Kinship and Food in South East Asia

Monica Janowski has long researched, published on and worked with the people of the Kelabit Highlands of northern Borneo. As an anthropologist, she has been particularly interested in issues concerning the environment, food and cosmology. At the same time, she has shown an ability to communicate research findings to a wider audience (including as co-producor of nine radio series with the BBC). However, perhaps her most lasting contribution will be her work with the Kelabit to preserve their cultural legacy and pass it on to future generations.

• Contributors 1. Introduction: Feeding the right food: the flow of life and the construction of kinship in Southeast Asia (Monica Janowski) 2. Reconstructing the Whole: Seven months pregnancy ritual in Kerek, East Java (Rens Heringa) 3. Food and the Family: Assimilation in a Malay village (Fiona Kerlogue) 4. Food, Fertility and Kinship in Minangkabau (Carol Davis) 5. Being 'Big', Being 'Good': Feeding, kinship, potency and status among the Kelabit of Sarawak (Monica Janowski) 6. Nurturance and the Spectre of Neglect: Sasak ways of dealing with the dead (Kari G. Telle) 7. Nurturing Memories: The cycle of mortuary meals in an East Indonesian village (Timo Kaartinen) 8. Constructing Bodies, Constructing Identities: Nurture and kinship ties in a Papuan society (Dianne van Oosterhout) 9. Rice Rituals, Kinship Identities and Ethnicity in Central Flores (Willemijn de Jong) 10. Rice for the Ancestors: Food offerings, kinship and merit among the Isan of Northeast Thailand (Stephen Sparkes) References Index

"This is a book that contains a treasure of ethnographic facts and detailed information for the reader interested in social and cultural systems in South East Asia... and conveys in-depth knowledge from scholars with long experience from the area. Quote from external reviewer"