Australian
Ways
Anthropological Studies
in an Industrialised Society
Edited by
Lenore Manderson
The
Book
This collection illustrates the richness of data and analysis born of the anthropological study of contemporary white Australian society. Inspired by the need to demonstrate the especial skills and insights of anthropology when brought to bear on familiar ‘everyday’ data, Australian Ways will be of interest to anyone curious about the colour and diversity of Australian life.
This collection, the first of its kind in Australia, illustrates the richness of data and analysis born of the anthropological study of contemporary white Australian society.
The studies presented here deal with diverse settings and events, ranging from a community’s responses to a bushfire in rural NSW to the messages encoded in a male strip show in Adelaide. Work and leisure, family life and institutional relationships, natural disaster and culturally manipulated violence, the particular experiences of the homeless, the elderly, immigrants – all form a part of this collection.
Specifically and recurrently, the power of gender and class within Australian life is underlined.
This book was inspired by the need to demonstrate the especial skills and insights of anthropology when brought to bear on familiar ‘everyday’ data. It will be of interest to anyone curious about the colour and diversity of Australian life.
The
Contributors
Introduction: Towards an anthropology of industrialised society – Lenore Manderson
The private life of the extended family: family, kinship and class in a middle class suburb of Sydney – Maila Stivens
A community in crisis: bushfire in a district of the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales – Gretchen Poiner
The phallus and the man: an analysis of male striptease – Susan Baggett Barham
Across the bar: women’s work in hotels – Sandra Grimes
A case of status degradation: or how insult is added to injury – Judyth Watson
Party selling: a new form of traditional hospitality amongst Turkish women migrants in Melbourne – Joy Elley
The best scones in town: old women in an Australian country town – Wendy Walker-Birckhead
The good go to heaven and the bad go to hell: doing patienthood on the orthopaedic ward – David C. Hyndman