12 quotes
Identification is created both from the inside and the outside, in the encounter between one’s own presentation of self and the perceptions of others.
What is Anthropology? (2017)
Studies of thought and modes of reasoning have been central in the history of anthropology from the nineteenth century to the present day.
What is Anthropology? (2017)
The world, as it is perceived by human beings, is to a certain extent shaped by language. However, there is no agreement as to just what the relationship between language and non-linguistic reality is.
What is Anthropology? (2017)
The art of cultural translation consists in oscillating between distance and nearness, between one’s own concepts and the native ones, or – to put it differently – making the exotic familiar and the familiar exotic.
What is Anthropology? (2017)
What characterises anthropological research today more than anything is the recognition of complexity; the world is complex, cultures are complex, communities are complex, and analytical strategies must acknowledge complexity.
What is Anthropology? (2017)
One reason for the increased interest in studies of identity in anthropology may be the fact that issues to do with the nature of groups have become hugely important in politics worldwide in the last decades.
What is Anthropology? (2017)
It is the goal of anthropology to establish as detailed a knowledge as possible about human life in its mind-boggling diversity, and to develop a conceptual apparatus that makes it possible to compare life-worlds and societies. This in turn enables us to understand both differences and similarities between the many different ways of being human.
What is Anthropology? (2017)
Both evolutionary scientists and anthropologists, who approach the phenomena from very discrepant points of view, have, in other words, reached the conclusion that reciprocity, which creates enduring social bonds based on trust and mutual obligations, is a fundamental aspect of human life.
What is Anthropology? (2017)
The world is far too complex, and variation between societal types is too vast, for a categorisation dividing it into two mutually exclusive kinds of society to be meaningful. In addition, as argued above, one cannot once and for all draw the boundaries of a society. For this reason, it is more accurate to state that anthropologists study social life rather than saying that they study societies.
What is Anthropology? (2017)
In my view, there are many exciting possibilities for cooperation between social and cultural anthropologists on the one hand, and scholars with a biological perspective on the other, but they are often lost in aggressive academic turf wars and a failure to engage seriously with each other’s points of view.
What is Anthropology? (2017)
Kinship builds upon two complementary principles: descent and marriage. But both can be manipulated and fiddled with, by natives as well as by anthropologists. There exists a considerable critical literature about kinship; some of it was mentioned briefly at the beginning of this chapter, and we now turn to a slightly more detailed examination.
What is Anthropology? (2017)
Anthropology is an intellectually challenging, theoretically ambitious subject which tries to achieve an understanding of culture, society and humanity through detailed studies of local life, made sense of through comparison and contextualisation. But it is also a form of storytelling about the lives that you and I could have led, but didn’t because we were busy living our own lives.
What is Anthropology? (2017)