Maladies et pratiques therapeutiques des femmes dans le Sud‐Tunisien

This article gives an account of a study carried out between 1979 and 1984 in Kebili, an oasis in south Tunisia. The observation and analysis of concrete therapeutic practices and of the discourses on illness show a simultaneous recourse to traditional therapy and modern medicine. But these recourses are ordered and determined by a coherent representation of illness based on a tri‐dimensional system of causes: the “organic disorder”; itself, the magico‐religious cause and sorcery. The therapeutic system rests on a bipolarisation of roles: on the one hand, the strictly feminine therapeutic cell, and on the other, the collected body of healers of both sexes. The system of treatment appears to be a network of investigations into the nature of the illness of which women are the principal animators. The therapeutic system then defines the contours of a space of symbolic representations which imply but go beyond the representation of illness.     

Political information among first‐year Australian politics students: Queensland

This paper is a preliminary investigation into the process of acquiring political information. Data are derived from a survey of students enrolling in the introductory Australian politics course at the University of Queensland in 1980 and compared with similar data from earlier surveys at two NSW Universities. Two types of political information are distinguished—information about political institutions and recognition of political figures. The effects of ten independent variables are shown to be different for the two types of political information. It is hypothesized that information about political institutions is dependent primarily on attitudes towards politics, while recognition of political figures is dependent primarily on exposure to information about them. Sex of the respondents is found to have a powerful and independent effect on both types of political information.     

L'ethno‐histoire et sa méthode. Etude de quelques pratiques ludiques et festives en Castille

Ce travail tente de présenter quelques possibilités intéressantes pouvant naître de la collaboration entre l'ethnologie et l'histoire, cela à partir d'une étude concrète de comportements festifs et ludiques, représentatifs de la Castille, et plus exactement d'un vaste espace correspondant approximativement à la limite sud de l'actuelle Communauté Autonome de Castille et León. L'analyse commence par les informations documentaires les plus caractéristiques de la fin du Moyen‐Age et du début de l'époque Moderne. Ces données sont complétées par les résultats obtenus postérieurement au cours d'un travail sur le terrain dans la zone de Cuéllar, région où les références des documents sont les plus nombreuses et les plus explicites. Tout cela sert de base à certaines réflexions méthodologiques sur les avantages que peut apporter l'éviction de critères d'analyse conventionnels qui établissent trop souvent une frontière et une séparation excessive et étroite entre les deux disciplines.     

Macro‐ethno‐economics

William S. Hall and Roy O. Freedle. Culture and Language: The Black American Experience. New York: Halsted Press, 1975. 191 pp. Tables, figures, bibliography and index. $10.95.     

The Cape‐to‐Cairo railway

Among the Berbers of Algeria. By Anthony Wilkin. London : T. Fisher Unwin, 1900. Pp. xiv + 263. Price 16s.

The Siege of Kumassi. By Lady Hodgson. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1901. Price 21s.

Hints to Travellers : Scientific and General. Edited for the Council of the Royal Geographical Society. By John Coles, F.R.G.S., F.E.A.S. Eighth Edition. London : The Royal Geographical Society, 1901. 2 vols.' Price 15s. net.

The Indian Borderland, 1880–1900. By Colonel Sir T. Hungerford Holdich, K.C.I.E., etc. With twenty‐two illustrations and a map. London: Methuen and Co., 1901. Pp. xii + 402. Price 15s. net.

Un Séjour dan l'Ile de Ceylan. Per Jules Leclercq. Paris : Plon‐Nourrit et Cie., 1900. Pp. xii + 293.

The Statesman's Year‐Book Statistical and Historical Annual of the States of the World for the Year 1901. Edited by J. Scott Keltie, LL.D., with the assistance of I. P. A. Eenwick, M.A., LL.B. Thirty‐eighth Annual Publication. London : Macmillan and Co., 1901. Pp. 1320. Price 10s. 6d.

The Civilisation of the East. By Dr. Fritz Hommel. (“The Temple Primers.”) London: J. M. Dent and Co., 1900. Pp. xii + 140.

Ethnology. By Dr. Michael Hoberlandt. Translated by J. H. Loewe. (“The Temple Primers.”) London : J. M. Dent and Co., 1900. Pp. viii + 169.

Chinese Pictures. Notes on Photographs made in China. By Mrs. J. F. Bishop, F.R.G.S. London : Cassell and Co. Price 3s. 6d.

A History of Egypt in the Middle Ages. By Stanley Lane‐Poole. London : Methuen and Co., 1901. Pp. 382. Price 6s.

The Story of the War in South Africa, 1899–1900. By Captain A. T. Mahan, U.S.N. With Map and Portrait of the Author. London : Sampson Low, Marston, and Company, 1900. Pp. vi + 322, including Index. Price 10s. 6d.     

Negara Ubud: The Theatre‐state in Twenty‐first‐century Bali

In his book Negara: The Theatre‐state in Nineteenth‐century Bali (1980), Clifford Geertz argued that ceremonial display, rather than material power, was the real basis and indeed the purpose of pre‐colonial states in Bali, and by extension South East Asia. This article argues, on the basis of historical and ethnographic evidence from one of these kingdoms, that he was largely wrong about pre‐colonial Bali, but that, ironically and presciently, his model makes increasing sense in early twenty‐first century Bali. The article also discusses the reasons for this and finally suggests a more dynamic model based on Bourdieu’s metaphor of material and symbolic capital, which seeks to bring Geertz’s essentially static model to historical life.     

Intra‐European Racism in Nineteenth‐Century Anthropology

Nowadays the term “racism” is usually applied in the context of relationships between Europeans and non‐European “others”. During the nineteenth century scientific ideas about innate human differences were also applied extensively to various European populations. This was partly due to a category confusion whereby nations came to be regarded as biologically distinct. The origins of “scientific” racism were connected with the use of race as an explanation of history, and with the rise of physiognomy and phrenology. The development of “craniology” was paralleled and reinforced by ideological writings about “Nordic” racial superiority. In times of conflict such as the Franco‐Prussian war, absurd racial theories emerged and social Darwinist anthropologists connected race and class. Such ideas persisted well into the twentieth century and reached their apogee in Nazism.     

Bosnia‐Herzegovina

Abstract

As a newly emerging sub-field within human geography, carceral geography offers a unique perspective and understanding of closed spaces. Reflecting this development, three types of closed institutions provide the background for this empirical paper. The nature and experience of these spaces of confinement are explored by using in-depth qualitative interviews with young women in Scotland. The focus on gender-/age-specific characteristics and physical and spatial features reveals the processes of being ‘locked up’, of the perception of confinement and emotional responses to prison, secure care and closed psychiatry. The young women's accounts of these closed institutions are seldom heard in discourses on crime and punishment, providing an in-depth insight into these otherwise enclosed spaces. Considering the geography of three carceral systems, this study extends beyond physical detainment and works towards an understanding of the carceral experience as an emplaced, gendered, embodied, emotional and often repetitive practice. This paper is based on a larger empirical study and uses selected results of this more extensive data to exemplify ‘the carceral’ in this particular context.