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Anthropological Practice (anthropological + practice)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	100%

Selected Abstracts

Of Clues and Signs: The Dead Body and Its Evidential Traces

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 1 2009
Zoe¨ Crossland
ABSTRACT Taking the conflict over the remains of Ned Kelly as a starting point, in this article I trace the various conceptions of the, body as evidence within the intertwined histories of anthropology, criminology, and medicine to explore how anthropological practice brings the dead into being through exhumation and analysis. I outline the popular rhetorical tropes within which evidentiary claims are situated, exploring how the agency of people after death is understood within the framework of present-day forensic anthropological practice and how this is underwritten by a particular heritage of anatomical analysis. [Keywords: archaeology, forensic anthropology, materiality, semiotics of the body] [source]

Missing Links: A Commentary on Ward H. Goodenough's Moving Article "Anthropology in the 20th Century and Beyond"

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 2 2002
Laura Nader
Ward H. Goodenough's optimistic summary of anthropological knowledge during the 20th century leaves missing links around the inevitable political and processual nature of the discipline. Conflict within the discipline and response to public events also are part of the story. Effects of the Cold War highlight the relations of knowledge and power in anthropological practice. Common humanity remains the focal point of anthropology. [Keywords: U.S. anthropology, 20th century, complexity, world events, reflexivity] [source]

An anti-history of a non-people: Kurds, colonialism, and nationalism in the history of anthropology

THE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, Issue 1 2009
Christopher Houston
In this article I seek to contest certain aspects of the 1960s revisionist history of the discipline of anthropology, narratives that can be accused ironically of an autocentric overestimation of the power of the imperial West in their very uncovering of its more or less hidden influence over the genre of ethnography and anthropological practice. Taking as my focus in this regard the case of the anthropology of the Kurds, I suggest that not only have Western ethnographic texts been relatively un-influential in the wider scheme of discourse about Kurds, but also that the recent decision of Kurdish publishing houses in Istanbul to translate and re-publish them indicates where in the present many Kurds feel an active ,colonial project' is continuing. The role and development of anthropology in Turkey, then, complicate this by now decades-old examination of the embeddedness of ethnographic discourse in Western modernist projects of political transformation. Résumé L'auteur de cet article cherche à contester certains aspects de l'histoire révisionniste de la discipline anthropologique qui avait cours dans les années 1960 et que l'on peut accuser, avec ironie, d'une surestimation autocentrée de la puissance de l'Occident impérial alors même qu'elle démasquait l'influence plus ou moins voilée de celui-ci sur l'ethnographie et la pratique anthropologique. Centrant son approche sur le cas de l'anthropologie des Kurdes, l'auteur suggère que non seulement les textes ethnographiques occidentaux ont eu relativement peu d'influence sur le discours général concernant les Kurdes, mais que la récente décision des maisons d'éditions kurdes d'Istanbul de traduire et de republier ces ouvrages indique dans quel domaine beaucoup de Kurdes sentent aujourd'hui encore un «projet colonial»à l',uvre. Le rôle et le développement de l'anthropologie en Turquie vient encore compliquer le problème, avec des dizaines d'années d'étude de l'inclusion du discours ethnographique dans les projets modernistes occidentaux de transformation politique. [source]

Ultima Thule: anthropology and the call of the unknown

THE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, Issue 4 2007
Kirsten Hastrup
This article discusses the way in which the constitutive condition of anthropology, often dismissed as ,colonial', is still inherent in anthropological practice. It is argued that anthropologists are still answering a ,call of the unknown' by which to expand the horizon of the modern social imaginary. The vehicle of this discussion is found in early Arctic ethnography, not least in the works of (Danish) Knud Rasmussen. It is shown how ancient images of the far northern world and its people persistently infiltrated the ethnographic descriptions, and how the ,unknown' is perceived through ,known' images. Nevertheless, the relationship between the known and the unknown is far from stable, because new horizons open and close in the process of understanding and description. This is still the case, and the result is a fluid field of knowledge that serves as a repository of doubt about canonical categories. Résumé Le présent article discute la manière dont la condition constitutive de l'anthropologie, souvent récusée comme « coloniale », est demeurée inhérente à la pratique anthropologique. L'auteur affirme que les anthropologues répondent encore à un « appel de l'inconnu » qui pousse àélargir l'horizon de l'imaginaire social moderne. Sa discussion se base sur les premiers travaux d'ethnographie arctique, en particulier ceux du Danois Knud Rasmussen. L'article montre comment les anciennes images du Grand Nord et de ses peuples ont imprégné durablement les descriptions ethnographiques, et comment « l'inconnu » est perçu au travers d'images connues. Pourtant, la relation entre le connu et l'inconnu est loin d'être stable car de nouveaux horizons s'ouvrent ou s'effacent au fil du processus de compréhension et de description. C'est encore le cas aujourd'hui, et il en résulte un champ mouvant de connaissance susceptible de remettre en cause les catégories canoniques. [source]

Understanding the Rise of Consumer Ethnography: Branding Technomethodologies in the New Economy

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 2 2009
Timothy de Waal Malefyt
ABSTRACT In this article, I aim to contribute to the ongoing discussion on the changing public role of anthropology by exploring the rise of branded ethnographic practices in consumer research. I argue that a juncture in the "New Economy",the conjoining of corporate interest in branding, technology, and consumers, with vast social changes,may explain the rapid growth of ethnography for consumer research and predict its future direction. An analysis of branded propaganda from ethnographic vendors that claim their technology-enhanced methods innovate "classic" anthropological practices discloses the way corporations employ technologically mediated means to focus on the reflexive self in consumer research. In this analysis, I reveal that technological methodologies are central to the production of branded ethnographic practices, as forms of branding and technology legitimate consumer,corporate flows of interaction. The conclusion raises awareness to the ways in which modern branding practices reconstruct anthropology in public discourse. [Keywords: branding, consumer research, ethnography, reflexivity, technology] [source]

Journeying Between Desire and Anthropology: A Story in Suspense

THE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 1 2000
Anita Lundberg
Anthropology is a discipline based on the motif of the journey and ,the myth of the eternal return'. This is the journey out to the ,other'in order to return to constitute ,self, and this movement is a movement of desire. The desire is for wholeness, for self-presence, for a unified self. It is a desire for origins. And this desire is evident in anthropological practices as it is in myths and fairytales,all tell stories that speak of the desire for a separate, an original, self. Yet ,the myth of the eternal return'reveals that the enactment of the story is itself originating. The origin is not a thing to be hunted down and appropriated,it is no thing. Like the archetypes which flow through stories, it is alive in the telling. The story I tell in this paper is about my own desires. It speaks of the desire to undergo the rite of passage of anthropology, and of how this journey was interrupted by the anthropologist who always journeys before me. And yet. it is through the inextricable relations with the writings of the "other, anthropologist that alluring moments of different desiring are fleetingly revealed. In the end. my relations with anthropology tell of a paradox: of the desire for a transcendental journey in order to constitute self and the seductive desire for immersion,to lose self, the story remains in suspense. [source]