Anthropology

Is it really true that money doesn’t buy happiness, as folk wisdom wants us to believe? If so, then why do governments, companies and millions of people act as though they are convinced of the opposite?

Indigenous peoples are under heavy pressures from development beyond their control. Their territories and natural resources are threatened and, hence, also their economies, cultures and customary ways of life. Yet, globally there is also an increasing awareness for the need to secure the rights of indigenous peoples. Indeed, we also see a growing, self-initiated empowerment process among indigenous peoples to meet these challenges.

During the past decade there has emerged growing criticism largely from anti-essentialist social scientists and multicultural politicians advocating a critique of ethnic and indigenous movements, accompanied by a general backlash in governmental policies and public opinion towards indigenous communities. This book focuses on the implication of change for indigenous peoples, their political, legal and cultural strategies.

Island Voices introduces us to the people and four small communities of Arnøya, an island off northern Norway. John C. Kennedy explores the islands’ changing economic, political, and cultural relationship with extraneous forces.

This volume offers a unique perspective on microfinance, an issue traditionally dominated by economists and policymakers. Drawing on the rich traditions of anthropology and sociology, Livelihood and Microfinance explores how livelihood approaches could lead to a better understanding of saving and credit behavior, and how such an understanding could help the design of finance for development.

Bhutan is unique amongst the small group of nations in the Himalayas. It is peaceful and democratic. Above all, it emphasizes happiness that is not necessarily associated with possession of material goods. It protects the environment by eschewing mass tourism that could trample its fragile land. And yet, to the outside world, Bhutan remains shrouded in mystery. This is about to change through the publication of Meeting the “Other”, by Rieki Crins.

This study deals with a social category, the category of tribes, that has the connotation of being fixed and essentially biologically determined. The author refutes theoretical and practical notions of tribe, or, as they are being called in a more politically correct fashion, 'Indigenous Peoples' or adivasis.