In and Out of the West

by Godelier, Maurice; Scott, Nora

• ISBN13: 9780813927077
• ISBN10: 0813927072
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-05-30
• Publisher: Univ of Virginia Pr

Summary

Is anthropology simply a continuation of colonial domination and cultural imperialism by other means, or has it--since its nineteenth-century rebirth as a purportedly scientific discipline--produced reliable knowledge about the cultures it studies? Is anthropology a mirror--which reflects only the preoccupations of the (Western) anthropologist--or a window, through which it is possible to see, though not with the same eyes as their members, other cultures?Deriving from the 2002 Page-Barbour Lectures delivered by the French anthropologist Maurice Godelier at the University of Virginia, and supplemented by additional lectures and articles by the author, In and Out of the West addresses a series of fundamental topics and issues in social anthropology--including family, kinship, and the construction of the self. He particularly emphasizes the strategic role of political-religious relations in the construction of societies and social life.Godelier places social anthropology in its historical perspective, with its origins in the West and, more particularly, colonialism, while also arguing that it has to some extent transcended its origins, achieving a measure of scientific objectivity and validity that cannot be reduced to a continuation of the colonial project. A final chapter, reflecting his experience as the first head of the science department of the new Quai Branly anthropological museum in Paris, discusses issues surrounding the presentation of nonwestern cultural artifacts to a Western general public.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Anthropology Today-What Have We Done and What Should We Do?	p. 1
Some Things One Keeps, Some Things One Gives, Some Things One Sells, and Some Things Must neither Be Sold nor Given but Kept to Pass On	p. 45
No Society Has Ever Been Based on the Family or on Kinship	p. 62
It Always Takes More Than a Man and a Woman to Make a Child	p. 80
Human Sexuality Is Fundamentally A-social: The Example of the Baruya of Papua New Guinea	p. 101
How an Individual Becomes a Social Subject	p. 125
What Is a Society?	p. 137
Social Anthropology Is Not Indissolubly Tied to the West, Its Birthplace	p. 158
Excursus: Combining the Pleasures of Art and Knowledge for the Museumgoing Publics	p. 177
Notes	p. 193
Bibliography	p. 213
Index	p. 231
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