- Home
- A-Z Publications
- Annual Review of Anthropology
- Previous Issues
- Volume 33, 2004
Annual Review of Anthropology - Volume 33, 2004
Volume 33, 2004
-
-
Christianity in Africa: From African Independent to Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches
Vol. 33 (2004), pp. 447–474More Less▪ AbstractTaking as a point of departure Fernandez's survey (1978), this review seeks to show how research on African Independent Churches (AICs) has been reconfigured by new approaches to the anthropology of Christianity in Africa, in general, and the recent salient popularity of Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches (PCCs) in particular. If the adjectives “African” and “Independent” were once employed as markers of authentic, indigenous interpretations of Christianity, these terms proved to be increasingly problematic to capture the rise, spread, and phenomenal appeal of PCCs in Africa. Identifying three discursive frames—Christianity and “traditional religion,” Africa and “the wider world,” religion and politics—which organize(d) research on AICs and PCCs in the course of the past 25 years, this chapter critically reviews discussions about “Africanization,” globalization and modernity, and the role of religion in the public sphere in postcolonial African societies.
-
-
-
Thinking About Cannibalism
Vol. 33 (2004), pp. 475–498More LessThe discourse of cannibalism, which began in the encounter between Europe and the Americas, became a defining feature of the colonial experience in the New World, especially in the Pacific. The idea of exoticism, like that of the primitive, is also a Western construct linked to the exploring/conquering/cataloguing impulse of colonialism. We now live in a world where those we once called exotic live among us, defining their own identities, precluding our ability to define ourselves in opposition to “others” and to represent our own culture as universal. This chapter reviews anthropological approaches to cannibalism and suggests that we may now be in a position to exorcise the stigma associated with the notion of the primitive. If we reflect on the reality of cannibal practices among ourselves as well as others, we can contribute to dislodging the savage/civilized opposition that was once essential to the formation of the modern Western self and Western forms of knowledge.
-
-
-
Anthropology in Area Studies
Vol. 33 (2004), pp. 499–523More Less▪ AbstractAfter 1989, the interpretation of a complex set of disputes and exigencies settled into a conventional narrative of paradigm shift, in which the intellectual past became essentialized as “traditional area studies” and “classic anthropology.” This approach obscures the processes of engagement (including dispute) by which disciplinary change occurred. The Area Studies1 engagement with interdisciplinary colleagues and voices from the “area” has been critically important over several decades. Necessarily, the intellectual terms for addressing other interlocutors about regional conditions and events have differed according to the experience of the area in changing universalist politics and analysis. The area/anthropology intersection is examined for Africa (where race is basic to disputes), Latin America (where the place of culture and race in political economic arguments is central), and Europe (where culture and nation are at issue). During the 1990s a collective approach to areas emerged. Anthropologists, and particularly scholars of Asia, played a major role. The varied angles from different areas are linked by a broadly shared concern with the formation of emergent political communities and with themes of governmentality. Although the wider circulation of these ideas is promising, does it risk losing the grounding and accountability that Area Studies imposed (like it or not)? The events of September 11, 2001 and those that followed have made starkly clear the poverty and the dangers of essentialism, and the importance of focusing on the loci from which terms of argumentation in relation to power arise. Middle Eastern Studies is briefly discussed as “epicenter” for defining such an approach.
-
-
-
Origins and Development of Urbanism: Archaeological Perspectives
Vol. 33 (2004), pp. 525–549More Less▪ AbstractI survey recent literature about early cities in the regional traditions of Southwest Asia, Egypt, South Asia, China, Mesoamerica, Andean South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Greece, and Rome. Major themes include the importance of theorizing individuals and their practices, interests, and emotions; the extent to which the first cities were deliberately created rather than merely emerging as by-products of increasing sociopolitical complexity; internal structure of cities and the interplay of top-down planning and bottom-up self-organization; social, economic, and political relations between cities and their hinterlands; interactions of cities with their physical environments; and the difficult “city-state” concept. Some axes or dimensions for describing settlements are proposed as better than typological concepts.
-
-
-
The Peopling of the New World: Perspectives from Molecular Anthropology
Vol. 33 (2004), pp. 551–583More Less▪ AbstractA number of important insights into the peopling of the New World have been gained through molecular genetic studies of Siberian and Native American populations. These data indicate that the initial migration of ancestral Amerindian originated in south-central Siberia and entered the New World between 20,000–14,000 calendar years before present (cal yr BP). These early immigrants probably followed a coastal route into the New World, where they expanded into all continental regions. A second migration that may have come from the same Siberian region entered the Americas somewhat later, possibly using an interior route, and genetically contributed to indigenous populations from North and Central America. In addition, Beringian populations moved into northern North America after the last glacial maximum (LGM) and gave rise to Aleuts, Eskimos, and Na-Dené Indians.
-
-
-
The Evolution of Human Skin and Skin Color
Vol. 33 (2004), pp. 585–623More Less▪ AbstractHumans skin is the most visible aspect of the human phenotype. It is distinguished mainly by its naked appearance, greatly enhanced abilities to dissipate body heat through sweating, and the great range of genetically determined skin colors present within a single species. Many aspects of the evolution of human skin and skin color can be reconstructed using comparative anatomy, physiology, and genomics. Enhancement of thermal sweating was a key innovation in human evolution that allowed maintenance of homeostasis (including constant brain temperature) during sustained physical activity in hot environments. Dark skin evolved pari passu with the loss of body hair and was the original state for the genus Homo. Melanin pigmentation is adaptive and has been maintained by natural selection. Because of its evolutionary lability, skin color phenotype is useless as a unique marker of genetic identity. In recent prehistory, humans became adept at protecting themselves from the environment through clothing and shelter, thus reducing the scope for the action of natural selection on human skin.
-
-
-
Talk and Interaction Among Children and the Co-Construction of Peer Groups and Peer Culture
Vol. 33 (2004), pp. 625–649More Less▪ AbstractAccording to recent interpretive approaches to the study of children's socialization, meaning creation is an active process by which children playfully transform and actively resist cultural categories, and where language is viewed as social action that helps shape reality (Gaskins et al. 1992). Four ways in which children's peer talk establishes and maintains peer culture are considered: (a) how children elaborate games and codes (and ritualize the basis of inclusion in the peer group) through peer talk, (b) how conflict talk functions to elaborate peer culture, (c) how identities as peer group phenomena are talked into being through peer talk, and (d) how adult culture is resisted through peer talk. Agentive goals of children's peer culture, and the role of language in achieving them, are discussed in each section. I conclude that sociolinguistics gives researchers a way to think about social competence as sets of linguistic practices (e.g., positionings, voicings, participation framework manipulations) that children enact.
-
Previous Volumes
-
Volume 53 (2024)
-
Volume 52 (2023)
-
Volume 51 (2022)
-
Volume 50 (2021)
-
Volume 49 (2020)
-
Volume 48 (2019)
-
Volume 47 (2018)
-
Volume 46 (2017)
-
Volume 45 (2016)
-
Volume 44 (2015)
-
Volume 43 (2014)
-
Volume 42 (2013)
-
Volume 41 (2012)
-
Volume 40 (2011)
-
Volume 39 (2010)
-
Volume 38 (2009)
-
Volume 37 (2008)
-
Volume 36 (2007)
-
Volume 35 (2006)
-
Volume 34 (2005)
-
Volume 33 (2004)
-
Volume 32 (2003)
-
Volume 31 (2002)
-
Volume 30 (2001)
-
Volume 29 (2000)
-
Volume 28 (1999)
-
Volume 27 (1998)
-
Volume 26 (1997)
-
Volume 25 (1996)
-
Volume 24 (1995)
-
Volume 23 (1994)
-
Volume 22 (1993)
-
Volume 21 (1992)
-
Volume 20 (1991)
-
Volume 19 (1990)
-
Volume 18 (1989)
-
Volume 17 (1988)
-
Volume 16 (1987)
-
Volume 15 (1986)
-
Volume 14 (1985)
-
Volume 13 (1984)
-
Volume 12 (1983)
-
Volume 11 (1982)
-
Volume 10 (1981)
-
Volume 9 (1980)
-
Volume 8 (1979)
-
Volume 7 (1978)
-
Volume 6 (1977)
-
Volume 5 (1976)
-
Volume 4 (1975)
-
Volume 3 (1974)
-
Volume 2 (1973)
-
Volume 1 (1972)
-
Volume 0 (1932)