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This review surveys anthropological and other social research on bureaucratic documents. The fundamental insight of this literature is that documents are not simply instruments of bureaucratic organizations, but rather are constitutive of bureaucratic rules, ideologies, knowledge, practices, subjectivities, objects, outcomes, even the organizations themselves. It explores the reasons why documents have been late to come under ethnographic scrutiny and the implications for our theoretical understandings of organizations and methods for studying them. The review argues for the great value of the study of paper-mediated documentation to the study of electronic forms, but it also highlights the risk of an exclusive focus on paper, making anthropology marginal to the study of core bureaucratic practices in the manner of earlier anthropology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeology has been linked to colonialist attitudes and scientific imperialism. But what are the perspectives of Indigenous groups concerning the practice of archaeology? Numerous organizations recognize the distinctive needs of Indigenous communities throughout the world and have adopted agreements and definitions that govern their relationships with those populations. The specific name by which Indigenous groups are known varies from country to country, as local governments are involved in determining the appropriateness of particular definitions to populations within their borders. This paper begins with an examination of the various aspects that have been used to determine whether or not a group of people might be considered "indigenous" under various definitions, and then uses the history of the relationships between North American archaeologists and Indigenous populations as a background for the examination of some of the political aspects of archaeology that have impacted Indigenous populations. It then proceeds to discuss perspectives on archaeology offered by members of various Indigenous populations throughout the World. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cannibalism, defined as intraspecific predation, is a behavioral trait found in a wide variety of animals, although most references to this behavior are anecdotal or based on casual laboratory observations. The role of cannibalism in the dynamics of natural populations has been largely neglected; the most elegant and detailed analyses of the population consequences of cannibalism are still provided by laboratory studies of flour beetles (Tribulium) that describe the process, examine its interactions with other population processes, and attempt to derive generalities about its effects. Therefore, some authors have suggested that cannibalism is an artifact of laboratory systems or that it occurs only in cases of severe stress, especially when alternatives, such as dispersal, are not possible. My purpose in this review is to show that cannibalism is a normal phenomenon in many natural populations, to evaluate its possible roles in influencing demographic structure and population processes, and to suggest conditions for, and constraints on, its occurrence. Cannibalism may be an interaction that reduces population size before acute resource shortage causes severe physiological stress, and in this sense its effects may be analogous to those of spacing behavior or dominance hierarchies in some social animals. I also discuss cannibalism as a limiting case of predator-prey interactions among potential competitors. This review is based mainly on field experiments and direct estimates of rates of cannibalism, but I use papers describing laboratory experiments to supplement the discussion of behavioral triggers and genetic components and to fill gaps in the field evidence. I have excluded numerous references with only casual mention of cannibalistic events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on anthropological writings on Chicano studies between 1970 to 1984. Anthropologist Octavio Romano, and a sociologist, published a series of papers on the characteristics of Chicano studies which appeared in "El Grito," the Chicano journal they founded. The stance that has become prevalent in anthropological works on Chicanos faces two directions: looking inward toward the academic discipline itself, and looking out outward toward Anglo American society. Researchers have developed broad sketches of the characteristics and boundaries of regions and subregions within the area inhabited by people of Mexican ancestry.

This paper surveys sociological approaches to the study of markets. After considering the economic approach, I delineate the wide range of theoretical schools, including alternative schools in economics, economic anthropology, cultural sociology, the embeddedness approach, and the new political economy. I also briefly discuss recent debates on the transition from planned economy to market and on globalization. I conclude by noting the difficulties of theorizing about the historical and institutional complexity of markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]