Language and Politics in the Toraja Highlands of Indonesia
The expression "one or two words" is used by the Toraja highlanders of Indonesia to refer euphemistically to their highly elaborate form of political speechmaking. Moving from this understatement, which denotes the meaningfulness of transient acts of speech, One or Two Words offers an analysis of the shifting power relations between centers and ......
In Dynamics of Difference in Australia, Francesca Merlan examines relations between indigenous and nonindigenous people from the events of early exploration and colonial endeavors to the present day. From face-to-face interactions to national and geopolitical affairs, the book illuminates the dimensions of difference that are revealed by these ......
The Banaban experience offers insight into the plight of other island peoples facing forced migration as a result of human impact on the environment.
Consuming Ocean Island tells the story of the land and people of Banaba, a small Pacific island, which, from 1900 to 1980, was heavily mined for phosphate, an essential ......
The end of human history is an event that has been foreseen or announced by both messianics and dialecticians. But who is the protagonist of that history that is coming-or has come-to a close? What is man? How did he come on the scene? And how has he maintained his privileged place as the master of, or first among, the animals? In The Open, ......
In Knowing as Moving, Susan Leigh Foster theorizes how the act of moving in and through the world creates the potential for individual and collective bodies to connect. Starting from the assertion that knowing takes place through bodily movement, Foster moves away from the Western philosophical traditions of dance, critiquing the Cartesian ......
Sacred Mountains and the Search for Meaning in Post-Disaster Japan
In this compelling narrative of discovery set in Japan's remote Dewa Sanzan mountain range, Shayne A. P. Dahl describes Shugendo, a secretive religious tradition that combines aspects of Shinto, Buddhism, and mountain worship. As a participant-observer, Dahl invites readers into the practices of contemporary ascetics who see the sacred mountains ......
A riveting indictment of a government that fails to help citizens in need of aid, protection, and humanity The Shaming State argues that Americans have been abandoned by a government that has relinquished its duties of care toward its citizens. Sara Salman describes a government that withholds care in times of need and instead shames the ......
Drawing on the authors' keen observations and decades of fieldwork, Lazy, Crazy, and Disgusting combines a wide array of ethnographic evidence from around the globe to demonstrate conclusively how stigma undermines global health's basic goals to create both health and justice.