Things as They Are: New Directions in Phenomenological Anthropology

"The real beauty of this book is that the thinking does not stop... deep in the thickets of philosophic references. Instead, true to the spirit of phenomoenology, we are provided with provocative accounts of how such thinking flows in contemporary anthropological practice." --XCP - Cross Cultural Poetics

In this timely collection, thirteen contemporary ethnographers demonstrate the importance of phenomenological and existential ideas for anthropology. In emphasizing the link between the empirical and the experiential, these ethnographers also explore the relationship between phenomenology and other theories of the lifeworld, such as existentialism, radical empiricism, and critical theory.

In this timely collection, thirteen contemporary ethnographers demonstrate the importance of phenomenological and existential ideas for anthropology. In emphasizing the link between the empirical and the experiential, these ethnographers also explore the relationship between phenomenology and other theories of the lifeworld, such as existentialism, radical empiricism, and critical theory.

Michael D. Jackson is Distinguished Visiting Professor of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School. His many books include Lifeworlds: Essays in Existential Anthropology; Between One and One Another; Road Markings: An Anthropologist in the Antipodes; and Allegories of the Wilderness: Ethics and Ambiguity in Kuranko Narratives (IUP, 1982).

Introduction: Phenomenology, Radical Empiricism, and Anthropological Critique, by Michael Jackson

Honor and Shame, by Lila Abu-Lughod

Struggling Along, by Robert Desjarlais

The Cosmology of Life Transmission, by René Devisch

Reflections on a Cut Finger: Taboo in the Umeda Conception of the Self, by Alfred Gell

Space and Sociality in a Dayak Longhouse, by Christine Helliwell

In Defiance of Destiny: The Management of Time at a Cretan Funeral, by Michael Herzfeld

Suffering and Its Professional Transformation: Toward an Ethnography of Interpersonal Experience, by Arthur Kleinman and Joan Kleinman

Hand Drumming: An Essay in Practical Knowledge, by Shawn Lindsay

On Dying and Suffering in Iqwaye Existence, by Jadran Mimica

If Not the Words: Shared Practical Activity and Friendship in Fieldwork, by Keith Ridler

After the Field, by Jim Wafer