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Book
Author Lewis, I. M.

Title Arguments with ethnography : comparative approaches to history, politics and religion / Ioan M. Lewis
Published London : Athlone Press, 1999

Copies

Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 W'PONDS  305.8001 Lew/Awe  AVAILABLE
Description xvii, 167 pages ; 23 cm
Series London School of Economics monographs on social anthropology ; no. 70
Monographs on social anthropology ; no. 70
Contents 1. History 'Functionalised' -- 2. A historico-functionalist debate: (Ernesto De Martino, Michel Leiris and E. E. Evans-Pritchard) -- 3. Deconstructing Descent -- 4. Frontier Fetishism and the 'Ethiopianisation' of Africa -- 5. Writing Nationalism in the Horn of Africa -- 6. Present and Past in North-East African Spirit-Possession -- 7. The 'Wise Man's Choice': Conversion Theories -- 8. Shamans and Sex: a Comparative Perspective -- 9. Ethnography and Theory in Anthropology
Summary Arguments with Ethnography presents a major critique of the globalisation of the culture principle in anthropology. The study contends that the subjective anthropology promoted through postmodernism represents an extreme development of long established, highly patronising and misleading evaluations in the anthropologist's creative role in the construction of theory. Arguing that theory-building is dependent on the actual study of peoples - a study which is empirically based and historically sensitive - the book advocates the "fieldwork mode of production and reproduction"
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes London school of economics monographs on social anthropology no:70
Subject Ethnology -- Fieldwork.
Ethnology -- History.
Ethnology -- Philosophy.
Ethnology -- Religious aspects.
Political anthropology.
Author London School of Economics and Political Science.
LC no. 98054619
ISBN 0485195704