Landmarks: Reflections on Anthropology - Softcover

Strathern, Andrew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0873384792 ISBN 13: 9780873384797

Publisher: The Kent State University Press, 1993

Synopsis

Landmarks addresses a wide range of questions relevant to the recent history of anthropology and its importance to contemporary issues. These questions include the significance of anthropology for Third World studies; the debate on whether anthropology is a scientific or a humanistic subject; anthropology as a means of reflecting on ourselves as well as others; and the criticisms of anthropological work that have emerged out of postmodernism. Drawing on his research findings in Papua New guinea since 1964 and his more recent work on the cross-cultural study of medicine, the author examines the extent to which we can achieve understanding between different cultures and the relative merits of approaches that stress indigenous categories or those of the observer. He concludes that the discipline now requires reconstruction rather than deconstruction, and advances the call for holistic models of human behavior which re-conceptualize the relationship between body and mind.

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Reviews

Strathern has justly earned a reputation as one of the finest ethnographers studying Papua New Guinea. This collection of seven previously unpublished lectures on topics in anthropological theory suggests that his strengths continue to lie in empirical work. For the most part, these pieces rehash familiar territory, adding little insight or novel perspective. Nothing seems to tie the work together, and individual pieces remain, as Strathern notes, "largely as they were composed, or delivered." The absence of editorial guidance is unfortunately obvious here, and this reader can find no compelling reason to suggest that the volume be added to collections.
- Glenn Petersen, Baruch Coll. & Graduate Ctr., CUNY
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: The Kent State University Press
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0873384792
• ISBN 13: 9780873384797
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 206