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“How shall we fathom the world, bringing its varied scales into analytic perspective? The authors collected in this bold and subtle volume slow down the question, arguing that ‘scale’ is made, not born, and that ‘perspectives’ are semiotic accomplishments and not stable points of anchor. Taking a pragmatic approach, Scale teaches readers to take the measure of the metaphors we use to name things global, local, and in-between.”—Stefan Helmreich, Elting E. Morison Professor of Anthropology, MIT
“E. Summerson Carr and Michael Lempert’s Scale will be a fundamental book for thinking about scalar processes and the pragmatics of scale-making in and beyond linguistic anthropology. Its engaging, readable chapters offer a range of theoretical considerations of how scales arise and work in a variety of social settings.”—Robert Oppenheim, author of Kyongju Things: Assembling Place
“This highly original volume sheds new light on language and scale, building on the fact that both phenomena are constructed, dynamic, and situated. Ranging across a wide range of examples including wine connoisseurship, Buddhist debate, and political oratory, the authors show how the scalar aspects of language and the linguistic dimensions of scale work together to produce the social logic of extent.”—Arjun Appadurai, Paulette Goddard Professor of Media, Culture and Communication, New York University
"This groundbreaking collection of essays by leading linguistic anthropologists demonstrates the vital contribution of semiotics to the ongoing multidisciplinary theorizing of scale and scale-making."—Miyako Inoue, author of Vicarious Language: Gender and Linguistic Modernity in Japan
List of contents
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Introduction: Pragmatics of Scale
E. Summerson Carr and Michael Lempert
PART ONE. SCALAR PROJECTS: PROMISES AND PRECARITIES
1. Projecting Presence: Aura and Oratory in William Jennings Bryan’s Presidential Races Richard Bauman
2. Interaction Rescaled: How Buddhist Debate Became a Diasporic Pedagogy Michael Lempert
3. Shrinking Indigenous Language in the Yukon Barbra A. Meek
PART TWO. INTERSCALARITY: IMAGINATION AND INSTITUTION
4. Scale-Making: Comparison and Perspective as Ideological Projects Susan Gal
5. Balancing the Scales of Justice in Tonga Susan U. Philips
6. Interscaling Awe, De-escalating Disaster E. Summerson Carr and Brooke Fisher
PART THREE. PREDATORY SCALES: ENCOMPASSMENT AND EVALUATION
7. Scaling Red and the Horror of Trademark Constantine V. Nakassis
8. Semiotic Vinification and the Scaling of Taste Michael Silverstein
9. Going Upscale: Scales and Scale-Climbing as Ideological Projects Judith T. Irvine
Acknowledgments
References Cited
Contributors
Index
About the author
E. Summerson Carr is Associate Professor, School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago.
Michael Lempert is Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan.
Summary
How do scalar distinctions help actors and analysts alike make sense of and navigate their social worlds? What do these distinctions reveal and what do they conceal? How are scales construed and what effects do they have on the way those who abide by them think and act? This is about practical labor of scale-making and more.
