Jane Fajans – författare

This study describes the daily existence of the Baining people of Papua New Guinea, who present a challenge to anthropologists because of their apparent lack of a cultural or social structure. The Baining are small-scale cultivators, who seem devoid of the complex belief systems and social practices which characterize other traditional peoples of Papua New Guinea. Their daily existence is mundane and repetitive in the extreme, articulated by only the most elementary familial relationships and social connections. The routine of life is, however, punctuated by stunningly beautiful festivals of masked dancers, which the Baining call play, and to which they attribute no symbolic significance. In this study Jane Fajans argues that the Baining define themselves not through intricate cosmologies or social networks, but through the meanings generated by their own productive and reproductive work.

Brazil is a nation of vast expanses and enormous variation from geography and climate to cultures and languages. Within these boundaries are definable regions in which certain customs, history, and shared views help define an identity and cohesion. In many cases, the pattern of settlement and immigration has influenced the culinary culture of Brazil. This book explores the role that food and cuisine play in the construction of identity on both the regional and national levels in Brazil through key case examples. It explores the way in which food has become an important element in attracting tourists to a region as well as a way of making aspects of a culture known beyond its borders as cookbooks, ingredients and restaurants move outward in our globalized world.