Ecomyopia in the Anthropocene

The authors apply longue durée and semiotic approaches to a case study of flood management in the American Midwest to critique the suggestion that naming the current geological epoch the ‘Anthropocene’ might encourage global environmental sustainability. It is unlikely that the Anthropocene moniker has the symbolic power to correct ecomyopia, which the authors define as the tendency to not recognize, to ignore, or fail to act on new information that contradicts political arrangements, social norms, or world views. Anthropogenic transformation of the Mississippi River watershed shifted world views toward the human domination of nature and afforded opportunities for social stratification and the consolidation of capital and control over resources, which has biased social responses to increasing flooding. Globally, biological systems have been replaced with technological systems of increasing complexity creating canalized trajectories of practice and thought in which societies become insulated from ecological realities. The global capitalist response to the Anthropocene will likely be to embrace technological hubris.     

Anthropology in the financial crisis

This editorial considers the opportunities opened up for anthropologists by the financial crisis of 2008. The chief of these is the exposure of cracks in the intellectual hegemony of free-market economics which contributed to an unnecessarily defensive posture on the part of most anthropologists during the period of neoliberal globalization. The authors claim that anthropology can bridge the gap between everyday life and the world at large by combining the study of ideas and social actions. We draw on Ortiz's research among financial professionals to show how working practices informed by economic liberalism can have extremely unequal consequences for the global distribution of resources. The perspectives of Mauss and Polanyi on political economy can help us to make sense of the current situation and to recommend a path forward beyond market fundamentalism. Their general ideas lend power to the concrete findings of field research. The mask of neoliberal ideology has been ripped from the politics of world economy. Anthropology's highest mission is to start from where people are and go with them wherever they take you. What better time to follow this imperative than when the model the world has been compelled to live by for three decades is in such disarray?     

Anthropology in the middle east

Canfield, Robert L., ed. Turko‐Persia in Historical Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. xiv + 256 pp. including references and index. $54.50 cloth.

Caton, Steven C. "Peaks of Yemen I Summon”: Poetry as Cultural Practice in a North Yemen Tribe. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. xv + 351 pp. including notes, appendices, bibliography, and index. $34.95.

Khoury, Philip S. and Joseph Kostiner, eds. Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990 xv + 351 pp. including collected references and index. $45.00 cloth, $14.95 paper.     

Anthropology in the arctic and subarctic today

Gösta Berg, ed. Circumpolar Problems: Habitat, Economy and Social Relations in the Arctic. Wenner‐Gren International Symposium Series. Vol. 21. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1973. vi + 194 pp. Figures, tables, and references. $19.50.     

马林诺夫斯基与现代人类学工作方式

早期的人类学家被称为扶手椅里的人类学家,或者又被称为抽屉里的人类学家。这当然是后学之辈对他们的讽刺。这群人有泰勒、摩尔根、巴斯蒂安、麦克伦南、卢伯克、威斯特马克、马雷特、弗雷泽等人。上述这些理论家基本上遵循了进化论的指导思想,在宗教与婚姻家庭这两方面构筑了不同的进化阶梯路线。     

Arrival: Anthropology in Hollywood

The recent Hollywood science fiction film Arrival features as its main character a linguist who explicitly references the Sapir‐Whorf hypothesis and linguistic relativism. Unusually for a mainstream film, Arrival presents the insights of linguistic anthropology as a key to the human‐alien encounter and combines these concerns with other key anthropological insights, particularly in relation to notions of time and the embodied nature of writing/drawing. In this article, the author argues that the film can be useful in thinking about anthropological debates on ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ versions of Sapir‐Whorf and suggests that a careful parsing of the anthropological concepts drawn on in the film provides food for thought about the possible usefulness of popular fictional concoctions for thinking through contemporary issues in anthropology and conveying them to a wider audience.     

Anthropology and women in development the Leiden experiment

The following publications of the Research Center Women and Development, Institute for Social and Cultural Studies, State University of Leiden, Leiden, the Netherlands, are reviewed:

I De Beij, Ilsa. Van Noot Tot Noodzaak: het belong van karite voor vrouwen in een Gourounsi—dorp in Boven‐Volta. Leiden, 1982, 126 pp., n.p.¹

II Most van Spijk, Marileen van der. Eager to Learn: An Anthropological Study of the Needs of Egyptian Village Women; Report of an Experiment. Cairo‐Leiden, 1982, 84 pp. n.p.

III Most van Spijk, Marileen van der. Who Cares For Her Health? An Anthropological Study of Women's Health Care in a Vilage in Upper Egypt. Cairo‐Leiden, 1982. 99 pp., n.p.

IV Most van Spijk, Marileen van der, Hoda Youssef Fahmy, and Sonja Zimmermann, Remember to be Firm: Life Histories of Three Egyptian Women. Cairo‐Leiden, 1982. 79 pp., n.p.

V Postel, Els and Joke Schrijvers (eds.) A Woman s Mind is Longer than a Kitchen Spoon: Report on Women in Sri Lanka. Colombo‐Leiden, 1980.146 pp. + Appendices, n.p.

VI Risseeuw, Carla. The Wrong End of the Rope: Women Coir Workers in Sri Lanka. Colombo‐Leiden, 1980. 253 pp. + Appendices, n.p.

VII Samarasuriya, Shireen, Who Needs Tourism? Employment for Women in the Holiday‐Industry of Sudugama, Sri Lanka. Colombo‐Leiden, 1982. 85 pp. n.p.     

Anthropology of childhood

Beatrice B. Whiting and John W. M. Whiting. Children of Six Cultures: A Psycho‐Cultural Analysis. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975. xiv + 237 pp. Figures, tables, illustrations, appendices, bibliography and index. $10.00.     

Anthropology as jester

Disciplines from sociology to economics have claimed to be the queen of the social sciences. Lévi‐Strauss asserted the same for anthropology. Instead of competing for a royal position, we might better describe ourselves as the court jester who mocks and mimics accepted behaviour.     

Anthropology at the bottom of the pyramid

This article explores what anthropology has to say about contemporary business strategies for market expansion among poor consumers in Africa and Asia. Focusing on the activities of global consumer goods company Unilever in India, we show how anthropology can provide valuable insights into the hidden work and power relations involved in transforming an everyday commodity like soap into a composite object, what we call a 'social good', that is capable of simultaneously combating disease, tackling poverty and realizing value for shareholders.     

人类学的技艺

今天我们看到的社会科学乃是舶来品,是从西方知识体系中生长出来的。直到启蒙哲学时期,社会科学并没有剥离出来,我们能见到的还只是一些虽然睿智但却是大而化之的论述。“到19世纪初,科学终于     

Anthropology through literature

James P. Spradley and George E. McDonough, eds. Anthropology Through Literature. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1973. xviii + 412 pp. $5.95 (paper).     

人类学对考古学的启迪

近些年来,考古学界开始反思过去,认识到单纯地将考古发掘遗物简单罗列起来存在着很大的不足,提出了考古学的意义在于重现当时社会生活,还历史的本来面目。这是一次重大转变,因为传统的考古学凭借其来源于生物学和地质学的类型学和地层学方法在积累实物材料方面做出重大成绩的同时,在如何实现重现当时社会历史生活原貌的考古学意义方面存在着局限性。传统的考古学是设在历史学科下,它承继其严谨治学之长,又沿袭其“静态”固守之短。随着社会发展对学科意义深化的需要,传统的考古学体系正寻求着突破与完善。许多先行者很早就意识到并…     

Anthropology and the Artifacts of Medical Practice

Brown, Paula. Beyond a Mountain Valley: The Simbu of Papua New Guinea. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995. xix + 296 pp. including notes, glossary, bibliography, and index. $36.00 cloth.

Tuzin, Donald. The Cassowary's Revenge: The Life and Death of Masculinity in a New Guinea Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. xiii + 256 pp. including notes, maps, references, and index. $45.00 cloth, $18.95 paper.

Biersack, Aletta, ed. Papuan Borderlands: Huli, Duna, and Ipili Perspectives on the Papua New Guinea Highlands. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995. xiv + 440 pp. including collected bibliography, other works cited, and index. $59.50 cloth.