Rethinking Anthropology (Classic Reprint) - Couverture souple

E. R. Leach

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1330060008 ISBN 13 : 9781330060001

Editeur : Forgotten Books, 2018

Synopsis

Rethinking Anthropology invites you to question the core ideas researchers use to study society, and why those ideas matter.

This book argues that the field has relied too heavily on a simple, empirical bias and the dream of broad generalizations. It asks readers to rethink basic concepts like marriage, descent, and kinship, and to see how ethnocentric perspectives can shape what we think is true. The author contrasts two influential ways of thinking about social structure and offers a measured, thoughtful critique designed to provoke discussion rather than to settle disputes.

With a clear focus on theory, history, and real-world ethnography, the work connects debates about kinship and marriage to larger questions about how anthropology builds knowledge. It foregrounds the value of fieldwork while examining how famous researchers have shaped our views of different cultures. The result is a nuanced look at how ideas travel, how arguments unfold, and what it takes to balance detail with general insight.

• Explains why some classic approaches feel out of step with contemporary work.
• Compares different theories of social structure and how they influence interpretation.
• Examines real-world kinship and marriage systems to illustrate theoretical points.
• Offers a cautious, evidence-based path for readers new to anthropology or studying its history.

Ideal for readers curious about how anthropological ideas evolve and how debates shape our understanding of human society.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

Excerpt from Rethinking Anthropology

The title of this collection properly belongs only to the first essay. On 3 December 1959 I had the honour to deliver the first Malinowski Memorial Lecture at the London School of Economics. The Editorial Board of the London School of Economics Monographs in Social Anthropology generously offered to publish the text of my lecture but added the flattering suggestion that I should reprint a number of my other essays at the same time. I have accordingly appropriated the title of my Malinowski lecture for the whole collection.

The essays extend over a period of fifteen years and I do not pretend that the viewpoint of the latest (Chapter 1) is wholly consistent with that of the earliest (Chapter 2) but there is, I think, a certain continuity of theme and method in all of them. When they were first written all these essays were attempts to 'rethink anthropology'. All are concerned with problems of theory and are based on ethnographic facts recorded by others, my own contribution being primarily that of analyst. In each case I have tried to reassess the known facts in the light of unorthodox assumptions. Such heresy seems to me to have merit for its own sake. Unconventional arguments often turn out to be wrong but provided they provoke discussion they may still have lasting value. By that criterion each of the essays in this book is a possible candidate for attention.

Among social anthropologists the game of building new theories on the ruins of old ones is almost an occupational disease. Contemporary arguments in social anthropology are built out of formulae concocted by Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown and Levi-Strauss who in turn were only 'rethinking' Rivers, Durkheim and Mauss, who borrowed from Morgan, McLennan and Robertson-Smith - and so on. Sceptics may think that the total outcome of all this ratiocination adds up to very little; despite all our pedagogical subtleties, the diversities of human custom remain...

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Forgotten Books
• Date d'édition: 2018
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1330060008
• ISBN 13: 9781330060001
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 160
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