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A Sense for the Other: The Timeliness and Relevance of Anthropology (Mestizo Spaces / Espaces Métissés) - Softcover

Augé, Marc

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9780804730358: A Sense for the Other: The Timeliness and Relevance of Anthropology (Mestizo Spaces / Espaces Métissés)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0804730350 ISBN 13: 9780804730358
Publisher: Stanford University Press, 1998

Synopsis

If the end of exoticism is one of the characteristics of our time, and if classical anthropology based its study of alterity on this exotic distance from the other, is anthropology still possible, and if so, to what end? The author uses these questions as a point of departure for a probing interrogation of ethnological practice, starting with Lévi-Strauss.

For several years, the author has advocated an anthropology of “proximity” in place of the usual anthropology of distance. He has studied such emblematic places of Western modernity as the Parisian Metro, or such emblematic “non-places” as airports or freeways, treating as valid anthropological objects phenomena that others might judge less “pure” or “significant” than systems of filiation or matrimonial alliance. The proper place of the ethnographer, he argues, is sufficiently distanced to comprehend a system as a system, yet participatory enough to live it as an individual. How can one best arrive at such a place?

This book answers by outlining an approach to anthropology that focuses on negotiating the social meanings we and others use in making sense of the world, and on the processes of identification that create the difference between same and other. Why trace a line of demarcation between societies thought to warrant and require anthropological observation and others (namely, our own) thought to demand a different type of study? Once anthropology, through its study of rites, takes social meaning as its principal object, the necessity for a “generalized anthropology” that includes the entire planet seems obvious, especially in view of the rapid proliferation of new networks of communication and the integration of individuals into those networks.

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About the Author

Marc Augé is President of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. He is the author of a dozen books, several of which have been translated into English.

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Publisher
Stanford University Press
Publication date
1998
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0804730350
ISBN 13 
9780804730358
Binding
Paperback
Edition number
1
Number of pages
154
Rating
  • 3.20 out of 5 stars
    20 ratings by Goodreads