Full Description
The development of the dialogical approach, the autobiographical perspective and the central role of text-interpretation are all seen as characteristics of post-modern ethnography, arising from the daily chores of field research. The breakthrough into time and history, away from the timeless theorizing of structuralism and functionalism, is seen as inevitable when anthropology is forced to think about its own epistemology. Another current concern is taken up with reflections on the politics of representing the other. In the later essays, he opposes post-modern fashions and re-asserts the need to continue with a truly critical agenda.
Contents
PART ONE Ethnography, Communication and Texts ONE Language, history and anthropology [1971] TWO Taxonomy and ideology [1975] THREE Genres in an emerging tradition [1974] FOUR Text as terror: second thoughts about charisma [1979] FIVE Rule and process [1979] PART TWO Anthropology of Religion and Colonial History SIX Six theses regarding the anthropology of African religious movements [1981] SEVEN Missions and the colonization of African languages: developments in the former Belgian Congo [1983] EIGHT Religious and secular colonization [1990] PART THREE How Anthropology Makes Its Object NINE H o w others die—reflections on the anthropology of death [1972] TEN Culture, time, and the object of anthropology [1985] ELEVEN Presence and representation [1990] TWELVE Of dogs alive, birds dead, and time to tell a story [1991] THIRTEEN Dilemmas of critical anthropology [1991]
