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The study of health care brings one into contact with many disciplines and perspectives, including those of the provider and the patient. There are also multiple academic lenses through which one can view health, illness and disease. This book brings together scholars from around the world who are interested in developing new conversations intended to situate health in broader social and cultural contexts. This book is the outcome of the second global conference on “Making Sense of: Health, Illness and Disease,” held at St Hilda's College, Oxford, in July 2003. The selected papers pursue a range of topics and incorporate perspectives from the humanities, social sciences and clinical sciences. This volume will be of interest to researchers and health care practitioners who wish to gain insight into other ways of understanding health, illness and disease.

Death is a topic people are reluctant to ponder. Neither is dying a process that is usually being openly discussed. However, on a variety of occasions, dying and death are on a person's minds, under some sensitive circumstances, he or she are eager to discuss with a close person, a friend, a professional. The present volume, the second in the Series on Dying and Death, is meant to enrich personal experience of dying or death by providing its reader with knowledge and understanding of some aspects of dying or death. Section 1 describes practices of mourning, in different times and places: USA during the Civil War (Ashley Byock), the Island of Viz, between Croatia and Italy (Kathleen Young), present day Israel (Asa Kasher), medieval Serbia (Mira Crouch) and post-Holocaust USA (Paula David).Section 2 consists of reflections on mourning. It includes philosophical discussions of Friendship (Gary Peters), Grace (Dana Freibach-Heifetz), and the Other (Havi Carel), all in the context of mourning, as well as Mourning itself as a skill (Marguerite Peggy Flynn).Section 3 brings papers on culture and suicide, in early modern Holland (Laura Cruz), in historical Japan (Lawrence Fouraker), as well as in the Jazz age (Kathleen Jones).Section 4 discusses different predicaments of medics facing death and dying: terminal diagnosis (Angela Armstrong-Coster), palliative patients (Anna Taube), and the hospice setting (Elizabeth Gill).

The growing interdependence of the local and the global demand innovative approaches to human development. Such approaches, the author argues, ought to be based on the emerging ethics of global intelligence, defined as the ability to understand, respond to, and work toward what will benefit all human beings and will support and enrich all life on this planet. As no national or supranational authority can predefine or predetermine it, global intelligence involves long-term, collective learning processes and can emerge only from continuing intercultural research, dialogue, and cooperation. In this book, the author elaborates the basic principles of a new field of intercultural studies, oriented toward global intelligence. He proposes concrete research and educational programs that would help create intercultural learning environments designed to stimulate sustainable human development throughout the world.

This volume brings together essays which suggest that the relationship between Canada and Europe is a two-way process, as historically the traffic between them has been: either may have something to offer the other. Europe too acknowledges situations today in which difference and community are hard terms to reconcile. Difference refers to gender, sexuality, race, nationality, or language. Community is the collective understanding which must continually be renegotiated and reconstructed among these factors. The Canadian-European connection is one in which it seems especially appropriate to explore such circumstances. The topics covered include pioneer women's writing, transcultural women's fiction, canonical taxonomy of the contemporary novel, the city poem in Confederate Canada, poetry of the Great War, various ethno-cultural perspectives (Jewish, South Asian, Italian; Native reappropriations; Quebec cinema), literature and the media, and small-press publishing. Some of the authors treated: Sandra Birdsell, Nicole Brossard, Jack Hodgins, Henry Kreisel, Robert Kroetsch, Janice Kulyk Keefer, Archibald Lampman, Malcolm Lowry, Lesley Lum, Daphne Marlatt, Susanna Moodie, Bharati Mukherjee, Alice Munro, Frank Paci, and Susan Swan.

This volume brings together a collection of essays by contemporary thinker and social scientist S.N. Balagangadhara which develop an alternative theoretical framework for a comparative study of Western and Asian cultures. These essays illustrate how ‘decolonisation of social sciences'is a cognitive task and offer novel hypotheses about human beings and society. They demonstrate the implications of cultural difference in the study of domains such as psychology, political theory, ethics, religion, sociology, translation, law, Indology, and philosophy. The book addresses new questions in the study of Western and Indian culture and social sciences, and discusses themes like selfless morality and the moral self; knowledge and action; critical representations of Indian traditions and classical literature; law, religion and culture; translation and interpretations; and varna and social systems.Part of the Critical Humanities Across Cultures series, this interdisciplinary volume will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of philosophy, philosophy of science, ethics, religious studies, postcolonial studies, sociology and social anthropology, cultural studies, literature, comparative studies and Global South studies.

This book provides an examination of the American health care system, a benchmark for cost-containment efforts, exploring two worlds: that of cost containment and that of the patient experience. It emphasises on the quality of care as perceived by the individual patient.

During the last two decades, a new form of trade in commercial surrogacy grew across Asia. Starting in India, a “disruptive” model of surrogacy offered mass availability, rapid accessibility, and created new demands for surrogacy services from people who could not afford or access surrogacy elsewhere. In International Surrogacy as Disruptive Industry in Southeast Asia, Andrea Whittaker traces the development of this industry and its movement across Southeast Asia following a sequence of governmental bans in India, Nepal, Thailand, and Cambodia. Through a case study of the industry in Thailand, the book offers a nuanced and sympathetic examination of the industry from the perspectives of the people involved in it: surrogates, intended parents, and facilitators. The industry offers intended parents the opportunity to form much desired families, but also creates vulnerabilities for all people involved. These vulnerabilities became evident in cases of trafficking, exploitation, and criminality that emerged in southeast Asia, leading to greater scrutiny on the industry as a whole. Yet the trade continues in new flexible hybrid forms, involving the circulation of reproductive gametes, embryos, surrogates, and ova donors across international borders to circumvent regulations. The book demonstrates the need for new forms of regulation to protect those involved in international surrogacy arrangements.

The discovery of the two inherited susceptibility genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 in the mid-1990s created the possibility of predictive genetic testing and led to the establishment of specific medical programmes for those at high risk of developing breast cancer in the UK, US and Europe.The book provides a coherent structure for examining the diversity of practices and discourses that surround developments linked to BRCA genetics, and to the evolving field of genetics more broadly. It will be of interest to students and scholars of anthropology, sociology, history of science, STS, public health and bioethics.Chapter 8 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 3.0 license.

Rapid population aging, once associated with only a select group of modern industrialized nations, has now become a topic of increasing global concern. This volume reframes aging on a global scale by illustrating the multiple ways it is embedded within individual, social, and cultural life courses. It presents a broad range of ethnographic work, introducing a variety of conceptual and methodological approaches to studying life-course transitions in conjunction with broader sociocultural transformations. Through detailed accounts, in such diverse settings as nursing homes in Sri Lanka, a factory in Massachusetts, cemeteries in Japan and clinics in Mexico, the authors explore not simply our understandings of growing older, but the interweaving of individual maturity and intergenerational relationships, social and economic institutions, and intimate experiences of gender, identity, and the body.

​In einer seit Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts „in Bewegung geratenen“ Welt sind Entfernungen relativ und Wanderungen zum konstitutiven Element geworden. Im Kontext der Migration stellen sich Fragen nach kultureller Heterogenität, Selbstverortung und Identität – auch und gerade im Quartiersumfeld. Genau darum geht es in diesem Band: Die Beiträge zirkulieren zum Beispiel um diskursanalytische Zugänge zum Migrationsort Quartier, die sich mit den Diskrepanzen zwischen verschiedenen Leitbildern befassen und Irritationen zwischen Alltagsrealität und öffentlicher Wahrnehmung aufgreifen. Während einige BeitragsautorInnen den Integrationsdiskurs unter die Lupe nehmen und teilweise als Polit-Rhetorik entlarven, werden in anderen Aufsätzen spezifische Lebenslagen in migrationsgeprägten Quartieren analysiert und migrantische Quartiersnetzwerke sowie Herkunftsmilieus als hybride Alltagswirklichkeiten thematisiert. ​

With the rapidly developing globalization of various sectors of modern life, individuals, organizations, and nations are becoming increasingly aware of the ways in which cultural diversity may not only be a potential cause of conflict but also a source of growth, creativity, and inspiration. If, traditionally, intercultural mediation has been understood as a conflict-solving strategy, or as a means to facilitate communication between individuals from different cultural backgrounds, this book aims at providing a framework and a set of theoretical reflections towards a larger vision of the field, presenting mediation as a particular form of critical intervention within the different domains of the humanities. The contributions in the present volume take intercultural mediation to be a multifaceted, interdisciplinary phenomenon, impacting upon the fields of linguistics and literature as well as translation and cultural studies, where themes such as interculturality, multilingualism, and cultural transfer are continual and urgent features of contemporary discourse and debate.

In a world now filled with more people who are overweight than underweight, public health and medical perspectives paint obesity as a catastrophic epidemic that threatens to overwhelm health systems and undermine life expectancies globally. In many societies, being obese also creates profound personal suffering because it is so culturally stigmatized. Yet despite loud messages about the health and social costs of being obese, weight gain is a seemingly universal aspect of the modern human condition. Grounded in a holistic anthropological approach and using a range of ethnographic and ecological case studies, Obesity shows that the human tendency to become and stay fat makes perfect sense in terms of evolved human inclinations and the physical and social realities of modern life. Drawing on her own fieldwork in the rural United States, Mexico, and the Pacific Islands over the last two decades, Alexandra A. Brewis addresses such critical questions as why obesity is defined as a problem and why some groups are so much more at risk than others. She suggests innovative ways that anthropology and other social sciences can use community-based research to address the serious public health and social justice concerns provoked by the global spread of obesity.

Beyond Boundaries: East and West Cross-Cultural Encounters is a collection of essays which span several countries, centuries and disciplines in their exploration of East-West cultural exchanges and interactions. The chapters are arranged in chronological and thematic order, and encompass the cutting edge research of a diverse group of international scholars. The subjects range from archaeology, art history and photography, to conservation, sociology and cultural studies, with cross-disciplinary examples of classical, modern and contemporary periods. The book seeks to inspire new ideas and stimulate further scholarly debate on the convergence, dissimilarities and mutual influences of the visual arts and material culture of Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the United States.The volume will be of interest to scholars and students working in the fields of art and cultural history as well as intercultural studies. It will be equally useful to collectors, artists and curators of global art and world cultures.

The inspirational writings of cultural theorist and social justice activist Gloria Anzaldúa have empowered generations of women and men throughout the world. Charting the multiplicity of Anzaldúa's impact within and beyond academic disciplines, community trenches, and international borders, Bridging presents more than thirty reflections on her work and her life, examining vibrant facets in surprising new ways and inviting readers to engage with these intimate, heartfelt contributions. Bridging is divided into five sections: The New Mestizas:'transitions and transformations'; Exposing the Wounds:'You gave me permission to fly in the dark'; Border Crossings: Inner Struggles, Outer Change; Bridging Theories: Intellectual Activism with/in Borders; and'Todas somos nos/otras': Toward a'politics of openness.'Contributors, who include Norma Elia Cantú, Elisa Facio, Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Aída Hurtado, Andrea Lunsford, Denise Segura, Gloria Steinem, and Mohammad Tamdgidi, represent a broad range of generations, professions, academic disciplines, and national backgrounds. Critically engaging with Anzaldúa's theories and building on her work, they use virtual diaries, transformational theory, poetry, empirical research, autobiographical narrative, and other genres to creatively explore and boldly enact future directions for Anzaldúan studies. A book whose form and content reflect Anzaldúa's diverse audience, Bridging perpetuates Anzaldúa's spirit through groundbreaking praxis and visionary insights into culture, gender, sexuality, religion, aesthetics, and politics. This is a collection whose span is as broad and dazzling as Anzaldúa herself.

Bringing together an array of interdisciplinary voices, Global Masculinities and Manhood examines the concept of masculinity from the perspectives of cultures around the world. In the era of globalization, masculinity continues to be studied in a Western-centric context. Contributors to this volume, however, deconstruct the history and politics of masculinities within the contexts of the cultures from which they have been developed, examining what makes a man who he is within his own culture. Highlighting manifestations of masculinity in countries including Jamaica, Turkey, Peru, Kenya, Australia, and China, scholars from a variety of disciplines grapple with the complex politics of identity and the question of how gender is interpreted and practiced through discourse. Topics include how masculinity is affected by war and conflict, defined in relation to race, ethnicity, and sexuality, and expressed in cultural activities such as sports or the cinema. Contributors are Bryant Keith Alexander, Molefi K. Asante, Murali Balaji, Maurice Hall, Ronald L. Jackson II, Shino Konishi, Nil Mutluer, Mich Nyawalo, Kathleen Glenister Roberts, Margarita Saona, and Kath Woodward.

“A blistering and truly original work of reporting and analysis, uncovering America's role in homogenizing how the world defines wellness and healing” (Po Bronson). In Crazy Like Us, Ethan Watters reveals that the most devastating consequence of the spread of American culture has not been our golden arches or our bomb craters but our bulldozing of the human psyche itself: We are in the process of homogenizing the way the world goes mad.It is well known that American culture is a dominant force at home and abroad; our exportation of everything from movies to junk food is a well-documented phenomenon. But is it possible America's most troubling impact on the globalizing world has yet to be accounted for? American-style depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and anorexia have begun to spread around the world like contagions, and the virus is us. Traveling from Hong Kong to Sri Lanka to Zanzibar to Japan, acclaimed journalist Ethan Watters witnesses firsthand how Western healers often steamroll indigenous expressions of mental health and madness and replace them with our own. In teaching the rest of the world to think like us, we have been homogenizing the way the world goes mad.

This collection presents 14 essays by renowned scholars on Deaf people, Deafhood, Deaf histories, and Deaf identity, but from different points of view on the Deaf/Disability compass. Editors Susan Burch and Alison Kafer have divided these works around three themes. The first, Identities and Locations, explores Deaf identity in different contexts. Topics range from a history of activism shaped by the ableism of Deaf elites in the United States from 1880–1920, to a discussion of the roles that economics, location, race, and culture play in the experiences of a Deaf woman from northern Nigeria now living in Washington, D.C. Alliances and Activism showcases activism organized across differences. Studies include a feminist analysis of how deaf and hearing women working together share responsibility, and an examination of how intra-cultural variations in New York City and Quebec affect deaf-focus HIV/AIDS programs. The third theme, Boundaries and Overlaps, explicitly addresses the relationships between Deaf Studies and Disability Studies. Interviews with scholars from both disciplines help define these relationships. Another contributor calls for hearing/not-deaf people with disabilities to support their Deaf peers in gaining langue access to the United Nations. Deaf and Disability Studies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives reveals that different questions often lead to contrary conclusions among their authors, who still recognize that they all have a stake in this partnership.

Embodying Culture is an ethnographically grounded exploration of pregnancy in two different cultures—Japan and Israel—both of which medicalize pregnancy. Tsipy Ivry focuses on'low-risk'or'normal'pregnancies, using cultural comparison to explore the complex relations among ethnic ideas about procreation, local reproductive politics, medical models of pregnancy care, and local modes of maternal agency. The ethnography pieces together the voices of pregnant Japanese and Israeli women, their doctors, their partners, the literature they read, and depicts various clinical encounters such as ultrasound scans, explanatory classes for amniocentesis, birthing classes, and special pregnancy events. The emergent pictures suggest that although experiences of pregnancy in Japan and Israel differ, pregnancy in both cultures is an energy-consuming project of meaning-making— suggesting that the sense of biomedical technologies are not only in the technologies themselves but are assigned by those who practice and experience them.

Following the routinization of assisted reproduction in the industrialized world, technologies such as in vitro fertilization, preimplantation genetic diagnosis, and DNA-based paternity testing have traveled globally and are now being offered to couples in numerous non-Western countries. This volume explores the application and impact of these advanced reproductive and genetic technologies in societies across the globe. By highlighting both the cross-cultural similarities and diverse meanings that technologies may assume as they enter multiple contexts, the book aims to foster understanding of both the technologies and the settings. Enhanced by cross-cultural perspectives, the book addresses the challenges that globalization presents to local understandings of science, technology, and medicine.

Ce livre traite de l'échange interculturel comme solution aux conflits de culture. La démarche théorique et méthodologique présentée dans ce texte accentue la capacité créatrice des individus et des organisations à transformer un besoin ou un conflit culturel en situation d'échange. L'échange constitue une performance, une capacité de faire et d'être, permettant de désamorcer des conflits collectifs par l'apport des significations culturelles nouvelles. La valeur du changement proposé proveint de son « sens » collectif qui relève, à sont tour, des rapports entre la performance individuelle et la culture environnante. La démarche prend ainsi appui sur la dichotomie culture-performance pour établir des contextes culturels et organisationnels propices à la mise sur pied d'échanges interculturels qui contribueront à l'évolution du milieu. À cette fin, l'approche interdisciplinaire proposée cible trois compétences fondamentales : l'analyse culturelle, la communication interculturelle et le développement du processus créateur individuel et collectif. La sémiotique sert de pont entre les sciences humaines et les sciences sociales pour mettre en valeur les points de convergence théoriques et méthodologiques en matière de culture, de communication et de créativité. Des études de cas au début et à la fin du texte illustrent la genèse et la mise en application du modèle interdisciplinaire de l'échange dans des milieux culturels particuliers. Chaque chapitre se termine par un tableau synoptique qui présente des pratiques signifiantes permettant la transposition du savoir académique en savoir-faire professionnel et la mise sur pied progressive d'un projet d'échange. Du matériel pédagogique d'appui (documentaires et mallettes pédagogiques) permet la mise en application du modèle pour la formation interculturelle et la recherche appliquée.

Understanding multicultural feminist perspectives is vital for clinicians working to effectively help women in therapy. Feminist Reflections on Growth and Transformation: Asian American Women in Therapy provides therapists with valuable insight and research into the identities of Asian and Asian American women, all toward the crucial goal of being more effective when providing therapeutic help. In-depth explorations into the women's personal experiences and psychological issues provide an empowering multicultural feminist viewpoint that challenges assumptions and stereotypes about their identities while presenting innovative therapeutic approaches.Identity is made up from several factors, such as worldview, beliefs, values, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class, age, and religious orientation. Feminist Reflections on Growth and Transformation: Asian American Women in Therapy explores how these common factors impact psychotherapy approaches for women of Asian American backgrounds. This unique text presents the current research, what the data mean for adjusting clinical strategies, and personal accounts from Asian and Asian American women. Each chapter is extensively referenced.Topics in Feminist Reflections on Growth and Transformation: Asian American Women in Therapy include: breaking free of the passive, subservient stereotypes defining gender identity cultural and identity issues emotional parity negotiations in Chinese immigrant women's marital relationships suicide as a means of agency rather than simply a cry for help the use of feminist and multicultural principles with survivors of domestic violence research on Asian American lesbians'health integrating multiculturalism and feminism in the treatment of eating disorders innovative therapeutic approach based on Hindu understandings of Shakti approaches to work on body image and eating disorders group counseling with Asian American women training multicultural feminist therapy practitioners Feminist Reflections on Growth and Transformation: Asian American Women in Therapy is an insightful exploration of the culturally sensitive knowledge and skills clinicians need to work more effectively with female clients of Asian ancestry. This stimulating work is important reading for therapists, counselors, psychologists, and others in the mental health and social work fields.

This book adds a vital and overlooked dimensiondiversityto suicide assessments and interventionsThe literature on the relationship between culture and suicide has historically been widely scattered and often difficult to find. Cultural Diversity and Suicide summarizes that widespread literature so that counselors can begin to include diversity issues as important variables that can help them become even more effective when conducting suicide assessments or interventions. For ease of reading, Cultural Diversity and Suicide is divided into chapters based on ethnicity. The book avoids broad generalizations whenever possible, thus each chapter specifically discusses critical within-group variables (issues relating to gender, age, religion, and sexuality) that should be considered when conducting suicide assessments and interventions. Each chapter includes at least one case study and incorporates clear headings that make it simple to find specific information.Cultural Diversity and Suicide is not a book of cookie-cutter approaches to suicide prevention, nor is it a primer for the novice. Rather, it has been carefully designed to help counselors and counselors-in-training gain a fuller understanding of the issues that may lead individuals from diverse backgrounds to consider suicideand the cultural aspects of an individual's heritage that can influence that person's decision. Written for professionals who have a pre-existing understanding of how to work with suicidal clients, the book begins with a concise but essential overview of traditional suicide risk factors and a brief assessment model (an excellent memory refresher), and then moves quickly into specific diversity issues relevant to: European Americans African Americans Asian Americans Hispanic Americans Native Americans Cultural Diversity and Suicide explores ethnicity and its relationship to suicide (for example, suicide rate and reason differences based on ethnic group or ethnic identity), plus meaningful within-group variables such as: lesbian/gay/bisexual issues and the increase in suicide rate based on sexual orientation and sexual identity religious differencessuicide rates among various religious groups, religious differences in views of suicide, views of the afterlife, burial practices, and views of lesbian/gay/bisexual people cultural buffers, such as extended family and religious practice suicide prevention interventions based on cultural differences (essentially, how traditional suicide prevention programs can be altered to include new variables) This book is essential reading for everyone doing the vital work of conducting suicide assessments and interventions. Please consider making it part of your professional/teaching collection today.

Menopause is a biological reality for all women in their forties and fifties. Yet the way we think about the cessation of menstruation is influenced by a variety of factors. Cultural and technological influences combine with biology to transform this universal phenomenon into an experience that varies considerably between cultures and individuals. In this concise book, Lynnette Leidy Sievert draws on her own case studies from Puebla, Mexico, and western Massachusetts, as well as on comparative data from other studies in places such as Slovenia, Paraguay, and Hawaii, to explore the different ways that women experience menopause around the world. Sievert suggests that attempts by medical professionals to define the “normal” occurrence of menopause, including its typical onset and symptoms, may not be realistic when considering how lifestyle, nutrition, and workload can contribute to diverging realities. She explores how women feel about hysterectomies, chemotherapy, and other medical procedures and treatments that stop menstruation prematurely. She also considers recent advances in technology, including post-menopausal birth, which have turned what was previously an unavoidable end of fertility into something that can be postponed. A unique comparative look at women's experiences, this text brings new perspectives to the mainstream literature on the subject and invites readers to consider compelling questions about menopause, its meanings, and its future.

Human cloning is a main focus of current bioethical discussion. Involving the self-understanding of the human species, it has become one of the most debated topics in biomedical ethics, not only on the national, but also on the international level.This book brings together articles by bioethicists from several countries who address questions of human cloning within the context of different cultural, religious and regional settings against the background of globalizing biotechnology. It explores on a cross-cultural level the problems and opportunities of global bioethics.

An international look at the similarities and differences of long-lasting traumaTrauma and Dissociation in a Cross-Cultural Perspective examines the psychological, sociological, political, economic, and cultural aspects of trauma and its consequences on people around the world. Dispelling the myth that trauma-related dissociative disorders are a North American phenomenon, this unique book travels through more than a dozen countries to analyze the effects of long-lasting traumatization-both natural and man-made-on adults and children. Working from theoretical and clinical perspectives, the field's leading experts address trauma in situations that range from the psychological effects of the Troubles in Northern Ireland to the emergence of Hikikomori, the phenomenon of social withdrawal in Japanese youth.Reactions to trauma can be both unique according to a person's culture and similar to the experiences of others around the world. Dissociation, intense grief, anger, and survivor's guilt are common responses as people split off mentally, physically, and emotionally from the source of the trauma, whether it's an act of nature (tsunami, earthquake, flood, etc.) or the trauma created by violence, physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, assault, confinement, kidnapping, and war. Trauma and Dissociation in a Cross-Cultural Perspective examines the efforts of clinicians and researchers in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, South America, Australia, and New Zealand to develop sociopsychological methods of providing counseling to people who are suffering physically, emotionally and spiritually, training for professionals counted on to dispense that counseling, and economic and political solutions that might help to limit the devastating effects of natural disasters.Trauma and Dissociation in a Cross-Cultural Perspective examines: the tensions between the National Health Service and the private sector in the United Kingdom how the Mandarin version of the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) is used in China Djinnai, a culture-bound syndrome and possession trance disorder found in Iran how colonialism has transmitted trauma to the Maori people of New Zealand transgenerational trauma in Turkey religious rituals and spirit possession in the Philippines memory wars in Israel traumatic syndromes among the French differences in dissociative experiences among Chinese and Japanese youth childhood trauma in Argentina and much more Trauma and Dissociation in a Cross-Cultural Perspective is an enlightening professional resource for anyone working in psychology, sociology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy.

Combining the perspectives of 18 international scholars from Europe and the United States with a critical discussion of the role of culture in international relations, this volume introduces recent trends in the study of Culture and International History. It systematically explores the cultural dimension of international history, mapping existing approaches and conceptual lenses for the study of cultural factors and thus hopes to sharpen the awareness for the cultural approach to international history among both American and non-American scholars. The first part provides a methodological introduction, explores the cultural underpinnings of foreign policy, and the role of culture in international affairs by reviewing the historiography and examining the meaning of the word culture in the context of foreign relations. In the second part, contributors analyze culture as a tool of foreign policy. They demonstrate how culture was instrumentalized for diplomatic goals and purposes in different historical periods and world regions. The essays in the third part expand the state-centered view and retrace informal cultural relations among nations and peoples. This exploration of non-state cultural interaction focuses on the role of science, art, religion, and tourism. The fourth part collects the findings and arguments of part one, two, and three to define a roadmap for further scholarly inquiry. A group of'commentators'survey the preceding essays, place them into a larger research context, and address the question'Where do we go from here?'The last and fifth part presents a selection of primary sources along with individual comments highlighting a new genre of resources scholars interested in culture and international relations can consult.

Culture/Place/Health is the first exploration of cultural-geographical health research for a decade, drawing on contemporary research undertaken by geographers and other social scientists to explore the links between culture, place and health. It uses a wealth of examples from societies around the world to assert the place of culture in shaping relations between health and place. It contributes to an expanding of horizons at the intersection of the discipline of geography and the multidisciplinary domain of health concerns.

Scholars in folklore and anthropology are more directly involved in various aspects of medicine—such as medical education, clinical pastoral care, and negotiation of transcultural issues—than ever before. Old models of investigation that artificially isolated'folk medicine,''complementary and alternative medicine,'and'biomedicine'as mutually exclusive have proven too limited in exploring the real-life complexities of health belief systems as they observably exist and are applied by contemporary Americans. Recent research strongly suggests that individuals construct their health belief systmes from diverse sources of authority, including community and ethnic tradition, education, spiritual beliefs, personal experience, the influence of popular media, and perception of the goals and means of formal medicine. Healing Logics explores the diversity of these belief systems and how they interact—in competing, conflicting, and sometimes remarkably congruent ways. This book contains essays by leading scholars in the field and a comprehensive bibliography of folklore and medicine.

Provide effective services to ethnic elders with culturally competent training!Therapeutic Interventions with Ethnic Elders: Health and Social Issues provides culture-specific information to health and social work professionals. You will explore distinctive qualities that are found in ten different ethnic groups to help you better serve these populations. The historical events that have shaped these elders'often-adverse reactions to mainstream providers are also included. Ideas on how to effectively approach these situations are included to improve your skills with a diverse population of clients. The information in Therapeutic Interventions with Ethnic Elders is invaluable to health care administrators who plan services and hire personnel to work with various ethnic groups. The book also functions as a training tool to increase the awareness of staff members who currently work with ethnically diverse populations. You will learn to recognize culturally driven behaviors in ethnic elders and how to make appropriate interventions. Some of the general and culture-specific issues that Therapeutic Interventions with Ethnic Elders addresses are: helping ethnic elders to feel comfortable utilizing your services appropriately modifying therapy to meet the individual's cultural background reinforcing a new sense of independence for these elders by helping them understand available services understanding cultural inhibitions in Japan that hide, deny, or ignore mental illness realizing that traditional Euro-American psychotherapy techniques cannot be readily transplanted and applied to all other cultures addressing depression, anxiety, increased illness, intergenerational conflict, and even marital conflict combined with the stress of assimilation and acculturation among Russian emigrants understanding folk beliefs and the importance of the role of the church for many elder African-Americans Therapeutic Interventions with Ethnic Elders addresses the need for practitioners, agencies, and institutions to understand and respect the different characteristics of each elderly minority population. You will examine the unique historical contexts of Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese, African, Russian, Navajo, Yaqui, Mexican, Cuban, and Puerto Rican elders and explore the stress factors that come with immigrating, such as finding a peaceful place to live and being confronted by age discrimination and racism. This important book explains cultural behaviors to provide you with effective suggestions for providing optimum care to the ethnic elders in your life.

The four contributors to this volume examine the eugenics movements in Germany, France, Brazil, and the Soviet Union, and describe how geneticists and physicians participated in the development of policies concerning the improvement of hereditary qualities in humans. They examine the scientific components of those programs and discuss the involvement of social, religious, and political forces that significantly altered the original scientific goals. The book opens up new and comparative perspectives on the history of eugenics and the social uses of science in general.

Handbook of Intercultural Training, Volume II: Issues in Training Methodology is a major attempt to describe, critique, and summarize the major known ways to provide cross-cultural training. The collection of essays discusses the stresses of intercultural encounter, as well as how to reduce these. This volume is divided in two parts. The first part discusses context factors, including stress factors in intercultural relations and aspects of organization effectiveness. A cross-cultural experience from the perspective of a program manager is presented, as well as a situational analysis and designing a translator-based training program where alternative designs are forwarded for trainers to use effectively in multicultural and multilingual environments. The second part presents different methods of training. Learning from sojourners and from individuals from various cultures results in different frameworks for interpreting cross-cultural interactions. Consultants, advisors, and experts may find themselves performing outside and beyond their home ground and social groups, so training programs pertaining to their particular situation need to be addressed more profoundly. The training program in race relations by the U.S. Department of Defense is reviewed, and the effects of stereotyping people are discussed and considered as other factors in the preparation of training programs. English is then examined as a tool for intercultural communication, where aspects of intercultural training should be integrated. This book is suitable for overseas workers, foreign students, foreign technical advisers, diplomats, immigrants, and many others who are going to live and work and be exposed to other cultures.