Anthropology and the Riddle of the Sphinx
Paradoxes of Change in the Life Course
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
Originally published in 1990, Anthropology and the Riddle of the Sphinx: Paradoxes of Change in the Life Course, seeks to relate the problems of maturation and ageing to the life course as a whole. As it is treated here, the riddle posed by the sphinx asks 'What is it that changes as we age?' and is concerned with the enigmas of this total process. Ultimately, the ways in which we experience these problems stem from our view of ageing and the contradictions of society itself.
The essays in this volume consider aspects of this problem with reference to a variety of cultures. The young, the mature, and the elderly have distinctive identities, but they form a continuum whose profile is culturally constructed.
Anthropology and the Riddle of the Sphinx: Paradoxes of Change in the Life Course is intended as a contribution to the growing literature on ageing, deliberately broadening the topic in the search for a wider understanding. This volume aims to stimulate interest in neglected aspects of the ageing process within social anthropology and to present an anthropological point of view to others who have an interest in problems associated with the life course. It will be of particular value to the students of social anthropology and medical sociology.
It was originally published as part of the ASA Monographs series: https://www.routledge.com/ASA-Monographs/book-series/SE0127
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Table of contents
- Cover
- Half Title
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Anthropology and the Riddle of the Sphinx
- ASA Monographs 28
- Original Title Page
- Original Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Table of Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1 The riddled course: theories of age and its transformations
- 2 A dangerous age: from boy to young man in Red Xhosa youth organisations
- 3 The social process of adolescence in a therapeutic community
- 4 Coining of age among Jews: Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah ceremonies
- 5 Interpreting life texts and negotiating life courses: youth, ethnicity and culture
- 6 The notion of adulthood in rural Soviet Georgian society
- 7 Metaphors the Chinese age by
- 8 Growing old gracefully: physical, social and spiritual transformations in Venda society, 1956-66
- 9 Dimensions of adulthood in Britain: long-term unemployment and mental handicap
- 10 The social construction of parenthood in the People’s Republic of China
- 11 Old master, young master: retirement on Finnish farms
- 12 Strategies for old age among the Berti of the Sudan
- 13 Dimensions of change: three studies of the construction of ageing
- 14 Clubs for le troisième âge: communitas or conflict
- Name index
- Subject index