Anthropology  

Theorist Clifford Geertz's influence extends far beyond anthropology. Indeed the case could be made that he has been abandoned by anthropology and that his legacy has been transferred to a more diffuse community of scholars interested in interpretation. This volume reflects the breadth of his influence, looking at Geertz as a theorist rather than as an anthropologist. To date, there has been no impartial, comprehensive, and authoritative work published on this critical figure. Contributorsinclude an interdisciplinary team of leading scholars investigating the three core components of contested legacy: theory, method, and writing.

In this groundbreaking contribution to the field of culture and medicine, twenty-five professionals in medicine, nursing, and the social sciences have contributed fourteen papers on the influence of culture in health care. The topics range from the perception of skills of international medical graduates, to conflicting expectations of patient care of various cultural groups, to cultural issues at the end of life.

Critical anthropology has had a major influence on the discipline, shifting it away from concepts of bounded societies with evolutionary trajectories to complex analyses of interconnected economic, political, and social processes. This book brings together some of critical anthropology’s most influential writings, collecting classic articles and spirited rebuttals by major scholars such as Eric Wolf, Marshall Sahlins, Sidney Mintz, Andre Gunder Frank, and Michael Taussig. Editor Stephen Nugent positions these key debates, originally published in the journal Critique of Anthropology, with new introductions that detail the lasting influence of these articles on anthropology over four decades, showing how critical anthropology is relevant today more than ever. An ideal supplementary text, this book is a rich exploration of intellectual history that will continue to shape anthropology for decades to come.

Shamans attract controversy and fascination well beyond their numbers. Personal experiences with them are based here on extensive fieldwork in several areas of Siberia and the Far East, including Khanty, Sakha, Tuvan, and Buriat regions. Balzer outlines shifting ways that healers and healing communities are creating effective yet altered ritual environments, transcending harsh legacies of Soviet and missionary repression. Providing new angles on our understanding of the intersections of spirituality, religion, and politics, she uses narratives about shamans to probe social and political issues of post-socialism, modernity, authenticity, and indigenous rights. She argues that talented contemporary shamans and shamanic trickster-artists combine social leadership, charisma, creative talent, ecological sensitivity, and healing gifts in their activist lives. 

Crude Dominationis an innovative and important book about a critical topic – oil. While there have been numerous works about petroleum from ‘experience-far’ perspectives, there have been relatively few that have turned the ‘experience-near’ ethnographic gaze of anthropology on the topic.Crude Dominationdoes just this among more peoples and more places than any other volume. Its chapters investigate nuances of culture, politics and economics in Africa, Latin America, and Eurasia as they pertain to petroleum. They wrestle with the key questions vexing scholars and practitioners alike: problems of the economic blight of the resource curse, underdevelopment, democracy, violence and war. Additionally they address topics that may initially appear insignificant – such as child witches and lionmen, fighting for oil when there is no oil, reindeer nomadism, community TV – but which turn out on closer scrutiny to be vital for explaining conflict and transformation in petro-states. Based upon these rich, new worlds of information, the text formulates a novel, domination approach to the social analysis of oil.

"The Anthropology of Stuff" is part of a new Series dedicated to innovative, unconventional ways to connect undergraduate students and their lived concerns about our social world to the power of social science ideas and evidence. Our goal with the project is to help spark social science imaginations and in doing so, new avenues for meaningful thought and action. Each "Stuff" title is a short (100 page) "mini text" illuminating for students the network of people and activities that create their material world. From the coffee producers and pickers who tend the plantations in tropical nations, to the middlemen and processors, to the consumers who drink coffee without ever having to think about how the drink reached their hands, here is a commodity that ties the world together. This is a great little book that helps students apply anthropological concepts and theories to their everyday lives, learn how historical events and processes have shaped the modern world and the contexts of their lives, and how consumption decisions carry ramifications for our health, the environment, the reproduction of social inequality, and the possibility of supporting equity, sustainability and social justice.