Partial ConnectionsUpdated with a new Preface, this seminal work challenges the routine ways in which anthropologists have thought about the complexity and quantity of their materials. Marilyn Strathern focuses on a problem normally regarded as commonplace; that of scale and proportion. She combines a wide-ranging interest in current theoretical issues with close attention to the cultural details of social life, attempting to establish proportionality between them. Strathern gives equal weight to two areas of contemporary debate: The difficulties inherent in anthropologically representing complex societies, and the future of cross-cultural comparison in a field where 'too much' seems known. The ethnographic focus of this book emphasizes the context through which Melanesianists have managed the complexity of their own accounts, while at the same time unfolding a commentary on perception and the mixing of indigenous forms. Revealing unexpected replications in modes of thought and in the presentation of ambiguous images, Strathern has fashioned a unique contribution to the anthropological corpus. This book was originally published under the sponsorship of the Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania. |
Contents
WRITING ANTHROPOLOGY | 1 |
Ethnography as evocation | 5 |
Complex society incomplete knowledge | 17 |
Feminist critique | 29 |
Intrusions and comparisons | 41 |
PARTIAL CONNECTIONS | 57 |
Full of trees full of flutes | 61 |
Center and periphery | 77 |
Historical critique | 91 |
Prosthetic extensions | 105 |
Footnotes | 121 |
| 135 | |
| 151 | |
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Common terms and phrases
aesthetic analogies analysis analytical anthropologists appear artefacts bags Baktaman bamboo Barth body canoe cassowary Chambri chaos theory clan Clifford communities comparative comparison complex concept context create critique cross-cultural cultural cyborg descent group dimension discourse effect elaboration elicited Elmdon entity ethnography evocation evoke exchange partners extensions feminism feminist fieldworker figure flutes Fractal Galton's problem Gewertz Gimi Hagen Haraway Highlands societies ideas imagery imagine individual initiation integration internal Jemmy Button kind knowledge machine male Marilyn Strathern material Melanesian men's metaphor Mountain Ok observes organization Papua New Guinea Partial Connections perceived perception person perspective phenomena pigs plurality polyphony position postmodern practices present Press problem produce question relations relationships replicates representation ritual s/he scale Schmitz sense sequence similar single social specific Strathern Telefol tourists tree turn Tyler Umeda village Wantoat Western women WRITING ANTHROPOLOGY Yafar