Read more
Anthropology poses an explicit challenge to standard notions of scientific knowledge. It claims to produce genuine insights into the workings of culture in general on the basis of individual social experience in the field. Social Experience and Anthropological Knowledge traces the process from the ethnographic experience to the analytical results, showing how fieldwork enables the ethnographer to arrive at an understanding, not only of `culture' and `society', but also of the processes by which cultures and societies are transformed. The contributors challenge the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity, redefine what we should mean by `empirical' and demonstrate the complexity of present-day epistemological problems through concrete examples. By demystifying subjectivity in the ethnographic process and re-emphasizing the vital position of fieldwork, they do much to renew confidence in the anthropological project of comprehending the world.
List of contents
Introduction, Kirsten Hastrup, Peter Hervik; Chapter 1 Incomers and fieldworkers, Tamara Kohn; Chapter 2 Making sense of new experience, Ingrid Rudie; Chapter 3 Vicarious and sensory knowledge of chronology and change, Judith Okely; Chapter 4 Veiled experiences, Karin Ask; Chapter 5 Shared reasoning in the field, Peter Hervik; Chapter 6 The mysteries of incarnation, Angel Diaz de Rada, Francisco Cruces; Chapter 7 On the relevance of common sense for anthropological knowledge, Marian Kempny, Wojciech J. Burszta; Chapter 8 Where the community reveals itself, Pavlos Kavouras; Chapter 9 Time, ritual and social experience, Andre Gingrich; Chapter 10 Space and the 'other', Thomas Widlok; Chapter 11 Events and processes, John Davis; Chapter 12 Anthropological knowledge incorporated, Kirsten Hastrup;
About the author
Kirsten Hastrup, Peter Hervik
Summary
Tracing the process from the fieldwork to the analysis of results, this book demonstrates how the ethnographer arrives at an understanding not only of `culture' and `society', but also of the ways in which cultures and societies evolve.
