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Author: Pierre Lemonnier
Publisher: U OF M MUSEUM ANTHRO ARCHAEOLOGY
Published: 1992-01-01
Total Pages: 142
ISBN-13: 0915703300
DOWNLOAD EBOOKRenowned anthropologist Pierre Lemonnier presents a refreshing new look at the anthropology of technology: one that will be of great interest to ethnologists and archaeologists alike.
Author: Michael B. Schiffer
Publisher: UNM Press
Published: 2001
Total Pages: 264
ISBN-13: 9780826323699
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThese fourteen original essays accept a dual premise: technology pervades and is embedded in all human activities. By taking that approach, studies of technology address two questions central in anthropological and archaeological research today-accounting for variability and change. These diverse yet interrelated chapters show that to understand human lives, researchers must deal with the material world that all peoples create and inhabit. Therefore an anthropology of technology is not a separate, discrete inquiry; instead, it is a way to connect how people make and use things to any activity studied, ranging from religion, to enculturation, to communication, to art. Each contributor discusses theories and methods and also offers a substantial case study. These detailed inquiries span human societies from the Paleolithic to the computer age. By moving beyond the usual approach of examining ancient technologies, particularly chipped stone and low-fired ceramics, this volume probes for the construction of meaning in the material world across millennia. The authors of these essays find technology to be an inclusive and flexible topic that merges with studies of everything else in human activity. "A provocative and powerful discussion of the role of technology in human cultures. At a time when archaeology has become less focused on theory, and archaeology and social anthropology seem to fracture farther and farther apart, the book is a breath of fresh air."--Professor John Douglas, University of Montana
Author: Maja Hojer Bruun
Publisher: Springer Nature
Published: 2022-03-23
Total Pages: 809
ISBN-13: 9811670846
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis Handbook offers an overview of the thriving and diverse field of anthropological studies of technology. It features 39 original chapters, each reviewing the state of the art of current research and enlivening the field of study through ethnographic analysis of human-technology interfaces, forms of social organisation, technological practices and/or systems of belief and meaning in different parts of the world. The Handbook is organised around some of the most important characteristics of anthropological studies of technology today: the diverse knowledge practices that technologies involve and on which they depend; the communities, collectives, and categories that emerge around technologies; anthropology’s contribution to proliferating debates on ethics, values, and morality in relation to technology; and infrastructures that highlight how all technologies are embedded in broader political economies and socio-historical processes that shape and often reinforce inequality and discrimination while also generating diversity. All chapters share a commitment to human experiences, embodiments, practices, and materialities in the daily lives of those people and institutions involved in the development, manufacturing, deployment, and/or use of particular technologies. Chapters 11 and 31 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
Author: Ernst Kapp
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Published: 2018-11-13
Total Pages: 416
ISBN-13: 1452958211
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe first philosophy of technology, constructing humans as technological and technology as an underpinning of all culture Ernst Kapp was a foundational scholar in the fields of media theory and philosophy of technology. His 1877 Elements of a Philosophy of Technology is a visionary study of the human body and its relationship with the world that surrounds it. At the book’s core is the concept of “organ projection”: the notion that humans use technology in an effort to project their organs to the outside, to be understood as “the soul apparently stepping out of the body in the form of a sending-out of mental qualities” into the world of artifacts. Kapp applies this theory of organ projection to various areas of the material world—the axe externalizes the arm, the lens the eye, the telegraphic system the neural network. From the first tools to acoustic instruments, from architecture to the steam engine and the mechanic routes of the railway, Kapp’s analysis shifts from “simple” tools to more complex network technologies to examine the projection of relations. What emerges from Kapp’s prophetic work is nothing less than the emergence of early elements of a cybernetic paradigm.
Author: Wendy James
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Published: 1998
Total Pages: 276
ISBN-13: 9781571817051
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPresents results of a September 1996 conference held at Oxford University, re-evaluating the importance of the writings and inspiration of Marcel Mauss, the nephew and younger colleague of Emile Durkheim. Explores not only the context of Mauss' work and his influence on other writers, but also the resonance of some of his key themes for the concerns of today's anthropology and sociology. Papers are arranged in sections on the scholar and his time, foundations of Maussian anthropology, critiques of exchange and power, and materiality, body, and history. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Author: Marcel Mauss
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Published: 2006-03
Total Pages: 192
ISBN-13: 1571816623
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"It seems that Mauss's fame has grown in inverse proportion to knowledge of his actual writings. It should therefore be a matter of celebration that his occasional writings on techniques and technology have been published in English...when we look more closely at what Mauss did and did not do, his iconic status may be somewhat tarnished. But his general example still has the power to inspire, and maybe that is what counts." - JRAI "The appearance of these two essays... in English for the first time attests to the continuing interest in Marcel Mauss and the fact that re-readings of his work still provide not only fertile ground for new interpretations of the Durkheimian school in general, but also a source of inspiration for scholars approaching Mauss as a remarkably contemporary voice still speaking in many ways to current issues in sociology and anthropology." - Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute Marcel Mauss's writings on techniques and technology are at the forefront of an important anthropological and sociological research tradition, and they also highlight the theoretical and ideological challenges surrounding this field of study. A selection of Mauss's texts - including his major statements on methodology, on body techniques, on practical reason, on nation and civilisation, on progress, and so forth - are here translated and presented together for the first time, with a discussion of their context, impact and implications. This book will interest scholars and students dealing with the French sociological tradition, and also more generally those concerned with technology and material culture studies in archaeological, anthropological or contemporary settings. Nathan Schlanger coordinates the AREA project (Archives of European Archaeology) at the INHA, Paris. He has published on prehistoric archaeology, on the technological contributions of Mauss and Leroi-Gourhan, and on the history of archaeology in colonial (African) contexts.
Author: Débora Lanzeni
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2022-12-30
Total Pages: 195
ISBN-13: 100018272X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book examines emerging automated technologies and systems and the increasingly prominent roles that each plays in our lives and our imagined futures. It asks how technological futures are being constituted and the roles anthropologists can play in their making; how anthropologists engage with emerging technologies within their fieldwork contexts in research which seeks to influence future design; how to create critical and interventional approaches to technology design and innovation; and how a critical anthropology of the way that emerging technologies are experienced in everyday life circumstances offers new insights for future-making practices. In pursuing these questions, this book responds to a call for new anthropologies that respond to the current and emerging technological environments in which we live, environments for which thinking critically about the possible, plausible, and impossible futures are no longer sufficient. Taking the next step, this book asserts that anthropology must now propose alternative ways, rooted in ethnography, to approach and engage with what is coming and to contest dominant narratives of industry, policy, and government, and to respond to our contemporary context through a public, vocal, and interventional approach.
Author: Emma Crewe
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2013
Total Pages: 269
ISBN-13: 1107005922
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAn exploration of anthropological perspectives on the cultures, moralities and politics of the world of aid and development.
Author: Ludovic Coupaye
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Published: 2013-08-01
Total Pages: 372
ISBN-13: 0857457349
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhat gives artefacts their power and beauty? This ethnographic study of the decorated long yams made by the Nyamikum Abelam in Papua New Guinea examines how these artefacts acquire their specific properties through processes that mobilise and recruit diverse entities, substances and domains. All come together to form the ‘finished product’ that is displayed, representing what could be an indigenous form of non-verbal ‘sociology’. Engaging with several contemporary anthropological topics (material culture, techniques, arts, aesthetics, rituals, botany, cosmology, Melanesian ethnography), the text also discusses in depth the complex position of the study of ‘technology’ within anthropology.
Author: Roberto J. González
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2020-08-10
Total Pages: 274
ISBN-13: 0520344200
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis is the true story of how, against all odds, a remote Mexican pueblo built its own autonomous cell phone network—without help from telecom companies or the government. Anthropologist Roberto J. González paints a vivid and nuanced picture of life in a Oaxaca mountain village and the collective tribulation, triumph, and tragedy the community experienced in pursuit of getting connected. In doing so, this book captures the challenges and contradictions facing Mexico's indigenous peoples today, as they struggle to wire themselves into the 21st century using mobile technologies, ingenuity, and sheer determination. It also holds a broader lesson about the great paradox of the digital age, by exploring how constant connection through virtual worlds can hinder our ability to communicate with those around us.
