Outline of a Theory of Practice.

Deliberative Policy Analysis: Accessing local knowledge

Human Rights Law and the Demonization of Culture (And Anthropology Along the Way)

This article, based on research in Scotland, discusses reunions between adults who have been adopted in infancy, and their birth kin. Although the distinction between 'biological' and 'social' kinship, which is central to the anthropological analysis of kinship, is clearly relevant to experiences of reunions, as it is to adoption more generally, this analytic focus is disrupted by issues of temporality, biographical completion, and memory, which both motivate and are raised by reunions. Narratives about adoption reunions can be used to illuminate the connections between these different themes. I explore the implications of these both for experiences of kinship in the West more generally and for the anthropological analysis of kinship. This article considers issues of temporality and kinship which are brought to the fore in reunions between adults adopted in infancy and their birth kin. The ethnographic material is drawn from Britain, but in places I extend my focus to analytic discussions of kinship in the West. The discussion is a preliminary attempt to consider a set of issues raised in the anthropology of time in the light of ideas about biographical completion, which emerge from interviews with those who have experienced adoption reunions. These reunions can be understood as reflections on personal biography and the completeness or incompleteness of personal histories. However, reunions also apparently speak to another discussion at the heart of the anthropological analysis of kinship. This concerns the separation of 'biological' and 'social' aspects of kinship (cf. Modell 1994).1 But in the cases I consider, this analytical focus has been disrupted by the issues of biography, agency, and memory which are raised by the material I present. Rather than foreground one set of issues at the expense of another, I attempt here to keep several in view in order to illuminate their interconnections. In my previous work (Carsten 1997), I have described the processes by which Malay people on the island of Langkawi make kinship in their everyday lives, not just through ties engendered by sexual procreation, but also by living together in houses and sharing meals. Over time, the accumulation of shared meals and cohabitation can establish 'natural' links between those who may have been originally unrelated but are brought together by in-migration,

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2661037.pdf

Knowing where you've come from: Ruptures and continuities of time and kinship in narratives of adoption reunions

What is media theory ? How do media affect our actions, opinions and beliefs ? In what ways do media serve powerful political and economic interests ? Is media consumerism unhealthy or is it empowering? 
Key Themes in Media Theory provides a thorough and critical introduction to the key theories of media studies. It is unique in bringing together different schools of media theory into a single, comprehensive text, examining in depth the ideas of key media theorists such as Lasswell, McLuhan, Hall, Williams, Barthes, Adorno, Baudrillard and Bourdieu. 
Using up-to-date case studies the book embraces media in their everyday cultural forms – music, internet, film, television, radio, newspapers and magazines – to enable a clearer view of the ‘big picture’ of media theory. 
In ten succinct chapters Dan Laughey discusses a broad range of themes, issues and perspectives that inform our contemporary understanding of media production and consumption. These include : Behaviourism and media effects Feminist media theory Postmodernity and information society Political economy Media consumerism 

With images and diagrams to illustrate chapter themes, examples that apply media theory to media practice, recommended reading at the end of every chapter, and a useful glossary of key terms, this book is the definitive guide to understanding media theory.

Key themes in media theory

Over the past two decades, household studies have coalesced into a recognized subfield within archaeology. Despite this relatively short history, household archaeologists are now taking a leading role in epistemological shifts that are placing people and their practices and differences at the center of archaeological interpretations of the past, rather than subsuming these into the “noise” of passive and depersonalized depictions of ancient social systems. As Maya archaeologists have played a critical role in the development of household archaeology, examining recent trends in Maya household research provides a perspective on the directions of both Maya studies and household archaeology more generally. This article explores three interrelated trends: (1) understanding ordinary people; (2) understanding social diversity among households; (3) understanding households in articulation with the broder social universe. Through a discussion of these three trends, this review uses Classic Maya household archaeology as a case study to illustrate how household research has led to the development of theoretically rich and empirically substantive understandings of an ancient society, which repeople the past and foreground the active roles of and structural constraints on ancient people.

Outline of a Theory of Practice.

Citations

Deliberative Policy Analysis: Accessing local knowledge

Human Rights Law and the Demonization of Culture (And Anthropology Along the Way)

Knowing where you've come from: Ruptures and continuities of time and kinship in narratives of adoption reunions

Key themes in media theory

New Directions in Classic Maya Household Archaeology

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