Small Places, Large Issues: An Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology (Anthropology, Culture and Society) - Hardcover

Eriksen, Thomas Hylland

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0745336957 ISBN 13: 9780745336954

Verlag: Pluto Press, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

This concise introduction to social and cultural anthropology has become a modern classic, introducing countless students to the field and the tools it offers for exploring some of the most complicated questions of human life and interaction. This fourth edition is fully updated, incorporating recent debates and controversies in the field, ranging from globalization and migration research to problems of cultural translation and the challenges of interdisciplinarity. Effortlessly bridging the gap between classic and contemporary anthropology, Small Places, Large Issues remains an essential text for undergraduates embarking on the study of this field.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Thomas Hylland Eriksen is professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo and a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. His books include Ethnicity and Nationalism, A History Of Anthropology, Globalisation: Studies in Anthropology, and What Is Anthropology?, all published by Pluto Press.

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Small Places, Large Issues

An Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology

By Thomas Hylland Eriksen

Pluto Press

Copyright © 2015 Thomas Hylland Eriksen
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-7453-3695-4

Contents

Series Preface, vi, 
Preface to the Fourth Edition, vii, 
1. Anthropology: Comparison and Context, 1, 
2. A Brief History of Anthropology, 12, 
3. Fieldwork and Ethnography, 32, 
4. The Social Person, 52, 
5. Local Organisation, 74, 
6. Person and Society, 94, 
7. Kinship as Descent, 117, 
8. Marriage and Relatedness, 136, 
9. Gender and Age, 155, 
10. Caste and Class, 176, 
11. Politics and Power, 194, 
12. Exchange and Consumption, 217, 
13. Production, Nature and Technology, 241, 
14. Religion and Ritual, 264, 
15. Language and Cognition, 286, 
16. Complexity and Change, 308, 
17. Ethnicity, 329, 
18. Nationalism and Minorities, 345, 
19. Anthropology and the Paradoxes of Globalisation, 367, 
20. Public Anthropology, 391, 
Epilogue: Making Anthropology Matter, 401, 
Bibliography, 404, 
Index, 435, 

CHAPTER 1

Anthropology: Comparison and Context

[Anthropology] is less a subject matter than a bond between subject matters. It is in part history, part literature; in part natural science, part social science; it strives to study men both from within and without; it represents both a manner of looking at man and a vision of man — the most scientific of the humanities, the most humanist of sciences.

— Eric Wolf

Studying anthropology is like embarking on a journey which turns out to be much longer than you had initially planned, possibly because the plans were somewhat open-ended to begin with and the terrain turned out to be bumpier and more diverse than the map suggested. Fortunately, like many journeys which take an unexpected turn, this one also has numerous unexpected rewards in store (as well as, it is only fair to concede, a few frustrations en route). This journey brings the traveller from the damp rainforests of the Amazon to the cold semi-desert of the Arctic; from the streets of north London to mud huts in the Sahel; from Indonesian paddies to African cities. The aim of this book is dual: to provide useful maps, and to explore some of the main sights (as well as a few less visited sites).

In spite of the dizzying geography of this trip, it is chiefly in a different sense that this is a long journey. Social and cultural anthropology has the whole of human society as its area of interest, and tries to understand the ways in which human lives are unique, but also the sense in which we are all similar. When, for example, we study the traditional economic system of the Tiv of central Nigeria, an essential part of the exploration consists in understanding how their economy is connected with other aspects of their society. If this dimension is absent, Tiv economy becomes incomprehensible to anthropologists. If we do not know that the Tiv traditionally could not buy and sell land, and that they have customarily not used money as a means of payment, it will be plainly impossible to understand how they themselves interpret their situation and how they responded to the economic changes imposed on their society during colonialism in the twentieth century.

Anthropology tries to account for the social and cultural variation in the world, but a crucial part of the anthropological project also consists in conceptualising and understanding similarities between social systems and human relationships. As one of the foremost anthropologists of the twentieth century, Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009), has expressed it: 'Anthropology has humanity as its object of research, but unlike the other human sciences, it tries to grasp its object through its most diverse manifestations' (1983, p. 49). Differently phrased: anthropology is about how different people can be, but it also tries to find out in what sense it can be said that all humans have something in common. It oscillates between the universal and the particular.

Another prominent anthropologist, Clifford Geertz (1926-2006), expresses a similar view in an essay which essentially deals with the differences between humans and animals:

If we want to discover what man amounts to, we can only find it in what men are: and what men are, above all other things, is various. It is in understanding that variousness – its range, its nature, its basis, and its implications – that we shall come to construct a concept of human nature that, more than a statistical shadow and less than a primitivist dream, has both substance and truth. (Geertz 1973, p. 52)

Although anthropologists have wide-ranging and frequently highly specialised interests, they share a common concern in trying to understand both connections within societies and connections between societies. As will become clearer as we proceed on this journey through the subject-matter and theories of social and cultural anthropology, there is a multitude of ways in which to approach these problems. Whether you are interested in understanding why and in what sense the Azande of Central Africa believe in witches (and why most Europeans have ceased doing so), why there is greater social inequality in Brazil than in Sweden, how the inhabitants of the densely populated, ethnically complex island of Mauritius avoid violent ethnic conflict, or what has happened to the traditional ways of life of the Inuit in recent decades, in most cases one or several anthropologists would have carried out research and written on the issue. Whether you are interested in the study of religion, child-raising, political power, economic life, gender, precarious labour or climate change, you may go to the anthropological literature for inspiration and knowledge.

Anthropologists are also concerned with accounting for the interrelationships between different aspects of human existence, and usually investigate these interrelationships taking as their point of departure a detailed study of local life in a particular society or a more or less clearly delineated social environment. One may therefore say that anthropology asks large questions, while at the same time it draws its most important insights from small places.

For many years, it was common to see its traditional focus on small-scale non-industrial societies as a distinguishing feature of anthropology, compared with other subjects dealing with culture and society. However, owing to changes in the world and in the discipline itself, this is no longer an accurate description. Practically any social system can be studied anthropologically and contemporary anthropological research displays an enormous range, empirically as well as theoretically. Some study witchcraft in contemporary South Africa, others study diplomacy. Some travel to Melanesia for fieldwork, while others take the bus to the other side of town. Some analyse the economic adaptations of migrants, others write about the new social networks on the Internet.

An Outline of the Subject

What, then, is anthropology? Let us begin with the etymology of the concept. It is a compound of two ancient Greek words, 'anthropos' and 'logos', which can be translated as 'human' and 'reason', respectively. So anthropology means 'reason about humans' or, rather, 'knowledge about humans'. Social anthropology would then mean knowledge about humans in societies. Such a definition would, of course, cover the other social sciences as...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Pluto Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0745336957
• ISBN 13: 9780745336954
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 4
• Anzahl der Seiten: 454
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar