object of study is a particular instance of the relationship between knowing and doing, interpreting and using, symbolic mastery and practical mastery—or between logical logic, armed with all the accumulated instruments of objectification, and the universally pre-logical logic of practice.In this, his fullest statement of a theory of practice, Bourdieu both sets out what might be involved in incorporating one's own standpoint into an investigation and develops his understanding of the powers inherent in the second member of many oppositional pairs—that is, he explicates how the practical concerns of daily life condition the transmission and functioning of social or cultural forms.The first part of the book, "Critique of Theoretical Reason," covers more general questions, such as the objectivization of the generic relationship between social scientific observers and their objects of study, the need to overcome the gulf between subjectivism and objectivism, the interplay between structure and practice (a phenomenon Bourdieu describes via his concept of the habitus), the place of the body, the manipulation of time, varieties of symbolic capital, and modes of domination.The second part of the book, "Practical Logics," develops detailed case studies based on Bourdieu's ethnographic fieldwork in Algeria. These examples touch on kinship patterns, the social construction of domestic space, social categories of perception and classification, and ritualized actions and exchanges.This book develops in full detail the theoretical positions sketched in Bourdieu's Outline of a Theory of Practice. It will be especially useful to readers seeking to grasp the subtle concepts central to Bourdieu's theory, to theorists interested in his points of departure from structuralism (especially fom Lévi-Strauss), and to critics eager to understand what role his theory gives to human agency. It also reveals Bourdieu to be an anthropological theorist of considerable originality and power.

    All the narratives have been carefully chosen to illustrate important facets of the Apache experience. Moreover, they make very interesting reading....This is a major contribution to both Apache history and to the history of the Southwest....The book should appeal to a very wide audience. It also should be well received by the Native American community. Indeh is oral history at its best."---R. David Edmunds, Utah Historical Quarterly

    The book is structured around five major dimensions: power distance; uncertainty avoidance; individualism versus collectivism; masculinity versus femininity; and long term versus short-term orientation.

    A look at questions raised by The Natural Mind and at different methods of naturally altering consciousness.

    Douglas H. Ubelaker demonstrates the range of data and interpretations potentially obtainable from human skeletal remains and shows how this information can contribute to the solution of various anthropological problems. It also describes and evaluates basic techniques of skeletal excavation and analysis. Human Skeletal Remains is divided into two sections. The first section reviews the techniques and information needed for excavating and describing skeletal remains and for achieving reliable estimates of stature, sex, and age at death. These chapters should improve the capacity of non-specialists to undertake skeletal excavation and preliminary analysis. The second section discusses additional kinds of information that can be gleaned from suitable samples by experienced skeletal biologists. The information in Human Skeletal Remains is a broad-scale overview and many aspects have been treated in greater detail by others elsewhere. References are provided in the text for the convenience of those interested in more information on specific topics. Technical terminology has been avoided where possible, but accurate recording and description cannot be accomplished without employing the names of individual bones and other skeletal landmarks. Terms most commonly needed for description are included in a glossary. While it is somewhat modest in its intentions, this analysis provides a clarity that extensive tomes cannot supply.

    Taken from the records of the Federal Writers' Project of the 1930s, these interviews with one-time Virginia slaves provide a clear window into what it was like to be enslaved in the antebellum American South.

    That framework is principally illustrated by materials gathered in field research in Taiwan and, to a lesser extent, from materials gathered in similar research in Boston. The reader will find this book contains a dialectical tension between two reciprocally related orientations: it is both a cross-cultural (largely anthropological) perspective on the essential components of clinical care and a clinical perspective on anthropological studies of medicine and psychiatry. That dialectic is embodied in my own academic training and professional life, so that this book is a personal statement. I am a psychiatrist trained in anthropology. I have worked in library, field, and clinic on problems concerning medicine and psychiatry in Chinese culture. I teach cross-cultural psychiatry and medical anthropology, but I also practice and teach consultation psychiatry and take a clinical approach to my major cross-cultural teaching and research involvements. The theoretical framework elaborated in this book has been applied to all of those areas; in turn, they are used to illustrate the theory. Both the theory and its application embody the same dialectic. The purpose of this book is to advance both poles of that dialectic: to demonstrate the critical role of social science (especially anthropology and cross-cultural studies) in clinical medicine and psychiatry and to encourage study of clinical problems by anthropologists and other investigators involved in cross-cultural research.

    

    

    His Don Juan hoax proved and evaluated. Thirty scholars and laymen celebrate or bemoan his influence on academic disciplines and private lives.

    The author recounts ancient Maasai legends and songs, and powerfully describes the vivid ceremonies that mark the passages in Maasai life....Everyday tribal life and the ceremonial high points are photographed with a clarity and eye for drama that make Maasai a breathtaking experience.

    In celebration of its fiftieth anniversary, we present Wasson's groundbreaking classic, The Wondrous Mushroom, an illustrated, in-depth exploration of the history and cultural meanings of the shamanic use of psychedelic mushrooms in contemporary and ancient Mesoamerican culture. R. Gordon Wasson (18981986), former vice president of JP Morgan Trust, authored groundbreaking books and articles on sacred mushroom use, culture, and history.

    Intended for courses in Linguistics.This long-awaited revision of a best-selling classic text in the area of linguistic anthropology provides authoritative coverage of the origin of language and languages, the descriptive study of language, language acquisition, and the impact of variables such as history, culture, gender, and ethnicity on language.

    François Hartog asks fundamental questions about how Herodotus represented this difference. How did he and his readers understand the customs and beliefs of those who were not Greek? How did the historian convince his readers that his account of other peoples was reliable? How is it possible to comprehend a way of life radically different from one's own? What are the linguistic, rhetorical, and philosophical means by which Herodotus fashions his text into a mirror of the marginal and unknown? In answering these questions, Hartog transforms our understanding of the "father of history." His Herodotus is less the chronicler of a victorious Greece than a brilliant writer in pursuit of otherness.

    

    

    From reviews of the first edition:..". an ethnographically rich contribution to the historical understanding of West African culture, as well as an exploration of the continued vitality of that culture in the changing environments of the Americas." --African Studies Review..". leav[es] the reader with a sense of the vitality, dynamism, and complexity of Ogun and the cultural contexts in which he thrives.... magnificent contribution to the literature on Ogun, Yoruba culture, African religions, and the African diaspora." --International Journal of Historical Studies

    There have, since, been other books on the experience of fieldwork, but this remains a much cited work. The eighteen essays in the volume describe the experiences of field research mainly in rural and urban India, and in complex organizations such as a hospital, a factory and a trade union. There are also accounts of work in Japan, Sri Lanka and New Mexico. This is an informative and helpful guide to those about to embark on their own field research.

    Book by Victor Turner

    Pan-continental trade between these hunters and horticulturists helped make the lifeways of Plains Indians among the richest and most colorful of Native Americans.This volume is the first attempt to synthesize current knowledge on the cultural history of the Great Plains since Wedel's Prehistoric Man on the Great Plains became the standard reference on the subject almost forty years ago. Fourteen authors have undertaken the task of examining archaeological phenomena through time and by region to present a systematic overview of the region's human history. Focusing on habitat and cultural diversity and on the changing archaeological record, they reconstruct how people responded to the varying environment, climate, and biota of the grasslands to acquire the resources they needed to survive.The contributors have analyzed archaeological artifacts and other evidence to present a systematic overview of human history in each of the five key Plains regions: Southern, Central, Middle Missouri, Northeastern, and Northwestern. They review the Paleo-Indian, Archaic, Woodland, and Plains Village peoples and tell how their cultural traditions have continued from ancient to modern times. Each essay covers technology, diet, settlement, and adaptive patterns to give readers an understanding of the differences and similarities among groups. The story of Plains peoples is brought into historical focus by showing the impacts of Euro-American contact, notably acquisition of the horse and exposure to new diseases.Featuring 85 maps and illustrations, Archaeology on the Great Plains is an exceptional introduction to the field for students and an indispensable reference for specialists. It enhances our understanding of how the Plains shaped the adaptive strategies of peoples through time and fosters a greater appreciation for their cultures.

    David Cressy presents the reader with a picture of an English people who were at odds with the Puritan killjoys of their day.

    Features tales and descriptions of the American plains including the states - Nebraska, Oklahoma and Iowa.

    

    

    Book by Willey, Gordon R., Sabloff, Jeremy A.

    Rouget rigorously examines a worldwide corpus of data from ethnographic literature, but he also draws on the Bible, his own fieldwork in West Africa, and the writings of Plato, Ghazzali, and Rousseau. To organize this immense store of information, he develops a typology of trance based on symbolism and external manifestations. He outlines the fundamental distinctions between trance and ecstasy, shamanism and spirit possession, and communal and emotional trance. Music is analyzed in terms of performers, practices, instruments, and associations with dance. Each kind of trance draws strength from music in different ways at different points in a ritual, Rouget concludes. In possession trance, music induces the adept to identify himself with his deity and allows him to express this identification through dance. Forcefully rejecting pseudo-science and reductionism, Rouget demystifies the so-called theory of the neurophysiological effects of drumming on trance. He concludes that music's physiological and emotional effects are inseparable from patterns of collective representations and behavior, and that music and trance are linked in as many ways as there are cultural structures.

    Available again with a new foreword by the author, Baboon Mothers and Infants is a classic book that has been, in its own right, a mother to a generation of influential research and will no doubt provide further inspiration.

    

    It should excite all Americans about their nation.Informative and entertaining, this volume is an indispensable reference work for home, library and office. It establishes a foundation for the burgeoning field of ethnic studies; it will satisfy and stimulate the popular interest in ancestry and heritage. It is a guide to the history, culture, and distinctive characteristics of the more than 100 ethnic groups who live in the United States.Each ethnic group is described in detail. The origins, history and present situation of the familiar as well as the virtually unknown are presented succinctly and objectively. Not only the immigrants and refugees who came voluntarily but also those already in the New World when the first Europeans arrived, those whose ancestors came involuntarily as slaves, and those who became part of the American population as a result of conquest or purchase and subsequent annexation figure in these pages. The English and the Estonians, the Germans and the Gypsies, the Swedes and the Serbs are interestingly juxtaposed. Even entries about relatively well-known groups offer new material and fresh interpretations. The articles on less well-known groups are the product of intensive research in primary sources; many provide the first scholarly discussion to appear in English. One hundred and twenty American and European contributors have been involved in this effort, writing either on individual groups or on broad themes relating to many.The group entries are at the heart of the book, but it contains, in addition, a series of thematic essays that illuminate the key facets of ethnicity. Some of these are comparative; some philosophical; some historical; others focus on current policy issues or relate ethnicity to major subjects such as education, religion, and literature. American identity and Americanization, immigration policy and experience, and prejudice and discrimination in U.S. history are discussed at length. Several essays probe the complex interplay between assimilation and pluralism--perhaps the central theme in American history--and the complications of race and religion.Numerous cross-references and brief identifications will aid the reader with unfamiliar terms and alternative group names. Eighty-seven maps, especially commissioned, show where different groups have originated. Annotated bibliographies contain suggestions for further reading and research. Appendix I, on methods of estimating the size of groups, leads the reader through a maze of conflicting statistics. Appendix II reproduces, in facsimile, hard-to-locate census and immigration materials, beginning with the first published report on the nativities of the population in 1850.

    

    

    s/t: Remarks at the White House Conference on Library and Information Services, Washington, November 19, 1979