Affecting Performance: Meaning, Movement and Experience in Okiek Women's Initiation

Affecting Performance: Meaning, Movement and Experience in Okiek Women's Initiation. Corinne A. Kratz. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994. 470 pp.     

A Genetic and Cultural Odyssey: The Life and Work of L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza

Cultural Landscapes in the Ancient Andes: Archaeologies of Place . Linda Stoneand Paul Lurquin. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. 227 pp.     

The Relationship between Bipolar Disorder and Cannabis Use in Daily Life: An Experience Sampling Study

ObjectivesAlthough cannabis use is common in bipolar disorder and may contribute to worse clinical outcomes, little is understood about the relationship between this drug and bipolar disorder over the course of daily life. The aim of study was to examine the effect of cannabis on affect and bipolar symptoms in a group of individuals with bipolar disorder.MethodsTwenty-four participants with bipolar disorder type I or type II completed diaries for 6 days using Experience Sampling Methodology to investigate the temporal associations between cannabis, affect and bipolar disorder symptoms.ResultsThe results indicated that higher levels of positive affect increase the odds of using cannabis (OR:1.25 ,CI:1.06–1.47, P=0.008). However, neither negative affect, manic nor depressive symptoms predicted the use of cannabis. Cannabis use was associated with subsequent increases in positive affect (β=0.35, CI:0.20-0.51, P=0.000), manic symptoms (β=0.20,CI:0.05-0.34, P=0.009) and depressive symptoms (β= 0.17,CI:0.04-0.29, P=0.008).ConclusionThe findings indicate that cannabis use is associated with a number of subsequent psychological effects. However there was no evidence that individuals with BD were using cannabis to self-medicate minor fluctuations in negative affect or bipolar disorder symptoms over the course of daily life. The findings in relation to existing literature and clinical implications are discussed.     

Sense,Symbol, and Soma: Illness Experience in the Soundscape of Everyday Life

This article explores the lived experience of women suffering from an illness prevalent in the Kui communities of Northeast Thailand. The symptoms, ranging from loss of appetite to chronic fatigue, were typically triggered by being exposed to certain kinds of sounds, such as motorcycles, quarrelling neighbors, or carousing drunkards. I examine the illness experience as it was constituted in the soundscape of everyday life to reveal how the meaning-endowed sounds aggravated the feeling of being vulnerable and defenseless. The felt immediacies created by the audio-somatic experience were reconceptualized within the indigenous somato-psychic framework as a form of illness. By examining the life histories and illness experiences of individuals who were rendered vulnerable and defenseless, the study reveals how symbols that carry political significance, the body as a cultural form of memory, and the senses combine to create a specific mode of being-in-the-world. Sense, symbols, and somatic processes combined to create an illness experience out of the felt immediacies of the Kui's socio-political predicament of marginality.     

Two Languages at Work: Bilingual Life on the Production Floor

Two Languages at Work: Bilingual Life on the Production Floor. Tara Goldstein. New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997. 277 pp.     

The Flora and Invertebrate Fauna of Abandoned Limestone Quarries in Derbyshire, United Kingdom

Abandoned limestone quarries are hostile environments for plant and invertebrate colonization and establishment. The length of time taken for successful establishment by natural processes may be unacceptable for reclamation purposes; several techniques are used to reduce the time scales involved. A new technique, restoration blasting, aims to replicate natural daleside landforms by selective blasting of modern production quarry faces. We compare the flora and invertebrate fauna of restoration-blasted sites, hydro-seeded with daleside species, with naturally regenerating disused quarries and a natural daleside. Restoration-blasted sites were found to have less plant cover, more bare ground, fewer orders of invertebrates, and generally fewer animals within each order than the other two types of site. The disused quarries tended to have intermediate characteristics between the restoration-blasted sites and the natural daleside. The age of the site may be important in determining the plants and invertebrates occurring there. This may be related to the time available for establishment or a greater degree of settlement or stability within the biotic and abiotic components of the site. Although most of the results indicate that time since establishment may be important, some variations occur. In particular, the development of vegetation cover in areas grazed by rabbits is problematic. These results are important in the assessment of successful reclamation because the invertebrate fauna may contribute greatly to the overall system. Both plant and animal communities appear to be establishing well on the sites reclaimed by restoration blasting. Further monitoring will identify the speed at which such environments achieve the desired aim of replicating daleside communities and the communities best able to be sustained following this technique.