Anthropology Islands And The Search For Meaning In The Anthropocene

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Anthropology, Islands, and the Search for Meaning in the Anthropocene

Author : Justin Armstrong
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000824101
Total Pages : 105 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (8 download)

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Book Synopsis Anthropology, Islands, and the Search for Meaning in the Anthropocene by : Justin Armstrong

Download or read book Anthropology, Islands, and the Search for Meaning in the Anthropocene written by Justin Armstrong and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-11-02 with total page 105 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part ethnography, part memoir, and part critical reflection on the Anthropocene, this book examines the ways that islands form and inform human experiences of the everyday and the extraordinary. Utilizing carefully considered anthropological perspectives drawn from over a decade of anthropological fieldwork, the author employs islands as a complex set of lenses to examine the ways that we are intimately connected, separated, and divided from ourselves, one another, and the planet. Moving across time, place and disciplinary boundaries, this book traces a narrative route from the remote islands of Micronesia to the subarctic expanses of northern Iceland, all in service of gaining a deeper understanding of the cultural resonance of islands. This book offers the reader a type of ideological travel guide, one that exchanges restaurant reviews and hotel recommendations for pathways of reflection and new modes of seeing and being in the world. It will be of interest to scholars in the social sciences and humanities, and readers from human geography, cultural studies, sociology, philosophy and American studies.

The Lives and Legacies of a Carceral Island

Author : Ann Curthoys
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000686337
Total Pages : 189 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (6 download)

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Book Synopsis The Lives and Legacies of a Carceral Island by : Ann Curthoys

Download or read book The Lives and Legacies of a Carceral Island written by Ann Curthoys and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-09-30 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a biographical history of Rottnest Island, a small carceral island offshore from Western Australia. Rottnest is also known as Wadjemup, or "the place across the water where the spirits are", by Noongar, the Indigenous people of south-western Australia. Through a series of biographical case studies of the diverse individuals connected to the island, the book argues that their particular histories lend Rottnest Island a unique heritage in which Indigenous, maritime, imperial, colonial, penal, and military histories intersect with histories of leisure and recreation. Tracing the way in which Wadjemup/Rottnest Island has been continually re-imagined and re-purposed throughout its history, the text explores the island’s carceral history, which has left behind it a painful community memory. Today it is best known as a beach holiday destination, a reputation bolstered by the "quokka selfie" trend, the online posting of photographs taken with the island’s cute native marsupial. This book will appeal to academic readers with an interest in Australian history, Aboriginal history, and the history of the British Empire, especially those interested in the burgeoning scholarship on the concept of "carceral archipelagos" and island prisons.

Adam’s Bridge

Author : Arup K. Chatterjee
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1003859127
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (38 download)

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Book Synopsis Adam’s Bridge by : Arup K. Chatterjee

Download or read book Adam’s Bridge written by Arup K. Chatterjee and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-03-05 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adam’s Bridge offers the first comprehensive transdisciplinary study of the famous eponymous tombolo (also known as Ram Setu) combining its sacral, historical, geological, political, performative, and heritage aspects into one framework, viewed under the critical lenses of island studies and cultural theory. The book elucidates the entanglement of Adam’s Bridge’s discursive history with India’s colonial history, contemporary geology, domestic politics, and the nation’s emerging position in a complex geopolitical order in and around the Indian Ocean region, vis-à-vis increasing Sino-American involvement in Indo-Sri Lankan relations. Without foregrounding any absolute scientific claims on the location of the sandbars that inspired sage Valmiki’s Ram Setu and the Ramayan legacy or hindering narratives of religious faiths and folklore revolving around the structure, this intellectual historiography traces the parallel evolution of traditions of compassionate questioning and devotion for Indic sacred beliefs among commentators across the millennia from both Indian and non-Indian spectra, seen in juxtaposition with the biotic and abiotic diversity of the Gulf of Mannar and Palk Bay. Looking beyond secular-versus-religious debates, this book will be of interest to scholars of ocean and island studies, coastal economies, archipelagic geographies, environmental history, heritage studies, colonial studies, and cultural theory. Adam’s Bridge unifies a consortium of themes, ranging across ecological and livelihood sustainability, environmentalism, soteriology, economic and geostrategic history, and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, in conceptualizing a compellingly nuanced chronicle for India’s enchanted ‘bridge.’

Anthropocene Islands

Author : Jonathan Pugh
Publisher : University of Westminster Press
ISBN 13 : 1914386019
Total Pages : 261 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (143 download)

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Book Synopsis Anthropocene Islands by : Jonathan Pugh

Download or read book Anthropocene Islands written by Jonathan Pugh and published by University of Westminster Press. This book was released on 2021-06-09 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A must read … a new analytical agenda for the Anthropocene, coherently drawing out the power of thinking with islands.' – Elena Burgos Martinez, Leiden University ‘This is an essential book. [The] analytics they propose … offer both a critical agenda for island studies and compass points through which to navigate the haunting past, troubling present, and precarious future.’ – Craig Santos Perez, University of Hawai’i, Manoa ‘All academic books should be like this: hard to put down. Informative, careful, sometimes devasting, yet absolutely necessary - if you read one book about the Anthropocene let it be this. You will never think of islands in the same way again.’ – Kimberley Peters, University of Oldenburg ‘ … a unique journey into the Anthropocene. Critical, generous and compelling’. — Nigel Clark, Lancaster University The island has become a key figure of the Anthropocene – an epoch in which human entanglements with nature come increasingly to the fore. For a long time, islands were romanticised or marginalised, seen as lacking modernity’s capacities for progress, vulnerable to the effects of catastrophic climate change and the afterlives of empire and coloniality. Today, however, the island is increasingly important for both policy-oriented and critical imaginaries that seek, more positively, to draw upon the island’s liminal and disruptive capacities, especially the relational entanglements and sensitivities its peoples and modes of life are said to exhibit. Anthropocene Islands: Entangled Worlds explores the significant and widespread shift to working with islands for the generation of new or alternative approaches to knowledge, critique and policy practices. It explains how contemporary Anthropocene thinking takes a particular interest in islands as ‘entangled worlds’, which break down the human/nature divide of modernity and enable the generation of new or alternative approaches to ways of being (ontology) and knowing (epistemology). The book draws out core analytics which have risen to prominence (Resilience, Patchworks, Correlation and Storiation) as contemporary policy makers, scholars, critical theorists, artists, poets and activists work with islands to move beyond the constraints of modern approaches. In doing so, it argues that engaging with islands has become increasingly important for the generation of some of the core frameworks of contemporary thinking and concludes with a new critical agenda for the Anthropocene.

Anthropocene Unseen

Author : Cymene Howe
Publisher : punctum books
ISBN 13 : 1950192555
Total Pages : 546 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (51 download)

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Book Synopsis Anthropocene Unseen by : Cymene Howe

Download or read book Anthropocene Unseen written by Cymene Howe and published by punctum books. This book was released on 2020 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea of the Anthropocene often generates an overwhelming sense of abjection or apathy. It occupies the imagination as a set of circumstances that counterpose individual human actors against ungraspable scales and impossible odds. There is much at stake in how we understand the implications of this planetary imagination, and how to plot paths from this present to other less troubling futures. With Anthropocene Unseen: A Lexicon, the editors aim at a resource helpful for this task: a catalog of ways to pluralize and radicalize our picture of the Anthropocene, to make it speak more effectively to a wider range of contemporary human societies and circumstances. Organized as a lexicon for troubled times, each entry in this book recognizes the gravity of the global forecasts that invest the present with its widespread air of crisis, urgency, and apocalyptic possibility. Each also finds value in smaller scales of analysis, capturing the magnitude of an epoch in the unique resonances afforded by a single word. The Holocene may have been the age in which we learned our letters, but we are faced now with circumstances that demand more experimental plasticity. Alternative ways of perceiving a moment can bring a halt to habitual action, opening a space for slantwise movements through the shock of the unexpected. Each small essay in this lexicon is meant to do just this, drawing from anthropology, literary studies, artistic practice, and other humanistic endeavors to open up the range of possible action by contributing some other concrete way of seeing the present. Each entry proposes a different way of conceiving this Earth from some grounded place, always in a manner that aims to provoke a different imagination of the Anthropocene as a whole. The Anthropocene is a world-engulfing concept, drawing every thing and being imaginable into its purview, both in terms of geographic scale and temporal duration. Pronouncing an epoch in our own name may seem the ultimate act of apex species self-aggrandizement, a picture of the world as dominated by ourselves. Can we learn new ways of being in the face of this challenge, approaching the transmogrification of the ecosphere in a spirit of experimentation rather than catastrophic risk and existential dismay? This lexicon is meant as a site to imagine and explore what human beings can do differently with this time, and with its sense of peril. Cymene Howe is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and founding faculty of the Center for Energy and Environmental Research in the Human Sciences (CENHS) at Rice University. She is the author of Intimate Activism (Duke, 2013) and Ecologics: Wind and Power in the Anthropocene (Duke, 2019). Cymene was co-editor for the journal Cultural Anthropology and the Johns Hopkins Guide to Social Theory, and she co-hosts the weekly Cultures of Energy podcast. Anand Pandian is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University. He is author of Reel World: An Anthropology of Creation (Duke, 2015) and Crooked Stalks: Cultivating Virtue in South India (Duke, 2009), among other book, as well as the co-editor of Race, Nature and the Politics of Difference (Duke, 2003) and Crumpled Paper Boat (Duke, 2017).

Down to Earth

Author : Gísli Pálsson
Publisher : punctum books
ISBN 13 : 1953035175
Total Pages : 249 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (53 download)

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Book Synopsis Down to Earth by : Gísli Pálsson

Download or read book Down to Earth written by Gísli Pálsson and published by punctum books. This book was released on 2020-10-22 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Nature and Society

Author : Philippe Descola
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134827156
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (348 download)

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Book Synopsis Nature and Society by : Philippe Descola

Download or read book Nature and Society written by Philippe Descola and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-12-16 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contributors to this book focus on the relationship between nature and society from a variety of theoretical and ethnographic perspectives. Their work draws upon recent developments in social theory, biology, ethnobiology, epistemology, sociology of science, and a wide array of ethnographic case studies -- from Amazonia, the Solomon Islands, Malaysia, the Mollucan Islands, rural comunities from Japan and north-west Europe, urban Greece, and laboratories of molecular biology and high-energy physics. The discussion is divided into three parts, emphasising the problems posed by the nature-culture dualism, some misguided attempts to respond to these problems, and potential avenues out of the current dilemmas of ecological discourse.

Anthropological Theory for the Twenty-First Century

Author : A. Lynn Bolles
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
ISBN 13 : 148753907X
Total Pages : 477 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (875 download)

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Book Synopsis Anthropological Theory for the Twenty-First Century by : A. Lynn Bolles

Download or read book Anthropological Theory for the Twenty-First Century written by A. Lynn Bolles and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2022-03-01 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anthropological Theory for the Twenty-First Century presents a critical approach to the study of anthropological theory for the next generation of aspiring anthropologists. Through a carefully curated selection of readings, this collection reflects the diversity of scholars who have long contributed to the development of anthropological theory, incorporating writings by scholars of color, non-Western scholars, and others whose contributions have historically been under-acknowledged. The volume puts writings from established canonical thinkers, such as Marx, Boas, and Foucault, into productive conversations with Du Bois, Ortiz, Medicine, Trouillot, Said, and many others. The editors also engage in critical conversations surrounding the "canon" itself, including its colonial history and decolonial potential. Updating the canon with late twentieth-century and early twenty-first-century scholarship, this reader includes discussions of contemporary theories such as queer theory, decolonial theory, ontology, and anti-racism. Each section is framed by clear and concise editorial introductions that place the readings in context and conversation with each other, as well as questions and glossaries to guide reader comprehension. A dynamic companion website features additional resources, including links to videos, podcasts, articles, and more.

American Anthropology in Micronesia

Author : Robert Kiste
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 0824861426
Total Pages : 649 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (248 download)

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Book Synopsis American Anthropology in Micronesia by : Robert Kiste

Download or read book American Anthropology in Micronesia written by Robert Kiste and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 1999-03-01 with total page 649 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text evaluates how anthropological research in the Trust Territory has affected the Micronesian people, the US colonial administration and the discipline of anthropology itself. It analyzes the interplay between anthropology and history, in particular how American colonialism affected anthropologists' use of history, and examines the research that has been conducted by American anthropologists in specific topical areas of sociocultural anthropology. The text concentrates on disciplinary concerns, but also considers the connections between work done in the era of applied anthropology and that completed later when anthropology was persued mainly for its own sake.

Reimagining Science Education in the Anthropocene

Author : Maria F. G. Wallace
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3030796221
Total Pages : 377 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (37 download)

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Book Synopsis Reimagining Science Education in the Anthropocene by : Maria F. G. Wallace

Download or read book Reimagining Science Education in the Anthropocene written by Maria F. G. Wallace and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-12-07 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access edited volume invites transdisciplinary scholars to re-vision science education in the era of the Anthropocene. The collection assembles the works of educators from many walks of life and areas of practice together to help reorient science education toward the problems and peculiarities associated with the geologic times many call the Anthropocene. It has become evident that science education—the way it is currently institutionalized in various forms of school science, government policy, classroom practice, educational research, and public/private research laboratories—is ill-equipped and ill-conceived to deal with the expansive and urgent contexts of the Anthropocene. Paying homage to myopic knowledge systems, rigid state education directives, and academic-professional communities intent on reproducing the same practices, knowledges, and relationships that have endangered our shared world and shared presents/presence is misdirected. This volume brings together diverse scholars to reimagine the field in times of precarity.

A History of Anthropological Theory, Fourth Edition

Author : Paul A. Erickson
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
ISBN 13 : 1442606614
Total Pages : 603 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (426 download)

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Book Synopsis A History of Anthropological Theory, Fourth Edition by : Paul A. Erickson

Download or read book A History of Anthropological Theory, Fourth Edition written by Paul A. Erickson and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2013-04-26 with total page 603 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the latest edition of their popular overview text, Erickson and Murphy continue to provide a comprehensive, affordable, and accessible introduction to anthropological theory from antiquity to the present. A new section on twenty-first-century anthropological theory has been added, with more coverage given to postcolonialism, non-Western anthropology, and public anthropology. The book has also been redesigned to be more visually and pedagogically engaging. Used on its own, or paired with the companion volume Readings for a History of Anthropological Theory, Fourth Edition, this reader offers a flexible and highly useful resource for the undergraduate anthropology classroom. For additional resources, visit the "Teaching Theory" page at www.utpteachingculture.com.

Anthropocene Islands

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781914386039
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (86 download)

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Book Synopsis Anthropocene Islands by :

Download or read book Anthropocene Islands written by and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A must read ... a new analytical agenda for the Anthropocene, coherently drawing out the power of thinking with islands.' - Elena Burgos Martinez, Leiden University 'This is an essential book. [The] analytics they propose ... offer both a critical agenda for island studies and compass points through which to navigate the haunting past, troubling present, and precarious future.' - Craig Santos Perez, University of Hawai'i, Manoa 'All academic books should be like this: hard to put down. Informative, careful, sometimes devasting, yet absolutely necessary - if you read one book about the Anthropocene let it be this. You will never think of islands in the same way again.' - Kimberley Peters, University of Oldenburg ' ... a unique journey into the Anthropocene. Critical, generous and compelling'. - Nigel Clark, Lancaster University The island has become a key figure of the Anthropocene - an epoch in which human entanglements with nature come increasingly to the fore. For a long time, islands were romanticised or marginalised, seen as lacking modernity's capacities for progress, vulnerable to the effects of catastrophic climate change and the afterlives of empire and coloniality. Today, however, the island is increasingly important for both policy-oriented and critical imaginaries that seek, more positively, to draw upon the island's liminal and disruptive capacities, especially the relational entanglements and sensitivities its peoples and modes of life are said to exhibit. Anthropocene Islands: Entangled Worlds explores the significant and widespread shift to working with islands for the generation of new or alternative approaches to knowledge, critique and policy practices. It explains how contemporary Anthropocene thinking takes a particular interest in islands as 'entangled worlds', which break down the human/nature divide of modernity and enable the generation of new or alternative approaches to ways of being (ontology) and knowing (epistemology). The book draws out core analytics which have risen to prominence (Resilience, Patchworks, Correlation and Storiation) as contemporary policy makers, scholars, critical theorists, artists, poets and activists work with islands to move beyond the constraints of modern approaches. In doing so, it argues that engaging with islands has become increasingly important for the generation of some of the core frameworks of contemporary thinking and concludes with a new critical agenda for the Anthropocene.

Anthropocene Islands

Author : Jonathan Pugh
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781914386008
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (86 download)

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Book Synopsis Anthropocene Islands by : Jonathan Pugh

Download or read book Anthropocene Islands written by Jonathan Pugh and published by . This book was released on 2021-06-09 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The island has become a key figure of the Anthropocene - an epoch in which human entanglements with nature come increasingly to the fore. For a long time, islands were romanticised or marginalised, seen as lacking modernity's capacities for progress, vulnerable to the effects of catastrophic climate change and the afterlives of empire and coloniality. Today, however, the island is increasingly important for both policy-oriented and critical imaginaries that seek, more positively, to draw upon the island's liminal and disruptive capacities, especially the relational entanglements and sensitivities its peoples and modes of life are said to exhibit. Anthropocene Islands: Entangled Worlds explores the significant and widespread shift to working with islands for the generation of new or alternative approaches to knowledge, critique and policy practices. It explains how contemporary Anthropocene thinking takes a particular interest in islands as 'entangled worlds', which break down the human/nature divide of modernity and enable the generation of new or alternative approaches to ways of being (ontology) and knowing (epistemology). The book draws out core analytics which have risen to prominence (Resilience, Patchworks, Correlation and Storiation) as contemporary policy makers, scholars, critical theorists, artists, poets and activists work with islands to move beyond the constraints of modern approaches. In doing so, it argues that engaging with islands has become increasingly important for the generation of some of the core frameworks of contemporary thinking and concludes with a new critical agenda for the Anthropocene.

Handbook of the Anthropocene

Author : Nathanaël Wallenhorst
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 9783031259098
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (59 download)

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Book Synopsis Handbook of the Anthropocene by : Nathanaël Wallenhorst

Download or read book Handbook of the Anthropocene written by Nathanaël Wallenhorst and published by Springer. This book was released on 2023-08-18 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Handbook is a collection of contributions of more than 300 researchers who have worked to grasp the Anthropocene, this new geological epoch characterised by a modification of the conditions of habitability of the Earth for all living things, in its biogeophysical and socio-political reality. These researchers also sought to define a historical and prospective anthropology that integrates social, economic, cultural and political issues as well as, of course, environmental ones. What are the anthropological changes needed to ensure that our human adventure will be able to continue in the Anthropocene? And what are the educational and political issues involved? Anthropocene is fast becoming a widely-used term, but thus far, there been no reference work explaining the thoughts of the greatest experts of the present day on this subject (at the intersection of biogeophysical and socio-political knowledge). A scientific and political concept (but which is also theconceptual vehicle for conveying the scientific community's sense of concern), this complex term is explained by international experts as they reflect on scientific arguments taking place in earth system science, the social sciences and the humanities. What these researchers from different disciplines have in common is a healthy concern for the future and how to prepare for it in the Anthropocene and also the identification of possible anthropological changes. This Handbook encourages readers to immerse themselves in reflections on the human adventure through descriptions of our differing heritages and the future that is in the process of being written.

Anthropocene Islands

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781914386022
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (86 download)

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Islands of Order

Author : J. Stephen Lansing
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691192936
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis Islands of Order by : J. Stephen Lansing

Download or read book Islands of Order written by J. Stephen Lansing and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two pioneering anthropologists reveal how complexity science can help us better understand how societies change over time Over the past two decades, anthropologist J. Stephen Lansing and geneticist Murray Cox have explored dozens of villages on the islands of the Malay Archipelago, combining ethnographic research with research into genetic and linguistic markers to shed light on how these societies change over time. Islands of Order draws on their pioneering fieldwork to show how the science of complexity can be used to better understand unstable dynamics in culture, language, cooperation, and the emergence of hierarchies. Complexity science has opened exciting new vistas in physics and biology, but poses challenges for social scientists. What triggers fundamental, discontinuous social change? And what brings stable patterns—islands of order—into existence? Lansing and Cox begin with an incisive and accessible introduction to models of change, from simple random drift to coupled interactions, phase transitions, co-phylogenies, and adaptive landscapes. Then they take readers on a series of journeys to the islands of the Indo-Pacific to demonstrate how social scientists can harness these powerful tools to discover out-of-equilibrium social dynamics. Lansing and Cox address empirical questions surrounding the colonization of the Pacific, the relationship of language to culture, the emergence and disappearance of male and female hierarchies, and more. Unlocking new possibilities for the social sciences, Islands of Order is accompanied by an interactive companion website that enables readers to explore the models described in the book.

Down to Earth

Author : Gísli Pálsson
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781953035165
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (351 download)

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Book Synopsis Down to Earth by : Gísli Pálsson

Download or read book Down to Earth written by Gísli Pálsson and published by . This book was released on 2020-10-21 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can one have something in common with a lava field? Can one identify with a mountain, or connect with a contemporary event in the history of the earth, in the way that some people feel connected together by birthday, genetic fingerprint, or zodiac sign? In the terms of the Christian burial ceremony, what is this earth from which we come and to which we return?In Down to Earth, Gísli Pálsson explores such questions through both personal reflection on the microcosm of his childhood home, an Icelandic island disrupted by volcanic eruption, and a critical discussion of the current age of the Anthropocene, characterized by the growing environmental impact of humans. While environmental hazards caused by humans often inform public discussion of the Anthropocene, human impact on the planet is not always detrimental. This book discusses in detail the pioneering effort on Heimaey island to cool molten lava and to divert its flow, in order to save a fishing harbor and the community it has allowed to thrive. Mingling the personal and the geological, the local and the global, Down to Earth should appeal to many readers in diverse contexts throughout the English-speaking world. The author appears to the reader when it suits him, naturally enough, and on occasion near the center of the narrative, in the vicinity of earthquakes, eruptions, and other natural hazards.Gísli Pálsson is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Iceland. He has written extensively on a variety of issues, including human-environmental relations, slavery, biomedicine, and the social context of genomics. He has done fieldwork in Iceland, the Republic of Cape Verde, the Canadian Arctic, and the Virgin Islands. He has written over 130 articles in scientific journals and edited books. His most recent books are The Man Who Stole Himself (2016); Nature, Culture, and Society: Anthropological Perspectives on Life (2015), Can Science Resolve the Nature/Nurture Debate? (with Margaret Lock, 2016), and Biosocial Becomings: Integrating Social and Biological Anthropology (co-edited with Timothy Ingold, 2013). Pálsson has received a number of Icelandic and international honours for his academic work, including the Icelandic Asa Wright Medal for excellence in research, Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, the Rosenstiel Award for research from the University of Miami, and from the College of William & Mary, annaward for the best book on historical anthropology (2018). He has served on various international boards and committees, including the European Science Foundation.