Comparison in Anthropology
The Impossible Method
Part of New Departures in Anthropology
- Author: Matei Candea, University of Cambridge
- Date Published: November 2018
- availability: Available
- format: Hardback
- isbn: 9781108474603
Hardback
Other available formats:
eBook
Looking for an inspection copy?
This title is not currently available for inspection. However, if you are interested in the title for your course we can consider offering an inspection copy. To register your interest please contact [email protected] providing details of the course you are teaching.
-
Why and how do social and cultural anthropologists make comparisons? What problems do they encounter in doing so, and how might these be resolved? What, if anything, makes one comparison better than another? This book answers these questions by exploring the many ways in which, from the nineteenth century to the present day, comparative methods have been conceptualised and re-invented, praised and rejected, multiplied and unified. Anthropologists today use comparisons to describe and to explain, to generalise and to challenge generalisations, to critique and to create new concepts. In this multiplicity of often contradictory aims lie both the key challenge of anthropological comparison, and also its key strength. Matei Candea maps a path through that entangled conversation, providing a ground-up re-assessment of the key conceptual issues at the heart of any form of anthropological comparison, whilst creating a bold charter for reconsidering the value of comparison in anthropology and beyond.
Read more- Provides a clear overview of historical and contemporary debates about comparison in anthropology
- Enables anthropologists to review the nature and purposes of the discipline in a time of institutional change
- Creates a systematic rethinking of the key conceptual and methodological problems and opportunities relating to comparison
Reviews & endorsements
'This witty, mind-opening and intellectually generous book is a classic in the making. Candea combines a breathtaking sweep of comparative practice and the constantly self-eclipsing waves of anthropological enquiry with a penetrating discernment of the theoretical passions that shape it and how anthropologists distinctively keep them in play. The comparative method will never be the same. It is also a gripping read!' Marilyn Strathern, University of Cambridge
See more reviews'As Matei Candea shows in this deeply thoughtful volume, anthropology has long been haunted by the sense that comparison is impossible yet indispensable. To a topic that has at times inspired the heat of polemics, at others that silence of taboo, Candea brings a voice that is calm - even wise.' Webb Keane, University of Michigan
'Matei Candea's book, Comparison in Anthropology: The Impossible Method, is a fascinating example of how complex, and how intellectually fortifying, the survival-revival genre can be. … As a historical primer on how anthropologists compare, and when they decide not to, the book has no rivals. I say this knowing that the publication of books and essays on comparison is endless … Candea re-articulates everything the comparative method aspires to but cannot attain. … Comparison in Anthropology is an exemplary blend of preaching and practice. Read it. Teach it. Object to it. And enjoy its incomparable effects.' Andrew Shryock, History and Anthropology
Customer reviews
Not yet reviewed
Be the first to review
Review was not posted due to profanity
×Product details
- Date Published: November 2018
- format: Hardback
- isbn: 9781108474603
- length: 404 pages
- dimensions: 234 x 155 x 25 mm
- weight: 0.7kg
- contains: 17 b/w illus.
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I. Impossibilities:
1. The impossible method
2. The garden of forking paths
3. Caesurism and heuristics
Part II. An Archetype:
4. Comparatio
5. Two ends of lateral comparison: identity and alterity
6. Another dimension of lateral comparison: identity and intensity
7. Two ends of frontal comparison: identity, alterity, reflexivity
8. The oscillations of frontal comparison: identity, intensity, reflexivity
9. Rigour
Conclusion.
Related Books
related journals
Sorry, this resource is locked
Please register or sign in to request access. If you are having problems accessing these resources please email [email protected]
Register Sign in» Proceed
You are now leaving the Cambridge University Press website. Your eBook purchase and download will be completed by our partner www.ebooks.com. Please see the permission section of the www.ebooks.com catalogue page for details of the print & copy limits on our eBooks.
Continue ×Are you sure you want to delete your account?
This cannot be undone.
Thank you for your feedback which will help us improve our service.
If you requested a response, we will make sure to get back to you shortly.
×