Full Description
Anthropology is both outside of history and within it. Histories of anthropology tend to summarise particular authors' intellectual differences; but, as Marc Augé argues in this book, first published in English in 1982, these differences may in fact be intrinsically derived from intellectual divisions within anthropology as obvious as they are irreconcilable. Augé identifies, in contemporary debates in French anthropology, the paths that perhaps allow us to transcend these oppositions. On doing so, he explores and clarifies the relationship that anthropology enjoys with history, on the intellectual plane, and with politics, on the historical plane. His argument is stimulating and challenging, and will interest all social anthropologists and sociologists concerned with the theoretical foundations of their disciplines, as well as demonstrating to historians and political scientists what anthropology has to offer them.
Contents
Preface; Introduction: anthropology without history or anthropology in history?; 1. The anthropological circle: i. Two axes and four poles; ii. Evolution, culture, symbol; iii. Evolution, culture, function; iv. Symbol, function; v. Symbol, function, culture; vi. Culture, symbol; 2. Some questions concerning the current state of anthropology: i. The philosopher's questions; ii. Meaning, non-meaning and structure: Claude Lévi-Strauss; iii. Symbol and function: Victor Turner; iv. Instances and determination; 3. From moral crisis to intellectual doubt: i. The object of anthropology; ii. Ethnocentrism and anti-ethnocentrism; iii. Scientific practice, militant practice; Conclusions: i. New sites, new stakes; ii. Here, today; iii. Social logics; iv. A myth, a necessity: interdisciplinarity; Index.
