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Most young students of American culture believe many of the cultural assumptions they grow up with are universal. As insiders, speaking a common language, following the accepted patterns of behavior embedded in a particular way of life, most of us take our own social actions for granted, and it is a challenge to realize the strangeness and wonder of our own behaviors. The distinct aim of each edition of this popular classroom supplement has been to enable students to better understand themselves by casting American culture into sharper relief—offering other mirrors, other reflections. The latest edition’s twenty-one personalized narratives, of which seven are new, unveil fresh portrayals of American culture. Each contribution offers unique ethnographic perspectives of various aspects of American culture that enable us to better understand ourselves.
Written by anthropologists and other scholars using an ethnographic perspective to interpret aspects of American culture, these essays enable students to understand themselves better by focusing on others in their cultures, giving anthropology a comparative perspective that provides a reflective lens for understanding ourselves in the world in which we live. The essays were chosen for their perceptiveness and readability; they avoid jargon and heavy analysis.
Strangers to Relatives is an intimate and illuminating look at a typical but misunderstood part of anthropological fieldwork in North America: the adoption and naming of anthropologists by Native families and communities. Adoption and naming have long been a common way for Native peoples in Canada and the United States to deal with strangers who are not enemies. For over a century, adoption and naming have also served as an important means for many Native American and First Nation communities to become connected to the anthropologists visiting and writing about them.øIn this outstanding volume, leading anthropologists in the United States and Canada discuss this issue by focusing on the cas...
Participant Observation is a central and defining method of research in cultural anthropology, as well as a common feature of qualitative research in other disciplines--sociology, education, health sciences. The authors provide the basic guide to the participant observation field methods of collection of systematic data in naturalistic settings--communities in many different cultures. It is a valuable primer for the beginning researcher, as well as a reference for the experienced ethnographer.
Cultural anthropologist Serena Nanda mines a wide range of ethnographic research to examine the patterns of love, marriage, sexuality, and family unique to eight cultures around the world. After reviewing changing patterns in the United States, readers are taken to China, India, Brazil, Iran, Indonesia, Nigeria, the South Pacific, and Nepal to explore traditions and transformations and the intertwining dynamics of kinship, class, politics, religion, and gender roles in love and marriage. An additional chapter traces the diversity of LGBTQ relationships, with contemporary examples drawn from the US, Indonesia, and India. A valuable summary chapter features a brief analysis of similar and different cultural configurations. Nanda’s ethnographically rich examples and fresh perspective will challenge readers to understand that their own culture is not natural or superior but rather just one of many possibilities adapted to specific environments and subject to changes.
With "race" being discredited as a rallying cry for populist movements because of the atrocities committed in its name during World War II, "culture" has been adopted by right-wing groups instead, but used in the same exclusionary manner as racism was. This volume examines the essentialism, which is implicit in racial theories and re-emerges in the ideological use of cultural identity in new rightist movements, and presents case studies from different parts of the world where researchers were confronted with racism and worked out ways of coping with it.
Making use of an ethical system based on psychological need, rather than on metaphysical or theological grounds, LeShan shows how an evolved ethical system can keep pace with science and technology, and displace the damage being done to the planet and our own survival.
Newly revised, Ethnographic Fieldwork: An Anthropological Reader Second Edition provides readers with a picture of the breadth, variation, and complexity of fieldwork. The updated selections offer insight into the ethnographer’s experience of gathering and analyzing data, and a richer understanding of the conflicts, hazards and ethical challenges of pursuing fieldwork around the globe. Offers an international collection of classic and contemporary readings to provide students with a broad understanding of historical, methodological, ethical, reflexive and stylistic issues in fieldwork Features 16 new articles and revised part introductions, with additional insights into the experience of conducting ethnographic fieldwork Explores the importance of fieldwork practice in achieving the core theoretical and methodological goals of anthropology Highlights the personal and professional challenges of field researchers, from issues of professional identity, fieldwork relations, activism, and the conflicts, hazards and ethical concerns of community work.