ABSTRACT

Anthropology today seems to shy away from the big, comparative questions that ordinary people in many societies find compelling. Questions of Anthropology brings these issues back to the centre of anthropological concerns.Individual essays explore birth, death and sexuality, puzzles about the relationship between science and religion, questions about the nature of ritual, work, political leadership and genocide, and our personal fears and desires, from the quest to control the future and to find one's 'true' identity to the fear of being alone. Each essay starts with a question posed by individual ethnographic experience and then goes on to frame this question in a broader, comparative context. Written in an engaging and accessible style, Questions of Anthropology presents an exciting introduction to the purpose and value of Anthropology today.

chapter Chapter 1|27 pages

What Does it Mean to be Alone?

chapter Chapter 2|25 pages

How do we Know Who we are?

chapter Chapter 3|21 pages

What is Going to Happen Next?

chapter Chapter 4|27 pages

Why, Exactly, Is the World as it is?

chapter Chapter 5|32 pages

How does Ritual Matter?

chapter Chapter 6|29 pages

What Makes People Work?

chapter Chapter 7|30 pages

What Kind of Sex Makes People Happy?

chapter Chapter 8|29 pages

How do Women Give Birth?

chapter Chapter 9|21 pages

What Happens After Death?

chapter Chapter 10|32 pages

How Does Genocide Happen?

chapter Chapter 11|26 pages

Why are Some People Powerful?

chapter Chapter 12|29 pages

How Do we Know what is True?