Laurel Kendall's Research
Shamans, Nostalgias, and the IMF (Unviersity of Hawaii Press, 2009) describes how shamans and their clients have absorbed changes in South Korean life over the last thirty-odd years and how they continue to make sense of the ground that moves beneath their feet.
Anthropological studies of sacred objects have typically concerned their production and use in pre-industrial settings; indeed the age of mechanical reproduction is often counter-posed to belief in the magical power of things. Current research in the market economies of East and Southeast Asia forces a qualification.
In 1903, Berthold Laufer wrote from Xi'an, China to his mentor, Franz Boas at AMNH: "I shall conquer China . . . [for] the anthropologist. China, no longer the exclusive domain of travelers and sinologues, both narrow-minded and one-sided in their standpoints and researches, China to all who have anthropological interests."