What happens when North American Mennonite Christians arrive in Islamic Somalia? The answer, according to Peter Sensenig, is that something new emerges: a peace clan. From the first schools and medical work in the 1950s up to the educational partnerships of the present day, Somalis and Mennonites formed a surprising friendship that defied conventional labels. Peace Clan is the story of two deeply traditional communities as they encounter change. How can Somalis apply the profound peacemaking resources of their culture and faith in a society fragmented by violence? And how can modernizing Mennonites make sense of their peace convictions in the context of civil war and military intervention? In struggling with these questions over the course of six decades, Somalis and Mennonites held a mirror up to one another. The author shows how the common quest to transform enmity brings out the best in both communities, and suggests what a fruitful partnership might look like in the present challenges. Students, academics, and lay readers alike will find on these pages a compelling invitation to join the peace clan.

In a climate of in-migration, clan and tribal communities have been forced to build sustainable solutions together. Breaking fresh ground by shining a light on sustainability journeys from outside the global mainstream, this book demonstrates how sustainable development occurs in respectful collaboration between equals.

This book is a study of the role of clan networks in Central Asia from the early twentieth century through 2004. Exploring the social, economic, and historical roots of clans, and their political role and political transformation in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, it argues that clans are informal political actors that are critical to understanding politics in this region. The book demonstrates that the Soviet system was far less successful in transforming and controlling Central Asian society, and in its policy of eradicating clan identities, than has often been assumed. In order to understand Central Asian politics and their economies, scholars and policy makers must take into account the powerful role of these informal groups, how they adapt and change over time, and how they may constrain or undermine democratization in this strategic region.

Addresses the importance of Haudenosaunee women in the rebuilding of the Iroquois nation. Indigenous communities around the world are gathering to both reclaim and share their ancestral wisdom. Aware of and drawing from these social movements, A Clan Mother’s Call articulates Haudenosaunee women’s worldview that honors women, clanship, and the earth. Over successive generations, First Nation people around the globe have experienced and survived trauma and colonization. Extensive literature documents these assaults, but few record their resilience. This book fulfills an urgent and unmet need for First Nation women to share their historical and cultural memory as a people. It is a need invoked and proclaimed by Clan Mother, Iakoiane Wakerahkats:teh, of the Mohawk Nation. Utilizing ethnographic methods of participatory observation, interviewing and recording oral history, the book is an important and useful resource for capturing “living” histories. It strengthens the cultural bridge and understanding of the Haudenosaunee people within the United States and Canada.

The Alsatian Bieber/Beaver clan has contributed significantly to the creation and leadership of over sixty educational and Mainline Protestant institutions in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, the Midwest, and beyond - many of which continue to serve their communities, generation after generation. Past publications have mentioned individual Bieber/Beaver ministers and educators, but this is the first effort to compile their stories collectively, from the 1700’s to the present. This work recognizes such leaders’ roles in building and sustaining churches and schools, the community centers of early America. (Recipient of a 2022 Award of Excellence from the North Carolina Society of Historians)

Among the most socially and personally vocal archaeological remains on the North American continent are the massive and often complexly designed earthen architecture of Hopewellian peoples of two thousand years ago, their elaborately embellished works of art made of glistening metals and stones from faraway places, and their highly formalized mortuaries. In this book, twenty-one researchers in interwoven efforts immerse themselves and the reader in this vibrant archaeological record in order to richly reconstruct the societies, rituals, and ritual interactions of Hopewellian peoples. By finding the faces, actions, and motivations of Hopewellian peoples as individuals who constructed knowable social roles, the authors explore, in a personalized and locally contextualized manner, the details of Hopewellian life: leadership, its sacred and secular power bases, recruitment, and formalization over time; systems of social ranking and prestige; animal-totemic clan organization, kinship structures, and sodalities; gender roles, prestige, work load, and health; community organization in its tri-scalar residential, symbolic, and demographic forms; intercommunity alliances and changes in their strategies and expanses over time; and interregional travels for power questing, pilgrimage, healing, tutelage, and acquiring ritual knowledge. This book is useful to scholars, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates interested in the workings and development of social complexity at local and interregional scales, recent theoretical developments in the anthropology of the topics listed above, the prehistory of eastern North America, its history of intellectual development, and Native American ritual, symbolism, and belief.