AN    INTERNATIONAL     JOURNAL     OF
CULTURAL  AND SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Volume 45, no. 2 (Spring 2006)

REINCARNATION, SECT UNITY, AND IDENTITY AMONG THE DRUZE

Anne Bennett
California State University

A belief in reincarnation is atypical within Islam, although exceptions exist with a few small sects. This essay analyzes the role that reincarnation plays in maintaining a sense of unity and identity among the Druze, an Islamic sect residing primarily in the Levantine Middle East. It also describes the necessary conditions for reincarnation according to Druze doctrine and as evidenced in reincarnation stories. Reincarnation is of great social significance for the Druze, regarding family and village relations, and the Druze community at large. There is, however, some resistance within the community to a belief in reincarnation. This resistance is due in part to image management in the political context of Syria, and also because a belief in reincarnation is a stigma for a group in the Islamic Middle East. It also works against Druze efforts to present itself to the world as modern. (Islam, Druze identity, reincarnation).

GIRL POWER: YOUNG WOMEN AND THE WANING OF PATRIARCHY IN RURAL NORTH CHINA

Yunxiang Yan
University of California

Since the early 1950s, several generations of young women in rural north China have responded to social changes brought about by state policies and practices, gradually altering their position in the domestic sphere from statusless "outsiders" to new players in family affairs. While favorable conditions in larger social settings are necessary and important, equally important have been the agencies of young women who took advantage of the new opportunities to challenge the patriarchal order of family life. By focusing on individual young women, the previously marginalized members of the family, this article identifies and provides a better understanding of the most active driving force of family change from within. (Young women, agency, family change, China).

SPECIAL MONEY: ITHACA HOURS AND GARAGE SALES

Gretchen M. Herrmann
State University of New York

This article explores how special monies are used in two different sites of the alternative economy, the U.S. garage sale and a local barter currency called Ithaca HOURS, and how they are socially demarcated as special styles of exchange. Although characterized by different flows, money in both venues create value in the interstices of the mainstream economy; stretch the value of money, while allowing direct negotiation; foster justice in the marketplace; build community; encourage good ecological practice; and enable participants to at times "beat the system" of the prevailing economy. HOURS and garage sales, while not capable of superceding global capitalism, rely on and complement the mainstream economic order, and both sites afford glimpses of more humane and empowering ways to exchange goods and services. (Garage sales, Ithaca HOURS, local currency, United States).

SEXUAL MAGIC AND MONEY: MISKITU WOMEN'S STRATEGIES IN NORTHERN HONDURAS

Laura Hobson Herlihy
University of Kansas

This article highlights Afro-indigenous Miskitu women's position and agency on the increasingly cash-oriented Miskito Coast (northeastern Honduras). While Miskitu men (the main breadwinners) work as deep-water lobster divers, women live in matrilocal groups and use sexual magic to beguile men into giving them their earnings. The women's discourse of sexual magic contests, but does not subvert, the male-dominant gender ideology of the lobster-diving economy. Nevertheless, Miskitu women have refashioned their gender identities, and their views of money, into empowering and strategic practices for domestic security. (Gender, magic, money, women's strategies).

DRINKING GAMES, KARAOKE SONGS, AND YANGGE DANCES: YOUTH CULTURAL PRODUCTION IN RURAL CHINA

Adam Yuet Chau
University of London

This article examines the different ways youth in rural Shaanbei, northcentral China participate in cultural production. It explores the media through which young people express themselves and the roles that social institutions (temples, schools, villages, households), modern technologies (video compact discs), and translocal/transnational mass media (satellite and cable TV) play in enabling youth assert their presence as cultural beings and producers. Shaanbei youth do not choose between modern forms of entertainment (karaoke songs) or traditional forms (playing drinking games), or between institutionally organized activities and those self-initiated to express themselves. (Rural Chinese youth, cultural production, temple festivals, drinking games).