Description
Book Synopsis The history of sexual morality in Ireland has been traditionally associated with repression. In the last two decades, however, repression seems to have given way to its exact opposite. But where did this “repression” originate? And how can we account for this sudden and sweeping transformation in sexual mores? Based on solid ethnographic and historical analysis of sexual morality in rural Ireland, augmented by comparative data from Papua New Guinea, and being informed by from Freud’s emblematic concept of repression, the author draws new conclusions that not only apply to the specific case of his Irish material but shed new light on the specific nature of an anthropological approach to the study of human societies.
Table of Contents Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART I: APPROACHES TO HUMAN SEXUALITY
Chapter 1. Sex in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea
Chapter 2. Freud and the Repressive Hypothesis
Chapter 3. Foucault: Sex as Culture
PART II: POWER, MEANING AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE: AN IRISH CASE-STUDY
Chapter 4. Irish Sexual Morality and Family Systems
Chapter 5. Functionalist Dilemmas
Chapter 6. The Peculiarities of Irish Demography
Chapter 7. Imagining Sexuality: History as a Cognitive System
Chapter 8. Coercion and Meaning
Chapter 9. Disciplinary Regimes in the History of Irish Sexuality
PART III: ANTHROPOLOGICAL REMARKS
Chapter 10. Clarifying the Culture Concept
Chapter 11. Intersubjectivity Revisited
Chapter 12. Subjectification and Interpretation
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
