Through ethnographical cases, this book examines the ways in which social groups position themselves between cultures, states, moralities, and local/state authorities, creating opportunities for agency. Alternative spaces designate in-between spaces rather than oppositional structures and are both inside and outside their constituent elements.

Through ethnographical cases, this book examines the ways in which social groups position themselves between cultures, states, moralities, and local/state authorities, creating opportunities for agency. Alternative spaces designate in-between spaces rather than oppositional structures and are both inside and outside their constituent elements.

Filled with practical guidance for those working in and interested in the emergent field of Learning Development, this must-read book encapsulates what it means to be a Learning Developer and how to thrive in this role. With carefully constructed contributions which explore different aspects of the role, this edited collection is comprehensive in its approach. Alongside practical advice, it is underpinned by theoretical and epistemological insights to provide a bridge between theory and practice. Organised into five key parts, it is arranged in a way that reflects the journey that practitioners take into and through Learning Development, from their initiation into the field, through professional development, to becoming an established expert. It covers key topics such as: the basic principles of working in Learning Development the theoretical and practical foundations of the field how to engage more critically with the role how to become an active contributor to the field through research and publication the as-yet unrealised possibilities of Learning Development Capturing a diverse array of voices, experiences, and perspectives, this book is an essential guide for both new and established practitioners concerned with student Learning and Development.

Transborder Media Spaces offers a new perspective on how media forms like photography, video, radio, television, and the Internet have been appropriated by Mexican indigenous people in the light of transnational migration and ethnopolitical movements. In producing and consuming self-determined media genres, actors in Tamazulapam Mixe and its diaspora community in Los Angeles open up media spaces and seek to forge more equal relations both within Mexico and beyond its borders. It is within these spaces that Ayuujk people carve out their own, at times conflicting, visions of development, modernity, gender, and what it means to be indigenous in the twenty-first century.

How do scholars transform qualitative data into analysis? What does making analysis imply? What happens in the space in-between data and finalized analysis is notoriously difficult to talk about. In other parts of the research process, scholars and students are aided by method books that describe the technicalities of generating, processing and sorting through data, handbooks that teach academic writing, and scholarly works that offer meta-level, theoretical perspectives. Yet the path from qualitative data to analysis remains ‘a black box.’ Qualitative Analysis in the Making ventures into this black box. The volume provides a means of speaking about how analyses emerge in the Humanities. Contributors from disciplines such as anthropology, history, and sociology of religion all employ an analytical double take. They revisit one of their analyses, analyzing how this particular analysis came into being. Such analyses of an analysis are neither confessions nor step-by-step recounts of what happened. Rather, the volume argues that speaking of the space in-between requires analytical displacement, and the employment of fresh analytical takes. This approach contributes to demystifying the path from qualitative data to finalized analysis. It invites novel epistemological reflections among scholars, and assists students in improving their analytical skills.

This book offers fascinating insights into the concept of diaspora by presenting a portrait gallery of writers highlighting diasporas on Welsh, Mauritian, Palestinian, Circassian Kurdish, British Sikh, Dutch Hindustani, Indian, Tamil and African experiences. Harjinder Singh Majhail and Sinan Dogan present the world of diasporas in interesting portrayals such as Gulnur’s research into Circassian history lying hidden in Yistanbulako elegy, Enaya’s visits into Milwaukee in Wisconsin where Palestinian Muslim women marry outside their religion because of the non-availability of suitable partners in their community and Harjinder Majhail’s sojourns into J. K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy portraying a teenager girl’s brave encounters in British Sikh diaspora. Contributors are Vitor Lopes Andrade, Kimberly Berg, Amenah Jahangeer Chojoo, Gülnur Demirci, Sinan Doğan, Jaswina Elahi, Ruben Gawricharn, Lola Guyot, Nadine Hassouneh, Harjinder Singh Majhail and Enaya Hammad Othman.

A Companion to the Anthropology of the Middle East presents a comprehensive overview of current trends and future directions in anthropological research and activism in the modern Middle East. Named as one of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles of 2016 Offers critical perspectives on the theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical goals of anthropology in the Middle East Analyzes the conditions of cultural and social transformation in the Middle Eastern region and its relations with other areas of the world Features contributions by top experts in various Middle East anthropological specialties Features in-depth coverage of issues drawn from religion, the arts, language, politics, political economy, the law, human rights, multiculturalism, and globalization

Rangeland, forests and riverine landscapes of pastoral communities in Eastern Africa are increasingly under threat. Abetted by states who think that outsiders can better use the lands than the people who have lived there for centuries, outside commercial interests have displaced indigenous dwellers from pastoral territories. This volume presents case studies from Eastern Africa, based on long-term field research, that vividly illustrate the struggles and strategies of those who face dispossession and also discredit ideological false modernist tropes like ‘backwardness’ and ‘primitiveness’.

The Marketization of Religion provides a novel theoretical understanding of the relationship between religion and economy of today’s world. A major feature of today's capitalism is ‘marketization’. While the importance that economics and economics-related phenomena have acquired in modern societies has increased since the consumer and neoliberal revolutions and their shock waves worldwide, social sciences of religion are still lagging behind acknowledging the consequences of these changes and incorporating them in their analysis of contemporary religion. Religion, as many other social realities, has been traditionally understood as being of a completely different nature than the market. Like oil and water, religion and the market have been mainly cast as indissoluble into one another. Even if notions such as the marketization, commoditization or branding of religion and images such as the religious and spiritual marketplace have become popular, some of the contributions aligned in this volume show how this usage is mostly metaphorical, and at the very least problematic. What does the marketization of religion mean? The chapters provide both theoretical and empirical discussion of the changing dynamics of economy and religion in today’s world. Through the lenses of marketization, the volume discusses the multiple, at times surprising, connections of a global religious reformation. Furthermore, in its use of empirical examples, it shows how different religions in various social contexts are reformed due to growing importance of a neoliberal and consumerist logic. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Religion.

Based on over five years of ethnographic fieldwork in Syria, Exemplary Life focuses on the life of a Damascus woman, Myrna Nazzour, who serves as an aspirational figure in her community. Myrna is regarded by her followers as an exemplary figure, a living saint, and the messages, apparitions, stigmata, and oil that have marked Myrna since 1982 have corroborated her status as chosen by God. Exemplary Life probes the power of examples, the modelling of sainthood around Myrna’s figure, and the broader context for Syrian Christians in the changing landscape of the Middle East. The book highlights the social use of examples such as the ones inhabited by Myrna’s devout followers and how they reveal the broader structures of illustration, evidence, and persuasion in social and cultural settings. Andreas Bandak argues that the role of the example should incite us to investigate which trains of thought set local worlds in motion. In doing so, Exemplary Life presents a novel frame for examining how religion comes to matter to people and adds a critical dimension to current anthropological engagements with ethics and morality.