Experiments in Holism (eBook)

Theory and Practice in Contemporary Anthropology

Ton Otto, Nils Bubandt (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: PDF

2010
John Wiley & Sons (Verlag)
978-1-4443-2443-3 (ISBN)

Infos

Experiments in Holism: Theory and Practice in Contemporary Anthropologypresents a series of essays from leading anthropologists that critically reexamine the relevance of holism as a foundational tenet of anthropology, and its theoretical and methodological potential in today's world.

• Represents the first volume to consider the modern role of holism as a central anthropological concern across a wide range of anthropological traditions
• Critically examines the past and present predicament of holism and its potential for the renewal of future practice
• Features contributions from leading anthropologists which discuss how anthropology should be re-designed in the context of a changing world
• Challenges many of contemporary anthropology's central methods, theory, and functions

Ton Otto is Professor of Anthropology and Ethnography at Aarhus University, Denmark, and Professor and Research Leader at The Cairns Institute, James Cook University, Australia. His most recent publications include the co-edited volumes: Tradition and Agency: Tracing Cultural Continuity and Invention (2005, with Poul Pedersen) and Warfare and Society: Archaeological and Social Anthropological Perspectives (2006, with Henrik Thrane and Helle Vandkilde).

Nils Bubandt is Professor of Anthropology at Aarhus University and co-editor-in-chief of Ethnos. He is the co-author of Imagining Nature: Practices of Cosmology and Identity (2003, with Andreas Roepstorff and Kalevi Kull), and has published numerous articles on topics such as forgery, witchcraft, globalization, and conflict.

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Experiments in Holism Experiments in Holism: Theory and Practice in Contemporary Anthropology presents a series of essays that critically examine the ongoing relevance of holism and its theoretical and methodological potential in today s world. Contributions from a diverse collection of leading anthropologists reveal how recent critiques of the holistic approach have not led to its wholesale rejection, but rather to a panoply of experiments that critically reassess and reemploy holism. The essays focus on aspects of holism including its utilization in current ethnographic research, holistic considerations in cultural anthropology, the French structuralist tradition, the predominantly English tradition of social anthropology, and many others. Collectively, the essays show how holism is simultaneously central to, and problematically a part of, the theory and practice of anthropology. Experiments in Holism reveals how contemporary attempts to rescale and retool anthropology entail new ways of coming to terms with anthropology s heritage of holism, seeking to obviate its current excesses while recapturing its critical potential to meet the challenges of our contemporary world.

Autor

Ton Otto is Professor of Anthropology and Ethnography at Aarhus University, Denmark, and Professor and Research Leader at The Cairns Institute, James Cook University, Australia. His most recent publications include the co-edited volumes Tradition and Agency: Tracing Cultural Continuity and Invention (2005, with Poul Pedersen) and Warfare and Society: Archaeological and Social Anthropological Perspectives (2006, with Henrik Thrane and Helle Vandkilde). Nils Bubandt is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Aarhus University and co-editor-in-chief of Ethnos. He is the co-author of Imagining Nature: Practices of Cosmology and Identity (2003, with Andreas Roepstorff and Kalevi Kull), and has published numerous articles on topics such as forgery, witchcraft, globalization, and conflict.

Inhalt

Acknowledgments vii

List of Contributors ix

1. Anthropology and the Predicaments of Holism 1
Nils Bubandt and Ton Otto

Part 1 Rethinking Holism in Ethnographic Practice 17

2. Beyond the Whole in Ethnographic Practice? Introduction to Part 1 19
Ton Otto and Nils Bubandt

3. Holism and the Expectations of Critique in Post-1980s Anthropology: Notes and Queries in Three Acts and an Epilogue 28
George E. Marcus

4. Worlding the Matsutake Diaspora: Or, Can Actor-Network Theory Experiment With Holism? 47
Anna Tsing

5. The Whole Beyond Holism: Gambling, Divination, and Ethnography in Cuba 67
Martin Holbraad

Part 2 Beyond Cultural Wholes? Wholes are Parts, and Parts are Wholes 87

6. Beyond Cultural Wholes? Introduction to Part 2 89
Ton Otto and Nils Bubandt

7. The Whole is a Part: Intercultural Politics of Order and Change 102
Marshall Sahlins

8. Lingual and Cultural Wholes and Fields 127
Alan Rumsey

9. Deep Wholes: Fractal Holography in Trobriand Agency and Culture 150
Mark Mosko

Part 3 Beyond Structural Wholes? Encompassment, Collectives, and Global Systems 175

10. Beyond Structural Wholes? Introduction to Part 3 177
Nils Bubandt and Ton Otto

11. Louis Dumont and a Holist Anthropology 187
Bruce Kapferer

12. From Wholes to Collectives: Steps to an Ontology of Social Forms 209
Philippe Descola

13. Holism and the Transformation of the Contemporary Global Order 227
Jonathan Friedman

Part 4 Beyond Social Wholes? Holistic Practice: Cosmology, History, and the Continuity of Life 249

14. Beyond Social Wholes? Introduction to Part 4 251
Nils Bubandt and Ton Otto

15. Proportional Holism: Joking the Cosmos Into the Right Shape in North Asia 262
Rane Willerslev and Morten Axel Pedersen

16. One Past and Many Pasts: Varieties of Historical Holism in Melanesia and the West 279
Eric Hirsch and Daniele Moretti

17. Drawing Together: Materials, Gestures, Lines 299
Tim Ingold

Index 314

Rezensionen

The term "holism" is shorthand for a central predicament in
anthropology: human situations are culturally structured, but
individuals, who participate in more than one cultural "whole," can
sometimes change the rules. This volume explores the
theoretical space between those two aspects of the human
condition.

Richard Handler, University of Virginia





These authors persuasively, even passionately, refocus the
analysis of socio-cultural ontology. In showing how the
simplistic rejection of past holisms undermined anthropology's
fundamental commitments, they instead devise ingeniously critical
new perspectives reflecting today's massively reconfigured and
variegated understandings of context.

Michael Herzfeld (Harvard University)



In this capacious and brilliantly-edited
collection, holism no longer suggests a totalizing project,
but rather an indispensable toolkit of world-making strategies.
The innovative essays gathered here map a new, multi-scaled
landscape of Anthropological research.

James Clifford, University of California, Santa Cruz.

Author of The Predicament of Culture.



'Holism' does its magic again. This is an
extraordinarily interesting commentary on the present state of
anthropology that would never have come together without the
editors' pursuit of an apparently unfashionable idea.

Marilyn Strathern

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 9.11.2010
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Archäologie
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Vor- und Frühgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Mikrosoziologie
• Themenwelt: Technik
• Schlagworte: Anthropological Theory & Methods/Ethnography • Anthropologie • Anthropologie / Theorie u. Methoden, Ethnographie • Anthropology
• ISBN-10: 1-4443-2443-8 / 1444324438
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4443-2443-3 / 9781444324433