The World Health Organization's concept of health as "the condition of psychophysical and social well-being" must be translated into opera tional terms. The objective is to place the human person within the social system, given that mental health, mental illness, and suffering are individual, despite the fact that their causes are to be sought in the society and environment that surround and interact with the indi vidual. One dimension that must be emphasized in this field is the contin uum that exists between social environment and cerebral development. This continuum consists of the physical and biological features of the two interacting systems: on one hand, the brain managed and con trolled by the genetic program, and, on the other hand, the environ ment, be it natural or social. A simple dichotomy of individual and environment is no longer a sufficient concept in understanding the etiology of mental health and illness. Needless to say, socioepidemiological research in psychiatry and transcultural psychiatry is useful in reaching these ends. However, at the root of mental illness, one can always find the same causal elements: informational chaos, inadequate dietary intake, substance abuse, trauma, conditioning, and so on, which make the interactive systems dysfunctional. Subsequent organic and psychotic disorders occur to the detriment of both the individual and society. Current biological psychiatry is inadequately equipped in treating mental illness.

This concise and accessible introduction establishes the relevance of cultural anthropology for the modern world through an integrated, ethnographically informed approach. The book develops readers’ understanding and engagement by addressing key issues such as: What it means to be human The key characteristics of culture as a concept Relocation and dislocation of peoples The conflict between political, social and ethnic boundaries The concept of economic anthropology Cultural Anthropology: 101 includes case studies from both classic and contemporary ethnography, as well as a comprehensive bibliography and index. It is an essential guide for students approaching this fascinating field for the first time.

Might creolization offer political theory an approach that would better reflect the heterogeneity of political life? After all, it describes mixtures that were not supposed to have emerged in the plantation societies of the Caribbean but did so through their capacity to exemplify living culture, thought, and political practice. Similar processes continue today, when people who once were strangers find themselves unequal co-occupants of new political locations they both seek to call “home.” Unlike multiculturalism, in which different cultures are thought to co-exist relatively separately, creolization describes how people reinterpret themselves through interaction with one another. While indebted to comparative political theory, Gordon offers a critique of comparison by demonstrating the generative capacity of creolizing methodologies. She does so by bringing together the eighteenth-century revolutionary Swiss thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the twentieth-century Martinican-born Algerian liberationist Frantz Fanon. While both provocatively challenged whether we can study the world in ways that do not duplicate the prejudices that sustain its inequalities, Fanon, she argues, outlined a vision of how to bring into being the democratically legitimate alternatives that Rousseau mainly imagined.

In the discipline's early days, anthropologists by definition were assumed to be white and male. Women and black scholars were relegated to the field's periphery. From this marginal place, white feminist anthropologists have successfully carved out an acknowledged intellectual space, identified as feminist anthropology. Unfortunately, the works of black and non-western feminist anthropologists are rarely cited, and they have yet to be respected as significant shapers of the direction and transformation of feminist anthropology. In this volume, Irma McClaurin has collected-for the first time-essays that explore the role and contributions of black feminist anthropologists. She has asked her contributors to disclose how their experiences as black women have influenced their anthropological practice in Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States, and how anthropology has influenced their development as black feminists. Every chapter is a unique journey that enables the reader to see how scholars are made. The writers present material from their own fieldwork to demonstrate how these experiences were shaped by their identities. Finally, each essay suggests how the author's field experiences have influenced the theoretical and methodological choices she has made throughout her career. Not since Diane Wolf's Feminist Dilemmas in the Field or Hortense Powdermaker's Stranger and Friend have we had such a breadth of women anthropologists discussing the critical (and personal) issues that emerge when doing ethnographic research.

This book generally discusses three main topics connected to the situation of Muslims in Dutch society. First of all, attention is given to the subject of faith and rituals such as the existing mystical orders, mosque sermons and the institutionalization of ritual slaughter. The second subject deals with Islam and the second-generation Muslims in the Netherlands. In this context, the situation of the so-called runaway girls and education in general are discussed. Special attention is given to the development and functioning of Islamic schools and to the education in one's own language and culture. The last topic deals with Muslim organizations, their development and role in the emancipation of these religious groups in Dutch society. Furthermore, obstacles hindering the establishment of a Muslim council on a national level are thoroughly discussed. This book can be of interest to various categories of people, such as scholars (theologians, social scientists, lawyers), policy makers, and those who, through their profession, are in regular contact with members of the Muslim community in the Netherlands.