Synopses & Reviews
Global Positioning System is the first book to guide social scientists with little or no mapping or GPS experience through the process of collecting field data from start to finish.
The book takes readers step-by-step through all the key stages of a GPS fieldwork project, covering planning, implementation, and data integration. For each phase, the authors supply clear and concise explanations of relevant technical topics, such as accuracy issues, the selection of appropriate GPS equipment, and the use of coordinate systems. Separate text boxes highlight important practical considerations and give sample solutions for real GPS data collection issues. Model checklists for project planning and equipment can be used as a basis for readers' own projects.
Researchers and students from fields as diverse as sociology, anthropology, geography, and public health will find this an invaluable resource.
Review
"An invaluable resource for social, economic or health researchers and practitioners who want to add a geographic component to their work." (
Uwe Deichmann, Development Research Group, World Bank)
"This information will help users collect data at an appropriate level of accuracy in the most effcient manner. This nuts-and-bolts approach addresses such topics as training field-workers; creating equipment checklists; logistics; and safety in the field." (ArcUser, October - December 2004)
"An excellent introduction and field guide on GPS for the social sciences ... The book makes a valuable addition to any reference collection on geographical research." (Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography)
Review
"The author reveals himself to be a sensitive and humane guide, in a book that ought to fascinate anyone interested in the existential conundrum of human morality." Times Higher Education Supplement
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. [204]-207) and index.
Synopsis
Global Positioning System is the first book to guide social scientists with little or no mapping or GPS experience through the process of collecting field data from start to finish.
- Takes readers step-by-step through the key stages of a GPS fieldwork project.
- Explains complex background topics in clear, easy-to-understand language.
- Provides simple guidelines for GPS equipment selection.
- Provides practical solutions for real GPS data collection issues.
- Offers a concise guide to using GPS-collected data within geographic information systems.
Synopsis
Death is a subject of enduring interest in every culture in the world. The act of death itself and the rituals surrounding it vary enormously and shed a fascinating light on the cultures of which they are a part.
Douglas J. Davies, internationally acknowledged as one of the leading experts in this field, tackles some of the most significant aspects of death – the act of dying, grieving, burial, artistic interpretations of death, places of memory, the fear of death, and disasters/tragedies – and weaves them into a compelling story about our changing attitudes to dying.
About the Author
Douglas J. Davies is a Professor in the Department of Theology at Durham University. He is widely acknowledged as one of the world's leading experts in the history, theology and sociology of death. His books include: Anthropology and Theology (2002); Death, Ritual and Belief, Second edition (2001); Themes and Issues in Christianity (1998); Transforming Mormon Identities (1998); Reusing Old Graves (1995); and Church and Religion in Rural England (1991). He has also published a large number of articles on death, and contemporary Christianity.
Table of Contents
List of illustrations.
1 Journey Beyond.
Gilgamesh.
Adam and Eve.
Death, Sin and Atonement.
Resurrection-Transcendence.
Release-Transcendence.
Self-Transcendence.
Hope and Faith.
To Be or Not To Be.
Traditional Futures.
The Uneasy Species.
Death Our Future.
Autobiographical History of Death.
Methods of Approach.
Words Against Death.
Myth Again.
2 Parting’s Sweet Sorrow.
Relationships, Death and Destiny.
Family Bonds.
Hell, Life and Work.
Secular Ethics and Loss.
Freud and Bowlby.
Grief-Stages.
Fixing the Unfixable.
Helplessness.
Aberbach and Charisma.
World Religions.
Identity and Religions.
Identity’s Demise and Death.
Adulthood--Childhood, Maturity and Death of Parents.
Moral-Somatic Links.
Spiritualism.
Departure.
3 Removing the Dead.
Souls.
Status and Destiny.
Ritual Change.
Resurrection.
Secular Trends.
Changing Times.
Default Religion.
From Respect to Dignity.
Death-Style and Belief.
Cremated Remains.
Space, Cryogenics and Computers.
4 Ecology, Death and Hope.
Criminals, Heretics, Bodies and Belief.
Dying at Home.
Hospice.
Symbolic Bodies.
American Ways of Death.
Ecology.
Hope Springs Eternal.
Forest.
Positive and Negative Dust.
Ethics and Spirituality at Large.
Death’s Paradigm Shift.
Ecological Immortality.
5 Art, Literature and Music.
Variety.
Bible.
Dante.
Milton.
Secular Strains.
Art.
Portraying the Dead.
Religious Fusion.
Hope.
6 Places of Memory.
Myth.
The Dynamics of Memorial Sites.
Locating Hope: the Dynamics of Memorial Sites.
Place and Hope.
How to Speak of the Dead?.
Location 1: Graveyard and Cemetery.
Hope 1: Eternal, Eschatological Form of Identity.
Location 2: Cremation and Remains.
Hope 2: Internal, the Retrospective Fulfilment of Identity.
Location 3: Woodland Burial.
Hope 3: Natural, the Ecological Fulfilment of Identity.
Memorial Texts.
The National Memorial Arboretum.
Lifestyle -- Death-Style.
7 Fear of Death.
A Mythical Form.
Hinduism, Buddhism.
Christianity.
Albert Schweitzer and C. S. Lewis.
Essential Fear.
Plague.
Modern Devastations.
Philosophical Fears.
Psychology and Fear of Death.
Picasso.
Fears Real and Imagined.
Contemporary Fears.
Imaginative Fears.
Fear Abolished.
8 Purposeful and Useless Death.
Power of Death.
Warfare.
Genocide.
Violence at Heart.
Disasters.
Baby-Death.
Suicide -- Euthanasia.
Offending Deaths.
Illness and Death.
The Future of Death.
Christian Eternal Life.
Death’s Margins.
Age and Death.
Hopeless Non-Places.
2020 Time and Vision.
The World’s Death.
Bibliography.
Index