Letter from the editor

Abstract

The current volume opens with an article by Esteban Ferrero Botero in which he critiques and explores kinship analysis in a broader context. Botero uses the Columbian concept of “familia” as an example to identify and explain the greater boundaries of relatedness. David Hecht follows with a paper on spiritual agency based on studies of the Dai Theravada Buddhism. Kathryn Cross addresses questions concerning hunter-gatherer mobility and social patterns based on Middle Archaic and Early Woodland settlement patterns in the Central Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Eileen Sleesman engages in a study of a Turkish community in Munich to address, in part, dynamics of identity and social/cultural change. Next, Claire Brown presents a paper on the role of communication in the social bonding between humans and animals. Finally, an article by Megan Keaveney article about HIV/AIDS in South Africa, addresses the role of political policy and subsequent change has played in the spread disease and in the accessibility to treatment. The 13th annual Lambda Alpha Student symposium represents yet another day-long event of undergraduate and graduate student research presentations including sixteen podium paper presentations in archaeological, biological and cultural anthropology.