Subject: Anthropology. Ethnography

We found 66 results

Commoners and Nobles: Hereditary Divisions in Tibet

E-book

Heidi Fjeld 2005 Written by one of the few scholars who has been able to conduct long-term fieldwork in the TAR, this study explores how Tibetans manoeuvre within two contradictory value systems – those of old Tibet and the new PRC – balancing between ideals and pragmatism. More specifically, it asks how and why it […]

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Fengshui in China: Geomantic Divination Between State Orthodoxy and Popular Religion

E-book

Ole Bruun 2011 Contrary to popular manuals, this book approaches fengshui from an academic angle, focusing on its significance in China, but also depicting the recent history of its reinterpretation in the West. It includes a historical account of fengshui over the last 150 years with anthropological fieldwork on contemporary practices in two Chinese rural […]

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Exploring Ethnic Diversity in Burma

E-book

Mikael Gravers (ed) 2006 While the image of modern Myanmar/Burma tends to be couched in human rights terms – and especially of a heroic Aung San Suu Kyi opposing an oppressive military regime – in reality there are several conflicts with ethnic and religious dimensions, as well as political and ideological differences between the opposition […]

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Doing Fieldwork in China

E-book

Maria Heimer & Stig Thøgersen (eds) 2006 Doing fieldwork inside the PRC is an eye-opening but sometimes also deeply frustrating experience. Fieldwork-based studies form the foundation for our understanding of Chinese politics and society, but there are conspicuously few detailed descriptions in the China literature of how people actually do their fieldwork, and of the […]

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Beyond the Green Myth: Borneo’s Hunter-Gatherers in the Twenty-First Century

E-book

Peter Sercombe & Bernard Sellato (eds) 2006 Covering all those parts of Borneo where nomads (called Penan, Punan or by various other names) are or were known to exist, this book provides a comparative historical-ecological study of these groups. The study is primarily concerned with issues of modernization (the monetary economy, formalized institutions, centralized power […]

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Making Fields of Merit: Buddhist Female Ascetics and Gendered Orders in Thailand

E-book

Monica Lindberg Falk 2007 Religion plays a central role in Thai society with Buddhism intertwined in the daily lives of the people. Religion also plays an important role in establishing gender boundaries. The growth in recent decades of self-governing nunneries and the increasing interest of Thai women in a Buddhist monastic life are notable changes […]

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Modernization & Effeminization in India: Kerala Cashew Workers since 1930

E-book

Anna Lindberg 2005 The South Indian state of Kerala is well known for its progressive policy, high social indicators, and comparatively high women’s status. Processes of modernization, however, have had an ambiguous impact on women. This study of female cashew factory workers in Kerala combines meticulous historical investigation with anthropological research, including a wealth of […]

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Childbirth and Tradition in Northeast Thailand: Forty Years of Development and Cultural Change

E-book

Anders Poulsen 2006 This beautifully illustrated volume offers a rare study of Isan-Thai customs and belief associated with pregnancy and birth and how they have changed over almost half a century. Using a psychological and socio-therapeutic framework, Anders Poulsen discusses the function of various birth rites while giving an unmatched description of all traditions specifically […]

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Land and Longhouse: Agrarian Transformation in the Uplands of Sarawak

E-book

R.A. Cramb 2007 This book examines the role of community, market and state in the historic transformation of upland livelihoods in Southeast Asia. Focusing on the Saribas Iban of Sarawak, the book combines in-depth, generation-long village case studies with an account of changes in land use and tenure at the regional level spanning a century […]

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Violence and Belonging: Land, Love and Lethal Conflict in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan

E-book

Are Knudsen 2009 Most studies of violence in the Middle East and South Asia come from the perspective of honour or political violence. By contrast, this important study offers a new perspective on its causes in Pakistan’s unruly North-West Frontier Province, challenging stereotyped images of a region and people miscast as extremist and militant. Based […]

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