An Amish Paradox

Diversity & Change in the World's Largest Amish Community
Erscheinungsjahr 2010
ISBN: 978-0-8018-9399-5
Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press

Buch, Englisch, 376 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 613 g

Reihe: Young Center Books in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies

Winner, 2011 Dale Brown Book Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies. Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College

Holmes County, Ohio, is home to the largest and most diverse Amish community in the world. Yet, surprisingly, it remains relatively unknown compared to its famous cousin in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Charles E. Hurst and David L. McConnell conducted seven years of fieldwork, including interviews with over 200 residents, to understand the dynamism that drives social change and schism within the settlement, where Amish enterprises and nonfarming employment have prospered. The authors contend that the Holmes County Amish are experiencing an unprecedented and complex process of change as their increasing entanglement with the non-Amish market causes them to rethink their religious convictions, family practices, educational choices, occupational shifts, and health care options.

The authors challenge the popular image of the Amish as a homogeneous, static, insulated society, showing how the Amish balance tensions between individual needs and community values. They find that self-made millionaires work alongside struggling dairy farmers; successful female entrepreneurs live next door to stay-at-home mothers; and teenagers both embrace and reject the coming-of-age ritual, rumspringa.

An Amish Paradox captures the complexity and creativity of the Holmes County Amish, dispelling the image of the Amish as a vestige of a bygone era and showing how they reinterpret tradition as modernity encroaches on their distinct way of life.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hurst, Charles E

Mcconnell, David L

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Religionssoziologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Christliche Kirchen, Konfessionen, Denominationen Protestantismus, evangelische und protestantische Kirchen
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Christliche Kirchen, Konfessionen, Denominationen Andere und Moderne Christliche Glaubensgemeinschaften

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Figures, Maps, and Tables
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Discovering the Holmes County Amish
2. The Origins of Religious Diversity
3. Coping with Church Schism
4. Continuity and Change in Family Life
5. The Changing Landscape of Learning
6. Work Within and Outside Tradition
7. Health along the Life Cycle
8. Stepping Back and Looking Forward
Appendixes
A. Methodology
B. Ohio Amish Settlements, 2008
C. Holmes County Settlement Amish Church Schisms, 1900–2001
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Hurst, Charles E
Charles E. Hurst is emeritus professor of sociology at The College of Wooster and author of Social Inequality: Forms, Causes, and Consequences and Living Theory: The Application of Classical Social Theory to Contemporary Life.

Mcconnell, David L
David L. McConnell is a professor of anthropology at the College of Wooster. He is a coauthor of An Amish Paradox: Diversity and Change in the World's Largest Amish Community.

Charles E. Hurst is emeritus professor of sociology at The College of Wooster and author of Social Inequality: Forms, Causes, and Consequences and Living Theory: The Application of Classical Social Theory to Contemporary Life. David L. McConnell is a professor of anthropology at The College of Wooster, coeditor of Soft Power Superpowers: Cultural and National Assets of Japan and the United States, and author of Importing Diversity: Inside Japan’s JET Program.