Introduction: Toward an Anthropology of Affect and Evocative Ethnography

A growing interest in affect holds much promise for anthropology by providing a new frame to examine and articulate subjective and intersubjective states, which are key parts of human consciousness and behavior. Affect has its roots in the social, an observation that did not go unnoticed by Durkheim and since then kept in view by those social scientists interested in the emotions, feelings, and subjectivity. However, the challenge for ethnographers has always been to articulate in words and conceptualize theoretically what is only felt and sensed. What we are calling "evocative ethnography" is an ethnography that meets this challenge to make room for, and hold onto, feelings and affect in its description and explanation. The papers in this special issue accomplish that, as well as, provide some anthropological insights into affect theory

Climate variability, drought, and the belief that high gods are associated with weather in nonindustrial societies

All societies have religious beliefs, but societies vary widely in the number and type of gods in which they believe as well as their ideas about what the gods do. In many societies, a god is thought to be responsible for weather events. In some of those societies, a god is thought to cause harm with weather and/or can choose to help, such as by bringing needed rain. In other societies, gods are not thought to be involved with weather. Using a worldwide, largely nonindustrial sample of 46 societies with high gods, this research explores whether certain climate patterns predict the belief that high gods are involved with weather. Our major expectation, largely supported, was that such beliefs would most likely be found in drier climates. Cold extremes and hot extremes have little or no relationship to the beliefs that gods are associated with weather. Since previous research by Skoggard et al. showed that greater resource stress predicted the association of high gods with weather, we also tested mediation path models to help us evaluate whether resource stress might be the mediator explaining the significant associations between drier climates and high god beliefs. The climate variables, particularly those pertaining to dryness, continue to have robust relationships to god beliefs when controlling on resource stress; at best, resource stress has only a partial mediating effect. We speculate that drought causes humans more anxiety than floods, which may result in the greater need to believe supernatural beings are not only responsible for weather but can help humans in times of need

The Division of Labor and the Formation of Industrial Clusters in Taiwan

While the role of clusters in promoting industrial development has been increasingly recognized in the literature, the locational choice of industrial clusters and the underlying factors affecting such a choice have seldom been analyzed, particularly in the context of industrial development in developing countries. In this article, the authors hypothesize that industrial clusters tend to be formed in suburban areas, where the division of labor among enterprises producing diverse products is intense. They obtained supportive evidence through regression analyses of changes in employment and value-added ratio using township-level census data of selected industries in Taiwan from 1976 to 1996. Copyright � 2006 The Authors; Journal compilation � 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Nós, os outros: construção do exótico e consumo de moda brasileira na França

Esse artigo trata do consumo de produtos - especialmente de moda e vestuário - brasileiros na França como uma forma de consumo do exótico. Para tanto, parto de dez meses de pesquisa de campo na França, balizando os dados ali obtidos com experiência de pesquisa anterior, realizada no Brasil. O artigo discute, em primeiro lugar, o exotismo, temática que invariavelmente abre portas para um debate a respeito de identidades e alteridades. Em seguida, são examinadas algumas particularidades do "consumir o outro" presentes nos discursos franceses que versam sobre produtos brasileiros. Por fim, conclui-se que a construção de um exotismo à brasileira é situada, a um só tempo, no imaginário francês sobre o outro brasileiro e na própria produção brasileira de modas de vestir.<br>This article discusses the consumption of Brazilian products - especially fashion and clothing - in France as a means of consuming the exotic. Therefore, the author starts from ten months in fieldwork in France, evaluating the data collected there with the experience from a previous research, carried out in Brazil. Firstly, the article discusses the exoticism, a topic that invariably opens doors to a debate about identities and alterities. Afterwards, some particularities of "consuming the other" are analyzed, present in French discourses concerning Brazilian products. At last, it follows that the construction of an exoticism after the Brazilian fashion is situated simultaneously in the French imaginary about the Brazilian other and in the very Brazilian production of garment fashion