Choice and Morality in Anthropological Perspective PDF Download

Author: George N. Appell
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780887066061
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
This book explores choice behavior as constrained by culture, biology, and psychoanalytic processes in a variety of ethnographic contexts in Southeast Asia, Oceania, and Africa--the arena in which the controversy between Derek Freeman and anthropologist Margaret Mead's ideas of culture first developed. It also examines the interface between a nomothetic anthropology and a hermeneutic, idiographic anthropology, raising the critical question as to how ethnographic "knowledge" of another culture is achieved and transmitted to others. Freeman rejects an exclusive reliance on either culture or biology as key to explaining human behavior, proposing instead an interactionist paradigm. Fundamental to this paradigm is choice behavior, which is intrinsic to our biology and basic to the formation of culture: for cultures are the accumulation of socially sanctioned past choices. However, the greater the freedom to choose, the greater the scope for good or bad, and the greater the need for ethics, rules, and laws for defining prohibited alternatives. Choice and Morality investigates these themes. Its authors examine the emergent nature of social reality as a result of choice behavior and illustrate the complexity of Freeman's theoretical position.

Author: Jarrett Zigon
Publisher: Berg
ISBN: 1847884601
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
Morality: An Anthropological Perspective provides the first account of anthropological approaches to the question of morality. By considering how morality is viewed and enacted in different cultures, and how it is related to key social institutions such as religion, law, gender, sexuality and medical practice, Morality takes a closer look at some of the most central questions of the morality debates of our time. The book combines theory with practical case studies for student use. Drawing on anthropological, philosophical and general social scientific literature, the book will be useful for both undergraduate students and researchers. Accessibly written, Morality provides a unique and wide-ranging perspective on morality, and will be essential reading for those interested in this important contemporary debate.

Author: Didier Fassin
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118959507
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 672

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Book Description
A Companion to Moral Anthropology is the first collective consideration of the anthropological dimensions of morals, morality, and ethics. Original essays by international experts explore the various currents, approaches, and issues in this important new discipline, examining topics such as the ethnography of moralities, the study of moral subjectivities, and the exploration of moral economies. Investigates the central legacies of moral anthropology, the formation of moral facts and values, the context of local moralities, and the frontiers between moralities, politics, humanitarianism Features contributions from pioneers in the field of moral anthropology, as well as international experts in related fields such as moral philosophy, moral psychology, evolutionary biology and neuroethics

Author: Monica Heintz
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1845459385
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
Anthropologists have been keenly aware of the tension between cultural relativism and absolute norms, and nowhere has this been more acute than with regards to moral values. Can we study the Other’s morality without applying our own normative judgments? How do social anthropologists keep both the distance required by science and the empathy required for the analysis of lived experiences? The plurality of moralities has not received an explicit and focused attention until recently, when accelerated globalization often resulted in the collision of different value systems. Observing, describing and assessing values cross-culturally, the authors propose various methodological approaches to the study of moralities, illustrated with rich ethnographic accounts, thus offering a valuable guide for students of anthropology, sociology and cultural studies and for professionals concerned with the empirical and cross-cultural study of values.

Author: Cheryl Mattingly
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520281195
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Moral Laboratories is an engaging ethnography and a groundbreaking foray into the anthropology of morality. It takes us on a journey into the lives of African American families caring for children with serious chronic medical conditions, and it foregrounds the uncertainty that affects their struggles for a good life. Challenging depictions of moral transformation as possible only in moments of breakdown or in radical breaches from the ordinary, it offers a compelling portrait of the transformative powers embedded in day-to-day existence. From soccer fields to dinner tables, the everyday emerges as a moral laboratory for reshaping moral life. Cheryl Mattingly offers vivid and heart-wrenching stories to elaborate a first-person ethical framework, forcefully showing the limits of third-person renderings of morality.Ê

Author: Joan Cassell
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description

Author: Nannekke Redclift
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1135393427
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
Questions of public and private morality, values and choices have become important areas of collective discussion. A key feature of this book is that it takes an ethnographic rather than a philosophical or speculative approach to moral debates. This study examines the contemporary explosion of ethical discourse in the public domain and the growing importance of moral rhetoric as an aspect of social relations.

Author: Bruce Kapferer
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1785338692
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
A development in anthropological theory, characterized as the 'moral turn', is gaining popularity and should be carefully considered. In examining the context, arguments, and discourse that surrounds this trend, this volume reconceptualizes the discipline of anthropology in a radical way. Contributions from anthropologists from around the world from different theoretical traditions and with expertise in a multiplicity of ethnographic areas makes this collection a provocative contribution to larger discussions not only in anthropology but the social sciences more broadly.

Author: Victor T. King
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9811006725
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 619

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Book Description
This edited book is the first major review of what has been achieved in Borneo Studies to date. Chapters in this book situate research on Borneo within the general disciplinary fields of the social sciences, with the weight of attention devoted to anthropological research and related fields such as development studies, gender studies, environmental studies, social policy studies and cultural studies. Some of the chapters in this book are extended versions of presentations at the Borneo Research Council’s international conference hosted by Universiti Brunei Darussalam in June 2012 and a Borneo Studies workshop organised in Brunei in 2012. The volume examines some of the major debates and controversies in Borneo Studies, including those which have served to connect post-war research on Borneo to wider scholarship. It also assesses some of the more recent contributions and interests of locally based researchers in universities and other institutions in Borneo itself. The major strength of the book is the inclusion of a substantial amount of research undertaken by scholars working and teaching within the Southeast Asian region. In particular there is an examination of research materials published in the vernacular, notably the outpouring of work published in Indonesian by the Institut Dayakologi in Pontianak. In doing so, the book also addresses the urgent matters which have not received the attention they deserve, specifically subjects, themes and issues that have already been covered but require further contemplation, elaboration and research, and the scope for disciplinary and multidisciplinary collaboration in Borneo Studies. The book is a valuable resource and reference work for students and researchers interested in social science scholarship on Borneo, and for those with wider interests in Indonesia and Malaysia, and in the Southeast Asian region.

Author: Didier Fassin
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780415627269
Category : SOCIAL SCIENCE
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This Reader is an essential resource for students and scholars interested in the anthropology of morality. The collection includes classical and more recent material, carefully chosen to provide a critical and historical overview of an important and developing field. The selections are contextualized with lucid editorial material, including a substantial introduction.