Books in the Ethnographic Studies in Subjectivity series

Explores everyday modes of social and psychological experience, the constitution of the subject, and forms of subjection that shape the lives of Basque youth, Indonesian artists, members of nongovernmental HIV/AIDS programs in China and the Republic of Congo, psychiatrists and the mentally ill in Morocco and Ireland.

In a world of swift and sweeping cultural transformations, few have seen changes as rapid and dramatic as those experienced by the Urapmin of Papua New Guinea in the last four decades. A remote people never directly "e;missionized,"e; the Urapmin began in the 1960s to send young men to study with Baptist missionaries living among neighboring communities. By the late 1970s, the Urapmin had undergone a charismatic revival, abandoning their traditional religion for a Christianity intensely focused on human sinfulness and driven by a constant sense of millennial expectation. Exploring the Christian culture of the Urapmin, Joel Robbins shows how its preoccupations provide keys to understanding the nature of cultural change more generally. In so doing, he offers one of the richest available anthropological accounts of Christianity as a lived religion. Theoretically ambitious and engagingly written, his book opens a unique perspective on a Melanesian society, religious experience, and the very nature of rapid cultural change.

"This pathbreaking book offers a vital analysis of the rising-but-unrecognized category of single women in marriage-minded societies such as India. Through beautifully rendered, diverse stories of never-married women, Being Single in India challenges conventional wisdom and is essential reading for anthropologists, sociologists, and those interested in gender in the Global South."--Marcia C. Inhorn, William K. Lanman, Jr. Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs, Yale University "This lively ethnographic account of the experiences of never-married women makes several key contributions to feminist anthropological appraisals of marriage as an institution. Drawing on in-depth interviews and extensive exercises in participant observation, Sarah Lamb renders a compelling, detailed, and sensitive portrait of compulsory heterosexuality and patriliny as seen from the margins."--Lucinda Ramberg, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Cornell University "For fans of Lamb's evocative narratives on Bengali widows, her new book provides another rich look at the negative space of marriage: the rare demographic of single women in Bengal across class and caste. In the hands of an empathetic ethnographer, we see how they provide care and are cared for (or not), we see their routines and sacrifices and longings but also their laughter and aspirations and resilience, and we see the heartfelt new communities they form outside of biological kin. Being outside of marriage is not devastating or ruinous, it turns out, but reveals the vulnerabilities of shelter and support and the privileges of sexuality, gender, and class."--Srimati Basu, author of The Trouble with Marriage: Feminists Confront Law and Violence in India "This compelling ethnography offers an extraordinarily fruitful perspective on gender, family, kinship, patriliny, patriarchy, and class in India's dominant cultures. With engaging writing and captivating narratives, Lamb uncovers never-married women's own critiques of and reflections on dominant norms. Her focus is, essentially, entirely new in South Asian studies. It offers fresh insights into the realities of family lives, complicating the notion of the ideal Indian family, and her interlocutors' accounts reveal new insights about women and kinship."--Sara Dickey, author of Living Class in Urban India