Noel Dyck - Böcker

Individuality is often interpreted as a force for the separation and autonomy of the individual. This book takes a different approach: it explores the expression of individuality as a form of social action inextricably linked to questions of belonging. Using case studies from North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia, the authors examine a wide range of topics. Covering everything from studies of childhood and family relations to patterns of movement for tourism, work, and religious pilgrimage; from the spinning of fashions to the sculpting of life narratives, the contributors analyse the shifting forms of the cultural politics of distinction. The book illustrates the variation and ingenuity with which people in various settings claim diverse forms of individuality, their motivations for doing so, and the outcomes of their actions.

Anthropology is particularly well suited to explore the contemporary predicament in the coming of age of young men. Its grounded and comparative empiricism provides the opportunity to move beyond statistics, moral panics, or gender stereotypes in order to explore specific aspects of life course transitions, as well as the similar or divergent barriers or opportunities that young men in different parts of the world face. Yet, effective contextualization and comparison cannot be achieved by looking at male youths in isolation. This volume undertakes to contextualize male youths’ circumstances and to learn about their lives, perspectives, and actions, and in turn illuminates the larger structures and processes that mediate the experiences entailed in becoming young men. The situation of male youths provides an important vantage point from which to consider broader social transformations and continuities. By paying careful attention to these contexts, we achieve a better understanding of the current influences encountered and acted upon by young people.

Thousands of children participate in community sports every year, enjoying recreation time with their peers, getting healthy exercise, and learning a variety of personal and group skills. At the same time, children's sports are not without controversy: parents can be overly invested in their children's exploits, competitive success is often the focus, and rising costs can limit participation. Consider, too, that these activities, billed as being for the kids, are often overlaid with other agendas by the adults who volunteer, work, and generally support children's sports. Noel Dyck incorporates nearly two decades of ethnographic field research into this anthropologically informed account that illustrates how all those involved in children's sports-boys and girls, parents, coaches, and sport officials-shape these complex, vibrant fields of play. In the process, he explores larger questions and debates about contemporary family and community and the shaping of childhood, youth, and adulthood. Bridging anthropology, sport studies, and childhood studies, Fields of Play offers a rich understanding of an area that has, to date, gained relatively little attention by social scientists.

Anthropology is particularly well suited to explore the contemporary predicament in the coming of age of young men. Its grounded and comparative empiricism provides the opportunity to move beyond statistics, moral panics, or gender stereotypes in order to explore specific aspects of life course transitions, as well as the similar or divergent barriers or opportunities that young men in different parts of the world face. Yet, effective contextualization and comparison cannot be achieved by looking at male youths in isolation. This volume undertakes to contextualize male youths' circumstances and to learn about their lives, perspectives, and actions, and in turn illuminates the larger structures and processes that mediate the experiences entailed in becoming young men. The situation of male youths provides an important vantage point from which to consider broader social transformations and continuities. By paying careful attention to these contexts, we achieve a better understanding of the current influences encountered and acted upon by young people.

The pursuit and practice of discipline have become near ubiquitous elements of contemporary social life and parlance, as discipline has become a commonplace and ever sought-after social technology. From the celebrated “discipline of the market” proclaimed by neo-liberal politicians, to self-actualizing experiences of embodied discipline proffered by martial arts instructors, this volume showcases highly varied and complex disciplinary practices and relationships in a set of ethnographic studies. Interrogating the respective fields of work, religion, governance, leisure, education and child rearing, together the essays in this volume explore and offer new ways of thinking about discipline in everyday life.

An inclination to view games and sport as ephemeral, non-serious, and inconsequential has served to discourage the distinctive contribution that anthropology might make to the study of sport, as well as the rich insights that a fuller appreciation of sport might furnish to anthropology. This book brings a distinctively anthropological approach to the deep significance of sport and games in everyday life. Contributors examine individual and team sports and sporting practices, from football (ie, soccer) to gymnastics, to unusual but nonetheless highly developed indigenous games such as Amerindian archery in South America and kabaddi in India. Sports are shown to provide a particularly revealing window through which to examine such topics as nationalism, transnationalism, ethnicity, class relations, the body, health, identity, gender, schooling and child rearing. Contributors also address contemporary concerns with narrative, practice theory, celebrity, mass media and entertainment, tourism and the consumption of cultural commodities.This accessible book will be of interest to students and scholars in anthropology, cultural studies, geography, sociology and sport sciences, as well as to anyone seeking an international perspective on the cultural, political, and economic salience of contemporary sport.

An inclination to view games and sport as ephemeral, non-serious, and inconsequential has served to discourage the distinctive contribution that anthropology might make to the study of sport, as well as the rich insights that a fuller appreciation of sport might furnish to anthropology. This book brings a distinctively anthropological approach to the deep significance of sport and games in everyday life. Contributors examine individual and team sports and sporting practices, from football (ie, soccer) to gymnastics, to unusual but nonetheless highly developed indigenous games such as Amerindian archery in South America and kabaddi in India. Sports are shown to provide a particularly revealing window through which to examine such topics as nationalism, transnationalism, ethnicity, class relations, the body, health, identity, gender, schooling and child rearing. Contributors also address contemporary concerns with narrative, practice theory, celebrity, mass media and entertainment, tourism and the consumption of cultural commodities.This accessible book will be of interest to students and scholars in anthropology, cultural studies, geography, sociology and sport sciences, as well as to anyone seeking an international perspective on the cultural, political, and economic salience of contemporary sport.

Sport and dance command the passions and devotion of countless athletes, dancers and fans worldwide. Although conventionally thought to reside within separate social realms, these two embodied cultural forms are revealed in this benchmark volume to share a vital capacity to constitute and express identities through their practiced movements and scripted forms. Thus, the work of choreographers and coaches along with the performances of dancers and athletes offer not merely entertainment and aesthetic accomplishment but also powerful means for celebrating existing social arrangements and cultural ideals or, alternately, for imagining and advocating new ones.Drawing on a wide selection of sport and dance activities from around the world, this book elucidates the ways in which embodied performances both mirror and reshape social life. It traces, for example, how football, salsa and tango can each be employed to articulate or rewrite national and gender identities. Also examined are children's sport and the dynamics by which immigration and cultural integration, along with the socialization of children and youth, may be directed through the organization of community sport. The volume investigates the marshalling of sport and dance in settings from Africa to Ireland as vehicles for framing moral issues that revolve around the appropriate use, protection and exhibition of the body. This innovative study establishes the paradoxical fashion in which dance and sport can unite certain people and communities while at the same time serving exclusionary and nationalistic purposes.