Wendy Shaw - Böcker

"Possessors and Possessed" analyzes how and why museums - characteristically Western institutions - emerged in the late-nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire. Shaw argues that, rather than directly emulating post-Enlightenment museums of Western Europe, Ottoman elites produced categories of collection and modes of display appropriate to framing a new identity for the empire in the modern era. In contrast to late-nineteenth-century Euro-American museums, which utilized organizational schema based on positivist notions of progress to organize exhibits of fine arts, Ottoman museums featured military spoils and antiquities long before they turned to the 'Islamic' collections with which they might have been more readily associated. The development of these various modes of collection reflected shifting moments in Ottoman identity production. Shaw shows how Ottoman museums were able to use collection and exhibition as devices with which to weave counter-colonial narratives of identity for the Ottoman Empire.Impressive for both the scope and the depth of its research, "Possessors and Possessed" lays the groundwork for future inquiries into the development of museums outside of the Euro-American milieu.

Until this book was originally published in 1996 there had been little detailed research concerning the geographic location of the poor in America. The book examines the spatial distribution of the poor within the US and discusses the general characteristics of the poverty population. It explores the complex web of theory pertaining to poverty, presenting different categories: no fault theories, individual responsibility theories, societal responsibility theories, governemntal and institutional responsibility theories, and responsibility of the economic system theories. Information on poverty from the 1980s and 90s in the US is provided, as well as historical background. The problems and complexities associated with defining and measuring poverty are also discussed.

Until this book was originally published in 1996 there had been little detailed research concerning the geographic location of the poor in America. The book examines the spatial distribution of the poor within the US and discusses the general characteristics of the poverty population. It explores the complex web of theory pertaining to poverty, presenting different categories: no fault theories, individual responsibility theories, societal responsibility theories, governemntal and institutional responsibility theories, and responsibility of the economic system theories. Information on poverty from the 1980s and 90s in the US is provided, as well as historical background. The problems and complexities associated with defining and measuring poverty are also discussed.

While overall rates of poverty have changed somewhat during this period, the geography of counties where affluence and poverty rates are the highest have also shifted as economic fortunes wax and wane.

This book is the result of a field research carried out by the author among a community of agriculturists in what was till recently the uttermost part of Southern Pakistani Balochistan.It deals with themes such as ways of living and representing spaces, constructing memory, the heritage of a form of social stratification which shaped community relationships in the last three centuries, and, last but not least, the insurgence of nationalism.Furthermore, the book puts forward some theoretical proposals about the translation of cultural «models», throughout a constant comparison between the author’s and his interlocutors’, alternating ethnographic «descriptions» with reflexive arguments.Notwithstanding its remoteness, Balochistan is today at the confluence of forces which reflect both local and «global» logics, pushing this land, once only visited by few adventurous travelers, in the focus of international interests which could impinge on political evolution of this sensitive area straddling South Asia and Middle East.