On islands and in island communities, especially smaller more isolated ones, epidemics were often of greater intensity left significant consequences than on the mainland. The unique characteristics an (size, remoteness, isolation, small population size, several manageable access points) affect transmission mainland their frequency. current global COVID-19 pandemic is opportunity to investigate ...

The ongoing Ebola outbreak poses an alarming risk to the countries of West Africa and beyond. To assess the effectiveness of containment strategies, we developed a stochastic model of Ebola transmission between and within the general community, hospitals, and funerals, calibrated to incidence data from Liberia. We find that a combined approach of case isolation, contact-tracing with quarantine,...

In this article, I examine how Singaporean Chinese families and funeral professionals work together to ritually manage the meaning and consequences of a death by suicide. While the now dated literature on Chinese mortuary practice emphasizes the formality and rigidity of death rituals, during fieldwork I noted many moments of confusion within ritual, moments of innovation, when relatives broke ...

In addition to socio-economic factors, a whole spectrum of motivations for joining Islamic Fundamentalist groups has been documented in the literature. Individuals my join extremist groups to achieve specific political objectives such as sovereignty over disputed territory. Emotional incentives may also play an important role. Members of extremist groups often report on the glamour of being mem...

A hundred years ago, the Toraja people did not exist. "Toraja" was merely a derogatory term applied by the Bugis and Makassarese living in the lowlands of the southwest peninsula of Sulawesi (then called Celebes) to any of the many different peoples living in the mountainous regions of the peninsula and central Sulawesi. Today, Tana Toraja (Toraja Land) is an administrative district in the prov...