Book picks similar to
Emics and Etics: The Insider/Outsider Debate by Kenneth Lee Pike
anthropology
argument
cross-cultural
language-scripts
The Forgotten Exodus: The Into Africa Theory of Human Evolution
Bruce R. Fenton - 2017
Each clique of scientists has a part of the story correct, but new evidence shows they are all fundamentally wrong.On the one side, we have academics highlighting the astonishing fossil record of China with multiple sites now producing modern human fossils aged between 80 - 120 thousand years, or older. Several extremely ancient fossil finds in China, including Dali, Maba and Jinniushan, place archaic Homo sapiens in this region up to 260,000 years ago.On the other side, we have scientists pointing to Africa's impressive fossil record with its evidence of potential ancestors going back around 6 million years. The evidence of extreme genetic diversity among Africans and the discovery of 300,000-year-old archaic Homo sapiens fossils in Morocco tends to further support the idea that humans came out from Africa. We can understand why both sides are so sure of their positions, and why the debate continues. While leading academics focussed on their own agendas, they overlooked significant evidence. Between the two poles of Out of Africa and Out of Asia Theory, exists a 'Middle Way'. The Forgotten Exodus: The Into Africa Theory of Human Evolution, reveals that within the known fossil record, the current genetic studies and recent paleoclimate models there is compelling evidence for a superior theory of human origins, representing a paradigm displacement.The Into Africa Theory does not dispute the evidence placing the earliest hominins in Africa.However, it does not agree with the consensus view that Homo sapiens emerged there first and later migrated to Eurasia.The Into Africa Theory recognises the extraordinary evidence for critical stages in our development occurring in East and Southeast Asia. It is abundantly clear that as a new concerted effort to gather and evaluate fossil evidence begins in earnest we see astonishing new discoveries. The Into Africa Theorydisputes the claims of Out of Africa and Out of Asia(or Europe) adherents over the starting point for the migration which populated Eurasia approximately 60,000 years ago and identifies the actual location.Amazing facts that you will encounter:-Homo heidelbergensis was not ancestral to modern humans -Denisovan fossils in Siberia carried DNAfrom Australian Aboriginals-An Indonesian supervolcano brought about the end for multiple hominin species-Climate catastrophe locked humans in Africa from 73,000 to 59,000 years ago-There is no African fossil DNA over 10,000 years in age-While supposedly isolated, Aboriginal Australians interbred with Denisovans 44,000 years agoYou will gain access to a long-forgotten conversation involving the famous evolutionary scientists Allan Wilson and Rebecca Cann, in which they admitted that their data suggested Aboriginal Australians were ancestral to all modern humans.Learn why the appearance of the haplogroups foundational to Eurasians, L3 and CT, had to come from a population incursion rather than an in-situ mutation.Explore the cutting-edge scientific findings of 2016 and 2017 alongside a broad range of anomalies long suppressed or ignored in academic circles.The Forgotten Exodus' author Bruce R. Fenton began his journey towards a new understanding of human origins after an expedition to a mysterious megalithic complex in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The Information Systems professional and lifelong scholar of ancient cultures, found himself tracing the threads of the human story across six continents and through 6,000,000 years of history. You will come away with a unique view of humanity and a sense of excitement for revelations still set to arrive. This book reminds all of us that we have a collective ability to overcome enormous obstacles.
Waiting for Foucault, Still
Marshall Sahlins - 2002
Whether he's summing up the state of the discipline ("Some things are better left un-Said") or ruminating on the ancients, Sahlins delivers a strong mixture of wit and wisdom.
Patpong Sisters: An American Woman's View of the Bangkok Sex World
Cleo Odzer - 1994
Cleo Odzer, a young anthropologist, spent three years studying the area. Gaining the confidence of the bar girls and bar boys, she interviewed them at length, lived among them, accompanied several back to their families in remote villages. She also got to know their customers, those in for a night or in forever (many fell in love and stayed on in Patpong). From Odzer's account emerges a far different picture from the cliched image of the prostitute. Many of the Patpong girls, smart and enterprising, use their profession for self-liberation and to support their impoverished families back home. Warm and personal, Patpong Sisters reveals the truth about the $4 billion Bangkok economy of sex.
How Babies Sleep: The Gentle, Science-Based Method to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night
Sofia Axelrod - 2020
Newborn babies typically wake every two to three hours, and there’s nothing bleary-eyed, exhausted parents want more than a night of uninterrupted sleep. But while there’s plenty of advice out there, there is nothing that’s based on the latest cutting-edge research about sleep—until now. In How Babies Sleep, Sofia Axelrod, PhD—neuroscientist, sleep consultant, and mother of two—introduces the first baby sleep method that is truly rooted in the science of sleep. After having her first child, Axelrod realized that the typical baby sleep advice conflicted with the actual science of sleep, inlcuding the findings from her mentor’s Nobel Prize–winning sleep lab. She developed her transformative method based on the latest discoveries about our body’s circadian clock and how it is disturbed by light and other external stimuli. After seeing incredible results with her own babies, she has since counseled countless families in her groundbreaking method—which works with babies’ needs and helps little ones learn to self-soothe, fall asleep more easily, and stay asleep through the night. You’ll discover helpful tips that work, and learn: why using a red lightbulb (instead of a regular one) in the nursery at night can minimize wakings; why the age-old advice “don’t wake a sleeping baby” isn’t true; how to create a healthy routine; how to sleep train gently with minimal crying (under two minutes); and so much more in this revolutionary and effective book that will help both you and your baby enjoy a peaceful night’s sleep.
Death by Theory: A Tale of Mystery and Archaeological Theory
Adrian Praetzellis - 2000
A large stone Venus. Nothing unusual about it_except that it was found on an island in the Pacific Northwest. Archaeologist Hannah Green and her shovelbum nephew find themselves in a tangled web of competing interests avaricious land owners, hungry media, and a cult of goddess worshippers while investigating one of the finds of the century. In untangling the mystery of the Washington Venus, Hannah and Sean have to confront questions of archaeological evidence, of ethics, of conflicting interpretation of data, and of the very nature of archaeological truths. Helping them are a cadre of disdainful graduate students who propose various theories processualist, marxist, feminist, postmodernist to explain the bizarre events. Teach your students archaeological theory in a fashion they'll enjoy, while they solve the mystery in Adrian Praetzellis's delightful textbook-as-novel.
Wayward Women: Sexuality and Agency in a New Guinea Society
Holly Wardlow - 2006
Focusing on Huli “passenger women,” (women who accept money for sex) Wayward Women explores the socio-economic factors that push women into the practice of transactional sex, and asks how these transactions might be an expression of resistance, or even revenge. Challenging conventional understandings of “prostitution” and “sex work,” Holly Wardlow contextualizes the actions and intentions of passenger women in a rich analysis of kinship, bridewealth, marriage, and exchange, revealing the ways in which these robust social institutions are transformed by an encompassing capitalist economy. Many passenger women assert that they have been treated “olsem maket” (like market goods) by their husbands and natal kin, and they respond by fleeing home and defiantly appropriating their sexuality for their own purposes. Experiences of rape, violence, and the failure of kin to redress such wrongs figure prominently in their own stories about becoming “wayward.” Drawing on village court cases, hospital records, and women’s own raw, caustic , and darkly funny narratives, Wayward Women provides a riveting portrait of the way modernity engages with gender to produce new and contested subjectivities.
End Game
Matthew Glass - 2010
and China, off the Horn of Africa.
Money Has No Smell: The Africanization of New York City
Paul Stoller - 2002
In Money Has No Smell, Paul Stoller offers us a more complete portrait of the complex lives of West African immigrants like Diallo, a portrait based on years of research Stoller conducted on the streets of New York City during the 1990s.Blending fascinating ethnographic description with incisive social analysis, Stoller shows how these savvy West African entrepreneurs have built cohesive and effective multinational trading networks, in part through selling a simulated Africa to African Americans. These and other networks set up by the traders, along with their faith as devout Muslims, help them cope with the formidable state regulations and personal challenges they face in America. As Stoller demonstrates, the stories of these West African traders illustrate and illuminate ongoing debates about globalization, the informal economy, and the changing nature of American communities.
I Swear I Saw This: Drawings in Fieldwork Notebooks, Namely My Own
Michael Taussig - 2011
Taking as a starting point a drawing he made in Medellin in 2006—as well as its caption, “I swear I saw this”—Taussig considers the fieldwork notebook as a type of modernist literature and the place where writers and other creators first work out the imaginative logic of discovery. Notebooks mix the raw material of observation with reverie, juxtaposed, in Taussig’s case, with drawings, watercolors, and newspaper cuttings, which blend the inner and outer worlds in a fashion reminiscent of Brion Gysin and William Burroughs’s surreal cut-up technique. Focusing on the small details and observations that are lost when writers convert their notes into finished pieces, Taussig calls for new ways of seeing and using the notebook as form. Memory emerges as a central motif in I Swear I Saw This as he explores his penchant to inscribe new recollections in the margins or directly over the original entries days or weeks after an event. This palimpsest of afterthoughts leads to ruminations on Freud’s analysis of dreams, Proust’s thoughts on the involuntary workings of memory, and Benjamin’s theories of history—fieldwork, Taussig writes, provokes childhood memories with startling ease. I Swear I Saw This exhibits Taussig’s characteristic verve and intellectual audacity, here combined with a revelatory sense of intimacy. He writes, “drawing is thus a depicting, a hauling, an unraveling, and being impelled toward something or somebody.” Readers will exult in joining Taussig once again as he follows the threads of a tangled skein of inspired associations.
The Solitude Of Emperors
David Davidar - 2007
Timely, topical, modern and fresh - The antidote to the 'Indian' novel. 'An impassioned plea for tolerance in a country rife with competing interests, this marvelous new novel by David Davidar follows a young man's heroic love for his country. While it draws on the wisdom of past thinkers to recast a vision of tolerance for the present, it holds to an emotional core of idealism and the compelling rhythm of youth.Unflinching. Unsentimental. Deeply Moving. I loved it.' Kiran Desai
Keeping Heart on Pine Ridge: Family Ties, Warrior Culture, Commodity Foods, Rez Dogs, and the Sacred
Vic Glover - 2004
Together, with humor and perseverance, they are strengthened as they try to overcome the social and political forces that threaten their community. Native and non-native alike will find a poignant honesty that grabs them from the opening line to the end. For some it will feel like familiar territory; for others, a heart-opening awakening to the struggles and spirit of The People.
Caste as Social Capital
R. Vaidyanathan - 2019
The establishment and running of businesses tap into caste networks, both in terms of arranging finance and providing access to a ready workforce.By and large, caste has only been studied from a religious, social and political angle. Though it is widely accepted that caste has economic ramifications, any study of this aspect has been limited to looking at caste groups in terms of their per capita income, their representation in various professions, and other statistical details.Caste as Social Capital examines the workings of caste through the lens of business, economics and entrepreneurship. It interrogates the role caste plays in the economic sphere in terms of facilitating the nuts and bolts of business and entrepreneurship: finance, markets and workforce. Through this qualitative view of caste, an entirely new picture emerges of caste which forces one to view this age-old institution in new light.
The Life We Were Given: Operation Babylift, International Adoption, and the Children of War in Vietnam
Dana Sachs - 2010
government launched "Operation Babylift," a highly publicized plan to evacuate nearly three thousand displaced Vietnamese children and place them with adoptive families overseas. Chaotic from start to finish, the mission gripped the world-with a traumatic plane crash, international media snapping pictures of bewildered children traveling to their new homes, and families clamoring to adopt the waifs.Often presented as a great humanitarian effort, Operation Babylift provided an opportunity for national catharsis following the trauma of the American experience in Vietnam. Now, thirty-five years after the war ended, Dana Sachs examines this unprecedented event more carefully, revealing how a single public-policy gesture irrevocably altered thousands of lives, not always for the better. Though most of the children were orphans, many were not, and the rescue offered no possibility for families to later reunite. With sensitivity and balance, Sachs deepens her account by including multiple perspectives: birth mothers making the wrenching decision to relinquish their children; orphanage workers, military personnel, and doctors trying to "save" them; politicians and judges attempting to untangle the controversies; adoptive families waiting anxiously for their new sons and daughters; and the children themselves, struggling to understand. In particular, the book follows one such child, Anh Hansen, who left Vietnam through Operation Babylift and, decades later, returned to reunite with her birth mother. Through Anh's story, and those of many others, The Life We Were Given will inspire impassioned discussion and spur dialogue on the human cost of war, international adoption and aid efforts, and U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
Hunting Evil: Inside the Ipswich Serial Murders
Paul Harrison - 2008
For the quiet town of Ipswich it was fifty days of fear and soul seatching, from the disappearance of the first victim to the dramatic arrest of the lead suspect, Steve Wright.Journalist Paul Harrison and Professor of Criminology David Wilson arrived in Ipswich just as the first body was discovered. Their on-the-scene access, and Professor Wilson's unique experience as a profiler, meant that they were first to put forward the explosive theory that a serial killer was at large.In 'Hunting Evil' Harrison and Wilson take the reader to the heart of the story. Both visited the sites where the killer disposed of his victims' bodies; both walked the red-light area of Ipswich; and both talked to those who were closest to the victims and to Steve Wright. They explore the reasons why someone will kill and kill again and, perhaps most important of all, explain how serial killers target the most vulnerable in our society, and what can be done to make our communities safer for everyone.With sensitive portraits of the victims, a close examination of the police investigation, and full details of the trial, 'Hunting Evil' is the definitive account of a national tragedy.
Introducing Cultural Anthropology: A Christian Perspective
Brian M. Howell - 2010
The book covers standard cultural anthropology topics with special attention given to issues of concern to Christians, such as cultural relativism, evolution, and missions.This concise yet solid introduction represents the authors' years of experience in the classroom and offers a fresh, contemporary approach. Each chapter includes objectives, text boxes, terms, and discussion questions. In addition, plentiful maps, photos, and sidebars are sprinkled throughout the text.Resources for professors using this text are available through Baker Academic's Textbook eSources. These resources include active learning exercises, discussion questions, crossword puzzles, PowerPoint outlines, case study videos, an annotated list of suggested ethnographic films, relevant internet resources, and a test bank.