Tag: medical anthropology

World Environment Day

World Environment Day is held each year on 5th June. It is one of the principal vehicles through which the United Nations (UN) stimulates worldwide awareness of the environment and enhances political attention and action.

To mark this year’s observation, we welcomes you explore a free virtual issue from Berghahn Journals comprised of interdisciplinary articles examining Climate Change: http://bit.ly/1potKpB

Berghahn is pleased to showcase new and forthcoming titles in our Environmental Studies range. Each title featured below delivers informed comment on a number of key issues, and we are delighted to offer a 25% discount on all Environmental Studies titles for the next 30 days. At checkout, simply enter the code WED15.

 

 

RECLAIMING THE FOREST
The Ewenki Reindeer Herders of Aoluguya
Edited by Åshild Kolås and Yuanyuan Xie
Foreword by F. Georg Heyne

Continue reading “World Environment Day” →

Appreciating Parents & Their Commitment to Children

Screen shot 2015-06-01 at 9.32.19 AM

 

The Global Day of Parents is observed on the 1st of June every year. The Day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 2012 and honours parents throughout the world. The Global Day provides an opportunity to appreciate all parents in all parts of the world for their selfless commitment to children and their lifelong sacrifice towards nurturing this relationship.

In honour of this event, we would like to invite you to explore the following titles which examine global parenthood from a variety of disciplines and perspectives.

Read more about the Global Day of Parents here. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Continue reading “Appreciating Parents & Their Commitment to Children” →

Earth Day

Each year, Earth Day — April 22 — marks the anniversary of what many consider the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970. Earth Day 1970 capitalized on the emerging consciousness, channeling the energy of the anti-war protest movement and putting environmental concerns front and center. The very first Earth day celebration brought 20 million Americans to the streets to peacefully demonstrate for environmental protection. The day finally united groups that shared common values and have been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife. It is now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network, and celebrated in more than 192 countries each year, reaching out to hundreds of millions of people. Get involved to build a better future!

———————————————————————————————————————————–

In celebration of Earth Day, we are delighted to offer free access to a special virtual issue that focuses on Climate Change and features articles from a range of history, politics, and anthropology journals. http://journals.berghahnbooks.com/_uploads/Climate_Change_VI.pdf

———————————————————————————————————————————–

Happy Earth Day from Berghahn! Visit our web and for the next 30 days use code AAG15 at checkout to receive 25% discount on our Environmental Studies titles.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
An Appraisal from the Gulf Region
Edited by Paul Sillitoe

Continue reading “Earth Day” →

‘More than the Sum of Our Isolated Parts’: Reflections of a Co-Author

From Virtue to Vice: Negotiating Anorexia is the result of creative and academic collaboration between Penny Van Esterik and Richard A. O’Connor. In the following post, Van Esterik reflects on the collaboration of this  pair—Van Esterik, an expert on breastfeeding, and O’Connor, an anthropologist who watched someone close suffer with anorexia—and how their book was made much stronger through their unique vantage points.

 

__________________________

 

Like most academics, I am a lone wolf writer, needing the silence to propel my thoughts on to screens and paper. But sometimes we become more than the sum of our isolated parts when we work together. Richard’s voice as an anthropologist was already in my work long before we began formal collaboration on From Virtue to Vice and ongoing in The Dance of Nurture [their next co-written book on breastfeeding].

Continue reading “‘More than the Sum of Our Isolated Parts’: Reflections of a Co-Author” →

Simulated Shelves: Browse March 2015 New Books

We are delighted to present a selection of our newly published March 2015 titles from our core subjects of Anthropology, Colonialism, Education, Global Health, History, Medical Anthropology, Politics, Theory & Methodology in Anthropology, and Urban Studies, along with a selection of our New in Paperback titles.

We are especially excited to announce the publication of the paperback edition of CIVILIZING NATURE edited by Bernhard Gissibl, Sabine Höhler and Patrick Kupper.

“This book makes a unique contribution to the conservation literature by enhancing one’s understanding and appreciation of the cultural meaning of nature conservation through the lens of national park development. […] Highly recommended.” · Choice

———————————————————————————————————————————–

NIMBY IS BEAUTIFUL
Cases of Local Activism and Environmental Innovation Around the World
Edited by Carol Hager and Mary Alice Haddad

Continue reading “Simulated Shelves: Browse March 2015 New Books” →

Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality

Today (March 18th) is Goddess of Fertility Day, a time when Aphrodite and other gods and goddesses of fertility are honored by pagans throughout the world in celebration of life and fertility.

———————————————————————————————————————————–

Understanding the complex and multifaceted issue of human reproduction has been, and remains, of great interest both to academics and practitioners. Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality series includes studies by specialists in the field of social, cultural, medical, and biological anthropology, medical demography, psychology, and development studies. Current debates and issues of global relevance on the changing dynamics of fertility, human reproduction and sexuality are addressed. Below is a selection of forthcoming & newly published titles within the series:

 

Volume 30 Forthcoming!

THAI IN VITRO
Gender, Culture and Assisted Reproduction
Andrea Whittaker

 

Continue reading “Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality” →

Roots and Recovery: Anthropologists Study Anorexia from all Angles

How do sufferers of anorexia recover? Richard A. O’Connor and Penny Van Esterik seek answers to this question, first by identifying root causes of the disease and then by sharing the stories of those who have made a full recovery.  From Virtue to Vice: Negotiating Anorexia, the book that resulted from their research, does not look at the affliction of anorexia from behind a glass, in fact, O’Connor’s connection to the work is deeply personal. He explains in his own words below.

 

_______________________

 

Every book has a back story. Mine is no big secret. When my daughter Amorn became anorexic it turned our family upside down. Carolyn [my wife] and I desperately wanted answers. We got a great counselor but nothing worked. The explanations we got made no sense. That wasn’t our daughter. Of course we worried we were in denial—that we just didn’t want to face the truth—and that silenced me at the time. I understood clinicians have to put people in categories and few fit perfectly. So I settled into accepting my daughter was an exception, an outlier. What mattered most was working with her caregivers for recovery.

 

Continue reading “Roots and Recovery: Anthropologists Study Anorexia from all Angles” →

National Women’s History Month

Women’s History Month is an annual declared month that highlights the contributions of women to events in history and contemporary society. It is celebrated during March in the United States, and across Europe, corresponding with International Women’s Day on March 8. All around the world, National Women’s History Month & International Women’s day present an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of women while calling for greater equality!

 

Berghahn invites you to explore a special issue of Aspasia devoted to International Women’s Day. The year 2010 marked the centennial of International Women’s Day, and the year 2011 marked the centennial of its first celebrations. Inspired by these events, this issue deals with “A Hundred Years of International Women’s Day in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe.” Read more.

 

Berghahn is also pleased to offer a 25% discount on any of our Gender Studies books on orders placed within the next 30 days. At checkout, simply enter the code IWD15.

 

GENDER HISTORY IN A TRANSNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
Networks, Biographies, Gender Orders
Edited by Oliver Janz and Daniel Schönpflug

 

 

Continue reading “National Women’s History Month” →

Identity at the Intersection of Science and Culture

Drawing on the work of medical researchers, anthropologists, historians of science, and sociologists, Identity Politics and the New Genetics: Re/Creating Categories of Difference and Belonging explores how science and culture are used to create and perpetuate ideas of race and ethnicity. The volume was published as a paperback in November. Following, David Skinner, who co-edited the volume with Katharina Schramm and Richard Rottenburg, reflects on the volume’s reception and its distinction from other volumes on genetics and social history.

 

As the attention devoted to science journalist Nicholas Wade’s recent book A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race, and Human History illustrates, discussion of race and genetics is habitually deemed ‘difficult’ or ‘controversial’. Wade is one of a long line of writers who portray themselves as fearless truth-seekers battling the politically correct consensus that races are social not biological types.

Continue reading “Identity at the Intersection of Science and Culture” →

‘Healing Roots’: Author Traces Life of Wild Plant from Farm to Pharm

The healing powers of a plant in sub-Saharan Africa, long used for indigenous medicine, are now being harnessed as a pharmaceutical to be more widely produced and sold. Author Julie Laplante follows this path of production of Artemesia Afra from a wild-growing bush to a processed, controlled substance in her soon-to-be-published monograph, Healing Roots: Anthropology in Life and Medicine. Following, Laplante shares how her own path led her from researcher to author.

 

_________________________________

 

The journey told in the book began in August 2006 within the Biomedicine in Africa research group at the Max Planck Institute für etnologische forshung in Halle (Saale), Germany, as we were invited to explore how biomedicine is both shaping and being shaped through its practices in Africa. My own research project entitled ‘South African Roots towards Global Knowledge’ namely intended to find out how this is done through the practices of clinical trials as they aim to ‘recognize’ indigenous medicine.

Continue reading “‘Healing Roots’: Author Traces Life of Wild Plant from Farm to Pharm” →