Synopses & Reviews
Although it is commonly believed that deafness and disability limits a person in a variety of ways, Valuing Deaf Worlds in Urban India describes the two as a source of value in postcolonial India. Michele Friedner argues that the experiences of deaf people offer an important portrayal of contemporary self-making and sociality under new regimes of labor and economy in India.and#160;and#160;Friedner contends that deafness actually becomes a source of value for deaf Indians as they interact with nongovernmental organizations, with employers in the global information technology sector, and with the state. In contrast to previous political economic moments, deaf Indians increasingly depend less on the state for education and employment, and instead turn to novel and sometimes surprising spaces such as NGOs, multinational corporations, multilevel marketing businesses, and churches that attract deaf congregants. They also gravitate towards each other. Their social practices may be invisible to outsiders because neither the state nor their families have recognized Indian Sign Language as legitimate, but deaf Indians collectively learn sign language, which they use among themselves, and they also learn the importance of working within the structures of their communities to maximize their opportunities. and#160;and#160;Valuing Deaf Worlds in Urban India analyzes how diverse deaf people become oriented toward each other and disoriented from their families and other kinship networks. More broadly, this book explores how deafness, deaf sociality, and sign language relate to contemporary society.and#160;and#160;and#160;
Review
andquot;Huberman provides profound insights on the lives of children who work the streets of the tourist industry, and equally profound insights on the experience of tourists and their search for meaning and self understanding in India.andquot;
Review
andquot;Ambivalent Encounters is one of the most ethnographically detailed and multifaceted books on children. Huberman expertly captures and explores relationships between value, age, and work in a contemporary Indian city.andquot;
Review
andquot;A useful contribution to our understanding of interactions with children that take place in the context of tourism, and of childrenandrsquo;s economic
activities more generally.andquot;
Review
andquot;Michele Friednerandrsquo;s groundbreaking ethnography takes us on a rich, grounded journey with deaf young adults in Bangalore and shows us how they make their way through schools, vocational training, and religious worlds. From the opening scene to the last page, Friedner invites our appreciation of and#39;deaf gainand#39; and how community, conviviality, kinship, value, and possibility are created.andquot;
Review
andquot;Take Me to My Paradise makes a genuine contribution to the growing literature on tourism and on those societies which have become economically reliant on international tourism . . . the nuanced observations and analytical revelations are fascinating.andquot;
Review
andquot;The British Virgin Islands tourist industry has constructed a space that meets the Western expectation of a Caribbean paradise, and Cohen focuses on how this construction affects the people who live there. She skillfully accomplishes this demanding task. Packed with useful information, this book offers the novel incorporation of the author's raw field notes which add immediacy to the narrative and give the reader insight into the vagaries of anthropological fieldwork.andquot;
Synopsis
This ethnographic study brings together scholarship on the anthropology of childhood, tourism, consumption, and exchange to examine how and why children working as unlicensed peddlers and tourist guides along the waterfront of Banaras, India, a popular and iconic tourist destination, elicit such powerful reactions from western visitors and locals in their community and explores how the children themselves experience their work and render it meaningful.
Synopsis
Jenny Huberman provides an ethnographic study of encounters between western tourists and the children who work as unlicensed peddlers and guides along the riverfront city of Banaras, India. She examines how and why these children elicit such powerful reactions from western tourists and locals in their community as well as how the children themselves experience their work and render it meaningful.
Ambivalent Encounters brings together scholarship on the anthropology of childhood, tourism, consumption, and exchange to ask why children emerge as objects of the international tourist gaze; what role they play in representing socio-economic change; how children are valued and devalued; why they elicit anxieties, fantasies, and debates; and what these tourist encounters teach us more generally about the nature of human interaction. It examines the role of gender in mediating experiences of social change--girls are praised by locals for participating constructively in the informal tourist economy while boys are accused of deviant behavior. Huberman is interested equally in the children's and adults' perspectives; her own experiences as a western visitor and researcher provide an intriguing entry into her interpretations.
Synopsis
Jenny Huberman provides an ethnographic study of encounters between western tourists and the children who work as unlicensed peddlers and guides along the riverfront city of Banaras, India. She examines how and why these children elicit such powerful reactions from western tourists and locals in their community as well as how the children themselves experience their work and render it meaningful.
Ambivalent Encounters brings together scholarship on the anthropology of childhood, tourism, consumption, and exchange to ask why children emerge as objects of the international tourist gaze; what role they play in representing socio-economic change; how children are valued and devalued; why they elicit anxieties, fantasies, and debates; and what these tourist encounters teach us more generally about the nature of human interaction. It examines the role of gender in mediating experiences of social changeandmdash;girls are praised by locals for participating constructively in the informal tourist economy while boys are accused of deviant behavior. Huberman is interested equally in the childrenandrsquo;s and adultsandrsquo; perspectives; her own experiences as a western visitor and researcher provide an intriguing entry into her interpretations.
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
Synopsis
Valuing Deaf Worlds in Urban India analyzes how diverse deaf people become oriented toward each other and disoriented from their families and other kinship networks. Michele Friedner argues that the experiences of deaf people offer an important portrayal of contemporary self-making and sociality under new regimes of labor and economy in India. More broadly, this book explores how deafness, deaf sociality, and sign language relate to contemporary society.and#160;and#160;
Synopsis
The British Virgin Islands (BVI) markets itself to international visitors as a paradise.
But just whose paradise is it? Colleen Ballerino Cohen looks at the many players in the BVI tourism culture, from the tourists who leave their graffiti at beach bars that are popularized in song, to the waiters who serve them and the singers who entertain them.
Interweaving more than twenty years of field notes, Cohen provides a firsthand analysis of how tourism transformed the BVI from a small neglected British colony to a modern nation that competes in a global economic market. With its close reading of everything from advertisements to political manifestos and constitutional reforms, Take Me to My Paradise deepens our understanding of how nationalism develops hand-in-hand with tourism, and documents the uneven impact of economic prosperity upon different populations. We hear multiple voices, including immigrants working in a tourism economy, nationalists struggling to maintain some control, and the anthropologist trying to make sense of it all. The result is a richly detailed and accessible ethnography on the impact of tourism on a country that came into being as a tourist destination.
About the Author
Colleen Ballerino Cohen is a professor of anthropology and women's studies at Vassar College. She has written several articles and has produced three ethnographic videos on BVI tourism, festivals, and musical culture.
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Note on Translation and Transliteration
PART 1: Introductions
1. Children, Tourists, and Locals
2. A Tourist Town
PART 2: Conceptions of Children
3. Girls and Boys on the Ghats
4. Innocent Children or Little Adults?
5. The Minds and Hearts of Children
PART 3: Conceptions of Value
6. Earning, Spending, Saving
7. Something Extra
8. Money, Gender, and the (Im)morality of Exchange
9. Conclusion
Notes
References
Index