Vehicles (Paperback)

David Lipset

ISBN 10: 1785337513 / ISBN 13: 9781785337512

Published by Berghahn Books, Oxford, 2017

About this Item

Paperback. Metaphor, as an act of human fancy, combines ideas in improbable ways to sharpen meanings of life and experience. Theoretically, this arises from an association between a sign-for example, a cattle car-and its referent, the Holocaust. These "sign-vehicles" serve as modes of semiotic transportation through conceptual space. Likewise, on-the-ground vehicles can be rich metaphors for the moral imagination. Following on this insight, Vehicles presents a collection of ethnographic essays on the metaphoric significance of vehicles in different cultures. Analyses include canoes in Papua New Guinea, pedestrians and airplanes in North America, lowriders among Mexican-Americans, and cars in contemporary China, Japan, and Eastern Europe, as well as among African-Americans in the South. Vehicles not only "carry people around," but also "carry" how they are understood in relation to the dynamics of culture, politics and history. On-the-ground vehicles offer themselves as rich metaphors for the moral imagination, for thinking about ethical dimensions of the social. Vehicles presents a collection of ethnographic essays on the metaphoric significance of vehicles in different cultures, from canoes in Papua New Guinea to cars in contemporary China, Japan, and Eastern Europe. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9781785337512

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Vehicles (Paperback)
• Publisher: Berghahn Books, Oxford
• Publication Date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1785337513
• ISBN 13: 9781785337512
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

Metaphor, as an act of human fancy, combines ideas in improbable ways to sharpen meanings of life and experience. Theoretically, this arises from an association between a sign―for example, a cattle car―and its referent, the Holocaust. These “sign-vehicles” serve as modes of semiotic transportation through conceptual space. Likewise, on-the-ground vehicles can be rich metaphors for the moral imagination. Following on this insight, Vehicles presents a collection of ethnographic essays on the metaphoric significance of vehicles in different cultures. Analyses include canoes in Papua New Guinea, pedestrians and airplanes in North America, lowriders among Mexican-Americans, and cars in contemporary China, Japan, and Eastern Europe, as well as among African-Americans in the South. Vehicles not only “carry people around,” but also “carry” how they are understood in relation to the dynamics of culture, politics and history.

About the Authors

David Lipset is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota. He has conducted long-term fieldwork in Papua New Guinea since 1981. His most recent book is called Yabar: Alienations of Men in a Papua New Guinea Modernity (2017). He has also published articles on a variety of topics about changing masculinity in Murik culture. He is currently working on a book on concept of place in the Anthropology of the Anthropocene.

Richard Handler is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Virginia, where he is Director of the Program in Global Development Studies. He has written extensively on nationalism and the politics of culture, museums, and the history of anthropology. His most recent book is Critics Against Culture: Anthropological Observers of Mass Society (2005).