Social Experience and Anthropological Knowledge

Social Experience and Anthropological Knowledge PDF Author: Kirsten Hastrup
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134843895
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Anthropology poses an explicit challenge to standard notions of scientific knowledge. It claims to produce genuine insights into the workings of culture in general on the basis of individual social experience in the field. Social Experience and Anthropological Knowledge traces the process from the ethnographic experience to the analytical results, showing how fieldwork enables the ethnographer to arrive at an understanding, not only of `culture' and `society', but also of the processes by which cultures and societies are transformed. The contributors challenge the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity, redefine what we should mean by `empirical' and demonstrate the complexity of present-day epistemological problems through concrete examples. By demystifying subjectivity in the ethnographic process and re-emphasizing the vital position of fieldwork, they do much to renew confidence in the anthropological project of comprehending the world.

Social Experience and Anthropological Knowledge

Social Experience and Anthropological Knowledge PDF Author: Kirsten Hastrup
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134843895
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Get Book Here

Book Description
Anthropology poses an explicit challenge to standard notions of scientific knowledge. It claims to produce genuine insights into the workings of culture in general on the basis of individual social experience in the field. Social Experience and Anthropological Knowledge traces the process from the ethnographic experience to the analytical results, showing how fieldwork enables the ethnographer to arrive at an understanding, not only of `culture' and `society', but also of the processes by which cultures and societies are transformed. The contributors challenge the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity, redefine what we should mean by `empirical' and demonstrate the complexity of present-day epistemological problems through concrete examples. By demystifying subjectivity in the ethnographic process and re-emphasizing the vital position of fieldwork, they do much to renew confidence in the anthropological project of comprehending the world.

Social Experience and Anthropological Knowledge

Social Experience and Anthropological Knowledge PDF Author: Kirsten Hastrup
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134843887
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
Anthropology poses an explicit challenge to standard notions of scientific knowledge. It claims to produce genuine insights into the workings of culture in general on the basis of individual social experience in the field. Social Experience and Anthropological Knowledge traces the process from the ethnographic experience to the analytical results, showing how fieldwork enables the ethnographer to arrive at an understanding, not only of `culture' and `society', but also of the processes by which cultures and societies are transformed. The contributors challenge the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity, redefine what we should mean by `empirical' and demonstrate the complexity of present-day epistemological problems through concrete examples. By demystifying subjectivity in the ethnographic process and re-emphasizing the vital position of fieldwork, they do much to renew confidence in the anthropological project of comprehending the world.

Sex

Sex PDF Author: Richard Joseph Martin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000184285
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
Focusing on the unacknowledged, personal and often unconscious dimension, Sex explores the intersection between sex and ethnography. Anthropological writing tends to focus on the influence of status markers such as position, gender, ethnicity, and age on fieldwork. By contrast, far less attention has been paid to how sex, sexuality, eroticism, desire, attraction, and rejection affect ethnographic research. In the book, anthropologists reflect on their own encounters with sex during fieldwork, revealing how attraction and desire influence the choice of fieldwork subjects, field sites and friendships. They also examine the resulting impact on fieldwork findings and the generation of knowledge. Based on fieldwork in Germany, Denmark, Greece, the USA, Brazil, South Africa, Singapore, Turkey, Israel, Morocco, and India, the contributors go beyond the common heterosexuality/homosexuality divide to address topics which include celibacy, polyamory and sadomasochism. This long overdue text provides perspectives from a new generation of anthropologists and brings the debate into the 21st century. Examining challenging and controversial issues in contemporary fieldwork, this is essential reading for students in anthropology, gender and sexuality studies, sociology, research methods, and ethics courses.

Violence

Violence PDF Author: Parvis Ghassem-Fachandi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000184684
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
Violence takes many forms. From large-scale acts of terrorism to assaults on single individuals, violence is a defining force in shaping human experience and a central theme in anthropological study. Violence: Ethnographic Encounters presents a set of vivid first-hand accounts of fieldwork experiences of violence. The examples range across Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, and illustrate instances of state terror, insurgency, communal violence, war, prison violence, class conflict, security measures, and sexual violence. How do these anthropologists come to know a place through such violent experience? Why do they not leave such scenes? What insights follow from such experience? Violence: Ethnographic Encounters offers readers a broad anthropological study of violence through personal encounters.

Food

Food PDF Author: Leo Coleman
Publisher: Berg
ISBN: 1847889093
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
Food preparation, consumption, and exchange are eminently social practices, and experiencing another cuisine often provides our first encounter with a different culture. This volume presents fascinating essays about cooking, eating, and sharing food, by anthropologists working in many parts of the world, exploring what they learned by eating with others. These are accounts of specific experiences - of cooking in Mombasa, shopping for organic produce in Vienna, eating vegetarian in Vietnam, raising and selling chickens in Hong Kong, and of refugees subsisting on food aid. With a special focus on the experience and challenge of ethnographic fieldwork, the essays cover a wide range of topics in food studies and anthropology, including food safety and food security, cultural diversity and globalization, colonial histories and contemporary identities, and changing ecological, social, and political relations across cultures. Food: Ethnographic Encounters offers readers a broad view of the vibrancy of local and global food cultures, and provides an accessible introduction to both food studies and contemporary ethnography.

Encounters of Body and Soul in Contemporary Religious Practices

Encounters of Body and Soul in Contemporary Religious Practices PDF Author: Anna Fedele
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 0857452088
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Social scientists and philosophers confronted with religious phenomena have always been challenged to find a proper way to describe the spiritual experiences of the social group they were studying. The influence of the Cartesian dualism of body and mind (or soul) led to a distinction between non-material, spiritual experiences (i.e., related to the soul) and physical, mechanical experiences (i.e., related to the body). However, recent developments in medical science on the one hand and challenges to universalist conceptions of belief and spirituality on the other have resulted in “body” and “soul” losing the reassuring solid contours they had in the past. Yet, in “Western culture,” the body–soul duality is alive, not least in academic and media discourses. This volume pursues the ongoing debates and discusses the importance of the body and how it is perceived in contemporary religious faith: what happens when “body” and “soul” are un-separated entities? Is it possible, even for anthropologists and ethnographers, to escape from “natural dualism”? The contributors here present research in novel empirical contexts, the benefits and limits of the old dichotomy are discussed, and new theoretical strategies proposed.

The Future of Visual Anthropology

The Future of Visual Anthropology PDF Author: Sarah Pink
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134247133
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
From an eminent author in the field, The Future of Visual Anthropology develops a new approach to visual anthropology and presents a groundbreaking examination of developments within the field and the way forward for the subdiscipline in the twenty-first century. The explosion of visual media in recent years has generated a wide range of visual and digital technologies which have transformed visual research and analysis. The result is an exciting new interdisciplinary approach of great potential influence for the future of social/cultural anthropology. Sarah Pink argues that this potential can be harnessed by engaging visual anthropology with its wider contexts, including: the increasing use of visual research methods across the social sciences and humanities the growth in popularity of the visual as methodology and object of analysis within mainstream anthropology and applied anthropology the growing interest in 'anthropology of the senses' and media anthropology the development of new visual technologies that allow anthropologists to work in new ways. This book has immense interdisciplinary potential, and is essential reading for students, researchers and practitioners of visual anthropology, media anthropology, visual cultural studies, media studies and sociology.

A Passage to Anthropology

A Passage to Anthropology PDF Author: Kirsten Hastrup
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135100640
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
The postmodernist critique of Objectivism, Realism and Essentialism has somewhat shattered the foundations of anthropology, seriously questioning the legitimacy of studying others. By confronting the critique and turning it into a vital part of the anthropological debate, A Passage to Anthropology provides a rigorous discussion of central theoretical problems in anthropology that will find a readership in the social sciences and the humanities. It makes the case for a renewed and invigorated scholarly anthropology with extensive reference to recent anthropological debates in Europe and the US, as well as to new developments in linguistic theory and, especially, newer American philosophy. Although the style of the work is mainly theoretical, the author illustrates the points by referring to her own fieldwork conducted in Iceland. A Passage to Anthropology will be of interest to students in anthropology, sociology and cultural studies.

Constructing the Field

Constructing the Field PDF Author: Vered Amit
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134640676
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Ethnographic fieldwork is traditionally seen as what distinguishes social and cultural anthropology from the other social sciences. This collection responds to the inte nsifying scrutiny of fieldwork in recent years. It challenges the idea of the necessity for the total immersion of the ethnographer in the field, and for the clear separation of professional and personal areas of activity. The very existence of 'the field' as an entity separate from everyday life is questioned. Fresh perspectives on contemporary fieldwork are provided by diverse case-studies from across North America and Europe. These contributions give a thorough appraisal of what fieldwork is and should be, and an extra dimension is added through fascinating accounts of the personal experiences of anthropologists in the field.

Anthropology, by Comparison

Anthropology, by Comparison PDF Author: Richard G. Fox
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134509294
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
An international group of anthropologists take a fresh look at various neglected approaches to comparison and present new approaches that are relevant to the globalized world of the 21st century.