Unequal Encounters

This volume presents a selection of the most compelling political writings from early colonial Latin America that address the themes of conquest, colonialism, and enslavement. The anthology centers the voices of Indigenous peoples, whose writings constitute six of the fifteen chapters while also including women's, African, and Jewish perspectives.

Table of contents

Assembling Export Markets explores the new ‘frontier regions’ of the global fresh produce market that has emerged in Ghana over the past decade. Represents a major and empirically rich contribution to the emerging field of the social studies of economization and marketization Offers one of the first ethnographic accounts on the making of global commodity chains ‘from below’ Denaturalizes global markets by unpacking their local engagement, materially entangled construction, need for maintenance, and fragile character Offers a trans-disciplinary engagement with the construction and extension of market relations in two frontier regions of global capitalism Critically examines the opportunities and risks for firms and farms in Ghana entering global fresh produce markets

In the face of the destructive possibilities of resurgent nationalisms, unyielding ethnicities and fundamentalist religious affinities, there is hardly a more urgent task than understanding how humans can learn to live alongside one another. This fascinating book shows how people from various societies learn to live with social diversity and cultural difference, and considers how the concepts of identity formation, diaspora and creolization shed light on the processes and geographies of encounter. Robin Cohen and Olivia Sheringham reveal how early historical encounters created colonial hierarchies, but also how conflict has been creatively resisted through shared social practices in particular contact zones including islands, port cities and the ‘super-diverse’ cities formed by enhanced international migration and globalization. Drawing on research experience from across the world, including new fieldwork in Louisiana, Martinique, Mauritius and Cape Verde, their account provides a balance between rich description and insightful analysis showing, in particular, how identities emerge and merge ‘from below’. Moving seamlessly between social and political theory, history, cultural anthropology, sociology and human geography, the authors point to important new ways of understanding and living with difference, surely one of the key challenges of the twenty-first century.

This edited volume extends current voluntourism theorizing by critically examining the intersections among various forms of work-leisure travel and language learning/teaching. The book’s contributors investigate volunteer tourism and its cognates such as working holidaymaking, international internships, and gap year labor, as discursive fields in which powerful ideas about language(s), their speakers, and pedagogical practices are propagated worldwide. The various authors’ chapters shed light on the hegemony of global English, the social consequences of linguistic commodification and neoliberal rationalities, the ways in which speaker identity positions can alter the exchange value of languages, and how language competencies are tied to power in the labor market, among related topics. This volume will be of interest to readers in Applied Linguistics, Critical Sociolinguistics, Educational and Linguistic Anthropology, Tourism and Leisure Studies, Migration and Mobility Studies, and Language Teaching and Learning.

This book develops a systematic model for the analysis and description of casual conversation in English, based on a large body of authentic data.

Drawing on a wide range of historical and anthropological case studies from various parts of Africa, this anthology provides an understanding of the importance of agency in processes of social transformation, especially in the context of crisis and structural constraint.

Globalizing Political Theory is guided by the need to understand political theory as deeply embedded in local networks of power, identity, and structure, and to examine how these networks converge and diverge with the global. With the help of this book, students of political theory no longer need to learn about ideas in a vacuum with little or no attention paid to how such ideas are responses to varying local political problems in different places, times, and contexts. Key features include: Central Conceptual Framework: Introducing readers to what it means to “globalize” political theory and to move beyond the traditional western canon and actively engage with a multiplicity of perspectives. Organization: Focused on key topics essential for an introductory class aimed at both globalizing political theory and showing how political theory itself is a globalizing activity. Themes: Colonialism and Empire; Gender and Sexuality; Religion and Secularism; Marxism, Socialism, and Globalization; Democracy and Protest; and Race, Ethnicity, and Indigeneity. Pedagogy: Each chapter features theoretical concepts and definitions, political and historical context, key authors and biographical context, textual evidence and exegesis from the foundational texts in that thematic area, a list of discussion questions, and a list of resources for further reading. Committed to a multiplicity of perspectives and an active engagement between the global and the local, Globalizing Political Theory connects directly with undergraduate and graduate-level courses in political theory, global political theory, and non-western political thought.