Sleep Around the World Anthropological Perspectives

by Glaskin, Katie; Chenhall, Richard

• ISBN13: 9781137320933
• ISBN10: 1137320931
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-06-06
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Although humans sleep for approximately one third of our lives, sleep itself is vastly understudied. As a biological universal, it is easy to overlook the degree to which culture shapes how we sleep, with whom we sleep, where and when we sleep, and how we conceptualize sleep. This edited volume explores the cultural dimensions of sleep in different societies around the world today, with the explicit intention of providing a comparative context through which we can understand the myriad ways in which sleep reflects, and literally (as well as metaphorically) embodies culture.

Author Biography

Katie Glaskin is Associate Professor in the Discipline of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Western Australia. Her major publications include the co-edited volumes Customary Land Tenure and Registration in Australia and Papua New Guinea (2007) and Mortality, Mourning and Mortuary Practices in Indigenous Australia (2008).Richard Chenhall is Senior Lecturer in Medical Anthropology in the Centre for Health and Society, Melbourne School of Population Health, University of Melbourne, Australia. His major publications include Benelong's Haven: Recovery from Alcohol and Drug Misuse within an Aboriginal Australian Residential Treamtent Centre (2007) and the co-edited The Social Determinants of Indigenous Health (2007).

Table of Contents

Introduction: Sleep Around the World: Anthropological Perspectives; Richard Chenhall and Katie Glaskin
1. Sleeping among the Asabano: Surprises in Intimacy and Sociality at the Margins of Consciousness; Roger Ivar Lohman
2. Embodied Meaning: Sleeping Arrangements in Central Australia; Yasmine Musharbash
3. Sensuous Connections in Sleep: Feelings of Security and Interdependency in Japanese Sleep Rituals; Diana Adis Tahhan
4. Envisioning Sleep in Contemporary Sleep Science; Lisa Carrie Goldberg
5. Infant Sleep and Waking: Mothers' Ideas and Practices in Two Italian Cultural Contexts; Monica Toselli, Angela Costabile, and M. Luisa Genta
6. Sleeping Safe: Perceptions of Risk and Value in Western and Pacific Infant Co-sleeping; Kalissa Alexeyeff
7. Maori Collective Sleeping as Cultural Resistance; Toon van Meijl
8. Navigating Inspiration, Intimacy, Conflict, and Sleep in a Pagan Community; Rachel Morgain
9. Sleep Deprivation and the Vision Quest of Native North America; Shayne A. P. Dahl
10. 'In Their Dream They Go': Sleep, Memory, and the Metaphysical; Katie Glaskin