From biometrics to predictive policing, contemporary security relies on sophisticated scientific evidence-gathering and knowledge-making focused on the human body. Bringing together new anthropological perspectives on the complexities of security in the present moment, the contributors to Bodies as Evidence reveal how bodies have become critical sources of evidence that is organized and deploye…
In a world where the notion of home is more traumatizing than it is comforting, artists are using this literal and figurative space to reframe human responses to trauma. Building on the scholarship of key art historians and theorists such as Judith Butler and Mieke Bal, Claudette Lauzon embarks upon a transnational analysis of contemporary artists who challenge the assumption that ‘homeâ…
Hijab: Unveiling Queer Muslim Lives is the first known collection of South African Muslim stories relating to Islam and sexual diversity. This anthology shares reallife stories of people that have struggled, or may still be struggling, to reconcile their spirituality and their sexuality. These are stories that illustrate the oneness of being and reflect on how some interpretations of the script…
With a clear statement of the theoretical issues in the debates about secularization and post-secularism, Religion and the State: A Comparative Sociology considers a number of major case studies from China, Europe, Singapore and South Asia in order to understand the rise of public religions in the modern state. By distinguishing between political secularization the separation of state and relig…
Under a Memorandum of Understanding between Indonesia and Australia, traditional Indonesian fishermen are permitted access to fish in a designated area inside the 200 nautical mile Australian Fishing Zone (AFZ). However, crew and vessels are regularly apprehended for illegal fishing activity outside the permitted areas and, after prosecution in Australian courts, their boats and equipment are d…
Issues of migration, environment, rurality, and the visceral "politics of place" and "space" have occupied center stage in recent electoral political struggles in the United States and Europe, suffused by an antiglobalization discourse that has come to resonate with Euro-American peoples. Race and Rurality in the Global Economy suggests that this present fractious global politics begs for close…
For several centuries Cape Town has accommodated a great variety of musical genres which have usually been associated with specific population groups living in and around the city. Musical styles and genres produced in Cape Town have therefore been assigned an “identity” which is first and foremost social. This volume tries to question the relationship established between musical styles and…
Identity has become the watchword of our times. In sub-Saharan Africa, this certainly appears to be true and for particular reasons. Africa is urbanising rapidly, cross-border migration streams are swelling and globalising influences sweep across the continent. Africa is also facing up to the challenge of nurturing emergent democracies in which citizens often feel torn between older traditional…
Beni-Amer cattle owners in the western part of the Horn of Africa are not only masters in cattle breeding, they are also knowledge sovereign, in terms of owning productive genes of cattle and the cognitive knowledge base crucial to sustainable development. The strong bonds between the Beni-Amer, their animals, and their environment constitute the basis of their ways of knowing, and much of thei…
With the rise of the ‘knowledge for development’ paradigm, expert advice has become a prime instrument of foreign aid. At the same time, it has been object of repeated criticism: the chronic failure of ‘technical assistance’ – a notion under which advice is commonly subsumed – has been documented in a host of studies. Nonetheless, international organisations continue to send advisor…