What is Anthropology?

193 Pages·2017·1.16 MB·English

by  Thomas Hylland Eriksen

What is Anthropology?
Anthropology, Culture and Society
Series Editors:
Doctor Jamie Cross, University of Edinburgh
and
Professor Christina Garsten, Stockholm University
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What is
Anthropology?
Second Edition
Thomas Hylland Eriksen
First published 2004; second edition 2017 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © Thomas Hylland Eriksen 2004, 2017
The right of Thomas Hylland Eriksen to be identified as the author of this
work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 9966 9 Hardback
ISBN 978 0 7453 9965 2 Paperback
ISBN 978 1 7868 0090 9 PDF eBook
ISBN 978 1 7868 0092 3 Kindle eBook
ISBN 978 1 7868 0091 6 EPUB eBook
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Simultaneously printed in the United Kingdom and United States of America
Make everything as simple as possible.
But no simpler. (Einstein)
He who speaks no foreign language
knows nothing about his own. (Goethe)

Contents
Series Preface viii
PART 1 ENTRANCES
1 Why Anthropology? 3
2 Key Concepts 19
3 Ethnography 41
4 Theories 60
PART 2 FIELDS
5 Reciprocity 83
6 Kinship 98
7 Nature 117
8 Thought 136
9 Social Identity 152
Bibliography 167
Index 171
Series Preface
Anthropology is a discipline based upon in-depth ethnographic works
that deal with wider theoretical issues in the context of particular, local
conditions – to paraphrase an important volume from the series: large issues
explored in small places. This series has a particular mission: to publish
work that moves away from an old-style descriptive ethnography that is
strongly area-studies oriented, and offer genuine theoretical arguments
that are of interest to a much wider readership, but which are nevertheless
located and grounded in solid ethnographic research. If anthropology is to
argue itself a place in the contemporary intellectual world, then it must
surely be through such research.
We start from the question: ‘What can this ethnographic material tell us
about the bigger theoretical issues that concern the social sciences?’ rather
than ‘What can these theoretical ideas tell us about the ethnographic
context?’ Put this way round, such work becomes about large issues, set in
a (relatively) small place, rather than detailed description of a small place
for its own sake. As Clifford Geertz once said, ‘Anthropologists don’t study
villages; they study in villages.’
By place, we mean not only geographical locale, but also other types of
‘place’ – within political, economic, religious or other social systems. We
therefore publish work based on ethnography within political and religious
movements, occupational or class groups, among youth, development
agencies, and nationalist movements; but also work that is more thematically
based – on kinship, landscape, the state, violence, corruption, the self.
The series publishes four kinds of volume: ethnographic monographs;
comparative texts; edited collections; and shorter, polemical essays.
We publish work from all traditions of anthropology, and all parts of
the world, which combines theoretical debate with empirical evidence to
demonstrate anthropology’s unique position in contemporary scholarship
and the contemporary world.
Dr Jamie Cross
Professor Christina Garsten
Part 1
Entrances