In this collection leading anthropologists provide a comprehensive yet highly nuanced view of what it means to be a Greek man or woman, married or unmarried, functioning within a complex society based on kinship ties. Exploring the ways in which sexual identity is constructed, these authors discuss, for example, how going out for coffee embodies dominant ideas about female sexuality, moral virtue, and autonomy; why men in a Lesbos village maintain elaborate friendships with nonfamily members while the women do not; why young housewives often participate in conflict-resolution rituals; and how the dominant role of mature married householders is challenged by unmarried persons who emphasize spontaneity and personal autonomy. This collection demonstrates that kinship and gender identities in Greece are not unitary and fixed: kinship is organized in several highly specific forms, and gender identities are plural, competing, antagonistic, and are continually being redefined by contexts and social change.

Contested Identities in Costa Rica explores the concept of national identity within the paradigm of the dominant image of the traditional and idealised tico. Considering literature from the 1970s and cinema from the twenty-first century, it analyses how this identity has been challenged through the soft power of creative protest.

This study explores the idea voiced by journalist Henry McDonald that the Protestant, Unionist and Loyalist tribes of Ulster are '...the least fashionable community in Western Europe'. A cast of contributors including prominent politicians, academics, journalists and artists explore the reasons informing public perceptions attached to this community.

This book describes and analyses life in 'St Antony's', a Zambian Catholic boys' mission boarding school in the 1990s, using the context-sensitive methods of social anthropology. Drawing upon Michel Foucault's notion of the panoptic gaze, Anthony Simpson demonstrates how students are both drawn to mission education as a 'civilising process', yet also resist many of the lessons that the official institution offers, particularly with respect to claims of 'true' Christian identity and educated masculinity. The phrase 'Half-London' reflects the boys' own perception of their privileged but very partial grasp, in the Zambian context of acute socio-economic decline, of 'civilised' status. The book offers unparalleled detail and insight into the contribution of mission schooling to the processes of postcolonial identity formation in Africa. Its rich and compelling ethnography opens up a strong sense of everyday life within the school and raises compelling questions about identity in plural societies beyond the confines of St Antony's. Anthony Simpson taught at the Zambian Catholic mission boys' boarding school from 1974 to 1997. He arrived in Zambia as an English teacher, but his involvement in the day-to-day life of St Antony's led him to an interest in anthropology and psychology.Key featuresA lively account of African mission schooling , examining the process of postcolonial educationA practical demonstration of Michel Foucault's discussion of subjectivity and the invention of self A detailed demonstration of religious plurality in an African setting

Del Sarto argues that internal disputes over national identity limit the ability of states to participate in regional forums. This is a close look at problems faced in negotiating the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) as a regional security project, with particular attention to case studies of Israel, Egypt and Morocco.

Collects papers from an October 1997 conference that took place in Berkeley, California. Papers examine how the Heine's identity was formed, reformed, and revised in relationship to the politics, religion, and nationalism of his era. Several papers focus on his Jewish identity and most touch on his relationship to the politics of his era, offering, not a radically different vision of Heine, but one that recognizes the ambivalences and vacillations, as well as the development and consistency, of his complex identity. No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Engages with controversial contemporary debates concerning women and religion.