Showing posts with label anthropology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anthropology. Show all posts

In Amma's Healing Room: Gender and Vernacular Islam in South India Review

In Amma's Healing Room: Gender and Vernacular Islam in South India
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In Amma's Healing Room: Gender and Vernacular Islam in South India ReviewSince there is only one review at the moment, a slightly negative one, I felt the need to write a more balanced review of this very interesting book.
"In Amma's Healing Room" is an ethnography centered around a Muslim spiritual healer in Hyderabad, India, referred to as "Amma" (mother), and her "healing room," or the room of her house where she sets up her healing practice and sees patients. Although the book is an academic, scholarly work that will be of primary interest to scholars interested in anthropology and south asian studies, it is written in a clear and fluid (jargon-free) style that makes it easily accessible to non-scholars as well. Those interested in Sufism may find the book particularly interesting, as Amma and her family are Sufis and her husband (Abba) is a "pir" or Sufi teacher. One of the many strengths of the book is its description of practices that take place around the periphery of what might generally be presented as the core of Sufism.
Another strength of the book is Prof Flueckiger's evident respect for Amma, her healing system, her clients, and the cultural and religious milieu. She does not resort to some of the more common models sometimes used in anthropology to "explain" the effects of religious healing rituals through cultural, symbolic and cognitive models. Rather, she attends to the performative aspects of Amma's healing practices and narratives, and to the connection Amma establishes with her patients, in discussing how Amma's healing "works."
The book is engaging throughout, and scholars and students interested in gender in Islam, feminist ethnography, and performance studies will find it of particular interest.In Amma's Healing Room: Gender and Vernacular Islam in South India Overview"[I]t is extremely salubrious to see the ways Islam works in thelives of ordinary people who are not politicized in their religious lives.... Noother book on South Asia has material like this." -- Ann GrodzinsGoldIn Amma's Healing Room is a compelling study of the life andthought of a female Muslim spiritual healer in Hyderabad, South India. JoyceBurkhalter Flueckiger describes Amma's practice as a form of vernacular Islamarising in a particular locality, one in which the boundaries between Islam,Hinduism, and Christianity are fluid. In the "healing room," Amma meets adiverse clientele that includes men and women, Muslim, Hindu, and Christian, ofvaried social backgrounds, who bring a wide range of physical, social, andpsychological afflictions. Flueckiger collaborated closely with Amma and relates toher at different moments as daughter, disciple, and researcher. The result is a workof insight and compassion that challenges widely held views of religion and genderin India and reveals the creativity of a tradition often portrayed by Muslims andnon-Muslims alike as singular and monolithic. (2008)

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The Making of Second Life: Notes from the New World Review

The Making of Second Life: Notes from the New World
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The Making of Second Life: Notes from the New World ReviewIt can be hard to justify buying a book about a place as fluid and temporal as Second Life. In a world with a constantly-shifting, user-created landscape, what could one write that will be of any use in the next few years?
Given this challenge, Wagner James Au crafts an excellent book about the history and nature of Second Life. Leveraging his status as a former employee and virtual embedded journalist, Au shares with the reader his well-researched subjective viewpoint into a world of fluid forms and fluid personalities. Touching on such topics as the economy, socialization, politics, the nature of self, and the interaction between the real world and the artificial one, the book weaves a narrative that is one part company history, one part personal experience, and one part industry commentary.
While the book overall is an interesting read, I found myself having to swallow some significant typos and informational errors. This is a pet peeve of mine, and I feel the book really could have used a second editorial pass and some fact-checking (for instance, the 3D embedded content viewer inDuality ([...]) is made by Pelican Crossing, not Penguin Crossing). Print is not the web, and sadly, once one publishes an edition of a book with this many errors, it's published forever.
But if you have a tolerance for typos and a willingness to do your own fact-checking (which will be necessary anyway, given the changeable nature of the subject matter), this book is a good read and can serve as a starting point for further forays into the field of 3D interactive worlds, and Second Life specifically.The Making of Second Life: Notes from the New World Overview

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Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human Review

Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human
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Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human ReviewI felt obliged to respond after reading prior reviewers who gave this average ratings. Fair enough to be disappointed in this if, for some reason, you expected it to be an light-weight page-turner intended for Second Life residents.
This *is* an academic book by a professor of anthropology who uses plenty of footnotes. The target audience does *not* consist of those already well familiar with the intricacies of social customs in Second Life. And yes, there are references to anthropological thinkers throughout. Some of us actually like that kind of thing.
For its target audience, this is a great book. There are a limited number of academic books that treat the subject of contemporary virtual worlds carefully, thoughtfully, and well. This one really stands out as a study based on extensive ethnographic research and a firm grasp of the available literature. In my opinion, the audience is not just anthropologists, but anyone with a college degree and a serious interest in Second Life as a novel medium for social interaction. The style is educated, but accessible, and it is full of entertaining anecdotes and observations.Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human Overview

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I, Avatar: The Culture and Consequences of Having a Second Life (New Riders) Review

I, Avatar: The Culture and Consequences of Having a Second Life (New Riders)
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I, Avatar: The Culture and Consequences of Having a Second Life (New Riders) ReviewI agree with all of the comments already made about this book. Anyone who follows virtual worlds has seen far too many superficial, sensationalized, and often factually incorrect media reports about who goes on in them. This book is the complete opposite of that. It's a deep and thoughtful discussion of how they can affect people for better and for worse. It gets beneath the caricatures to examine the whole concept of identity in physical spaces, virtual spaces, and the gray area between the two.
Anyone who has spent time in virtual worlds will be able to relate to much of what is said from their own experiences and observations, and those who have not spent time in virtual worlds would benefit from reading this book before dismissing them.
The content alone would make the book well worth reading, but as others have already mentioned, it's also beautifully presented. In fact, the book itself is analogous to the phenomena it describes: an attractive setting with a lot of interesting things happening inside.I, Avatar: The Culture and Consequences of Having a Second Life (New Riders) OverviewWhat is an avatar? Why are there nearly a billion of them, and who isusing them? Do avatars impact our real lives, or are they just videogame conceits? Is an avatar an inspired rendering of its creator'sinner self, or is it just one among millions of anonymous vehiclesclogging the online freeways? Can we use our avatars to really connectwith people, or do they just isolate us? And as we become more like ouravatars do they become more like us? In I, Avatar,Mark Stephen Meadows answers some of these questions, but moreimportantly, he raises hundreds of others in his exploration of avatarsand the fascinating possibilities they hold. His examination ofavatars through the lenses of sociology, psychology, politics, history,and art, he will change the way you look at even a simple onlineprofile and revolutionize the idea of avatars as part of our lives,whether first or second.

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