Bøger i Kultur und soziale Praxis serien

In the present social and cultural transformation of South Thailand's cultural politics, ideologies involving the family, gender and home provide the cultural codes in social dramas of the state, the media and social and religious movements. This study looks at micropolitics and the nesting of the political action of everyday life in larger, ultimately global structures of power. Exploring the making of class, culture and space, the production and consumption of culture is understood as work which involves the constant negotiation of boundaries.

The emergence of global knowledge societies is recently questioning the meaning and relevance of local knowledge in the context of Southern countries. Women have proved to be the central actors in the multiple channels of local-global networking, using these new social ties for the negotiation of old and new elements of knowledge, scientific knowledge and development discourses. The inherent politicisation of knowledge and the direct objective of transforming societal institutions are not only signs of resistance against global hegemony, but serve for a new definition and for a defence of local culture and of local knowledge.

Drawing on the sociology of Max Weber, Barbara Theriault investigates today's relations toward difference within German police forces. Accompanying and interviewing police officers whose job it is to contribute to the acknowledgement of difference, the sociologist outlines three ideal types of actors - an empathetic, a principled, and an opportunist one - and the motives underlying their actions. A fourth type, the specialist, is conspicuously absent. Why is that so? Solving this enigma helps depicting the relations to difference within police forces: it points to a specific spirit of diversity and a singular way to apprehend the individual in Germany.

At the heart of this in-depth ethnographic study lie the daily life situations of tsunami survivors in war-torn, eastern Sri Lanka. Each chapter is built around the empirical themes derived from the stories and recollections of Tamil women and their families during their stay in relief camps, anticipating relocation. The specifics of the socio-cultural context are firmly embedded in the discussions. Ten years after the tsunami, this publication offers a timely contribution to a better understanding of what it means to cope with the combined effects of disaster, war, and international aid in this matri-focal region of the island.

How is transnational cooperation practically conducted in the East African country of Rwanda, and how is it organised? Can the worlds of development aid and private business be compared?In this ethnography, Robin Pohl identifies the organisational patterns used by Rwandan, European and Indian partners. Different types of agencies, companies or projects each relate foreign activities differently to their local environment. The effects of potential divisions at the global level turn into assets or liabilities on the operative level of transboundary cooperations, depending on their context.

Working with nature - and not against it - is a global trend in coastal management. This ethnography of coastal protection follows the increasingly popular approach of "e;soft"e; protection to the Aotearoa New Zealand coast. Friederike Gesing analyses a political controversy over hard and soft protection measures, and introduces a growing community of practice involved in projects of working with nature. Dune restoration volunteers, coastal management experts, surfer-scientists, and Maori conservationists are engaged in projects ranging from do-it-yourself erosion control, to the reconstruction of native nature, and soft engineering "e;in concert with natural processes"e;. With soft protection, Gesing argues, we can witness a new sociotechnical imaginary in the making.

Jeanne Feaux de la Croix maps three iconic places as part of Central Asians' 'moral geographies' and examines their role in navigating socialist, neo-liberal and neo-Islamic life models.Dams provide most of Kyrgyzstan's electricity, but are also at the heart of regional water disputes that threaten an already shrinking Aral Sea. Mountain pastures cover much of Central Asia's heartland and offer a livelihood and refuge, even to urban citizens. Pilgrimage sites have recovered from official Soviet oblivion and act as cherished scenes of decision-making. Examining how iconic places, work and well-being can mesh together, this book moves debates about post-Soviet memory, space and property onto fresh terrain.

Studying the life situations of trans persons reveals preceding and ongoing political, societal and cultural transformations. This ethnographic study concerns individuals in Andalusia, Southern Spain, who do not fit the sex and gender assigned to them at birth. Christoph Imhof thus investigates issues leading back to the repressive situation during the dictatorship of Franco and to contemporary endeavours and achievements regarding acceptance, citizenship and self-determination. He highlights the pioneering role that Andalusia has played within Spain regarding trans issues since the late 1990s and shows how trans persons in Southern Spain have experienced the growing social, medical and legal acceptance of their gender non-conformity.

In post-war Greece, Western Allies, the country's conservative political elite and parts of the middle class share a dream of consolidating and maintaining the country's Western, bourgeois-liberal orientation. In 1947, with the civil war still raging in the country, the Greek government chooses the path of the capitalist countries and joins the American program for the reconstruction of war-torn Europe. Miltiadis Zermpoulis focuses on the impact and significance of the social and political changes brought about by the civil war, the dominance of conservatives in the political arena and the promotion of political surveillance and compliance technologies in the daily life of Greece's second largest city, Thessaloniki.

In Tarlabasi, an Istanbul neighbourhood facing massive redevelopment and displacement, marginalised residents speak about belonging, stigma, and what their community means to them. Based on a long-term ethnographic study that includes interviews, photographs, and archival research, Constanze Letsch examines how territorial stigmatisation is weaponised by the state and how differently stigmatised groups try to fight against the vilification of their neighbourhood. The contested plans of urban renewal threaten not only their homes and workplaces but a rapidly vanishing Istanbul: socio-demographic interdependencies and networks that have developed over decades.

Immigration is a persistent and complex phenomenon intertwined with geographical, political, societal, and economic challenges. The number of international migrants has been continually increasing over the past five decades. The contributors to this volume dedicated to Professor Rebeca Raijman address various types of migrants like economic or labour migrants, forced migration and ethnic migrants. Implementing both qualitative and quantitative data and analyses, they provide insight on why individuals decide to migrate, how their decisions affect their own lives and the lives of their offspring, and how immigrants affect the receiving societies they arrive in.

The concept of la chance accounts for everyday knowledge production in uncertain contexts in Bamako, Mali, where university graduates constitute an educational elite strongest affected by unemployment. Graduates know that la chance decides whether they succeed or fail. Susann Ludwig shows that this concept embodies common sense as much as it offers the possibility of the extraordinary. Graduates play »the game of la chance«, in which success is defined by a continuation of play rather than an end goal. Providing an explorative experience to the reader, this study accounts for the elusiveness of la chance in the Bamako context and beyond.