Changing Culture Series – serie

In this book Judith Okely challenges popular accounts of Gypsies which suggest that they were once isolated communities, enjoying an autonomous culture and economy now largely eroded by the processes of industrialisation and western capitalism. Dr Okely draws on her own extensive fieldwork and on contemporary documents. The Traveller-Gypsies is the first monograph to be published on Gypsies in Britain using the perspective of social anthropology. It examines the historical origins of the Gypsies, their economy, travelling patterns, self-ascription, kinship and political groupings, and their marriage choices, upbringing and gender divisions. A detailed analysis of pollution beliefs reveals an underlying system which expresses and reinforces the separation of Gypsies from non-Gypsies. Explanations for beliefs are sought in their contemporary meaning as opposed to their alleged Indian origin. None of these aspects are analysed independently of the wider society, its policies, beliefs, and practices. This book will be invaluable for teaching purposes, both as a study of a Gypsy community per se, and for its discussion of the problems involved in carrying out fieldwork within the anthropologist's own society. It will also interest the general reader and the academic specialist; social anthropologists, sociologists, historians, geographers, planners and all those concerned with minority groups.

On the conclusion of the Second World War, Finland was obliged to cede its northeasternmost territory of Petsamo to the Soviet Union. Amongst those who lost their homes were around four hundred representatives of the original native population of the territory, the Skolt Lapps. The Skolts were subsequently resettled in two 'reservations' marked out in the wilderness of Finland's present northeastern borderlands. The contemporary organization of the Skolt community in the larger of these reservations, the Sevettijärvi area, is the subject of this 1976 study. The first part of the book the ecological imbalance created by technological innovation and commercial penetration; the second analyses the the activities and relationships built up on the fixes template of the resettlement plan; and the third explores the business of 'leap-frog' politics, which links the community into the machinery of modern government and the forum of debate on the future of native minorities.

The Nayars of Kerala, south-west India, unusually trace descent through the female line and, in the past, had a marriage system in which women were allowed several husbands simultaneously. This system has brought the Nayars continuing fame in anthropological circles. In this 1976 study, Dr Fuller analyses fieldwork data collected among Nayars in a village in southern Kerala, a region on which there is practically no modern anthropological information. In the final section of the book, Dr Fuller looks at the 'traditional' marriage system of the Nayars and offers some suggestions about its operation. He also discusses the collapse of the old joint-family system and, with the aid of his data from southern Kerala, proposes some arguments about the process of its disintegration. More fully than previous authors, he situates his analysis in its historical context throughout, as befits an account of a rapidly changing society.

Tázlár is a rural community on the Great Hungarian Plain. In the context of modern Hungary it is not a typical community, for its socio-economic organisation has been based in past years on a form of agricultural cooperative unusual in socialist societies. In this book, C. M. Hann traces the development of the community in the post-war period and assesses the influence of the cooperative on its social, economic and political life. This detailed study of a community sheds light on the general mechanisms of social and economic control in state-socialist societies, as well as on socialist claims to be eliminating the historical disparities between the town and the countryside. It will appeal to anthropologists as a study of a community in an area of Europe which is poorly documented in English, to sociologists, political scientists and development economists and to the general reader with an interest in Eastern Europe or in socialism.

The Western Isles of Scotland appear to the popular imagination as romantic and remote islands where the inhabitants cling to an archaic culture which is barely integrated into modern industrial society. In this book Judith Ennew dispels such myths, and confronts the social problems of an economically depressed region without denying its unique cultural aspects. She traces the history of the Western Isles as a dynamic process, and shows that even the crofting way of life is of recent origin. What is so often taken to be an ancient way of life is not a static structure but the continuing result of the development of capitalism. Its history is as modern as that of any other living pattern within the United Kingdom. Dr Ennew examines the history of land tenure and economy, showing how the islands have been integrated into industrial society in the last two hundred years. She then explores the current way of life in the area, particularly in the northern island of Lewis. Finally, she considers the future prospects of the islands, demonstrating how the inhabitants are trying to develop a consciousness of their own history with which to combat present social ills.

The Nyamwezi of west-central Tanzania have had a long history of involvement in the wider world as farmers, traders, migrant labourers, and subjects of first German and then British colonial regimes. Dr Abrahams first lived and worked among the Nyamwezi in the last years of British rule (1957-60), and he revisited their area in 1974-5 and 1978. This book is based largely on these later visits and traces the nature of developments since his earlier work and publications on the people. He discusses the people's integration into their new nation and examines the changes and problems that this has involved, both at village and at higher levels of organization. First published in 1984, The Nyamwezi Today will be of interest both to ghe general reader and to beginning, and other, students of social anthropology and the sociology and politics of developing countries. It will also be of value to those teaching and researching in these fields.