Signifying Identities: Anthropological Perspectives

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Signifying Identities:
Anthropological Perspectives on Boundaries and Contested Values
(Paperback)
by Anthony P. Cohen (Editor)

Product Description

Book Description

Signifying Identities provides fresh perspectives on how national, ethnic, religious and gender groups perceive themselves. It explores the boundaries which divide groups and the ways that these underpin both each groups own identity and their relationship with others. The contributors illuminate these big issues with detailed ethnographic fieldwork on diverse groups including the Maori and British missionaries in New Zealand, Australian aborigines as well as Celtic groups in Scotland and Asturias, Spain. Contributors are: Frederik Barth, Anthony Cohen, Venna Das, James W. Fernandez, Robert Paine and Anne Salmond. --This text refers to the Library Binding edition.

Synopsis

The question of how identity is formed and what it means is a central question within anthropology. Just as significant is the concept of boundaries, the things which distinguish the identity of one group from another. This collection of extended papers examines the ways in which relations between national, ethnic, religious and gender groups are underpinned by each group's perceptions of their distinctive identities and of the nature of the boundaries which divide them. Questions of frontier and identity are theorised with reference to the Maori, Australian aborigines and Celtic groups. The theoretical arguments and ethnographic perspectives of this book place it at the cutting edge of contemporary anthropological scholarship on identity, with respect to the study of ethnicity, nationalism, localism, gender and indigenous peoples. It will be of value to scholars and students of social and cultural anthropology, human geography and social psychology.

Product details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Routledge (28 Oct 1999)
• Language English
• ISBN-10: 0415192382
• ISBN-13: 978-0415192385
• Product Dimensions: 23.3 x 16.1 x 1.4 cm