This book is in the field of cultural anthropology and transcultural psychology, and is intended for college courses in anthropology and psychology, and general readership. The book focuses on intriguing facts about primitive cultures around the world, and provides insights into living traditions and different world views. A principal theme of the book is that we can gain a better understanding of ourselves by a "detour" to other cultures. The book shows how modern ways of thinking are parallel to those of primitive cultures, and engages readers to become more aware of who they are. As shown throughout the book, there is not, after all, a very wide gulf between primitive and modern cultures. The book covers many topics including animism, shamanism, totemism, hunting and cultivation rituals, altered states of consciousness, envy and the evil eye, how people deal with conflicts, potlatches, cargo cults, how people satisfy the need for social approval, culture-bound syndromes, folk medicine, treatment of women, raising of children, nomadic peoples, treatment of the dead, and other topics.

The Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Universal Design and the Built Environment (RERC-UD), a federally funded research center located in The University at Buffalo, hosted a series of State of the Science (SOS) Activities in 2008. The SOS activities generated a large number of papers on both research and the practice of universal design in community infrastructures, public buildings, and housing. This Ebook contains a selected group of these papers that provide a survey of notable developments in the field, reflections on how research and practice can be advanced further, and propose an agenda for the near future. It is hoped that the book will be found useful for researchers, students and practitioners in this field.

Although there have been many discussions about challenges faced by individuals going through East to West migrations, there are few literary accounts about those moving from the West to the East. Yet these migrations are becoming more frequent now due to advances in technology and the fact that a writer’s work can now involve an increasingly global audience. One way of expressing these challenges is through writing memoirs. Xenotropism and the Awakening of Literary Expatriatism through Writing Memoirs exemplifies the craft of memoirs written while living in a foreign country and explains how this is different from writing from home. The book is a theoretical analysis of xenotropism based on the work of three prominent writers in China’s history: Emily Hahn, Nien Cheng and Qiu Xiaolong. The author explores the relationship between xenotropism (turning towards foreign ideals and practices), its complexities and challenges, and the writing of a memoir and its impact on mental health. This discourse will contribute to new knowledge in the field of creative writing and Asian studies by illustrating how xenotropism or ‘turning towards foreign ideals and practices’ results in both personal and artistic development and builds an understanding and acceptance of different cultures within an individual. These processes of change and understanding, in turn, facilitate the writing of a memoir, which is a cathartic process having a positive effect on one’s mental state. Readers interested in creative writing or Asian literary studies will be able to understand the creative process behind writing memoirs from a combination of personal, research-based, literary and theoretical perspectives.

It is widely agreed in art education literature that art educators need to think about the possibility of widening the concept of art education. Educators need to understand the context of learning and for that they need to understand student interests in both local and global aspects. This book values young people’s expression of their own culture and personal interests. It is unique in that the starting point is the drawings of the young people - not to illustrate a predetermined theory, but to enable young people from different countries to express their visions about the world - illustrating their opinions, fears, expectations and own cultures.

This volume covers topics related to human rights issues and problems of people who are overwhelmed by hostile situations around them and are subsequently rendered vulnerable. The situations of vulnerability discussed in this book are related to suffering caused by the moral, family, social, economic or political conditions in which the people, and the groups they belong to, live. Readers are guided through a discussion about rights, as an instrument through which civil society and the ‘Rule of Law’ try to curb or even eliminate the suffering of these people. The aim of such efforts is to restore the situation of vulnerable people to a level of normality. Human Rights Issues and Vulnerable Groups presents a discussion of issues surrounding several kinds of vulnerable groups: minorities, children, gender groups, persons with disabilities, migrants, cultural groups, displaced persons, victims of terrorism, linguistic groups, poor people, people in prison and sexual minorities. The book is a detailed reference for graduates and scholars in law, political science, sociology and social psychology. The volume is also recommended for working professionals who operate with human rights groups and general readers (non-experts) who want to understand the discourse about human rights in a holistic (moral, legal, social, economic, and political) framework.

This volume focuses on the rights of minorities. Minorities are often subject to discrimination and individuals find themselves being rejected by the majority. In such cases, people belonging to a minority suffer through hostile situations. Minorities discussed in this book are defined in terms of cultural groups, migrants, displaced persons, sexual minorities (sexual identity). As with the previous volume, readers are informed about the concept of human rights, as an instrument through which civil society tries to eliminate the hostility and suffering of minorities and restores a situation of normality. Minorities must also accept that a democratic society is governed by majority rule and the Rule of Law. The Rights of Minorities: Cultural Groups, Migrants, Displaced Persons and Sexual Identity discusses four types of minorities: cultural groups, migrants, displaced persons, sexual minorities, and policy on minorities. The book is a detailed reference for graduates and scholars in law, human rights activism, political science, sociology and social psychology. The volume is also recommended for working professionals who operate with human rights groups and general readers (non-experts) who want to understand the discourse about human rights in a holistic (moral, legal, social, economic, and political) framework.

The natural world can be viewed as a continuously changing complex system comprising variable units that do not conform to any stable plan. Within this framework, human evolution is not the story of the past that created Homo sapiens and then handed this account over to written history. It is the ongoing process that shapes us now and will shape us in the future, body and mind. We must understand it in order to survive and be able to direct it to our advantage. The Dynamic Human presents a general theory of how humans function as a multi-individual system embedded in the natural world. The authors employ a unified approach of systems theory to outline forces that direct ongoing human evolution and produce its outcomes in terms of the past, present and future. Readers will find a perspective on the human place in nature, through a brief account of the past human evolution over 10 million years ago, a discussion of the earliest appearance of humans some 2 million years ago, and a description of the mechanisms of the changes in the gene pool of humans from generation-to-generation. Understanding the forces involved in these mechanisms (physical and mental growth and development) may allow us to understand world better. The Dynamic Human presents a simplified perspective on human evolution for all readers interested in a discourse on the origins, nature and future of human beings.

Time - a fundamental component of human thought and experience - is quite enigmatic and elusive when it comes to defining it. In The Evolution of Time: Studies of Time in Science, Anthropology, Theology scholars from the fields of physics, mathematics, biology, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy and theology draw from their own field of knowledge and expertise and present their understanding of the time phenomenon. Time as a dynamic interplay of being and becoming, the different temporalities we encounter in nature, the human dimension of time, are all important issues presented and thoroughly analyzed in the e-book. The e-book has a manifest trans-disciplinary character and it is a suitable for readers interested in evolution, the dynamics of time and the complexity of our own conceptions of time.

The Wrong Assumption: Revolutionary Scientific Theories That Shape the Elusive Supernatural World provides a scientific approach to philosophical thinking and encourages readers to explore their spiritual beliefs. By using simple language and honest scientific rigor, this e-book illuminates fascinating and revolutionary scientific theories that provide physical shape to the otherwise elusive concept of the supernatural world. Readers are exposed to a large variety of scientific theories that justify the existence of spiritual beliefs. Unlike other similar books that explore the connection between science and religion, this e-book refrains from manipulating science to fit a particular dogma; rather, it highlights scientific concepts remarkably similar to those ideas traditionally associated with spiritual beliefs. This e-book condenses the scientific knowledge that is currently dispersed throughout many books into a reader friendly volume.

The book starts from the observation that humans are very different from the other primates. Why are we naked? Why do we speak? Why do we walk upright? Fifty years ago, in 1960, marine biologist Sir Alister Hardy tried to answer this when he announced his so-called aquatic hypothesis: human ancestors did not live in dry savannahs as traditional anthropology assumes, but have adapted to live at the edge between land and water, gathering both terrestrial and aquatic foods. This eBook is an up-to-date collection of the views of the most important protagonists of this long-neglected theory of human evolution at the 50th anniversary of its announcement in 1960. It brings together the views of leading scientists such as anthrolopogy professor Phillip Tobias, marine biologist Richard Ellis, waterbirth gynaecologist Michel Odent, nutritional biologist Michael Crawford and science writer Elaine Morgan.