Arguing With Anthropology

"Arguing with Anthropology" is a fresh and wholly original guide to key elements in anthropology that teaches the ability to think, write, and argue critically. Using the classic "question of the gift" as a master-issue for discussion, and drawing on a rich variety of Pacific and global ethnography, this new book provides a unique course in methods, aims, knowledge, and understanding. The book's highly original hypothetical approach takes gift-theory--the science of obligation and reciprocity--as the paradigm for a virtual inquiry that explores how the anthropological discipline has evolved historically, how it is applied in practice, and how it can be argued with critically. By asking students to participate in projected situations and dilemmas and in arguments about the form and nature of inquiry, it offers working practice of dealing with the obstacles and choices involved in anthropological study.

List of illustrations, Acknowledgements, PART I Modernist nostalgia, PART II Postmodern reflections: historical criticism, Postmodern reflections: critiques of subjectivity, PART III A present without nostalgia, References and suggested readings, Index