Anthropology And Egalitarianism

Author : Eric Gable
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253004845
Total Pages : 246 pages
Book Rating : 4.40/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Anthropology and Egalitarianism written by Eric Gable and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2010-12-03 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anthropology and Egalitarianism is an artful and accessible introduction to key themes in cultural anthropology. Writing in a deeply personal style and using material from his fieldwork in three dramatically different locales -- Indonesia, West Africa, and Monticello, the historic home of Thomas Jefferson -- Eric Gable shows why the ethnographic encounter is the core of the discipline's method and the basis of its unique contribution to understanding the human condition. Gable weaves together vignettes from the field and discussion of major works as he explores the development of the idea of culture through the experience of cultural contrast, anthropology's fraught relationship to racism and colonialism, and other enduring themes.

Author : Eric Gable
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 250 pages
Book Rating : 4.48/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Anthropology & Egalitarianism written by Eric Gable and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotation This text is an artful and accessible introduction to key themes in cultural anthropology. Gable shows why the ethnographic encounter is the core of the discipline's method and the basis of its unique contribution to understanding the human condition.

Author : Thomas Widlok
Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 9781845452131
Total Pages : 244 pages
Book Rating : 4.35/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Property and Equality written by Thomas Widlok and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2005 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "These excellent books enrich our understanding of immediate return societies and the persistence of immediate-return arrangements in delayed-return societies. I was reflecting recently that anthropologists have not given sufficient attention to Woodburn's theoretical framework. These contributions go a long way towards filling that gap." - Jérôme Rousseau in Anthropological Forum The ethnography of egalitarian social systems was first met with sheer disbelief. Today it is still hotly debated in a number of fields and has gained sophistication as well as momentum. This collection of essays on "property and equality" acknowledges this diversification by presenting research results in two complementary volumes. They bring together a wide range of authoritative researchers most of whom have worked with hunter-gatherer groups. These two volumes cover existing ethnographic and theoretical ground while maintaining a clear focus on the relation between property and equality. The book consists of the most recent work of prominent members of the original group of researchers in hunter-gatherer studies among them James Woodburn and Richard Lee, and very recent ethnography on hunter-gatherers and other egalitarian systems.

Author : Jacqueline Solway
Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 1782388850
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.52/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Politics of Egalitarianism written by Jacqueline Solway and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2006-03-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays assembled in this book exemplify the way political anthropologists address a range of problems that deeply affect people throughout the world. The authors draw their inspiration from the work of Canadian anthropologist Richard B. Lee, and, like him, they are concerned with understanding and acting upon issues of “indigenous rights”; the impact of colonialism, postcolonial state formation, and neoliberalism on local communities and cultures; the process of culture change; what the history and politics of egalitarian societies reveal about issues of “human nature” or “social evolution”; and how peoples in southern Africa are affected by and responding to the most recent crisis in their midst, the spread of AIDS. The authors in this volume discuss the state of a range of contemporary debates in the field that in various ways extend the political, theoretical, and empirical issues that have animated Lee's work. In addition, the book provides readers with important contemporary Kalahari studies, as well as “classic” works on foraging societies.

Author : Christopher BOEHM
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674028449
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.49/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Hierarchy in the Forest written by Christopher BOEHM and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are humans by nature hierarchical or egalitarian? Hierarchy in the Forest addresses this question by examining the evolutionary origins of social and political behavior. Christopher Boehm, an anthropologist whose fieldwork has focused on the political arrangements of human and nonhuman primate groups, postulates that egalitarianism is in effect a hierarchy in which the weak combine forces to dominate the strong. The political flexibility of our species is formidable: we can be quite egalitarian, we can be quite despotic. Hierarchy in the Forest traces the roots of these contradictory traits in chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, and early human societies. Boehm looks at the loose group structures of hunter-gatherers, then at tribal segmentation, and finally at present-day governments to see how these conflicting tendencies are reflected. Hierarchy in the Forest claims new territory for biological anthropology and evolutionary biology by extending the domain of these sciences into a crucial aspect of human political and social behavior. This book will be a key document in the study of the evolutionary basis of genuine altruism. Table of Contents: The Question of Egalitarian Society Hierarchy and Equality Putting Down Aggressors Equality and Its Causes A Wider View of Egalitarianism The Hominoid Political Spectrum Ancestral Politics The Evolution of Egalitarian Society Paleolithic Politics and Natural Selection Ambivalence and Compromise in Human Nature References Index Reviews of this book: This well-written book, geared toward an audience with background in the behavioral and evolutionary sciences but accessible to a broad readership, raises two general questions: 'What is an egalitarian society?' and 'How have these societies evolved?'...[Christopher Boehm] takes the reader on a journey from the Arctic to the Americas, from Australia to Africa, in search of hunter-gatherer and tribal societies that emanate the egalitarian ethos--one that promotes generosity, altruism and sharing but forbids upstartism, aggression and egoism. Throughout this journey, Boehm tantalizes the reader with vivid anthropological accounts of ridicule, criticism, ostracism and even execution--prevalent tactics used by subordinates in egalitarian societies to level the social playing field...Hierarchy in the Forest is an interesting and thought-provoking book that is surely an important contribution to perspectives on human sociality and politics. --Ryan Earley, American Scientist Reviews of this book: Combing an exhaustive ethnographic survey of human societies from groups of hunter-gatherers to contemporary residents of the Balkans with a detailed analysis of the behavioral attributes of non-human primates (chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos), Boehm focuses on whether humans are hierarchical or egalitarian by nature...[Boehm's hypotheses] are invariably intriguing and well documented...He raises topics of wide interest and his book should get attention. --Publishers Weekly Boehm has been the first to look at egalitarianism with a cold, unromantic eye. He sees it as a victory over hierarchical tendencies, which are equally marked in our species. I would predict that his insightful examination will reverberate within anthropology and the social sciences as well as among biologists interested in the evolution of social systems. --Frans de Waal, Emory University Hierarchy in the Forest is an original and stimulating contribution to thinking about the origins of egalitarianism. I personally find Boehm's ideas convincing, but whether one agrees with him or not, he has formulated his hypotheses in such a way that this book is likely to set the terms of the discussion for the forseeable future. --Barbara Smuts, University of Michigan The most unique and interesting feature of this clear, well written book is the way Boehm links the study of nonhuman primates (particularly chimpanzees) to traditional concepts of political anthropology. As a political scientist, I was intrigued by Boehm's suggestion that democracy, both ancient and modern, could be understood as the expression of the same natural dispositions that support the egalitarianism of nomadic bands and sedentary tribes. I expect that many scholars in biology, anthropology, and the social sciences would learn from this stimulating book. Even those who disagree with Boehm's arguments are likely to be provoked in instructive ways. --Larry Arnhart, Northern Illinois University Chris Boehm boldly and cogently attacks a whole orthodoxy in anthropology which sees hunter-gatherer 'egalitarianism' as somehow the basic form of human society. No praise can be too high for Boehm's brilliant and courageous book. --Robin Fox, Rutgers University

Author : Felicity Aulino
Publisher : Fordham Univ Press
ISBN 13 : 0823241890
Total Pages : 337 pages
Book Rating : 4.97/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Radical Egalitarianism written by Felicity Aulino and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contributions from scholars in anthropology, religion, and area studies--stemming from research in East and Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas collected to represent a form of historically grounded, ethnographically driven social science that seeks to understand social phenomena by dialogically engaging global and local perspectives.

Author : Marina Gold
Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 1789206588
Total Pages : 217 pages
Book Rating : 4.86/5 ( download)

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Download or read book After the Pink Tide written by Marina Gold and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2020-03-01 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The left-wing Pink Tide movement that swept across Latin America seems now to be overturned, as a new wave of free-market thinkers emerge across the continent. This book analyses the emergence of corporate power within Latin America and the response of egalitarian movements across the continent trying to break open the constraints of the state. Through an ethnographically grounded and localized anthropological perspective, this book argues that at a time when the regular structures of political participation have been ruptured, the Latin American context reveals multiple expressions of egalitarian movements that strive (and sometimes momentarily manage) to break through the state’s apparatus.

Author : Thomas Widlok
Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 9781571816160
Total Pages : 244 pages
Book Rating : 4.6X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Property and Equality: Ritualisation, sharing, egalitarianism written by Thomas Widlok and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2005 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ethnography of egalitarian social systems was first met with sheer disbelief. Today it is still hotly debated in a number of fields and has gained sophistication as well as momentum. This collection of essays on "property and equality" acknowledges this diversification by presenting research results in two complementary volumes. They bring together a wide range of authoritative researchers most of whom have worked with hunter-gatherer groups. These two volumes cover existing ethnographic and theoretical ground while maintaining a clear focus on the relation between property and equality. The book consists of the most recent work of prominent members of the original group of researchers in hunter-gatherer studies among them James Woodburn and Richard Lee, and very recent ethnography on hunter-gatherers and other egalitarian systems.

Author : Synnøve Bendixsen
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3319597914
Total Pages : 357 pages
Book Rating : 4.11/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Egalitarianism in Scandinavia written by Synnøve Bendixsen and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-08-17 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses egalitarianism in Scandinavian countries through historically oriented and empirically based studies on social and political change. The chapters engage with issues related to social class, political conflict, the emergence of the welfare state, public policy, and conceptualizations of equality. Throughout, the contributors discuss and sometimes challenge existing notions of the social and cultural complexity of Scandinavia. For example, how does egalitarianism in these nations differ from other contemporary manifestations of egalitarianism? Is it meaningful to continue to nurture the idea of Scandinavian exceptionalism in an age of economic crises and globalization? The book also proposes that egalitarianism is not merely a relationship between specific, influential enlightenment ideas and patterns of policy, but an aspect of social organization characterized by specific forms of political tension, mobilization, and conflict resolution-as well as emerging cultural values such as individual autonomy.

Author : Bruce Kapferer
Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 1785338692
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.94/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Moral Anthropology written by Bruce Kapferer and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2018-04-13 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A development in anthropological theory, characterized as the 'moral turn', is gaining popularity and should be carefully considered. In examining the context, arguments, and discourse that surrounds this trend, this volume reconceptualizes the discipline of anthropology in a radical way. Contributions from anthropologists from around the world from different theoretical traditions and with expertise in a multiplicity of ethnographic areas makes this collection a provocative contribution to larger discussions not only in anthropology but the social sciences more broadly.