The Hidden Life of Tirol - Softcover

Ward, Martha C.

3.4

10 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0881337374 ISBN 13: 9780881337372

Publisher: Waveland Pr Inc, 1993

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Split between the modern nations of Austria and Italy, the "Holy Land of Tirol" sits in the heart of the spectacular Alps, astride the mountain passes that link the edges of Europe. Tirol has some of the most accessible and integrated social traditions in the world. But the deeper meanings of life in the region remain hidden. Here, then, is an anthropological guidebook. The goal is to make sense of and explain how the history, geography, politics and the rootedness of community life fit together. The conventional categories of an ethnography are all here: religion, subsistence, marriage, land tenure, ethnicity, agro-pastoralism, folklore, and inheritance. But the viewpoint is unconventional: the anthropologist is a fellow-traveler, taking readers on a tour in imagination to a region often visited but rarely understood or studied. The study of European folklife and cohesive communal societies such as this have particular relevance today. In a world where ethnic groups and class tensions dominate the news, The Hidden Life of Tirol is a story of how people worked out these differences.

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From the Publisher:

Also by Martha Ward and available from Waveland Press: Nest in the Wind: Adventures in Anthropology on a Tropical Island, Second Edition (ISBN 1577663683).

From the Author:

"The foundation of The Hidden Life of Tirol is traditional ethnography. It tells how people of these high mountains put meaning into their collective lives and how they organize the "whole house"--the social structure of mountain survival. But beyond an ethnography about a culture area in the heart of Europe, I added several other pertinent themes. Through time Tiroleans have suffered and solved major ethnic problems. In a world rife with such tensions, it is instructive to see how they accomplished this. Moreover, this Alpine region has wedded economic development to ecological sensitivity. Their remarkable achievements are an international model. I have also used Tirol as a case study about traveling, culture shock, trips as rites of passage and the anthropology of tourism. Readers will find many of their own experiences of travel included as examples. Tirol is one of the most highly visited and highly visible culture areas in Europe. Tirol often feels familiar to us; we know about ski resorts, holiday customs and souvenir kitsch. At the same time, the cohesive and communal society forged in high mountain life is largely hidden from our understanding. My purpose is to illuminate these covert patterns of culture in one of the most fascinating and dramatic regions of the world."

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