"I’m not perfect," Mateo confessed. «Nobody is. But I try.» <I>Secure the Soul</I> shuttles between the life of Mateo, a born-again ex-gang member in Guatemala and the gang prevention programs that work so hard to keep him alive. Along the way, this poignantly written ethnography uncovers the Christian underpinnings of Central American security. In the streets of Guatemala City—amid angry lynch mobs, overcrowded prisons, and par ...
Neoliberalism has been the defining paradigm in global health since the latter part of the twentieth century. What started as an untested and unproven theory that the creation of unfettered markets would give rise to political democracy led to policies that promoted the belief that private markets were the optimal agents for the distribution of social goods, including health care.<BR /><BR /> A vivid illustration of the infiltration ...
Dengue fever is the world’s most prevalent mosquito-borne illness, but Alex Nading argues that people in dengue-endemic communities do not always view humans and mosquitoes as mortal enemies. Drawing on two years of ethnographic research in urban Nicaragua and challenging current global health approaches to animal-borne illness, <i>Mosquito Trails</i> tells the story of a group of community health workers who struggle to come to term ...
Moral Laboratories is an engaging ethnography and a groundbreaking foray into the anthropology of morality. It takes us on a journey into the lives of African American families caring for children with serious chronic medical conditions, and it foregrounds the uncertainty that affects their struggles for a good life. Challenging depictions of moral transformation as possible only in moments of breakdown or in radical breaches from the ordinary, ...
Current discussions of the ethics around alternative food movements–concepts such as «local,» «organic,» and «fair trade»–tend to focus on their growth and significance in advanced capitalist societies. In this groundbreaking contribution to critical food studies, editors Yuson Jung, Jakob A. Klein, and Melissa L. Caldwell explore what constitutes «ethical food» and «ethical eating» in socialist and formerly socialist societies. With essays by a ...
Based on years of careful ethnographic fieldwork in Hanoi, <i>Haunting Images</i> offers a frank and compassionate account of the moral quandaries that accompany innovations in biomedical technology. At the center of the book are case studies of thirty pregnant women whose fetuses were labeled «abnormal» after an ultrasound examination. By following these women and their relatives through painful processes of reproductive decision ma ...
The study of migrant populations poses unique challenges owing to the mobility of these groups, which may be further complicated by cultural, educational, and linguistic diversity as well as the legal status of their members. These barriers limit the usefulness of both traditional survey sampling methods and routine public health surveillance systems. Since nearly 1 in 7 people in the world is a migrant, appropriate methodological approaches mus ...
The Sociology of Development Handbook gathers essays that reflect the range of debates in development sociology and in the interdisciplinary study and practice of development. The essays address the pressing intellectual challenges of today, including internal and international migration, transformation of political regimes, globalization, changes in household and family formations, gender dynamics, technological change, population and economic ...
Mountains cover a quarter of the Earth’s land surface and a quarter of the global population lives in or adjacent to these areas. The global importance of mountains is recognized particularly because they provide critical resources, such as water, food and wood; contain high levels of biological and cultural diversity; and are often places for tourism and recreation and/or of sacred significance.<br> <br> This major revision of Larry ...
