Tag: anthropology

A Matter of Morality

Originally published in 2009, The Anthropology of Moralities, edited by Monica Heintz, will be published in paperback this month. The collection deals with the collision of moralities as human beings exist on a more and more globalized scale. Below, the editor discusses what first interested her in a moral study and what made it, and keeps it, important to the field of anthropology.

 

____________________________________________

 

Somehow after 1989 the Eastern bloc got obsessed with values. How could it be otherwise for people who had lived with double sets of values in the public and private spheres and who saw all their public values officially collapse in one night?

Continue reading “A Matter of Morality” →

Down, Not Out: Ethiopian Youth on the Street

Paula Heinonen’s decade of research and reflection led to the publication of Youth Gangs and Street Children: Culture, Nurture, and Masculinity in Ethiopia, which was published as a paperback in June 2013. Based on careful observations and interviews, the volume provides insight into common misconceptions of why  Ethiopian boys and girls take to the street.  

 

______________________________________________

Before embarking on my six years longitudinal field research and four years of follow-up enquiry and reflection, I read extensively on the street children phenomena worldwide.

Continue reading “Down, Not Out: Ethiopian Youth on the Street” →

Occupy Morality: Soldiering in Conflict Zones

Understanding a soldier is key to understanding the effect of militarism on a broader society, according to Erella Grassiani, author of Soldiering Under Occupation: Processes of Numbing among Israeli Soldiers in the Al-Aqsa Intifada. The volume, published in July, offers insights into the physical and mental effects that operating in occupied zones has on soldiers. Below, Grassiani discusses the volume, her occupation, and how she enjoys her down time.

 

__________________________________________________

Berghahn Books: What drew you to the study of the Israeli military? And why is this topic important?

 

Erella Grassiani: I was born in Israel and even though I was raised largely in the Netherlands, Israel stayed close to my heart. When I went back to Israel to study at the Tel Aviv University I came across ideas about militarism for the first time and the way the military influenced civilian life. Continue reading “Occupy Morality: Soldiering in Conflict Zones” →

Hot Off the Presses – New Paperback Releases

CoyHolyNewly released paperbacks from Berghahn:

Foodways and Empathy: Relatedness in a Ramu River Society, Papua New Guinea, Anita von Poser

Weimar Publics/Weimar Subjects: Rethinking the Political Culture of Germany in the 1920s, Kathleen Canning, Kerstin Barndt, and Kristin McGuire

The Holy Roman Empire, Reconsidered, Jason Philip Coy, Benjamin Marschke, and David Warren Sabean

Power and Society in the GDR, 1961-1979: The ‘Normalization of Rule’?, Mary Fulbrook

“Vienna is Different”: Jewish Writers in Austria from the fin de siècle to the Present, Hillary Hope Herzog

Divided, but not Disconnected: German Experiences of the Cold War, Tobias Hochscherf, Christoph Laucht, and Andrew Plowman

Hot Off the Presses – New Book Releases

FelliniJourney

Newly released titles from Berghahn’s Anthropology and Applied Anthropology, Film Studies, and History lists:

Toward Engaged Anthropology, Sam Beck and Carl A. Maida

Pastoralism in Africa: Past, Present, and Future, Michael Bollig, Michael Schnegg, and Hans-Peter Wotzka

The Journey of G. Mastorna: The Film Fellini Didn’t Make, Federico Fellini, with the collaboration of Dino Buzzati, Brunello Rondi, and Bernardino Zapponi, translated with a commentary by Marcus Perryman

Soldiering Under Occupation: Processes of Numbing among Israeli Soldiers in the Al-Aqsa Intifada, Erella Grassiani

Germany and the Black Diaspora: Points of Contact, 1250-1914, Mischa Honeck, Martin Klimke, and Anne Kuhlmann

Elusive Promises: Planning in the Contemporary World, Simone Abram and Gisa Weszkalnys

Judging “Privileged” Jews: Holocaust Ethics, Representation, and the “Grey Zone”, Adam Brown

Pregnancy in Practice: Expectation and Experience in the Contemporary, Sallie Han

United Germany: Debating Processes and Prospects, Konrad Jarausch

Ethics in the Field: Contemporary Challenges, Jeremy MacClancy and Agustín Fuentes

Paul Stoller: Retzius Reflections

Paul Stoller, whose article “Embodying Knowledge: Finding a Path in the Village of the Sick” appeared in Ways of Knowing, edited by Mark Harris, earned the 2013 Anders Retzius medal for excellence in anthropology—an honor bestowed every three years—April 24. Below, Stoller reflects on his life’s work that helped him earn the award.

 

__________________________________________

 

stoller
Paul Stoller

Milestones in life compel you to think about where you’ve been, where you are and where you are going.

 

In 2012 I received an email, marked as “possible spam,” that invited me to Stockholm in April 2013 to receive the Anders Retzius Gold Medal in Anthropology, which is given once every three years.

Continue reading “Paul Stoller: Retzius Reflections” →

A Moving Picture: The Evolution of Africa on Screen

The perception of Africa through the lens has certainly changed since the films of the 1950s. That change in the way viewers see Africa in twenty-first century film is the topic of Framing Africa: Portrayals of a Continent in Contemporary Mainstream Cinema, published in June 2013. Below, the collection editor Nigel Eltringham discusses the changing frame of Africa in mainstream cinema.

_______________________________________________________

In November 2004, I attended the annual meeting of the African Studies Association in New Orleans. A flier inserted into the conference programme invited participants to a private screening of a new film, Hotel Rwanda, at a small arts cinema nearby.

Continue reading “A Moving Picture: The Evolution of Africa on Screen” →

The Hearth of the Home

Editors David G. Anderson, Robert P. Wishart, and Virginie Vaté look from many angles—history, cosmology, and architecture—at the idea of home in About the Hearth: Perspectives on the Home, Hearth and Household in the Circumpolar North, which will be published next month. Below, co-editor Wishart discusses the importance of home and shares a bit about how life is constructed in the Arctic North.

 

__________________________________________________

Berghahn Books: What drew you ‘to the hearth,’ or to the study of the home in the circumpolar north?

 

Robert P. Wishart: For myself it came originally through observations on the importance of building cabins among the Gwich’in.

Continue reading “The Hearth of the Home” →

Knowledge, an Anthropological Commodity

Within the pages of his newly published book, An Anthropological Trompe L’Oeil for a Common World: An Essay On The Economy Of Knowledge, published by Berghahn last month, Alberto Corsín Jiménez addresses the value and framework of knowledge, theory, and scholarship. Below the author discusses the sources of inspiration for the book, the commodity of knowledge, and the trick that not everything is exactly as it first appears.

__________________________________________________

Although I did not quite know it at the time, I began writing this book roughly at the time of my appointment to a university lectureship at the University of Manchester in 2003.

 

The university had only just merged with the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology — a merger hailed in various contexts as a harbinger of the changes to come in UK higher education. Continue reading “Knowledge, an Anthropological Commodity” →

‘Pregnancy in Practice’ and a Royal Baby

Parents preparing to welcome a new bundle of joy follow certain conventions, from decorating the nursery to deciding on baby names, explains Sallie Han in her newly released volume, Pregnancy in Practice: Expectation and Experience in the Contemporary US. Below the author discusses the recent royal birth along these guidelines and explains that though they may be parents of the future King of England, Prince William and Duchess Kate Middleton are perhaps not so different from common parents as thought.

 

______________________________________

The Duchess of Cambridge and I have this in common: We shared a due date. She is the new mother of a future King of England. I am the new author of a book, Pregnancy in Practice: Expectation and Experience in the Contemporary US. I believe that the period of gestation for my book has been considerably longer.

 

Continue reading “‘Pregnancy in Practice’ and a Royal Baby” →