Not Animal, Not Not-Animal: Hunting, Imitation and Empathetic Knowledge Among the Siberian Yukaghirs

Rane Willerslev discusses the world and worldview of Yukaghir hunters in this excerpt from a longer paper of the same title.  Notions of what animals are and what people are--and can do in relation to other animals--differ significantly in this tradition compared to Western, Euro-American metaphysic...

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Ayodhya’s sacred landscape: ritual memory, politics and archaeological “fact”

Julia Shaw provides an alternative archaeological perspective on the polarizing issues surrounding the contested site of Ayodhya, India and its significance in Hindu religious imagination as the birthplace of the deity Rama. Written in 2000, this article is a succinct reminder of what a materialized study of religion has to offer to the analysis of disputed sites. In 1992, the ‘Babri Masjid’ (Babri mosque) in Ayodhya was...

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