Books in the New Perspectives on Anthropological and Social Demography series

This book, first published in 2006, draws on a broad range of available social data collection methods to formulate a set of data collection approaches combining elements of existing methods. These methods are designed to create a comprehensive empirical description of the subject, accumulating the information needed with a minimum of error.

Culture, Biology, and Anthropological Demography attempts a rapprochement of two distinct approaches to studying human anthropological demography and human evolutionary ecology. It does so through recognition of common research topics and the construction of a broad theoretical framework incorporating both cultural and biological motivation.

Demography has developed into a remarkably coherent field and now stands as a firmly established discipline with strong ties to policy-making agencies. However, in recent years there has been increasing recognition within demography of the limits of existing theories and methods, particularly its absence of a strong critical tradition and its isolation from recent theoretical developments in other social sciences. In this study, Nancy Riley and James McCarthy use the lens of postmodernism to structure a critical analysis of the field of demography. Paying particular attention to the fundamental epistemologies and methodologies that currently underlie the field, they explore how postmodern perspectives might serve to energize the field and how demography could be enhanced by the introduction of insights from other social sciences. Drawing on examples of new kinds of research in demography and related fields, this is an important new book that seeks to reinvigorate the field of demography.

Many countries pigeon-hole people within racial, ethnic, and language categories - with important implications for people's own identities and life chances, and for national political and social processes. This book reviews categorizing efforts by the state, illustrating the case with studies from a range of countries.