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The Culture of Invention in the Americas - Anthropological Experiments with Roy Wagner (Hardcover)
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The Culture of Invention in the Americas - Anthropological Experiments with Roy Wagner (Hardcover)
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The Culture of Invention in the Americas takes the theoretical
contribution of one of anthropology's most radical thinkers, Roy
Wagner, as a basis for conceptual improvisation. It uses Wagner's
most synthetic and complex insights - developed in Melanesia and
captured in the title of his most famous book, The Invention of
Culture - as a springboard for an exploration of other
anthropological and societal imaginaries. What do the inherent
reflexivity, recursiveness and limits of all and any peoples'
anthropologies render for us to write and think about, and live
within? Who is doing anthropology about whom? Which are the best
ways to convey our partial grasp of these conundrums: theory,
poetry, jokes? No claim is made to resolve what should not be seen
as a problem. Instead, inspired by Roy Wagner's study and use of
metaphor, this book explores analogical variations of these
riddles. The chapters bring together ethnographic regions rarely
investigated together: indigenous peoples of Mexico and Lowland
South America; and Afro-American peoples of Brazil and Cuba. The
`partial connections' highlighted by the authors' analytic
conjunctions - Ifa divination practices and Yanomami shamanism,
Ki~sedje (Amazonia) and Huichol (Mexico) anthropology of Whites,
and Meso-American and Afro-American practices of sacrifice - show
the inspirational potential of such rapprochements. As the first
book to acknowledge the full range of Wagner's anthropological
contributions, and an initial joint exploration of Native American
and Afro-American ethnographies, this experimental work honours
Wagner's vision of a multiplicity of peoples' anthropologies
through and of each other. It concludes with a remarkable dialogue
created by Roy Wagner's responses to each author's work. We don't
have to imagine what Wagner might have made of this inspired
collection: his concluding commentary on each of these
extraordinary chapters is in effect a collection in itself. The
sparks they together ignite make this an editorial and publishing
triumph. Professor Dame Marilyn Strathern, University of Cambridge
If Roy Wagner famously `invented' culture, the contributors to this
volume `counter-invent' Wagner, at once engaging comprehensively
and didactically with his thought, and exteriorizing it onto novel
conceptual and geographical territories. A book from `tomorrow's
yesterday' (Wagner), The Culture of Invention in the Americas
anticipates for us the anthropology to come - playful,
experimental, and deeply ethnographic. Alberto Corsin Jimenez,
Spanish National Research Council
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