I dagens forskning har det uppstått ett dynamiskt fält där så vitt skilda vetenskaper som filosofi och neurovetenskap, psykologi och filmvetenskap börjat föra dialoger med varandra. Det handlar då om affekters inverkan på liv och handling. Mycket av den forskningen har än så länge rört sig på ett principiellt plan. Med den här boken ger sig etnologer och antropologer i kast med det konkreta - tingen och de olika affektiva kopplingar som uppstår mellan människor och den omgivande materiella...

Exploring recent configurations of social relations in post-socialist, post-war, post-Yugoslav Bosnia and Herzegovina this collection of ethnographic research turns an analytical lens on questions of sociality. Contributions based on long-term, in-depth research projects explore how people in different parts of BiH make and remake social relations and outline how their practices of sociality relate to donor-set priorities and formal human rights provisions. The book explores the socio-poli...

Elegant ideas deserve elegant expression. Sword dispels the myth that you can’t get published without writing wordy, impersonal prose. For scholars frustrated with disciplinary conventions or eager to write for a larger audience, here are imaginative, practical, witty pointers that show how to make articles and books enjoyable to read—and to write.

Centering his analysis in the dynamic forces of modern East Asian history, Kuan-Hsing Chen recasts cultural studies as a politically urgent global endeavor. He argues that the intellectual and subjective work of decolonization begun across East Asia after the Second World War was stalled by the cold war. At the same time, the work of deimperialization became impossible to imagine in imperial centers such as Japan and the United States. Chen contends that it is now necessary to resume those...

Japanese has a term that covers both green and blue. Russian has separate terms for dark and light blue. Does this mean that Russians perceive these colors differently from Japanese people? Does language control and limit the way we think? This short, opinionated book addresses the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which argues that the language we speak shapes the way we perceive the world. Linguist John McWhorter argues that while this idea is mesmerizing, it is plainly wrong. It is language that ...

On March 9, 1996, tens of thousands of readers of a daily newspaper in China’s Anhui province saw a photograph of two young women at a local long-distance bus station. Dressed in fashionable new winter coats and carrying luggage printed with Latin letters, the women were returning home from their jobs in one of China’s large cities. As the photo caption indicated, the image represented the “transformation of migrant women”; the women’s “transformation” was signaled by their status as consu...

China's rise to become a leading global power challenges both Western policy makers and business leaders. Written from a Chinese perspective, this book addresses the following question: does the Chinese strategic mind have its own idiosyncrasies that differ considerably from the West?The expert author, Hong Liu, systematically explores the processes of the Chinese strategic mind by expounding and unraveling the particular characteristics: what they are, how they have evolved and wh...

Lots of new parents these days have the opportunity to bring up their child with two or more languages because of increasing job mobility and the global community. The benefits of bilingualism and biculturalism such as higher cognitive skills, an awareness of language and sensitivity to other cultures, are being increasingly recognised. However many parents don’t know how to start, what methods to use or where to seek help when facing problems. Now Suzanne Barron-Hauwaert, a mother of three t...

China’s rise and processes of Sinicization suggest that recombination of new and old elements rather than a total rupture with or return to the past is China’s likely future. In both space and time, civilizational politics offers the broadest social context. It is of particular salience in China. Reification of civilizations into simple categories such as East and West is widespread in everyday politics and common in policy and academic writings. This book’s emphasis on Sinicization as a s...

China has been China for four thousand years; concealment may be a reaction to a past redolent of autocracy, but it seems prevelent in all aspects of Chinese life. Confucious' idea of keeping the masses ignorant in order to make them easier to govern remains in force. We in America have had, or had until just recently, an underlying assumption that things are going to get better and better. This idea of long-term success is alien to Chinese culture, however, where dynastic decay is an hist...

With fresh and provocative insights into the everyday reality of politics in post-Soviet Central Asia, this volume moves beyond commonplaces about strong and weak states to ask critical questions about how democracy, authority, and justice are understood in this important region. In conversation with current theories of state power, the contributions draw on extensive ethnographic research in settings that range from the local to the transnational, the mundane to the spectacular, to provid...

Open-access edition: DOI 10.6069/9780295805979This ethnography explores contemporary narratives of “Han-ness,” revealing the nuances of what Han identity means today in relation to that of the fifty-five officially recognized minority ethnic groups in China, as well as in relation to home place identities and the country’s national identity. Based on research she conducted among native and migrant Han in Shanghai and Beijing, Aqsu (in Xinjiang), and the Sichuan-Yunnan border area, ...