Village Square Meetings

Since China entered the post-Mao "Reform Era" in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Chinese economy has taken off as few economies ever have. Labor migration, rural enterprises, rising production, and globalization have all combined to end the isolation of the Chinese countryside. Yet although China's unsurpassed economic boom has produced reams of impressive statistics, has this economic growth led to improving the livelihood of the average Chinese person? Has development accompanied economic growth? Has the promise of "opening to the outside" been fulfilled in providing a better life for China's 1.2 billion-plus people? In this book, which is based on field work, Guldin presents and explores some of the changes sweeping through China in the 1990s that are affecting hundreds of millions of people. Guldin looks at the growth of town and village enterprises, labor mobility, and the other aspects of rural urbanization to investigate the connection between economic growth and development in contemporary China. The political changes at the village level, the swelling flows of capital, data, goods, and people, new ways of thinking and behaving, and a significant surge in social inequalities are all topis for chapter discussions. Guldin invites readers to face the same question that former Chinese peasants must face, namely, how to respond, as their villages are transformed forever.

Revitalizing Nigerian Education in Digital Age: What most of the papers in this book have in common is the concern for the revitalization of Nigerian education in the digital age through ICT and other modern methods of making education functional and effective in the new modernity. While some of the chapters deal with conceptual issues, others consider the various role of education in this digital age and how Nigeria can be relevant. Most of the chapters present well-researched, detailed, and informative papers on how to reposition Nigerian education in the digital age. Specifically, the role of education in bringing Nigeria's new world about are discussed in simple language and then taken up in different forms all through the book. Since Nigeria has to act fast and decisively to be on the same development and education wavelength as the other members of today's global family, serious actions are being suggested in this book. Revitalizing Nigerian Education in Digital Age simply means taking the above desiderata seriously. Nigeria has a daunting task here in view of the heavy education burden. This is the message that this book puts across.

This monograph introduces students and scholars in linguistics, anthropology, and intercultural communication to anthropological linguistics, with a special focus on Africa. Among the topics addressed are semantic fields such as kinship or colour terminology, spatial orientation, linguistic relativity and the link between language and cognition, onomastics, the ethnography of communication, interactional sociolinguistics, emotions, (im)politeness strategies, conversation analysis, and non-verbal communication.

The idea of the Church as the instrument of unity had existed before Second Vatican Council; but the Council made the search for unity explicitly an imperative. From the Second Vatican Council emerged a more emphatic vision of the mission of the Church to the world in which ecumenism is no longer an option but an imperative. From the time of the Council onward, every Christian should positively respond to God's question to Cain: "Where is your brother?" (Gen. 4: 9). The ecumenical imperative is primarily the responsibility of pastoral workers. The book surveys in epochs the historical changes that has occurred in the Church up to Vatican II; reviews reception along the ages of the Church pointing to the uniqueness of Vatican II; and gives through biblical exegesis of 'conversion' a fresh understanding that will help pastoral workers to be ever conscious and ready to serve as Church's instrument of unity wherever they are. This book re-awakens the spirit of the Decree on Ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio), offering it to be properly received by all who pray with Christ for unity (Jn 17:21). It proposes pastoral suggestions on the practice of Ecumenism.

A collection of seven papers by social anthropologists on the processes of decision-making in councils. Types of council described are one community-in-council, two arena councils, an elite council, two modern local government councils and a non-council, a temporary negotiating group which nevertheless displays certain features of the council proper. Most of the examples come from Africa (including Madagascar), but there is also an account of politics and decision-making in an English town council. The editors discuss the papers in a comparative framework, considering also other accounts of conciliar structure and decision-making. They review the ways in which decisions are reached and implemented in societies with very different structures and activities and discuss the impact of written records, colonial overrule and political independence. They attempt to outline some general principles of conciliar structure and process.