Author: Alexander Kingsbury Smith
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900444078X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 203
Book Description
In Divination in Exile, Alexander K. Smith offers the first comprehensive scholarly introduction to the performance of divination in Tibetan speaking communities, both past and present.
Divination in Exile
Author: Alexander Kingsbury Smith
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900444078X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 203
Book Description
In Divination in Exile, Alexander K. Smith offers the first comprehensive scholarly introduction to the performance of divination in Tibetan speaking communities, both past and present.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900444078X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 203
Book Description
In Divination in Exile, Alexander K. Smith offers the first comprehensive scholarly introduction to the performance of divination in Tibetan speaking communities, both past and present.
The Dalai Lama and the Emperor of China
Author: Peter Schwieger
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023153860X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 355
Book Description
A major new work in modern Tibetan history, this book follows the evolution of Tibetan Buddhism's trülku (reincarnation) tradition from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, along with the Emperor of China's efforts to control its development. By illuminating the political aspects of the trülku institution, Schwieger shapes a broader history of the relationship between the Dalai Lama and the Emperor of China, as well as a richer understanding of the Qing Dynasty as an Inner Asian empire, the modern fate of the Mongols, and current Sino-Tibetan relations. Unlike other pre-twentieth-century Tibetan histories, this volume rejects hagiographic texts in favor of diplomatic, legal, and social sources held in the private, monastic, and bureaucratic archives of old Tibet. This approach draws a unique portrait of Tibet's rule by reincarnation while shading in peripheral tensions in the Himalayas, eastern Tibet, and China. Its perspective fully captures the extent to which the emperors of China controlled the institution of the Dalai Lamas, making a groundbreaking contribution to the past and present history of East Asia.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023153860X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 355
Book Description
A major new work in modern Tibetan history, this book follows the evolution of Tibetan Buddhism's trülku (reincarnation) tradition from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, along with the Emperor of China's efforts to control its development. By illuminating the political aspects of the trülku institution, Schwieger shapes a broader history of the relationship between the Dalai Lama and the Emperor of China, as well as a richer understanding of the Qing Dynasty as an Inner Asian empire, the modern fate of the Mongols, and current Sino-Tibetan relations. Unlike other pre-twentieth-century Tibetan histories, this volume rejects hagiographic texts in favor of diplomatic, legal, and social sources held in the private, monastic, and bureaucratic archives of old Tibet. This approach draws a unique portrait of Tibet's rule by reincarnation while shading in peripheral tensions in the Himalayas, eastern Tibet, and China. Its perspective fully captures the extent to which the emperors of China controlled the institution of the Dalai Lamas, making a groundbreaking contribution to the past and present history of East Asia.
Kailas Histories
Author: Alex McKay
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004306188
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 550
Book Description
Tibet’s Mount Kailas is one of the world’s great pilgrimage centres, renowned as an ancient sacred site that embodies a universal sacrality. But Kailas Histories: Renunciate Traditions and the Construction of Himalayan Sacred Geography demonstrates that this understanding is a recent construction by British colonial, Hindu modernist, and New Age interests. Using multiple sources, including fieldwork, Alex McKay describes how the early Indic vision of a heavenly mountain named Kailas became identified with actual mountains. He emphasises renunciate agency in demonstrating how local beliefs were subsumed as Kailas developed within Hindu, Buddhist, and Bön traditions, how five mountains in the Indian Himalayan are also named Kailas, and how Kailas sacred geography constructions and a sacred Ganges source region were related.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004306188
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 550
Book Description
Tibet’s Mount Kailas is one of the world’s great pilgrimage centres, renowned as an ancient sacred site that embodies a universal sacrality. But Kailas Histories: Renunciate Traditions and the Construction of Himalayan Sacred Geography demonstrates that this understanding is a recent construction by British colonial, Hindu modernist, and New Age interests. Using multiple sources, including fieldwork, Alex McKay describes how the early Indic vision of a heavenly mountain named Kailas became identified with actual mountains. He emphasises renunciate agency in demonstrating how local beliefs were subsumed as Kailas developed within Hindu, Buddhist, and Bön traditions, how five mountains in the Indian Himalayan are also named Kailas, and how Kailas sacred geography constructions and a sacred Ganges source region were related.
Mind Seeing Mind
Author: Roger R. Jackson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1614296014
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 683
Book Description
A definitive study of one of the most important practices in Tibetan Buddhism, with translations of a number of its key texts. Mahamudra, the “great seal,” refers to the ultimate nature of mind and reality, to a meditative practice for realizing that ultimate reality, and to the final fruition of buddhahood. It is especially prominent in the Kagyü tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, so it sometimes comes as a surprise that mahamudra has played an important role in the Geluk school, where it is part of a special transmission received in a vision by the tradition’s founder, Tsongkhapa. Mahamudra is a significant component of Geluk ritual and meditative life, widely studied and taught by contemporary masters such as the Dalai Lama. Roger Jackson’s Mind Seeing Mind offers us both a definitive scholarly study of the history, texts, and doctrines of Geluk mahamudra and masterful translations of its seminal texts. It provides a skillful survey of the Indian sources of the teaching, illuminates the place of mahamudra among Tibetan Buddhist schools, and details the history and major textual sources of Geluk mahamudra. Jackson also addresses critical questions, such as the relation between Geluk and Kagyü mahamudra, and places mahamudra in the context of contemporary religious studies. The translation portion of Mind Seeing Mind includes ten texts on mahamudra history, ritual, and practice. Among these are the First Panchen Lama’s root verses and autocommentary on mahamudra meditation, his ritual masterpiece Offering to the Guru, and a selection of his songs of spiritual experience. Mind Seeing Mind adds considerably to our understanding of Tibetan Buddhist spirituality and shows how mahamudra came to be woven throughout the fabric of the Geluk tradition.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1614296014
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 683
Book Description
A definitive study of one of the most important practices in Tibetan Buddhism, with translations of a number of its key texts. Mahamudra, the “great seal,” refers to the ultimate nature of mind and reality, to a meditative practice for realizing that ultimate reality, and to the final fruition of buddhahood. It is especially prominent in the Kagyü tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, so it sometimes comes as a surprise that mahamudra has played an important role in the Geluk school, where it is part of a special transmission received in a vision by the tradition’s founder, Tsongkhapa. Mahamudra is a significant component of Geluk ritual and meditative life, widely studied and taught by contemporary masters such as the Dalai Lama. Roger Jackson’s Mind Seeing Mind offers us both a definitive scholarly study of the history, texts, and doctrines of Geluk mahamudra and masterful translations of its seminal texts. It provides a skillful survey of the Indian sources of the teaching, illuminates the place of mahamudra among Tibetan Buddhist schools, and details the history and major textual sources of Geluk mahamudra. Jackson also addresses critical questions, such as the relation between Geluk and Kagyü mahamudra, and places mahamudra in the context of contemporary religious studies. The translation portion of Mind Seeing Mind includes ten texts on mahamudra history, ritual, and practice. Among these are the First Panchen Lama’s root verses and autocommentary on mahamudra meditation, his ritual masterpiece Offering to the Guru, and a selection of his songs of spiritual experience. Mind Seeing Mind adds considerably to our understanding of Tibetan Buddhist spirituality and shows how mahamudra came to be woven throughout the fabric of the Geluk tradition.
Labrang Monastery
Author: Paul Kocot Nietupski
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739164457
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 307
Book Description
The Labrang Tibetan Buddhist Monastery in Amdo and its extended support community are one of the largest and most famous in Tibetan history. This crucially important and little-studied community is on the northeast corner of the Tibetan Plateau in modern Gansu Province, in close proximity to Chinese, Mongol, and Muslim communities. It is Tibetan but located in China; it was founded by Mongols, and associated with Muslims. Its wide-ranging Tibetan religious institutions are well established and serve as the foundations for the community's social and political infrastructures. The Labrang community's borderlands location, the prominence of its religious institutions, and the resilience and identity of its nomadic and semi-nomadic cultures were factors in the growth and survival of the monastery and its enormous estate. This book tells the story of the status and function of the Tibetan Buddhist religion in its fully developed monastic and public dimensions. It is an interdisciplinary project that examines the history of social and political conflict and compromise between the different local ethnic groups. The book presents new perspectives on Qing Dynasty and Republican-era Chinese politics, with far-reaching implications for contemporary China. It brings a new understanding of Sino-Tibetan-Mongol-Muslim histories and societies. This volume will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate student majors in Tibetan and Buddhist studies, in Chinese and Mongol studies, and to scholars of Asian social and political studies.
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739164457
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 307
Book Description
The Labrang Tibetan Buddhist Monastery in Amdo and its extended support community are one of the largest and most famous in Tibetan history. This crucially important and little-studied community is on the northeast corner of the Tibetan Plateau in modern Gansu Province, in close proximity to Chinese, Mongol, and Muslim communities. It is Tibetan but located in China; it was founded by Mongols, and associated with Muslims. Its wide-ranging Tibetan religious institutions are well established and serve as the foundations for the community's social and political infrastructures. The Labrang community's borderlands location, the prominence of its religious institutions, and the resilience and identity of its nomadic and semi-nomadic cultures were factors in the growth and survival of the monastery and its enormous estate. This book tells the story of the status and function of the Tibetan Buddhist religion in its fully developed monastic and public dimensions. It is an interdisciplinary project that examines the history of social and political conflict and compromise between the different local ethnic groups. The book presents new perspectives on Qing Dynasty and Republican-era Chinese politics, with far-reaching implications for contemporary China. It brings a new understanding of Sino-Tibetan-Mongol-Muslim histories and societies. This volume will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate student majors in Tibetan and Buddhist studies, in Chinese and Mongol studies, and to scholars of Asian social and political studies.
Love and Liberation
Author: Sarah H. Jacoby
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231519532
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 453
Book Description
Love and Liberation reads the autobiographical and biographical writings of one of the few Tibetan Buddhist women to record the story of her life. Sera Khandro Künzang Dekyong Chönyi Wangmo (also called Dewé Dorjé, 1892–1940) was extraordinary not only for achieving religious mastery as a Tibetan Buddhist visionary and guru to many lamas, monastics, and laity in the Golok region of eastern Tibet, but also for her candor. This book listens to Sera Khandro's conversations with land deities, dakinis, bodhisattvas, lamas, and fellow religious community members whose voices interweave with her own to narrate what is a story of both love between Sera Khandro and her guru, Drimé Özer, and spiritual liberation. Sarah H. Jacoby's analysis focuses on the status of the female body in Sera Khandro's texts, the virtue of celibacy versus the expediency of sexuality for religious purposes, and the difference between profane lust and sacred love between male and female tantric partners. Her findings add new dimensions to our understanding of Tibetan Buddhist consort practices, complicating standard scriptural presentations of male subject and female aide. Sera Khandro depicts herself and Drimé Özer as inseparable embodiments of insight and method that together form the Vajrayana Buddhist vision of complete buddhahood. By advancing this complementary sacred partnership, Sera Khandro carved a place for herself as a female virtuoso in the male-dominated sphere of early twentieth-century Tibetan religion.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231519532
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 453
Book Description
Love and Liberation reads the autobiographical and biographical writings of one of the few Tibetan Buddhist women to record the story of her life. Sera Khandro Künzang Dekyong Chönyi Wangmo (also called Dewé Dorjé, 1892–1940) was extraordinary not only for achieving religious mastery as a Tibetan Buddhist visionary and guru to many lamas, monastics, and laity in the Golok region of eastern Tibet, but also for her candor. This book listens to Sera Khandro's conversations with land deities, dakinis, bodhisattvas, lamas, and fellow religious community members whose voices interweave with her own to narrate what is a story of both love between Sera Khandro and her guru, Drimé Özer, and spiritual liberation. Sarah H. Jacoby's analysis focuses on the status of the female body in Sera Khandro's texts, the virtue of celibacy versus the expediency of sexuality for religious purposes, and the difference between profane lust and sacred love between male and female tantric partners. Her findings add new dimensions to our understanding of Tibetan Buddhist consort practices, complicating standard scriptural presentations of male subject and female aide. Sera Khandro depicts herself and Drimé Özer as inseparable embodiments of insight and method that together form the Vajrayana Buddhist vision of complete buddhahood. By advancing this complementary sacred partnership, Sera Khandro carved a place for herself as a female virtuoso in the male-dominated sphere of early twentieth-century Tibetan religion.
Art and Devotion at a Buddhist Temple in the Indian Himalaya
Author: Melissa R. Kerin
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253013097
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Book Description
A study of a set of sixteenth-century wall paintings at the Gyapagpa Temple in Nako, a village in India’s Himachal Pradesh state. Sixteenth-century wall paintings in a Buddhist temple in the Tibetan cultural zone of northwest India are the focus of this innovative and richly illustrated study. Initially shaped by one set of religious beliefs, the paintings have since been reinterpreted and retraced by a later Buddhist community, subsumed within its religious framework and communal memory. Melissa Kerin traces the devotional, political, and artistic histories that have influenced the paintings’ production and reception over the centuries of their use. Her interdisciplinary approach combines art historical methods with inscriptional translation, ethnographic documentation, and theoretical inquiry to understand religious images in context. “A meticulous and discerning piece of scholarship, one that is skillful in employing multiple methods—visual, linguistic and ethnographic—to create a fuller picture of a region we knew little about. . . . [A] pleasure to read.” —Pika Ghosh, author of Making Kantha, Making Home: Women at Work in Colonial Bengal “Emphasizing the visual as primary evidence in the study of history, especially religious history, Kerin moves Buddhist art from the arena of museum displays, art markets, and aesthetics to the arena of dynamic interdisciplinary discourse, thus reaffirming the significance of in situ study. . . . Recommended.” —Choice “A forceful study on the specificity of Gyapagpa’s painting.” —South Asia Research/DESC> Indian art;south asian art;religious art;buddhist art;Indian history;south asian history;tibetan buddhism;buddhism;religion;indian buddhists;temple art;nako;gyapagpa;social history;political history;painting style;painting tradition ART019020 ART / Asian / Indian & South Asian ART035000 ART / Subjects & Themes / Religious HIS062000 HISTORY / Asia / South / India * REL007050 RELIGION / Buddhism / Tibetan 9780253010032 Patterns of War—World War II Larry H. Addington
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253013097
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Book Description
A study of a set of sixteenth-century wall paintings at the Gyapagpa Temple in Nako, a village in India’s Himachal Pradesh state. Sixteenth-century wall paintings in a Buddhist temple in the Tibetan cultural zone of northwest India are the focus of this innovative and richly illustrated study. Initially shaped by one set of religious beliefs, the paintings have since been reinterpreted and retraced by a later Buddhist community, subsumed within its religious framework and communal memory. Melissa Kerin traces the devotional, political, and artistic histories that have influenced the paintings’ production and reception over the centuries of their use. Her interdisciplinary approach combines art historical methods with inscriptional translation, ethnographic documentation, and theoretical inquiry to understand religious images in context. “A meticulous and discerning piece of scholarship, one that is skillful in employing multiple methods—visual, linguistic and ethnographic—to create a fuller picture of a region we knew little about. . . . [A] pleasure to read.” —Pika Ghosh, author of Making Kantha, Making Home: Women at Work in Colonial Bengal “Emphasizing the visual as primary evidence in the study of history, especially religious history, Kerin moves Buddhist art from the arena of museum displays, art markets, and aesthetics to the arena of dynamic interdisciplinary discourse, thus reaffirming the significance of in situ study. . . . Recommended.” —Choice “A forceful study on the specificity of Gyapagpa’s painting.” —South Asia Research/DESC> Indian art;south asian art;religious art;buddhist art;Indian history;south asian history;tibetan buddhism;buddhism;religion;indian buddhists;temple art;nako;gyapagpa;social history;political history;painting style;painting tradition ART019020 ART / Asian / Indian & South Asian ART035000 ART / Subjects & Themes / Religious HIS062000 HISTORY / Asia / South / India * REL007050 RELIGION / Buddhism / Tibetan 9780253010032 Patterns of War—World War II Larry H. Addington
Long Lives and Untimely Deaths
Author: Barbara Gerke
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004217487
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
Longevity and long-life practices have been a pan-Tibetan concern for a very long time, but have hardly been studied by anthropologists. This book presents ethnographic accounts and textual material demonstrating how Tibetans in the Darjeeling Hills, India, view the life-span and map out certain life-forces in various areas of knowledge. These life-forces follow daily, monthly, and annual cycles. Divinations and astrological calculations are widely but varyingly used by Tibetans to assess the strength of life-forces and forecast difficult periods in their lives. Loss, exhaustion, or periodic weaknesses of life-forces are treated medically or through Tibetan Buddhist practices and rituals. In all these events, temporality and agency are deeply interlinked in the ways in which Tibetans enhance their vitality, prolong their life-spans, and avoid ‘untimely deaths.’
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004217487
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
Longevity and long-life practices have been a pan-Tibetan concern for a very long time, but have hardly been studied by anthropologists. This book presents ethnographic accounts and textual material demonstrating how Tibetans in the Darjeeling Hills, India, view the life-span and map out certain life-forces in various areas of knowledge. These life-forces follow daily, monthly, and annual cycles. Divinations and astrological calculations are widely but varyingly used by Tibetans to assess the strength of life-forces and forecast difficult periods in their lives. Loss, exhaustion, or periodic weaknesses of life-forces are treated medically or through Tibetan Buddhist practices and rituals. In all these events, temporality and agency are deeply interlinked in the ways in which Tibetans enhance their vitality, prolong their life-spans, and avoid ‘untimely deaths.’
Songs for Dead Parents
Author: Erik Mueggler
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022648100X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 347
Book Description
A community's rituals and practices surrounding death are one of its foremost ways of making sense of itself and its relationship to the passage of time. Historical time, in particular, with its attendant social and political shifts, is most directly experienced and reckoned with through those whom time leaves behind, the men and women whose lives come to form that community's past. In Songs for Dead Parents, distinguished anthropologist Erik Mueggler investigates death in a mountain community in Yunnan Province, which he studied over a period spanning two decades. Through evocative analyses of the community's rituals, exchanges, laments, and chants, Mueggler shows how their way of thinking and feeling the passage of time and the loss of life is rooted in the landscape surrounding them and the raw materials it provides. These materials give new substance to the dead, as they transform from body to effigy to stone to text in a cycle of degeneration and regeneration that gives shape to the ongoing life of the community. In the wake of the disappearance of the socialist rituals that once gave people narrative structures with which to understand historical change, death rituals have become ways of coming to terms with that socialist past as well as ways of moving forward from it and creating new forms of meaning. What emerges from Mueggler's book is a powerful analysis of a praxis and poetics of grief, one whose personal and historical dimensions are profoundly intertwined. Written in an accessible language for multiple audiences, Songs for Dead Parents will appeal to anthropologists, historians, scholars of modern China, and any reader interested in how a community grieves, mourns, and endures.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022648100X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 347
Book Description
A community's rituals and practices surrounding death are one of its foremost ways of making sense of itself and its relationship to the passage of time. Historical time, in particular, with its attendant social and political shifts, is most directly experienced and reckoned with through those whom time leaves behind, the men and women whose lives come to form that community's past. In Songs for Dead Parents, distinguished anthropologist Erik Mueggler investigates death in a mountain community in Yunnan Province, which he studied over a period spanning two decades. Through evocative analyses of the community's rituals, exchanges, laments, and chants, Mueggler shows how their way of thinking and feeling the passage of time and the loss of life is rooted in the landscape surrounding them and the raw materials it provides. These materials give new substance to the dead, as they transform from body to effigy to stone to text in a cycle of degeneration and regeneration that gives shape to the ongoing life of the community. In the wake of the disappearance of the socialist rituals that once gave people narrative structures with which to understand historical change, death rituals have become ways of coming to terms with that socialist past as well as ways of moving forward from it and creating new forms of meaning. What emerges from Mueggler's book is a powerful analysis of a praxis and poetics of grief, one whose personal and historical dimensions are profoundly intertwined. Written in an accessible language for multiple audiences, Songs for Dead Parents will appeal to anthropologists, historians, scholars of modern China, and any reader interested in how a community grieves, mourns, and endures.
Making Sense of Place
Author: Amanda Bingley
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 1843838990
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Book Description
Essays dealing with the question of how "sense of place" is constructed, in a variety of locations and media. The term "sense of place" is an important multidisciplinary concept, used to understand the complex processes through which individuals and groups define themselves and their relationship to their natural and cultural environments, and which over the last twenty years or so has been increasingly defined, theorized and used across diverse disciplines in different ways. Sense of place mediates our relationship with the world and with each other; it providesa profoundly important foundation for individual and community identity. It can be an intimate, deeply personal experience yet also something which we share with others. It is at once recognizable but never constant; rather it isembodied in the flux between familiarity and difference. Research in this area requires culturally and geographically nuanced analyses, approaches that are sensitive to difference and specificity, event and locale. The essayscollected here, drawn from a variety of disciplines (including but not limited to sociology, history, geography, outdoor education, museum and heritage studies, health, and English literature), offer an international perspectiveon the relationship between people and place, via five interlinked sections (Histories, Landscapes and Identities; Rural Sense of Place; Urban Sense of Place; Cultural Landscapes; Conservation, Biodiversity and Tourism). Ian Convery is Reader in Conservation and Forestry, National School of Forestry, University of Cumbria; Gerard Corsane is Senior Lecturer in Heritage, Museum and Galley Studies, International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies, Newcastle University; Peter Davis is Professor of Museology, International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies, Newcastle University. Contributors: Doreen Massey, Ian Convery, Gerard Corsane, Peter Davis, David Storey, Mark Haywood, Penny Bradshaw, Vincent O'Brien, Michael Woods, Jesse Heley, Carol Richards, Suzie Watkin, Lois Mansfield, Kenesh Djusipov, Tamara Kudaibergonova, Jennifer Rogers, Eunice Simmons, Andrew Weatherall, Amanda Bingley, Michael Clark, Rhiannon Mason, Chris Whitehead, Helen Graham, Christopher Hartworth, Joanne Hartworth, Ian Thompson, Paul Cammack, Philippe Dubé, Josie Baxter, Maggie Roe, Lyn Leader-Elliott, John Studley, Stephanie K.Hawke, D. Jared Bowers, Mark Toogood, Owen T. Nevin, Peter Swain, Rachel M. Dunk, Mary-Ann Smyth, Lisa J. Gibson, Stefaan Dondeyne, Randi Kaarhus, Gaia Allison, Ellie Lindsay, Andrew Ramsay
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 1843838990
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Book Description
Essays dealing with the question of how "sense of place" is constructed, in a variety of locations and media. The term "sense of place" is an important multidisciplinary concept, used to understand the complex processes through which individuals and groups define themselves and their relationship to their natural and cultural environments, and which over the last twenty years or so has been increasingly defined, theorized and used across diverse disciplines in different ways. Sense of place mediates our relationship with the world and with each other; it providesa profoundly important foundation for individual and community identity. It can be an intimate, deeply personal experience yet also something which we share with others. It is at once recognizable but never constant; rather it isembodied in the flux between familiarity and difference. Research in this area requires culturally and geographically nuanced analyses, approaches that are sensitive to difference and specificity, event and locale. The essayscollected here, drawn from a variety of disciplines (including but not limited to sociology, history, geography, outdoor education, museum and heritage studies, health, and English literature), offer an international perspectiveon the relationship between people and place, via five interlinked sections (Histories, Landscapes and Identities; Rural Sense of Place; Urban Sense of Place; Cultural Landscapes; Conservation, Biodiversity and Tourism). Ian Convery is Reader in Conservation and Forestry, National School of Forestry, University of Cumbria; Gerard Corsane is Senior Lecturer in Heritage, Museum and Galley Studies, International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies, Newcastle University; Peter Davis is Professor of Museology, International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies, Newcastle University. Contributors: Doreen Massey, Ian Convery, Gerard Corsane, Peter Davis, David Storey, Mark Haywood, Penny Bradshaw, Vincent O'Brien, Michael Woods, Jesse Heley, Carol Richards, Suzie Watkin, Lois Mansfield, Kenesh Djusipov, Tamara Kudaibergonova, Jennifer Rogers, Eunice Simmons, Andrew Weatherall, Amanda Bingley, Michael Clark, Rhiannon Mason, Chris Whitehead, Helen Graham, Christopher Hartworth, Joanne Hartworth, Ian Thompson, Paul Cammack, Philippe Dubé, Josie Baxter, Maggie Roe, Lyn Leader-Elliott, John Studley, Stephanie K.Hawke, D. Jared Bowers, Mark Toogood, Owen T. Nevin, Peter Swain, Rachel M. Dunk, Mary-Ann Smyth, Lisa J. Gibson, Stefaan Dondeyne, Randi Kaarhus, Gaia Allison, Ellie Lindsay, Andrew Ramsay