Up Close and Personal on Peripheral Perspectives and the Production of Anthropological Knowledge: 25 (Methodology & History in Anthropology, 25)

Shore, Chris

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0857458469 ISBN 13: 9780857458469

Publisher: Berghahn Books, 2013

"A stimulating collection of interviews....Its value is in the biographical glimpses, intellectual perspectives and methodological insights each offer into their work. The dialogical approach works well....[T]he volume illustrates the dynamic relationship between anthropological theorizing and political practice. Rather than celebrate anthropology, the book's role is perhaps to champion iconoclasm and the unorthodox approaches that seem to characterize many anthropological careers." · David Mills, Oxford University

Combining rich personal accounts from twelve veteran anthropologists with reflexive analyses of the state of anthropology today, this book is a treatise on theory and method offering fresh insights into the production of anthropological knowledge, from the creation of key concepts to major paradigm shifts. Particular focus is given to how "peripheral perspectives" can help re-shape the discipline and the ways that anthropologists think about contemporary culture and society. From urban Maori communities in Aotearoa/New Zealand to the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, from Arnhem Land in Australia to the villages of Yorkshire, these accounts take us to the heart of the anthropological endeavor, decentering mainstream perspectives, and revealing the intimate relationships and processes that create anthropological knowledge.

Review:

"The book offers both unsettling and highly inspirational reading material, especially forvacademics emerging from the world's metropolises. It raises issues that are frequently overlooked and which represent unavoidable starting points for those doing anthropology today in the Antipodes and elsewhere." - Social Anthropology/Anthropologie sociale

"This book is a good and lively read, constructed so as to draw the readers into the discussion, to make us reach our own conclusions and also to do what most of us like best: to listen carefully and to draw conclusions from the stories told to us and for us." - Sites

"A stimulating collection of interviews....Its value is in the biographical glimpses, intellectual perspectives and methodological insights each offer into their work. The dialogical approach works well....[T]he volume illustrates the dynamic relationship between anthropological theorizing and political practice. Rather than celebrate anthropology, the book's role is perhaps to champion iconoclasm and the unorthodox approaches that seem to characterize many anthropological careers." - David Mills, Oxford University

About the Author:

Cris Shore is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Auckland. He is author of ten books, including Building Europe: the Cultural Politics of European Integration (Routledge, 2000); Corruption: Anthropological Perspectives (edited with Dieter Haller, Pluto, 2005); Policy Worlds: Anthropology and the Analysis of Contemporary Power (edited with Davide Per and Susan Wright, Berghahn Books, 2011); and The Sage Handbook of Social Anthropology (edited with Richard Fardon, Olivia Harris, Trevor Marchant, Mark Nuttal, Veronica Strang, and Richard Wilson, Sage, 2012). Susanna Trnka is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Auckland. Her publications include Senses and Citizenships: Embodying Political Life (edited with Christine Dureau and Julie Park, Routledge, 2013); State of Suffering: Political Violence and Community Survival in Fiji (Cornell University Press, 2008); Young Women of Prague (with Alena Heitlinger, Macmillan Press, 1997); and the edited volume Bodies of Bread and Butter: Reconfiguring Women's Lives in the Post-Communist Czech Republic (Prague Gender Studies Centre, 1993).