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In 'The arena of everyday life' nine authors look back and forward at developments in the sociology of consumers and households. Nine chapters show variety in the employed methods, from multivariate analyses of survey data to classical essays. The contributions are organised around four themes. In the first theme, two chapters entail a critical discussion of the concepts livelihood and household. The second part deals with health, in particular food security, hygiene and aids/HIV. The third theme focuses on female opportunities to foster income procurement of household by respectively microfinance and entrepreneurship. The fourth theme concentrates on two topical societal developments in a W...
Throughout the 1980s there have been calls, often from development organizations of global repute, for the incorporation of social science perspectives into the design and management of sustainable development programmes. Practising Development is the first collection to offer first-hand critical assessments of the success and failures found within actual responses to these calls. By combining academic and practical experience from anthropology, development and aid organizations the contributors examine the processes of intervention, the methods by which this intervention can be assessed, and explain the socio-economic and political worlds within which intervention and development evolve.
Packaged Plants offers an absorbing ethnography and cultural history of how the production and consumption of plants for food and medicine has gone through ‘metabolic rifts’, increasingly processed into commodities with adverse impact on health and aggravating existing economic and social inequities. The book also describes ultra-processed foods that are linked to metabolic syndrome, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity. Divided into three parts, the first part presents a comprehensive historical analysis of the socio-metabolic shifts leading to the loss of plant sovereignty in the Philippines. It scrutinizes colonial influences, urbanization, nutritional policies, scie...
‘Becoming – An Anthropological Approach to Understandings of the Person in Java’ is an ethnographic monograph that examines the ways in which the peoples of a peri-urban locality in East Java, Indonesia conceive of the person, by looking at how their everyday practices relate to understandings of ethnicity, kinship, Islam and gender. The volume is also a thought experiment that aims to make a theoretical contribution to the discipline of anthropology by proposing the concept of the ‘diaphoron’ person and re-deploying the method of ‘total ethnography’.
Using tissue-cultured technology is a potentially important way for smallholder banana farmers to improve their yields and income. In the situation of the impoverishing effects of high HIV/AIDS-prevalence in a rural banana-farming community, this applies even more. The research documented in this book examines the balance between required inputs and potential benefits of applying the tissue-cultured technology among HIV/AIDS-affected and non-affected households in Maragua district, Central Kenya, using a livelihood approach. The results show that adoption of the technology and its continued use differs according to the resources endowment of the farming households. Lack of financial and phys...
In the first and second centuries A.D., Roman soldiers were forbidden legitimate marriage during service: nevertheless, many soldiers formed de facto marriages. This book examines the legal, social, and cultural aspects of the marriage prohibition and soldiers' families. The first section covers the marriage prohibition in Roman literary and legal sources. The second section treats social and legal aspects of the soldiers' families, including a survey of epitaphs, the legal impact of the ban on families, and alternatives to family formation. The final section examines the marriage ban as military policy and its relation to Roman culture. This book will be of interest to scholars of the Roman army, Roman social history, and family law. Students of gender and sexuality in the ancient world will also find it relevant.
Explores the concept of 'house' in the context of Levi-Strauss' idea of the house as a link between kinship-based societies and class societies, developing this further into an examination of a conjuncture of architecture, people and symbolism.
This book examines how the cultural context influences the way in which young single women approach courtship, and issues of sexuality and reproductive health.
To stimulate the exploration of African initiative and creativity beyond immediate socio-economic and political circumstances this book demonstrates that societies in Africa have always showed the ability to negotiate whatever constraining ecological, economic and political circumstances they faced.
Western pharmaceuticals are flooding the Third World. Injections, capsules and tablets are available in city markets and village shops, from 'traditional' practitioners and street vendors, as well as from more orthodox sources like hospitals. Although many are aware of this 'pharmaceutical invasion', little has been written about how local people perceive and use these products. This book is a first attempt to remedy that situation. It presents studies of the ways Western medicines are circulated and understood in the cities and rural areas of Africa, Asia and Latin America. We feel that such a collection is long overdue for two reasons. The first is a practical one: people dealing with heal...