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Book review: Political Competition and State-Society Relations In Mount Hagen

Published on April 7, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, books, culture traditions, Pacific Oceania, politics

Edward P. Wolfers, The National (Papua New Guinea)

The book “The Name Must Not Go Down: Political Competition and State-Society Relations In Mount Hagen, Papua New Guinea” by Dr Joseph Ketan is primarily a study of political competition in the area around Mount Hagen. It began as a PhD thesis, and as a work of scholarly analysis, it is a mega-success.

The award of his PhD and publication of his book make Dr Ketan, himself a member of a local group, the Kawelka, in the Mount Hagen area, afully-fledged member of the academic community. As a member of one of the groups of whom he writes, Dr Ketan, is in the unusual position for a student of anthropology of being, at least in linguistic and many cultural terms, an insider from the community about which he writes. >> continue

Edward P. Wolfers, The National (Papua New Guinea)

The book "The Name Must Not Go Down: Political Competition and State-Society Relations In Mount Hagen, Papua New Guinea" by Dr Joseph Ketan is primarily a study of political competition in the area…

New book: Divination and Healing: Potent Vision

Published on April 1, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, books, medical anthropology / ethnobothany, religion cosmology

Tucson Weekly

Divination and Healing: Potent Vision, a scholarly collection of articles from the University of Arizona Press, examines a number of divinatory systems in Africa, Asia and the Americas. Divination is present, to some extent, in all cultures, ranging from well-known types like astrology, tarot and a variety of psychic activities, to those a bit more arcane, involving such diverse phenomenon as umbilical cords, comet tails, bouncing pearls, roosters, rats and cheese.

For the most part, social scientists have viewed these pursuits from a materialist perspective, seeing them as the illusionary byproducts of the human desire for control in a perilous and unpredictable world. However, in recent years, anthropologists have begun reassessing divinatory frameworks and the subjective meaning they have for participants, because of the growing recognition that many of these techniques actually work. >> continue

Tucson Weekly

Lots of book reviews on The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology’s site

Published on March 30, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, books

Just discovered the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association’s website. You can’t read the articles in The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, but you’ll find lots of interesting book reviews. Lots of stuff to explore! >> continue to the Book Reviews

Just discovered the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association's website. You can't read the articles in The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, but you'll find lots of interesting book reviews. Lots of stuff to explore! >> continue to the…

Book review: Reindeer People – Living with Animals and Spirits in Siberia

Published on March 28, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Asia, books, culture traditions, indigenous people / minorities

Ronald Hutton, Times Online

Piers Vitebsky is one of a tiny number of British experts on the region and an internationally renowned anthropologist. This book “REINDEER PEOPLE: Living with Animals and Spirits in Siberia” is the record of successive visits that he has made over the past 17 years to live with members of a native people called the Eveny in the Verkhoyansk Mountains in the far north-east. Like his earlier work, it shows him to be both an excellent scholar and a gifted writer, with a feeling for landscape and character and a knack for metaphor and allusion. >> continue

SEE ALSO:
Piers Vitebsky: What is a shaman? – Worlds of the Shaman (Natural History, March 1997 / findarticles.com)
Peoples of the Russian North and Far East (Arctic Circle)

Ronald Hutton, Times Online

Piers Vitebsky is one of a tiny number of British experts on the region and an internationally renowned anthropologist. This book "REINDEER PEOPLE: Living with Animals and Spirits in Siberia" is the record of successive visits that…

Book review: Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World

Published on March 20, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, books, history, language

Martin Jacques, The Guardian

There are many ways of recounting the history of the world – via the rise and fall of civilisations, the fortunes of nation states, socio-economic systems and patterns, the development of technology, or the chronology of war and military prowess. This book tells the story through the rise and decline of languages. It is a compelling read, one of the most interesting books I have read in a long while.

Nicholas Ostler does not adopt a narrowly linguistic approach – based on the structure of languages and their evolution – but instead looks at the history of languages, the reasons for their rise and, as a rule, also their fall. While it is a history of languages, it is at the same time a history of the cultures and civilisations from which they sprang. >> continue

(via Arts & Letters Daily)

Martin Jacques, The Guardian

There are many ways of recounting the history of the world - via the rise and fall of civilisations, the fortunes of nation states, socio-economic systems and patterns, the development of technology, or the chronology of war…