Books in the Contemporary Ethnography series

Recent reports on Pentecostalism in the global South give the impression of an inexorable trajectory of massive growth, but Faith in Flux examines the religion's ambivalent reception in northern Mozambique, locating vital insight in the overlooked places where this religion has failed to take root.

In this ethnographic study of the school district struggles in Central California, Clayton A. Hurd explores the core issues at stake in campaigns to reorganize districts into ethnically separated schools as well as the resistance against them mobilized by the working-class Latino community.

Death, Beauty, Struggle contains an original vision of gendered lives, poetry, devotion, and social hierarchy in Tamil Nadu.

From the history of Porta Palazzo, Western Europe's largest open-air market, to its current growing pains, this book turns an ethnographic eye on a meeting place for trade, cultural identity, and cuisine.

Based on extensive fieldwork, Women of Fes shows how Moroccan women create their own forms of identity through work, family, and society. The book also examines how women's lives are positioned vis-a-vis globalization, human rights, and the construction of national identity.

"Anyone who has been to Manila, Bali, or Bangkok is aware of the plight of the locals who despise and yet want the presence of tourists. . . . Ness focuses on the Philippines . . . to examine the delicate balance between preserving one's way of life while being open to the increasing demands of tourism."-Choice

The first comprehensive ethnography of the Thangmi, a marginalized community who migrate between Himalayan border zones, Rituals of Ethnicity explores Thangmi cultural worlds and regional political histories to offer a new explanation for the persistence of enduring ethnic identities despite the realities of mobile, hybrid lives.

In Looking West, John D. Dorst examines a largely neglected pattern of seeing that stands in contrast to the universally familiar iconography.

Presents a study of the relationship between culture and emotional distress, an examination of the cultural forces that influence, make sense of, and heal severe pain and malaise.

"Beautifully crafted, powerfully illustrated with conversation, theoretically important, and almost unique as an ethnography."-Arthur Kleinman, Harvard University

Fire in My Bones contributes to our understanding of gospel-and of the nature of religious experience in general.

Building on the author's thirty-six years of experience with North Town, Texas, this second edition presents an ethnographic study of the ways the town's youth learn traditional American values through participation in sports, membership in formal and informal social groups, dating, and interactions with teachers in the classroom.

Ann Grodzins Gold weaves together an integrated series of ethnographic sketches depicting the distinctive nature of non-urban, non-rural places; the impact locality has on belonging; the negotiations of difference required in a pluralistic society; and the ways a changing environment permeates experiences of self and place.

Having ninety percent of its members who are women, this is a study of the worldwide community of fans of "Star Trek" and other genre television series who create and distribute fiction and art based on their favorite series. This community includes people from various walks of life - housewives, librarians, and professors of medieval literature.

"A subversive and postmodern work about the town of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. The book considers Wyeth country-what kind of place it is and how it is constituted... Dorst asks questions about how the place represents itself to itself and to tourists."-Lingua Franca

Anthropologist Sonia Silva examines how a community of Luvale people, Angolan refugees living in Zambia, use lipele divination baskets to cope with daily life in a new land and maintain connections to their past.

"'Who is 'African' in a global ecumene? Anthropologist Copeland Carson poses this challenging question in her study of cultural dynamics in Minneapolis-Saint Paul. . . . Highly recommended."-Choice

Presents devotional "occasions" or experiences by Irish Catholics. This is an anthropological study of Irish Catholicism. It includes ethnographical material, archival sources, cultural observations, accounts of individual experiences, and scrutiny of religious questions and theories which illuminates twenty years of ethnographic fieldwork.

By analyzing how Sri Lankan free trade zone factory workers claim political subjectivity and revealing a vibrant subaltern political universe where they can express alternative perspectives, Stitching Identities in a Free Trade Zone challenges conventional notions about marginalized women at the bottom of the global economy.

The miraculous blends with the mundane in this book as the Samburu continue their day-to-day twenty-first-century existence. Straight describes miracles inside the cultural logic that makes them possible, questioning how anthropology can best engage with the improbable.

In An Imagined Geography, anthropologist JoAnn D'Alisera demonstrates persuasively that the long-held anthropological paradigms of separate, bounded, and unique communities, geographically located and neatly localized, must be reconsidered in light of the range and diversity of the Sierra Leonean diaspora.

"The Taste of Blood brilliantly explores both Condomble and the representations of ethnographic research."-Folklore Forum

"A stunning, emotionally charged, intellectually stimulating, and aesthetically crafted fieldwork memoir. This is a book I will teach often, recommend to colleagues, and share with family and friends for its multifaceted delights."-Kirin Narayan, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Supplements eight folk narratives with discussion of audience participation and response as well as relevant Hindu themes.

Anthropologist Christopher Dole investigates the controversial position of religious healing in modern Turkey, demonstrating that the authority of the religious healer is deeply embedded within Turkey's history of secular reform, and that religious healing and secularism share a set of common stakes.

"Magliocco impressively corrals the diverse writings and experiences of U.S. neo-pagans into this highly readable and deeply researched ethnographic study. . . . Highly recommended."-Choice

"A stunning presentation of narrative ethnography, achieving the remarkable feat of forcing the reader to enter into the world-and the world view-of those whom most of us would regard as terrorists."-Mark Juergensmeyer, UCSB