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Kitchenspace : women, fiestas, and everyday life in central Mexico, by Maria Elisa Christie.

Throughout the world, the kitchen is the heart of family and community life. Yet, while everyone has a story to tell about their grandmother’s kitchen, the myriad activities that go on in this usually female world are often devalued, and little scholarly attention has been paid to this crucial space in which family, gender, and community relations are forged and maintained. To give the kitchen the prominence and respect it merits, Maria Elisa Christie here offers a pioneering ethnography of kitchenspace in three central Mexican communities, Xochimilco, Ocotepec, and Tetecala.
[University of Texas Press]

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Global indigenous media : cultures, poetics, and politics, edited by Pamela Wilson and Michelle Stewart.

In this exciting interdisciplinary collection, scholars, activists, and media producers explore the emergence of Indigenous media: forms of media expression conceptualized, produced, and created by Indigenous peoples around the globe. Whether discussing Maori cinema in New Zealand or activist community radio in Colombia, the contributors describe how native peoples use both traditional and new media to combat discrimination, advocate for resources and rights, and preserve their cultures, languages, and aesthetic traditions. By representing themselves in a variety of media, Indigenous peoples are also challenging misleading mainstream and official state narratives, forging international solidarity movements, and bringing human rights violations to international attention.
[Duke University Press]

A reminder of two talks in the Anthro Department this week:

Wednesday December 3, 11:30-1:00 @ AnSo 134
Neanderthals and beyond: Environment, Extinction, and Social Connection in the Caucasian Paleolithic
Dr. Naomi Cleghorn, Human Evolution Research Center, University of California – Berkeley

and

Thursday December 4, 11:00-12:30 @ AnSo 134
The Evolution of Human Diets
Prof. Michael Richards, Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology

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(Photo credit: ccarlstead)

Winter session exams begin on December 3 and go until December 17. The Anthro exam schedule is here.

Did you know the AMS has an exam database with final exams from a variety of undergrad courses? Studying from previous years’ exams can be a great way to supplement your course knowledge and prepare for finals. Currently, the database has exams for these Anthro courses:

  • ANTH 103
  • ANTH 140
  • ANTH 305
  • ANTH 322

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The editors of New Proposals, a transnational peer-reviewed journal hosted at The University of British Columbia in collaboration with the UBC Library eJournal Project, are pleased to announce that the third issue, Vol. 2, No. 1 (2008) is now available.

This issue contains four articles and two commentaries, including a paper by Brian Thom on treaty negotiations in BC, Diane Grant on sex workers and regulation as well as two interdisciplinary papers on theory (questions of regulation and Gramsci’s idea of hegemony).

The journal is online at http://www.newproposals.ca

UBC Library is running a trial of the eLibrary eBook platform. You can access the trial here: http://toby.library.ubc.ca/resources/infopage.cfm?id=1484

This trial provides access to eBrary’s Academic Complete collection, which includes 37,000 books across 20 subject areas, including 100s of titles in Anthropology and Archaeology.

Some sample titles of interest include:

  • Archaeology of Difference : Negotiating Cross-Cultural Engagements in Oceania edited by RobinTorrence, and Anne Clarke (2000)
    Using case studies from Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Micronesia, the contributors all share a concern with tracking the processes of contact between indigenous peoples and outsiders, primarily Europeans, across the varied physical and cultural landscapes of the region.
  • Cine-Ethnography by Jean Rouch with Steven Feld (2003)
    One of the most influential figures in documentary and ethnographic filmmaking, Jean Rouch has made more than one hundred films in West Africa and France. In such acclaimed works as Jaguar, The Lion Hunters, and Cocorico, Monsieur Poulet, Rouch has explored racism, colonialism, African modernity, religious ritual, and music.
  • Medicine as Culture : Illness, Disease and the Body in Western Societies by Deborah Lupton (2003)
    Provides a broad overview of the way medicine is experienced, perceived and socially constructed in western societies.
  • Kinship and Behavior in Primates by Bernard Chapais and Carol Berman (2004)
    A fundamental reference for students and professionals interested in primate behavior, ecology and evolution.

The trial ends 17 December, 2008. Please send your feedback to Library Electronic Resources Help.

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Landscapes of clearance : archaeological and anthropological perspectives, edited by Angèle Smith and Amy Gazin-Schwartz.

“This volume examines landscapes that have been cleared of inhabitants—for economic, environmental, or socio-political reasons, by choice or by force– and the social impacts of clearance on their populations. Using cases from five continents, and ranging from prehistoric, through colonial and post-colonial times, the contributors show landscapes as meaningful points of contestation when populations abandon them or are exiled from them. Acts of resistance and revitalization are also explored, demonstrating the social and political meaning of specific landscapes to individuals, groups, and nations, and how they help shape cultural identity and ideology.”
[Arizona University Press]

Call number: CC75 .L333 2008 in Koerner Library

A reminder of tomorrow’s talk by Laëtitia Atlani-Duault at 12:00 noon, AnSo 205

Humanitarian Aid in Post-Soviet Countries: An Anthropological Perspective

In this talk, based on her book of the same name, Prof. Atlani-Duault discusses the role of “that exotic tribe, humanitarian and development workers, along with their state and non-state partners, as they ‘export democracy’ to post-soviet countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Laëtitia Atlani-Duault is Associate Professor in Anthropology at the University Nanterre, Paris, France and a frequent consultant with humanitarian and development aid agencies in Central Asia and the Caucasus, Eastern Europe and Asia.

We have two of Dr.Atlani-Duault’s books in Koerner Library: Humanitarian aid in post-Soviet countries : an anthropological perspective, plus the French original, Au bonheur des autres : anthropologie de l’aide humanitaire.

A reminder of today’s talk by Hilary Pilkington, from 11:30am-1:00pm, AnSo 205:

The weight of the Vorkuta sky: Young people’s visual and verbal articulations of ‘place’

This paper is work in progress based on recently completed fieldwork in a deindustrialised city in the Russian far north undertaken under the auspices of a transnational European project on ‘Subcultures and Lifestyles’. It considers how a common structural constraint on young people – ‘place’ – impacts upon their visual and verbal articulation of their everyday regardless of (sub)cultural affiliation. The paper outlines key tropes of young people’s narratives about ‘place’, highlighting: the natural (landscape and territorial isolation); the social (Vorkuta’s emergence as a city through forced and temporary settlement); and the cultural (the heritage of prison camp and criminal gang culture). The paper pays attention to: the comparisons and contrasts between respondent and researcher representations of a particular urban space; the fusions and dissonances between the visual and the verbal articulations of place among respondents; and the changing representation of their engagement with urban space by respondents over a period of four years of research. Finally, the paper considers how young people engage reflexively with these verbal and visual representations of place through symbolic displays and performances of the ‘deviant’ heritage of the city.

Hilary Pilkington is a member of the Sociology department at the University of Warwick. Her research focuses on the study of Russian society especially youth cultural practice, drug use, migration and displacement, ethnic and national identity including Muslim identity and the rise of xenophobic sentiments.

Books written or edited by Dr. Pilkington can be found in Koerner Library, including:

A reminder of an upcoming workshop of interest to MA and PhD students:

Phinished! How to Access Completed Dissertations & Theses

Wondering what a PHinisheD dissertation looks like? We now have access to tens of thousands of dissertations online from universities throughout North America and beyond. Learn to search for dissertations completed at UBC and elsewhere by program, topic or advisor. Then download the full text. We’ll use this guide: FAQ: Dissertations and Theses. And we’ll look at the website www.phinished.org for a bit of practical advice.

Wed 19 Nov 2008
12:30 PM – 2:00 PM
Koerner Library : Room 217
The session is free, but sign up here.

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