Collaborations responds to the growing pressure on the humanities and social sciences to justify their impact and utility after cuts in public spending, and the introduction of neoliberal values into academia. Arguing ‘in defense of’ anthropology, the editors demonstrate the continued importance of the discipline and reveal how it contributes towards solving major problems in contemporary society. They also illustrate how anthropology can not only survive but thrive under these co...

This volume provides a theoretical and practical examination of the relationships between bodies, dance and space. Using ten case studies, it illustrates the symbolic power of dance that is crafted by choreographers and acted out by dancers. The book portrays a multitude of ways in which public and private spaces (stages, buildings, town squares as well as natural environments) are transformed and made meaningful by dance. Furthermore, it explores the meaning of dance as emotionally experi...

The essays in this volume address the displacement of natural and cultural heritage caused by disasters, whether they be dramatic natural impacts or terrible events unleashed by humankind, including holocaust and genocide. Disasters can be natural or human-made, rapid or slow, great or small, yet the impact is effectively the same; nature, people and cultural heritage are displaced or lost. Yet while heritage and place are at risk from disasters, in time,sites of suffering are sometimes re...

What are new interview methods and practices in our new 'interview society' and how do they relate to traditional social science research? This volume interrogates the interview as understood, used - and under-used - by anthropologists. It puts the interview itself in the hotseat by exploring the nature of the interview, interview techniques, and illustrative cases of interview use.What is a successful and representative interview? How are interviews best transcribed and integrated into ou...

The travel experience filled with personal trauma; the pilgrimage through a war-torn place; the journey with those suffering: these represent the darker sides of travel. What is their allure and how are they represented? This volume takes an ethnographic and interdisciplinary approach to explore the writings and texts of dark journeys and travels. In traveling over the dead, amongst the dying, and alongside the suffering, the authors give us a tour of humanity’s violence and misery. And ye...

This anthropological study examines the relationship between leisure and death, specifically how leisure practices are used to meditate upon—and mediate—life. Considering travelers who seek enjoyment but encounter death and dying, tourists who accidentally face their own mortality while vacationing, those who intentionally seek out pleasure activities that pertain to mortality and risk, and those who use everyday leisure practices like social media or dogwalking to cope with death, Lei...

Around the world, tourists are drawn to visit murals painted on walls. Whether heritage asset, legacy leftover, or contested art space, the mural is more than a simple tourist attraction or accidental aspect of tourism material culture. They express something about the politics, heritage and identity of the locations being visited, whether a medieval fresco in an Italian church, or modern political art found in Belfast or Tehran.This interdisciplinary and highly international book ...

With nationalism and the far right on the rise across Europe and North America, there has never been a more important moment to face up to what we, in Britain, are doing to those who seek sanctuary. Still the UK detains people indefinitely under immigration rules. Bail hearings go unrecorded, people are picked up without notice, individuals feel abandoned in detention centres with no way of knowing when they will be released.In Refugee Tales III we read the stories of people who ha...

Dance is more than an aesthetic of life – dance embodies life. This is evident from the social history of jive, the marketing of trans-national ballet, ritual healing dances in Italy or folk dances performed for tourists in Mexico, Panama and Canada. Dance often captures those essential dimensions of social life that cannot be easily put into words. What are the flows and movements of dance carried by migrants and tourists? How is dance used to shape nationalist ideology? What are the conn...

Two unaccompanied children travel across the Mediterranean in an overcrowded boat that has been designed to only make it halfway across…A 63-year-old man is woken one morning by border officers ‘acting on a tip-off’ and, despite having paid taxes for 28 years, is suddenly cast into the detention system with no obvious means of escape…An orphan whose entire life has been spent in slavery – first on a Ghanaian farm, then as a victim of trafficking – writes to the Home Office ...

Thoughts and feelings about home traditionally provided people of all cultures with a firm sense of where they belonged, and why. But with the world rapidly changing, many of our basic notions are becoming problematic. Both internationally and within countries, populations are constantly on the move, seeking better opportunities and living conditions, or an escape from violence and war. In spite of, or perhaps even because of these trends, ideas about home continue to shape the way people ...

As the twenty-first century moves towards its third decade, applied theatre is being shaped by contemporary economic and environmental concerns and is contributing to new conceptual paradigms that influence the ways in which socially engaged art is produced and understood. This collection offers fresh perspectives on the aesthetics, politics and histories of applied theatre. With contributions from leading scholars in the field, the book illuminates theatre in a diverse range of global con...