Resonance

Beyond the Words

Unni Wikan

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780226924472, 9780226924465
• eBook ISBN: 9780226924489
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Resonance gathers together forty years of anthropological study by a researcher and writer with one of the broadest fieldwork résumés in anthropology: Unni Wikan. In its twelve essays—four of which are brand new—Resonance covers encounters with transvestites in Oman, childbirth in Bhutan, poverty in Cairo, and honor killings in Scandinavia, with visits to several other locales and subjects in between. Including a comprehensive preface and introduction that brings the whole work into focus, Resonance surveys an astonishing career of anthropological inquiry that demonstrates the possibility for a common humanity, a way of knowing others on their own terms.

 

Deploying Clifford Geertz's concept of "experience-near" observations —and driven by an ambition to work beyond Geertz's own limitations—Wikan strives for an anthropology that sees, describes, and understands the human condition in the models and concepts of the people being observed. She highlights the fundamentals of an explicitly comparative, person-centered, and empathic approach to fieldwork, pushing anthropology to shift from the specialist discourses of academic experts to a grasp of what the Balinese call keneh— the heart, thought, and feeling of the real people of the world. By deploying this strategy across such a range of sites and communities, she provides a powerful argument that ever-deeper insight can be attained despite our differences.

Index

Abu-Lughod, Lila, 314n13

action: crafting of self and, 106–7, 108; knowledge and, 321n24; meaning of term, 106; versus speech, 16, 38, 58, 106; urgency and necessity and, 109–11

adaptation, versus cultural competence, 146–47

Afghanistan, 22

“Against the Self—For a Person-Oriented Approach” (chapter), purpose of, 38–39

Ainslie, George, 117, 250

air conditioning, culture in Arabia and, 26

Alaska, Koniag of, 172

Alexander the Great, 56–57, 60, 61

Alexandria, Egypt, 5–6, 9, 310n5

Al Jazeera, 144

Alston, Philip, 291–92

American Anthropological Association, 27, 43

American Anthropologist (journal), 33, 42, 311n5, 311n12

American Ethnologist (journal), 35, 312n1

Amnesty International, 269

Anooshe case, author as expert in, 309n1

Anthropological Quarterly (journal), 45

anthropology: American, 90; anthropologist as Besserwissener and, 91, 317n9; anthropologists’ ordinary lives and, 75, 111, 313n3; applied, 4–5; authority in, 40, 63; author’s career and, 13–15, 310n9; author’s vision for, 14–15; author’s work style and, 18–20, 22–23; in Britain versus United States, 22; choice of subjects in, 23–24; civic duty and, 44; cognitive, 223; comparative approach to, 29; competition from other fields and, 28–29; contextualized analysis in, 42; critical versus charitable stance within, 63–64; cultural constructionism in, 321n26; cultural relativism in, 5; culture rejected by, 88–89, 138; dangers of interpretive analysis in, 78–79; deexotification of, 77; of emotions, 49, 89; feelings as well as thought in, 55; fieldwork as central to, 9; folk versus expert models in, 37; French philosophy and, 210, 327n5; gate-keeping concepts in, 87; going native and, 19; hammers and nails in, 90–91; honor as misconceived by, 195–96, 201, 205–6; interdisciplinary work and, 31; language learning in, 67–68, 74–75; learning to attend in, 69–70; linguistic pragmatics and, 59; of lived experience, 8, 14, 36–37, 43, 300, 316n1; logocentric bias in, 74, 112, 315–16n24; as losing ground, 27–28; male focus of, 198; married couples in, 19; mundane in, 34–35, 37; narrative turn and, 29–30, 40; numbers versus stories in, 5; offenses of, 20; overintellectualized interpretations in, 38; passing theories in, 64–6...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface: A Way in the World
• Introduction
• I
• II
• III
• IV
• V
• VI
• Epilogue: Resonance and Beyond
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix: On Writing
• Notes
• References
• Index