In its entire range of media and product worlds, Design is decisively involved in the cultural production and distribution of related images and interpretations of gender. This anthology examines why this is the case and what happens when it is changed from different perspectives and knowledge disciplines relevant to design. The contributions collected in this book enter into an interdisciplinary dialogue on the design of gender and provide theoretical and methodological approaches to understanding the social, cultural and political functions of design.

The first of many homestead communities designed during the rollout of the New Deal, Arthurdale, West Virginia, was a bold experiment in progressive social planning. At the center of the settlement was the school, which was established to improve the curriculum offered to Appalachian students. Offering displaced and unemployed coal miners and their families new opportunities, the school also helped those in need to develop a sense of dignity during the Great Depression. The first book-length study of the well-known educational experiment, The Arthurdale Community School illuminates the institution's history, influence, and impact. Founded on American philosopher and reformer John Dewey's idea that learning should be based not on competition but on community, and informed by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt's guidance, the Arthurdale project sought to enable both children and adults to regain a sense of identity and place by studying the history and culture of Appalachia. Its goal was not to produce workers for global capitalism but to provide citizens with the tools to participate in a democracy.Author Sam F. Stack Jr. examines both the successes and failures of this famous progressive experiment, providing an in-depth analysis of the Arthurdale School's legacy. A fascinating study of innovation and reform in Appalachia, Stack's book also investigates how this project's community model may offer insights into the challenges facing schools today.

Is there a connection between the increasingly widespread concept of Social Innovation (SI) and the success of today’s model of capitalist regulation? According to most studies focusing on SI, the existing relation is restorative in nature: SI intervenes to fix some negative effects brought about by the neoliberal regime. This volume is based on a different assumption, namely that SI is a dispositif inscribed in neoliberal govern mentality, functional in supporting the new production forms of cognitive capitalism. In light of this assumption, the transition from a production mode to another generates a series of contradictions in social relations that change the space in which they are inevitably inscribed. In this regard, SI practices are an ideal research field to observe the modes of production of subjectivity, along with the spatial practices of the subjects interested in/affected by SI.

New Guinea, and especially Papua New Guinea, is the last country in the world where ethnologists were able to closely observe, film and photograph the whole manufacturing chaînes opératoires of polished stone felling tools, from quarry extraction to finished tool use. Research on the polished blades of PNG has evolved over the years, following changing philosophies and research agendas. While it is clear that an exceptional sum of information has been gathered, it remains centered on that small part of the Highlands where conditions for field research were more pleasant than elsewhere. Our presentation of Irian Jaya axes therefore tackles a topic that remains mostly unexplored. Until now, stone tool research in New Guinea has followed an anthropocentric approach, in which tools are seen more as vectors for social exchanges than as means of acting on the environment. This monograph will take a different approach. Here, polished stone blades are placed at the center of the world, between, on one side, the transformed natural environment, and, on the other, the social and economic environment. This approach will allow us to suggest new avenues of inference in archaeology, as well as to test and abandon existing ones.In this volume, the stone blade is considered as a living being, existing in balance within its biotope. This idea is not far removed from the beliefs of Irian Jaya farmers, for whom life animates certain objects of their material culture. Following a brief presentation of Irian Jaya, we will describe the function of polished stone blades in Irian Jaya societies and the distribution of hafting styles, define and study the quarrying zones and the areas of diffusion and use of their production, and, if possible, the different trends noted in each area of polished blade production and exchanges. Finally, we will conclude with a discussion of the ethnoarchaeological potential of these contemporary observations.

The idea that America is a literate country is a misconception. There are more than thirty million adults in the United States today who cannot read, and spectator mentality and an obsession with instant gratification prevent many from retaining a true commitment to literacy. The issue persists despite a wealth of dedicated teachers across the country. Through no fault of their own, many educators are unable to excite students about learning to read and write. In response to this problem, James W. Parkinson argues that people must become responsible for their own education and learn the importance of being self-taught in reading and writing.In Autodidactic: Self-Taught, Parkinson shares his personal stories and discoveries about how to take charge of one's own learning, weaving together practical wisdom and historical statements issued by some of the world's most remarkable leaders. Parkinson details his failures and successes, his inability to engage intellectually in his youth, and his efforts to educate himself over a span of forty years -- all to remind readers that education is a lifelong challenge with no shortcuts. This book promises to motivate students, doctors, factory workers, and flight attendants alike to take matters into their own hands when it comes to learning in order to change their lives for the better.

The Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of March 11, 2011 was a complex event. It was a disaster of multiple dimensions, unleashing the linked forces of seismic shock, tsunami, and nuclear radiation. This confluence left a varied array of damage in its wake. The personal traumas of death and loss combined with the social trauma of ruptured families, the economic trauma resulting from the physical destruction, and the psychic trauma arising from an uncertain future. Such a complex disaster demands a multifaceted exploration into its nature, implications, and meaning. The essays in this collection cross academic and geographic boundaries to explore the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami from a wide range of perspectives and to apply the analytical and interpretive tools of multiple disciplines to the study of the disaster and the various forms of trauma it inflicted.

Violence is the plague of our civilization. It threatens us daily through its many tentacles: domestic violence, criminal violence, sexual abuse, terrorism, state violence, revolution, war, and genocide. The recently evolved discipline of traumatology has amply described commonalities in the consequences of violence. But there was no corresponding discipline of violentology, which explained why violence occurred in the first place. Inexorably, Valent was drawn to take the leap from healing the minds of victims to try to understand the minds of perpetrators.Valent unpicks the minds of perpetrators in each field of violence. He develops a lens by which to understand violence from individual to international, and from primitive to spiritual dimensions. We come to understand how aggressions that helped our species to survive now threaten our species with extinction. Such understanding may help to eliminate our current plague, just as understanding helped to eliminate the original one. Valent explains his thesis through many stories accessible to both professionals and lay readers. One story interweaving throughout is Valent’s own story. From a child who survived the Holocaust, he ferrets out the minds of his perpetrators in his quest to prevent future violence. Violence, for Valent, is not an isolated feature of the human condition. Surprisingly close to violence are struggles for love. Readers also learn about that aspect of humanity.

Following historical and theoretical overview of African immigration, the heart of this book is based on oral history interviews with forty-seven of the more than twenty-two thousand Africa-born immigrants in Kentucky. From a former ambassador from Gambia, a pharmacist from South Africa, a restaurant owner from Guinea, to a certified nursing assistant from the Democratic Republic of Congo -- every immigrant has a unique and complex story of their life experiences and the decisions that led them to emigrate to the United States. The compelling narratives reveal why and how the immigrants came to the Bluegrass state -- whether it was coming voluntarily as a student or forced because of war -- and how they connect with and contribute to their home countries as well as to the US. The immigrants describe their challenges -- language, loneliness, cultural differences, credentials for employment, ignorance towards Africa, and racism -- and positive experiences such as education, job opportunities, and helpful people. One chapter focuses on family -- including interviews with the second generations -- and how the immigrants identify themselves.

This volume of folk tales collected by Heinrich Rink, by native Greenlanders, is the translation of the first book printed in Greenland. Rink began his career as an administrator based at the Moravian mission at Godthaab, on the southwest coast of Greenland. He used the press to produce both official notices and literary works. Rink was determined to collect legends and folk tales of Greenland natives and publish them, an ambition achieved in these volumes, published over a five year span. Rink collected oral tales from throughout Greenland, although mainly in the southern area he administered. The remarkable oral tradition of the Inuit, unaffected by few outside influences, is traced through their history on the land. Many of the stories describe the clashes between the Norse and the Inuit. Rink recognized that some of the tales existed in the realm of pure myth, but that others represented recollections, passed from one generation to the next, of events of many centuries earlier. Translated from Danish, this is the first English translation of these stories. Illustrations are by Aron of Kangeq, a sealer and walrus hunter who lived at the Moravian mission at the small trading station of Kangeq. His illustrations of the oral storytelling tradition have gained status as a symbol of the new artistic tradition developed in Greenland in the mid-19th century.

Megalith building constitutes not only a past, but also a recent phenomenon, which is still practised today. The documentation and interpretation of recent megalith building traditions is offering potential aid in the interpretation of prehistoric monuments. Fieldwork in Sumba and Nagaland set up a frame to answer questions such as: Who is buried in the megalithic tombs and what kind of commemoration is connected to megalithic monuments? How are socioeconomic characteristics of the associated households and societies reflected in the megaliths?Megalithic monuments and social structures includes various archaeological and ethnoarchaeological case studies on social implications of megalith building activities from a comparative perspective. The case studies presented include recent megalith building traditions in Sumba, Indonesia, Nagaland, North-East India, as well as Neolithic Funnel Beaker communities in today’s Northern Germany and Southern Sweden.This book presents a rich body of new data. By taking into account recent examples of megalithic construction, knowledge on important and influential ways of acting within societal contexts was expanded, whereby above all decentralised and communally-designed mechanisms are important. The case studies presented here clearly demonstrate the importance of cooperative and competitive structures and their effect on feasting activities and megalith building. Additionally, megalithic monuments represent a way of expressing and materialising economic inequality and social prestige. These mechanism and aspects also represent interpretations regarding Funnel Baker societies, which can supplement the existing ideas of megalithic construction in Neolithic Northern Europe.

This book aims to investigate the phenomenon of volunteering as a workfare event, as a synchronous rewriting of territorial policy and advocacy, according to the principles of risk and border. The two terms, as a solid sociological category, shed light on the material and semantic shift of European welfare. Beyond its contents, this book represents an important research experience of a complex European-wide survey network on the phenomenon of volunteering and a best practice of collaboration and cultural exchange between university researchers and men and women that work in the fi eld of social policies concretely and every day.

The Pacific ‘grass skirt’ has provoked debates about the demeaning and sexualised depiction of Pacific bodies. While these stereotypical portrayals associated with ‘nakedness’ are challenged in this book, the complex uses and meanings of the garments themselves are examined, including their link to other body adornments and modifications. In nineteenth-century Fiji, beautiful fibre skirts (liku) in a great variety of shapes and colours were lifetime companions for women. First fitted around puberty when she received her veiqia (tattooing), women’s successive liku were adapted at marriage and during maternity, performing a multiplicity of social functions.This book is based on a systematic investigation of previously understudied liku in museums collections around the world. Through the prism of one garment, multiple ways of looking at dress are considered, including their classification in museums and archives. Also highlighted are associated tattooing (veiqia) practices, perceptions of modesty, the intricacies of intercultural encounters and the significance of collections and cultural heritage today. The book is intended for those interested in often neglected women’s objects and practices in the Pacific, in dress and adornment more generally and in the use of museum collections and archives. It is richly illustrated with rare and previously unpublished paintings and drawings, as well many examples of liku themselves.

Matters of Belonging foregrounds critical practices within ethnographic museums in relation to their diverse stakeholders, with a special focus on collaboration with artists and differently constituted, self-identified communities. The book emerges from the EU-funded project SWICH (Sharing a World of Inclusion, Creativity and Heritage) that places ethnographic museums at the centre of ongoing debates about Europe’s shifting polity and questions around heritage, citizenship and belonging. Addressing diverse political climates and citizenship regimes, legal frameworks and colonial/migratory histories, the articles seek to question the role of ethnographic and world cultures museums within contemporary negotiations of how to define Europe, Europeans, and European heritage, especially mindful of the region’s colonial and migratory pasts. The book is neither celebratory nor congratulatory, and does not depict a triumphal overcoming by ethnographic museums of their troubled pasts. Its aim is to think critically about these museums’ responses, to identify both pitfalls and positive developments, and to sketch out possible futures for museums generally, and ethnographic museums specifically, as they try to locate themselves within discussions about Europe and its futures. Core to the book’s argument is that it may exactly be in their entanglement with the colonial past that these museums can become important sites for thinking about colonial entailments in the present. Facing up to this past is the beginning of addressing these larger legacies. The authors suggest that the ethnographic museum has been the site not just for trenchant questioning of colonial durabilities in contemporary Europe, but also for the development of new practices – of collaboration and authority-sharing, of recognition and belonging. The book explores these models, not as complete, but as a starting point to push forward new practices.

Paint it, Black covers the remarkable history of kohl containers from the Early Bronze Age to the present day, including ancient Egypt, ancient Persia, the culture of the Early Islamic Period and the present-day cultures of North Africa and West Asia. For thousands of years, people from all over the world have used body paint and kohl, a black powdery substance, has been universally used by both men and women throughout history. The book also incorporates a catalogue of a unique collection of kohl containers kept in the Wearable Heritage collection.

The essay investigates the effects produced by criminal networks involved in the production and harvest of agricultural products. Focused on the analysis of caporalato , it explores the enslavement of immigrant agricultural labourers and territorial segregation practices. Moreover, it deals with the topic of the agromafi as’ role and discusses matters related to the deregulation of the agricultural market, as well as the general crisis of the agroindustries. Because caporalato has become a methodological instrument in the framework known as globalization of the farmlands , this essay tries to evaluate the complex relationship between the agromafias’ power and the operational conditions of Italy’s local economies. The authors then explore elements of the extremely pervasive criminal network, that determines productive trends of entire agricultural departments, with the intention of denouncing the dangerous socio-cultural drift that mafia-like criminal organizations are creating in Europe.

The essays contained in this volume explore the historical trajectories along which the Mediterranean has been conceptualized as a cultural, religious and economical resource and how these various aspects are intertwined. While staying clear of a merely “imagological” or “representational” point of view, the authors consider the interplay between culturally shaped attributions (for example the longstanding desire for a Mediterranean “Otherness” as expressed in German literature), their testing in empirical encounters, and the effect these encounters produce on both sides. Although focused particularly on 19th and 20th century culture, this volume offers a timely contribution to conceptualising the challenges of the 21st century. The conjunction of both provinciality and universality, the connectivity and fragmentation of the Mediterranean continues to be at the basis of the European matrix of all possible (hi)stories.