Author: Sandra Bamford
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 0857456393
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Book Description
The genealogical model has a long-standing history in Western thought. The contributors to this volume consider the ways in which assumptions about the genealogical model--in particular, ideas concerning sequence, essence, and transmission--structure other modes of practice and knowledge-making in domains well beyond what is normally labeled "kinship." The detailed ethnographic work and analysis included in this text explores how these assumptions have been built into our understandings of race, personhood, ethnicity, property relations, and the relationship between human beings and non-human species. The authors explore the influences of the genealogical model of kinship in wider social theory and examine anthropology's ability to provide a unique framework capable of bridging the "social" and "natural" sciences. In doing so, this volume brings fresh new perspectives to bear on contemporary theories concerning biotechnology and its effect upon social life.
Kinship and Beyond
Author: Sandra Bamford
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 0857456393
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Book Description
The genealogical model has a long-standing history in Western thought. The contributors to this volume consider the ways in which assumptions about the genealogical model--in particular, ideas concerning sequence, essence, and transmission--structure other modes of practice and knowledge-making in domains well beyond what is normally labeled "kinship." The detailed ethnographic work and analysis included in this text explores how these assumptions have been built into our understandings of race, personhood, ethnicity, property relations, and the relationship between human beings and non-human species. The authors explore the influences of the genealogical model of kinship in wider social theory and examine anthropology's ability to provide a unique framework capable of bridging the "social" and "natural" sciences. In doing so, this volume brings fresh new perspectives to bear on contemporary theories concerning biotechnology and its effect upon social life.
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 0857456393
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Book Description
The genealogical model has a long-standing history in Western thought. The contributors to this volume consider the ways in which assumptions about the genealogical model--in particular, ideas concerning sequence, essence, and transmission--structure other modes of practice and knowledge-making in domains well beyond what is normally labeled "kinship." The detailed ethnographic work and analysis included in this text explores how these assumptions have been built into our understandings of race, personhood, ethnicity, property relations, and the relationship between human beings and non-human species. The authors explore the influences of the genealogical model of kinship in wider social theory and examine anthropology's ability to provide a unique framework capable of bridging the "social" and "natural" sciences. In doing so, this volume brings fresh new perspectives to bear on contemporary theories concerning biotechnology and its effect upon social life.
Concise Dictionary of Social and Cultural Anthropology
Author: Mike Morris
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118329341
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
Practical and accessible, this dictionary is designed to enlightenthose newly engaged in anthropological study or seeking a quickguide to the field. Fills a need for a beginner’s pocket guide to thefar-reaching and complex field of anthropology, including over 800detailed entries and the intellectual background of terms Written in plain, jargon-free language, for readers withoutextensive background in the field Features brief, conceptual definitions of terms,bibliographical references to anthropological classics, relatedworks for background reading and further research The user-friendly format includes bold terms featured elsewherein the book, extensive cross-references, and indexes of names,peoples, places and subjects Incorporates related terminology from allied fields such associology, economics and geography
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118329341
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
Practical and accessible, this dictionary is designed to enlightenthose newly engaged in anthropological study or seeking a quickguide to the field. Fills a need for a beginner’s pocket guide to thefar-reaching and complex field of anthropology, including over 800detailed entries and the intellectual background of terms Written in plain, jargon-free language, for readers withoutextensive background in the field Features brief, conceptual definitions of terms,bibliographical references to anthropological classics, relatedworks for background reading and further research The user-friendly format includes bold terms featured elsewherein the book, extensive cross-references, and indexes of names,peoples, places and subjects Incorporates related terminology from allied fields such associology, economics and geography
Moral Figures
Author: Alexandra Widmer
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487543220
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Book Description
In the early twentieth century, people in the southwestern Pacific nation of Vanuatu experienced rapid population decline, while in the early twenty-first century, they experienced rapid population growth. From colonial governance to postcolonial sovereignty, Moral Figures shows that despite attempts to govern population size and birth, reproduction in Vanuatu continues to exceed bureaucratic economization through Ni-Vanuatu insistence on Indigenous relationalities. Through Alexandra Widmer’s examination of how reproduction is made public, she demonstrates how population sciences have a naturalized focus on women’s fertility and privileged issues of wage labour over women’s land access, as well as broader social relations of reproduction. Widmer draws on oral histories with retired village midwives and massage healers on the changes to care for pregnancy and birth, as well as ethnographic research in a village outside the capital of Port Vila. Locating the Pacific Islands in global histories of demographic science and the medicalization of birth, the book presents archival material in a way that emphasizes bureaucratic practices in how colonial documents attempted to render Indigenous relationalities of reproduction governable. While demographic imaginaries and biomedical practices increasingly frame fertility control as an investment in the reproductive health of individual bodies, the Ni-Vanuatu worlds presented in Moral Figures show that relationships between people, land, knowledge, kin, and care make reproduction a distributed and assisted process.
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487543220
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Book Description
In the early twentieth century, people in the southwestern Pacific nation of Vanuatu experienced rapid population decline, while in the early twenty-first century, they experienced rapid population growth. From colonial governance to postcolonial sovereignty, Moral Figures shows that despite attempts to govern population size and birth, reproduction in Vanuatu continues to exceed bureaucratic economization through Ni-Vanuatu insistence on Indigenous relationalities. Through Alexandra Widmer’s examination of how reproduction is made public, she demonstrates how population sciences have a naturalized focus on women’s fertility and privileged issues of wage labour over women’s land access, as well as broader social relations of reproduction. Widmer draws on oral histories with retired village midwives and massage healers on the changes to care for pregnancy and birth, as well as ethnographic research in a village outside the capital of Port Vila. Locating the Pacific Islands in global histories of demographic science and the medicalization of birth, the book presents archival material in a way that emphasizes bureaucratic practices in how colonial documents attempted to render Indigenous relationalities of reproduction governable. While demographic imaginaries and biomedical practices increasingly frame fertility control as an investment in the reproductive health of individual bodies, the Ni-Vanuatu worlds presented in Moral Figures show that relationships between people, land, knowledge, kin, and care make reproduction a distributed and assisted process.
Anarchy and the Art of Listening
Author: James Slotta
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501770020
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 216
Book Description
Anarchy and the Art of Listening is an ethnography of politics as it is practiced on the other side of the spoken word, in the act of listening. James Slotta explores how people in the Yopno Valley of Papua New Guinea cultivate their listening to exercise power, shape their futures, and sustain their communities in the face of ambitious leaders and powerful outside institutions. As in many parts of the global south, missionaries, NGO workers, educators, mining companies, politicians, development experts, and others have sought to transform life in and around the Yopno Valley. But as this book makes clear, people there have not been a passive and pliable audience for these efforts. They have brought their skills as "anarchic listeners" to these encounters, advancing political agendas of their own. To understand political life in the Yopno Valley, we need to look not only at political speech but at the practices that lie on the other side of the word in the act of listening. This, Slotta suggests, is also true well beyond the bounds of the Yopno Valley.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501770020
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 216
Book Description
Anarchy and the Art of Listening is an ethnography of politics as it is practiced on the other side of the spoken word, in the act of listening. James Slotta explores how people in the Yopno Valley of Papua New Guinea cultivate their listening to exercise power, shape their futures, and sustain their communities in the face of ambitious leaders and powerful outside institutions. As in many parts of the global south, missionaries, NGO workers, educators, mining companies, politicians, development experts, and others have sought to transform life in and around the Yopno Valley. But as this book makes clear, people there have not been a passive and pliable audience for these efforts. They have brought their skills as "anarchic listeners" to these encounters, advancing political agendas of their own. To understand political life in the Yopno Valley, we need to look not only at political speech but at the practices that lie on the other side of the word in the act of listening. This, Slotta suggests, is also true well beyond the bounds of the Yopno Valley.
The Routledge Handbook of Mormonism and Gender
Author: Taylor Petrey
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351181580
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 1365
Book Description
The Routledge Handbook of Mormonism and Gender is an outstanding reference source to this controversial subject area. Since its founding in 1830, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has engaged gender in surprising ways. LDS practice of polygamy in the nineteenth century both fueled rhetoric of patriarchal rule as well as gave polygamous wives greater autonomy than their monogamous peers. The tensions over women’s autonomy continued after polygamy was abandoned and defined much of the twentieth century. In the 1970s, 1990s, and 2010s, Mormon feminists came into direct confrontation with the male Mormon hierarchy. These public clashes produced some reforms, but fell short of accomplishing full equality. LGBT Mormons have a similar history. These movements are part of the larger story of how Mormonism has managed changing gender norms in a global context. Comprising over forty chapters by a team of international contributors the Handbook is divided into four parts: • Methodological issues • Historical approaches • Social scientific approaches • Theological approaches. These sections examine central issues, debates, and problems, including: agency, feminism, sexuality and sexual ethics, masculinity, queer studies, plural marriage, homosexuality, race, scripture, gender and the priesthood, the family, sexual violence, and identity. The Routledge Handbook of Mormonism and Gender is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, gender studies, and women’s studies. The Handbook will also be very useful for those in related fields, such as cultural studies, politics, anthropology, and sociology.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351181580
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 1365
Book Description
The Routledge Handbook of Mormonism and Gender is an outstanding reference source to this controversial subject area. Since its founding in 1830, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has engaged gender in surprising ways. LDS practice of polygamy in the nineteenth century both fueled rhetoric of patriarchal rule as well as gave polygamous wives greater autonomy than their monogamous peers. The tensions over women’s autonomy continued after polygamy was abandoned and defined much of the twentieth century. In the 1970s, 1990s, and 2010s, Mormon feminists came into direct confrontation with the male Mormon hierarchy. These public clashes produced some reforms, but fell short of accomplishing full equality. LGBT Mormons have a similar history. These movements are part of the larger story of how Mormonism has managed changing gender norms in a global context. Comprising over forty chapters by a team of international contributors the Handbook is divided into four parts: • Methodological issues • Historical approaches • Social scientific approaches • Theological approaches. These sections examine central issues, debates, and problems, including: agency, feminism, sexuality and sexual ethics, masculinity, queer studies, plural marriage, homosexuality, race, scripture, gender and the priesthood, the family, sexual violence, and identity. The Routledge Handbook of Mormonism and Gender is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, gender studies, and women’s studies. The Handbook will also be very useful for those in related fields, such as cultural studies, politics, anthropology, and sociology.
The Nature of Heritage
Author: Lynn Meskell
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118106628
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
The Nature of Heritage: The New South Africa is unique in revealing the conflicts inherent in preserving both natural and cultural heritage, by examining the archaeological, ethnographic and economic evidence of a nation's attempts to master its past and its future. Provides a classic example of how nations attempt to overcome a negative heritage through past mastering of their histories Evaluates the continuing dominance of nature and conservation over concerns for cultural heritage Employs ethnographic and archaeological methodologies to reveal how the past is processed into a new national heritage Identifies heritage as therapy, exemplified in the strategy for repairing legacies of racial and ethnic difference in post-apartheid South Africa Highlights the role of archaeological heritage sites, national parks and protected areas in economic development and social empowerment Explores how nature trumps culture and the global implications of the new configurations of heritage
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118106628
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
The Nature of Heritage: The New South Africa is unique in revealing the conflicts inherent in preserving both natural and cultural heritage, by examining the archaeological, ethnographic and economic evidence of a nation's attempts to master its past and its future. Provides a classic example of how nations attempt to overcome a negative heritage through past mastering of their histories Evaluates the continuing dominance of nature and conservation over concerns for cultural heritage Employs ethnographic and archaeological methodologies to reveal how the past is processed into a new national heritage Identifies heritage as therapy, exemplified in the strategy for repairing legacies of racial and ethnic difference in post-apartheid South Africa Highlights the role of archaeological heritage sites, national parks and protected areas in economic development and social empowerment Explores how nature trumps culture and the global implications of the new configurations of heritage
Experiments in Holism
Author: Ton Otto
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1444351850
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Book Description
Experiments in Holism Experiments in Holism: Theory and Practice in Contemporary Anthropology presents a series of essays that critically examine the ongoing relevance of holism and its theoretical and methodological potential in today’s world. Contributions from a diverse collection of leading anthropologists reveal how recent critiques of the holistic approach have not led to its wholesale rejection, but rather to a panoply of experiments that critically reassess and reemploy holism. The essays focus on aspects of holism including its utilization in current ethnographic research, holistic considerations in cultural anthropology, the French structuralist tradition, the predominantly English tradition of social anthropology, and many others. Collectively, the essays show how holism is simultaneously central to, and problematically a part of, the theory and practice of anthropology. Experiments in Holism reveals how contemporary attempts to rescale and retool anthropology entail new ways of coming to terms with anthropology’s heritage of holism, seeking to obviate its current excesses while recapturing its critical potential to meet the challenges of our contemporary world.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1444351850
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Book Description
Experiments in Holism Experiments in Holism: Theory and Practice in Contemporary Anthropology presents a series of essays that critically examine the ongoing relevance of holism and its theoretical and methodological potential in today’s world. Contributions from a diverse collection of leading anthropologists reveal how recent critiques of the holistic approach have not led to its wholesale rejection, but rather to a panoply of experiments that critically reassess and reemploy holism. The essays focus on aspects of holism including its utilization in current ethnographic research, holistic considerations in cultural anthropology, the French structuralist tradition, the predominantly English tradition of social anthropology, and many others. Collectively, the essays show how holism is simultaneously central to, and problematically a part of, the theory and practice of anthropology. Experiments in Holism reveals how contemporary attempts to rescale and retool anthropology entail new ways of coming to terms with anthropology’s heritage of holism, seeking to obviate its current excesses while recapturing its critical potential to meet the challenges of our contemporary world.
Mixed Messages
Author: Robert A. Paul
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022624086X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 364
Book Description
Nearly everyone would agree that humans and their societies evolved by natural selection, that humans are biologically a single species but societies vary greatly, and neither genetic inheritance nor cultural inheritance alone can fully explain humans and their social systems. While there is a literature that addresses dual inheritance theory or the coevolution of culture and genetics, almost all of it is written from a perspective that accepts the neo-Darwinian evolutionary framework but does not give proper weight to social and cultural theory as it has been developed by cultural anthropologists. At the same time, cultural anthropologists have ignored the question of dual inheritance altogether, leaving the theorizing of how it works almost exclusively in the hands of those with a strong biological viewpoint. In this book anthropologist and psychoanalyst Robert Paul attempts to reconcile evolutionary and cultural approaches in anthropology through a comparative ethnographic exploration of how humans receive behavioral instructions from two separate channelsthe genetic code carried in the DNA and the symbolic systems that constitute culture. He develops a dual inheritance model that aims to do justice to both the genetic and cultural channels of inheritance. Paul elaborates his model of the relationship between genes and cultural symbols and then shows how it can make sense of both the similarities and variations found in human social life as captured in the now very extensive ethnographic record. He argues that cultural systems evolve to manage intra-group competition that would ensue from the genetic program pursuing its interests. The book uses thick descriptions and heavy interpretations from the ethnographic record to demonstrate how different societies tackle this challenge. The book fills a niche, connecting the dual-inheritance literature and symbolic cultural anthropology, using insights from the former to detect patterns in the latter. This is a rare and well-researched project, and should receive a broad readership among biological and cultural anthropologists, and students of human nature more broadly."
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022624086X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 364
Book Description
Nearly everyone would agree that humans and their societies evolved by natural selection, that humans are biologically a single species but societies vary greatly, and neither genetic inheritance nor cultural inheritance alone can fully explain humans and their social systems. While there is a literature that addresses dual inheritance theory or the coevolution of culture and genetics, almost all of it is written from a perspective that accepts the neo-Darwinian evolutionary framework but does not give proper weight to social and cultural theory as it has been developed by cultural anthropologists. At the same time, cultural anthropologists have ignored the question of dual inheritance altogether, leaving the theorizing of how it works almost exclusively in the hands of those with a strong biological viewpoint. In this book anthropologist and psychoanalyst Robert Paul attempts to reconcile evolutionary and cultural approaches in anthropology through a comparative ethnographic exploration of how humans receive behavioral instructions from two separate channelsthe genetic code carried in the DNA and the symbolic systems that constitute culture. He develops a dual inheritance model that aims to do justice to both the genetic and cultural channels of inheritance. Paul elaborates his model of the relationship between genes and cultural symbols and then shows how it can make sense of both the similarities and variations found in human social life as captured in the now very extensive ethnographic record. He argues that cultural systems evolve to manage intra-group competition that would ensue from the genetic program pursuing its interests. The book uses thick descriptions and heavy interpretations from the ethnographic record to demonstrate how different societies tackle this challenge. The book fills a niche, connecting the dual-inheritance literature and symbolic cultural anthropology, using insights from the former to detect patterns in the latter. This is a rare and well-researched project, and should receive a broad readership among biological and cultural anthropologists, and students of human nature more broadly."
Kinship in Action
Author: Andrew Strathern
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317346963
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270
Book Description
For courses in Social Organization, Kinship, and Cultural Ecology. Kinship has made a come-back in Anthropology. Not only is there a line of noted, general, introductory works and readers in the topic, but theoretical discussions have been stimulated both by technological changes in mechanisms of reproduction and by reconsiderations of how to define kinship in the most productive ways for cross-cultural comparisons. In addition, kinship studies have moved away from the minutiae of kin terminological systems and the “kinship algebra” often associated with these, to the broader analysis of processes, historical changes and fundamental cultural meanings in which kin relationships are implicated. In this changed, and changing context both Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart -- both of the University of Pittsburgh -- bring together a number of interests and concerns, in order to provide pointers for students, as well as scholars, in this field of study. Taking an explicitly processual approach, the authors examine definitions of terms such as kinship itself, approach the topic in a way that is invariably ethnographic, and deploy materials from field areas where they themselves have worked.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317346963
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270
Book Description
For courses in Social Organization, Kinship, and Cultural Ecology. Kinship has made a come-back in Anthropology. Not only is there a line of noted, general, introductory works and readers in the topic, but theoretical discussions have been stimulated both by technological changes in mechanisms of reproduction and by reconsiderations of how to define kinship in the most productive ways for cross-cultural comparisons. In addition, kinship studies have moved away from the minutiae of kin terminological systems and the “kinship algebra” often associated with these, to the broader analysis of processes, historical changes and fundamental cultural meanings in which kin relationships are implicated. In this changed, and changing context both Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart -- both of the University of Pittsburgh -- bring together a number of interests and concerns, in order to provide pointers for students, as well as scholars, in this field of study. Taking an explicitly processual approach, the authors examine definitions of terms such as kinship itself, approach the topic in a way that is invariably ethnographic, and deploy materials from field areas where they themselves have worked.
Why We Disagree About Human Nature
Author: Elizabeth Hannon
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192556797
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 340
Book Description
Is human nature something that the natural and social sciences aim to describe, or is it a pernicious fiction? What role, if any, does 'human nature' play in directing and informing scientific work? Can we talk about human nature without invoking-either implicitly or explicitly-a contrast with human culture? It might be tempting to think that the respectability of 'human nature' is an issue that divides natural and social scientists along disciplinary boundaries, but the truth is more complex. The contributors to this collection take very different stances with regard to the idea of human nature. They come from the fields of psychology, the philosophy of science, social and biological anthropology, evolutionary theory, and the study of animal cognition. Some of them are 'human nature' enthusiasts, some are sceptics, and some say that human nature is a concept with many faces, each of which plays a role in its own investigative niche. Some want to eliminate the notion altogether, some think it unproblematic, others want to retain it with reforming modifications. Some say that human nature is a target for investigation that the human sciences cannot do without, others argue that the term does far more harm than good. The diverse perspectives articulated in this book help to explain why we disagree about human nature, and what, if anything, might resolve that disagreement.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192556797
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 340
Book Description
Is human nature something that the natural and social sciences aim to describe, or is it a pernicious fiction? What role, if any, does 'human nature' play in directing and informing scientific work? Can we talk about human nature without invoking-either implicitly or explicitly-a contrast with human culture? It might be tempting to think that the respectability of 'human nature' is an issue that divides natural and social scientists along disciplinary boundaries, but the truth is more complex. The contributors to this collection take very different stances with regard to the idea of human nature. They come from the fields of psychology, the philosophy of science, social and biological anthropology, evolutionary theory, and the study of animal cognition. Some of them are 'human nature' enthusiasts, some are sceptics, and some say that human nature is a concept with many faces, each of which plays a role in its own investigative niche. Some want to eliminate the notion altogether, some think it unproblematic, others want to retain it with reforming modifications. Some say that human nature is a target for investigation that the human sciences cannot do without, others argue that the term does far more harm than good. The diverse perspectives articulated in this book help to explain why we disagree about human nature, and what, if anything, might resolve that disagreement.