Challenges the routine ways in which anthropologists have thought about the complexity and quantity of their materials, focusing on a problem normally thought of as commonplace; that of scale and proportion. This book reveals unexpected replications in modes of thought and in the presentation of ambiguous images.
Marilyn Strathern provides a critical account of anthropology's key concept of relation and its usage and significance in the English-speaking world, showing how its evolving use over the last three centuries reflects changing thinking about knowledge-making and kin-making.
In engaging essays, celebrated anthropologist Marilyn Strathern reflects on the complexities of social life. Property, Substance, and Effect draws on Marilyn Strathern’s longstanding interest in the reification of social relations. If the world is shrinking in terms of resources and access to them, it is expanding in terms of new candidates for proprietorship. How new relations are brought into being is among the many questions about property, ownership, and knowledge that these essays bring together. Twenty years have not diminished the interest in the book’s opening challenge: if one were inventing a method of enquiry by which to configure the complexity of social life, one might wish to invent something like the anthropologist’s ethnographic practice. A wide range of studies deliberately brings into conversation claims people make on one another through relations imagined in the form of body-substance along with the increasing visibility of conceptual or intellectual work as property. Whether one lives in Papua New Guinea or Great Britain, categories of knowledge are being dissolved and reformed at a tempo that calls for reflection—and for the kind of lateral reflection afforded through the “ethnographic effect.”
After Nature is a timely account of fundamental constructs in English kinship at a moment when advances in reproductive technologies are raising questions about the natural basis of kinship relations.
Working Papers on Interdisciplinarity, Accountibility and the Flow of Knowledge
Focusing on the complexities of contemporary society, a prominent social anthropologist explores the concept of commons and borderlands in the early twenty-first century. The book delves into how communities navigate shared resources and cultural boundaries, highlighting the interplay between social practices and environmental challenges. Through rich ethnographic studies, it reveals the dynamics of cooperation, conflict, and resilience among diverse groups, offering insights into the future of communal living and resource management in an increasingly interconnected world.
Anthropological Studies in Accountability, Ethics and the Academy
Exploring the pervasive influence of accountability practices, this book highlights how various political regimes shape cultural dynamics within academia. Featuring insights from twelve social anthropologists across Europe and the Commonwealth, it examines the ongoing evolution of culture in response to research and teaching assessments. The contributors reveal the complexities and controversies surrounding this phenomenon, making it a significant study for understanding contemporary academic culture.
In the most original and ambitious synthesis yet undertaken in Melanesian scholarship, Marilyn Strathern argues that gender relations have been a particular casualty of unexamined assumptions held by Western anthropologists and feminist scholars alike. The book treats with equal seriousness--and with equal good humor--the insights of Western social science, feminist politics, and ethnographic reporting, in order to rethink the representation of Melanesian social and cultural life. This makes The Gender of the Gift one of the most sustained critiques of cross-cultural comparison that anthropology has seen, and one of its most spirited vindications. In the most original and ambitious synthesis yet undertaken in Melanesian scholarship, Marilyn Strathern argues that gender relations have been a particular casualty of unexamined assumptions held by Western anthropologists and feminist scholars alike. The book treats with equal seriousness--and with equal good humor--the insights of Western social science, feminist politics, and ethnographic reporting, in order to rethink the representation of Melanesian social and cultural life. This makes The Gender of the Gift one of the most sustained critiques of cross-cultural comparison that anthropology has seen, and one of its most spirited vindications.
Exploring the complexities of sex and gender, this work delves into the cultural codes surrounding femininity and the mythology of sex. Originally intended for a general audience in the 1970s, it offers unique insights into gender dynamics, prefiguring concepts later articulated by Judith Butler. After being shelved for over forty years due to a publisher's closure, this feminist classic highlights Strathern's engagement with key feminist thinkers and critiques various fields, enhancing our understanding of late twentieth-century feminist discourse.
Exploring the intersection of relationships and knowledge, the author examines how Euro-American kinship reflects the structures of a knowledge-based society. The discussion spans from the scientific revolution to contemporary challenges in biotechnology, family dynamics, and legal frameworks. It also delves into intellectual property issues and concepts of personhood and ownership, drawing on examples from Melanesia and beyond to illustrate these complex themes.