Edited by Gilbert M. Joseph (NHC Fellow, 1992–93) and Daniel Nugent Everyday Forms of State Formation is the first book to systematically examine the relationship between popular cultures and state formation in revolutionary and post-revolutionary Mexico. While most accounts have emphasized either the role of peasants and peasant rebellions or that of state formation in Mexico’s past, these … Continued
By Ákos Östör (NHC Fellow, 1980–81)
Edited by James L. Peacock (NHC Fellow, 2003–04), Niklaus Steiner, Lothar Hönnighausen, and Anke Ortlepp In an age of rapid globalization, regionalism might seem a notion better suited to the nineteenth century than the early twenty-first. Yet, regionalism has actually flourished in the last half-century. An increasing number of conflicts are based on territorial identities, … Continued
By Anupama Rao (NHC Fellow, 2008–09) This innovative work of historical anthropology explores how India's Dalits, or ex-untouchables, transformed themselves from stigmatized subjects into citizens. Anupama Rao's account challenges standard thinking on caste as either a vestige of precolonial society or an artifact of colonial governance. Focusing on western India in the colonial and postcolonial … Continued
By Lee D. Baker (NHC Fellow, 2003–04) In the late nineteenth century, if ethnologists in the United States recognized African American culture, they often perceived it as something to be overcome and left behind. At the same time, they were committed to salvaging “disappearing” Native American culture by curating objects, narrating practices, and recording languages. … Continued
By Loring M. Danforth (NHC Fellow, 1986–87) “If the Saint calls you, if you have an open road, then you don’t feel the fire as if it were your enemy,” says one of the participants in the Anastenaria. This compelling work evokes and contrasts two forms of firewalking and religious healing: first, the Anastenaria, a … Continued
By Steven C. Caton (NHC Fellow, 1992–93) Combining ethnography, film criticism, and his extensive knowledge of the Middle East, Steven C. Caton presents an innovative and fascinating examination of the classic film, Lawrence of Arabia. Caton is interested in why this epic film has been so compelling for so many people for more than three decades. … Continued
By Sandya Hewamanne (NHC Fellow, 2011–12) Sandya Hewamanne's Stitching Identities in a Free Trade Zone analyzed how female factory workers in Sri Lanka's free trade zones challenged conventional notions about marginalized women at the bottom of the global economy. In Restitching Identities in Rural Sri Lanka Hewamanne now follows many of these same women to explore the ways in … Continued
By Jack Goody (NHC Fellow, 1991–92) Jack Goody's new book takes as its theme the symbolic and transactional uses of flowers in secular life and religious ritual from ancient Egypt to modern times. He links the use of flowers to the rise of advanced systems of agriculture, the growth of social stratification, and the spread … Continued
By Joanne Rappaport (NHC Fellow, 2002–03) In Beyond the Lettered City, the anthropologist Joanne Rappaport and the art historian Tom Cummins examine the colonial imposition of alphabetic and visual literacy on indigenous groups in the northern Andes. They consider how the Andean peoples received, maintained, and subverted the conventions of Spanish literacy, often combining them with … Continued