Peter P. Schweitzer - Böcker

This collection reaffirms the importance of kinship, and of studying kinship, within the framework of social anthropology.The contributors examine both the benefits and burdens of kinship across cultures and explore how 'relatedness' is inextricably linked with other concepts which define people's identities - such as gender, power and history. With examples from a wide range of areas including Austria, Greenland, Portugal, Turkey and the Amazon, it covers themes such as:* how people choose and activate kin* leadership, spiritual power and kinship* inheritance, marriage and social inequality* familial sentiment and economic interest* the role of kinship in Utopian communesDividends of Kinshipprovides a timely and critical reappraisal of the place of familial relations in the contemporary world. It will be of interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and academics in anthropology, and across the social sciences.

This collection reaffirms the importance of kinship, and of studying kinship, within the framework of social anthropology.The contributors examine both the benefits and burdens of kinship across cultures and explore how 'relatedness' is inextricably linked with other concepts which define people's identities - such as gender, power and history. With examples from a wide range of areas including Austria, Greenland, Portugal, Turkey and the Amazon, it covers themes such as:* how people choose and activate kin* leadership, spiritual power and kinship* inheritance, marriage and social inequality* familial sentiment and economic interest* the role of kinship in Utopian communesDividends of Kinshipprovides a timely and critical reappraisal of the place of familial relations in the contemporary world. It will be of interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and academics in anthropology, and across the social sciences.

In an age of heightened awareness of the threat that western industrialized societies pose to the environment, hunters and gatherers attract particularly strong interest because they occupy the ecological niches that are constantly eroded. Despite the denial of sovereignty, the world's more than 350 million indigenous peoples continue to assert aboriginal title to significant portions of the world's remaining bio-diversity. As a result, conflicts between tribal peoples and nation states are on the increase. Today, many of the societies that gave the field of anthropology its empirical foundations and unique global vision of a diverse and evolving humanity are being destroyed as a result of national economic, political, and military policies.Although quite a sizable body of literature exists on the living conditions of the hunters and gatherers, this volume is unique in that it represents the first extensive east-west scholarly exchange in anthropology since the demise of the USSR. Moreover, it also offers new perspectives from indigenous communities and scholars in an exchange that be termed "south-north" as opposed to " north-north," denoting the predominance of northern Europe and North America in scholarly debate.The main focus of this volume is on the internal dynamics and political strategies of hunting and gathering societies in areas of self-determination and self-representation. More specifically, it examines areas such as warfare and conflict resolution, resistance, identity and the state, demography and ecology, gender and representation, and world view and religion. It raises a large number of major issues of common concerns and therefore makes important reading for all those interested in human rights issues, ethnic conflict, grassroots development and community organization, and environmental topics.