Existential Anthropology: Events, Exigencies, and EffectsInspired by existential thought, but using ethnographic methods, Jackson explores a variety of compelling topics, including 9/11, episodes from the war in Sierra Leone and its aftermath, the marginalization of indigenous Australians, the application of new technologies, mundane forms of ritualization, the magical use of language, the sociality of violence, the prose of suffering, and the discourse of human rights. Throughout this compelling work, Jackson demonstrates that existentialism, far from being a philosophy of individual being, enables us to explore issues of social existence and coexistence in new ways, and to theorise events as the sites of a dynamic interplay between the finite possibilities of the situations in which human beings find themselves and the capacities they yet possess for creating viable forms of social life. |
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... situation in which he finds himself. Defined in this way, existentialism seems to offer nothing to anthropologists whose work takes us into lifeworlds where individuality is often played down, where a person's fate is often Preface xi.
Events, Exigencies, and Effects Michael Jackson. uality is often played down, where a person's fate is often decided by forces outside his comprehension and control, where identity is defined less in being than in belonging, where ...
... play, Winnicott goes on to argue that culture is a 'common pool... into which individuals and groups of people may contribute, and from which we may all draw if we have somewhere to put what we find' (1974: 116, emphasis in text). This ...
... play, based on the principle of reciprocity, according to which one has the right to counter in kind any action that has the effect of directly nullifying, diminishing, belittling or erasing one's own being, or indirectly doing so by ...
... play in making everyday life endurable. Yet, as the perceived gap between haves and have-nots widens in today's world, experiences of frustration, resentment and exclusion are exacerbated, leading more and more people to explore ...
Contents
1 | |
15 | |
Chapter 3 VIOLENCE AND INTERSUBJECTIVE REASON | 35 |
AN ESSAY ON ANARCHY | 53 |
Chapter 5 WHATS IN A NAME? AN ESSAY ON THE POWER OF WORDS | 75 |
Chapter 6 MUNDANE RITUAL | 93 |
Chapter 7 BIOTECHNOLOGY AND THE CRITIQUE OF GLOBALISATION | 111 |
Chapter 8 FAMILIAR AND FOREIGN BODIES | 127 |
Chapter 9 THE PROSE OF SUFFERING | 143 |
Chapter 10 WHOSE HUMAN RIGHTS? | 159 |
Chapter 11 EXISTENTIAL IMPERATIVES | 181 |
BIBLIOGRAPHY | 195 |
INDEX | 211 |
Other editions - View all
The Body of the Queen: Gender and Rule in the Courtly World from the 15th to ... Regina Schulte No preview available - 2005 |