Anthropology and Politics: Visions, Traditions, and Trends

By Joan Vincent

Book Overview

In considering how anthropologists have chosen to look at and write about politics, Joan Vincent contends that the anthropological study of politics is itself a historical process. Intended not only as a representation but also as a reinterpretation, her study arises from questioning accepted views and unexamined assumptions. This wide-ranging, cross-disciplinary work is a critical review of the anthropological study of politics in the English-speaking world from 1879 to the present, a counterpoint of text and context that describes for each of three eras both what anthropologists have said about politics and the national and international events that have shaped their interests and concerns. It is also an account of how intellectual, social, and political conditions influenced the discipline by conditioning both anthropological inquiry and the avenues of research supported by universities and governments. Finally, it is a study of the politics of anthropology itself, examining the survival of theses or schools of thought and the influence of certain individuals and departments.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0816515107
• ISBN13: 9780816515103
• Release Date: September 1994
• Publisher: University of Arizona Press
• Length: 584 Pages
• Weight: 2.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

fascinating history

After getting most of my history of anthro. from Marvin Harris and Adam Kuper, I've found Vincent's book fascinating for its attention to political context and marginalized figures within the discipline. It's a book I wish I had read in grad. school -- it's certainly not just about political anthropology, but (in part) an account of the ways the political concerns that came to the fore in the discipline from the late 1960s onward were suppressed and ignored (though they were raised by figures on the margins) because of the discipline's earlier theoretical and methodological programs. Not a book for the general reader, obviously -- it definitely helps to have read many of the authors whom Vincent is discussing.