Classic Concepts in Anthropology PDF Download

Author: Valerio Valeri
Publisher: HAU
ISBN: 9780990505082
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The late anthropologist Valerio Valeri (1944-98) was best known for his substantial writings on societies of Polynesia and eastern Indonesia. This volume, however, presents a lesser-known side of Valeri's genius through a dazzlingly erudite set of comparative essays on core topics in the history of anthropological theory. Offering masterly discussions of anthropological thought about ritual, fetishism, cosmogonic myth, belief, caste, kingship, mourning, play, feasting, ceremony, and cultural relativism, Classic Concepts in Anthropology, presented here with a critical foreword by Rupert Stasch and Giovanni da Col, will be an eye-opening, essential resource for students and researchers not only in anthropology but throughout the humanities.

Author: Matt Tomlinson
Publisher: ANU Press
ISBN: 1760460087
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 391

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Book Description
‘Mana’, a term denoting spiritual power, is found in many Pacific Islands languages. In recent decades, the term has been taken up in New Age movements and online fantasy gaming. In this book, 16 contributors examine mana through ethnographic, linguistic, and historical lenses to understand its transformations in past and present. The authors consider a range of contexts including Indigenous sovereignty movements, Christian missions and Bible translations, the commodification of cultural heritage, and the dynamics of diaspora. Their investigations move across diverse island groups—Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Hawai‘i, and French Polynesia—and into Australia, North America and even cyberspace. A key insight that the volume develops is that mana can be analysed most productively by paying close attention to its ethical and aesthetic dimensions. Since the late nineteenth century, mana has been an object of intense scholarly interest. Writers in many fields including anthropology, linguistics, history, religion, philosophy, and missiology have long debated how the term should best be understood. The authors in this volume review mana’s complex intellectual history but also describe the remarkable transformations going on in the present day as scholars, activists, church leaders, artists, and entrepreneurs take up mana in new ways.

Author: John W. Bennett
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351291181
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 679

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Book Description
Classic anthropology is Bennett''s label for the work produced by anthropologists between 1915 and 1955. In this book, Bennett criticises classic anthropology for ne glecting the contemporary world and modern societies. '

Author: Henrietta L. Moore
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470673354
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 629

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Book Description
This second edition of the widely praised Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology, features a variety of updates, revisions, and new readings in its comprehensive presentation of issues in the history of anthropological theory and epistemology over the past century. Provides a comprehensive selection of 60 readings and an insightful overview of the evolution of anthropological theory Revised and updated to reflect an on-going strength and diversity of the discipline in recent years, with new readings pointing to innovative directions in the development of anthropological research Identifies crucial concepts that reflect the practice of engaging with theory, particular ways of thinking, analyzing and reflecting that are unique to anthropology Includes excerpts of seminal anthropological works, key classic and contemporary debates in the discipline, and cutting-edge new theorizing Reveals broader debates in the social sciences, including the relationship between society and culture; language and cultural meanings; structure and agency; identities and technologies; subjectivities and trans-locality; and meta-theory, ontology and epistemology

Author: John William Bennett
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9781412819732
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 454

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Book Description
Classic Anthropology is Bennett's label for the work produced by anthropologists during the period 1915-1955, which many believe represents the most productive era in the discipline's history. It is also one that can never be repeated, given the fact that most of anthropology's basic data - the ideas and customs of tribal peoples - have been extinguished or greatly transformed by modernization and nationalization. The book is composed of some fifteen essays. Among the issues examined are: the emergence of a functionalist viewpoint in ethnology; the difficulties of developing a theory of human behavior because of the focus on culture; the "search" for concepts of culture to serve specialized needs; the neglect of social psychology by the "culture and personality" field; how value judgments emerged, willy-nilly - or conversely, were neglected, in ethnological research; how applied anthropology was challenged by "Action Anthropology"; and how the interdisciplinary anthropology of the late 1940s was submerged in the postwar effort to return the discipline to traditionalroots. Individual anthropologists whose work is examined include, among others. Bronislaw Malinowski, Leslie Spier, Alfred Kroeber, Ralph Linton, Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, Clyde Kluckhohn, Gregory Bateson, and Walter Taylor.

Author: Franz Boas
Publisher: Pantianos Classics
ISBN: 9781789872729
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
In this insightful study, Frank Boas connects aspects of human history with their manifestation in the modern world, describing such topics as race relations, nationalism and education. When this book was first published in the 1920s, the United States was grappling with racial tensions, with heightening discrimination against black Americans. As such Boas leads with the topic of race, exploring the cultural contrasts that occur between different races. The relationship between a person's country, and the ideology of nationalism, is explored. Ideas of eugenics, whereby humans breed according to desired traits, are investigated and their limitations explained. Later in the book, concepts such as crime in modern society, and concepts of cultural stability are examined. Frank Boas is commonly described as the 'Father of American Anthropology', in that he pioneered means of understanding the present of North America through the lens of its past. Noted for his strong opposition to pseudoscientific beliefs that sought to affirm faulty notions of racial superiority, Boas was likewise famous for asserting that no culture could be ranked as objectively better or worse - a concept known as cultural relativism. Ideas of evolving refinement, whereby a culture grows more sophisticated with age and interactions between people, are energetically dismissed.

Author: Dianna J. Shandy
Publisher: Waveland Press
ISBN: 147865175X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
This best-selling collection of engaging articles has enlivened cultural anthropology courses for decades. The lead editor of the sixteenth edition, Dianna Shandy, first encountered Conformity and Conflict as an undergraduate and began teaching from the book in 1999. From the first through the sixteenth edition, the editors have chosen classic works and solicited original pieces that powerfully illuminate the nature of culture and its influence on people’s lives. One of the overarching principles through the years has been to include material on North American cultures so readers can make their own cultural comparisons and see the relevance of anthropology to their own lives. Readers sharpen critical thinking skills as they examine their assumptions, identify perspectives, and assess their beliefs. Selections are organized around topics found in many textbooks and courses, facilitating usage by instructors who do not want to assign a standard text. Part introductions include discussion of many basic anthropological definitions. Article introductions coherently and systematically link selections to anthropological concepts. Sections and selections include environmental, global, and practicing anthropological subfields as well as traditional interests such as language, gender, kinship, economics, politics, law, inequality, and religion. The forty readings in this collection cover a broad range of theoretical perspectives, juxtaposing classic and contemporary ethnographic work to introduce students to a broad range of authors. The selections provide a fascinating way to look at human experience and make sense of the world around us.

Author: Thomas Hylland Eriksen
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
A new edition of the classic anthropology textbook which shows how anthropology is a revolutionary way of thinking about the human world

Author: Franz Boas
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486148696
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
The great anthropologist's classic treatise on race and culture. One of the most influential books of the century, now available in a value-priced edition. Introduction by Ruth Bunzel.

Author: Paul Rabinow
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 082239006X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description
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.