Download or read book An Anthropology of Nothing in Particular written by Martin Demant Frederiksen and published by John Hunt Publishing. This book was released on 2018-08-31 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There have been claims that meaninglessness has become epidemic in the contemporary world. One perceived consequence of this is that people increasingly turn against both society and the political establishment with little concern for the content (or lack of content) that might follow. Most often, encounters with meaninglessness and nothingness are seen as troubling. "Meaning" is generally seen as being a cornerstone of the human condition, as that which we strive towards. This was famously explored by Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning in which he showed how even in the direst of situations individuals will often seek to find a purpose in life. But what, then, is at stake when groups of people negate this position? What exactly goes on inside this apparent turn towards nothing, in the engagement with meaninglessness? And what happens if we take the meaningless seriously as an empirical fact?
Download or read book An Inquiry Into Modes of Existence written by Bruno Latour and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-19 with total page 519 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a new approach to philosophical anthropology, Bruno Latour offers answers to questions raised in We Have Never Been Modern: If not modern, what have we been, and what values should we inherit? An Inquiry into Modes of Existence offers a new basis for diplomatic encounters with other societies at a time of ecological crisis.
Download or read book The Culture of Boredom written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-04-28 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Culture of Boredom is a collection of essays by well-known specialists reflecting from philosophical, literary, and artistic perspectives, in which the reader will learn how different disciplines can throw light on such an appealing, challenging, yet still not fully understood, phenomenon. The goal is to clarify the background of boredom, and to explore its representation through forgotten cross-cutting narratives beyond the typical approaches, i.e. those of psychology or psychiatry. For the first time this experienced group of scholars gathers to promote a cross-border dialogue from a multidisciplinary perspective.
Download or read book How Forests Think written by Eduardo Kohn and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2013-08-10 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can forests think? Do dogs dream? In this astonishing book, Eduardo Kohn challenges the very foundations of anthropology, calling into question our central assumptions about what it means to be humanÑand thus distinct from all other life forms. Based on four years of fieldwork among the Runa of EcuadorÕs Upper Amazon, Eduardo Kohn draws on his rich ethnography to explore how Amazonians interact with the many creatures that inhabit one of the worldÕs most complex ecosystems. Whether or not we recognize it, our anthropological tools hinge on those capacities that make us distinctly human. However, when we turn our ethnographic attention to how we relate to other kinds of beings, these tools (which have the effect of divorcing us from the rest of the world) break down. How Forests Think seizes on this breakdown as an opportunity. Avoiding reductionistic solutions, and without losing sight of how our lives and those of others are caught up in the moral webs we humans spin, this book skillfully fashions new kinds of conceptual tools from the strange and unexpected properties of the living world itself. In this groundbreaking work, Kohn takes anthropology in a new and exciting directionÐone that offers a more capacious way to think about the world we share with other kinds of beings.
Download or read book Peripheral Methodologies written by Francisco Martínez and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-04-28 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does peripherality challenge methodology and theory-making? This book examines how the peripheral can be incorporated into ethnographic research, and reflects on what it means to be on the periphery – ontologically and epistemologically. Starting from the premise that clarity and fixity as ideals of modernity prevent us from approaching that which cannot be easily captured and framed into scientific boundaries, the book argues for remaining on the boundary between the known and the unknown in order to surpass this ethnographic limit. Peripheral Methodologies shows that peripherality is not only to be seen as a marginal condition, but rather as a form of theory-making and practice that incorporates reflexivity and experimentation. Instead of domesticating the peripheral, the authors engage in (and insist on) practicing expertise in reverse, unlearning their tools in order to integrate the empirical and analytical otherwise.
Download or read book Our Kind written by Marvin Harris and published by Harper Perennial. This book was released on 1990-09-26 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writing with the same wit, humor, and style of his earlier bestsellers, noted anthropologist Marvin Harris traces our roots and views our destiny.
Download or read book Designs for the Pluriverse written by Arturo Escobar and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-15 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Designs for the Pluriverse Arturo Escobar presents a new vision of design theory and practice aimed at channeling design's world-making capacity toward ways of being and doing that are deeply attuned to justice and the Earth. Noting that most design—from consumer goods and digital technologies to built environments—currently serves capitalist ends, Escobar argues for the development of an “autonomous design” that eschews commercial and modernizing aims in favor of more collaborative and placed-based approaches. Such design attends to questions of environment, experience, and politics while focusing on the production of human experience based on the radical interdependence of all beings. Mapping autonomous design’s principles to the history of decolonial efforts of indigenous and Afro-descended people in Latin America, Escobar shows how refiguring current design practices could lead to the creation of more just and sustainable social orders.
Download or read book Money from Nothing written by Deborah James and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2014-11-19 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Money from Nothing explores the dynamics surrounding South Africa's national project of financial inclusion—dubbed "banking the unbanked"—which aimed to extend credit to black South Africans as a critical aspect of broad-based economic enfranchisement. Through rich and captivating accounts, Deborah James reveals the varied ways in which middle- and working-class South Africans' access to credit is intimately bound up with identity, status-making, and aspirations of upward mobility. She draws out the deeply precarious nature of both the aspirations and the economic relations of debt which sustain her subjects, revealing the shadowy side of indebtedness and its potential to produce new forms of oppression and disenfranchisement in place of older ones. Money from Nothing uniquely captures the lived experience of indebtedness for those many millions who attempt to improve their positions (or merely sustain existing livelihoods) in emerging economies.
Download or read book Aquinas written by John Peterson and published by University Press of America. This book was released on 2008-09-10 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aquinas provides an in-depth analysis of basic philosophical concepts in the thought of Aquinas. These concepts include: being, essence, existence, form, matter, truth, goodness, freedom and necessity, knowledge, willing and choosing, and right action. These ideas are approached from an analytical point of view but the analysis is not exceedingly technical, which allows beginners to follow the discussion. Many other works consider only one aspect of Aquinas's thought such as his treatment of persons, his arguments for God's existence, or his theory of truth but Peterson's Aquinas combines readability with both depth and close analysis to give a comprehensive overview of Aquinas's work without sacrificing either accuracy or depth.
Download or read book Being and Nothingness written by Jean-Paul Sartre and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1992 with total page 869 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sartre explains the theory of existential psychoanalysis in this treatise on human reality.
Download or read book Surrendering to Utopia written by Mark Goodale and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2009-05-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surrendering to Utopia is a critical and wide-ranging study of anthropology's contributions to human rights. Providing a unique window into the underlying political and intellectual currents that have shaped human rights in the postwar period, this ambitious work opens up new opportunities for research, analysis, and political action. At the book's core, the author describes a "well-tempered human rights"—an orientation to human rights in the twenty-first century that is shaped by a sense of humility, an appreciation for the disorienting fact of multiplicity, and a willingness to make the mundaneness of social practice a source of ethical inspiration. In examining the curious history of anthropology's engagement with human rights, this book moves from more traditional anthropological topics within the broader human rights community—for example, relativism and the problem of culture—to consider a wider range of theoretical and empirical topics. Among others, it examines the link between anthropology and the emergence of "neoliberal" human rights, explores the claim that anthropology has played an important role in legitimizing these rights, and gauges whether or not this is evidence of anthropology's potential to transform human rights theory and practice more generally.
Download or read book The House of Commons written by Emma Crewe and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-05-31 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The House of Commons is one of Britain's mysterious institutions: constantly in the news yet always opaque. In this ground-breaking anthropological study of the world’s most famous parliament, Emma Crewe reveals the hidden mechanisms of parliamentary democracy.Examining the work of Members of Parliament – including neglected areas such as constituencies and committees – this book provides unique insights into the actual lives and working relationships of parliamentarians. 'Why do the public loathe politicians but often love their own MP?' the author asks. The antagonistic façade of politics irritates the public who tend to be unaware that, backstage, democracy relies on MPs consulting, compromising and cooperating across political parties far more than is publicly admitted. As the book shows, this is only one of myriad contradictions in the labyrinths of power. Based on unprecedented access and two years of interviews and research in the Palace of Westminster and MPs’ constituencies, The House of Commons: An Anthropology of MPs at Work challenges the existing scholarship on political institutions and party politics. Moving beyond the narrow confines of rational choice theory and new institutionalism, Emma Crewe presents a radical alternative to the study of British politics by demonstrating that all of its processes hinge on culture, ritual and social relations. A must-read for anyone interested in political anthropology, politics, or the Westminster model.
Download or read book The Cell Phone written by Heather Horst and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-07-31 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few modern innovations have spread quite so quickly as the cell phone. This technology has transformed communication throughout the world. Mobile telecommunications have had a dramatic effect in many regions, but perhaps nowhere more than for low-income populations in countries such as Jamaica, where in the last few years many people have moved from no phone to cell phone. This book reveals the central role of communication in helping low-income households cope with poverty. The book traces the impact of the cell phone from personal issues of loneliness and depression to the global concerns of the modern economy and the transnational family. As the technology of social networking, the cell phone has become central to establishing and maintaining relationships in areas from religion to love. The Cell Phone presents the first detailed ethnography of the impact of this new technology through the exploration of the cell phone's role in everyday lives.
Download or read book Anthropology and Civilizational Analysis written by Johann P. Arnason and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brings social and cultural anthropologists into dialogue with historical sociology and illustrates the continued potential of the concept of civilization for all participants. The concept of civilization has a long but checkered history in anthropology, and anthropological materials have been of great importance for the development of civilizational analysis in historical sociology. Anthropology and Civilizational Analysis brings these diverse fields together and explores a wide range of topics pertaining to civilization, from classical theories to contemporary rhetorical discourses, including detailed case studies of concrete practices documented through archival and ethnographic research. While many scholars and the wider public still think of civilization in simplistic terms, viewing it in terms of Enlightenment notions of progress and evolution to higher stages, others have pluralized the term only to create essentialized units which are only tenuously linked to historical processes. In this book contributors use dynamic approaches, including those rooted in the seminal writings of Émile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss, opening up the dimension of civilization as an important complement to other key terms such as society and culture in social science and historical analysis.
Download or read book Kant s Lectures on Anthropology written by Alix Cohen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-30 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays is the first comprehensive volume dedicated to Kant's lectures on anthropology and their philosophical importance.
Download or read book The World Until Yesterday written by Jared Diamond and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-12-31 with total page 727 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling author of Collapse and Guns, Germs and Steel surveys the history of human societies to answer the question: What can we learn from traditional societies that can make the world a better place for all of us? “As he did in his Pulitzer Prize-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond continues to make us think with his mesmerizing and absorbing new book." Bookpage Most of us take for granted the features of our modern society, from air travel and telecommunications to literacy and obesity. Yet for nearly all of its six million years of existence, human society had none of these things. While the gulf that divides us from our primitive ancestors may seem unbridgeably wide, we can glimpse much of our former lifestyle in those largely traditional societies still or recently in existence. Societies like those of the New Guinea Highlanders remind us that it was only yesterday—in evolutionary time—when everything changed and that we moderns still possess bodies and social practices often better adapted to traditional than to modern conditions.The World Until Yesterday provides a mesmerizing firsthand picture of the human past as it had been for millions of years—a past that has mostly vanished—and considers what the differences between that past and our present mean for our lives today. This is Jared Diamond’s most personal book to date, as he draws extensively from his decades of field work in the Pacific islands, as well as evidence from Inuit, Amazonian Indians, Kalahari San people, and others. Diamond doesn’t romanticize traditional societies—after all, we are shocked by some of their practices—but he finds that their solutions to universal human problems such as child rearing, elder care, dispute resolution, risk, and physical fitness have much to teach us. Provocative, enlightening, and entertaining, The World Until Yesterday is an essential and fascinating read.
