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This introductory chapter discusses Hindu caste and ritual. It examines the religious texts in Sanskrit, which serve as relevant sources of information on Indian society. It takes a look at anthropological research and the formation of a positivist approach, as well as the consequences of defining social reality based on concreteness. It introduces Louis Dumont's writings, where he rejects the dichotomy between behaviour and thought, and insists that an explanatory model cannot be limited to copying observed reality. It then pinpoints the two Sanskrit texts that will be analyzed in detail, namely the Dharmaranya Purana and the Grihya Sutra of Gobhila. The chapter also studies the caste Puranas, who are defined as a class of Sanskrit language that is concerned with the five main themes of creation.

This introductory chapter discusses the development of studies on legal anthropology. It argues that the scope and nature of legal anthropology has changed and broadened considerably in the last generation. The concerns of the legal anthropologist are now similar to those whose discipline is general social theory and sociology, including sociology of law. As anthropologists turned their attention away from simple societies to their own more complex world, concerns also shifted, both to the examination of regular legal culture, and to systems that stand in for or replace regular systems of law. An overview of the subsequent chapters is presented.

This concluding chapter does not aim to be a magisterial overview or a comprehensive summary. The preceding chapters speak for themselves of the range and quality of research currently being carried out across north-west Europe relevant to the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition. Instead, the chapter offers some brief, personal reflections on what we are doing well and what we could still do better, and thus tries to define some of the continuing challenges for future research.

This chapter examines the constraints hindering HIV/AIDS prevention in Africa. It analyses the reasons behind program failures and lists components for successful HIV/AIDS prevention strategies. It discusses the success of the Abstinence, Be Faithful, and condom (ABc) campaign in reducing HIV infection rates in Uganda and highlights the role of anthropological research in developing policies to support effective HIV/AIDS interventions.

This chapter moves to the day-to-day specificities that make research in dangerous places possible. It gives practical suggestions on how to enhance personal safety. The author's recommendations are based on his own extensive research on the Irish Republican Army and the Irish National Liberation Army in a Catholic housing project in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Fieldwork has long replenished the lifeblood of anthropology through the continual engagement of the theory of observed realities of people's lives. This chapter serves to depict the role and import of fieldwork for anthropology and illustrates the gathering of data by anthropologists, sketching out ways in which anthropologists have tried to connect the studies of micropopulations with larger theoretical perspectives. Modern anthropological research begins with immersion in local experience and local knowledge, which is a first, yet important, step in bringing the headwork of theory into confrontation with the world. The field-worker's final text may register some of these experiences and voices, but they are not its primary purpose. Its goal is to provide a densely substantiated model of how material–social relations and signifying practices are mediated through the cultural forms of a specified population.

This chapter presents the results of discussions based on research conducted between 2006 and 2018. It explores the makings, workings, and effects of various sciences and technologies. It focuses on an array of applied health and environmental knowledges and innovations being developed to solve some of the gravest problems of human and ecological health facing China today. The kinds of cutting-edge basic sciences that are being energetically promoted by the state and private entrepreneurs that remain a subject for future anthropological research. The chapter also makes two major intellectual interventions. First, under the rubric “governing through science,” the governance/governmentality approach to the study of Chinese science and technology is extended. Second, the analysis is deepened by adding the insights of science and technology studies.

The final chronological discussion in Chapter 7 addresses the Ming and Qing dynasties, which at Sha Po could not be more different in that the former is virtually absent, whereas archaeological remains from the latter period are abundant and provide fascinating insights into the lives of local people. Moreover, those material remains can also be interpreted with reference to a particularly rich historical and anthropological resource resulting from documentary research and interviews with village elders between the 1950s and 1980s. Recent historical research is a rapidly expanding field in archaeology, but sadly neglected in Hong Kong, and this chapter attempts to highlight its potential for the creation of more humanistic narratives and detailed interpretations than are possible in earlier periods.

This chapter describes the ethnobiology of Andean potatoes as an example of how anthropological research can contribute to an overall understanding of the ecology and evolution of a crop in its center of origin, emphasizing Andean ethnobotany of potato diversity. The Andean knowledge system of potatoes far exceeds a simple catalog of varieties and includes terminology for the crop's agricultural and social ecology. The chapter reveals that the ethnobiology of the potato crop emphasizes diversity at the infraspecific or variety level, an emphasis to which Andean categories such as production zones and types of potato all contribute. This case study is representative of several others on the maintenance of traditional crops in centers of agricultural origins in the face of economic and technological change in agriculture. These studies document the resilience of traditional crops, like the cultures that have produced and nurtured them.

The author discusses the art of wu wei wu—“doing without doing”—and its significance to his anthropological research in Kragur. He first explains why he wanted to go back to Kragur and says he kept a mental list not only of people and places he wanted to see and things he wanted to do, but also of things about which he was especially curious. He then considers what the people of Kragur call a cargo cult, in which they would petition the spirits of their dead and in some cases, the Virgin Mary, to send them money. He also expresses his interest in learning about other dimensions of Kragur life and describes how the Kragur people feel about his two books, Hard Times on Kairiru Island and Village on the Edge.

This chapter draws attention to the complex trajectories of the history of biomedicine among the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups of the Andaman Islands. It argues that the scattered traces one follows to address historical or anthropological research in the tribal reserves of the Andaman Islands have led to questions that have often muddled assumptions about the category of the ‘medical.’ The chapter does a close reading of state medical discourse as it takes shape in the memoirs of a government physician in the Jarawa Tribal Reserve. It argues that Dr Kar’s memoir cum ethnography offers important insights into the contingent formations of the ‘medical’ in the interstices of tribal welfare practice in the Andaman Islands.

This introductory chapter begins with presenting the main topic of the book which is to propose ethnography of the judicial practices in South Asia. By drawing on previous studies as well as on the contributions included in the volume it then discusses the importance of taking into account trial interactions, how official documents are produced during the trial and also how social dynamics may have an impact on the judicial process. The introduction contextualizes the contributions in terms of the activism, discourses and relationships around criminal cases that shape how ideas circulate in the public sphere and how mediation and negotiation between different actors characterize police and court practices.