Books in the Chicago Studies in Practices of Meaning series

Examines the history of political and intellectual life in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Bengal to show how the concept can take on a life of its own in different contexts. This interdisciplinary study is suitable for historians and anthropologists, as well as scholars of South Asia and colonialism.

In Logics of History, he reveals the shape such an engagement could take, some of the topics it could illuminate, and how it might affect both sides of the disciplinary divide.

Seeks to understand why, with its seemingly unrivaled power, the Tokugawa shogunate of early modern Japan tried so hard to regulate the ostensibly unimportant popular culture of Edo (present-day Tokyo) - including fashion, leisure activities, prints, and theater.

What does the durability of political institutions have to do with how actors form knowledge about them? The author investigates this question in the context of a historical case: socialist East Germany's unexpected self-dissolution in 1989. He also explores why the Stasi never developed a realistic understanding of the phenomenon of dissidence.

Navigating a complex landscape between private and public domains, this book lays important groundwork for understanding the real meaning of secularism as it affects the real freedoms of a citizenry, an understanding of the utmost importance for so many countries that are now urgently facing new political possibilities.

The government of Yemen remains largely incapable of providing goods and services to its population, but the regime continues to endure despite its fragility in the global order. Revealing what holds Yemen together in such circumstances, this book shows how citizens form national attachments even in the absence of strong state institutions.

Presents an account of how people in the Taita Hills of Kenya have appropriated and made sense of development thought and practice, focusing on the complex ways that development connects with changing understandings of witchcraft.

Germany's overseas colonial empire was relatively short-lived, lasting from 1884 to 1918. During this period, dramatically different policies were enacted in the colonies. Why did the same colonizing power act in such differing ways? This work tackles this question through a cross-cultural analysis of German colonialism.

Examines the day-to-day practices of the officials of Ghana's Customs Service, exploring the impact of neoliberal restructuring and integration into the global economy on Ghanaian sovereignty. This title discovers an inversion of our assumptions about neoliberal transformation.

El Salvador emerged from a brutal civil war in 1992 to find much of its national income coming from a massive emigrant workforce that earns money in the US. This book examines this new way of life as it extends across two places: Intipuca, a Salvadoran town, and the Washington, DC, home to the second largest population Salvadorans in the US.

For West Papua and its people, the promise of sovereignty has never been realized, despite a long struggle for independence from Indonesia. The author examines this struggle through a series of essays that drive at the core meaning of sovereignty itself - how it is fueled, formed, and even thwarted by pivotal but often overlooked players.

In the twelfth century, the Catholic Church attempted a thoroughgoing reform of marriage and sexual behavior aimed at eradicating sexual desire from Christian lives. This book illuminates the birth of a cultural movement that managed to regulate selfish desire and render it innocent - or innocent enough.

Exploring the changing relationship between culture and the market, this book addresses the question: Wherein lies the future of ethnicity? It offers an account of the ways in which ethnic populations are remaking themselves in the image of the corporation - while corporations coopt ethnic practices to open up new markets of consumption.

Argues that strategies to achieve diversity in medical research mask deeper problems, ones that might require a different approach and different solutions.

"This work looks into the Colombian government's efforts to demobilize rebel FARC fighters and transform them into the entrepreneurial subjects and consumer citizens. Anthropologist Alexander Fattal shows how the market has become one of the principal grounds on which counterinsurgency warfare is waged in Colombia."--Supplied by publisher.

Morality is often imagined to be at odds with capitalism and its focus on the bottom line. In this book, morality is shown as the opposite: an indispensable tool for capitalist transformation. It presents an argument that the neoliberal state nurtures selflessness in order to cement some of its most controversial reforms.