This book unravels the many different experiences, meanings and realities of natural burial. Twenty years after the first natural burial ground opened there is an opportunity to reflect on how a concept for a very different approach to caring for our dead has become a reality: n…
"In this anthropological study, Albert Schrauwers examines the profound impact of a Dutch Protestant Mission on the religion and culture of the To Pamona." "Schrauwers reveals how a unique discourse on religion in the Netherlands was exported to its colony, Indonesia. The missio…
How can we order the world while accepting its enduring ambiguities? Rethinking Pluralism suggests a new approach to the problem of ambiguity and social order, which goes beyond the default modern position of 'notation' (resort to rules and categories to disambiguate). The book …
"While much theological thinking assumes a normative male perspective, this study demonstrates how our ideas of religious beliefs and practices change in the light of gender awareness. Exploring the philosophy and practices of the Orisha traditions (principally the Afro-Cuban re…
This broad-ranging examination of Chinese state and court ritual from 1000 BC to AD 1750 represents the first modern account of the subject in any language. The essays, written by some of the most distinguished scholars in the field, demonstrate how and why ritual has played suc…
"The scene is Zambia in 1985. A patient has been invaded by the tooth of a dead hunter, a spirit object which causes her much pain. Only a drum ritual can cure it. The company starts to sing and drum, and when at last the dramatic climax breaks, the anthropologist sees a six-inc…
Humphrey and Laidlaw present a new and radical general theory of ritual by drawing on an ethnographically rich account of the ritual worship of the Jains of western India. Ritual, they argue, is not a logically separate type of activity, but rather a quality that can be attribut…
"Carnivals, Rogues, and heroes, by renowned Brazilian anthropologist Roberto DaMatta, offers a fresh, provocative, and multi-faceted interpretation of Brazil, a modern, complex, and often misunderstood nation that encompasses half of the continent of South America." "Using the t…
"Carnivals, Rogues, and heroes, by renowned Brazilian anthropologist Roberto DaMatta, offers a fresh, provocative, and multi-faceted interpretation of Brazil, a modern, complex, and often misunderstood nation that encompasses half of the continent of South America." "Using the t…
Papers presented at the Workshop on Defining Tradition, held at Satara during 29-31 March 2001.
"Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Cambodia, Erik W. Davis radically reorients approaches toward the nature of Southeast Asian Buddhism's interactions with local religious practice and, by extension, reorients our understanding of Buddhism itself. Through a vivid st…
This volume explores how ritual behaviour diversifies in response to varying cultural, political and physical contexts. The contributors look at how issues such as globalisation and technology affect ritual performance.
