Against the Anthropological Grain

Against the Anthropological Grain

Author: Wilcomb E. Washburn

Publisher: Transaction Publishers

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 9781412816632

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In Against the Anthropological Grain Washburn critically examines key anthropological beliefs, especially in the importance of cultural relativism and Western colonialism's harmful effects on Third World cultures. He turns the tables on theorists from the discipline. He questions whether anthropology has a credible past, whether anthropologists should even involve themselves in inter-tribal conflicts, whether museums should return "sacred objects" from their collections, and whether museums provide adequate physical care of their collections.


Book Synopsis Against the Anthropological Grain by : Wilcomb E. Washburn

Download or read book Against the Anthropological Grain written by Wilcomb E. Washburn and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 1998 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Against the Anthropological Grain Washburn critically examines key anthropological beliefs, especially in the importance of cultural relativism and Western colonialism's harmful effects on Third World cultures. He turns the tables on theorists from the discipline. He questions whether anthropology has a credible past, whether anthropologists should even involve themselves in inter-tribal conflicts, whether museums should return "sacred objects" from their collections, and whether museums provide adequate physical care of their collections.

Against the Grain

Against the Grain

Author: Bradley B. Walters

Publisher: Rowman Altamira

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 9780759111721

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Against the Grain gathers scholars from across disciplines to explore the work of ecological anthropologist Andrew P. Vayda and the future of the study of human ecology.


Book Synopsis Against the Grain by : Bradley B. Walters

Download or read book Against the Grain written by Bradley B. Walters and published by Rowman Altamira. This book was released on 2008 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Against the Grain gathers scholars from across disciplines to explore the work of ecological anthropologist Andrew P. Vayda and the future of the study of human ecology.

Against the Grain

Against the Grain

Author: James C. Scott

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 9780302240212

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An account of all the new and surprising evidence now available for the beginnings of the earliest civilizations that contradict the standard narrative. Why did humans abandon hunting and gathering for sedentary communities dependent on livestock and cereal grains, and governed by precursors of today's states? Most people believe that plant and animal domestication allowed humans, finally, to settle down and form agricultural villages, towns, and states, which made possible civilization, law, public order, and a presumably secure way of living. But archaeological and historical evidence challenges this narrative. The first agrarian states, says James C. Scott, were born of accumulations of domestications: first fire, then plants, livestock, subjects of the state, captives, and finally women in the patriarchal family-all of which can be viewed as a way of gaining control over reproduction. Scott explores why we avoided sedentism and plow agriculture, the advantages of mobile subsistence, the unforeseeable disease epidemics arising from crowding plants, animals, and grain, and why all early states are based on millets and cereal grains and unfree labor. He also discusses the "barbarians" who long evaded state control, as a way of understanding continuing tension between states and nonsubject peoples.


Book Synopsis Against the Grain by : James C. Scott

Download or read book Against the Grain written by James C. Scott and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account of all the new and surprising evidence now available for the beginnings of the earliest civilizations that contradict the standard narrative. Why did humans abandon hunting and gathering for sedentary communities dependent on livestock and cereal grains, and governed by precursors of today's states? Most people believe that plant and animal domestication allowed humans, finally, to settle down and form agricultural villages, towns, and states, which made possible civilization, law, public order, and a presumably secure way of living. But archaeological and historical evidence challenges this narrative. The first agrarian states, says James C. Scott, were born of accumulations of domestications: first fire, then plants, livestock, subjects of the state, captives, and finally women in the patriarchal family-all of which can be viewed as a way of gaining control over reproduction. Scott explores why we avoided sedentism and plow agriculture, the advantages of mobile subsistence, the unforeseeable disease epidemics arising from crowding plants, animals, and grain, and why all early states are based on millets and cereal grains and unfree labor. He also discusses the "barbarians" who long evaded state control, as a way of understanding continuing tension between states and nonsubject peoples.

Against the Grain

Against the Grain

Author: Bradley B. Walters

Publisher: Rowman Altamira

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 396

ISBN-13: 9780759111738

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To rise to the increasingly urgent challenge of understanding the relationship between human beings and the environment, scholars need to step back and re-evaluate their basic premises about how current explanations should shape the form and content of th


Book Synopsis Against the Grain by : Bradley B. Walters

Download or read book Against the Grain written by Bradley B. Walters and published by Rowman Altamira. This book was released on 2008 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To rise to the increasingly urgent challenge of understanding the relationship between human beings and the environment, scholars need to step back and re-evaluate their basic premises about how current explanations should shape the form and content of th

Against the Grain

Against the Grain

Author: Richard Manning

Publisher: North Point Press

Published: 2005-02-01

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1466823429

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In this provocative, wide-ranging book, Against the Grain, Richard Manning offers a dramatically revisionist view of recent human evolution, beginning with the vast increase in brain size that set us apart from our primate relatives and brought an accompanying increase in our need for nourishment. For 290,000 years, we managed to meet that need as hunter-gatherers, a state in which Manning believes we were at our most human: at our smartest, strongest, most sensually alive. But our reliance on food made a secure supply deeply attractive, and eventually we embarked upon the agricultural experiment that has been the history of our past 10,000 years. The evolutionary road is littered with failed experiments, however, and Manning suggests that agriculture as we have practiced it runs against both our grain and nature's. Drawing on the work of anthropologists, biologists, archaeologists, and philosophers, along with his own travels, he argues that not only our ecological ills-overpopulation, erosion, pollution-but our social and emotional malaise are rooted in the devil's bargain we made in our not-so-distant past. And he offers personal, achievable ways we might re-contour the path we have taken to resurrect what is most sustainable and sustaining in our own nature and the planet's.


Book Synopsis Against the Grain by : Richard Manning

Download or read book Against the Grain written by Richard Manning and published by North Point Press. This book was released on 2005-02-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this provocative, wide-ranging book, Against the Grain, Richard Manning offers a dramatically revisionist view of recent human evolution, beginning with the vast increase in brain size that set us apart from our primate relatives and brought an accompanying increase in our need for nourishment. For 290,000 years, we managed to meet that need as hunter-gatherers, a state in which Manning believes we were at our most human: at our smartest, strongest, most sensually alive. But our reliance on food made a secure supply deeply attractive, and eventually we embarked upon the agricultural experiment that has been the history of our past 10,000 years. The evolutionary road is littered with failed experiments, however, and Manning suggests that agriculture as we have practiced it runs against both our grain and nature's. Drawing on the work of anthropologists, biologists, archaeologists, and philosophers, along with his own travels, he argues that not only our ecological ills-overpopulation, erosion, pollution-but our social and emotional malaise are rooted in the devil's bargain we made in our not-so-distant past. And he offers personal, achievable ways we might re-contour the path we have taken to resurrect what is most sustainable and sustaining in our own nature and the planet's.

Against the Grain

Against the Grain

Author: Bradley B. Walters

Publisher: Rowman Altamira

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13:

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Against the Grain gathers scholars from across disciplines to explore the work of ecological anthropologist Andrew P. Vayda and the future of the study of human ecology.


Book Synopsis Against the Grain by : Bradley B. Walters

Download or read book Against the Grain written by Bradley B. Walters and published by Rowman Altamira. This book was released on 2008 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Against the Grain gathers scholars from across disciplines to explore the work of ecological anthropologist Andrew P. Vayda and the future of the study of human ecology.

Along the Archival Grain

Along the Archival Grain

Author: Ann Laura Stoler

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2010-01-25

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 9781400835478

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Along the Archival Grain offers a unique methodological and analytic opening to the affective registers of imperial governance and the political content of archival forms. In a series of nuanced mediations on the nature of colonial documents from the nineteenth-century Netherlands Indies, Ann Laura Stoler identifies the social epistemologies that guided perception and practice, revealing the problematic racial ontologies of that confused epistemic space. Navigating familiar and extraordinary paths through the lettered lives of those who ruled, she seizes on moments when common sense failed and prevailing categories no longer seemed to work. She asks not what colonial agents knew, but what happened when what they thought they knew they found they did not. Rejecting the notion that archival labor be approached as an extractive enterprise, Stoler sets her sights on archival production as a consequential act of governance, as a field of force with violent effect, and not least as a vivid space to do ethnography.


Book Synopsis Along the Archival Grain by : Ann Laura Stoler

Download or read book Along the Archival Grain written by Ann Laura Stoler and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-01-25 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Along the Archival Grain offers a unique methodological and analytic opening to the affective registers of imperial governance and the political content of archival forms. In a series of nuanced mediations on the nature of colonial documents from the nineteenth-century Netherlands Indies, Ann Laura Stoler identifies the social epistemologies that guided perception and practice, revealing the problematic racial ontologies of that confused epistemic space. Navigating familiar and extraordinary paths through the lettered lives of those who ruled, she seizes on moments when common sense failed and prevailing categories no longer seemed to work. She asks not what colonial agents knew, but what happened when what they thought they knew they found they did not. Rejecting the notion that archival labor be approached as an extractive enterprise, Stoler sets her sights on archival production as a consequential act of governance, as a field of force with violent effect, and not least as a vivid space to do ethnography.

Anthropology's Politics

Anthropology's Politics

Author: Lara Deeb

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2015-11-11

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780804781237

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U.S. involvement in the Middle East has brought the region into the media spotlight and made it a hot topic in American college classrooms. At the same time, anthropology—a discipline committed to on-the-ground research about everyday lives and social worlds—has increasingly been criticized as "useless" or "biased" by right-wing forces. What happens when the two concerns meet, when such accusations target the researchers and research of a region so central to U.S. military interests? This book is the first academic study to shed critical light on the political and economic pressures that shape how U.S. scholars research and teach about the Middle East. Lara Deeb and Jessica Winegar show how Middle East politics and U.S. gender and race hierarchies affect scholars across their careers—from the first decisions to conduct research in the tumultuous region, to ongoing politicized pressures from colleagues, students, and outside groups, to hurdles in sharing expertise with the public. They detail how academia, even within anthropology, an assumed "liberal" discipline, is infused with sexism, racism, Islamophobia, and Zionist obstruction of any criticism of the Israeli state. Anthropology's Politics offers a complex portrait of how academic politics ultimately hinders the education of U.S. students and potentially limits the public's access to critical knowledge about the Middle East.


Book Synopsis Anthropology's Politics by : Lara Deeb

Download or read book Anthropology's Politics written by Lara Deeb and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2015-11-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: U.S. involvement in the Middle East has brought the region into the media spotlight and made it a hot topic in American college classrooms. At the same time, anthropology—a discipline committed to on-the-ground research about everyday lives and social worlds—has increasingly been criticized as "useless" or "biased" by right-wing forces. What happens when the two concerns meet, when such accusations target the researchers and research of a region so central to U.S. military interests? This book is the first academic study to shed critical light on the political and economic pressures that shape how U.S. scholars research and teach about the Middle East. Lara Deeb and Jessica Winegar show how Middle East politics and U.S. gender and race hierarchies affect scholars across their careers—from the first decisions to conduct research in the tumultuous region, to ongoing politicized pressures from colleagues, students, and outside groups, to hurdles in sharing expertise with the public. They detail how academia, even within anthropology, an assumed "liberal" discipline, is infused with sexism, racism, Islamophobia, and Zionist obstruction of any criticism of the Israeli state. Anthropology's Politics offers a complex portrait of how academic politics ultimately hinders the education of U.S. students and potentially limits the public's access to critical knowledge about the Middle East.

The Potential for Anthropology and Urban Community Engagement

The Potential for Anthropology and Urban Community Engagement

Author: Jill Florence Lackey

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2024-07-01

Total Pages: 185

ISBN-13: 180539584X

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The relationship between anthropology departments and their surrounding urban communities has been traditional limited by a number of factors. The Potential for Anthropology and Urban Community Engagement pushes past these limitations, developing a firm foundation from which applied anthropology can support grassroots research and lasting community programs. Using two partnering Milwaukee organizations as examples, this volume explores the need in urban neighborhoods for practicing anthropologists, how a high volume of asset-building programs can be developed by practicing anthropologists, and the potential efficacy of anthropology departments in partnering with urban neighborhoods.


Book Synopsis The Potential for Anthropology and Urban Community Engagement by : Jill Florence Lackey

Download or read book The Potential for Anthropology and Urban Community Engagement written by Jill Florence Lackey and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2024-07-01 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The relationship between anthropology departments and their surrounding urban communities has been traditional limited by a number of factors. The Potential for Anthropology and Urban Community Engagement pushes past these limitations, developing a firm foundation from which applied anthropology can support grassroots research and lasting community programs. Using two partnering Milwaukee organizations as examples, this volume explores the need in urban neighborhoods for practicing anthropologists, how a high volume of asset-building programs can be developed by practicing anthropologists, and the potential efficacy of anthropology departments in partnering with urban neighborhoods.

Serendipity in Anthropological Research

Serendipity in Anthropological Research

Author: Haim Hazan

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-15

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 1317057074

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Challenging the idea that fieldwork is the only way to gather data, and that standard methods are the sole route to fruitful analysis, Serendipity in Anthropological Research explores the role of fortune and happenstance in anthropology. It conceives of anthropological research as a lifelong nomadic journey of discovery in which the world yields an infinite number of unexplored issues and innumerable ways of studying them, each study producing its own questions and demanding its own methodologies. Drawing together the latest research from a team of senior scholars from around the world to reflect on the experience of research, Serendipity in Anthropological Research presents rich new case studies from Europe and the Middle East to examine both new and old questions in novel and enriching ways. An engaging examination of methodology and anthropological fieldwork, this book will appeal to all those concerned with writing ethnography.


Book Synopsis Serendipity in Anthropological Research by : Haim Hazan

Download or read book Serendipity in Anthropological Research written by Haim Hazan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-15 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenging the idea that fieldwork is the only way to gather data, and that standard methods are the sole route to fruitful analysis, Serendipity in Anthropological Research explores the role of fortune and happenstance in anthropology. It conceives of anthropological research as a lifelong nomadic journey of discovery in which the world yields an infinite number of unexplored issues and innumerable ways of studying them, each study producing its own questions and demanding its own methodologies. Drawing together the latest research from a team of senior scholars from around the world to reflect on the experience of research, Serendipity in Anthropological Research presents rich new case studies from Europe and the Middle East to examine both new and old questions in novel and enriching ways. An engaging examination of methodology and anthropological fieldwork, this book will appeal to all those concerned with writing ethnography.