| Preface |
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xiv | |
| World Map and Geographical Placement of Readings |
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xvi | |
| ONE Culture and Ethnography |
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1 | (57) |
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1 Ethnography and Culture |
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7 | (8) |
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To discover culture, the ethnographer must learn from the informant as a student. |
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2 Eating Christmas in the Kalahari |
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15 | (8) |
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The "generous" gift of a Christmas ox involves the anthropologist in a classic case of cross-cultural misunderstanding. |
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3 Shakespeare in the Bush |
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23 | (10) |
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Cross-cultural communication breaks down when the anthropologist attempts to translate the meaning of Hamlet to the Tiv. |
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4 Fieldwork on Prostitution in the Era of AIDS |
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33 | (13) |
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Fieldwork among urban prostitutes means doing ethnography under difficult but, in the end, manageable circumstances. |
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46 | (12) |
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Fieldwork in Barbados gives students a greater understanding of their own culture and personal life. |
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| TWO Language and Communication |
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58 | (44) |
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6 The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: Worlds Shaped by Words |
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63 | (13) |
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To what extent does Whorf's hypothesis that language creates reality apply in daily life? |
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76 | (9) |
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James P. Spradley and Brenda J. Mann |
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Actors in a bar use a variety of speech events and speech acts to communicate information beyond the literal meaning of their words. |
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8 Body Art as Visual Language |
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85 | (8) |
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From tattoos to makeup, body art is used to signal life-changing events, group membership, and social rebellion. |
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9 Conversation Style: Talking on the Job |
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93 | (9) |
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On the job, men and women use distinctive conversation styles to ask for help, leading them to evaluate performance and character differently. |
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| THREE Ecology and Subsistence |
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102 | (40) |
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10 The Hunters: Scarce Resources in the Kalahari |
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107 | (15) |
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Richard Borshay Lee, with an update by Richard Borshay Lee and Megan Biesele |
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!Kung and other foragers traditionally worked less and ate better than many other people with more "advanced" food-producing techniques. Today, however, their survival depends more on drilling wells and keeping cattle than on collecting wild foods. |
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11 Adaptive Failure: Easter's End |
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122 | (10) |
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Polynesian settlers on Easter Island prospered and multiplied until they eventually destroyed their island habitat and, with it, their civilization. Is this a harbinger of things to come for all humankind? |
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12 Forest Development the Indian Way |
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132 | (10) |
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South American governments could learn much about tropical forest "development" from the Amazonian Indians who live there. |
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| FOUR Economic Systems |
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142 | (36) |
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13 Reciprocity and the Power of Giving |
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147 | (7) |
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Gifts not only function to tie people together, but they may also be used to "flatten" an opponent and control the behavior of others. |
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14 Cocaine and the Economic Deterioration of Bolivia |
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154 | (11) |
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The world market for cocaine robs Bolivian villages of their men and causes problems for health, nutrition, transportation, and family. |
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15 Office Work and the Crack Alternative |
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165 | (13) |
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Purteo Rican men living in Spanish Harlem feel that the risks they run selling drugs are preferable to the disrespect they encounter as low-wage employees in New York's financial and service companies. |
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| FIVE Kinship and Family |
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178 | (40) |
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16 Mother's Love: Death without Weeping |
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183 | (10) |
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Close mother-child bonds suffer in the presence of high infant mortality in a Brazilian shantytown. |
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17 Family and Kinship in Village India |
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193 | (8) |
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Kinship still organizes the lives of Bhil villagers despite economic opportunities that draw people away from the community and dependence on relatives. |
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18 Life without Fathers or Husbands |
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201 | (9) |
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Members of a matrilineal Chinese tribe create a society that works without marriage. |
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19 Uterine Families and the Women's Community |
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210 | (8) |
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To succeed in a traditional patrilineal family, a Chinese woman must form her own informal uterine family inside her husband's household. |
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| SIX Identity, Roles, and Groups |
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218 | (42) |
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20 Symbolizing Roles: Behind the Veil |
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223 | (8) |
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Elizabeth W. Fernea and Robert A. Fernea |
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The women's veil stands for everything from personal protection to female honor in Mediterranean societies. |
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231 | (9) |
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Given access to public resources, women can attain equal or dominant status in any society. |
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240 | (9) |
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Why do cultures the world over treat menstruating women as taboo? What accounts for the high rate of menstruation among Western women? |
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249 | (11) |
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A woman can change her race from black to "brunette" by taking a plane from New York to Brazil. |
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| SEVEN Law and Politics |
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260 | (34) |
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24 Cross-Cultural Law: The Case of the Gypsy Offender |
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265 | (9) |
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Legal cultures clash when a young Gypsy is convicted of using someone else's social security number to apply for a car loan. |
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25 Notes from an Expert Witness |
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274 | (10) |
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Four-fields anthropological training helps an academic anthropologist achieve success as an expert witness in several court cases. |
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284 | (10) |
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Small societies based on reciprocal and redistributive economic exchange can do without officials. |
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| EIGHT Religion, Magic, and Worldview |
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294 | (46) |
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299 | (7) |
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Stanley A. Freed and Ruth S. Freed |
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A woman relieves her anxiety and gains family support when she is possessed by a friend's ghost. |
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306 | (10) |
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American baseball players employ magical practices as they try to deal with the uncertainty of their game. |
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29 Run for the Wall: An American Pilgrimage |
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316 | (14) |
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An annual motorcycle pilgrimage from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., personally transforms those who ride. |
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30 Cargo Beliefs and Religious Experience |
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330 | (10) |
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New Guinea cargo movements serve not only as a strategy to acquire cargo (Western goods) but also as a way to contact ancestors. |
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| NINE Globalization |
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340 | (46) |
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31 The Road to Refugee Resettlement |
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345 | (10) |
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Nuer refugees must develop the skill and determination to pass through a series of bureaucratic hurdles to reach and adjust to life in the United States. |
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32 Men's Pleasure, Women's Labor: Tourism for Sex |
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355 | (15) |
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Dominican women flock to Sosua, an attractive Caribbean destination for European men, to act as sex workers. Drawn by the prospect of big money and a possible European visa, they most often experience degradation and disappointment instead. |
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33 Japanese Hip-Hop and the Globalization of Popular Culture |
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370 | (16) |
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Using the ethnographic approach in hip-hop clubs to understand a transnational trend, an anthropologist discovers that a form of pop culture invented in the United States can be hybridized to take on a Japanese flavor in Tokyo. |
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| TEN Culture Change and Applied Anthropology |
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386 | (61) |
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391 | (19) |
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Using everything from airplanes to the world environmental movement, the Kayapo Indians of Brazil manage to prevent the building of a dam that would have flooded their Amazonian habitat. |
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35 Medical Anthropology: Improving Nutrition in Malawi |
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410 | (12) |
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A medical anthropologist is part of a team that introduces milk goats to Malawi villagers. |
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422 | (14) |
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Professional anthropologists do everything from ethnographies of automobile production lines to famine relief, but even the neophyte may be able to use the idea of culture to understand the workplace. |
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37 Career Advice for Anthropology Undergraduates |
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436 | (11) |
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The ability to translate useful anthropological skills into "resume speak" is one way for anthropology graduates to find employment. |
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| Glossary |
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447 | (6) |
| Index |
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453 | |
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