World Of The Anthropologist, The

Description:
Anthropology is changing. Traditionally seen as the comparative study of cultural diversity, Anthropology now faces an increasingly globalised world, a world in which societies are not discrete or unique but are all, to some degree, connected. The role of the anthropologist is now less the comparative study of specific cultures than the study of the flow of goods, persons and ideas in the contemporary world. The World of the Anthropologist is a guide to this changing world, revealing what Anthropology is today and what anthropologists do now. The book explains what remains of a traditional Anthropology - such as the anthropological construction of kinship, politics, religion and economics as well as the continuing centrality of fieldwork - and also explores the newer territory which Anthropology is studying, such as performance, science, sexuality, media, ethics, and visual culture. Clearly explaining the key ideas and methods which underpin the subject - from fieldwork through to the construction of knowledge itself - The World of the Anthropologist offers a fascinating insight into and overview of Anthropology today.

Review:
'This is perhaps the only book I could recommend to almost anybody with an intelligent interest in human society. I read it on the plane from London to Tokyo with plenty of time to spare; if it were available at airport bookshops and people bought it on their travels, it could be a useful vehicle for increased understanding between peoples.' Stanley J. Ulijaszek, University of Oxford and St Cross College, Oxford, Journal of Biosocial Science (No. 40, 2008)

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1. Understanding the Contemporary World * Confusions over terms * The stakes of anthropology * The contemporary world 2. Objects of Anthropology * From salvage ethnography to general anthropology * Diversification of domains * Construction of objects * Kinship * Economy, environment, ecology * Anthropology of politics * Anthropology of religion * Anthropology of performance * Ethnographic film and visual anthropology * Applied anthropology * Ethnographies and anthropology of science * Inside and outside the field of anthropology 3. The Field 4. Reading 5. Writing 6. Avoiding Blind Alleys

Author Biography:
Marc Auge and Jean-Paul Colleyn teach at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Both have published widely in Anthropology and Marc Auge is author of the bestselling, Non-places: an introduction to the anthropology of supermodernity.