Factions, Friends and Feasts

Jeremy Boissevain (1928-2015) was Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam and also taught at the universities of Montreal and Sussex and held visiting appointments in Malta, Britain, the United States, and Poland. His books and co-edited works include Saints and Fireworks (1965), Hal Farrug (1969), The Italians of Montreal (1970), Friends of Friends (1974), Beyond the Community (1975), Coping with Tourists (1996), Contesting the Foreshore (2004) and Hal Kirkop (2006). Translations of his work have appeared in Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, Polish and Japanese and Maltese.

“Although these essays have been published before, many are important contributions to the discipline, while others have been updated and revised, making this an important contribution to this field… Highly recommended.”  ·  Choice“Jeremy Boissevain is undoubtedly amongst the most qualified and distinguished researchers of Mediterranean societies: this book chronicles an exemplary intellectual path from a methodological, theoretic and empirical standing…the author was one of the major innovators of the anthropology of Mediterranean societies.”  ·  Christian Giordano, University of Fribourg“Professor Boissevain has been among the most prominent social anthropologists since the 1960s, and this collection does justice to his vast and important research and scholarship…Moreover, since we are able to see the development in Boissevain’s thinking, we can see how the discipline has changed over the last fifty years, and how world changes as well as academic transformations have forced anthropologists to rethink their theories and methods.”  ·  Naor Ben-Yehoyada, Harvard University“…a well integrated collection covering a wide range of interrelated regional subjects… [that] is also admirable for its close attention to ethnographic details and their place and meaning in wider social, cultural, and historical contexts.”  ·  Anton Blok, University of Amsterdam

• List of TablesList of PlatesPreface and IntroductionPART I: PATTERNSChapter 1. Seasonal Variations on Some Mediterranean ThemesChapter 2. Unhealed Scars: Religious and Ethnic Diversity AroundPART II: COMMUNITIESChapter 3. Factions, Parties and Politics in a Maltese VillageChapter 4. Poverty and Politics in a Sicilian Agro-TownChapter 5. The Italians of MontrealPART III: QUESTIONS AND PUZZLESChapter 6. The Place of Non-Corporate GroupsChapter 7. Towards a Sociology of Social AnthropologyChapter 8. Beyond the CommunityChapter 9. Of Men and Marbles: Reconsidering FactionalismChapter 10. When the Saints go Marching OutPART IV: RITUAL, INSIDERS AND OUTSIDERSChapter 11. Ritual  and Tourism: Culture by the Pound?Chapter 12. Revitalizing European RitualsChapter 13. 'But we Live Here': Perspectives on Cultural TourismChapter 14. Insiders and Outsiders: Mass Tourism in Southern EuropeChapter 15. Tourists, Developers and Civil SocietyPART V: REFLECTIONSChapter 16. On Predicting the Future: Second Thoughts on the Decline of Feasts and PatronsBibliography