Ethnographica Moralia

Clifford Geertz, in his 1973 'Inspection of Cultures', brought about an epistemological revolution. This book maps the circuits of cross-fertilisations among disciplines in the humanities and social sciences that have developed from Geertz's 'interpretive turn'.

Panourgia and Marcus bring together anthropologists working in various parts of the world (Greece, Bali, Taiwan, the United States) with classicists, historians, and scholars in cultural studies. The volume takes into account global realities such as 9/11 and the opening of the Cypriot Green Line and explores the different ways in which Geertz's anthropology has shaped the pedagogy of their disciplines and enabled discussions among them. Focusing on place and time, locations and temporalities, the essays in this volume interrogate the fixity of interpretation and open new spaces of inquiry. The volume addresses a wide audience from the humanities and the social sciences--anyone interested in the development of a new humanism that willrelocate the human as a subject of social action.

In Ethnographic Explorations: Surrender and Resistance, Whitaker and Atkinson, two experienced ethnographers, explore the complexities of fieldwork, analysis and writing from new perspectives. It takes the opportunity to reflect on Ethnography not just as a methodological perspective, but at a fundamental level. In general terms, Ethnography is seen not just in terms of a set of data-collection methods, but as a more profoundly transformational perspective. The book explores a series of tensions and differences in the conceptualisation and conduct of ethnography, among them: Surrender and Catch; Strangeness and Familiarity; Intimacy and Distance; amd Romanticism and Modernism. It emphasises disruptions and interruptions rather than an idealised model of smoothly untroubled research. The book covers a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives, illustrated with research in many social settings. The book is intended for researchers at postgraduate and postdoctoral levels and at experienced researchers who want to read a different, sometimes challenging, take on ethnographic research and its outcomes.

When we talk about the geographical, ecological, ethnographic, historical, documentary, and cosmopolitan “turns” in relation to the work of practitioners of contempory art, what exactly do we mean? Are we talking about a “reading strategy”? About an interpretive model, as would be derived from the linguistic turn of the 1970s, or rather about a stratigraphic structure that could be read across multiple cultural practices? Do we wish to read one system by means of another system, in a way that one nurtures the other so that it can open us up to other forms of being? Or is it rather about a generative movement in which a new horizon emerges in the process, leaving behind the practice that was its point of departure? The recurrence of “turn” in place of “style”, “-ism”, or “tendency” would ultimately respond to a clear urgency of the contemporary global world: a movement characterised by aesthetic pluralism, by the simultaneousness of various modi operandi, and by a great multiplicity of languages that constantly change their state while having many features in common. And “turn” would also allow within the space of the contemporary — of here and now —, a great diversity of stories from all around the world that should be confronted simultaneously in an intellectual outlook that is continuous and disjunctive, essential to understanding the present as a whole.

Between Art and Anthropology provides new and challenging arguments for considering contemporary art and anthropology in terms of fieldwork practice. Artists and anthropologists share a set of common practices that raise similar ethical issues, which the authors explore in depth for the first time. The book presents a strong argument for encouraging artists and anthropologists to learn directly from each other's practices 'in the field'. It goes beyond the so-called 'ethnographic turn' of much contemporary art and the 'crisis of representation' in anthropology, in productively exploring the implications of the new anthropology of the senses, and ethical issues, for future art-anthropology collaborations. The contributors to this exciting volume consider the work of artists such as Joseph Beuys, Suzanne Lacy, Marcus Coates, Cameron Jamie, and Mohini Chandra. With cutting-edge essays from a range of key thinkers such as acclaimed art critic Lucy R. Lippard, and distinguished anthropologists George E. Marcus and Steve Feld, Between Art and Anthropology will be essential reading for students, artists and scholars across a number of fields.

Anthropology and Art Practice takes an innovative look at new experimental work informed by the newly-reconfigured relationship between the arts and anthropology. This practice-based and visual work can be characterised as 'art-ethnography'. In engaging with the concerns of both fields, this cutting-edge study tackles current issues such as the role of the artist in collaborative work, and the political uses of documentary. The book focuses on key works from artists and anthropologists that engage with 'art-ethnography' and investigates the processes and strategies behind their creation and exhibition.The book highlights the work of a new generation of practitioners in this hybrid field, such as Anthony Luvera, Kathryn Ramey, Brad Butler and Karen Mirza, Kate Hennessy and Jennifer Deger, who work in a diverse range of media - including film, photography, sound and performance. Anthropology and Art Practice suggests a series of radical challenges to assumptions made on both sides of the art/anthropology divide and is intended to inspire further dialogue and provide essential reading for a wide range of students and practitioners.

ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE PUBLIC ARENA “A critical insider, Jeremy MacClancy celebrates maverick anthropologists who transgressed academic frontiers, and urges his colleagues to engage the public. This is an entertaining, original, and provocative book.” Adam Kuper, Professor Emeritus, University of Cambridge “Jeremy MacClancy insightfully expands the history of anthropology beyond the confines of the academy, showing us how a collection of poets, popularizers, critics, surrealists, neo-Freudians, and iconoclast savants shaped anthropology’s imagination.” David Price, St Martin’s University,Washington ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE PUBLIC ARENA This detailed survey of the evolution of anthropology in Britain is also a spirited defence of the public as well as professional role of the discipline. The author argues for a broader vision of the value of anthropological knowledge that allows for the creative contributions of popular scientists and literary figures who often capture the public imagination and add much to our knowledge of human social relations. Informed by original archival research and engaging narratives of the larger-than-life personalities of public intellectuals, the author reveals the contributions of neglected but crucial figures such as John Layard, Geoffrey Gorer, Robert Graves, and the originators of Mass Observation, today’s online repository of anthropological data. MacClancy is guided by the notion that anthropology’s continued dynamism requires an alliance of interests, popular and academic, that will recover marginalized studies and recognize the value of contributions from outside the university research community. Its synthesis of diverse topics illuminates an anthropology that enriches the popular cultural discourse and serves as a versatile tool for exploring pressing issues of social organization and development. The reframed narrative of British anthropological history that emerges is as integral to the future of the subject as it is informative about its past.

This book is the third of three paperback volumes taken from The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research, Fourth Edition. It introduces the researcher to basic methods of gathering, analyzing and interpreting qualitative empirical materials. Part 1 moves from narrative inquiry, to critical arts-based inquiry, to oral history, observations, visual methodologies, and autoethnographic methods. It then takes up analysis methods, including computer-assisted methodologies, focus groups, as well as strategies for analyzing talk and text. The chapters in Part II discuss evidence, interpretive adequacy, forms of representation, post-qualitative inquiry, the new information technologies and research, the politics of evidence, writing, and evaluation practices.