I argue that thinking about human cultures as similar to biological species is a productive way to investigate human cultural diversity. I apply theory and methods from evolutionary biology to tackle questions about the evolution of human political organisation and the diversity of ethnolinguistic groups. Phylogenetic comparative methods developed in biology have been applied to cultural systems. The use of such methods has been criticized because of the ability of cultural traits to be transmitted horizontally. I conducted simulations that revealed that under realistic scenarios horizontal transmission does not increase the chances of inferring false relationships between cultural traits in phylogenetic co-evolutionary analyses. Debates rage as to whether or not there have been regularities across cultures in the pattern and process of the evolution of human political organization. I used linguistic and ethnographic data from a sample of Austronesian-speaking societies and employed a phylogenetic comparative method to test different models of the evolution of political complexity. The data support the hypothesis that societies pass through stages of political organization in a particular order in the direction of increasing complexity. Decreases in complexity are also possible but may not follow a regular sequence. There is no evidence that the increase in political complexity over time in Austronesian societies is the result of a driving force. I also used phylogenetic comparative methods to investigate the coevolution of intensive agriculture and political organization. I found that in Austronesian societies changes to complex chiefdoms and states are less likely unless agriculture has first been intensified. As with biological species there is a latitudinal gradient in the diversity human ethnolinguistic groups. I constructed a database that integrates language, ethnographic, and environmental data to test various hypotheses concerning the present day distribution of ethnolinguistic groups. Political complexity was found to be an important predictor of the area a language covers.

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Taking the Anyang Yinxu archaeological site, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in China, as a case study, this doctoral thesis project aims to explore the significance of ‘heritage’ in contemporary China. The research investigates how different interest bodies at various scales – UNESCO, the state, municipality, archaeologists, local inhabitants – project idealized images of what Yinxu “should” be; the tensions between these disparate social agents regarding place making form the core concern of my research. Could cultural memory and nationalism be maintained, intensified or transformed through museological practices / heritage-making? How do different social relationships situate the ideas of cultural heritage per se from their own perspectives? From September 2009 to October 2010, I was based at Anyang Yinxu Archaeological Field Station, where I documented the various processes involved in the staging of Yinxu Archaeological Park. I paid special attention to the methods employed and dilemmas encountered in the processes of conservation and presentation. In this thesis, firstly, I trace the history of Chinese approaches to heritage conservation, and will discuss the current phenomenon of the heritage boom in modern China, which forms a heritage-complex industry. Secondly, I describe and analyze the process of place-making at various scales, as well as the social impact of state-imposed projects of heritage branding and local memory of place at Anyang Yinxu. Lastly, I discuss the competing sources of memory, identity and locality at various scales that reveal themselves in the process of heritage-making in post-Mao China. The socio-political, economic and academic usages or consumption of Yinxu World Heritage Site are addressed in the thesis. The focus is thus on cultural heritage issues surrounding Yinxu archaeological site, and includes other current cultural heritage issues in China within its scope.

This thesis examines two central research questions: Can ‘race’ as both a historical and contemporary concept be dispensed with when it is perceived as socially real and has significant material consequences? And, can ‘race’ ever be justified as an acceptable category and concept if it (re)produces ‘natural’ and hierarchical differences which function to both explain and validate racism? Important historically and presently as seemingly every aspect of social and political relations has become deeply inflected by a racial dimension, these questions frame a problematic I refer to as postracialism. Methodologically a work of historical sociology this thesis draws significantly on original archival research and qualitative interview data in its critical analysis of the ongoing controversy surrounding the scientific, political and ethical status of ‘race’ through an exploration of the social, political and institutional histories of postracialisms. My project significantly expands contemporary postracial discussions which remain largely library based by examining unpublished archival material and qualitative interview data alongside ongoing literature and debates. This original data enables the thesis to open up a mutually beneficial dialogue between antiracist theory and antiracist practice, to assess the possibility of a postracial antiracism and to engage in critical reflection on the relation between activist and intellectual work. Ultimately, this thesis assesses whether race is a necessary, contingent, or dispensable category through an examination of the scientific, political and ethical stakes of getting rid of the category.

Conservation of biodiversity throughout the world is often characterized by the establishment of protected areas. The implementation of this approach is extremely challenging particularly in developing countries due to expanding human population and demand for resources. Yet, information that is needed to guide managers and policy makers to develop effective conservation strategies is scarce in most of these countries. This thesis aimed to explore the impact of human activities on carnivore biodiversity inside and outside Tarangire National Park in Tanzania using camera traps, and to assess attitudes of agropastoralists towards carnivores using interviews. Results showed no significant difference in carnivore species richness between the park and communal grazing areas outside the park, but was a significantly different between the park and cultivated areas outside it. Non-carnivore species richness was significantly higher outside the park in grazing areas than either within the park or in cultivated areas. However, relative abundance of both carnivores and non-carnivores were both significantly higher in the park than in either grazing areas or cultivated areas outside the park. These variations in species richness and relative abundances are apparently due to differences in the intensity and extent of human use between these areas. Estimation of species absolute abundances targeted individually identifiable species in the park only. Results showed that density of animals per 100 km2 was: leopard (7.9 ± 2.09), serval (10.9 ± 3.17), and aardwolf (9.0 ± 2.54). No estimates were obtained for spotted hyaena and common genet due to a lack of recaptures, while variation in trail density, prey availability, and camera spacing appear to influence species capture. Attitudinal surveys revealed a low level of wildlife-related benefits and reported levels of conflict were generally high despite low levels of livestock depredation, suggesting other factors such as demand for land might be important in the reported conflict.

This thesis explores the question of how Romani social life proceeds in a small town in the Czech Republic. It pays particular attention to the ways in which ethnicity becomes salient during interactions between Roma and Czechs. The ethnography is based upon an extended narrative engagement with two Romani women. In their narratives, a chronicle of their past, present and future lives is presented. Despite the fact that my interlocutors are dissimilar in age, level of personal autonomy and financial security, within their narratives is the expression of a local Romani narrative about ethnic relations, love, friendship and family. It is firmly situated within academic- and media-based discussions about the post-communist ‘experience’ of Czech Roma and their widely shared communist past. This thesis therefore takes into consideration the ways in which Romani individuals make sense of their social worlds through their creation of narratives. In Skála, idealized Romani sociality is composed of various threads: the authenticity of one’s moral agency, the maintenance of a cohesive family unit, a sense of cooperation and harmony with Romani non-kin, dedication to the perpetuation of a collective Romani mentality standing apart from the Czech population, and a symbiotic existence with Czechs based upon daily interaction. Throughout my interlocutors’ narratives, these components of social life are cognitively assigned to the communist era rather than the present-day. Within these women’s narratives, there is evidence of the primacy of the family as both a functional and a conceptual entity of Romani social life past and present. Today, the investment of material resources and emotional energy into one’s children is seen as the most viable means by which one may enact their personal agency as mothers within the private sphere.

This thesis analyses the social mechanisms of cooperation and trust versus competition and mistrust starting from the representations of morality in social relationships in a Romanian village. I argue that people in Sateni make a moral distinction between two social spheres. Social relationships within a private sphere of consociates are defined by moral commitments to mutuality and shared interests. Social intercourse outside this personal sphere follows an ethic of competitive individualism and personal liability. I argue that this model of a folk theory of the social is an analytical tool which can help us explore the dynamics of kinship, political and economic practices and public performances of the self. The contractual nature of social relationships is explored in cultural representations and practices of ―making kin‖, ―holding on to kin‖ and transforming friendship into ritual kinship. I argue that participation in or rejection of social relationships involves an explicit intentionality which creates or breaks moral contracts of axiomatic amity. Against the background of structural tensions and opportunities concerning social resources, moral ties are created and erased from memory and from social practices.The symbolic unity of consociates and respectively opposition to ―others‖are performed and reproduced from the inner space of the household to the public sphere of the cemetery, from conspicuous sociality to secrecy and mistrust. I analyse the performative nature of action and communication in funeral rituals and tavern interactions as ethnographic windows of studying the interplay of moral contracts and individualist responsibility. A study of electoral rivalry and the ―privatisation‖ of local governance reveals a structure of political power that sanctions use of public resources by officials, while dissent is restrained by opportunism and lack of collective interests. Finally, I explore a master-builder‘s achievements and difficulties in reshaping the social division of labour. I argue that moral contracts insure trust and alleviate uncertainty during the social and material construction of houses. The thesis concludes with a critique of gift-commodity oppositions, and speculatively suggests, building upon the ethnographic material, that a reappraisal of Durkheim‘s perspective on social order and morality, drawing on the neo-Hobbesian theories of the social contract, would be productive.

This thesis is concerned with the moment relationships between persons and things become problematic and with the reasons for and the effects of such a development. More specifically, it looks ethnographically at how disorder and extreme accumulations of things are understood in the context of contemporary urban Japan. 'Extreme accumulation' refers to an amassing of things that is perceived by a majority as being of little or no value to a degree that by the same majority is considered 'excessive'. Broadly speaking, the hypothesis is that what is in the process of being codified in America as a mental disorder called 'compulsive hoarding', is materialized in Japan in two different forms depending on the context they occur in: the phenomenon called gomiyashiki (literally 'rubbish houses') and katazukerarenai onna (literally 'women who cannot tidy up'). The reason for such a bifurcation lies in the way 'social pathologies' are understood in Japan as the failing of social networks in which persons and things are embedded in the former case, and as gendered deviance from standard biographical life courses in the latter. What is shared transpacifically, however, is the erasure of materiality: in all cases matter is merely a symptom of something different, either mental or social. Informed by actor-network theory, the ethnographic approach developed here aims to redress this lack of theorizing materiality and to provide a more nuanced account of 'doing things' and of 'what things do' in the case of material, mental and cosmological disorder. Understanding the role that the mundane things of mass consumption play in the creation and maintenance of different scales of order necessitates a rethinking of often taken for granted notions in material culture such as 'memory', 'meaning' and 'order' itself.