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A return to the village: community ethnographies and the study of Andean culture in retrospective
Full text linkThis edited volume brings together several scholars who have produced outstanding ethnographies of Andean communities, mostly in Peru but also in neighbouring countries. These ethnographies were published between the 1970s and 2000s, following different theoretical and thematic approaches, and they often transcended the boundaries of case studies to become important reference works on key aspects of Andean culture: for example, the symbolism and ritual uses of coca in the case of Catherine J. Allen; agricultural rituals and internal social divisions in the case of Peter Gose; social organisation and kinship in the case of Billie Jean Isbell; the use of khipus and concepts of literacy in the case of Frank Salomon; and the management and ritual dimensions of water and irrigation in the case of Ricardo Valderrama and Carmen Escalante.
In their chapters the authors revisit their original works in the light of contemporary anthropology, focusing on different academic and personal aspects of their ethnographies. For example, they explain how they chose the communities they worked in; the personal relations they established there during fieldwork; the kind of links they have maintained; and how these communities have changed over time. They also review their original methodological and theoretical approaches and findings, reassessing their validity and explaining how their views have evolved or changed since they originally conducted their fieldwork and published their studies.
This book also offers a review of the evolution and role of community ethnographies in the context of Andean anthropology. These ethnographies had a significant influence between the 1940s and 1980s, when they could be roughly divided – following Olivia Harris – between ‘long-termist’ and ‘short-termist’ approaches, depending on predominant focuses on historical continuities or social change respectively. However, by the 1990s these works came to be widely considered as too limited and subjective in the context of wider academic changes, such as the emergence of postmodern trends, and reflective and literary turns in anthropology. Overall, the book aims to reflect on this evolution of community ethnographies in the Andes, and on their contribution to the study of Andean culture
Climate Theory: An Invented Tradition?
No full textThe article responds to recent claims that the term ‘climate’ was never used in a physical or meteorological sense until the mid-eighteenth century, and that consequently the notion of 'climate theory' (often used to denote doctrines of environmental influence from Antiquity to the Enlightenment) is an anachronistic scholarly construct to be avoided at all costs. The article discusses a number of ancient and early modern examples to show that the pre-modern meaning of ‘climate’ (in its various linguistic forms) was richer than is sometimes assumed, and that a physical and/or meteorological usage of the term was in fact not completely alien to pre- modern writers. The article also raises broader methodological questions, asking whether it may be legitimate to use ‘etic’ (observer-oriented) rather than ‘emic’ (actor-oriented) categories to study the history of climate ideas
Internal Displacement and Responses at the Global Level: A Review of the Scholarship
Full text linkThis paper reviews the scholarship that addresses internal displacement at a global or general level. This includes research on global frameworks or processes concerned with internal displacement as well as that which addresses internal displacement in a general, or non-region/country-specific, way. It starts by describing the main internal displacement trends at the global level. It then reviews how scholarship on internal displacement at a global or general level has developed, respectively, in the fields of law and policy, other social sciences and humanities, and health and medicine. It ends by offering conclusions on the scope of existing research and directions for future study.
This review of the scholarly literature seeks to identify principal trends, gaps and opportunities relating to research on internal displacement. Towards this end, the review concentrates on academic publications, including monographs, chapters in edited volumes and peer-reviewed articles, from the early 1990s until the start of 2020, a period of approximately 30 years. It thus offers not only a critical review of the state of the art in this field of study but also a key point of reference for researchers looking to develop our understanding of internal displacement from the standpoint of a variety of different disciplines and themes.
The paper forms part of a series of papers published in this Working Paper Series that review the state of the scholarship on internal displacement at the global level and in particular regions as we enter the decade of the 2020s. This research forms part of the Interdisciplinary Network on Displacement, Conflict and Protection (AH/T005351/1) and Global Engagement on Internal Displacement in sub-Saharan Africa (EP/T003227/1) projects, pilots of which were supported by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF). It should be read in conjunction with the other review papers in this series
The State of Research on Internal Displacement in Africa
Full text linkThis paper reviews the scholarship on internal displacement in Africa. This focuses mainly on internal displacement in African countries affected by conflict and other crises, and the responses to that phenomenon at the national and regional levels. The paper starts by describing the main internal displacement trends across Africa as a region. It then reviews how scholarship on internal displacement in Africa has developed, respectively, in the fields of law and policy, other social sciences and humanities, and health and medicine. It ends by offering conclusions on the scope of existing research and directions for future study.
This review of the scholarly literature seeks to identify principal trends, gaps and opportunities relating to research on internal displacement. Towards this end, the review concentrates on academic publications, including monographs, chapters in edited volumes and peer-reviewed articles, from the early 1990s until the start of 2020, a period of approximately 30 years. It thus offers not only a critical review of the state of the art in this field of study but also a key point of reference for researchers looking to develop our understanding of internal displacement from the standpoint of a variety of different disciplines and themes.
The paper forms part of a series of papers published in this Working Paper Series that review the state of the scholarship on internal displacement at the global level and in particular regions as we enter the decade of the 2020s. This research forms part of the Interdisciplinary Network on Displacement, Conflict and Protection (AH/T005351/1) and Global Engagement on Internal Displacement in sub-Saharan Africa (EP/T003227/1) projects, pilots of which were supported by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF). It should be read in conjunction with the other review papers in this series
Internal Displacement in the Middle East: A Review of the Literature
Full text linkThis paper reviews the limited range of existing scholarship on internal displacement in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This focuses mainly on internal displacement in specific MENA region countries affected by conflict, and the responses to that phenomenon at the national level. The paper starts by describing the main internal displacement trends across the MENA region with focus on the following countries: Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan. It then reviews how scholarship on internal displacement in MENA region has developed, respectively, in the fields social sciences, arts and humanities; law and policy; and public health and medicine. It ends by offering conclusions on the scope of existing research and directions for future study.
This review of the scholarly literature seeks to identify principal trends, gaps and opportunities relating to research on internal displacement. Towards this end, the review concentrates on academic publications, including monographs, chapters in edited volumes and peer-reviewed articles, from the early 1990s until the start of 2020, a period of approximately 30 years. It thus offers not only a critical review of the state of the art in this field of study but also a key point of reference for researchers looking to develop our understanding of internal displacement from the standpoint of a variety of different disciplines and themes.
The paper forms part of a series of papers published in this Working Paper Series that review the state of the scholarship on internal displacement at the global level and in particular regions as we enter the decade of the 2020s. This research forms part of the Interdisciplinary Network on Displacement, Conflict and Protection (AH/T005351/1) and Global Engagement on Internal Displacement in sub-Saharan Africa (EP/T003227/1) projects, pilots of which were supported by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF). It should be read in conjunction with the other review papers in this series
Scrivere di Islam: Raccontare la diaspora
Full text linkScrivere di Islam. Raccontare la diaspora (Writing About Islam. Narrating a Diaspora) is a meditation on our multireligious, multicultural, and multilingual reality. It is the result of a personal and collaborative exploration of the necessity to rethink national culture and identity in a more diverse, inclusive, and anti-racist way. The central part of this volume – both symbolically and physically – includes Shirin Ramzanali Fazel’s reflections on the discrimination of Muslims, and especially Muslim women, in Italy and the UK. Looking at school textbooks, newspapers, TV programs, and sharing her own personal experience, this section invites us to change the way Muslim immigrants are narrated in scholarly research and news reports. Most importantly, this section urges us to consider minorities not just as ‘topics’ of cultural analysis, but as audiences and cultural agents. Following Shirin’s invitation to question prevailing modes of representations of immigrants, the volume continues with a dialogue between the co-authors and discusses how collaboration can be a way to avoid reproducing a ‘colonial model’ of knowledge production, in which the white male scholar takes as object of analysis the work of an African female writer. The last chapter also asserts that immigration literature cannot be approached with the same expectations and questions readers would have when reading ‘canonised’ texts. A new critical terminology is needed in order to understand the innovative linguistic choices and narrative forms that immigrant writers have invented in order to describe a reality that has lacked representation or which has frequently been misrepresented, especially in the discourse around the contemporary Muslim diaspora
Metacognitive Development and Conceptual Change in Children
Full text linkThere has been little investigation to date of the way metacognition is involved in conceptual change. It has been recognised that analytic metacognition is important to the way older children (c. 8-12 years) acquire more sophisticated scientific and mathematical concepts at school. But there has been barely any examination of the role of metacognition in earlier stages of concept acquisition, at the ages that have been the major focus of the developmental psychology of concepts. The growing evidence that even young children have a capacity for procedural metacognition raises the question of whether and how these abilities are involved in conceptual development. More specifically, are there developmental changes in metacognitive abilities that have a wholescale effect on the way children acquire new concepts and replace existing concepts? We show that there is already evidence of at least one plausible example of such a link and argue that these connections deserve to be investigated systematically
Civilian Specialists at War: Britain's Transport Experts and the First World War
Full text linkThe war of 1914–18 was the first great conflict to be fought between highly industrial societies able to manufacture and transport immense quantities of goods to the field of battle. In Civilian Specialists at War, Christopher Phillips examines the manner in which Britain’s industrial society influenced the character and conduct of industrial warfare. This book analyses the multiple connections between the military, the government and the senior executives of some of pre-war Britain’s largest companies. It illustrates the British army’s evolving response to the First World War and the role to be played by non-military expertise in the prosecution of such a conflict.
This study demonstrates that pre-existing professional relationships between the army, the government and private enterprise were exploited throughout the conflict. It details how civilian technologies facilitated the prosecution of war on an unprecedented scale, while showing how British experts were constrained by the political and military demands of coalition warfare. Civilian Specialists at War reveals that Britain’s transport experts were a key component in the country’s conduct of the First World War
Healing Under Oath: Biopsychosocial Dimensions of the US Asylum System
Full text linkThis paper aims to understand the ecological impacts of the asylum system from the perspective of mental health and social service professionals in the United States. Fifteen professionals who provide mental health and psychosocial support services for asylum-seekers were interviewed
about the ways in which the asylum regime interacts with treatment outcomes for their clients. Professionals emphasized the holistically detrimental impacts of the asylum system, citing long waits, resource scarcity, the inability to work, a legal timeline that may push applicants to disclose
trauma before they are emotionally ready to do so, an atmosphere of uncertainty and confusion and a climate of criminalisation. Participants described how they provide support and advocacy for their clients in spite of these unfavorable conditions. This research demonstrates that mental health and psychosocial support professionals are an untapped resource for expert knowledge about the biopsychosocial features of the asylum regime, and argues that asylum-seeking creates a framework for applicants’ lives that holds far-ranging psychological and social implications that stretch beyond legal proceedings
Recasting Commodity and Spectacle in the Indigenous Americas
Full text linkIndigenous artists frequently voice concerns over the commodification of their cultures, a process acutely felt by those living with the consequences of colonialism. This timely book, which features color illustrations throughout, examines the ways in which contemporary indigenous peoples in different parts of the Americas have harnessed performance practices to resist imposed stereotypes and shape their own complex identities. Essays by leading academics and practitioners show the vibrancy of a wide array of indigenous arts and cultural events in the United States, Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Canada, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Belize. As well as analyzing performance idioms, the authors trace the circulation of creative products and practices as commodities, as cultural capital, and/or as heritage. Making reference to aesthetic forms, intellectual property, and political empowerment, these essays weigh the impact of music, festivities, film, photography, theater, and museum installations among diverse audiences and discuss ways in which spectacles of cultural difference are remodeled in the hands of indigenous practitioners