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Grounded in ethnographic case studies that examine experiences from which wisdom emerges, Capturing the Ineffable provides a rigorous analysis of the sociocultural context of wisdom in the contemporary world. Each chapter in the volume deals with different aspects and showcases how communities in different contexts - nursing homes, religious organizations, corporations, and monastic institutions, for example - engage with the ineffability of wisdom. Contributors draw from a range of disciplines and cross-cultural and historical data in order to interpret the meaning and value of wisdom as a human endeavour. This book also represents an anthropological method for evaluating various philosophical and scientific approaches to understanding wisdom, including how wisdom is learned and taught. Readers will be able to appreciate how action, emotion, uncertainty, and cultural systems come to bear on wisdom as a value in human life and expression. In the end, Capturing the Ineffable reveals how the conception and paradoxical nature of wisdom dispels the dichotomies of self/other, structure/agency, known/unknown, nature/culture, and the like. What is at stake is a recasting of wisdom as a particular kind of anthropological endeavour and, thus, a return to and modification of philosophical anthropology.

Through the Lens of Anthropology is a concise introduction to anthropology that uses the twin themes of food and sustainability to illustrate the connected nature of the discipline's many subfields. Beautifully illustrated throughout, with over 150 full-color images, figures, feature boxes, and maps, this is an anthropology book with a fresh perspective, a lively narrative, and plenty of popular topics. The new edition enhances the food and sustainability focus and builds a stronger narrative voice with extended examples and case studies. An entirely new section on decolonization, more Indigenous content, and updated material on biological anthropology make the second edition even more relevant for those interested in learning more about the discipline of anthropology.

Why do people single out gold, sapphires, diamonds, and other minerals as particularly “precious”? What makes precious minerals “precious”? Drawing from ethnographic and cross-cultural research, this collection of anthropological essays and case studies answers these questions by exploring humans'multifaceted relationships with the minerals they deem “precious.” The Anthropology of Precious Minerals addresses the entanglement of humans and minerals, with a particular focus on the practices of scrappers, miners, and hunters as they work to extract value. The editors draw from history, archaeology, and ethnography, and remind us that “preciousness” must always be understood in relation to complex cultural, political-economic, and semiotic systems of value.

Designed to explain posthumanism to those outside of academia, this brief and accessible book makes an original argument about anthropology's legacy as a study of'more than human.'Smart and Smart return to the holism of classic ethnographies where cattle, pigs, yams, and sorcerers were central to the lives that were narrated by anthropologists, but they extend the discussion to include contemporary issues like microbiomes, the Anthropocene, and nano-machines, which take holism beyond locally bounded spaces. They outline what a holism without boundaries could look like, and what anthropology could offer to the knowledge of more-than-human nature in the past, present, and future.

Contemporary anthropology has changed drastically in the new millennium, expanding beyond the anachronistic study of'primitive'societies to confront the burning social, economic, and political challenges of the day. In the process, anthropologists often come face to face with issues that require them to take a public position—issues such as race and tolerance, health and well-being, food security, reconciliation and public justice, global terror and militarism, and digital media This comprehensive but accessible book is both an interesting read and an excellent overview of public anthropology. In-depth case studies offer an opportunity to evaluate the pros and cons of engaging with public issues, while profiles of select anthropologists ensure the book is contemporary, but rooted in the history of the discipline.

In recent years the concept of'the primitive'has been the subject of strong criticism; it has been examined, unpacked, and shown to signify little more than a construction or projection necessary for establishing the modernity of the West. The term'primitive'continues, however, to appear in contemporary critical and cultural discourse, begging the question: Why does primitivism keep reappearing even after it has been uncovered as a modern myth?In The Neo-primitivist Turn, Victor Li argues that this contentious term was never completely banished and that it has in fact reappeared under new theoretical guises. An idealized conception of'the primitive,'he contends, has come to function as the ultimate sign of alterity. Li focuses on the works of theorists like Jean Baudrillard, Jean-François Lyotard, Marianna Torgovnick, Marshall Sahlins, and Jürgen Habermas in order to demonstrate that primitivism continues to be a powerful presence even in those works normally regarded as critical of the concept. Providing close readings of the ways in which the premodern or primitive is strategically deployed in contemporary critical writings, Li's interdisciplinary study is a timely and forceful intervention into current debates on the politics and ethics of otherness, the problems of cultural relativism, and the vicissitudes of modernity.