Recasting Anthropological Knowledge: Inspiration and Social Science

218 Pages·2011·1.11 MB·English

by  Jeanette Edwards

Recasting Anthropological Knowledge
InspirationandSocialScience
Thiscollectionoforiginalessaysprovidesaninnovativeandmultifaceted
reflection on the impact and inspiration of the scholarship of eminent
anthropologistMarilynStrathern.Adistinguishedteamofinternational
contributors, all former students of Strathern, reflect on the impact of
their relationship with their teacher and address the wider conceptual
contributionofherworkthroughtheirownwritings.Theessaysprovide
anaccessibleentryintoStrathern’sscholarshipforthosenewtoherwork
andarichsourceofmaterialwhichmobilisesanddeploysherconcepts,
including new ethnographic examples and discussion of contemporary
politicalissues,forthosemorefamiliarwithherscholarship.Theresultis
a collection that dissects, contextualises and reroutes concepts of rela-
tionality, inspiration and knowledge in novel and unpredictable ways.
RecastingAnthropologicalKnowledgewillproveinvaluabletoallstudents
of anthropology and will be of interest to scholars across the social
sciences.
JeanetteEdwardsisProfessorofSocialAnthropologyattheUniversityof
Manchester.
MajaPetrovic´-SˇtegerisaJuniorResearchFellowinSocialAnthropology
atPeterhouse,Cambridge.

Recasting Anthropological
Knowledge: Inspiration and
Social Science
Editedby
Jeanette Edwards
and
Maja Petrovic´-Sˇ teger
cambridge university press
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Singapore,Sa˜oPaulo,Delhi,Tokyo,MexicoCity
CambridgeUniversityPress
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Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781107009684
©CambridgeUniversityPress2011
Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception
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noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten
permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress.
Firstpublished2011
PrintedintheUnitedKingdomattheUniversityPress,Cambridge
AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloguinginPublicationdata
Recastinganthropologicalknowledge:inspirationandsocialscience/editedby
JeanetteEdwards,MajaPetrovic´-Sˇteger.
p. cm.
ISBN978-1-107-00968-4(hardback)
1. Ethnology–Philosophy. 2. Ethnology–Research. 3. Knowledge,
Sociologyof. 4. Strathern,Marilyn–Criticismand
interpretation. I. Edwards,Jeanette,1954– II. Petrovic´-Sˇteger,Maja.
GN345.R429 2011
301.01–dc23
2011020071
ISBN978-1-107-00968-4Hardback
CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceor
accuracyofURLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredto
inthispublication,anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuch
websitesis,orwillremain,accurateorappropriate.
For Marilyn Strathern
Contents
Listofcontributors pageix
Acknowledgements xii
1 Introduction:onrecombinantknowledgeanddebtsthat
inspire 1
jeanette edwards and maja petrovic´-sˇteger
2 Writingtheparallaxgap:anitinerary 19
debbora battaglia
3 Toobigtofail 31
annelise riles
4 ‘Hybridcustom’andlegaldescriptioninPapuaNewGuinea 49
melissa demian
5 Entomologicalextensions:modelhutsandfieldworks 70
ann kelly
6 Kinshipandthecorehouse:contestedideasoffamilyand
placeinaGhanaianresettlementtownship 88
thomas yarrow
7 Invisiblefamilies:imaginingrelationsinfamiliesbasedon
same-sexpartnerships 106
aivita putnin¸a
8 Knowledgeinacriticalmode:feministexpertiseindesign
andplanning 125
eeva berglund
vii
viii Contents
9 Spools,loopsandtraces:onetoyencapsulationandthree
portraitsofMarilynStrathern 145
maja petrovic´-sˇteger
10 InspiringStrathern 165
adam reed
Bibliography 183
Index 199
Contributors
debborabattagliaisProfessorofAnthropologyatMountHolyoke
andFiveCollegeAnniversaryProfessor.Shehaspublishedwidelyon
personhood, selfhood, identities and alienness, and recently has
turned to nature–culture exchanges in outer space as sites of ethno-
graphicinquiry.
eeva berglund is an independent scholar and writer on urban
anthropology, environmental thought and politics. Her history of
Women’s Design Service, Doing Things Differently, was published in
2007. She is on the editorial team of the Journal of the Finnish
AnthropologicalSociety.
melissa demian isLecturerinSocialAnthropologyattheUniversity
of Kent. Drawing on her fieldwork in the Suau-speaking region of
southeasternPapuaNewGuinea,shehaspublishedonthesubjectsof
child adoption, the village court and land mediation systems, histor-
ical relationshipswithmissionaries andtheideaof‘culture loss’.She
alsowritesandpublishesonwidertopicsinlegalanthropologysuchas
the‘culturaldefence’andtheconceptofcommunityinlegaldiscourse.
jeanette edwards is Professor of Social Anthropology at
Manchester University. She has published widely on kinship and
assisted reproductive technologies and has a long-standing research
interestintheanthropologyofBritainand,inparticular,onchanging
contoursofclass,community,indigeneityandexpertise.
ann kelly is a lecturer in Anthropology at the London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London. Her work
ix
x Listofcontributors
explorestheproductionofscientificfactsinAfrica,withspecialatten-
tiontothebuiltenvironments,materialartefactsandpracticallabours
of experimentation. She has also published on malaria control inter-
ventions, considering how rural and urban spaces are configured to
managetheflowofhuman,parasiteandmosquitopopulations.
majapetrovic´-sˇtegerisResearchFellowinSocialAnthropologyat
PeterhouseCollege,Cambridge.Sheexploresvariouscontextswhere
bodies – whether living, dead or in the form of medically usable
remains–becomethesitesofeconomic,legal,political,scientificand
artistic attention. Her publications are based on her fieldwork in
Serbia,TasmaniaandSwitzerland.
aivita putnin¸a is Director and Senior Researcher at the Centre for
Bioethics and Biosafety and a Lecturer in Anthropology at the
University of Latvia in Riga. Her long-standing academic interests
covertopicsofsexuality,homophobia,biotechnologiesandreproduc-
tivehealthpolicies.
adam reed isSeniorLecturerinSocialAnthropologyattheUniversity
of St Andrews. He conducted his original fieldwork in Papua New
Guinea.Thatworkfocusesonissuesaroundculturesofincarceration,
including attention to colonial and postcolonial governmentality,
the politics of vision, money and aesthetics of documents. More
recently,hehasconductedresearchintheUK,withafocusonpopular
theorisations of the city and urban knowledge, practices of fiction
reading, memory, mind and literary subjectivities. He is the author
of Papua New Guinea’s Last Place: Experiences of Constraint in a
Postcolonial Prison, and the forthcoming Literature and Agency in
EnglishFictionReading:AStudyofTheHenryWilliamsonSociety.
annelise riles istheJackG.ClarkeChairinFarEastLegalStudies
andProfessorofAnthropologyatCornellUniversity.Herworkfocu-
ses on the transnational dimensions of legal theories, doctrines and
institutions.Shehasconductedlegalandanthropologicalresearchin
China, Japan and the Pacific and has written extensively on cultural
problems in the law. She is the author of The Network Inside Out,