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Based on anthropological fieldwork in the Indian state of Rajasthan, the author explores the manner in which semi-nomadic performers known as Bhats understand caste hierarchies. He demonstrates how the ability to cleverly rework and sabotage lingering caste inequalities forms the basis for Bhat claims to status in contemporary India

Since 2008, at Colorado State University, I have been collaboratively researching virtual worlds with my students in experimental methods seminars. My "ethnographic research and teaching laboratory" (ERTL), ambitious in scope, conducts original and even cutting edge research, while teaching students field methods in the process. The research and teaching unfold primarily in Internet‐based games—such as World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2—persistent online networked social spaces of hundreds and even thousands of players. As a teaching tool, online virtual worlds provide a convenient way to get students quickly into the "field," with online games being for some students (based on their play experience or lack of it) akin to foreign cultures. In this article, I discuss strengths and also challenges of ERTL, illustrating in the process how my lab's linked research and teaching model illuminates one way forward for empirically minded anthropologists hoping to move beyond the lone ethnographer. [online gaming cultures, ethnographic laboratory, mixed methods]

In this article I examine Bhat myths and legends concerning kings and bards. Bhats are low‐status praise‐singers from the Indian state of Rajasthan. In exploring these tales, I examine my informants' ideas about an issue which has long been seen as a central conundrum of Indian caste theory: how best to characterize the status of those with priestly standing in relation to those classed as warriors and kings. In their stories, Bhats demonstrate the ways in which high‐caste persons such as kings are utterly dependent on bardic services – thus rendering performers like themselves central, and kings peripheral. With respect to the debate about whether kings or priests rank first in South Asian schemes of rank and primacy, Bhats themselves think in terms of a third class of persons: bards. Further, I suggest that, in arguing for the social centrality of linguistically talented bards, my informants display a consciousness that is particularly attuned to the discursive construction of social hierarchies. Finally, I seek to explain why Bhats, who are bards of former untouchables now living in an ostensibly modern, casteless democracy, still speak so persistently of kings and royal bardship. My answer to this is that, in fabricating fictive royal bardic identities, present‐day Bhats are able to appropriate roles and statuses now abandoned by the former elite bards of post‐Independence Rajasthan.

Bhats are a caste of low‐status performers from the Indian state of Rajasthan. Bhat patrons, following deaths in their families, distribute 'alms' (dan) to Bhats who work as their genealogists and praise‐singers. Though their patrons are generous on these occasions, Bhats typically must be coerced into taking these offerings, which they consider dangerous and even lethal. The 'poison' of Hindu transactions such as these is usually attributed to a fear of impure or inauspicious substances passed between persons during exchange. Bhat explanations, however, reveal a danger linked to ambiguities created by death related to property rights and exchange obligations. These ambiguities, according to Bhats, precipitate disputes between patrons, ritual intermediaries, and spirits. Such conflict translates into a perception of danger to one's person. Based on Bhat accounts, I suggest there may be a variety of distinctive 'poisons' associated with Hindu alms. I further argue that the Bhat sense of danger, which emerges from the fluid give and take of social relations rather than a fear of contagion, is heightened by this community's position as marginalized bards.

Contents; Introduction: The Way Forward; 1. Indigenous and Scientific Knowledge; 2. Untangling the Historical Origins of Epistemological Conflict; 3. Barriers to Integrating Indigenous Knowledge into Natural Resource Management; 4. Exploring Obstacles in Action: Case Studies of Indigenous Knowledge and Protected-Areas Management; 5. Joint Management and Co-Management as Strategies for Indigenous Involvement in Protected-Areas Management; 6. The Indigenous Stewardship Model; 7. Conclusion; References; Index; About the Authors.

We investigate the relationship between exposure to Hurricanes Katrina and/or Rita and mental health resilience by vulnerability status, with particular focus on the mental health outcomes of single mothers versus the general public. We advance a measurable notion of mental health resilience to disaster events. We also calculate the economic costs of poor mental health days added by natural disaster exposure. Negative binomial analyses show that hurricane exposure increases the expected count of poor mental health days for all persons by 18.7% (95% confidence interval [CI], 7.44–31.14%), and by 71.88% (95% CI, 39.48–211.82%) for single females with children. Monthly time‐series show that single mothers have lower event resilience, experiencing higher added mental stress. Results also show that the count of poor mental health days is sensitive to hurricane intensity, increasing by a factor of 1.06 (95% CI, 1.02–1.10) for every billion (U.S.$) dollars of damage added for all exposed persons, and by a factor of 1.08 (95% CI, 1.03–1.14) for single mothers. We estimate that single mothers, as a group, suffered over $130 million in productivity loss from added postdisaster stress and disability. Results illustrate the measurability of mental health resilience as a two‐dimensional concept of resistance capacity and recovery time. Overall, we show that natural disasters regressively tax disadvantaged population strata.

Extending classic anthropological "idioms of distress" research, we argue that intensive online videogame involvement is better conceptualized as a new global idiom, not only of distress but also of wellness, especially for emerging adults (late teens through the 20s). Drawing on cognitive anthropological cultural domain interviews conducted with a small sample of U.S. gamers ( N = 26 free-list and 34 pile-sort respondents) (Study 1) and a large sample of survey data on gaming experience ( N = 3629) (Study 2), we discuss the cultural meaning and social context of this new cultural idiom of wellness and distress. Our analysis suggests that the "addiction" frame provides a means for gamers to communicate their passion and commitment to online play, even furthering their enthusiasm for the hobby and community in the process, but also a way for players to express and even resolve life distress such as depression and loneliness. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has recently included "Internet gaming disorder" (IGD) as a possible behavioral addiction, akin to gambling, warranting further consideration for eventual formal inclusion in the next iteration of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). Our study leads us to suggest that clinicians only sparingly use IGD as a clinical category, given that medical and gamer understandings of "addictive" play differ so markedly. This includes better distinguishing positive online gaming involvement—also sometimes framed by gamers as "addictive"—from other play patterns more clearly entailing distress and dysfunction.

"This book is a practical manual that provides step-by-step instruction for collecting and analyzing cultural data. It offers an early introduction into the suite of tools offered in cultural models analysis, including step-by-step guides and screenshots from MAXQDA, UCINET and Anthropac. Though based from within anthropological methods training, these methods of cultural data analysis from ethnographic studies can be widely applied within the social sciences, and will be of interest to undergraduate students and students in anthropology, communication studies, sociology and within research methods training"--

Yee (2006) found three motivational factors— achievement, social, and immersion—underlying play in massively multiplayer online role-playing games ("MMORPGs" or "MMOs" for short). Subsequent work has suggested that these factors foster problematic or addictive forms of play in online worlds. In the current study, we used an online survey of respondents ( N = 252), constructed and also interpreted in reference to ethnography and interviews, to examine problematic play in the World of Warcraft ( WoW; Blizzard Entertainment, 2004–2013). We relied on tools from psychological anthropology to reconceptualize each of Yee's three motivational factors in order to test for the possible role of culture in problematic MMO play: (a) For achievement, we examined how "cultural consonance" with normative understandings of success might structure problematic forms of play; (b) for social, we analyzed the possibility that developing overvalued virtual relationships that are cutoff from offline social interactions might further exacerbate problematic play; and (c) in relation to immersion, we examined how "dissociative" blurring of actual- and virtual-world identities and experiences might contribute to problematic patterns. Our results confirmed that compared to Yee's original motivational factors, these culturally sensitive measures better predict problematic forms of play, pointing to the important role of sociocultural factors in structuring online play.