Comparison in Anthropology

Comparison in Anthropology

Author: Matei Candea

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 407

ISBN-13: 1108474608

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Presents a systematic rethinking of the power and limits of comparison in anthropology.


Designs for an Anthropology of the Contemporary

Designs for an Anthropology of the Contemporary

Author: Paul Rabinow

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2008-11-10

Total Pages: 150

ISBN-13: 082239006X

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In this compact volume two of anthropology’s most influential theorists, Paul Rabinow and George E. Marcus, engage in a series of conversations about the past, present, and future of anthropological knowledge, pedagogy, and practice. James D. Faubion joins in several exchanges to facilitate and elaborate the dialogue, and Tobias Rees moderates the discussions and contributes an introduction and an afterword to the volume. Most of the conversations are focused on contemporary challenges to how anthropology understands its subject and how ethnographic research projects are designed and carried out. Rabinow and Marcus reflect on what remains distinctly anthropological about the study of contemporary events and processes, and they contemplate productive new directions for the field. The two converge in Marcus’s emphasis on the need to redesign pedagogical practices for training anthropological researchers and in Rabinow’s proposal of collaborative initiatives in which ethnographic research designs could be analyzed, experimented with, and transformed. Both Rabinow and Marcus participated in the milestone collection Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Published in 1986, Writing Culture catalyzed a reassessment of how ethnographers encountered, studied, and wrote about their subjects. In the opening conversations of Designs for an Anthropology of the Contemporary, Rabinow and Marcus take stock of anthropology’s recent past by discussing the intellectual scene in which Writing Culture intervened, the book’s contributions, and its conceptual limitations. Considering how the field has developed since the publication of that volume, they address topics including ethnography’s self-reflexive turn, scholars’ increased focus on questions of identity, the Public Culture project, science and technology studies, and the changing interests and goals of students. Designs for an Anthropology of the Contemporary allows readers to eavesdrop on lively conversations between anthropologists who have helped to shape their field’s recent past and are deeply invested in its future.


The Challenge of Human Diversity

The Challenge of Human Diversity

Author: DeWight R. Middleton

Publisher: Waveland Press

Published: 2010-04-28

Total Pages: 133

ISBN-13: 1478609699

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Middletons fair, uncluttered synthesis of a wide-ranging topic continues to offer inspiration for thinking about what it means to be different fromand similar toOthers. Brief ethnographic excerpts are interwoven to demonstrate the hold that culture has on us. Such firsthand experiences, reported by anthropologists, reveal the challenging and sometimes humorous situations that can arise when we attempt to understand Othersand when they do the same with us. Heralded by Anthropology Today: Middleton, by making the sensory and intellectual challenge of culture shock so central to his pedagogic strategy, has found common ground that should unite all schools of cultural anthropology. The work brims with valuable insights that broaden possibilities to achieve rewarding human interaction, whether in our own neighborhood or across the globe. Arguably one of the best contemporary treatments of cultural diversity available, the latest edition includes expanded discussions of applied anthropology and ethics.


Engaged Anthropology

Engaged Anthropology

Author: Stuart Kirsch

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2018-03-30

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0520297946

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Does anthropology have more to offer than just its texts? In this timely and remarkable book, Stuart Kirsch shows how anthropology can—and why it should—become more engaged with the problems of the world. Engaged Anthropology draws on the author’s experiences working with indigenous peoples fighting for their environment, land rights, and political sovereignty. Including both short interventions and collaborations spanning decades, it recounts interactions with lawyers and courts, nongovernmental organizations, scientific experts, and transnational corporations. This unflinchingly honest account addresses the unexamined “backstage” of engaged anthropology. Coming at a time when some question the viability of the discipline, the message of this powerful and original work is especially welcome, as it not only promotes a new way of doing anthropology, but also compellingly articulates a new rationale for why anthropology matters.


In Defense of Anthropology

In Defense of Anthropology

Author: Herbert S. Lewis

Publisher: Transaction Publishers

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 1412852897

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This book argues that the history and character of modern anthropology has been egregiously distorted to the detriment of this intellectual pursuit and academic discipline. The "critique of anthropology" is a product of the momentous and tormented events of the 1960s when students and some of their elders cried, "Trust no one over thirty!" The Marxist, postmodern, and postcolonial waves that followed took aim at anthropology and the result has been a serious loss of confidence; both the reputation and the practice of anthropology has suffered greatly. The time has come to move past this damaging discourse. Herbert S. Lewis chronicles these developments, and subjects the "critique" to a long overdue interrogation based on wide-ranging knowledge of the field and its history, as well as the application of common sense. The book questions discourses about anthropology and colonialism, anthropologists and history, the problem of "exoticizing 'the Other,'" anthropologists and the Cold War, and more. Written by a master of the profession, In Defense of Anthropology will require consideration by all anthropologists, historians, sociologists of science, and cultural theorists.


Anthropology

Anthropology

Author: William A. Haviland

Publisher:

Published: 2010-05-26

Total Pages: 720

ISBN-13: 9780840032416

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Explore the most fascinating, creative, dangerous, and complex species alive today: you and your neighbors in the global village. With compelling photos, engaging examples, and select studies by anthropologists in far-flung places, the authors of ANTHROPOLOGY: The Human Challenge, International Edition provide a holistic view of anthropology to help you make sense of today's world. With this text you will discover the different ways humans face the challenge of existence, the connection between biology and culture in the shaping of human behavior, and the impact of globalization on peoples and cultures around the world.


Fieldwork Is Not What It Used to Be

Fieldwork Is Not What It Used to Be

Author: James D. Faubion

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2011-10-15

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 0801463580

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Over the past two decades anthropologists have been challenged to rethink the nature of ethnographic research, the meaning of fieldwork, and the role of ethnographers. Ethnographic fieldwork has cultural, social, and political ramifications that have been much discussed and acted upon, but the training of ethnographers still follows a very traditional pattern; this volume engages and takes its point of departure in the experiences of ethnographers-in-the-making that encourage alternative models for professional training in fieldwork and its intellectual contexts. The work done by contributors to Fieldwork Is Not What It Used to Be articulates, at the strategic point of career-making research, features of this transformation in progress. Setting aside traditional anxieties about ethnographic authority, the authors revisit fieldwork with fresh initiative. In search of better understandings of the contemporary research process itself, they assess the current terms of the engagement of fieldworkers with their subjects, address the constructive, open-ended forms by which the conclusions of fieldwork might take shape, and offer an accurate and useful description of what it means to become—and to be—an anthropologist today.


Looking Like a Language, Sounding Like a Race

Looking Like a Language, Sounding Like a Race

Author: Jonathan Rosa

Publisher: Oxf Studies in Anthropology of

Published: 2019-01-15

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 0190634723

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Looking like a Language, Sounding like a Race examines the emergence of linguistic and ethnoracial categories in the context of Latinidad. The book draws from more than twenty-four months of ethnographic and sociolinguistic fieldwork in a Chicago public school, whose student body is more than 90% Mexican and Puerto Rican, to analyze the racialization of language and its relationship to issues of power and national identity. It focuses specifically on youth socialization to U.S. Latinidad as a contemporary site of political anxiety, raciolinguistic transformation, and urban inequity. Jonathan Rosa's account studies the fashioning of Latinidad in Chicago's highly segregated Near Northwest Side; he links public discourse concerning the rising prominence of U.S. Latinidad to the institutional management and experience of raciolinguistic identities there. Anxieties surrounding Latinx identities push administrators to transform "at risk" Mexican and Puerto Rican students into "young Latino professionals." This institutional effort, which requires students to learn to be and, importantly, sound like themselves in highly studied ways, reveals administrators' attempts to navigate a precarious urban terrain in a city grappling with some of the nation's highest youth homicide, dropout, and teen pregnancy rates. Rosa explores the ingenuity of his research participants' responses to these forms of marginalization through the contestation of political, ethnoracial, and linguistic borders.


The Anthropology of Africa: Challenges for the 21st Century

The Anthropology of Africa: Challenges for the 21st Century

Author: Nkwi, Paul Nchoji

Publisher: Langaa RPCIG

Published: 2015-02-03

Total Pages: 656

ISBN-13: 9956792799

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In 1999 (August 30 - September 2) the Pan African Anthropological Association (PAAA) marked the 10th anniversary of its creation by holding its 9th Annual Conference in Yaounde, Cameroon - the city and country of its birth. The conference, themed "The Anthropology of Africa: Challenges for the 21st Century", was attended by some seventy participants, mostly African. Among the international participants was Dr Sydel Silverman, President of the Wenner Gren Foundation at the time - a long term partner of the PAAA; she was present at the inaugural conference in 1988. The conference proceedings were initially published in 2000 with very limited circulation. Given the continued relevance of the papers presented, and in view of the call by the President of the PAAA for African anthropologists to reunite anthropological theory and practice in the teaching programmes of African universities, the PAAA is pleased to republish the proceedings of its landmark 9th Annual Conference. The book consists of forty three divided into eight parts, namely: i) teaching anthropology in the decades ahead; ii) Health Challenges: HIV/AIDS Anthropological Perspectives; iii) NGOS: Use and Misuse of Anthropology; iv) Anthropological Focus on Environment; v) Some Applied Issues in Anthropology; vi) The African Family in Crisis; vii) Ethnicity and Ethnic Conflicts; and viii) Population issues and anthropology: Fertility Crisis. Paul Nkwi concludes his introduction to the volume with these words: "The Anthropology of Africa will remain for a long time, fundamentally applied if it is to meet the challenges of the 21st Century."