Anthropology, by Comparison

by Fox,Richard G.; Fox,Richard G.

• ISBN13: 9780415260534
• ISBN10: 0415260531
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-03-22
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The contributors to this innovative work re-examine how anthropology might resume its central task of exploring human society through comparison, but under new global conditions and using its newfound critical self-awareness. Individual entries from an international group of anthropologists re-visits, re-theorizes and re-invigorates comparison as a legitimate and fruitful enterprise. The authors explain the valuable elements of anthropological comparison and encourage an international dialogue about comparative research.Anthropology, by Comparisonis a call to creative reflection on the past and productive action in the present, a challenge to anthropologists to revitalize their unique contribution to human understanding.

Table of Contents

Notes on contributors	ix
Foreword: not giving the game away	xiii
Marilyn Strathern
Acknowledgements	xviii
Introduction	1	(7)
Richard G. Fox
Andre Gingrich
Comparison and anthropology's public responsibility	8	(5)
Reinvigorating past comparative methods	13	(3)
New methods of comparison	16	(5)
Notes	21	(1)
Bibliography	22	(3)
PART I Comparison and anthropology's public responsibility	25	(68)
Anthropology's comparative consciousness: the case of human rights	27	(17)
Kirsten Hastrup
Language: law and the levelling of difference	30	(5)
Experience: individuality and moral horizons	35	(4)
Conclusion: theory and comparative conscience	39	(2)
Bibliography	41	(3)
Action comparison: efforts towards a global and comparative yet local and active anthropology	44	(26)
James Peacock
Globalism, Bildung, Volkskunde, ethnography: comparison in historical perspective	49	(5)
Towards action comparison	54	(1)
Ethnographic grounding	54	(3)
Cases in action comparison	57	(6)
Issues for anthropology's action comparison	63	(2)
Conclusion	65	(2)
Notes	67	(1)
Bibliography	68	(2)
Issues of relevance: anthropology and the challenges of cross-cultural comparison	70	(23)
Marit Melhuus
Positioning the subject	72	(1)
Issues of relevance: public pressures	73	(3)
Issues of relevance: a view from within	76	(3)
Challenges of cross-cultural comparison	79	(3)
Problems of context	82	(6)
Notes	88	(2)
Bibliography	90	(3)
PART II Reinvigorating past comparative methods	93	(92)
Conditions of comparison: a consideration of two anthropological traditions in the Netherlands	95	(29)
Jan J. De Wolf
The development of Steinmetz's ideas	97	(2)
Nieboer's work on slavery	99	(3)
Other comparative studies instigated by Steinmetz	102	(2)
A.J.F. Kobben and the statistical method	104	(4)
The Leiden tradition of regional-structural comparison	108	(3)
Levi-Strauss and the Leiden School	111	(4)
Conclusion	115	(4)
Bibliography	119	(5)
Some current kinship paradigms in the light of true Crow Indian ethnography	124	(19)
Emmanuel Desveaux
Crow Indian kinship terminology	127	(2)
Underlying logic	129	(5)
Ethnographic context	134	(3)
Conclusion	137	(2)
Notes	139	(1)
Appendix 5A: Kin term abbreviations	140	(1)
Appendix 5B: Crow kinship terms	140	(1)
Bibliography	141	(2)
Comparison and contextualization: reflections on South Africa	143	(24)
Adam Kuper
Modalities of comparison	144	(4)
Comparison in Southern African ethnography	148	(5)
Khoisan studies	153	(3)
Structural transformations	156	(5)
A common humanity	161	(1)
Notes	162	(1)
Bibliography	163	(4)
The study of historical transformation in American anthropology	167	(18)
Richard G. Fox
Franz Boas and the historical method	168	(1)
Alexander Lesser and 'careers in time'	168	(2)
Fred Eggan and controlled comparison	170	(2)
Julian Steward and the study of `developmental regularities'	172	(1)
Eric Wolf and the `Lifeline' of a civilization	173	(3)
Sidney Mintz and the return to 'careers in time'	176	(1)
Clifford Geertz, Marshall Sahlins and doing history backward	177	(2)
Sikh culture in the making	179	(1)
Transformations of Gandhian protest	180	(1)
Conclusion	181	(2)
Notes	183	(1)
Bibliography	183	(2)
PART III New methods of comparison	185	(64)
Comparison and ontogeny	186	(18)
Christina Toren
Becoming who we are	188	(5)
Mind and intersubjectivity	193	(3)
The language aspect of becoming who we are	196	(2)
The phenomenology of learning	198	(2)
Conclusion	200	(1)
Notes	201	(1)
Bibliography	202	(2)
The notion of art: from regional to distant comparison	204	(21)
Thomas Fillitz
Cross-cultural studies of art and society	204	(4)
Regional comparison in the anthropology of art	208	(3)
Meaning, aesthetics and comparison	211	(6)
`Distant' comparison	217	(5)
Conclusion	222	(1)
Notes	222	(1)
Bibliography	222	(3)
When ethnic majorities are `dethroned': towards a methodology of self-reflexive, controlled macrocomparison	225	(24)
Andre Gingrich
Situating comparison in a present-day world	226	(7)
Comparing `dethroned majorities' in the collapse processes of two empires	233	(7)
Conclusion	240	(5)
Notes	245	(1)
Bibliography	246	(3)
Index	249