Some of the essays reflect explicitly on theoretical concerns: the relationship between agency and power, the problematic quality of ethnographic studies of resistance, and the possibility of producing an anthropology of subjectivity. Others are ethnographic studies that apply Ortner's theoretical framework. In these, she investigates aspects of social class, looking at the relationship between race and middle-class identity in the United States, the often invisible nature of class as a cultural identity and as an analytical category in social inquiry, and the role that public culture and media play in the creation of the class anxieties of Generation X. Written with Ortner's characteristic lucidity, these essays constitute a major statement about the future of social theory from one of the leading anthropologists of our time.
- 201 pages
- English
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- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF
About this book
In Anthropology and Social Theory the award-winning anthropologist Sherry B. Ortner draws on her longstanding interest in theories of cultural practice to rethink key concepts of culture, agency, and subjectivity for the social sciences of the twenty-first century. The seven theoretical and interpretive essays in this volume each advocate reconfiguring, rather than abandoning, the concept of culture. Similarly, they all suggest that a theory which depends on the interested action of social beings—specifically practice theory, associated especially with the work of Pierre Bourdieu—requires a more developed notion of human agency and a richer conception of human subjectivity. Ortner shows how social theory must both build upon and move beyond classic practice theory in order to understand the contemporary world.
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Information
Publisher
Duke University Press BooksYear
2006Print ISBN
9780822338642
9780822338116
eBook ISBN
9780822388456
106
Generation
X
Theories
of
representation,
in
turn,
compel
us
to
think
not
only
about
the
relationship
between
a
signifier
and
its
referent,
but
about
representations
as
produced
and
consumed
within
a
field
of
inequality
and
power,
and
shaped
as
much
by
those
relations
of
production
and
consumption
as
by
the
nature
of
the
supposed
referent.
Thus
I
have
suggested,
if
only
briefly,
that
the
idea
of
Generation
X
tells
us
as
much
about
the
anxieties
of
upper-middle-class
parents
as
it
does
about
some
set
of
young
people
out
there
in
the
world.
We
may
think
of
the
public
culture
on
Generation
X
in
part
as
the
product
of
a
cultural
scouting
expedition
on
behalf
of
these
people,
a
trip
to
what
to
them
is
the
edge
of
social
space,
and
a
set
of
postcards
from
that
edge.
Table of contents
- CONTENTS
- INTRODUCTION Updating Practice Theory
- CHAPTER ONE Reading America: Preliminary Notes on Class and Culture
- CHAPTER TWO Resistance and the Problem of Ethnographic Refusal
- CHAPTER THREE Identities: The Hidden Life of Class
- CHAPTER FOUR Generation X: Anthropology in a Media-Saturated World
- CHAPTER FIVE Subjectivity and Cultural Critique
- CHAPTER SIX Power and Projects: Reflections on Agency
- NOTES
- REFERENCES CITED
- INDEX
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Yes, you can access Anthropology and Social Theory by Sherry B. Ortner in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Cultural & Social Anthropology. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.