Imagined Families, Lived Families


Book Description

An interdisciplinary look at the dramatic changes in the contemporary Japanese family, including both empirical data and analyses of popular culture.




Imagined Families, Lived Families


Book Description

An interdisciplinary look at the dramatic changes in the contemporary Japanese family, including both empirical data and analyses of popular culture.




Ethnologia Europaea


Book Description

Special issue: Though a seemingly stable concept in ethnological work, "family" as a lived reality took and takes on innumerable forms shaped by economic pressures, mobility and attendant social transformations, and biotechnical interventions. The case studies in this special issue focus on the ways in which social actors seek to concretize as well as control what family could or should be. While (bio-)technological innovation proves vital to fulfill traditional imaginaries of a nuclear family, communication technology is a key to keep transnationally situated families in contact. Still, transnational work opportunities conflict with traditional imaginaries of the wholesome families and impact particularly women seeking to cross both borders and established family norms. Popular genealogy as a hobby and passion uncovers evidence that counters established narratives: instead of long-term sedentary family lineages, evidence of migration muddies the waters. Family metaphor, finally, serves, in one of the case studies, as vocabulary to materialize imaginary kinship ties among nuns. The five case studies are complemented by four commentaries, exploring paths along which these themes can be developed further.




Pakistan - Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation


Book Description

This is the first English-language survey of Pakistan’s socio-economic evolution. Mohammad Qadeer gives an essential overview of social and cultural transformation in Pakistan since independence, which is crucial to understanding Pakistan’s likely future direction. Pakistan examines how tradition and family life continue to contribute long term stability, and explores the areas where very rapid changes are taking place: large population increase, urbanization, economic development, and the nature of civil society and the state. It offers an insightful view into Pakistan, exploring the wide range of ethnic groups, the countryside, religion and community, and popular culture and national identity. It concludes by discussing the likely future social development in Pakistan, captivating students and academics interested in Pakistan and multiculturalism. Qadeer’s impressive work is a comprehensive examination of social and cultural forces in Pakistani society, and is an important resource for anyone wanting to understand contemporary Pakistan.




Imagined Liberation


Book Description

ÿOn a spectrum of hostility towards irregular migrants, South Africa ranks on top, Germany in the middle and Canada at the bottom. South African xenophobic violence by impoverished slum dwellers is directed against fellow Africans. Why would a society that liberated itself in the name of human rights turn against people who escaped human rights violations or unlivable conditions at home? What happened to the expected African solidarity? Why do former victims become victimizers?ÿ Imagined Liberationÿasks what xenophobic societies can learn from other immigrant societies which avoided the backlash against multiculturalism in Europe.




Imagined Orphans


Book Description

"In Imagined Orphans, Lydia Murdoch focuses on the discrepancy between the representation and the reality of children's experiences within welfare institutions - a discrepancy that she argues stems from conflicts over middle- and working-class notions of citizenship that arose in the 1870s and persisted until the First World War. Reformers' efforts to depict poor children as either orphaned or endangered by abusive or "no-good" parents fed upon the poor's increasing exclusion from the Victorian social body. Reformers used the public's growing distrust and pitiless attitude toward poor adults to increase charity and state aid to the children. With a critical eye to social issues of the period, Murdoch urges readers to reconsider the complex situations of families living in poverty."--BOOK JACKET.




Imagined Liberation (2nd edition)


Book Description

On a spectrum of hostility towards irregular migrants, South Africa ranks on top, Germany in the middle and Canada at the bottom. South African xenophobic violence by impoverished slum dwellers is directed against fellow Africans. Why would a society that liberated itself in the name of human rights turn against people who escaped human rights violations or unlivable conditions at home? What happened to the expected African solidarity? Why do former victims become victimizers? Imagined Liberation asks what xenophobic societies can learn from other immigrant societies which avoided the backlash against multiculturalism in Europe.




How to Be a Family


Book Description

In this "refreshingly relatable" (Outside) memoir, perfect for the self-isolating family, Slate editor Dan Kois sets out with his family on a journey around the world to change their lives together. What happens when one frustrated dad turns his kids' lives upside down in search of a new way to be a family? Dan Kois and his wife always did their best for their kids. Busy professionals living in the D.C. suburbs, they scheduled their children's time wisely, and when they weren't arguing over screen time, the Kois family-Dan, his wife Alia, and their two pre-teen daughters-could each be found searching for their own happiness. But aren't families supposed to achieve happiness together? In this eye-opening, heartwarming, and very funny family memoir, the fractious, loving Kois' go in search of other places on the map that might offer them the chance to live away from home-but closer together. Over a year the family lands in New Zealand, the Netherlands, Costa Rica, and small-town Kansas. The goal? To get out of their rut of busyness and distractedness and to see how other families live outside the East Coast parenting bubble. HOW TO BE A FAMILY brings readers along as the Kois girls-witty, solitary, extremely online Lyra and goofy, sensitive, social butterfly Harper-like through the Kiwi bush, ride bikes to a Dutch school in the pouring rain, battle iguanas in their Costa Rican kitchen, and learn to love a town where everyone knows your name. Meanwhile, Dan interviews neighbors, public officials, and scholars to learn why each of these places work the way they do. Will this trip change the Kois family's lives? Or do families take their problems and conflicts with them wherever we go? A journalistic memoir filled with heart, empathy, and lots of whining, HOW TO BE A FAMILY will make readers dream about the amazing adventures their own families might take.




New Imagined Community


Book Description

Advanced media technologies have transformed immigrants' relations with their departure and arrival societies. This title explores how Muslim-Arab religious scholars have developed over the years a theory that tasks Muslims living in the West with specific duties within the framework of their anticipated global Muslim nation.




Danger, Development and Legitimacy in East Asian Maritime Politics


Book Description

Grounded in extensive empirical research, Danger, Development and Legitimacy in East Asian Maritime Politics addresses the major issues of geopolitics in the region that have been and will continue to shape the international politics of the Asia-Pacific for years to come. Covering the nation-states of China, Japan and South Korea, it includes an examination of the key island disputes, as well as analysis of the North Korea–South Korea clashes in the Yellow Sea, controversies in Japan’s relations with both Koreas and the so-called ‘history disputes’, including recognition of World War II atrocities across the region. In doing so, this book explores a range of themes from the ecological environment to the globalized nature of shipping and therein links the East Asian maritime sphere directly to the dynamics and developments in the domestic politics of each country. Thus, it serves to demonstrate how several controversial debates in the international politics of the Asia-Pacific are ultimately and inextricably intertwined. A timely contribution that furthers our understanding of contemporary politics of the Asia-Pacific, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Asian politics, international relations and the Asia-Pacific region in general.