Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Monica Janowski has long researched, published on and worked with the people of the Kelabit Highlands of northern Borneo. As an anthropologist, she has been particularly interested in issues concerning the environment, food and cosmology. At the same time, she has shown an ability to communicate research findings to a wider audience (including as co-producor of nine radio series with the BBC). However, perhaps her most lasting contribution will be her work with the Kelabit to preserve their cultural legacy and pass it on to future generations."This is a book that contains a treasure of ethnographic facts and detailed information for the reader interested in social and cultural systems in South East Asia... and conveys in-depth knowledge from scholars with long experience from the area. Quote from external reviewer"
This book offers eleven chapters covering a range of societies in different parts of Southeast Asia. It examines ways in which food is used to think about and bring about ties between generations and within generations - including between the living and the dead - in particular through the feeding relationship. Significant parallels emerge between the societies covered: in the role of rice especially; in gender complementarity in relation to different foods; in the belief that food and drink carry fertility, 'blessings' or 'life force' from ascending to descending generations; and in the use of the feeding relationship to generate hierarchy. These parallels suggest that there may be underlying similarities in cosmology between these widely varying societies.
A significant contribution to the ongoing debate on the nature of kinship in Southeast Asia, this volume will be useful as a textbook for courses within anthropology, including on the anthropology of food and environmental anthropology.