Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences

by George E. Marcus, Michael M.J. Fischer

Using cultural anthropology to analyze debates that reverberate throughout the human sciences, George E. Marcus and Michael M. J. Fischer look closely at cultural anthropology's past accomplishments, its current predicaments, its future direction, and the insights it has to offer other fields of study. The result is a provocative work that is important for scholars interested in a critical approach to social science, art, literature, and history, as well as anthropology. This second edition considers new challenges to the field which have arisen since the book's original publication.

Genres: Anthropology, Ethnography, Nonfiction, American, Social Science, Cultural, Sociology

228 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

George Emanuel Marcus is an American professor of anthropology at the University of California, Irvine who focuses on the anthropology of elites.

Reviews

[Duygu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Marcus ve Fishcer'in kitabını başlığı itibariyle bir antropolojiye giriş metni olarak düşünmüştüm, yanılmışım. Kitap etnografi ve antropoloji ilişkisini ele alıp antropolojinin bugüne nasıl geldiğini anlatıyor. Fakat burada kitap vakıaları açıklamak yerine bolca ismi art arda sıralayarak bir bilgi yığını inşa ediyor. Bahsettiği metinlere yönlendirmesi açısından (tabi ki) kıymetli bir çalışma olsa da benim kanaatim yazım stilinin kıymetin örtecek ölçüde problemli olduğu yönünde. Fena bir okur olmadığımı, en azından bir metni üç aşağı beş yukarı takip edebildiğimi düşünüyorum ama bu metni takip etmekte, bitirmekte ciddi anlamda zorlandım. Uzun ve zaman zaman bir yere bağlanmayan cümleler, referanslara ve isimlere boğulmuş ara başlıklar, referansların bütün okurlar tarafından bilindiği varsayılıp bunlar hakkında yapılan detaylı fakat bağlamsız yorumlamalar...


Diğer bir sorunsa kitabın baskısı. Koç Üniversitesi Yayınları'nın ufak puntoları ve düşük aralıklı baskısı herhangi bir göz problemi olmayan beni bile çok yoruyor.

[Risa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences by George E. Marcus (1999)

[Malcolm · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've just re-read this, 25 years after it first came out and 20 years after my first time through. Given the changes in how we understand the 'crisis of representation' the social sciences (or, what are we writing about and how do we write about it?) and the developments in postmodern analysis I'd expected it to have lost some of its edge. Although in some ways the debates have moved on and the social sciences have become less self-referential and less experimental the case itself remains fresh. The case studies have moved from being cutting edge moments in the new ethnography (I have trouble convincing my students born in 1990 that an ethnography published almost 15 years before they were born is cutting edge) most of the texts have become canonical. What remains powerful though is the case that ethnographies of experience and of world-historical political economy can provide frameworks to build cultural criticism either as epistemological critique or comparative social analysis – although I suspect it helps that ove the years I've read most of their case studies and continue to refer to some of them. Marcus and Fischer write with passion for their subject and for the act of writing itself and have given us an excellent text, and unlike some of the similar work in my own discipline area (history) a sustained and politically focussed text that avoids some of the excesses of historiographical self-referentiality so often from Keith Jenkins his crew – don't pass it by just because the publication date is 1986.

[Repa Kustipia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Buku ini disarankan dibaca dengan suasana santai, karena isinya adalah kajian kritis yang singkatnya :

Penjelasan Penilaian ulang ide-ide dominan di seluruh ilmu manusia yang mengarah pada ilmu sosial konvensional yang pada akhirnya meluas ke ranah pengetahuan : hukum, seni, arsitektur, filsafat, sastra, dan bahkan ilmu-ilmu alam.

Penilaian ulang ini lebih menonjol dalam beberapa disiplin ilmu daripada yang lain, tetapi kehadirannya meresap.

Buku ini mengkritisi ide-ide itu sendiri yang diserang, tetapi juga gaya paradigmatik di mana ide-ide itu disajikan.

Khususnya dalam ilmu-ilmu sosial, tujuan pengorganisasian disiplin ilmu secara abstrak, generalisasi kerangka kerja yang mencakup dan memandu semua upaya penelitian empiris secara fundamental ditantang dan ini akan terasa sedikit pragmatis.

Buku ini juga menampilkan makalah Clifford Geertz, "Blurred Genres" (1980b) yang berusaha mengkarakterisasi tren saat ini dengan mencatat peminjaman ide dan metode yang mengalir dari satu disiplin ilmu ke disiplin lainnya.

Namun, Geertz mencoba untuk menganalisis dilema dari berbagai disiplin ilmu. Sementara masalah hilangnya teori-teori yang mencakup tetap sama dari disiplin ke disiplin, formulasi dan tanggapan terhadap kesulitan ini bervariasi.

Satu contoh kasus misalnya, dalam kritik sastra, telah memudarnya "kritik baru", sebuah paradigma yang menegaskan bahwa makna teks sepenuhnya dapat dieksplorasi dalam konteks konstruksi internalnya.

Nah,sekarang, kritikus sastra telah memasukkan, di antara gerakan-gerakan lain, teori-teori sosial tentang produksi dan penerimaan sastra (lihat Lentricchia 1980 dan diskusi yang luar biasa dalam karya Elizabeth. Bruss's Beautiful Theories, 1982).

Dalam hukum, telah muncul kritik demistifikasi oleh gerakan Studi Hukum Kritis dari model otoritatif panjang penalaran hukum (lihat, misalnya, Livingston 1982).

Dalam seni, arsitektur, serta sastra, teknik yang dulunya memiliki nilai kejutan atau persepsi yang diorientasikan kembali, seperti surealisme, kini telah kehilangan kekuatan aslinya, sehingga memicu perdebatan tentang sifat estetika postmodernis (lihat Jameson 1984).

Dalam teori sosial, kecenderungan tersebut tercermin dalam tantangan terhadap positivisme kemapanan (lihat Giddens 1976, 1979).

Dalam ekonomi neoklasik, hal itu diekspresikan dalam krisis peramalan dan kebijakan ekonomi.

Sepertinya banyak hal yang dikritisi dan menimbulkan rasa penasaran pembaca untuk jauh mengetahui epistemologi dari masing-masing keilmuan berikut fondasi informasinya.

[Benjamin Fasching-Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wets the appetite for some 1980s anthropology, and makes me think about what it is that I enjoy about reading anthropology. Am I just looking for something like a freak show, like the St. Louis Worlds Fair exhibit referenced in the cover photo? Am I trying to feel open minded and liberal by exercising cultural relativism? Do I want to hold "noble savages" as superior to the culture where I live? Guilty as charged, on all 3 counts, but if that's wrong, oh academics of macrotheoretical criticism, then I don't want to be right!

[Aybike · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bir yayında nasıl bu kadar yazım hatası olabiliyor? Bu kadar karmaşık bir konu böyle kötü bir çeviri ile berbat edilmiş.

[Kass · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was just rough to read

[Michele · Rating 3 out of 5]

that I am not smart enough to get it the first time

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

The argument has dated, but the book is fantastic as a historiographical essay.