Download or read book Anthropologies of Modernity written by Jonathan Xavier Inda and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together a range of anthropological writings that are inspired by the French philosopher Michel Foucault and examine Foucault’s contribution to current theories of modernity. Treats modernity as an ethnographic object by focusing on its concrete manifestations. Tackles issues of broad interest: from colonialism and globalization to war, genetics, and AIDS. Draws on work from North and South America, Europe, Africa, and South and Southeast Asia. Contributors include James Ferguson, Akhil Gupta, Aihwa Ong, Paul Rabinow, and Rayna Rapp.
Download or read book Exotics at Home written by Micaela di Leonardo and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2000-03-16 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the exotic, after all? In this study, Micaela di Leonardo reveals the face of power within the mask of cultural difference. Focusing on the intimate and shifting relations between popular portrayals of exotic Others and the practice of anthropology, that profession assumed to be America's Guardian of the Offbeat, she casts new light on gender, race, and the public sphere in America's past and present. Chicago's 1893 Columbian World Exposition and today's college-town ethnic boutiques frame di Leonardo's century-long analysis.
Download or read book Hybrids of Modernity written by Penelope Harvey and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-02-01 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hybrids of Modernity considers the relationship between three western modernist institutions: anthropology, the nation state and the universal exhibition. It looks at the ways in which these institutions are linked, in how they are engaged in the objectification of culture, and in how they have themselves become objects of cultural theory, the targets of critics who claim that despite their continuing visibility these are all institutions with questionable viability in the late 20th century. Through analysis of the Universal Exhibition held in seville in 1992, the themes of culture, nationality and technology are explored. Particular attention is paid to how "culture" is produced and put to work by the national and corporate participants, and to the relationship between the emergence of culture as commodity and the way in which the concept is employed in contemporary cultural theory.
Download or read book Critically Modern written by Bruce M. Knauft and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2002-09-27 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Critically Modern makes a critical intervention in one of the great debates of the moment. It offers a variety of rich and fascinating empirical analyses of 'modern' phenomena from diverse societies, and contributes a powerful (and largely missing) voice to the growing literature on globalization and modernity outside anthropology." —Charles Piot "In these essays theory and ethnography are presented in ways that make them mutually enriching. The volume should appeal to scholars across the entire range of disciplines that deal with modernity and/or globalization." —Edward LiPuma Are there multiple ways of being "modern" in the world today? How do people in various parts of the world become modern in their own distinct ways? Does the current focus on modernity in the social sciences resurrect a series of dichotomies ("traditional" and "modern," "the West" and "the Rest," "developed" and "undeveloped") that social theorists have sought to move beyond in recent years? Or do inflections of modernity capture key features of ideology and influence in the contemporary world? Combining rich ethnographic analysis with incisive theoretical critiques, this timely volume is certain to make an important mark in anthropology and in all related fields in which modernity is a central problematic. Contributors: Donald L. Donham, Robert J. Foster, Jonathan Friedman, Ivan Karp, John D. Kelly, Bruce M. Knauft, Lisa B. Rofel, Debra A. Spitulnik, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, and Holly Wardlow.
Download or read book Debating Authenticity written by Thomas Fillitz and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2012-12-01 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The longing for authenticity, on an individual or collective level, connects the search for external expressions to internal orientations. What is largely referred to as production of authenticity is a reformulation of cultural values and norms within the ongoing process of modernity, impacted by globalization and contemporary transnational cultural flows. This collection interrogates the notion of authenticity from an anthropological point of view and considers authenticity in terms of how meaning is produced in and through discourses about authenticity. Incorporating case studies from four continents, the topics reach from art and colonialism to exoticism-primitivism, film, ritual and wilderness. Some contributors emphasise the dichotomy between the academic use of the term and the one deployed in public spaces and political projects. All, however, consider authenticity as something that can only be understood ethnographically, and not as a simple characteristic or category used to distinguish some behaviors, experiences or material things from other less authentic versions.
Download or read book Modernist Anthropology written by Marc Manganaro and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent insights into the nature of representation and power relations have signaled an important shift in perspective on anthropology: from a fieldwork-based "science" of culture to an interpretive activity bound to the discursive and ideological process called "text-making." This collection of essays reflects the ongoing cross-fertilization between literary criticism and anthropology. Focusing on texts written or influenced by anthropologists between 1900 and 1945, the work relates current perspectives on anthropology's discursive nature to the literary period known as "Modernism.". The essays, each demonstrating anthropology's profound influence on this important cultural movement, are organized according to discourse type: from the comparativist text of Frazer, to the ethnographies of Boas, Benedict, Mead, and Hurston, and on to the surrealist experiments of the College de Sociologie. Meanwhile the book's orientation shifts from essays that approach anthropology from the vantage points of literariness and textual power to those that contemplate what bearing the junction of cultural theory and anthropology can have upon present and future social institutions. In addition to the editor, contributors include Vincent Crapanzano, Deborah Gordon, Richard Handler, Arnold Krupat, Francesco Loriggio, Michele Richman, Marty Roth, Marilyn Strathern, Robert Sullivan, John B. Vickery, and Steven Webster. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Download or read book Anthropology Development and Modernities written by Alberto Arce and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-12-16 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the diffusion of modernity and the spread of development schemes may bring prosperity, optimism and opportunity for some, for others it has brought poverty, a deterioration in quality of life and has given rise to violence. This collection brings an anthropological perspective to bear on understanding the diverse modernities we face in the contemporary world. It provides a critical review of interpretations of development and modernity, supported by rigorous case studies from regions as diverse as Guatemala, Sri Lanka, West Africa and contemporary Europe. Together, the chapters in this volume demonstrate the crucial importance of looking to ethnography for guidance in shaping development policies. Ethnography can show how people's own agency transforms, recasts and complicates the modernities they experience. The contributors argue that explanations of change framed in terms of the dominantdiscourses and institutions of modernity are inadequate, and that we give closer attention to discourses, images, beliefs and practices that run counter to these yet play a part in shaping them and giving them meaning. Anthropology, Development and Modernities deals with the realities of people's everyday lives and dilemmas. It is essential reading for students and scholars in anthropology, sociology and development studies. It should also be read by all those actively involved in development work.
Download or read book Modernity An Ethnographic Approach written by Daniel Miller and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-08-19 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From cultural studies, sociology, media studies, gender studies and elsewhere there have been a spate of books recently which have attempted to characterize the state of modernity. Many of these have also argued that what is required is an ethnographic work to determine how far these supposed trends actually apply to a given population. This book explicitly accepts this challenge and, in so doing, demonstrates the potential of modern anthropology studies. It starts by summarizing some debates on modernity and then argues that the Caribbean island of Trinidad is particularly apt for such a study given the origins of its population in slavery and indentured labour, both forms of extreme social rupture. The particular focus of this book is on mass consumption and the way goods and imported images such as soap opera have been used to express and develop a number of key contradictions of modernity. It will be of interest to anthropologists looking for a new potential for the discipline, as well as students in other fields who will be interested in the new contribution of anthropology to their debates.
Download or read book Modernity At Large written by Arjun Appadurai and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Modern Anthropology of India written by Peter Berger and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-06-03 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Modern Anthropology of India is an accessible textbook providing a critical overview of the ethnographic work done in India since 1947. It assesses the history of research in each region and serves as a practical and comprehensive guide to the main themes dealt with by ethnographers. It highlights key analytical concepts and paradigms that came to be of relevance in particular regions in the recent history of research in India, and which possibly gained a pan-Indian or even trans-Indian significance. Structured according to the states of the Indian union, contributors raise several key questions, including: What themes were ethnographers interested in? What are the significant ethnographic contributions? How are peoples, communities and cultural areas represented? How has the ethnographic research in the area developed? Filling a significant gap in the literature, the book is an invaluable resource to students and researchers in the field of Indian anthropology/ethnography, regional anthropology and postcolonial studies. It is also of interest to students of South Asian studies in general as it provides an extensive and critical overview of regionally based ethnographic activity undertaken in India.
Download or read book Anthropology Confronts the Problems of the Modern World written by Claude Lévi-Strauss and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-05 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This first English translation of lectures Claude Lévi-Strauss delivered in Tokyo in 1986 synthesizes his ideas about structural anthropology, critiques his earlier writings on civilization, and assesses the dilemmas of cultural and moral relativism, including economic inequality, religious fundamentalism, and genetic and reproductive engineering.
Download or read book Modernity and the Unmaking of Men written by Violeta Schubert and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2020-08-01 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Responding to the renewed emphasis on the significance of village studies, this book focuses on aging bachelorhood as a site of intolerable angst when faced with rural depopulation and social precarity. Based on ongoing ethnographic fieldwork in contemporary Macedonian society, the book explores the intersections between modernity, kinship and gender. It argues that as a critical consequence of demographic rupture, changing values and societal shifts, aging bachelorhood illuminates and challenges conceptualizations of performativity and social presence.
Download or read book Designs for an Anthropology of the Contemporary written by Paul Rabinow and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2008-11-10 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Modernity and Spirit Worship in India written by Miho Ishii and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-11-06 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the entangled relations between people’s daily worship practices and their umwelt in South India. Focusing on the practices of spirit (būta) worship in the coastal area of Karnataka, it examines the relationship between people and deities. Based on extensive fieldwork, this book links important anthropological theories on personhood, perspectives, transactions, and gift-exchanges together with the Gestaltkreis theory of Viktor von Weizsäcker. First, it examines the relations between būta worship and land tenure, matriliny, and hierarchy in the society. It then explores the reflexive relationship between modern law and current practices based on conventional law, before examining new developments in būta worship with the rise of mega-industries and environmental movements. Furthermore, this book sheds light on the struggles and endeavours of the people who create and recreate their relations with the realm of sacred wildness, as well as the formations and transformations of the umwelt in perpetual social-political transition. Modernity and Spirit Worship in India will be of interest to academics in the field of anthropology, religious studies and the dynamics of religion, and South Asian Culture and Society.
Download or read book Magic and Modernity written by Birgit Meyer and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book to explore comparatively how magic—usually portrayed as the antithesis of the modern—is also at home in modernity.
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 Writing Culture written by James Clifford and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-11-10 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These seminal essays place ethnography at the intersection of interpretive anthropology, cultural studies, social history, travel writing, discourse theory, and textual criticism. They grapple with issues of power and poetics in contemporary situations of globalization, post-coloniality, and post-modernity. Since its publication in 1986, Writing Culture has been a source of generative controversy and innovation in anthropology. It continues to inspire scholars and activists across the humanities, social sciences, and arts who are concerned with experimentation and ethics in cultural analysis. This anniversary edition is augmented with a new foreword by Kim Fortun, Associate Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, exploring the legacies of Writing Culture in the twenty-first century.
