Social Orders and Social Landscapes marks a new direction in research for Eurasian archaeology that focuses on how people lived in their local environment and interacted with their near and distant neighbours, rather than on overarching comparisons of archaeological culture complexes. Stemming from the 2005 University of Chicago Eurasian Archaeology Conference, the papers collected here reflect this new research agenda, though the way in which each author addressed the theme of the conference, and thus the book, was strikingly varied. This diversity arises out of the field’s intellectual flux driven by the principled engagement of the rich analytical traditions of the Soviet/CIS, Anglo-American, and European schools. Despite the variability in approaches and subject matter, several key themes emerged: 1) the reinterpretation culture categories by examining particular aspects of social life; 2) the role social memory plays in the production of landscape and place; 3) the influence of the built environment on societies; and 4) the ways in which economic considerations affect social orders and landscapes. The result is a book that helps to re-image Eurasia as a complex landscape fragmented by historically contingent and shifting ecological and social boundaries rather than a bounded mosaic of culture areas or environmental zones. “Scholarly research on Eurasia was transformed by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Entire areas and fields of research became accessible to European and American scholars for the first time, resulting in the emergence of new centers specializing in primary field investigations throughout the vast, politically transformed landmass of Eurasia. One such center is the University of Chicago that has recently sponsored two large international conferences on Eurasian archaeology. Social Orders and Social Landscapes is the product of the second Chicago conference held in spring 2005. The editors of the volume should be proud of their efforts that have resulted in such a broad ranging and prompt publication. The articles encompass a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including archaeology, history, art history, palynology, and zooarchaeology; extend chronologically from Neolithic and Bronze Age times to the formation of national identity in Turkey in the early 20th century; and range geographically from Europe to China. Several articles reconstruct basic subsistence activities; others analyze distinctive settlement types and political and cultural frontiers, including the assimilation and emergence of new, self-defined ethnic groups and the selective adoption of new systems of religious belief. What unites this diverse collection is their consistent emphasis on the social construction of reality and the production of social landscapes and memories that altered perceptions of the physical world and mediated the practical activities that here have been convincingly reconstructed from the archaeological record. In so doing, rigid stereotypes are questioned and novel interpretations persuasively advanced. Early Bronze Age pastoralism on the south Russian steppes did not consist exclusively of herding animals nor was it combined, as it was later in the Iron Age, with the pursuit of agriculture; rather, D. Anthony and D. Brown suggest that at least in the Samara river valley the herding of animals occurred along side the intensive gathering of wild, nutritionally rich plants. The kalas of ancient Chorasmia are not cities, nor even proto-urban formations, but rather are large, heavily fortified enclosures meant to repel attacks of armed nomadic cavalry. They represent a continuation of a distinct Central Asian settlement pattern that began in the Bronze Age and that formed the center of a landscape divided into contiguous, self-contained oases. The Mongols not only herded livestock, but also farmed, fished, hunted, and traded throughout the vast area that they had conquered, uniting most of Eurasia into a single, economically integrated system. New perspectives proliferate throughout this richly detailed and extremely broad ranging collected volume.” — Phil Kohl, Professor of Anthropology and the Kathryn W. Davis Professor of Slavic Studies at Wellesley College “ “Social Orders and Social Landscapes” is a stimulating addition to the still small literature in English making the rich datasets from the archaeology of Eurasia widely accessible to Western scholars. The authors of the eighteen chapters analyze data from China to the Mediterranean, from the fourth millennium BCE through the fourteenth century CE, with the tools of art and architectural history, text analysis, paleobotany and paleozoology, and anthropological theory, among others. The product of a conference at the University of Chicago, this book fulfils the goal of the graduate student organizers to apply interdisciplinary approaches to understanding the archaeology and history of the Eurasian landmass in local terms through a focus on “how people lived in their local environments.” In the decade and a half since the end of the Soviet Union, scholarly communication has broadened and the mutual influences have stimulated many new and thought provoking views on the Eurasian past. This book is an exemplary product of the new scholarly discourse.” — Karen S. Rubinson, Research Scholar, Department of Anthropology, Barnard College, Columbia University

Drawing from a wide selection of classic and contemporary works, the 60 selections in this best-selling reader represent a plurality of voices and views within sociology. In addition to classic works by authors such as Karl Marx, Max Weber, C. Wright Mills, David Rosenhan, Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore, this anthology presents a wide range of contemporary scholarship, some of which provides new treatments of traditional concepts. By integrating issues of diversity throughout the book, Ferguson helps students see the inter-relationships of race, social class, and gender, and the ways in which they have shaped the experiences of all people in society.

Nordamerika - Kolonialzeit - Landschaft - Raumkonzepte - soziale Konstruktion.

Drawing from a wide selection of classic and contemporary works, this best-selling reader includes 56 readings that represent a plurality of voices and views within sociology.

We live in a visual culture, and visual evidence is increasingly central to social research. In this collection an international range of experts explain how they have used visual methods in their own research, examine their advantages and limitations, and show how they have been used alongside other research techniques. Contributors explore the following ideas: * self and identity * visualizing domestic space * visualizing urban landscapes * visualizing social change. The collection showcases different methods in different contexts through the examination of a variety of topical issues. Methods covered include photo and video diaries, the use of images produced by respondents, the use of images as prompts in interviews and focus groups, documentary photography, photographic inventory and visual ethnography. The result is an exciting and original collection that will be indispensable for any student, academic or researcher interested in the use of visual methods.

Past Landscapes presents theoretical and practical attempts of scholars and scientists, who were and are active within the Kiel Graduate School "Human Development in Landscapes" (GSHDL), in order to disentangle a wide scope of research efforts on past landscapes. Landscapes are understood as products of human-environmental interaction. At the same time, they are arenas, in which societal and cultural activities as well as receptions of environments and human developments take place. Thus, environmental processes are interwoven into human constraints and advances. This book presents theories, concepts, approaches and case studies dealing with human development in landscapes. On the one hand, it becomes evident that only an interdisciplinary approach can cover the manifold aspects of the topic. On the other hand, this also implies that the very different approaches cannot be reduced to a simplistic uniform definition of landscape. This shortcoming proves nevertheless to be an important strength. The umbrella term 'landscape' proves to be highly stimulating for a large variety of different approaches. The first part of our book deals with a number of theories and concepts, the second part is concerned with approaches to landscapes, whereas the third part introduces case studies for human development in landscapes. As intended by the GSHDL, the reader might follow our approach to delve into the multi-faceted theories, concepts and practices on past landscapes: from events, processes and structures in environmental and produced spaces to theories, concepts and practices concerning past societies.

This book is a groundbreaking attempt to rethink the landscapes of the social world and historical practice by theorising ‘social haunting’: the ways in which the social forms, figures, phantasms and ghosts of the past become present to us time and time again. Examining the relationship between historical practices such as archaeology and archival work in order to think about how the social landscape is reinvented with reference to the ghosts of the past, the author explores the literary and historical status and accounts of the ghost, not for what they might tell us about these figures, but for their significance for our, constantly re-invented, re-vivified, re-ghosted social world. With chapters on haunted houses and castles, slave ghosts, the haunting airs of music, the prehistoric origin of spirits, Marxist spectres, Freudian revenants, and the ghosts in the machine, Ghosts, Landscapes and Social Memory adopts multi-disciplinary methods for understanding the past, the dead and social ghosts and the landscapes they appear in. A sociology of haunting that illustrates how social landscapes have their genesis and perpetuation in haunting and the past, this volume will appeal to sociologists and social theorists with interests in memory, haunting and culture.